Author: ISM Media Group

Three residents of Ni’lin arrested during night invasion

December 22, 2008

At 2.30 am on the 22nd of December, more than 100 soldiers invaded the village of Ni’lin, abducting three people in their homes. A fourth person they were looking for was not captured. The three arrested were:

Saeed Ibrahim Mustafa Amireh, 17

Mohammed Daoud Husain Khawaja, 17

Mohammed Abdallah Yousef Amireh, 32

At the house of Saeed Amireh the soldiers came by foot and surrounded the house. Approximately 25 soldiers entered the home searching for evidence to connect the family to participation in the resistance against the construction of the wall, yet they found nothing. During the raid the Israeli army put the whole family of ten in one room. After harassing the family for an hour and a half, Saeed was arrested and taken to Ofer prison.

One of the soldiers said in Arabic to Saeed’s father Ibrahim Amireh, “we arrested you two months ago, now we are here to take your son”. Saeed’s father, who is a member of the Popular Committee of Ni’lin, was arrested on the 14th of August also during a night invasion of Israeli soldiers in the village. He was imprisoned and daily interrogated during 16 days and then released. This resulted in him losing his permit to work in Israel.

At 2.30 the army came to the house of Mohammed Khawaja, 17 years old. First they went to his brother’s home downstairs, where they entered and searched the house. They did not find Mohammed so they went upstairs and arrested him immediately. One soldier searched the house looking for evidence in connection with the popular resistance. As it was a swift arrest the parents didn’t have a chance to give him extra clothes, Mohammed has also been taken to Ofer Prisoner Camp, near Ramallah.

At around 3am, 20 soldiers came to Mohammed Abdallah Yousef Amirehs house and called him out, before then arresting him. They also entered his mother’s house downstairs harassing her and searching her house. They took him by foot to the checkpoint from were he was taken to Ofer Prisoner Camp. He is the father of five small children. Without him his family have no income.

During the arrests two jeeps were parked outside the municipality in the village centre. Around ten soldiers stood shooting teargas and sound bombs towards the surrounding houses. They used flares to see if there were any people outside. The army finally left the village at around 5am.

Israeli forces invade Ni’lin regularly in order to arrest people who have been active in the popular resistance against the Annexation Wall being built on their lands. Since the start of the construction of the Annexation Wall in April 2008, more than 60 villagers have been arrested. Out of the 60 held 31 are still in jail, six of them under the age of 18.

The wall annexes 23 hectares of agricultural land from the village. In addition to the wall, two tunnels that are planned that will act as the only entrances in and out of Ni’lin will annex a further 2 hectares.

432 hectares of farming land have already been annexed by the Israeli state since 1948 leaving Ni’lin with only 23 hectares of land that includes the land the village houses are build on.

When the Annexation Wall is finished it will completely encircle the village together with two roads that can only be used by Israelis. The construction turns Ni’lin into a small enclave closed off from the rest of the West Bank.

Excluding Saeed and Mohammed, 4 other children have been imprisoned and so far, they have been held for more than a month. They are:

Ibrahim Khalqel, 16

Majed Hisham Nafea, 17

Sufyan Khawaja, 17

Mohammad Ata Mousa, 14 – On Wednesday 17th December Mohammed Mousa was sentenced to four months and fined 2000 NIS (starting from the day he was arrested).

These children have had their education interrupted and they risk losing a school term. Saeed and Mohammad have been arrested just one week before their final exams of the semester. This is another strategy from Israel to make the daily life increasingly difficult for the Palestinian population, particularly those involved in popular resistance against the occupation.

These latest arrests mark a continuation of the Israeli policy of arrests of those believed to be involved in demonstrations against the Wall.

Neta Golan arrested by Israeli police after attempting to leave Gaza

Neta Golan, an Israeli citizen and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), has been arrested by Israeli police while attempting to leave Gaza through the Erez border crossing.

Neta Golan, 38, arrived Gaza on the 20th December, along with 17 human rights observers on the SS Dignity, the fifth boat to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, organised by the Free Gaza Movement.

She will be taken to court tomorrow (23rd December) in Kiryat Gat.

Neta Golan’s lawyer, Adnan Aladdin, condemned the arrest;

“Ms Golan’s actions in no way constitute a crime. Her actions in entering Gaza were acts of necessity based on international law and a rejection of the policies of collective punishment pursued by the Israeli government”

“Humanitarian needs, such as those faced by the Palestinian people of Gaza due to the Israeli siege, make non-violent acts that are clearly a response to this act of collective punishment necessary. This is common sense and has precedent.”

“The Defense of Necessity protects those who peacefully seek to prevent gross violations of human rights, grave breaches of humanitarian law, and war crimes from occurring. Non-violent civil disobedience in opposition to and aimed at preventing gross violations of human rights, grave breaches of humanitarian law, and war crimes has been recognized as justified by the necessity of self-defense and the necessity of defense of others in several jurisdictions around the world. (Source – The State of Israel vs.Ascherman, Arik; Omer, Ori; Hamburger, Shai Eliezer, January 2004, Criminal Case # 003751/03)

Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, collective punishment is deemed a war crime. Article 33 of the the Fourth Geneva Convention states; “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,” and that “collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

After successfully breaking the blockade with the Free Gaza Movement, Neta Golan spent three days in the Gaza Strip observing the effects of the Israeli siege on Gaza. She visited schools, hospitals and farmers who’s lives have been devastated by Israel’s policies of collective punishment.

She stated;

“How can an act against the collective punishment of over 1.5 million people be a crime? The policies of the Israeli State towards the people of Gaza is the real crime”.

“I feel it is my duty to come to Gaza and attempt to raise awareness as to what the Israeli state is doing to the people here. We broke the siege on Gaza, now it is time for more from the international community to do the same in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

Neta Golan is one of the co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement which was nominated twice for a Nobel Peace prize. She has actively resisted the occupation, participating in hundreds of demonstrations against the wall and the illegal settler roads. She is married and lives in Ramallah with her Palestinian husband and two children.

The collective punishment of the people of Gaza has, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency, had a devastating effect on the local population. The siege has seen Israel allow only the bare minimum of essential materials allowed into the Strip. Last week even the UN food and cash distribution that was to be transferred was suspended by Israel.

Figures collected by the UN also show that 51.8% of the people of Gaza are now living below the poverty line, a figure the UN described as “unprecedentedly high“. The UN also announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food to the 750,000 people inneed and forced to suspend financial distributions to a further 94,000.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded by a small group of activists in August, 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with two resources, international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force.

The International Solidarity Movement re-established its presence in the Gaza Strip following the first voyage of the Free Gaza Movement on the 23rd August 2008. ISM volunteers have been accompanying Gazan fishermen as they fish with Palestinian waters, working with farmers who have land situated along the Green Line and documenting aspects of the siege and occupation of Gaza. On the 18th November, three ISM volunteers were abducted from Palestinian waters by the Israeli navy together with fifteen Palestinian fishermen. The internationals were later deported from Israel, despite never having entered Israeli territory until taken into Israeli waters by the Israeli navy.

ISM Gaza Strip: Drone rockets strike Gazan people

20th December 2008

After welcoming the 5th Free Gaza boat this morning, ISM activists based in the Gaza Strip went to see the site of an Israeli rocket attack that had occurred just as the boat arrived, at about 8.30am. Three rockets were fired from a drone plane, killing an Al Aqsa Brigades fighter and wounding a second.


Sari Al Samana

The rockets hit farmland where local families were working their land, grazing their sheep and goats. They ran from the area during the attack, but out of necessity were back at work when we arrived at about 1pm. While we were there, a drone plane was visible overhead; the drones over Gaza land near the border are present to such an extent that life must go on beneath them. They fire rockets without warning.


Mohmin Qraqe

Hearing reports of two children struck by one of these rockets as they played, we went visited Kamel Adwan Hospital and spoke to Dr Ali Abd, the surgeon who initially treated them, and Dr Wissam Hiazi. They explained that one child had shrapnel wounds to face, neck, arms, abdomen and legs, but that both children had brain injuries. One child required brain matter to be returned to the cavity. After cleaning and bandaging the wounds and treating the children for shock, the doctors sent them to Al Shifa Hospital which has the neurosurgery facilities most of the other hospitals lack.


Mohammed Abd el Nadi

At Al Shifa Hospital we met the uncle of one of the boys, who confirmed that there had been no Palestinian firing from the “factory area” where the boys were attacked. Sari Al Sama’na, 9 years, and his friend Safi Al Sama’na, 8 years, were playing on their bikes at 2.45pm today when a drone fired a rocket between them. We went to see Sari, who lay with bandaged head and blank half-open eyes, unconscious since the attack. The doctor caring for him explained he had lost a great deal of blood, and it would only be in about 3 days time that it would be clearer whether death, paralysis, or recovery with brain damage or psychological trauma awaited him. Safi was still in emergency surgery, his brain injury even more severe. The doctor estimated 30% of his rocket & missile injured patients were children, and another 30% women or elderly people.

While in the hospital we visited three more patients. Mohmin Qraqe, 21, is a journalist who was working on farmland on December 7, 3.30pm, in the Jabalia area, when a rocket fell 2 metres away. He has lost both his legs from the very top of his thighs. He told us that his father had been killed in the first intifada when he was 7 days old, in 1987, and his 20 year old brother was killed by a drone rocket 4 years ago while attending a youth camp. He was living at home to be with his mother, as his older brothers were all married. He says he heard no Palestinian shooting before he was attacked.

Mohammad Abd Nabi, a journalist for Al Quds Radio, went to Beit Hanoun this past Tuesday December 16, to record a report on an Apache helicopter attack on two women that day. He was flagging down a taxi when rocket blast fractured his arm, and he sustained injuries to his head and leg. He was taken to hospital in a civilian car as ambulances were already out on calls, and initially he believed he had lost his hand. This is his second injury.

Zohair Washaha, 48, has a fractured leg and nerve damage after a ground to ground missile blast at 7am this morning, while he worked on farmland near Al Wafa Hospital. He heard no Palestinian shooting in the area prior to the attack. Zohair is in the only breadwinner in a family of 11, 3 of whom are at university.

Sheikh Jarrah protest camp demolished by Israeli forces yet again – Two internationals taken by police

Israeli forces have again demolished the protest tent established in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem, built on Palestinian private property in support of the evicted al-Kurd family and the 18 Palestinian families who currently face eviction from the neighbourhood.

Two international solidarity activists, one British and one Austrian, who had been staying in the tent, were detained by Israeli police and taken to the local police station for their details to be taken. They were released three hours later.

Israeli forces arrived at the site of the protest camp at around mid-day and began to dismantle the tent despite the protests of Sheikh Jarrah residents who repeatedly pointed out that the tent is built of private property. The police then took two of the international solidarity activists from the site. They were released from the police station three hours later.

Um Kamel al-Kurd, who was evicted from her home of 52 years by Israel had this to say following the most recent demolition of the Sheikh Jarrah protest camp;

“This time there were no order, no paper no reason for the demolishing. Before they referred to either lack of permit or an act of law; any objects that destroy the natural beauty in an area can be removed. This is a law that they did not use since 30 years but now they have implemented it again. Today they only claimed that this is public area”.

“I am sad to see the tent being demolished again. Also I am very frustrated, because we have no means to stop this.”

“Still I am resolute, I will maintain here and if they return to demolish again, we will rebuild it again”.

“Where are the conciousness, where are the hearts of the world? Why are they not defending us and helping us to return to our home?”

Fellow Sheikh Jarrah resident Rima added;

“We are calling the international governments and people to come here. They must implement the international law that they are behind”.

The protest camp was established by the Sheikh Jarrah Neighbourhood Committee following the violent eviction of the al-Kurd family on the 9th November initially to show support for the evicted family and the 500 other Palestinians who are under threat of eviction from the neighbourhood. It has been demolished three times already by Israeli authorities despite being situated on private Palestinian property.

The camp has been used as a cultural centre for the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, regularly screening films, holding traditional Palestinian dancing and showing Palestinian photo exhibitions. The latest demolition of the tent can be viewed as another effort by Israel to react against displays of Palestinian national identity within Occupied East Jerusalem.

The house had become emblematic of the plight of Palestinian residents of Occupied East Jerusalem. The al-Kurd family were previously made refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem. They were then made refugees for the second time as they were evicted from their home of 52 years.

A previous protest tent had been active throughout the Summer on the al-Kurd property, as widespread international condemnation of Israeli policy against the family and neighbourhood grew, including an official complaint from the US State Department (see below).

Abu Kamel al-Kurd was immediately rushed to hospital following the family’s violent early morning eviction with high-blood pressure. He was re-admitted to hospital two weeks later where he died of a heart attack homeless.

The Observer: Israeli blockade ‘forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food’

UN fears irreversible damage is being done in Gaza as new statistics reveal the level of deprivation

By Peter Beaumont

To view original article, published by The Observer on the 21st December, click here

Impoverished Palestinians on the Gaza Strip are being forced to scavenge for food on rubbish dumps to survive as Israel’s economic blockade risks causing irreversible damage, according to international observers.

Figures released last week by the UN Relief and Works Agency reveal that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza in July last year has had a devastating impact on the local population. Large numbers of Palestinians are unable to afford the high prices of food being smuggled through the Hamas-controlled tunnels to the Strip from Egypt and last week were confronted with the suspension of UN food and cash distribution as a result of the siege.

The figures collected by the UN agency show that 51.8% – an “unprecedentedly high” number of Gaza’s 1.5 million population – are now living below the poverty line. The agency announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food rations to the 750,000 people in need and had also suspended cash distributions to 94,000 of the most disadvantaged who were unable to afford the high prices being asked for smuggled food.

“Things have been getting worse and worse,” said Chris Gunness of the agency yesterday. “It is the first time we have been seeing people picking through the rubbish like this looking for things to eat. Things are particularly bad in Gaza City where the population is most dense.

“Because Gaza is now operating as a ‘tunnel economy’ and there is so little coming through via Israeli crossings, it is hitting the most disadvantaged worst.”

Gunness also expressed concern about the state of Gaza’s infrastructure, including its water and sewerage systems, which have not been maintained properly since Israel began blocking shipments of concrete into Gaza, warning of the risk of the spread of communicable diseases both inside and outside of Gaza.

“This is not a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “This is a political crisis of choice with dire humanitarian consequences.”

The revelations over the escalating difficulties inside Gaza were delivered a day after the end of the six-month ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, which had been brokered by Egypt in June, and follow warnings from the World Bank at the beginning of December that Gaza faced “irreversible” economic collapse.

The deteriorating conditions inside Gaza emerged as Tony Blair, Middle East envoy for the Quartet – US, Russia, the UN and the EU – warned explicitly yesterday that Israel’s policy of economic blockade, which had been imposed a year and a half ago when Hamas took power on the Gaza Strip, was reinforcing rather than undermining the party’s hold on power. In an interview in the Israeli newspaper Haartez, Blair warned that the collapse of Gaza’s legitimate economy under the impact of the blockade, while harming Gaza’s businessmen and ordinary people, had allowed the emergence of an alternative system based on smuggling through the Hamas-controlled tunnels. Hamas “taxed” the goods smuggled through the tunnels.

It was because of this that Blair wrote to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, earlier this month demanding that Israel permit the transfer of cash into Gaza from the West Bank to prop up the legitimate economy.

“The present situation is not harming Hamas in Gaza but it is harming the people,” Blair said yesterday. Calling for a change in policy over Gaza, he added: “I don’t think that the current situation is sustainable; I think most people who would analyse it think the same.”

Blair’s comments came as an Israeli air strike against a rocket squad killed a Palestinian militant yesterday, the first Gaza death since Hamas formally declared an end to a six-month truce with Israel.

Also yesterday, a boat carrying a Qatari delegation, Lebanese activists and journalists from Israel and Lebanon sailed into Gaza City’s small port in defiance of a border blockade. It was the fifth such boat trip since the summer. The two Qatari citizens aboard the Dignity are from the government-funded Qatar Authority for Charitable Activities.

“We are here to represent the Qatar government and people,” said delegation member Aed al-Kahtani. “We will look into the needs of our brothers in Gaza, and find out what is the most appropriate way to bring in aid.”

The arrival of the delegation reflects the growing anger in the Arab world over the Gaza siege, directed at Israel but also at Egypt, which has allowed the border crossings at the southern end of the Strip to remain sealed.

On Friday, thousands of people joined a rally in Beirut organised by Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement against Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Addressing the Beirut crowd, Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem called on Arab and Islamic governments to act to help lift the Gaza blockade, and urged Egypt to take an “historic stance” by opening its border crossing with Gaza.

“Silence on the [Gaza] blockade is disgraceful. Silence on the blockade amounts to participation in the [Israeli] occupation,” Kassem said.