Author: ISM Media Group

Settlers riot across West Bank as part of ‘price-tag’ campaign following eviction of settlers from Rajabi house, Hebron

UPDATE: Settlers are attacking Palestinian residents and property around the West Bank in a coordinated outbreak of aggression following the eviction of settlers from the occupied Rajabi house in Hebron. Attacks against Palestinians have been reported from Turmas’ayya, Burin, Huwarra, Beit Iba, Azzoun, al-Funduq, Assira-al-Qabliya and Susiya, as well as the mass settler riots in Hebron.

10:30pm 4th December: Settlers have thrown molotov cocktails at a house in Assira-al-Qabliya, Nablus region, setting the house alight. Widespread damage has been reported by Palestinian firefighters who have now put out the blaze.

In Susiya, the tent of Hajet Sarra Nausaja has been burnt down by settlers who have stormed through the area.

One Palestinian man has been taken to hospital in Qalqilya after his car was attacked by settlers close to al-Funduq. His condition is as yet unknown. Residents of al-Funduq also reported that Israeli soldiers ordered all shops to close and people to remain inside their homes in case the settlers arrived.

6:30pm 4th December – These coordinated attacks appear to be the manifestation of settler warnings of a ‘price-tag’ campaign that were reported in September of this year.

Just outside the village of Turmas’ayya, Israeli soldiers stopped a bus and at least 40 other Palestinian cars from traveling down Road 60 that links Nablus and Ramallah. As the cars were being stopped settlers attacked the cars, throwing rocks and other projectiles. Large-scale damage was reported from the scene.

Those trapped inside the cars report that Israeli soldiers are refusing to intervene and prevent the settler attacks or to allow the Palestinian traffic to pass so as to escape from the settler attacks. Witnesses to this have said that they are very scared and that there has been considerable damage caused towards the bus and cars.

In the village of Burin, Nablus region, over 100 settlers have attacked the village, throwing stones at Palestinian houses and damaging property. Settlers have also set fire to Palestinian agricultural land in Burin. Groups of settlers have been throwing rocks at houses with Israeli soldiers seemingly unwilling to prevent them. In one house residents are trapped inside while settlers have repeatedly thrown rocks against their property. International Human Rights Workers in the village have reported that Israeli soldiers in the vilage have been using tear-gas and sound grenades against Palestinians not in their homes, but are refraining from using such force against settlers attacking the village.

Rather than confront the violent settlers, Israeli soldiers have preferred to use force on Palestinian residents in the regions. A resident of Burin was violently detained by Israeli soldiers after settlers had attacked his car and broken his windshield. A similar incident was reported to the International Women’s Peace Service as one resident, while driving home, was confronted by Israeli soldiers who refused to intervene as settlers attacked his car.

International Human Rights Workers have also reported that both Beit Iba and Huwarra checkpoints have been blocked by settlers and that rocks are being thrown at Palestinians attempting to pass through the Israeli checkpoints.

In response to these settler attacks, rather than confront the settlers, have blocked Palestinian traffic from running on Road 60 that links Nablus and Ramallah, the road between Kufr Laqif and Jinsafut and the road between Jit and al-Funduq. With the religious of Eid approaching, it appears that Israeli forces are seeking to prevent Palestinians traveling instead of acting to prevent the settler attacks.

Child Martyrs

ISM Gaza Strip

On Tuesday 2nd December 2008 Gaza Strip, Palestine added two more child martyrs to its already long list of thousands of dead children, the products of U.S. tax-payer money providing the ways and the means for Israel to continue its genocidal occupation and siege.


Omar Abu-Hamad

15 year-old Omar Abu-Hamad, born 28th January 1993 and 19 year-old Ramzi El Dahini were blown to bits standing in the street outside their homes – they both lived in the same neighborhood and were also cousins. Two other children were seriously injured and taken to Al-Najar hospital in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Their injuries were so serious that they are being transferred to a hospital inside Israel, since the hospitals in Gaza are so very limited in the treatment they can give to those who need urgent emergency care.

According to Omar’s family, he and his mother were home when they both heard an explosion. It sounded like a gas canister and they went out to see what happened. An Israeli remote operated drone plane had shot a missile nearby. Omar’s mother came back into the house and heard another explosion. She had thought that Omar had come back into the house with her, but he wasn’t around. She went back outside looking for him. She questioned the people in the street about Omar and the neighbors said that he wasn’t there in the street among the dead, for her to look elsewhere. But her heart told her that he was there in the street, blown to bits by the remote controlled missile. She saw a shoe in the street and recognized it as her son’s and knew that he was dead.

She went to the hospital and asked about her son, they didn’t want to let her see him, he was in parts, no longer in one recognizable body.

Omar’s brothers, 17 year-old Emad, 12 year-old Ibrahim, and 10 year-old Mahmoud told everyone how they had found out about Omar’s death. Emad was at home when the shooting took place. He went outside and was told like his mother that Omar was not dead, but Emad insisted on going to the hospital. Once there he went to the morgue and told the technicians to open the refrigerator where they store the dead bodies. He saw Omar’s pants and one of his legs and before seeing the rest of the blown apart body knew that it was Omar. Ibrahim had come home from school and asked about Omar, his mother told him that he had been killed. Mahmoud came home from school and found a house full of women and he was told “your brother was killed”. The people in the street also told him that Omar was dead.

Amal, Omar’s 18 year-old sister was at the clinic the day he was killed. She came home from the clinic and they chatted and then he went outside and was killed. She didn’t believe that he was dead.

ISM Gaza Strip volunteers had gone to the home of Omar to pay respects and some of the family were reminiscing about him. When Omar was still going to school, in the morning he would stop by at a poor woman’s house in the neighborhood and bring her bread. One day when he went there he found her dead in her bed. After looking closer he saw bullet holes in her wall and saw that she had been killed by being shot by a bullet. This incident impacted him so strongly that he couldn’t focus on his studies and stopped going to school.

His mother reminisced that he was very clever, he could fix anything – the computer, the closet – just give it to him and he would find a way to fix something broken or to build something that was needed. He was also very clever in school.

His sister, Amal, talked about his personality – he would make jokes and he was very helpful. Everyday he would get up at 6:00am and go to his step-mother’s house to take his step brother to the store. She remembered that he had planted the trees outside of their home and had painted his name on the walls of the house. How can they continue to live in this house now?

The family continued to talk about Omar, saying that he had a sheep which had recently had a lamb. The family had decided to not sacrifice the sheep or the lamb for Eid Al-Adha, but to keep them both in remembrance of Omar.

The family talked about the relationship of the father with Omar. The father has been in an Israeli prison for the last 9-10 months and he still does not know that Omar has been killed, murdered by the Israeli occupation force army. His health is suffering and the family is concerned about how the news might affect him. The father used to say that Omar was his right arm and in his letters to the family he would mention how much he depended on him. The family also mentioned that the father had told Omar to write a letter expressing how he felt. Omar asked him to whom he should write the letter and the father told him to write it to a good friend. Omar said the children are my friends. The family remembered that Omar would call a 10 month-old child his son and one of Omar’s younger brothers would call him “Ba”, another Arabic name for father.

Ramzi was at home before the incident, when a friend called by and asked him to go to help repair his bicycle. He joined a group of young people who were sitting on a fence at the side of the road just in front of his house, chatting. A few minutes later the Israeli drone fired a missile. People in the neighborhood had observed the drone flying west, away from the area, and thought it was safe. But then the drone returned. Ramzi’s mother said she heard a loud explosion and ran out of the house to see what had happened. She saw the bodies of the teenagers not realizing that one of them was her son. She went back into her house to get some blankets to cover the bodies as the ambulance hadn’t arrived yet. Ramzi’s brother was on the scene. She asked him if Ramzi was one of the people killed and he told her that he was. It was a huge shock. She later commented that she raised her son for nineteen years only for the Israeli army to steal his future.

The families of Omar and Ramzi are still in shock over the sudden loses of their beloved sons, brothers, cousins and uncles. Unarmed children standing in a field after one explosion hit the area, torn to smithereens by a second murderous missile. These families will have a gaping hole of loss for the rest of their lives. It was a genocidal attack that killed also the future generations of these two man-children. The loss of life reverberates throughout the world – this genocide of Palestinians can be stopped, it must be stopped, the only question is when?!

For more information contact:

Donna Wallach, contributed to article, cell: +972-59-88-36-420, email: cats4jazz@gmail.com

PNN: Um Kamal Al Kurd taking the Right of Return

To view original article, published by the Palestinian News Network on the 3rd November, click here

The Kurd family is again making news after being forcibly expelled from their home in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Now Um Kamal Al Kurd intends to return to her original home in West Jerusalem with a massive nonviolent action planned for Thursday.

Last month the family moved to a tent nearby which Israeli forces destroyed three times. It became a beacon of popular resistance with hundreds of people sitting-in in solidarity.

The father, Abu Kamal, died in a Jerusalem hospital after being evicted from the home he lived in since the 1950s when Jordan and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency created the neighborhood housing. The Kurd family was among thousands of East Jerusalem residents driven from their West Jerusalem homes by Zionists in 1948.

Um Kamal is working to return to her original home in West Jerusalem with the support of a group of activists from civil society and human rights organizations. On Thursday the Coalition for Jerusalem will demand her full return.

Today Um Kamal said that she has been expelled twice, and as such will return to her original home. The Coalition for Jerusalem wrote in a statement Wednesday, “Um Kamal Al Kurd was expelled by the Israeli occupying authorities for the second time at dawn on Thursday, 9 November 2008. The Israeli occupying forces were heavily armed and surrounded the Kurd family home in Sheikh Jarrah. They expelled the family from their home and this is the second time to expel the entire family. The first time was in 1948.”

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood houses were built by the Jordan authority and the UNRWA to accommodate until return the 28 families who were taken from their homes in 1948. Among them are original residents of Jaffa, Ramle and West Jerusalem. Um Kamal Al Kurd says she will no longer wait for the implementation of United Nations Resolution 194, the Right of Return. She will go home now.

Maan: Blockade-busting voyages to Gaza planned from Qatar, Israel, Yemen, Cyprus, Jordan

To view original article, published by Maan News Agency on the 3rd November, click here

Gaza – A series of ships sailing Qatar, Israel, Yemen, and Cyprus, and Jordan will challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip over the next two months, said Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Jamal Al-Khudari on Tuesday.

On Friday a ship sailing from Qatar is scheduled to make landfall in Gaza. On Saturday, a ship sailing from Haifa, in northern Israel will reach Gaza carrying five tons of humanitarian aid, including medicine, said Al-Khudari, who is the leader of the Popular Committee Against the Siege of Gaza.

The ships will further test Israel’s willingness to block shipments of vital goods to the coastal territory. After allowing a group of international and Palestinian activists to sail to Gaza three times since August, Israel gunboats forced a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tons of aid to turn back on Tuesday.

On 18 December the Islamic Parliamentary Union will dispatch a ship from Larnaca, Cyprus. Two days later, Jordanian activists will send a boat from the Red Sea port of Aqaba.

A Yemeni vessel will set sail in January.

Al-Khudari said, in a statement that the Israeli blockade of Gaza has left 70% Gaza residents without electricity.

After nearly a year and a half of closure, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 4 November, preventing deliveries of aid by land, sea, and air. The territory’s sole power plant has frequently shut down, and the United Nations was forced to suspend a food aid program that feeds 750,000 Palestinians.

Israeli authorities announce that Azzun is to be walled in

Azzun villagers’ fears were confirmed when they were delivered a notice that Israeli authorities intend to build a wall between their village and the main road that runs along its northern edge – Road 55.

At 6:30pm on Friday 28th November Israeli military vehicles entered the village, with personnel delivering the notice of the planned wall to the Sheikh at the central mosque, asking him to pass it on to the municipality. The documents give “prevention of stone throwing at Road 55” as the official reason for the construction of the wall, with maps showing the route of the wall extending along the southern side of Road 55 from Izbit at Tabib to the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Shomeron.

Residents inform that a high-ranking member of the Israeli Civil Administration visited the villagers and farmers on 30th November advising them that the wall will be made from wire, but would not say how tall or how far from the road the wall would be. He also advised residents that the wall will not block the main entrance to the village. The maps provided to the villagers, however, show that the planned wall will completely close the main entrance of Azzun – preventing villagers from directly accessing the main road to Nablus and Qalqiliya. This entrance is regularly closed by Israeli military forces by roadblocks and razorwire – part of the collective punishment frequently visited upon the villagers during Israeli military incursions.

Residents have been given just one week to lodge complaints against the impending wall construction – complaints that need to be accompanied by current ownership documents. Any residents wishing to make a complaint must first then request new proof of ownership papers from Israeli authorities. Many in the village are cynical that the complaint system will have any effect at all. “For sure this [complaint] route will not work. Always they say ‘you can complain’, but this is just to make it legal. They will make it [the wall] and they will say it is for security reasons”.

Villagers have good reason to by cynical. When the Apartheid Wall was first planned to the East of Azzun, residents were told they had two weeks to lodge their complaints. Before the two weeks were up, construction on the Wall was started, under the pretext that if the court decision was against the Wall, then the work would be reversed.

Israeli authorities have advised villagers that the new wall will confiscate 7 dounums of village land. Many in the village are also suspicious of this figure, as the original plans given for the Eastern Wall were for 25 metres in length. Once bulldozing began the Wall spanned more than 100 metres.

While authorities are claiming the new wall is to prevent stones being thrown on the Israeli-controlled road, no such measures have been taken against illegal Israeli settlements where stones thrown at Palestinian cars cause many injuries. Also, note residents, a wire wall, such as those imposed on Marda and Haris in the Salfit region, would do nothing to prevent stones being thrown.

The new wall will, however, prevent farmers from easily reaching their lands that lie on the north side of Road 55, while with the main road to Nablus destroyed by Israeli forces years ago, transportation and travel will become increasingly difficult and expensive.