Author: ISM Media Group

On 2nd December, more than 200 Palestinian, international and Israeli activists marched to the Palestinian lands on which Israeli settlers are preparing to dump solid waste.

Organised jointly by the Palestinian Ministry for Environment; the Nablus coalition of political parties; Nablus governorate together with the villages of Deir Sharaf and Qusin, the demonstration called for an end to plans of Israeli settlers from nearby Qedumim settlement to construct a waste dump on Palestinian land.

Children carried placards stating “We Want Freedom and a Pure Environment” – outlining the two main political objections to the nascent waste dump. The first is the refusal to tolerate the attempted land-grab by the settlement, with the municipalities from Qusin and Deir Sharaf affirming that the land in question has not been sold to Qedumim council – a claim currently being made by the council.

The second objection is to the existence of a waste dump on the site, which lies just 100 metres above the Deir Sharaf aquifer – the source of 40 percent of Nablus’ drinking water. Whilst the settler groups in question claim the dump will be for “sanitary landfill”, which will not pollute the water below, the same claim was made in 2005 when Qedumim council first dumped waste on the site, but the reality was that a whole range of waste, from paper to foodstuffs to tyres, was dumped there. “The type of rock here is very porous”, said Amjad Ibrahim of the Palestinian Ministry of Environment. “The water will leech through very quickly”.

20 dounums of the land have been prepared by work crews employed by the settlement, but the grand scheme is to eventually take 400 dounums (100 acres) for the landfill site, with waste to be dumped there for 20 years. No waste has been dumped on the site since April 2005, when in just two days of dumping, mountains of waste were created. “Can you imagine what it will be like after 20 years?”, asks Mr Ibrahim.

Whilst the dumping of waste on the site in 2005 was stopped very quickly as a result of media and political pressure, residents are worried that this time won’t be so easy. Whilst under international law, it is illegal for an occupying power to dump its waste in occupied lands, (much as it is illegal to settle population in occupied lands), settler groups have negotiated around this obstacle by claiming the site is also for Palestinian waste – a claim that all Palestinian authorities refute. It is through this fabrication, however, that the settlers have supposedly been granted a license to dump waste at the site – a license that, along with land ownership papers, they have failed to produce. Nonetheless, concern over the possibility that Israeli authorities have granted settlers license to dump waste in Deir Sharaf has led to the issue being included in the articles of concern for the Palestinian peace-talks negotiations team.

Villagers, moreover, have vowed to continue to take action against the waste dump – refusing to allow their land to be stolen and their water supplies polluted.

On the evening of December 1st and the morning of December 2nd, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian homes and cars, burnt Palestinian property, desecrated mosques, intimidated Palestinian residents while insulting Islam.

At approximately, 8pm, over 100 settlers attacked the town of Burin, shooting and throwing rocks at Palestinian houses. One house, the home of Khalib Kasam, next to Road 60, was surrounded by settlers who attacked the house, damaging solar panels, while Israeli soldiers stood by on the street, failing to intervene.

Israeli soldiers instead, attacked Palestinian residents who gathered behind the besieged house, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the unarmed villagers. The soldiers momentarily detained one settler, before releasing him.

Shortly after, settlers amassed in front of Huwarra checkpoint, blocking the main passageway to and from Nablus. Later that night, the villages of Yatma, Sinjil, Turmosayya, Assawiyah, and Qabalan were attacked. Settlers slashed the tires of more than 15 Palestinian cars, broke windows on a Palestinian owned tractor, and spray painted a star of David on at least one car.

In Turmosayya, Assawiyah, and Sinjil, settlers vandalized mosques, painting more stars of David and writing “Muhammad is a pig” and “death to the arabs”. In Qabalan, 100 bundles of hay were burnt by settlers. According to one villager, this was one family’s food for their sheep for the whole year, “they just killed a whole family”.

It is believed that the rioting in the northern west bank was done in response to rumours that the Israeli military might evict settlers from a stolen building in the West Bank city of Hebron, ironically called the “peace house”. The settlers have been ordered to evacuate the house by the Israeli Supreme Court.

It seems that these latest incidents are a pre-emptive show of force by the “price tag” campaign, in which settler extremists have stated that they intend to respond to any Israeli governmental actions taken to curb settler theft and violence, by attacking Israeli forces and Palestinians.

At approximately 9:30pm on Monday 1st December, Israeli Special Forces entered Balata refugee camp in Nablus and arrested 28 year old Mohammad Kamal Abu Thraa – an ex-freedom fighter who had been granted amnesty by Israeli authorities in exchange for serving time in Palestinian prison. Two hours later he was pronounced dead from gunshot wounds.

Friends and residents of Balata report that Mohammad had been eating dinner with his family before he received a phone call from Palestinian police advising him to wait in front of a convenience store on Al Aqsa street, for a police car to pick him up and take him to the police station to sleep for the night. This was a routine call, as Mohammad had been sleeping in a Nablus police station every night for the past year, forsaking armed struggle in order to take advantage of an amnesty scheme organised between Palestinian and Israeli authorities. This agreement supposedly offers Palestinian freedom-fighters amnesty in return for time spent in Palestinian prisons.

No blood was found at the scene of the arrest

Mohammad, however, was not on the street for even one minute before he was arrested by six Israeli special forces officers, four of whom were dressed in typical Palestinian-style clothing, speaking Arabic “better than me” claims one Balata resident. Witnesses report that Mohammad was alive at the time of his arrest on the busy street, and the scene itself bears no sign of blood or struggle. It is believed that Mohammad was then taken to the Huwarra military base and detention facility,and that it was there that he was murdered.

Two hours after his arrest, Mohammad’s body was returned to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, from where, at 10am on Tuesday morning, his family collected it for the funeral march through the streets of Nablus before burying him in Balata cemetary. Friends who saw the body advise that Mohammad was killed by three bullet holes to the chest and abdomen, but that his face and body were also badly bruised; eyes swollen, with all of his front teeth broken and his face bloodied.

This is but the most recent in a long-history of Israeli forces extra-judicially killing Palestinians to whom they claimed to have granted amnesty. It coincides with hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners in Nablus who, upon taking part in the amnesty agreement, have found themselves imprisoned indefinitely as the three-month sentence to which most of them agreed has long since passed, with no pardon in sight.

Friends and neighbours say that Mohammad was beloved by his whole community. “Everyone here loved him”, said one resident, “But the Israeli soldiers will shoot anyone”. Mohammad is survived by his parents and five siblings.