On Friday 28th November at 12.30pm approximately 150 Palestinians, internationals and Israelis gathered in protest against the illegal Apartheid Wall that is now under construction on Ni’lin village’s land.
The army met the protesters with teargas and rubber-coated steel bullets half a kilometer before they reached the construction site of the wall. This meant that the people of Ni’lin were now even being restricted from land that is not being confiscated by the Apartheid Wall.
Several people were hit by rubber coated steel bullets and tear-gas canisters aimed directly at persons in the demonstration.
Two Palestinians and one international activist required medical treatment after being hit by tear gas canisters. One of the Palestinians was hit in the chest, breaking a rib, and was taken to Ramallah hospital for treatment.
Todays demonstration started with a prayer close to the medical clinic in Ni’lin with the plan being to continue to the construction site of the Wall.
A bus full of students from An-Najah university, Nablus, came to support the local activists in their shared struggle against the construction of the Apartheid Wall.
The protesters were stopped on a hill top right next to the clinic by Israeli soldiers who shot huge amounts of tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets from all sides of the group on the hill top.
There were several attempts from protesters to continue towards the construction site, but every time they moved forward they were targeted by the army and pushed back again.
The demonstration ran from 12.30pm to around 5pm in the afternoon.
On Thursday the 27th of November a group of ISM volunteers who were accompanying farmers and monitoring the situation in Khouza’a east of Khan Younis, observed a concentration of IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) behind the Green Line. At about 10.15 a.m. two D-9 armoured bulldozers and a tank crossed the fence and entered the Gaza Strip. Farmers in Khouza’a stopped working in their fields and started to return home. ISM volunteers accompanied them and in the same time were taking footage proving the incident.
The IOF forces entered for about 100 to 150 metres and started to move northbound along the Green Line towards Al Faraheen, whilst approaching Palestinian houses and the school in Khouza’a. The Israeli bulldozers were destroying whatever lay in their path along this stretch of Palestinian land, although most of it is not worked by Palestinian farmers as they are prevented from reaching it by IOF shooting.
By the time the two bulldozers and the tank reached Al Faraheen, they were supported by at least two more tanks behind the fence. Together they continued their operation towards Al Qerrara. According to Palestinian residents, this type of military activity inside the Gaza Strip is not unusual, even in the time of ceasefire; however this was the third consecutive day that it was repeated in the area east of Khan Younis.
Three Palestinian trawling vessels confiscated by Israeli naval forces were returned on Thursday 27th November.
ISM Gaza Strip made this video as the boats were finally returned.
Almost immediately following the announcement that three Human Rights Groups had filed an appeal against Ehud Barak and the commander of the Israeli navy the boats were returned to Palestinian waters. The vessels were stolen from Gazan waters on 18th November while fishing in Palestinian territorial water.
Filed by Al-Mazan, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court was on behalf of the vessels’ owners. The appeal, sent to the Israeli Supreme Court, asked why the boats have not been released and why the fishermen have not been compensated for their loss of income and their loss of use of the boats for the past week.
Rather than answer these questions in court, raising serious contradictions to the Israeli claim that Gaza is no longer occupied, Israel’s navy informed the lawyers that the boats would probably be returned immediately. Less than 24 hours later the boats were returned, though initial reports suggest that they had sustained serious damage and that expensive equipment has been stolen.
At around 10am, 29th November, Palestinians living between the occupied Rajabi house and the settlement Kiryat Arba in Hebron were attacked by a group of up to 300 settlers and were again attacked at 2:30 pm. The settlers were throwing stones at Palestinians and their houses.
The settler rampage continued for two hours. According to some eyewitnesses, settlers were also shooting handguns into the air to intimidate people living in the area.
The Rajabi house (which the settlers call “The Peace House”) is over-looking other Palestinian houses that neighbour the Kiryat Arba settlement. Since the occupation of the house in March 2007, settler attacks against Palestinian residents have greatly increased.
According to eyewitnesses 10 Palestinian men and women, between the ages of 10 and 70 were injured, five of whom were taken to the hospital to be treated for their injuries. The attack, as well as the army’s response, have been caught on cameras distributed by B’tselem to the residents in the area. One clearly shows the settlers gathering to throw stones from the Rajabi house down on the neighbouring Palestinian houses.
According to a resident from the area, the Israeli Army and police forces were present during the whole time of the settler attack. One of the army’s first responses was to tell the Palestinians residents to go into their houses, rather than put an end to the settlers’ attacks. When some Palestinians did not obey this order the soldiers attacked the residents and detained two young men from the Ziade family, inflicting wounds on their wrists and arms.
One of the residents in the area states that even though he was hit in the head with a stone from the settlers, the police and army made him stay in his house for 40 minutes before allowing him to go to the hospital. Another resident, Soad Abu-Sayfan, a 24 year-old woman, was grabbed by an Israeli border police agent by the hair and violently thrown to the ground when she left her home after locking her small children inside for fear of their safety.
Though the attacks on Saturday can be seen as an escalation of settler attacks surrounding the pending evacuation of the occupied Rajibi house, the residents of the area assured solidarity activists that the attacks have become a way of life, even before the occupation two years ago.
The Abu-Sayfan family, who live directly below the fence of the Kiryat Arba settlement have settlers trespassing through their land on a daily basis, intimidating their children and throwing stones at their home. 40 year-old Hisham Abu-Sayfan, who was injured with a rock to his hand today, has said; “in my entire life in this home I have never known a comfortable life”. He constantly worries about the safety of his five small children and the children of his brothers and sisters. The residents of the neighbourhood have extremely limited movement, a shortage of water due to the fact that their tank is shared with nearby settlers and they have little to no protection from local Israeli police.
The Palestinians injured during the attacks today were told that they can file their claims tomorrow at the nearby police station, though several expressed doubt that their complaints would bring any action from the authorities. Hisham Abu-Sayfan has filed five reports in the past and has yet to receive any response.
Hundreds of Jayyous residents were prevented from protesting at the Wall on Friday 28th November when Israeli military forces invaded the village.
More than 200 Palestinian, Israeli and international activists were prevented from leaving the village to demonstrate against the new path of the Apartheid Wall, when Israeli army and police forces invaded the village, blocking roads and implementing a “Closed Military Zone”. Approximately 40 Israeli army forces blocked the road from the village to the Wall, menacingly brandishing rifles and batons.
The villagers, who will lose almost 6000 dounums of land from the new route of the wall, were undiminished in their determination to protest against the Wall, chanting “LA! LA! Li’l Jidar!” (NO! NO! To the Wall!). The protest then turned into an impromptu street party, with villagers dancing defiantly in the streets.
In response to a single stone thrown from the back of the crowd, soldiers then began to fire tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets indiscriminately into the crowd. At least two Palestinians were injured by the rubber-coated steel bullets, with many more suffering from gas inhalation.
Village youths responded to this attack with rocks, which led to a full-scale invasion of the village. Five jeeps roamed the streets, hindered by makeshift road-blocks installed by the villagers for such incursions. For two hours, soldiers terrorised villagers with sound bombs, tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and high-pitched sound devices, imposing a de-facto curfew. The young Palestinians were not, however, subdued, and the Israeli military eventually left the village amidst taunts and defiance.
Residents report that Israeli soldiers returned to Jayyous in the night, arresting one – Eyad Dubah – and destroying martyr billboards that decorate the centre of the village.
Villagers believe the implementation of the “closed military zone” for a 24 hours period was designed to prevent international and Israeli participation in the demonstration, as Israeli military roadblocks were installed on all roads into the village, allowing only local residents to pass. As one Palestinian commented, “They do not want you to see the truth with your cameras”. These measures appear to be a direct response to the success of the demonstration last week, in which villagers destroyed part of the Wall.
