Author: ISM Media - Page 18 - International Solidarity Movement

Help support ISM’s vital work in Palestine

A call for support for the International Solidarity Movement to continue our work on the ground in Palestine and worldwide.

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Who are we?

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by working immediately alongside Palestinians in olive groves, on school runs, at demonstrations, within villages being attacked, by houses being demolished or where Palestinians are subject to consistent harassment or attacks from soldiers and settlers as well as numerous other situations.

All ISM volunteers must agree to work within the four founding principles :
Palestinian-led
Nonviolence
Consensus
Anti-oppression

What do we do?

ISM’s main objectives in offering support to the Palestinian resistance to the apartheid and their demand for freedom are twofold:

1. DIRECT ACTION: participating in Palestinian-led demonstrations, creatively disrupting activity by the Israeli occupation forces, accompanying children to school and farmers to their fields, residing with or near families whose homes are threatened with eviction, demolition or harassment by settlers and answering Palestinian calls to action.

2. DOCUMENTATION: documenting and reporting to local and international media about the daily life under apartheid and countless human rights and international law violations by the Israeli military and settlers. Activists take photos, write reports and journals, which are shared on our website and social media. The need for documentation is not just to show that there are illegal and unjust actions going on, but also to provide a real means of evidence for accountability to the police and courts, case by case. ISMers are also committed to sharing their experiences when they return to their home countries, through interviews and talks.

Why now?

Since Israel began its current onslaught on Gaza in October 2023, occupation forces have been taking advantage of the state of emergency to escalate their violence and displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. Soldiers and settlers have systematically bulldozed homes, carried out night raids, attacked and killed Palestinians across the region.

There is almost no international media coverage on the ground in the West Bank because of the situation in Gaza, and many human rights organisations have had to leave the area. ISM activists on the ground continue their vital work in solidarity with Palestinians, reporting their eyewitness accounts of the daily atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers and settlers, amplifying the voices of Palestinians and answering local Palestinian-led calls to action.

As a resident of Masafer Yatta told an ISM volunteer, “What is happening is unlike anything before; nobody can predict what tomorrow may bring. There seem to be no openings for hope or a clear vision of tomorrow at this time… The people endure immense suffering, despite limited media coverage of these distressing events. It begs the question: How much longer must Palestinians endure before the world takes notice and acts?”

We are committed now, as ever, to standing in solidarity with Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine and listening to their requests, whether this is being a protective presence, bearing witness to the crimes of the occupation and recording breaches of human rights, or participating in direct action.

What will the money be used for?
Renting an apartment for use by ISM volunteers
Contributing towards travel, phone and other expenses for Palestinian ISM organisers
Creating a solidarity pot to enable international ISMers to remain in Palestine for longer periods of time and have a constant presence in the West Bank

Settler Mob Ambushes Armenian Quarter

30 December 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Jerusalem

They came covered in black and wearing ski masks. On December 28, thirty extremists, armed with clubs and tear gas, invaded the Armenian Quarter’s ‘Cow’s Garden’ (Goveroun Bardez) in the Old City of Jerusalem and attacked members of the Armenian community. The coordinated ambush, caught on film, left several seriously injured, including seminary students, as well as two Armenian youth abducted by occupation forces. The vigilantes vandalized the grounds as part of the assault. Several of the injured were transported to a hospital for medical treatment.

The Armenian community of the Old City is resisting a controversial land grab coordinated by investors with ominous links to extremist settler factions.

The pressure campaign by extremist settlers utilizes violent tactics mirroring settler attacks on Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. But Armenians have also learned from their Palestinian counterparts the importance of steadfastness and unity. Every settler attack thus far has been repelled by the close-knit Armenian community.

Armenians celebrate Christmas later than Christians in the West, and have begun installing a cross and a manger in the rubble (photo credit: ISM)

Unprecedented Coordinated IOF Attacks in West Bank

28 December 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | West Bank

Early this morning, between 1:00 am and 6:00 am, Israeli Occupation Forces invaded several cities across the West Bank. Seven of the eleven Palestinian governorates in the West Bank were invaded in a coordinated attack, the largest since October 7. Clashes were documented in Jenin, Hebron, Qalqilya, and Ramallah, with reports of invasions in Tulkarem, Nablus, and Jericho. Invasion forces stormed the cities, targeting money transfer stations, stating that funds were being funneled from these major cities to Hamas. Many eyewitness reports observed soldiers breaking open safes and, according to The New Arab, stealing at least $2.8 million from these targeted locations after classifying them as having involvement with “terrorism”.

IOF Soldiers in Ramallah steal millions (source: FajerTV)

On the ground ISM members in Ramallah report dozens of army tanks storming and patrolling the streets before direct clashes with Palestinian youth resistance in Al Manara square and in the Qadura refugee camp. Youth were preparing to resist by smashing large rocks to break them up while tanks loaded steel bullets into their assault rifles (steel bullets, as opposed to copper, are intended to be able to penetrate helmets, concrete, and other industrial materials).

Israeli military shell casings vs Palestinian defense weapon

Palestinians fiercely resisted the military invasion for hours, throwing rocks, metal pieces and molotov cocktails at the indestructible tanks. Invasion forces responded with live fire, rubber tipped steel bullets, tear gas, sound grenades, and other explosive devices. This bombardment withstood for several hours, mostly concentrated between 2 and 5 am, resulting in one IOF soldier shot, 14 Palestinians injured, at least 4 of which were with live ammunition, and one Palestinian, named Hazim Al-Qatawi (23), shot and killed.

⭕ Hazem Al-Qatawi ascended to martyrdom as a result of being shot by Ziomist forces during violent confrontations in the center of Ramallah.

Glory to our martyrs.. pic.twitter.com/EwQi6430mL

— Palestine Captives (@Palestinecapti1) December 28, 2023

Along with bodily harm, this extension of the ongoing occupation has resulted in storefront destruction, shattered car windows, and the street littered with remnants of destruction.

Community cleans up after shop destroyed near Al Manara square

Remembrance in Nablus

In an age of disinformation, spectacle, and erasure, remembrance is revolutionary. Palestine has a rich 20,000 year history. Amid an ongoing catastrophe in the Holy Land that rivals the nakba in 1948, people in Nablus are keepers of memory.

One such project is the The Cultural Center of the Palestinian Narrative which raises awareness about Palestinian history, including mapping what Palestine was like pre-1948, and archiving witness testimony of ethnic cleansing.

Interactive Palestinian history archive from The Cultural Center of the Palestinian Narrative

Tanweer, another cultural center in Nablus, in addition to current efforts to introduce art, joy, and more freedom into the public sphere, has chosen to uncover the ancient names of the springs in the Old City of Nablus and surrounding areas. After rediscovering the names, they create and install signs to connect the present with the past and remind people what has been and what will be. In Arabic, the word for spring also means way or path. Names of words and places, like names of people, are often repositories of ancient wisdom.

Spring sign in Nablus (photo credit: ISM)

Fitra is an Arabic word meaning “original disposition” or “innate nature”. It is common belief in Palestine and throughout the Arab and Muslim world that every person is born innocent with innate goodness, and only through social conditioning are people led to oppression and injustice. And so the inner work that must be done isn’t achieving something far removed from one’s self, but rediscovering, reconnecting with, and remembering one’s original nature.

Some of the people honored by Palestinians at the Tanweer Center include ISM activists killed while doing solidarity work (photo credit ISM)

Just as Jewish people throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East remember the horrors of their past and honor those who maintained their humanity amid the inhumanity around them, Palestinians remember the horrors of their past (and present), honor those who maintain their humanity amid the inhumanity around them, try to make a way where there is no way, and hope that the people of the world will not watch from afar their extermination, but instead, choose to remember their essential, original, buried under the rubble humanity.

Ongoing Israeli incursion: Nour Shams Refugee Camp

12/27/2023 Occupied West Bank

By Diana Khwaelid

A new Israeli incursion into the Nour Shams refugee camp northeast of the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.

Israeli incursion:
Tuesday evening, December 26th the Israeli occupying forces stormed the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm, accompanied by military vehicles, including D9 bulldozers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and troop carriers. The Israeli incursion lasted 7 continuous hours from Tuesday until the next morning. The Israeli occupation forces were stationed in more than one area in the city and the vicinity of Nour Shams camp and in some areas belonging to the camp.

Destruction:
The Israeli occupation did not stop with the destruction of streets, houses, and walls of houses in the penultimate storming, but returned to complete its work the destruction of streets and roads again.

The Israeli occupation forces managed the secondary streets leading to the camp destroyed the infrastructure and the water and sewage network in more than one area of the camp, and some walls of houses and some cars belonging to citizens from inside the camp were destroyed.

7 Palestinians wounded 6 killed
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 6 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli incursion into the Camp, 7 others were injured of them in moderate condition and 1 in serious condition .

The Israeli occupying forces targeted 7 Palestinians with a drone from the air while they were in the quarry area near the Al-Nasr mosque. 7 Palestinians injured. 2 of them in moderate condition and another Palestinian in serious condition.

According to the head of the Palestinian doctors in the city of Tulkarm, he said that the Israeli occupation soldiers obstructed the movement of ambulances while they were working to transport the injured Palestinians from the camp to the hospital.

He added that the occupation soldiers stopped an ambulance with an injured person inside on the way to the hospital, the occupation forces stormed the ambulance, one of the occupation soldiers stabbed the injured in the neck area while he was inside the car on his way to the hospital. The six martyrs are Fares Fahmawi, Khalil al-Tabal, Ahmed Hamarsha, Yazan Fahmawi, Ahmed Abu Issa and Wahid Fahmawi. 4 of them are from the same family.

Hundreds of Palestinians mourned the bodies of the six Palestinian martyrs, and their families took a last farewell look at them. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the death toll of the martyrs of the West Bank has reached more than 300 martyrs since October 7.