Author: ISM Media

Family members of Gazan activist Ahmed Abu Artema killed in Israeli airstrike

Ahmed Abu Artema

ISM PRESS RELEASE 

October 27 

Our friend, the poet Ahmed Abu Artema, whose social media post inspired the Great March of Return in 2018, has been targeted in an Israeli airstrike that shelled his home in Tel al Sultan, Rafah, Gaza, killing five members of his family.

Ahmed was also seriously injured in the attack on October 24, suffering second degree burns. He is now in a stable condition. Ahmed’s 12-year-old son, Abdullah, two of his brothers and mother-in-law were killed. His other son and Ahmed’s sister are in a critical condition.

His home was one of many targeted despite being in the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where people from the north were ordered to go by the Israeli army for their ‘safety’. There is no safe place in Gaza.

Commenting on the targeting of Ahmed’s family, Neta Golan, a co-founder of ISM and Return Solidarity, said: “In the weeks leading up to the attack, Ahmed had used his voice to call for global protests to stop Israel’s genocide and criminal bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.

“It was Ahmed’s words in 2018 that inspired thousands of Gazans to march unarmed towards the fence besieging the Gaza ghetto, to demand their right to return to the lands from which they’d been expelled. The Israeli occupation forces killed Ahmed’s family because Israel feared the power of his words.”

On top of cutting off electricity to the Strip, voices of dissent are being extinguished by Israel’s brutal bombing campaign. Since October 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 24 Palestinian journalists. Family members of Gazan journalists have also been targeted. On October 25, an Israeli airstrike killed wife, son, and daughter of Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh.

Israeli attacks have massacred 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in Gaza.

In an audio recording to ISM days before the attack on his family home, Ahmed said: “This did not start on October 7. Unfortunately, the world has been blind to the suffering of the Palestinians for decades. Only when Israel lost people, did the outside world pay attention here.

“What’s happening now in Gaza is exactly the same thing Israel started in 1948. The Israeli government is not targeting Hamas. As all of can see on the TV and internet, the vast majority of the targets in Gaza are civilians, neighbourhoods, hospitals, churches and mosques. And it’s not only Gaza, in the West Bank there is the Smotrich plan to displace Palestinians. This confirms how it’s an Israeli strategy of genocide and completing the Nakba of 1948.”

Golan added: “Help us to spread Ahmed’s message, and put an end to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. We need you to raise your voices, so that Palestinians and those facing genocide, will not be silenced.”

 

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led non-violent direct-action movement, founded in 2001. Read more about ISM here.

Return Solidarity is a group of anti-Zionist Israelis working in solidarity with Palestinians in support of the Great March of Return. Learn more about their actions here.

A video of Ahmed Abu Artema calling on the international community to put an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza here.

” The man behind Gazan’s Great March of Return” – Al Jazeera documentary.

“The Gazan leading a popular uprising against Israel”, CNN.

 

 

WATCH: British-Palestinian children in Gaza call on Rishi Sunak to stop Israel’s massacre

 

‘I’m scared. They keep bombing children.’

Jenna and Nur, two British-Palestinian sisters in Gaza, have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stop the bombing in a video message.

Jenna is just five years old, and Nur is seven. The sisters are living under constant bombardement, and are now homeless.

In 19 days of relentless attacks, Israeli airstrikes have killed 2,704 children in Gaza: that’s 140 children every day.

Instead of demanding a ceasefire, Sunak and the leader of the opposition Keir Starmer have given Israel the greenlight to commit war crimes, sending weapons and support, and silencing Palestine solidarity at home.

Call on all international leaders to Stop the Genocide in Gaza now! Watch and share!

Watch: Israeli settlers and soldiers destroy Palestinian property, shoot live ammunition in Masafer Yatta

 

 

Masafer Yatta | International Solidarity Movement

On October 25th, 2023, Israeli settlers and soldiers invaded the land belonging to a Palestinian family in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and used a bulldozer to uproot trees and destroy the family’s garden.

The colonial attack occured in the Palestinian village of  Tuwani and targeted the Hourani family. The settlers and soldiers came from the illegal Israeli settlement of Havat Ma’on, located a few hundred meters away fom Tuwani.

ISM activists and Israeli activists filmed the scene. After one hour, once the settlers and soldiers had left, the activists approached the scene to assess the damage caused by the bulldozer. One settler, noticing that the activists were walking towards the land that had just been destroyed, ran back, screaming and pointing his assault rifle towards the activists. Israeli soldiers rushed to the scene and shot half a dozen warning shots towards the activists, making it clear that they would shoot them if they didn’t back off.

“They followed us right to the back of the Hourani property, shouting, taking photos of us close up, demanding to see passports but we refused to hand them over” an ISM activist recounted.

Since the start of the war on Gaza, colonial crimes in Masafer Yatta have escalated, with settler militias committing pogroms against Palestinian villages and families, and Israeli soldiers at checkpoints shooting at civilian cars without warnings.

On October 13th, an Israeli settler invaded Tuwani and shot a Palestinian man in the stomach at point blank range, while being protected by an Israeli soldier. The day before, Israeli settlers dressed in Israeli army uniforms had invaded Palestinian agricultural land, planted Israeli flags and started shooting towards Palestinians and solidarity activists. ISM activists have also reported that they have been threatened them and robbed them of their phones by Israeli soldiers.

In the past days, settlers have also stormed the Palestinians villages of Isfay, Tuba, and Maghayr Al-Abeed, physically assaulting people and damaging the water tanks and electric grids.

Palestinians from the group Youth of Sumud, together with internationalist and Israeli activists, have been documenting and non-violently resisting the colonialist attacks.

More than 103 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war on Gaza, with thousands more wounded or kidnapped by the Israeli army.

 

 

Prisoners’ Solidarity Demo

Weekly demo in front of the International Red Cross, Ramallah, to demand the release of prisoners from the Occupation’s jails

24 October 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah

The ISM attended the weekly demonstration held in front of the International Red Cross, in Ramallah, to demand the release of prisoners from the Occupation’s jails. When we arrived at the demonstration, a lady called out to me in French – “You’re French? Macron shouldn’t come here, he should go home. It’s a disgrace!”

Macron is currently visiting Ramallah after he held talks with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

This Palestinian lady was brought up by the nuns in Bethlehem, went to their school and speaks excellent French. She still takes great pleasure in reading in French. Like everyone else here, she is scandalised and horrified by the images we see over and over again on all the screens. She took me as a witness to express her revulsion and incomprehension. How can France approve of these massacres of women and children?

She demonstrated in front of the International Red Cross to support the families of the prisoners. Her own son spent 15 years in prison, and many of his friends were caught up in the round-ups that have been taking place every night since 7 October.

The number of prisoners in Israeli jails has doubled in the last 15 days. Many of these captives are being held in administrative detention. Their families no longer have the right to visit them.

On average, one Palestinian in five will spend time behind bars in Israel.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-palestinian-prisoners-dies-in-israels-jails-2-weeks-into-his-detention

https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention

 

Israeli crimes around the clock in the West Bank

 

22 October 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Zawata

by Diana Khwaelid

Zawata town-Nablus.

On the evening of Sunday, 22-10-2023, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stormed the town of Zawata, northwest of the city of Nablus. The residents of the town initially spotted Israeli special forces near the town’s cemetery.

The Israeli occupation forces carried out a campaign of arrests against Palestinian youths in the village. Young palestinians of the town came out to confront the occupation forces.  Jihad Mazen Sobhi Saleh (29 years old) and  Muhammad Qasim Abu Zar (17 years old), were martyred after being exposed to direct fire by the IOF. The two young men were transferred to the nearest hospital. One of them was admitted to the operating room but did not survive. The two martyrs were killed in cold blood.

Ahmad Zawatiah, an eyewitness to the Israeli occupation’s crime against the Palestinian youths, said that the Israeli soldiers stormed the town and started shooting directly at the youths without there being an armed clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.

The raid also resulted in the arrest of two Palestinian youths, Dia Abu Amsha and Amir Abu Amsha, both from the town of Zawata.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the town participated in the funeral of the bodies of the two martyrs, who were given one last farewell by their families and friends.

 

The crowd chanted phrases expressing Palestinian patriotism, in a state of anger and sadness, at the continuation of Israeli crimes in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.

As Gaza suffers from the criminal bombing campaign of the IOF, Palestinians in the West Bank are facing continuous Israeli colonial crimes, with IOF raids and settler pogroms intensifying in frequency and severity. Since the start of the war on Gaza, more than 90 Palestinians have been martyred, and more than 1,200 have been arrested in the West Bank.