16th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Nablus | Qaryut, Occupied Palestine
The young Qaryut boy here has his entire right leg in a cast, expecting potential surgery (photo: ISM)
At about 2pm on 16 May, a 13 year-old boy was shot at and beaten by settlers; he broke bones in his leg running from the shots at him and from being beaten. After falling, the boy was threatened with his life by settlers, but soldiers arrived and stopped the settlers from killing him before threatening the young boy with three guns while he lay injured and immobile on the ground.
Initial medical attention was not allowed during the time Israeli soldiers had taken the boy into their custody, implying that he would be treated in an Israeli ambulance. However, three hours later, the boy had to be picked up, untreated, by the Red Crescent and taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus.
Nablus’ Rafidia Hospital took this X-ray showing the teenager’s broken bones from his attack (photo: ISM)
When solidarity activists saw the boy, his entire right leg was wrapped in a cast. Later he described that he was sitting on his land which is close to an illegal Israeli settlement bordering Qaryut and famous for attacks such as olive tree torching. Settlers shot at him and he ran from the shots. When he fell, the settlers beat him and were going to kill him, but soldiers arrived and told the settlers could not. Afterwards, the soldiers also shouted at the boy with guns pointed at him.
The boy may undergo surgery for his broken bones.
Just two days before this attack, Qaryut faced an olive tree torching attack from another nearby illegal Israeli settlement and the village has a history of well-documented settler attacks on its land. In addition, Israeli military have closed a Qaryut road to Nablus and Ramallah for Palestinian use as the road is not far from illegal Israeli settlements on Qaryut land. Currently, 15 mostly young Qaryut men have been arrested for activism in peaceful demonstrations against the key road’s closure.
7th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Khalil | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Regular updates on harassment of Palestinian schoolchildren by Israeli military in Hebron monitored by the International Solidarity Movement.
Israeli soldier shooting tear gas canisters (Photo by ISM)
27th May: Today, Israeli soldiers continued their harassment of Palestinian youth on their way to and from school. Due to exams, several classes of young people aged only 10 to 14 years old left the school early. Some gathered at the opposite end of the road, about 500 metres away from the checkpoint, posing no threat to the Israeli border police. Several young people threw stones which never reached anywhere close to the checkpoint. Nevertheless, two jeeps sped through the checkpoint, and armed Israeli soldiers threw a sound grenade and fired a tear gas canister onto a Palestinian roof. Within a minute, they fired another tear gas canister. They waited and watched for several minutes, and eventually a group of Palestinian adults talked to the soldiers and convinced them to leave.
26th May: Two Israeli military jeeps and ten soldiers this morning harassed schoolchildren and teachers preparing for another important school exam day. Soldiers also invaded a Palestinian home near the schools, using the roof as a watchpoint. One stun grenade was thrown by the military. International activists escorted children who had been too terrified to continue their journey to school alone.
21st May: 3 Military vehicles and around 12 Israeli border police / soldiers blocked the road near the entrance to 3 schools as children made their way to class this morning . Soldiers prevented children and teachers from walking to their schools and diverted traffic as others took photo’s of children with their iPhones. At one stage soldiers threw a sound bomb in the direction of a large group of small children. Many of the schools are holding end of year exams today .
Child being detained by military on the way to school, 16th May
19th May: At 7am three international activists arrived at the checkpoint immediately outside three Palestinian schools. They found that three soldiers had already moved past the checkpoint, an act of provocation in itself . The activists followed the soldiers and watched as the soldiers observed the passing . At Around 7:30 the soldiers noticed smoke and marched towards the school where they discovered a fire burning in a dumpster. It was unclear who started the blaze. The soldiers waited by the dumpster for approximately 30 more minutes. During this time the children began to throw stones from at them from a distance, failing to hit the soldiers. At one point, one soldier returned past the checkpoint to the border police station and came back with three tear gas bombs. A school teacher or administrator approached the soldiers to speak with them and admonished the children to enter their classes. Once the children were safely in the school the soldiers returned to the other side of the checkpoint without incident. Back at the police station, border police harassed youths (between 13 and 15 years old) as they passed. Activists witnessed one police officer kick a child as he finished his inspection
16th May: At around 7.30am two army jeeps and six soldiers on foot walked past the checkpoint towards the schools. One child was surrounded by seven soldiers, one of whom grabbed his arm – when asked by international activists why they had detained him, the soldiers released the child. Two soldiers ran towards the school with their helmets on but stopped before they reached it. Three soldiers standing on a roof pointed their guns down at the children. Soldiers in jeeps took pictures of children on their iphones.
15th May: Strong military presence outside of the checkpoint intimidated children, who then threw stones at the checkpoint. Two jeeps and six soldiers on foot continued waiting outside of the checkpoint.
13th May: Five soldiers stationed themselves on roofs overlooking the school whilst four walked down towards the school, waiting on the road. All wore riot gear, including helmets.
Soldiers pictured shortly after having charged at schoolchildren, yelling and throwing a soundbomb
UPDATE 12th May 2013: On the 12th May, once again, 2 Israeli military jeeps were stationed at the checkpoint at 7am as children passed through to get to their respective schools. At first, 3 heavily armed soldiers proceeded to walk through the checkpoint, they stopped in an alley opposite the elementary school, intimidating school children as they walked past. When questioned on their purpose for this action, they had no response. As the school children (some as young as 5) began to gather outside their school gates, the 3 soldiers with their helmets on, weapons in hand and completely unprovoked, charged at the children, dropping a sound bomb and yelling aggressively in Hebrew. After this intimidation tactic occured, 3 more soldiers came through the checkpoint and watched all the children from a distance with binoculars. Many children stayed at the bottom of the street, resisting the soldier’s scare tactics with chants.
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Children walking past soldiers on their way to school – 7th May.
Children have to walk through a checkpoint manned by several Israeli border police each morning in order to reach their schools, often receiving hassle from the soldiers as they do so. On the morning of the 5th of May, some children threw stones at the checkpoint – in response the border police radioed for army back up and two jeeps arrived on the scene. One jeep then proceeded through the checkpoint driving down towards the school parking outside whilst children were still arriving. After it left the other jeep drove down outside the schools and four army officers exited the vehicle and patrolled outside the schools for another half an hour.
On the 6th May at around 7.00am as children were walking towards their classes, three military jeeps arrived without provocation and ten soldiers patrolled in front of the school, maintaining a presence for over an hour.
On the 7th May two jeeps arrived at the checkpoint and seven soldiers walked through it, towards the schools. When asked what their purpose in the school area was, the commander answered “we’re protecting our people”. They had no further response when it was suggested that their actions seemed absurd, considering the disparity of power between the heavily armed Israeli military occupiers and a few young children throwing stones in resistance.
This daily military presence must be a continual reminder for the children who were arrested and their classmates of the military brutality of the 20th March. One bystander stated “this could inhibit the right to education – children might be too scared to come to school.”
In a city which has seen at least 66 child detentions and arrests since mid-February (these are just those witnessed by international observers), this continued initimidation and persecution of children is evidence of Israel’s disregard for international law for the protection of children – a finding backed up by Unicef’s recent report criticising Israeli military treatment of Palestinian children.
15th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, Occupied Palestine
By Team Ramallah
The 15th May marks the 65th anniversary of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and the destruction – and massacre in some cases – of more than 500 Palestinian villages by Zionist forces in 1948. 65 years on, the same Zionist project of expelling the indigenous population of Palestine continues. House demolitions, land confiscation, settlement expansion, military occupation, restriction of movement and systematic bombing of the Gaza Strip are aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestine for the sake of the Zionist dream: Greater Israel.
Palestinians from different villages and cities across the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and refugee camps in neighbouring Arab countries have commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, claiming once again their right of return to their land, their homes and their history.
Protesters standing away from the tar gas at Ofer demonstration(Photo by ISM)
In Ramallah, at 11am, more than four hundred people marched from Muqata compound to Yasser Arafat Square waving Palestinian and ‘right of return’ flags. School children chanted slogans against the Israeli occupation and for the right of return of the five million Palestinian refugees around the world.
At around 12.30 am, protesters went to Ofer military prison where clashes erupted between Palestinian activists and Israeli forces. Numerous tear gas canisters and rubber coated steel bullets were shot at demonstrators by Israeli Border Police officers and soldiers. Many people suffered from suffocation as a result of tear gas inhalation and more than twenty people were shot with rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas canisters, at least four of them being taken to hospital by ambulance. Two demonstrators were shot in the head with rubber coated steel bullets and one was shot in the leg with live ammunition. The confrontations finished at around 4pm when protesters gradually retreated from the scene.
In Beit Ummar Palestinian and international activists briefly blocked Highway 60, the main north – south artery for Israeli settlements. The Israeli army responded by throwing stun grenades at the demonstrators. Soon afterwards Palestinian youth clashed with Israeli soldiers in olive groves surrounding the village as the army continued to invade the area. Excessive amounts of rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas were fired at the demonstrators. One was shot in the head and another in the leg and were treated by Palestinian medics on the scene.
65 years after the Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’, the Palestinian people continue to fight for their right to return, whether they are now in the West Bank, Gaza, displaced within Israel or in the refugee Diaspora. The Right of Return for Palestinian refugees is absolutely key in the struggle for Palestinian rights and freedom.
Protesters running away from tear gas at Ofer (Photo by ISM)
15th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, As Sawiya, Occupied Palestine
By ISM Nablus
In the early hours of Monday morning, a group of Zionist settlers from the Eli and Rechalim colonies attacked the Palestinian village of As Sawiah, east of Salfit.
The two graves spraypainted, including a Star of David, a Jewish symbol co-opted by the Zionist movement (Photo by ISM)
At about 3am, As Sawiah’s residents were sleeping as settlers attacked, first targeting a garden shop that had trees snapped and pots and plants thrown. The settlers continued to damage property letting down tires of two tractors and a car with spikes. The vehicles are essential to Palestinian farmers for their work and livelihood. Settlers continued in their attack by vandalising two graves near a family home, where they graffitied ‘Revenge for Arabs’ in Hebrew.
These attacks show the constant threat that settlers pose to the indigenous inhabitants to Palestine, where the attacks are often violent and deadly. When faced with attacks on property with varying degrees, the Palestinian people have no legal recourse or protection from the occupying forces. Eli, founded in 1984 and now spread over nine hilltops, has even contravened Israeli planning guidelines in its quest for growth; as well as stealing even more privately-owned Palestinian land this year from neighbouring Qaryut and all in direct – and defiant – contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention and several UN Security Council resolutions specifically on Israeli settler-colonial activity. Rechalim, meanwhile, has in recent years stolen land from the villages of Yatma and As Sawiya.
Plant pots were smashed too along with the trees that were snapped (Photo by ISM)What land remains for As Sawiya’s villagers cannot even be worked on without gross hindrance (Photo by ISM)The settlers handiwork leaves not just a need for repairs, but also a sense of insecurity (Photo by ISM)Puncture marks left by the spikes, time lost for this farmer not depicted (Photo by ISM)
15th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
On the 14th May 2013 , a day before the Nakba, on the edge of Bethlehem, a demonstration to remember the day of the catastrophe in 1948 marched from Duheisha refugee camp to the entrance of the village of Al-Khader. Demonstrators then clashed with the Israeli military between 11am and 1pm.Tear gas is fired at the demonstrators
Al-Khader was the chosen site of the demonstration as the villagers there have recently had one of their agricultural roads closed by the Israeli military.
Hundreds of Palestinians of all ages (7 to 18+) from Duheisha and surrounding areas came out carrying right of return flags and chanting for freedom and an end to the occupation. Israeli troops fired numerous tear gas canisters and rubber coated steel bullets at the unarmed demonstrators. Some of the young Palestinian children spoke of their martyred fathers as they were resisting the soldiers of occupation.
During the demonstration, female school children were passing through the area to get home were also indiscriminately fired upon with tear gas canisters causing one student to collapse who had to be evacuated in an ambulance.
Israeli tear gas canisters set fire to Palestinian land and when the fire brigade showed up to tackle the blaze, they too were pelted with tear gas canisters .
Duheisha refugee camp was originally set up as a temporary humantarian solution to the Nakba, where 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully expelled as their villages were ethnically cleansed and destroyed. Duheisha houses Palestinians from over 45 different villages that are west of Jerusalem and Hebron.
Young demonstrators at Al-KhaderDemonstrators at Al-Khader
