Author: ISM Media - Page 394 - International Solidarity Movement

Call to Action: Join Addameer’s Global End Administrative Detention Campaign!

8th April 2013 |Addameer, Occupied Palestine

Addameer calls on activists and people of conscience to stand in solidarity with all political prisoners and join Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Organization’s upcoming global campaign against administrative detention.

Over 4,743 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel; 10 of them women, 193 of them children, and 178 of them held under administrative detention, a decrepit policy that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.

Not only are these prisoners held arbitrarily, but Israel’s use of administrative detention violates several international standards, such as deporting Palestinians from the occupied territory to Israel, denying regular family visits and failing to take into account the best interests of child detainees as required under international law.

We need your support to break their chains and the silence on administrative detention.

Today, Israel has outsourced security for prisons where Palestinians are held to a British-Danish company named G4S. Along with the Israeli Prison Service, G4S is responsible for the harsh conditions the prisoners faced during the historic 2012 hunger strikes that thousands of Palestinians participated in, including two hunger strikers that neared death in protest of their arbitrary detention, Khader Adnan and Hana Al-Shalabi. G4S is also complicit in Israel’s detention of nearly one-third of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006, and for dozens of human rights defenders being arrested every year for participating in popular resistance.

The government of Israel should release all administrative detainees, and in the meantime, all administrative detainees must be granted their rights in accordance with international law.

Addameer supports the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against G4S to end its complicity in detaining administrative detainees and to put pressure on the Israeli government to release the prisoners. Addameer calls on solidarity organizations, individuals and human rights organizations around the world to join our End Administrative Detention campaign launching on 17 April 2013.

TAKE ACTION!

You can help us pressure the Israeli government to release the prisoners by:

Participating in a mass day of mobilization in your city on 17 April, the annual Palestinian Prisoners Day.
Organizing an “End Administrative Detention” week on 17-24 April 2013 in your city or university campus using Addameer’s forthcoming campaign materials.
Joining a local G4S BDS campaign in your city.
Raising awareness about administrative detention in your community using our forthcoming Activist Toolkit.

http://youtu.be/DWUPgt62Fn4

Olive tree planting in the village of Atuf, Jordan Valley

8th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Atuf, Jordan Valley, Occupied Palestine

By Team Nablus

On Monday 8 April the village of Atuf in the Jordan Valley, planted olive trees on their land accompanied by solidarity activists. The group planted twenty-five trees, dedicating them to prisoners and international activists killed by the Israeli authorities.

Palestinian activists planting an olive tree (Photo by ISM)

Just prior to the solidarity groups arrival the village reported that the army had come to the village taking pictures and examining maps. This is a regular occurrence for the village which is in the Jordan Valley, under full Israeli military control, and much of their land has been confiscated or they are forbidden to access it.

The village of Tamoun, just next door to Atuf once had 96,000 dunums but now have access to only 36,000. The land is taken by the Army for alleged security or military reasons and the illegal Israeli settlements of Begalot and Roi are both on stolen land from Atuf and Tamoun.

In addition to land confiscation the villages regularly suffer Army incursions and military activity. Once a week, since November 2012, villagers from Ras Ahmar, adjacent to Atuf and a mainly Bedouin population, are forced out of their homes from 4am until 5pm to allow the Israeli Army to undertake military training on their land. Villagers reported they use live ammunition and even fire rockets during this period. Ras Ahmar is home to 170 people, 22 families. With nowhere else to go they are forced from their beds to sit all day, in all weathers, until they are allowed to return.

Atuf, Tamoun and Ras Ahmar and villages like them are in the heart of the Jordan Valley, an area Israel is seeking to annex due to its rich resources and access to the water supply. Under direct Israeli control, Area C under the Oslo Accords, the Israeli authorities have been undertaking a systematic programme of ethnic cleansing, with many villages subject to demolition orders and regular army intimidation. In addition to this Israel seeks to extend its Apartheid Wall through the area, thus annexing the Jordan Valley, separating villages and farmers from their land, and effectively imprisoning a vastly reduced area of the West Bank.

Villagers from Aruf planting olive trees on their land (Photo by ISM) — Villagers from Atuf planting olive trees on their land (Photo by ISM)

Palestinian and international activists waving Palestinian flags (Photo by ISM)

Military order forcing Bedouin population out of their homes (Photo by ISM)

Israeli soldiers doing military training on Ras Ahmar's land (Photo by ISM) — Israeli soldiers doing military training on Ras Ahmar’s land (Photo by ISM)

UPDATE: Man shot in the face with teargas canister at Hagai roadblock demonstration

8th of April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By Team Khalil

UPDATE 8th April 2013: ISM activists visited Ameen today at his home in Al Fawwar. He still suffers from intense migraines, struggles to speak, regularly experiences dizziness and a has bloodshot eye. His X-ray shows considerable damage to his jaw, cheekbones, chin and teeth. He relies on heavy medication and is still unable to work. On top of the physical suffering, Ameen is having to pay hefty medical bills to cover the cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics he needs to take on a daily basis.

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Demonstrator Ameen Bayed after having been hit in the face with a tear gas canister.

The weekly Friday demonstration at the Hagai roadblock was attacked by the Israeli military less than one minute after participants started walking down the road. A soldier shot a metal teargas canister directly into the demonstration and hit Ameen Bayed in his face, breaking his right cheekbone and damaging his teeth. He required surgery in a hospital in Hebron city. The video below shows the moment at which he was hit (At 0.42).

During the demonstration, soldiers fired large amounts of tear gas directly at demonstrators – against the Israeli army’s own regulations, which state that gas canisters must be fired into the air, not straight forwards. Tear gas canisters can be deadly – Mustafa Tamimi of Nabi Saleh was killed when a soldier shot him in the face with a tear gas canister in 2011.

49 year old Bayed, from Al Fawar camp, was participating in the weekly action calling for freedom of movement and for the opening of the main road connecting Hebron with its southern villages and towns. The closure of this road 12 years ago makes the Palestinian residents of these villages travel an additional 12km to reach their destinations in the city.

Israeli military invade South Hebron Hills with tanks for military training

8th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine

On 7th April around three kilometres from the Palestinian village of Al Majaz, the Israeli army conducted major training exercise with tanks and automatic weapons, using live ammunition. Al Majaz in the South Hebron Hills is in what the Israeli authorities refer to as ‘Firing Zone 918’, a closed military zone regularly used for training for the Israeli army and eight villages are at risk of eviction and destruction.

Tanks visible in very close proximity to Palestinian shepherd and sheep

At least eight tanks and several armoured personnel carriers could be heard moving into the area during the night and at around 6am helicopters were seen over the village of Al Majaz. Between 6.30am and 7.30am at least thirty shots were fired from Merkava tanks – each creating a noise loud enough in the village to wake people and to scare birds from the trees. Hundreds of soldiers moved around the tanks and during this hour there was also a large amount of automatic gunfire.

The military troops moved between two hilltops to the east of Al Majaz, repeatedly firing weapons and driving military jeeps around the Palestinian villages of the South Hebron hills throughout the day. As this military exercise was particularly large, the villagers of Al Majaz had received a phone call from the Israeli army to inform them – but for other military training exercises, which occur at least once a week, the villagers state they are not notified.

Village life went on throughout the military exercise and children from Al Majaz had to travel to their school in the village of Al Fakheit several kilometres away. The children travel over the rocky terrain in a Unicef donated jeep which the military have in the past threatened to confiscate, stating that it is not permitted in the area. Upon reaching the school, the children still had to listen to the sound of tank- and gun-fire, easily audible even from their classrooms.

There are twelve villages in Firing Zone 918, all of which have been threatened in the past with eviction and demolition in order to make way for a huge Israeli military training area, free of Palestinian villages. Eight remain under threat, with a temporary injunction by the Israeli Supreme Court having recently been extended in January 2013. The headmaster of the school in Al Fakheet said “The Israeli authorities know it is illegal to evict people for military training, so they will try to make people’s lives very bad so they just leave. Then if we leave, they will use the land for settlements.”

The Israeli forces have stated that they wish to create a general military training area in Firing Zone 918. This would be a breach of the 4th Geneva Convention, which states that an occupying force should not destroy property unless it is “rendered absolutely necessary by military operations” – general military training is not deemed “absolutely necessary” in international law.

International arrested at non-violent demonstration in support of Samer Issawi

8th April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement,Beit Omar, Occupied Palestine

by Team Khalil

A Swedish activist was arrested by Israeli border police this afternoon at a non- violent demonstration in Beit Omar. He was taken to the police station at Gush Etzion settlement and detained for two hours before being released.

A demonstrator holds a sign in support of hunger striker Samer Issawi

The demonstration was held in support of Samer Issawi, a Palestinian political prisoner who has been on hunger strike for over 250 days in Israeli administrative detention without charge. Israeli soldiers also confiscated two other internationals’ passports at the non-violent demonstration. Soldiers harassed the small group of demonstrators, restricting their movement by surrounding and pushing them. One soldier threw a sound bomb at a lone demonstrator as he started walking away from the demonstration.

Demonstrators hold signs in support of hunger striker Samer Issawi