23rd April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Qaryut, Occupied Palestine
By Team Nablus
Over the past 5 months 15 people from Qaryut, mainly youngsters, have been arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities. The charges include `attending illegal demonstrations` and being in `closed military zones`. All detainees will face trial on the first of May.
Demonstration in Qaryut (Photo by PSCC)
Among them are two brothers, Mohammad Laboom, 19, and Nedal Laboom, 32. Israeli forces raided and ransacked their homes in the middle of the night on the 17 December 2012 and 3 February 2013 . Mohammad is in his first year of college and was in Nablus when Israeli soldiers arrived at his house asking for him. They forced his family to call him and say ‘Captain Gilad says come’. His mother told us that ‘they said they would take all of us if he didn’t come to them.’ He was told to turn himself in to Huwwara compound that night, despite having an exam the next day which he requested to take before handing himself over.
His brother Nedal is a teacher and is married with young children. When they came to take him at 2am they accused him of participating in demonstrations and asked if he was with Hamas. He denied this and said that he had done nothing wrong. He told them that he just goes to his school and comes back home again. His mother said that with his small children, he works day and night, between home and work. She reported that they put her sons out in the cold before putting most of the family in one room before unnecessarily raiding the house. She said Nedal’s children clung on to the adults clothes in terror, not understanding what was going on.
Nedal and Mohammad’s mothers have visited them twice, a special privilege for those over sixty years old. They are being held in Magiddo prison and will be tried along with 13 others detainees from their village on the same charge: being activists in Qaryut and attending peaceful demonstrations. Mohammad and Nedal’s mothers said, ‘I can’t sleep at night thinking about them’.
Peaceful demonstrations occur regularly in Qaryut to protest the closing of a main road leading to both the two large cities of Nablus and Ramallah. The villagers say the repression from the military and nearby colonial-settlers have increased since demonstrations began. They have stopped, fearing more arrests in their small village and an escalation in settler violence. Settlers regularly cut down or burn the villagers’ trees. A representative from Qaryut told us that at this rate ‘there wont be anyone left in Qaryut`.
A painting in honour of the fifteen detainees in Qaryut (Photo by ISM)
23th April 2013 | Christian Peacemaker Team, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine
Israeli soldiers and border police today used a backhoe to uproot 200 young olive trees in the Palestinian village of Susya in the South Hebron Hills. The demolition of the olive grove began at 8:00 am and finished at 10:45 am. The trees destroyed were planted about one year ago on land belonging to three families of the village, across a valley from the Israeli settlement of Susya.
Israeli bulldozer uprooting olive trees (Photo by CPT)
The village of Susya has existed since around 1830, and is present on British maps from 1917. In l983 Israeli settlers built a settlement at Susya, and many of the village’s residents were forced from their homes. These families now live nearby in isolated sites to the north of the settlement. The Israeli Civil Administration has informed residents of Palestinian Susya of their intention to carry out six demolition orders for houses that were issued in the 1990s and in 2001. These demolition orders cover 50 buildings, including homes, animal pens, solar energy panels and water cisterns.
These demolition orders have been issued despite the fact that Palestinian ownership of the land in Palestinian Susya is well established legally. Israeli attorney Plea Albeck stated in a legal opinion in l982 that the land in Palestinian Susya is Palestinian owned. Because the Israeli Civil Administration has not completed a master plan for the region, the residents of Palestinian Susya are unable to obtain building permits.
Since 2001 Israel has, through its military and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, uprooted, burnt and destroyed more than 548,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers and land owners.
Israeli bulldozer about to uproot an olive tree (Photo by CPT)Palestinian woman carrying an olive tree which was going to be uprooted by Israeli forces (Photo by CPT)
23rd April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Bethlehem , Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
Palestinians and International activists held a brief demonstration outside the gates of an Israeli military base near Herodium mountain, east of Bethlehem. The activists stood outside the gates with Palestinian flags and shouted to the soldiers inside that the base was built illegally on Palestinian land. The demonstration also intended to highlight the illegal Israeli settlements nearby. Stun grenades are thrown at demonstrators outside an Israeli military base
Soldiers threw stun grenades at the peaceful demonstrators and used tear gas to disperse the journalists who had gathered to document the demonstration. Demonstrators also hung Palestinian flags from a nearby military outpost.
This demonstration was part of a series of actions targeting the infrastructure of the Israeli occupation including checkpoints, military bases and watchtowers which are all obstacles to peace in the occupied territories.
A Palestinian flag is hung from an Israeli outpost
21st April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
Settlers from the Tel Rumeida area in Hebron gradually cut down 15 almond trees on privately owned Palestinian land over the last two weeks. The settlers also installed an irrigation system and planted seeds with the clear intention of taking over the land. The owner of the land has complained to the police and army on several occasions to no avail. Destroyed almond tree in Tel Rumeida
“The police just showed up, watched the settlers and then went away.” “The trees are very close to my heart, my children used to play around them.”
The Palestinian family Abu Heikel is renting the land from a Palestinian Jew called Jofef Ezra who fled Hebron during the 1967 Israeli invasion of the West Bank. The Ezra family continues to rent its property to the Heikel family to prevent the land from falling into settler hands. With the army on call to defend the settlers on their various, usually violent, whims, there are serious doubts that Ezra`s wishes will be fulfilled. Palestinians by contrast have little to no legal support or protection against their aggressive neighbors.
Settlers in Tel Rumeida regularly occupy parts of privately owned Palestinian property under the pretext that the Bible has given them permission to do so. As long as the Israeli army continues to tolerate the settlers’ illegal activity and offer them protection whilst attacking and arresting those resisting them, the expansion of illegal settlements and the level of settler violence is likely to continue escalating.
22nd April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Qusra, Occupied Palestine
By Team Nablus
Helmi on 21st April – recovering step by step
Helmi Abdul Azeez Hassan was shot with live ammunition by a settler on 23rd February at short range and came very close to death. He spent nine days unconscious before he woke up in hospital only to be interrogated and accused of throwing stones. Two months later, he sits down with his family and international activists and is happy as he talks of his life, with his wife expecting a child. His two year old daughter, shy of strangers, runs to his legs to be embraced as tea and coffee is passed around.
Helmi’s recovery is slow but is of great relief to his family. He is housebound by his injury but still makes regular trips to the hospital with the possibility looming of another operation. Sixty six percent of his liver was removed due to the extensive damage caused by the shot. The catheters repairing the arteries to his heart will have to be replaced soon – they only last three months.
A builder by trade, Helmi arrived home from work to find that around 15 heavily armed settlers had invaded the village. A shot from one of the settlers narrowly missed his heart and would have mortally wounded him, had he not been able to receive immediate treatment. Despite this, it will be at least six or seven months before Helmi will be able to go back to work.
His mother brings in a bounty of freshly baked bread, zatar, cheese, olives and biscuits to be enjoyed by everyone in the room. Palestinian hospitality is once again displayed as the visitors are told to eat and drink more, distracted from the interview.
On waking up on a hospital bed less than two months ago to be confronted by his interrogator, who said that Helmi ‘got what he deserved,’ Helmi speaks profoundly of his experience, commenting that he was ‘injured and close to death. No one in the Israeli government condemned this action,’ – pointing out that they did not pursue those responsible, yet ‘they arrest Palestinian children for throwing stones.’
Qusra has had to deal with many violent attacks from settlers and escorting soldiers. The small village is collecting a number of inhabitants who were injured and in many cases seriously. Also present at the gathering is a school teacher who updates us about Osama Rami Hassan’s situation. Osama is a 16 year old boy who was shot in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet narrowly missing his eye, on the same day two months previously that Helmi was shot. For some time Osama wore an eye patch before it was removed recently – he is also well on the way to recovery – ‘step by step’ says the school-teacher. Whilst his physical recovery is going well and he is unlikely to lose his sight, Osama constantly thinks of the attack and may be suffering psychologically because of it. However, his teacher says that he is strong and is doing well in school, having recently enjoyed a school trip to Qalqilia.
Akram Taysir Daoud was attacked and beaten unconscious after being lured into an ambush when settlers called to him in Arabic on the 15th September 2012. He was beaten with sticks and rocks and left for dead, but fortunately regained consciousness after 15 minutes so he could phone his brother for help. His injuries were so severe that he lost his ability to smell or taste – this has not recovered in the seven months since the attack. Recovery from his other injuries however, has been good and now he has been able to return to work.
Settlers mainly from the Esh Kodesh and Qida illegal settlements have uprooted more than 2,400 olive trees in the last three years in repeated attacks against the land and the inhabitants from Qusra. Attacks have been coordinated acts of terror against the Palestinian population such as the joint attack on Urif and Qusra that injured Ammar. Settlers are known to travel from illegal settlements in the south to attack villages in the north as part of this campaign of violence against the Palestinian community.
Helmi is asked what his hopes are for the future as our meeting comes to an end. Straight away he responds with three points, that ‘Settlers should stop their attacks, return our lands and that we can live in peace and quiet.’
Helmi’s is still the most recent attack by settlers against the residents of Qusra and we say goodbye to him and his family, pleased to hear that ‘step by step’ the people of Qusra are recovering. They show their strength by their love for each other and their commitment just to live in ‘peace and quiet.’
There is hope and relief in the gradual recovery of those who have been injured recently. Residents are still reminded how close they have come to death and that such threat still exists for the present future. Tragedy has previously visited Qusra residents when Issam Kamel Odeh, 33, died from Israeli gunfire after settlers invaded the village in September 2011.
