Author: ISM Media - Page 399 - International Solidarity Movement

UPDATED – “Obama” arrested on Shuhada Street

20th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By Team Khalil

Update 20th March 20.45: Three Palestinians have been released on bail and all three internationals are being deported.

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Four Palestinians and three international activists have been arrested by the Israeli military today, 20th March 2013, during a demonstration calling for Obama to take action against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Obama is currently visiting Israel and plans to make a short visit to the West Bank.

Palestinian and Israeli activists walked together down Hebron’s Shuhada Street today – an area which Palestinians have been denied since the year 2000. Activists wore masks of President Obama and Martin Luther King Jr and wore “I Have a Dream” t-shirts, representing the struggle for equal rights for Palestinians and an end to Israeli occupation. International activists were observing and documenting the protest.

Israeli military arrived on the scene, breaking up the demonstration and beating Palestinian protesters, including prominent Youth Against Settlements organisers Issa Amro, Badia Dwaik and Mohammed Zugayer. Soldiers were witnessed beating Palestinians and dragging them into side streets away from observers, media and journalists. There are also reports that at least one journalist is currently being detained, and one Palestinian activist has a broken nose. The four Palestinians and three international activists – from Germany, Denmark and the Czech Republic – are still currently being detained in the police station in illegal Israeli settlement Givat Ha’avot.

Shuhada Street was previously the main market street of the Palestinian city of Hebron. In 1994, access was banned for Palestinian cars, and in the year 2000 Palestinians were denied access to the street altogether, because of the 500 illegal Israeli settlers who now live in the area. There is a strong Israeli military presence in Hebron and there is severe restriction of movement for Palestinians.

Obama has not taken action against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US administration continues to fund the Israeli military. Obama said in a speech on arrival to Israel today, “I see this visit as an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bond between our nations, to restate America’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and to speak directly to the people of Israel and to your neighbours.”

Photo by Youth Against Settlements — Demonstrators with Obama and MLK masks – photo by Youth Against Settlements

Remembering Rachel Corrie

19th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus , Occupied Palestine

Team Nablus

On March 16th 2013, the International Solidarity Movement was joined by the International Women’s Peace Service and the Tanweer Center in commemorating the death of Rachel Corrie – an American peace activist and former member of the ISM.

Tree planting with Rachel Corrie posters in Asira al Qibliya

Rachel was killed in 2003 in Rafah in the south Gaza strip, crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer while trying to protect a home from demolition. The group gathered in Duar Squar,e in the heart of Nablus, where powerful speeches were given by Wael, director of Tanweer Center, and Dr. Sa’ed Abu Hijlehm, a professor at An-Najah University, conveying a deep respect for Rachel as well as other internationals who have been killed while working in solidarity with Palestinians to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank; Tom Hurndall and Vittorio Arrigoini. The group released a mass of balloons with the photos of Vittorio, Tom and Rachel attached into the downtown center of Nablus.

Three days prior, ISM activists joined villagers from Asira to plant olive trees with accompanying pictures of Rachel.

Pertinent to President Obama’s impending visit to the West Bank, Rachel’s death is significant as it relates to the ongoing U.S funding of Israel’s occupation. The bulldozer that crushed Corrie was manufactured by Caterpillar Inc. and purchased through a subsidized US aid to Israel program.

Balloons carrying pictures of Rachel Corrie, Tom Hunrdnall, Vittorio Arrigoni and Arafat Jaradat are released into the sky in Nablus city centre

Statement from Samer Issawi who has spent over 240 days on hunger strike

19th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine

The following statement by Samer Issawi was posted on his Facebook page by his lawyer Fawwaz Shloudy. It was translated from Arabic to English by Shahd Abusalama.

“Regarding the Israeli Occupation offer to deport me to Gaza, I affirm that Gaza is undeniable part of my homeland and its people are my people. However, I will visit Gaza whenever I want or I feel like it as it is within my homeland Palestine which I have the right to wander whenever I like from the very north to the very south. I strongly refuse to be deported to Gaza as this practice will just bring back bitter flashbacks from the expulsion process which our Palestinian people were subjected to during 1948 and 1967.

We are fighting for the sake of freedom of our land and return of our refugees in Palestine and exile, not to add more deportees to them. This systematic practice which Israel aims to empty Palestine from Palestinians through and bring strangers in their place is but a crime. Therefore, I refuse being deported and I will only agree to be released to Jerusalem as I know that the Israeli Occupation is aiming to empty Jerusalem of its people and turn Arabs to become a minority group of its population. The issue of deportation is no longer a personal decision. It is rather a national principle. If every detainee agrees to be deported outside Jerusalem under pressure, Jerusalem will eventually be emptied of its people.

I would prefer to die on my hospital bed to being deported from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is my soul and my life. If I was uprooted from there, my soul would be uprooted from my body. My life is meaningless away from Jerusalem. No land on earth will be able to embrace me other than Jerusalem. Therefore, my return will be only to Jerusalem but nowhere else. I advise all Palestinians to embrace their land and their villages and never succumb to the Israeli Occupation’s wishes. I don’t see this issue as a personal cause that is related to Samer Issawi. It is a national issue, a conviction and a principle that every Palestinian who loves his homeland’s sacred soil should hold. Finally, I reaffirm for the thousands time that I continue my hunger strike until either freedom and return to Jerusalem or martyrdom!”

Israeli army demolish tent; leave Palestinian schoolchildren at risk of settler attack

16th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine

By Team Khalil

Palestinians raised a tent to shelter schoolchildren from settler attacks on the morning of the 16th of March, on the outskirts of the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron hills. Shortly afterwards, the Israeli military arrived and declared the area to be a Closed Military Zone, chasing away demonstrators and demolishing the tent. They also tried to make several arrests but only managed to arrest one international activist who was released later the same day.

Palestinian children from surrounding villages each day make their way on foot to the school in At-Tuwani, but regularly face attacks from settlers on their journey. An Israeli military accompaniment has been organised for the schoolchildren, but the army are unreliable in their presence and the children are often forced to wait for them to arrive, as it would be unsafe them to walk to and from school without an accompanyiment. The tent was therefore intended by the villagers of At-Tuwani to be a place for the schoolchildren to wait in saftey.

Since the military demolished the tent, the children will continue to be forced to wait in exposed areas, where they are open to attack from the settlers. The international activist who was arrested was transported to Givat Ha’avot settlement in Hebron and was interrogated by police, but was released later that day.

This act of Palestinian resistance follows a recent trend of similar tent actions on Palestinian land in danger of being seized by the Israeli authorities for use in settlement expansion. Bab al Shams was one such protest village – a tent community in East Jerusalem set up by protesters in January and destroyed by the military shortly afterwards.

Tent being assembled by activists on the oustkirts of At-Tuwani

Multiple clashes lead to numerous arrests including school teacher in Hebron City

16th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By Team Khalil

Oden Nassar, 23, Iyab Abu Alhalawiiu, 16, and Mohamad Alzoghayer, 16, were amoung many arrested these past two days in Hebron city, including Nahil Abi Eishah, a 38 year old teacher working at Qurtaba school, who was arrested after her home was invaded.

School teacher Nahil Abi Eishah is arrested

Eishahs whereabouts and the reason for her arrest are still unknown. Though it is believed she has been targeted because of her activism in solidarity with the hunger strikers which includes her own hunger strike.

Nassar, Alhalawiiu and Alzoghayer were the first to be arrested and new information suggests that at the time of their illegal detainment and transportation for processing, Nassar sustained injuries under military arrest.

Last night, five more young men were arrested in the Bab al-Zawiye area, totalling nine people in Hebron city since the death of university student Mahmoud Tete in the al-Fawwar Camp on Tuesday night.

Video by Youth Against Settlements :