10th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
by Team Khalil
Today a group of young settlers assault three Palestinian boys, Sharef (15), Ibrahim (14) and Walid Hamad (12), at the entrance of their home.
The Abu Aesheh family lives in a house surrounded by settlements and an army base. In addition to the harassment from their neighbours they also suffer various restrictions on transportion, building and with curfews among many others. All of these control tactics and random hate crimes are used with the purpose of forcing them to leave a home which they have lived in for 50 years, all so the settlers, with the help of the army, can occupy their home and their land.
The attack occurred in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. For many years the Hebron area has suffered from army harassment and settler violence, forcing some families to place iron bars around their windows and balconies in fear of attacks.
10th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
On Friday afternoon near the illegal Beit Hagai settlement, a non violent demonstration over the closing of the vital road between Al Fawar Camp and Al Hareaq (South of Hebron) ended with military violence.
Soldiers fire tear gas at demonstrators
Within minutes of the demonstration beginning, the military responded by firing tear gas indiscriminately into the crowd. After retreating to a safer distance the crowd attempted to walk back to the road block, with one of the protesters calling out “We don’t want to fight, we come in peace,” which was ignored as the soldiers ushered in a skunk water truck, which showered the demonstrators and nearby Palestinian land.
Re-opening the road block has been a continuous struggle over the last 12 years (amongst the many struggles Palestinians are facing during the occupation), it serves as a symbol of the constant harassment and military control over how the Palestinian people move through their land.
Demonstrators attempt to shield themselves behind wooden board
Update on the 13th March 2013: The Supreme court will review the case of Ziad Jilani
After hearing an appeal presented on behalf of Moira Jilani, the widow of Ziad and their three daughters the Israeli Supreme Court Judges have decided that they wished to review all evidence in the case.
Ziad Jilani was killed by Israeli border policeman Maxim Vinogradov in 2010. According to eyewitnesses Maxim VInagrodov shot Ziad at point blank range in the head while Zaid had laying on the ground wounded after being shot in the back. Ziad was unarmed.
Family and friends holding posters in support of Ziad Jilani (Photo by ISM)
The State Prosecutor, who had previously not charged those who shot and killed Ziad, is now obliged to hand over all evidence to the Supreme Court by the 24th of March. The Jilani family, was more optimistic after the hearing than they had been before.
Bilal Ziad’s brother stated said, “If the Israeli Supreme Court really looks at the evidence of this case, and if they still say there are no grounds to press charges against the officers who murdered Ziad, then it means Israel has no credibility at all. They rule by the law of the jungle.”
9th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine
By ISM Media Office
On Wednesday (13 March) Moira Jilani and her three daughters will come face to face with their husband and father’s killer. Ziad Jilani’s widow and daughters seek justice for his killing by Israeli border policeman Maxim Vinogradov, for the third time.
Ziad Jilani with his young daugher
“I am dreading facing them for my daughters”, says Moira, “I think I could face them myself but I’m afraid that when I see the pain in my daughters eyes it will kill me”. Her husband, Ziad, was killed three years ago by Maxim Vinogradov, an Israeli Magav (border police) officer who put his rifle to Ziad’s head and pulled the trigger three consecutive times while Ziad lay helplessly on the ground, having already been shot twice fleeing police shooting at him after he was involved in a car accident after a stone hit his truck.
Now, for the third time, the family is appealing to Israeli authorities to press charges against Ziad’s killer. On the 16th of January 2011 the case was closed by police internal investigations (Machash) for the first time, for “lack of evidence”.
In the following month, 15th of February 2011, the family submitted an appeal to then Israel Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz. Despite a confession by Vinogradov that he had shot Ziad at zero range when he was lying on the ground because of the initial gunshot wound, an autopsy report pointing to an a close range shooting, dozens of eyewitnesses who were also injured that day as a result of the incident and very clear changes in Vinogradov’s testimonies before and after the autopsy, Mazuz did not see fit to change. Machash’s decision to close the case.
With the help of the al-Mazaan Center for Human Rights, on January 4th 2012, the family submitted a second appeal. This time to the Israeli Supreme Court, demanding that the new state prosecutor, Yehuda Weinstein, bring criminal charges against Ziad’s murderers.
“After Weinstein [Israel’s current Attorney General] had all the evidence we had hope that he would press charges against the killers,” Moira recalls, “but after he decided not to do so for the third time, it is hard to have hope that the court will do justice.”
According to Yesh Din in 2012 the MPCID received 240 complaints and various reports of suspected crimes allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Out of these registered complaints, only 103- not even half- have yielded investigations. Not one single indictment has been served to date.
The organization commented on the findings: “The numerous defects in MPCID investigations of offenses against Palestinians and in the Military Advocate General Corps’ supervision of the investigations, result in the closure of the vast majority of the files and a minimal number of indictments being served. This creates a feeling of lawlessness on the ground, which may be a central contributing factor in the rise in the number of killings over recent weeks”.
Moira describes this sense of lawlessness, “I still have hope, but its hard when we see everything that’s happening around us,” she says, “my husband’s case is one of what seems to be a systematic sweeping under the rug of violent incidences of Israeli soldiers against the Palestinian population under their authority. We are not just going to court for Ziad Jilani. We are going to court for all the Palestinians killed before Ziad and those that will be killed thereafter.”
23 year old Mohammed Asfour died on the 7th of March, from injuries sustained during a demonstration in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strikers in Israeli jails. He was shot in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet at the demonstration on the 22nd of February and was treated in the Israeli Echilov hospital, but finally succumbed to his injuries on Thursday.
The funeral was held on the following day, Friday the 8th of March, with a procession of cars adorned with Palestinian flags following Mohammed’s body from Ramallah to his home village of Aboud. There was already a strong Israeli army, police and border police presence at the entrance of the village as around 2000 people from surrounding villages and across the West Bank arrived to pay their respects. Mohammed’s body was transported to his home and to the mosque, where prayers were held. He was then taken to the village cemetery and buried.
March 8th 2013 (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
During the burial, it was already possible to hear tear gas being fired by the soldiers surrounding the entrance of the village. Clashes broke out between the army and mourners, who moved to protect their village and express the anger and outrage felt at the death of one of their loved ones. Stones thrown at the invading army vehicles by Palestinian youth were met with volleys of teargas and rubber bullets.
Blocks placed by Palestinians on the road to the village were cleared by an army bulldozer, allowing foul-smelling army ‘skunk water’ to be sprayed into residential areas. Several people were injured by rubber coated steel bullets and by tear gas canisters, requiring treatment from Red Crescent paramedics. Many protesters also suffered from the effects of tear-gas inhalation. Clashes continued late into the afternoon.
The demonstration that led to Mohammed’s death was in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, many of whom are on hunger strike, as well as for prisoner Arafat Jaradat who was tortured to death in an Israeli jail.
9th March 2013| Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
On Friday, the village of Sebastiya held its first demonstration in order to protest the flooding of its land by the sewage coming from the nearby Jewish-only settlement of Save Shomron. Around 150 people from Sebastiya, together with Israeli and international activists, participated in the demonstration which was broken up quickly by tear gas canisters and stun grenades.A demonstrator at Sabastiya
A convoy of vehicles ran from the village to the land next to the settlement where the sewage water is being dumped. Palestinians held the Friday prayer on the fields and after that, demonstrators marched towards the settlement. Soon afterwards, Israeli forces started to shoot tear gas canisters and stun grenades at protesters. As people ran through the fields Israeli forces continued firing tear gas canisters and Palestinian youth threw some stones back. One person was taken away by ambulance as a result of overexposure to tear gas. The protest lasted for an hour.
Sabastiya is an ancient village located just 10 km north of Nablus. For over a decade, residents of the village have been suffering harassment from Israeli forces and settlers. In 2001 settlers uprooted and destroyed around 1000 olive trees, substantially damaging the land of several families. In 2006 the Israeli army put up a fence in an attempt to confiscate the land where the trees had originally been, but farmers from the village pulled it down.
Recently, the nearby settlement of Shave Shomron has been pumping their raw and untreated water sewage directly onto Palestinian fields, poisoning the apricot and olive trees. In addition to holding demonstrations, residents of Sabastiya are currently bringing legal action against Shave Shomron in order to stop the settlement from dumping its sewage on Palestinian lands.
Residents of Sabastiya pray before demonstratingA demonstrator is treated for tear gas inhalation
