Author: ISM Media

Palestinian collapses while detained at checkpoint during Eid holiday in Hebron

October 26th 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

A Palestinian man, his initials being IS, was harassed along with his family at a checkpoint in Hebron during the Eid celebration. He and his son were reportedly beaten by Israeli soldiers. In the aftermath IS was held by the military for about an hour and finally collapsed. IS suffers from a disability which makes it difficult for him to walk. The family has been harassed by the army several times in the past, living in the Israeli-controlled H2 area of the city.

As it was Eid, the highest Muslim holiday, the family was on their way to visit relatives. They had to go through a checkpoint, where soldiers there provoked them. Soldiers were also heard calling his wife a “bitch.”

As the situation grew more tense, IS and his teenage son were hit by the soldiers. The father was detained by the soldiers at checkpoint 56 as NGOs, ISM and locals rushed to the scene.

Internationals questioned eyewitnesses for details and documented what was happening. The soldiers tried to prevent documentation. Friends of the detained witnessed his distress while sitting in the cold. The soldiers had been ignoring his deteriorating state of health and despite locals demanding treatment, he eventually collapsed.

The Israeli paramedic finally examined him. While doing so, the army claimed he was acting. One of the soldiers was heard saying, ”Put his arm up, if his hand falls on his face he passed out, if it falls to the side he’s faking.” He was given several shots of medication before he regained consciousness. His peers attempted to monitor his health and were asking the soldiers to call an ambulance. Police and an armored vehicle with more soldiers arrived at the scene and tried to separate the crowd in order to evacuate him.

Finally a Red Crescent ambulance parked on the other side of the checkpoint in H1 (the Palestinian controlled part of the city). The paramedics crossed the checkpoint, put the man on a stretcher and examined him. They then took him through the checkpoint and into the ambulance. We later learned that he recovered after treatment in the ambulance.

Earlier this week another son of IS was reportedly attacked by a soldier at Gilbert checkpoint only a hundred meters away from checkpoint 56. IS’s wife works for the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem which helps Palestinians document abuses pertaining to the occupation. It appears the family is being targeted, as if the daily struggle with checkpoints and violence under occupation isn’t enough.

 

– ISM Khalil team

Israeli occupation forces issue five new military orders in Hebron

4th November 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Friday 2nd November the Israeli military issued five military orders on five families in and around Hebron. Families in Tel Rumeida are under threat of having their movement severely restricted. At the time of writing Sunday 4th November the objectives of the military orders is unclear.

A lawyer from the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (H.R.C.) is representing all five of the families who have received these orders. The families have been given five days to lodge their objections to the documents. A collective objection will be made by the lawyer representing the families but the complaint cannot be made until the military orders are completely understood. The H.R.C. met with the District Coordination Office (D.C.O.) on Sunday 4th November in an effort to clarify what the military orders pertained to. After the meeting the H.R.C. said that the orders were about the restriction of movement of the families concerned. The H.R.C. also said that some of the content of the orders was still unclear. It is a tactic of the Israeli occupation forces to make these orders as difficult to understand as possible. This makes legal challenges to the orders more difficult, it is also done to obfuscate the true intentions of the Israeli military. The orders are deliberately kept unclear so the Israeli army can then do whatever they want.

Imad Abu Shamsia and his family, who live in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, received a copy of the military orders issued to them in Arabic and Hebrew. The orders contained a map detailing their house and the surrounding area. It was assumed at first that the orders related to the roof of the house, the Abu Shamsia house has had a military watchtower on the roof for twelve years. It was thought possible that the Israeli military may be wanting to place surveillance cameras on the home.

On Sunday when being informed of what the H.R.C. had said and had been doing the Abu Shamsia family said that their movement would be restricted in the whole of the Israeli controlled H2 area of Hebron. This area covers the Ibrahimi Mosque, the souk, the old city and also the Abu Shamsia home in Tel Rumeida. At least one other of the military orders affects a family in this area.

The effect of denying the movement of the Abu Shamsia family in the whole of this area would be catastrophic on their daily lives. The route they take to school or to go shopping, their access to the whole of the rest of the city would be restricted. The uncertainty about what exactly these military orders mean, the uncertainty about their future and the future of all the other recipients, must have a devastating affect on the welfare and health of the family.

It would appear the Israeli occupation forces are planning to worsen the precarious existence of the Palestinian population of Tel Rumeida: how exactly is impossible to know at this point in time. There was one chilling phrase from the document issued by the Israeli army that was easily understood, “to put hands on this area.”

Team Khalil.

Israeli army raid four Palestinian villages inside firing area 918, South Hebron hills

3rd November 2012 | Operation Dove, West Bank

By Operation Dove www.operationdove.org

FRIGHTENING NIGHT FOR PALESTINIAN FAMILIES

On the 1st of November Israeli soldiers irrupted in Al-Fakheit, Al-Majaz, At-Tabban and Al-Mirkez, villages of the ‘Firing Area’ 918 in the West Bank. The soldiers surrounded the villages, and internationals’ phones started to ring continuously. One by one the first news from the Palestinians arrived to the internationals and pushed them to move quickly toward the area.
All the roads to reach them were closed by military jeeps and DCO (District Coordination Office, the section of the Israeli military that works for the civil administration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories), as was seen. They called some frightened inhabitants from the villages who told them what happened. The only way to reach the area was to arrive in Jinba and to check from a distance. A lot of military jeeps were also seen moving among the hills.
According to testimonies of Al-Fakheit, Al-Majaz and At-Tabban, collected on the field, around 7:00 pm in every village almost 30 soldiers got off helicopters, pushed the people out from their houses, even children and babies inside the cradles. The soldiers took pictures of each family and each building. They checked also the IDs. The Israeli army gave them a document which accuses the local inhabitants to help illegal workers who travel toward Israel, drugs and arms dealers. They asked a lot of questions about the number of the people in each village, their names, who the owners of cars and tractors are. They also checked in their houses and tents, looking for something. In every village the inhabitants witnessed how the children were scared by the Army behaviour. During the raid, Israeli soldiers threatened the Palestinian inhabitants, urging them to leave their land and ordering them to “shut up” when the Palestinians tried to ask the reason of the night raid.
A woman of Al-Fakheit said that the soldiers surrounded all the houses scaring children and women. At the moment the majority of the men were working in Yatta, the nearby Palestinian city situated in area A. Soldiers asked a Palestinian to show his ID, but he had it in another tent, when he offered to get it the soldiers forbade it to him. While his wife was going to take their ID’s, a soldier drew his weapon on her.
The Palestinian villages of A-Tabban, Al- Majaz, Al-Fakheit and Al-Mirkez are located a few kilometres away from the Green Line. Since the 1970’s a large portion of the area around the villages is used by the Israeli army for military training and it is called ‘Firing Area 918’. On November 1999 all the villages in the area were evacuated and the people deported north past the bypass road 317. They obtained the right to return back to their homes but since then they have continued to receive military aggression and harrassment.
Since 22nd July 2012, after several delays, the State Attorney submitted a response to the Court, based on a position formulated by the Minister of Defense, according to which “permanent residence will be prohibited” in most of the area declared as a firing zone. The result of this decision will be the evacuation of 8 villages and the expulsion of almost 1500 people from their homes. On the 8th of August the High Court of Justice allowed the Palestinian inhabitants to keep on living in this area until the 1st of November, then postponed on the 16th of December.
Some cases of military activities were registered this year in the villages inside the ‘Firing Area’: on January 20th 2012, two children of 11 and 13 years old, were injured by an unexploded device, while they were grazing their flocks on Palestinian land near Jinba.
On August 7th, 2012 at 10:00 am a group of 70 Israeli soldiers raided the Palestinian village of Jinba. The Israeli army reached the place by logistical support of two military helicopters and 6 military vehicles. The battalion entered in Jinba village and threatened the Palestinian inhabitants for one hour and half ransacked their homes, that were found damaged.
On the morning of September 16th, around 8:00 am nearby the Palestinian village of Majaz, a 38 years old man was attacked and injured while travelling on his car. According to Palestinian witnesses, 4 soldiers stopped him on the road and started to beat him and to damage his vehicle. The soldiers detained him for one hour near their hummer.

On the 30th of September two Palestinian shepherds from Halaweh village were detained and threatened by the Israeli army while grazing their flock in the area of Massafer Yatta, West Bank.
The two shepherds claimed that soldiers beat one of them, sequestered their mobile-phones and pushed them away from their own land maintaining to be a military zone. Moreover the soldiers ordered to the Palestinians not to come back there, threatening that otherwise they would have killed all the flock.

The Israeli Army keeps persecuting its isolation policy aimed to restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement in that area.

Nevertheless the Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills are strongly involved in affirming their rights and resisting to the Israeli occupation choosing a nonviolent way.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the villages: http://snipurl.com/25hogy8

Palestinian youth arrested and 4 detained at Nabi Saleh weekly demonstration

By Naseem Roberts

2nd November 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

One Palestinian Youth was arrested and four others: two Israelis and two internationals were detained during the Friday non-violent weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh.

People from the village met in the main square of the village from 11:30am onwards. At 12pm the demonstration began and everyone walked down the main street of the village singing songs and clapping along. Children were in the procession waving flags and chanting into the megaphone.

The demonstrators turned a corner and headed towards their objective: the natural spring to which the people of Nabi Saleh have been denied access to because of the illegal settlement of Halamish. This is the point at which the day turned ugly. In front of the demonstrators was a line of Israeli soldiers. At 12.30pm without any threat to the soldiers and without any warning, the Israeli military fired tear gas canisters directly into the demonstration while they were still inside the village. People carried on walking up the hill undaunted. The soldiers then fired tear gas canisters at head height, missing one person by mere inches. The demonstrators walked up as close as they could to the soldiers, waving flags and putting their hands in front of the guns as the soldiers aimed to prevent them from firing more tear gas into the village. Once more the children of Nabi Saleh came courageously to the forefront of the demonstration, waving their hands in victory signs and holding kaffiyas in front of the soldiers faces to prevent them firing their guns, singing songs and chanting as they did so. The Israeli military were forced back over the hill and down towards the spring, followed all the way by the men, women and children of Nabi Saleh.

At 1.05pm a cry came from behind the demonstrators that the Israeli military were arresting someone in the village. People went back to the village to find that Waed Bassim Tamimi aged 14 had been arrested. Waed’s mother raced to her sons aid. Two Israeli activists, a French journalist and an international activist were detained by the Israeli army while they were trying to support Waid’s mother’s remonstrations with the soldiers. After this seven or eight live rounds were fired at demonstrators in the village.

Only a few weeks ago Waed was injured when struck in the side by a tear gas grenade fired at him during the Friday demonstration. On Wednesday 24th of October Bassim Tamimi, Waed’s father was arrested by Israeli police officers suffering three broken ribs. Nabi Saleh encourages the involvement of the village’s children in their peaceful activities. The Israeli military can imprison the organizers of protests but the culture of non violent resistance lives strongly in the next generation of Nabi Saleh.

Naseem Roberts is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

UPDATE – Freedom for international activists!

30th October 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

UPDATE: 2nd November 2012

Great news – Elyana and the other international activist have been released! Thank you so much to everyone who made a donation to make this possible.

The judge ruled that their detention and the attempted deportation was illegal which sets an excellent precedent we hope to carry in future cases. Israeli authorities must be shown that they do not have a license to deport activists with impunity. Elyana and the other activist are still fighting their case and will be called back to court in the coming days.

“Being inside I found myself wondering, “What does it really mean to be free?” Are we ever free, or do we just forget the inherent oppression of this culture when we don’t have the metal bars in our face to remind us? For the Palestinians perhaps it is not so easy to forget when there are reminders (if not literally behind bars) at every checkpoint, every military Jeep, every Israeli flag, every wall, every map that shows (or rather does not show) the disappearance of their beloved country. Now that I am on the outside I find myself wondering, “What will it take for Palestine to be free?” –Elyana Belle

 

PLEASE DONATE – www.palsolidarity.org/donate

Previous reports on the 2 Internationals’ arrests:
https://palsolidarity.org/2012/10/urgent-funds-needed-international-activists-threatened-with-illegal-deportation/
https://palsolidarity.org/2012/10/bassem-tamimi-injured-and-arrested-with-3-others-at-boycott-israel-protest/

A judge today gave a verdict that two international activists should not be deported, deeming illegal the decision by Israeli police to hand them over to immigration authorities despite the fact that another judge had ordered them to be released.

Elyana and the other activist will be freed on Thursday – if we can raise the 10,000 shekel bail for them (€1984/£1600/$2570). As well as needing these funds urgently, there are also extensive legal fees to be paid for the two activists (around 14000 NIS/€2780/£2240/$3600). Because of this, once more we need your help with a donation. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated already, but this is a continual battle. The Israeli system of deporting activists without charge must be challenged legally if it is to end.

Palestinian demonstration organizer Bassem Tamimi, is not as lucky as the two international activists – he is not free and is facing a jail sentence of likely more than two years. It is hoped that the judge’s decision to free the two activists, who are from the US and Poland, will help in Bassem’s case as he is facing the same charges – a legal precendent for this occurred in Kufr Qaddoum recently.

Elyana has been threatened with solitary confinement during her time in immigration detention and has been mistreated physically and verbally by guards. She said today “I really see now the sharing of this struggle. This is a fight for all of us – Palestinian, Israeli, American, Italian, British, whatever. We are all fighting against this system of oppression.”

Please help us in this struggle with a donation today – www.palsolidarity.org/donate

In Solidarity, ISM Palestine