Author: ISM Media

Israeli Brutality: Violent arrests of Palestinians in Hebron and disappearance of Dutch volunteer

by Paige and Satu

1 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

House sit in – Click here for more photos

A Dutch woman and several Palestinians were violently arrested today during an attempt to reclaim a Palestinian house at the entrance of the old city in occupied Al Khalil  (Hebron).

About 30 Palestinians and international ISM activists from Canada, Finland, United States and the Netherlands entered a Palestinian house that was taken over by Israeli army around eight years ago. The re-occupation of the house was an attempt to return the house its rightful owner and was a response to the takeover of a Palestinian house on Shuhada street by settlers under the protection of the Israeli army and border police.

The windows of the house had been broken and the house was filled with trashed furniture, reminders of the families who had lived there. Stars of David and other graffiti covered the walls, and the floor was littered with the casings of rubber coated steel bullets and a tear gas canister. From the  front window the watchtower of the settlement Beit Romano is visible.

 As activists started cleaning  the house and preparing to spend the night there, the Israeli army prepared  to invade the house with sound bombs, skunk water and soldiers in full riot gear. Over 50 soldiers and 5 border police blocked the road and cleared the surrounding area before entering the house that was being reoccupied, claiming that the house was now Jewish property.

The soldiers then entered the house and began to forcefully remove the non-violent protesters by punching, hitting with batons, kicking, pulling people from their hair and grabbing them from their throat before pulling them out of the house.

“I was dragged out down a flight of stairs by my ankle by a soldier” said an ISM activist from Canada. “The soldier had his boot on my face,” said an ISMer  from Finland.

One Palestinian was beaten until he became unconscious. He was taken to hospital with an ambulance with another injured person.   When internationals and Palestinians attempted to help the unconscious man, the Israeli army threw sound bombs by his head and then dragged him away by his feet.

The Israeli army threw sound bombs and sprayed skunk water at the crowd that had gathered to support the Palestinians and internationals.

The Dutch activist and Youth Against Settlements leader Issa Amro are still being held by police. The whereabouts of the Dutch activist are unknown currently, and an emergency hotline for the Dutch Embassy only suggested that an email be sent to detail the event.

The embassy employee commented that, “We can see to it that she is fed, bathed, and if she needs medicine.” When asked if he can attempt to locate her, he mumbled a comment about her attending a demonstration, and stated “Israel is a friend of the Netherlands, and we respect the law of the land.” He then suggested to call the Dutch Consulate during its working hours and to send information about the woman to its email address.

ISM is working vigorously to determine the whereabouts of its volunteer, yet is fearful that while the Israelis deny that she is held in one of their imprisonment facilities despite dozens seeing her physically taken away by Israelis, that they may be attempting to deport her without fair trial or an accusation as they did with a British volunteer in July 2011.

Update: Dutch activist was release from Israeli detention on Monday April 2nd. She was held for 24 hours in Israeli jail and released without trial. The Palestinian’s arrested in the action were released from Ofer Military Prison on Wednesday April 4th with 1,000NIS bail and will return for trial in October.

 

Satu and Paige are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Land Day commemoration in Al Huda School, Khan Yunis

by Nathan Stuckey

1 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Al Huda School is a small, private primary school in Khan Yunis.  It serves about 400 students, a quarter of them orphans.  The school isn’t in the center of town, it is more out in the countryside. You look out the windows over fields of wheat and groves of olives.  The countryside is reflected in the building, nicely painted white and green with a large outdoor area for the children to play.  It has smaller classes than most schools in Gaza, only 20 to 25 students per class unlike the 40 to 50 that cram into UNWRA and government schools.  The classrooms are clean and stocked with books and supplies for the children.  Today the school was showcasing their arts and culture program in honor of land day. Al Huda School was working in conjunction with the Ethar Initiative, a local voluntary group that seeks to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and children.  The Ethar Initiative works to provide job opportunities for poor women and children’s programs for needy children. The children were doing art projects and putting on a play.  We were honored guests.

Land Day Commemoration - Click here for more photos

We were met by the headmistress, Reham S. Al Najjar, a young woman who seems to have an easy way with kids. We are ushered into her office while we wait for the students to get ready for the play.  She told us about the school while we drank tea and ate small chocolate bars.  When the students were ready we went outside, about 100 of the students had gathered to watch the play.  They sat in the sandy soil that serves as the schools playground.  The play told the story of some young Palestinian farmers threatened with losing their land to Israeli settlers.  They are unafraid of the soldiers and the settlers; they go to their land despite the threats.  They are beaten and arrested by Israeli soldiers.  From prison one of the men writes his wife a beautiful letter, her reading it to her family inspires other young men to struggle until the prisoners are freed.

After the play we went back into the school, the children were going to have art class.  The assignment today was to draw something from their memories of Gaza.  The children eagerly set to work with the paper and crayons provided. Some of the little girls drew flowers and trees and houses, others had darker memories, missiles falling from the sky and tanks shooting shells.  Both of these are constants of life in Gaza, Israeli attacks and the simple joy of spring days.  When the girls finished their drawings they had their pictures taken with their artwork.

Then they made posters.  The girls made hand prints on posters vowing not to forget their land.  After the children went home for the day we went to visit the display room the school keeps for the children’s art.  It was truly amazing.  The children had decorated small pillows, made tissue holders, decorated vases, used crayons to color on glass, and many really nice crayon paintings.

The martyrs of land day have not been forgotten in Palestine, the land for which they died has not been forgotten, the occupation does not allow forgetting.  I hope that someday these children can visit the land on which the six martyrs were killed, the land that their grandparents were ethnically cleansed from.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

Extension of administrative detention of Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq for the second time

31 March 2012 | Tanwer

Human beings are born free, but we are surrounded by restrictions everywhere  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Today on the thirty-sixth anniversary of the Palestinian Land Day, which confirms for our people the unity and integrity of our case, the unity of its land, and the right of return and self-determination, the Israeli military court has extended administrative detention for two more months and for the second time of the human rights lawyer Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq, 70, a lecturer at An-Najah National University and the Cultural Coordinator Forum of the Palestinian Cultural Enlightenment (Tanwer). He is currently detained in Ofer prison near the city of Ramallah.

Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq has been arrested since 7/11/2011, when he was taken from his home at two o’clock in the morning while suffering from illness. With his health and medical condition, he was transferred to a hospital immediately after his arrest to Ramle. He was sentenced to two months in administrative detention initially.

The arbitrarily administrative detention is legally incompatible with the most basic international standards of human rights, because it is without any specific charge against the prisoner. It also depends on the police file and secret evidence which cannot be seen by the detainee or defense lawyers. This file is prepared by the Israeli intelligence service with the intelligence information compiled in different illegal ways.

This type of detention is internationally banned not only for the specific category of the Palestinian people but internationally. It has been extended to include the arrests of  lawmakers in the Palestinian Legislative Council, members of local councils, university students, political activists, academics, trade unionists and also women and children.

The decisions of administrative detention of Article 111, in the system’s state of emergency, imposed by the colonial authorities during the British Mandate, over Palestine in September of the year 1945, are illegal on the grounds that Article 43 of the agreements for the International Court in the Hague (1907) prohibit an Occupying power from using illegal measures in the occupied country.

It is worth mentioning that most of the unjust laws against the Palestinian people arise from the era of the British colonial authorities and are kept in practice by the Zionist occupation, even though these laws were deleted at the time.

Administrative detention is the endless suffering of the prisoners because the detention might run into a decade’s time, during which stress plays on the nerves and psychology of the detainee and his family, based on the expectation that tomorrow the prisoner will be liberated. The International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights received from Israel’s Court of Ofer that the number of administrative decisions issued by the Israel military governor amounted to a total of 5971 since the beginning of the year 2004 until the end of 2010.

We, of the Tanweer Forum, call for the release of our colleague, Dr. Yousef, immediately from behind bars, holding Israel responsible for his health. And we hold the Government responsible for the conditions of Israel’s occupation. We demand the closure of  administrative detention which is contrary to international law  and human and ethical values. On this occasion, we declare our solidarity with all prisoners on hunger strike calling for their release, especially in solidarity with the struggling Hana Shalabi.

We also call upon the Arab and international institutions, like An Najah National University, to expose the policy of administrative detention because of its destructive social impact, to the media internationally.

We call for the establishment of a professional united front working for the release of Palestinian freedom fighters — members of the Council of Jurists, legislative delegates, academics and university students, children and women– to end the filing of administrative detention forever.

 

Video: Dozens of wounded and shooting at Erez border in Beit Hanoun

by Rosa Schiano

30 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today we joined the Global March to Jerusalem from Gaza.  Israeli soldiers shot continuosly, dozens of people injured, one killed.

I made this small video during the march. Some young people show the blood on their hands. Some guys with two motorcycles carried continuously the injured people injured to ambulances. However the Israeli soldiers kept on shooting.

 

Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement. You can visit her blog here.

Swedish peace activist beaten up by Israeli Occupation Forces

by Jonas Weber and Jeff

1 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Linking Elbows at Qalandia - Click here for more images

A Swedish peace activist at the Land Day demonstration in Qalandia, outside of Ramallah, was arrested. During the arrest he was kicked and beaten by the Israeli soldiers.

“It happened so fast, I never understood what was going on before I was sitting with my hands tied behind my back in a military jeep,” said Philip after his release on Friday evening.

On Friday, demonstrations were held throughout Palestine and neighboring countries to mark Land Day, a day of remembrance of the fight against land theft in the Palestinian territories, an issue that is constantly present in the area.

This year Land Day was commemorated through the Global March to Jerusalem, engaging thousands of people in the West Bank, in Gaza, inside Israel and in surrounding countries. The idea was to simultaneously walk towards Jerusalem and on the West Bank the march was arranged in Bethlehem as well as in in Qalandia right outside of Ramallah. Qalandia is also the name of the enormous checkpoint denying Palestinians access to Eastern Jerusalem from Ramallah. Because of the wall the Israelis are building, Qalandia functions as a bottleneck which can at any time be closed down by the Israeli Army.

Thousands of Palestinians, Israelis and international activists marched on Qalandia checkpoint near Ramallah to commemorate Land Day and protest Israeli policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem as part of the GlobalMarch to Jerusalem. There were also protests in Bethlehem, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Israeli occupation forces attacked the unarmed demonstrators with rubber-coated steelbullets, baton rounds, tear gas, skunk water, and the Long Range Acoustic Device. Palestinian medics reported treating over one hundred wounded, with dozens transferred to hospitals with serious injuries. At least eight ambulances were damaged by Israeli fire, and several medics suffered injuries while providing care.

The demonstration at Qalandia went off at half past twelve and soon turned into a turmoil when Israeli troops when the demonstratorrs were met with rubber-coated bullets, teargas and so called “skunk-water”, a chemical mixture with a terrible smell that sticks to your clothes. The Red Crescent treated 249 persons during the day of which 20 were hospitalized.

Present at the Qalandia demonstration was Philip Schulz, 20, and some twenty other activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Around half past three the activists gathered for a joint action. With hands in the air the activist moved towards the ranks of soldiers still shooting bullets into the crowd when the group, consisting of activists from Sweden, Denmark, USA, France, Italy, Canada and the Netherlands, reached the troops and queried their behavior, the soldiers intended to arrest one of the American activists.

“We held linked elbows to avoid being parted by the soldiers,” says Phillip, “but suddenly I saw one of the borderpolice nod at me and I was violently parted from the group.”

During the arrest Philip received several kicks and punches. The day after he is still sore.

“They took me to a cell where I was left to sit untill evening together with a 16 year old Palestinian kid. We were not allowed to visit the bathroom for the entire time.”

In the evening Philip was released but he must present himself for further interrogation in Jerusalem on Sunday. He is suspected of having attacked and pushed one of the soldiers.

“It’s preposterous, we have it all on film and Philip makes no resistance at all,”  said Gabbi Tynell, who also was present at the time of the arrest.

During similar demonstrations at the Eretz crossing in Gaza on Friday, the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Zakot, 20, was killed by live ammunition fired by Israeli forces. In Jerusalem, 34 demonstrators were arrested and several were taken to hospital.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently published information on the Israeli ​​plans for future expansion of settlements. At present only 8% of the West Bank is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, while the rest is partially or fully under Israeli control. Settlements are the key to continued expansion of Israeli rule in the occupied territories.

The treatment of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem is in many ways a microcosm ofthe settlement, apartheid, and occupation of all of Palestine. Israeli practices there are geared towardseliminating any hope of Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinianstate. The demonstration represented only one stage in the ongoing struggle against the occupation. It will continue until Palestine is free.

Jeff and Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed). You can check out his blog here.