Author: ISM Media

In Pictures: Sheikh Jarrah

16 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The ultimate aim of the Zionist organizations is to convert Sheikh Jarrah into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City from the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.

Al Aqaba village wakes up to demolitions

15 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The Israeli military invaded al Aqaba village east of Tubas at 6am this morning and demolished a home and main road.

The operation consisted of two bulldozers and ten military vehicles. The Israeli army set up a closed military zone stopping all access to the village. No Palestinians or internationals were allowed within the closed military zone leading to the location of demolition, including the governor of Tubas. This is illegal as all governors of villages hold a permit to enter all military zones within the West Bank.

The closed military zone was re opened at 10:30am. All Palestinians, press and internationals were then allowed through to witness the damage. The damage consisted of 1 destroyed kilometre of the As Salam street leading from Al Aqaba to the Tayasir checkpoint. This road was newly reconstructed by the PA four months ago. The house of Khaled Abd-Al Rahman Subaih was also demolished, and the main electricity cable was cut.

This house was the home of 12 people.

These demolitions went ahead with no prior warning or demolition order. The family was given a short amount of time to take their possessions out of the house before it was to be destroyed. The barrack which held the sheep was also demolished. This is the second time this has been demolished in the last 5 months. Two smaller barracks were also demolished. They were the property of Khaled Abd-Al Rahman Subaih’s brother, Abderrahim Subaih. Within the barracks was a small room which housed the family. 300 meters of the road leading to the familys’ houses and barracks were also destroyed by bulldozers. All of these demolitions were in Area C, which consists of one checkpoint and three military training grounds.

Protests in Northern Gaza

15 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza 

The Palmer Report, recently released by the United Nations, was a moral travesty. It asserted that the naval blockade of Gaza was somehow separate from the land siege of Gaza.  The Palmer Report was an attempt to break up the oppression of Gaza into bite size morsels so that it could be consumed without causing one to choke on the injustice of the occupation, of the siege.

Last week, we planted a Palestinian flag in the buffer zone, it stands alone, everything else has been destroyed by Israel.  We did not leave it alone; we painted another flag on a large piece of rubble.  We moved the flag even farther into the buffer zone, about 30 meters from the wall encircles Gaza.

On Tuesday, September 13, the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun, fisherman from Beit Lahia, and activists from the International Solidarity Movement gave their response to the Palmer Report.  They gathered on the beach near Beit Lahia and marched north, into the buffer zone, land that has been stolen from the people of Gaza and depleted of any fecundity.  Across from the buffer zone is the land of the refugees in Gaza from which they were ethnically cleansed 63 years ago.

The buffer zone doesn’t stop on the land, as the Palmer Report may suggest, yet it extends onto the sea.   Israel’s disregard for Oslos allotment of 20 miles of sea access to Palestinians has been defamed to a restricted area of three miles off the shore for fisherman to access.

The buffer zone has extended beyond the last grain of Gaza’s beach and continues into the waters under the misnomer of “buffer zone.” Scrap collectors shot to death, farmers murdered, families left without land to support themselves, it is a death zone.  After the balloons popped, the flags survived, just as the Palestinian people have survived all of the Israeli violence directed at them.

We gathered at Waha, a hotel complex destroyed by Israeli bombs, at 8 AM and marched north along the beach, towards the wall that marks the northern boundary of the open air prison that is referred to as Gaza.  We looked out over the sea that marks the western wall of the prison that is Gaza–the sea where earlier this week the Israeli Navy kidnapped eight fishermen, and then destroyed their boats with gunfire.

At 10:30 we gathered in Beit Hanoun to march north into the same buffer zone.  For three years the people of Beit Hanoun have demonstrated weekly against the occupation and against the buffer zone.  Participants marched north chanting and playing music over the megaphone into the buffer zone. They carried Palestinian flags attached to balloons.  As the balloons floated over the buffer zone trailing their flags, they occasionally fell to earth and popped on the thorn bushes which are the only thing to survive the regular Israeli bulldozing of the buffer zone.

Sabur Zaaneen, from the Local Initiative spoke on the need for a Palestinian state, he urged Palestinian leaders to continue the struggle this September, he urged them not to forget their duty to their people, not to forget the right of the refugees to return, the right of their people to justice.  The farmers of Beit Hanoun stand with the fisherman of Beit Lahia, with the people of Bil’in, with the people of Nil’in, we all carry the flag of popular resistance to the occupation.  None of us will give up.  We will be back next week, together, united in one cause, ending the occupation and justice for the Palestinian people.

 

 

Fathers speak on the mass arrests in Hebron

15 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Sunday the 21st of August the Israeli army carried out arrests in al Khalil (Hebron) on a scale not seen since 2003.  Around 120-200 people were kidnapped from their homes in pre-dawn raids and following the release of some, the final number in Israeli custody stands at 50. Interviews with local residents and families of those arrested indicate that the arrests were carried out for political reasons and were not based on new evidence or any security threat. Though the scale of the operation is unusual, Israel’s mode of operation with complete disregard for human rights and fair judicial process is institutional and routine.

We spoke with the father of Ali Natsheh, a 22-year-old law student who was arrested during the raid. At approximately 1:30 am Ali Natsheh’s 8 year old sister awoke to the sound of the Israeli army smashing the windows of her family home. She woke her father as the Israeli army surrounded and entered the house. His son was not home at the time of the raid so the army separated Ali’s father from his daughter and took them away from the house he was made to contact his son, who immediately returned home. Ali’s father explained.

“He knew that if he did not give himself up they would make problems for the family or even shoot him as a fugitive,” he said.

Smashed windows by Israeli military at the Natsheh home

Upon returning to his home, where the army were waiting, neighbors witnessed the army stripping and beating Ali Natseh before handcuffing him and taking him away in a jeep. Natseh’s father told us that his son had been arrested almost 3 years ago for involvement with Palestinian resistance groups but had since become a law student at Al Quds University and had no affiliation with any political groups. He was extremely worried about his son’s treatment. The last time Ali was detained, he became ill as a result of being kept for days in isolation in a freezing cold cell without medical treatment. He has suffered from long-term health problems since.

The arrest of Amer Abu Arafe is quite similar in that he too had been imprisoned in 2007 for involvement in resistance groups but had since completed a degree in media and became a journalist, his father Abdel Halim said. He said Amer was no longer involved with any political or resistance groups and was certainly not a security threat. Though he could think of no reason for his son’s arrest he was not particularly surprised as arbitrary arrests are a disturbingly routine feature of Palestinian life. 40% of the male Palestinian population have been detained by the Israeli army at some point in their life, and there are around 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently in Israeli custody.

Badran Jaber, a lecturer at Hebron University and friend of many of the families of those arrested, was highly skeptical that the arrests were for security reasons or based on new evidence. He argued these arrests constituted collective punishment of Palestinians for the attack in Eilat on August the 18th.

“Israeli authorities wanted large numbers to be arrested for political reasons: it does not matter to them whether they are innocent or guilty.”

A lack of evidence to support these arrests is inconsequential when you have a judicial system where military officers serve as judges and operate in collusion with military prosecutors without a jury or adequate provision.

The result of this system is a conviction rate of 96.7% mostly based on signed confessions written in Hebrew. A recent report by Israeli human rights organization B’tselem acknowledges that torture such as stress positions, sleep depravation, exposure to extreme temperatures, painful handcuffing and long periods of solitary confinement are used routinely and systematically to obtain these confessions and more violent forms of torture such as beatings still occur though are less common.

As of July 2011 Israel was holding 243 Palestinian prisoners under administrative detention, which allows for them to be held indefinitely without trial or even any knowledge of why they are being detained.

Despite the fact that it is widely acknowledged that Hamas was not behind the attacks that occurred in Eilat, Israel exploited the events to carry out air strikes on Gaza. The escalation of violence in Gaza and the mass arrests in Al Khalil are emblematic of Israel’s recurring policy of collective punishment, in which the only necessary criteria for being found guilty is being Palestinian.

Sheikh Jarrah in need of more international presence

13 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In the early hours of September 12th, local illegal settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, torched and destroyed a protest tent frequented and inhabited by locals and international volunteers and observers in the midst of increased Israeli settler violence and aggression.

The tent sat between an extension of the Palestinian-owned building, half of which is now illegally occupied by Israeli settlers, while the rest of the building is still inhabited by the Palestinian Al-Kurd family. All that remains of the protest tent after the recent attack are books, sheets, mattresses and tent components that are completely singed by fire.

The tent was erected to accommodate international activists on a nightly basis as they observed and documented the behavior of the illegal settlers, while symbolically standing against the normalization of illegal settlers against Palestinian locals.

Due to a lack of volunteers, no internationals inhabited the tent on the night of the incident. Mohamed, a local, stated, “If there was somebody in the tent last night, it would not have happened. They would not dare. Maybe they try to insult, but they would not dare. They don’t like the tent, with or without volunteers. They hate this kind of symbol.”

The latest attack by settlers is no doubt a clear attempt to rid the presence of locals and international observers in Sheikh Jarrah.

“I was in the house…I heard something. I went outside, I saw firemen and I saw the policemen. I didn’t know anything until then,” said local resident Nabil Al-Kurd.

This is not the only case of harassment perpetrated by settlers in Sheikh Jarrah—abusive behavior typical of local settlers have included violent verbal incitement, sexual harassment, spitting, throwing rocks, provoking their dogs to attack, and throwing fecal matter into the protest tent.

Locals speculate when settlers will again attack the Palestinian neighborhood. “They will not try to do anything for the next few days, because the situation is bad for them,” said Mohamed. “We have pictures of who did it. A settler told me he was not responsible, that he doesn’t know who did it. I told him, ‘you are lying!’ He tried to tell me that during the last month there were no insults and nothing bad has happened. He is lying!’”

Locals and activists are yet to make complaints to the police about the incident.

Information is still being collected to be submitted to the police. However, very little has been done to protect the Palestinian family from the violence of the settlers in the past, and what remains to be seen is the action, or lack of, from the law, and the future of an international presence in Sheikh Jarrah.