Author: swing

Israeli forces arrest a German national and an Italian national in At-Tuwani

11 April 2009

A German national and an Italian national were taken by Israeli forces while accompanying farmers at 11am. Both individuals have been taken to the police station at Kyrat Arba. Palestinian farmers in At-Tuwani rely on the presence of International and Israeli human rights workers to mitigate violence from settlers.

As soldiers in the area frequently ignore settler violence and rarely interfere to protect the farmers, international volunteers provide support for the Palestinians. The grazing action began around 8.30 am, and the German and Italian nationals were arrested at 11am.

At-Tuwani is a village of 300 Palestinians located in South Hebron Hills. Residents make their living through farming, primarily wheat, barley, olives and grazing sheep. At-Tuwani is also one of several villages under daily threat from extremist settlers living in the area. Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills are daily nonviolently resisting settlement expansion and violence at the hands of settlers and soldiers.

Internationals accompany Palestinians as they perform agricultural work on their land and in other nonviolent demonstrations. Internationals accompany Palestinians as they work their land, use video to document settlers, soldiers, and police, and intervene as Palestinians request.

Urgent action for Palestinian school children from Tuba and Maghaer-al-Abeed

Luisa Morgantini

11 April 2009

Of utmost concern for CPT and Operation Dove is the safe travel of Palestinian school children who walk from the nearby villages of Tuba and Magaher-al-Abeed to At-Tuwani’s elementary school. These school children face a treacherous daily walk past the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on. For years, armed adult settlers have attacked, threatened and harassed the children along the path from Tuba to Tuwani. In 2004 the Knesset recommended that the Israeli military provide the children with an armed escort. However, since settlers constructed a gate across the road one year ago, the escort soldiers have refused to walk with the children far enough to ensure their safety.

In the past two weeks internationals working with Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have twice witnessed settlers grazing sheep directly in the path of the children at the time they walk home from school. Because the children have been physically attacked in the past, and threatened with death by settlers earlier this school year, they are terrified by the presence of these settlers. Since an incident on March 24 in which settlers were present at the end of the children’s walk home, internationals and the children have repeatedly asked the soldiers to walk with the children until they are out of danger. On April 1 settlers again came onto the land between the outpost of Havat Ma’on and the village of Tuba while the children were walking. Members of CPT and Operation Dove were present and the children ran towards them crying and very frightened.

Internationals now request that concerned people make calls to the Communications office of the Southern District Commander of the Israeli Military. It is an Israeli phone number, (country code 972) 2 996 7200. Please ask Commander BenMoha to instruct the soldiers who perform the escort of the Tuba and Magaher-al-Abeed school children to accompany the children all the way past the Ma’on chicken barns and past any settlers present. Please stress that this is particularly necessary because of the repeated presence of settlers in this area at the time of the children’s walk home, and remind the commander that settlers used violence against the school children on fourteen occasions in the 07-08 school year and on two occasions during the current school year.

For a complete report on the school escort, including maps, photographs and interviews with the children, please see “A Dangerous Journey.”

In addition to phone calls, Operation Dove and CPT ask that people send the IDF Public Appeals office a simple message.

Sample message: (no more than 75 words)

Subject: Request to Commander BenMoha
Palestinian school children from Tuba and Magaher-al-abeed must walk past militant settlers from Ma’on and Havat Ma’on to attend school in At-Tuwani. The Knesset recommended in 2004 that the IDF escort these children. Currently soldiers refuse to escort the children far enough to ensure their safety. In order to do so they must accompany the children all the way past the Ma’on chicken barns and past any settlers present.
IDF Public Appeals Fax: 011-972-3-569-9400.
IDF Public Appeals Phone: 011-972-3-569-1000.

Eleven shot, one in critical condition after settler rampage in Saffa

Palestine Solidarity Project

8 April 2009

Saffa, a village sandwiched between Sourif and Beit Ommar and home to just over 2000 residents, has been the site of overwhelming Israeli military and now settler violence in the last week.  Using the death of a teenaged settler on April 2 as a precursor (there has been no evidence that he was killed by someone from Saffa or the nearby villages) the Israeli military has been invading Saffa, declaring curfews, searching homes and otherwise harassing the residents of the entire village in acts of blatant collective punishment for several days.  Roadblocks were erected in several different places on April 3 and three homes were taken over by Israeli soldiers, allegedly to ‘protect’ the Palestinian residents from anticipated violence from right-wing extremist settlers from nearby Beit ‘Ayn.

These soldiers left a few days later and shortly after, on April 6, approximately 1 dozen settlers walked down from Beit ‘Ayn onto the agricultural land of Saffa and Beit Ommar.  Residents from both villages went out to the land and the settlers quickly retreated back to the settlement.  Soldiers arrived en masse, and, as was expected, they began to shoot tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at the Palestinian residents who had come to protect their land.  No one was injured at the time, but settlers were expected to return.

Today, April 8, just after 6am, more than 50 settlers, some of them armed, again entered the land of Saffa and began shooting and throwing stones at nearby Palestinian homes.  Though soldiers are stationed next door in Eztion settlement, they did nothing to stop the attacks for quite some time.  When they finally did arrive on the scene, they stood and watched as Israeli settlers continued to fire on the homes of Palestinians.  A call over the local mosques in Beit Ommar and Sourif, both home to over 15,000 Palestinians, brought thousands of Palestinians out into the land to protect the residents of Saffa.  Residents approached the edge of the settlement and began by sitting on the land facing the soldiers, preventing them from entering the village.

Soldiers then began attacking the Palestinians indiscriminately, shooting 11 with live ammunition, including one, Tha’er ‘Aadi, in the neck.  He is currently in critical condition in a hospital in Ramallah.  The other 10 were shot in the legs and arms and were treated in the hospital in Hebron.  Additionally, more than a dozen were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets throughout the 10 hours of military incursion.  The use of live ammunition, even when less lethal forms of weaponry was available, against unarmed Palestinians has been an ever increasing concern for the residents of Beit Ommar, who had seen two teenagers killed and two teens in critical condition in the last year after being shot with live ammunition.

Settler violence on the rise in Hebron

Violence from illegal Israeli settlers directed at Palestinian residents in Hebron is an almost everyday occurrence.  Recently however, several incidents indicate that settler violence in the city is increasing.  On the 4th of April at around 3pm, Shah Aiwa, a 7-year-old Palestinian boy, was injured in his head after having stones thrown at him by settler children.  The stoning occurred near the boy’s home in the old city, next to Beit Romano settlement. Shah was playing with another child when two settler boys started throwing stones at them from a nearby roof.  According to both Shah and eyewitnesses who gathered at the scene, incidents like this are very common, happening 5 to 6 times a week.  The stone that hit Shah on the head weighed over a kilo, and the injury he received required attention by medical staff from Hebron hospital.

In a separate incident that same day, 17 Palestinian cars were damaged from stones thrown by settlers from Kiryat Arba.  Israeli soldiers were present and witnessed the vandalism, but did nothing to prevent it.   Recently, some Palestinian residences in that area have also had windows smashed from settler stones.  Testimonials from residents suggest that the violence from Kiryat Arba settlers has risen in recent weeks.

Additionally, in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the city, several houses have been attacked by settlers at night.  The residents of these houses say that 20 masked settlers descended on their homes at around 10pm on the 4th of April.  Settlers threw stones at the windows, breaking at least three of them.  At around 8pm that same night, a 28-year-old Palestinian resident was beaten by settlers in front of his house.  The man sustained two broken bones in his wrist and a large cut near his eye as a result of the beating.  A civilian observer with TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) was also attacked by settlers while he was walking in al-Shuhada street on the 4th of April.

900 dunums of Palestinian land confiscated in Qaryut village

7 April 2009

Israeli forces have started the construction of three new roads around the village of Qaryut, located in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank.  Qaryut is already surrounded on three sides by illegal Israeli settlements, and the new roads are being built to connect these settlements together and to nearby road 60.  Road 60 has been closed to Palestinians since 2000, but has remained open to settlers and the army.  The closure of this road has prevented access by farmers to a large amount of agricultural land which, according to Qaryut’s mayor, is now being used by Israeli settlers.  Israeli authorities have recently confiscated an additional 900 dunums of agricultural land to build the three new roads.  This land belongs to around 150 Palestinian families in Qaryut.

The mayor of Qaryut speaks about the recent confiscation of village lands:

Qaryut village is surrounded by Israeli settlements, and unfortunately as much as 60% of our village is categorized as Area C, while the rest of the village is Area B.  During the last two years, eviction orders have already been given for several village houses in Area C.  Now that the IDF is working on the construction of the new roads, we are deeply concerned that this is part of a new plan to push the villagers living in Area C into Area B, in order to expand the Israeli settlements.