Author: Yara

A family’s nightmare: Beaten and kidnapped by illegal settlers near Qadumim as Israeli military facilitates the crime

by Jonas Weber

23 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Samer and his two children

A family of four was kidnapped by settlers on Thursday afternoon while having a picnic close by an outpost near Qadumim. When soldiers arrived at the scene they chased away the relatives of the kidnapped family with tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets alongside settlers throwing stones.

It was around 4.30 pm on Thursday that the El Seddi family, who were eating almonds on their families land in the outskirts of Jit, east of Nablus, was kidnapped by a gang of settlers. The settlers approached the family on four wheelers in a group of about ten young men with their shirts wrapped around their heads to conceal their faces.

The family was dragged down the valley by the settlers who were armed with big sticks, and forcing the mother to say to their children that “this land does not belong to us.”

The youngest of the children, only 2 years old, took no notice of this and blatantly told the settlers what he thought of them in response. The father, Samer received many blows during the descent into the valley, and the day after his face was swollen and patched up.

The little three-year old girl also sustained wounds on her legs, and the mother says that she was constantly being pushed around and taunted by the settlers while carrying her children.

After about half an hour Samer’s father Ibrahim and two of his brothers became worried for the family and went to look for them. As they climbed a hilltop adjacent to the settlement they saw how the family was being dragged up the hill towards the settlement.

” They have an old dried out water well by the outpost, we think their plan was to throw the family in there,” said Ibrahim Jamil Khader, who hides a black eye behind a pair of big shades.

When the settlers realized they had been discovered they momentarily released the family who started running towards their relatives on the adjacent hill. Right behind them 25-30 settlers followed. When the family reached the top of the hill adjacent to the settlement, Israeli soldiers had arrived at the scene.

It soon became obvious however that they had not come to apprehend the kidnappers. Instead Samer’s father and brothers had to stall the soldiers and settlers while the family made their way back towards the village.

“As I was talking to the soldiers one of the settlers jumped out  in front of them and punched me in the face. I asked the soldiers why
isn’t he here to care about our lives and he answered that ‘We can’t fight these people, they are dogs.'”

The three men were chased off by the soldiers shooting tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets as well as the settlers who threw stones. There have been problems with the settlers before but something like this has never happened.

“No one was prepared for this, says Ibrahim. The children are mentally exhausted, and we are afraid that they will be traumatized by this.”

The military has a different view on what happened that day.

“The official story is that the family was lost in the hills and that the settlers helped them find their way back. They are so full of lies,” says Ibrahim.

Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Video: Civil resistance in Palestine

22 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

From Nablus, Palestine to New York City, civilians stand up to the forces of order and privilege.
Palestinian villagers confront the Zionist military of the State of Israel in Kusra and Kufr Kaddoum villages near Nablus, the occupied West Bank.  The Jewish international opposition expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

MPEG4 format available from the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians saalaha@fokus.name  & Tanweer Cultural Enlightenment Forum of Nablus mustafa.azizi@hotmail.com

 

Mustafa Azizi, the filmmaker, describes his production:

I am Mustafa Azizi, a Palestinian filmmaker from the people under occupation. My art offers images of the resulting occupation, carrying dreams of ordinary people to the world in order to narrate the horror of being under occupation, to look for hope among the rubble of difficulties.

I try to understand the reality converting it to the dreams, I say frankly and boldly what is happening and will happen. From this came this product which was conceived simple and crazy, to say this is my country and this is what’s happening to her. I am responding to what they give me, as a Palestinian. I want to give my opinion. I need Palestine as I want it and as I love it, not as they want to give it to us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbsziJQZg8

My film is simple.
This film was made because of an increase in the recent attacks of the occupation on the citizens and the various forms of stealing and burning land and killing Palestinian livestock farmers , and because the settlers have become the first line of Israel’s attack against the Palestinian villages.
The idea of this product was to address the world in its own language and explain to it the width of the issue of Palestinian Civil Resistance’s their weekly protest against the expansion of settlements, land theft, occupation. The closure of the main entrances to these villages, and daily attacks from settlers and army.
The film shows Palestinian people working hand in hand with international solidarity activists to move the conflict to a higher level, a global struggle against all forms of racism, humiliation and occupation against the forces of authoritarianism that enslave peoples and loot and steal in order to further colonial objectives. This conflict has become the popular form of expression the world uses against all types of exploitation. The non violent struggle has become a form of the Palestinian model and applies in all the corners of the world: sit-ins, tents and demonstrations against the authority, power and tyranny of monopoly and other types of capitalism that crush the poor.

This film simply connects what is happening in Palestine to what is happening in the world. It also sheds light on a range of other issues and information about the Palestinian issue, which gives us a simplified idea of the conflict here for decades.

Settlers grab Palestinian water springs: U.N. report

by Jihan Abdallah

19 March 2012 | Reuters

A female Israeli soldier stands next to a man-made pool containing water from a spring located near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, and the Jewish settlement of Halamish, near Ramallah March 19, 2012. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

(Reuters) – Jewish settlers have seized dozens of natural springs in the occupied West Bank, barring Palestinians or limiting their access to scarce water sources, a United Nations report said on Monday.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had surveyed 530 springs in the West Bank and found that 30, mostly in areas where Israel retains military control, were taken over by the settlers.

It added that Palestinians currently had limited access to 26 other springs where settlers had moved in and threatened to take control. The report said settlers had not encroached on 474 remaining springs surveyed.

“Springs have remained the single largest water source for irrigation and a significant source for watering livestock,” the report said, adding that some also provided water for domestic consumption in areas not connected to pipelines.

“The loss of access to springs and adjacent land reduced the income of affected farmers, who either stop cultivating the land or face a reduction in the productivity of their crops,” the report said.

It added that settlers had turned dozens of springs into tourist sites and some were used for swimming.

“Settlers have developed 40 springs as tourist sites, deployed picnic tables and benches and given them Hebrew names … It is generating employment and revenue for the settlements and it is a way of promoting or advertising settlements as a fun place,” OCHA researcher Yehezkel Lein said.

David Ha’ivri, a settler leader, said settlers were using the springs “for purposes of recreation and for the people who live here, more so than for tourism purposes.”

In 2009 a spring named Ein el Qaws, located near the village of Nabi Saleh, was taken over by settlers from Halamish, forcing villagers to obtain their irrigation water from other sources, the report and residents said.

“The spring was used to irrigate hundreds of olive and fruit trees in the village and the children used to swim in it, now if we try to go to the spring, the settlers and soldiers come and kick us out,” said villager Nariman Tamimi.

A spokesman for Israel’s military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank said there was free access to the Ein el Qaws spring for everyone, except on Fridays when Palestinians usually mount protests against the spring’s takeover and soldiers keep people away.

He said Israel had curbed illegal building at one spring and had started legal proceedings against work at another site.

About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Palestinians seek the territory for an independent state along with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Palestinians say settlements, considered illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest U.N. legal body for disputes, would deny them a viable state.

Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank and says the status of settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.

Rachel Corrie & Hana Shalabi: Flowers among thistles of Israeli occupation

by Nathan Stuckey

21 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Rachel Corrie was murdered nine years ago by an Israeli bulldozer.  Hana Shalabi has spent the last 34 days on hunger strike an Israeli prison, yet she is accused of no crime.  This was not the first time Hana has been held in Israeli prisons while being accused of no crime. She was only recently released as part of a prisoner exchange after being held without charges for 25 months. Hana has said that “freedom is more important than life,” and she knows of what she speaks.

The protesters who turn out every week for the demonstration against the occupation and the no go zone agree.

An Israeli bulldozer did not stop the message of Rachel, Israeli prisons have not silenced Hana, and Israeli bullets will not stop our protests.  Rachel Corrie was only 23 years old when she was killed; Hana Shalabi is 29 years old.   Our protest this week was in honor of these women and all of the strong women of Palestine.

At a little after eleven in the morning we set off down the road north from Beit Hanoun and towards the no go zone.  There were about 25 activists from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other international activists.

As we walked music played over the megaphone.  Flowers were in bloom everywhere, it is springtime in Gaza.  I was so enthralled by the flowers that I didn’t even think to look up and see if the giant balloon that always floats over Gaza observing our move was there.  We walked past blooming flowers, green fields of wheat, a few olive trees that the Israeli’s haven’t managed to destroy yet into the no go zone.

The change was dramatic.  Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, it is also very poor, any land that can be cultivated is cultivated.  The no go zone is not cultivated; it is overgrown with thistles and weeds.  It used to be one of Gaza’s most fertile areas, full of orchards and crops.  Israel destroyed all of this, the trees were cut down, any houses in the no go zone were bulldozed, all wells were destroyed.

We made our way up a small path that we have cut through the thistles on previous demonstrations to the trench which Israel has cut across the no go zone.  The trench is lined with flags from one of our previous demonstrations, Palestinian flags and flags from many of the factions in Palestine.  We were carrying pictures of Hana and Rachel, some of us carried posters of Rachel decorated by the kids of the Rachel Corrie Youth Center in Rafah for the anniversary of her murder.

Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke about the importance of continuing the popular resistance and the inspiration that we all take from Hana and Rachel.  We left pictures of Hana and Rachel in the thistles as we left, perhaps the Israeli soldiers can look out from their concrete towers on the faces of their victims.

 Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

Attacked and arrested: Kufr Qaddoum anticipates an even larger demonstration following Israeli violence last week

by Jonas

21 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Last Friday two people were injured and two arrested when the repression of the Israeli army came down on the regular demonstration at Kufr Qaddoum. Attack dogs were used to frighten and incapacitate protesters, besides the usual tear gas, sound bombs and skunk water. But the village is anticipating that this week’s demonstration will be even larger.
Ahmed Ashtawi’s worst nightmare came true this Friday at the demonstration against the roadblock that cripples Kufr Qaddoum’s access to the rest of the West Bank. The 23 year old traffic police officer, who works his station in Qalqiliya, has a phobia for dogs.

“What happened to Ahmed could have happened to any man in this town,” said Ahmed’s cousin, Mahmoud. “We thank God that it wasn’t worse and hope that he will be with us again at the next demonstration.”

He was attacked by one of the two attack dogs released by the Israeli border police. It was during the beginning of the demonstration, just as the soldiers had pushed the demonstration back with a heavy bombardment of teargas. One of the dogs got hold of Ahmed’s leg and he fell to the ground. When his friend tried to reach him the soldiers fired more tear gas to keep them away. The dog was allowed to keep biting Ahmed for almost 15 minutes while other protestors and international activists tried to free him.

“I saw that his pants were torn and bloody” sais Riad Ashtawi, one of Ahmed’s relatives who tried to reach him while he was on the ground being bit by the dog. “One of the soldiers carried a rifle with live ammunition, aiming it at me, so I was forced to hide behind a tree. When I looked out I saw how a soldier was about to fire towards my head with a tear gas canister from a few meters distance, so I dove for cover again and the canister hit my leg. As I laid on the ground, unable to move I could still hear Ahmed screaming.”

As Ahmed was on the ground with the dog still biting into his hand, his uncle Morad Ashtawi, one of the leaders of the demonstration, was able to reach him. When the soldiers saw Morad they sprayed his face with pepper spray and put him in handcuffs. The official statement of the Israeli army has been that Morad was trying to hit one of the soldiers.

In the video of the event that has been circulated on the internet since Friday, however you can clearly see that Morad poses no threat to the soldiers and that his only aim is to free his nephew from the dog.
“The soldiers have been out for Morad since the beginning of the protests” said Abu Moushab of the city council, who anticipates this weeks demonstration to be bigger and more forceful than last week’s. According to him many people who have seen the video of Murad being arrested are angry and upset.
Ahmed’s cousin reflected on the question of expectations for next week. Smiling and with laughter in his eyes, he declared,  “We are afraid of the dogs, so this Friday we will not come to the demonstration,” bursting with laughter. His humor was refreshing despite the gloom cast by the violent Israeli military.The organizers of the protest expect people to turn up from all over the West Bank for this week’s demonstration in Kufr Qaddoum. The video on Youtube of Ahmed being bitten and Morad being arrested have been viewed over 70,000 times.

Locals worry that their village son has not received care following the attack and his arrest by the Occupation forces. “We still don’t know if he has received any care for the injuries he sustained,” said Abu Moushab. “We have been in contact with his lawyer but they are unable to get any information.  All we know is that he was given first aid on site.”

Once the teeth of the dog had been pryed off of Ahmed’s hand he was arrested, accused of throwing stones towards the soldiers.

“This is what they do,” said Abu Moushab. “They accuse people of throwing stones to have an excuse to lock them up for months.”

Now the small village waits for Friday to get to voice their rage against what has happened.”Everyone who has seen the video is very angry, and we will continue the protests with more strength” said Mahmoud.

Jonas is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).