Army plans to provide tear gas and stun grenades in West Bank to repel any Palestinian protests next month, report says.
The Israeli army is planning to provide tear gas and stun grenades to settlers in the occupied West Bank who have been trained to repel any violent protests when the Palestinians seek statehood at the United Nations next month, an Israeli newspaper says.
According toHaaretz, the Israeli army has also conducted a strategy to determine a “red line” for each settlement in the West Bank, which will determine when soldiers will be ordered to shoot at the feet of Palestinians if they cross the line.
Asked to confirm the report, the military issued a written statement on Tuesday, saying it was in the process of training settlement response teams “to deal with any possible scenario”.
The statement said the military recently “completed training the majority of the first response teams” and the exercises were ongoing.
The Palestinian Authority plans to seek the UN’s endorsement of statehood when the General Assembly reconvenes next month, a bid seen likely to upgrade the Palestinians’ diplomatic status.
Israel rejects the move as sidestepping peace talks that have been frozen for a year in a dispute over settlement building.
Israeli officials have voiced fears the statehood bid could inspire Palestinian activists to hold demonstrations to coincide with the vote.
‘Worst case scenario’
Chaim Levinson, the Haaretz reporter who broke the story, told Al Jazeera: “Part of preparation is to train the settlers so that they will be prepared for the worst scenario that hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians will come from Palestinian cities to protest towards settlements.
“The Israeli Defence Forces [IDF] will train them, arm them with tear gas and stun grenades,” added Levinson.
The army is ensuring that any demonstrations will be controlled and will rely on the assistance of security officers from the settlements to assist them where necessary.
The army is creating two virtual lines for each of the settlements that are near a Palestinian village. The first line, if crossed by Palestinian demonstrators, will be met with tear gas and other means for dispersing crowds.
The second line is a “red line,” and if this one is crossed, the soldiers will be allowed to open fire at the legs of the demonstrators…”
‘Defensive purpose’
However, Jewish settler officials denied the Haaretz report about the plan to arm settlers, saying any use of firearms would be very limited and for defensive purposes only.
“Certainly during a period of tension, with intelligence reports of possible threats, of course, readiness crews are being trained,” said Danny Dayan, chairman of the settlers’ YESHA Council.
Dayan saw these preparations as “nothing extraordinary”, noting how most settlers involved have already done compulsory duty in the Israeli military which drafts most Israeli men at the age of 18.
Armed settlers “operate under orders to avoid killing civilians [and] in the event of a break-in at a settlement, the response would be purely defensive, nothing offensive,” he added.
Palestinians and human rights groups say settlers have used weapons to attack Palestinians in the past and that Israel has been lax in investigating such incidents.
29 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Conversations are strange over here. When you are told a horrible story by somebody, or you hear yet another example of the brutality Palestinians experience as part of their daily lives, you find yourself eerily laughing along with them. It’s as if the spectrum of human emotions has buckled under strain and flipped back on itself, making up become downward and left turn into right. Perhaps this was just a coping mechanism.
Such was the atmosphere when we interviewed Bardran Jabbal , a geography and sociology lecturer at Hebron Polytechnic University. We went to interview him following the arrest of four people on his street, along with roughly 120 others from Hebron that same night of Saturday 20th of August in one of the biggest mass arrests the area has seen in years.
We ended up chatting with him for two hours, along with one of his sons, and the topic trailed far away from the arrests into interesting territories–or what was left of them.
We were keen to know about what kind of treatment the recent detainees could expect, and he seemed to be the perfect person to speak to, considering he has spent 20 years in Israeli prisons over the course of his life as have each of his sons., under the British mandate laws that allow people to be arrested without any evidence or charge for up to six months, a sentence which can be renewed at any time.
When one of his sons was 11, he was walking down the road with his pet bird between his hands. Israeli soldiers ran after him, causing him to let the bird out of his grip. They imprisoned him for two weeks for “throwing stones.”
Each of his sons have spent sentences (ranging from 3 months to seven years) for either being members of a Palestinian political party or nothing at all . These prisoners are held separately from the likes of rapists and drug dealers who are held in “civil prisons,” all political prisoners are detained in “security prisons.”
Badran himself has spent 20 years in Israeli security prisons over the course of his life, in separate sentences between 1967 and 2007. Three of his children were born while he was in prison. He never saw one of his sons until he was five years old, who refused to believe for sometime that he was his actual father, and tried to attack him to get him out of the house considering the only father he knew was a picture on the wall.
Discussing what conditions the prisoners could expect to face, he told us that human rights organizations pressuring since the 80s, the torture has shifted more to psychological methods.
One example he provided was when they produced a fake document from the International Red Cross Society saying that his wife had died and that his five children were now living on their own. They wanted him to sign it to “hand custody over to their grandparents.” Second-guessing them, he told them that his wife had died willingly as he had met another woman three months previously, and she had sacrificed herself to make way for their relationship.
Later when he was being driven to court in a police vehicle, he saw his wife walking down the street through a tiny window in the armed car.
However a shift to psychological torture in no means should suggest that the prisoners are treated well, he warned. Where in the West we are arrested by means of a warrant, the army here uses sound bombs, teargas and live ammo in the houses they raid, whether they soldiers are met with resistance or not. Once arrested, their eyes are blindfolded and their hands are cuffed to their legs, and they can expect to stay in this position in the transit van for up to four days without food or water before even reaching prison.
Badran estimates that he spent roughly 100 days in the course of his 20 years as an inmate in this position staring at a wall for days on end without food or water. In prison, inmates are expected to pay for their own food at Israeli market prices, and if they don’t ,they don’t get enough to survive. Another way that inmates are tested physiologically is by being held in “fake prisons” full of Israeli informants. This is particularly difficult considering the sense of solidarity Badran tells us that the inmates have with one another in order to survive.
On top of jail sentences, Badran told us that he feels that arrests are run like a business. If somebody is released without charge (which is more often than not the case) they still have to pay a fine at the officer’s discretion. All of his sons have paid up to 15,000 shekels along with their prison sentences. Soldiers routinely loot the houses of the people they are about to arrest or simply destroy them.
One of his friends managed to get his stolen goods back from a soldier, as he managed to take a picture of him in the act. This is a rare case however, considering the soldiers wear face masks, and obviously don’t give away their identities willingly.
Badran was even sceptical about the amount that of influence that the Israeli government has over the IDF. He says that settlement plans, ruled out as illegal by the High courts, are often carried out in spite of this. Another example he gave, was when the High Court ordered his release from prison. He was released and re-arrested on the doorstep for another year.
Palestinians also need to get permission from military officers to plant their crops.
We asked him about the attack on an Israeli coach last Thursday in Eilat , and asked him what the connection this had to the arrests made in Hebron. He was aware that there was no connection, and the shootings were just an excuse to arrest anybody they could.
We proposed the idea that it may have been Israel themselves who carried out the shootings, considering nobody, including Hamas had claimed responsibility for them. He said he wouldn’t put it past them, and used the example of Ben Gurion bombing a ship full of Jews in the 40’s in the Mediterranean, to gain sympathy for the state of Israel.
“Generally when a resistance group carries out such attacks, they are keen to claim responsibility. They have served as an excuse to bomb Gaza from the air without mercy ever since,” he said.
He also drew a connection between the recent protests from within Israel against their governments economic policies, which seemed apt considering many marches in the likes of Tel Aviv were called off in light of the attacks.
The conversation ended with Badran comparing the sentences of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for resisting the apartheid system under which he and his people lived. He compared it to the Palestinian political prisoners (including two of his brothers) who have spent 34 years in jail.
Over 400 political prisoners have spent over 25 years in prison without release.
27 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Like every Saturday, today a guided Zionist tour passed through the divided old city in Hebron, also referred to as Al Khalil by Palestinians. The tour was escorted by 20 Israeli soldiers and led to a couple of Palestinian arrests without clear justification.
Around 4pm the tour went back to Shuhada street, which has been closed since 1997 to collectively punish Palestinians, and are also denied access the main market area that locals once frequented. The Israeli government and military support frequent incursions into the strictly Palestinian area of the city, commonly referred to as area H1.
As soon as the tour went into Shuhada street, the soldiers began to run to Bab el Baladiya. They then raided the house of the Mohtaseb family, claiming that they were throwing stones although no one witnessed this. The Israeli soldiers blocked access to the house and exited with 2 people arrested, Mohammed and Sheker Bahjat who were then brought to a police car and taken away.
The family lives adjacent to a family of illegal, Israeli settlers. According to Mohammed’s wife, Zuhur, the settlers were throwing stones and water at the house while also breaking windows. Incitement and harassment are not new for this family. Zuhur was detained just a month ago for 8 hours, and both her son and husband are often arrested without evidence or clear charges.
22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
In the last month ISM has joined up with Jordan Valley Solidarity and a slew of other international activists to make mud bricks for a new house and football field in the small Bedouin village of Fasayil, in the Jordan Valley. Fasayil is made up of many scattered islets of Bedouin homes, animal pens and makeshift structures, spread out over a swath of desert. In the daytime, children run around in the stifling heat yelling at each other; men walk around in short sleeves busy with the day’s tasks, or sit in the shade together talking and staring off toward the mountains; women, wrapped in shawls, peek out of their houses briefly to walk across the encampments, and can sometimes be seen sitting on their porches, but otherwise seem embarrassed to appear before the eyes of Westerners (and pretty much anyone, given the conservative social structure here). There are many scattered encampments, of five or six houses each, that gradually lead up to the center of the village, where the structures are more permanent, and there is a little shop that sells cold cans of Coke, warm pita, and all the other amenities.
Right now, though the Jordan Valley is one of the regions of the West Bank hardest hit by the Occupation, Jordan Valley Solidarity is one of the only NGOs working on the ground. This is because, in Israel’s tripartite structure of apartheid, most of the Jordan Valley falls under Area C zoning regulations, where it is under full Israeli military and civil control as a ‘closed military zone’. This means, among other things, that it is illegal for the Palestinians, most of whom are Bedouin, to build any permanent structures without a permit, which is almost impossible to obtain. Therefore, most NGOs will not work in the Jordan Valley, not so much because any structure they build will be demolished (which is largely true), but because building is illegal in the first place.
Fasayil is a unique example because the center of town falls under Area B regulations- Israeli military control, but Palestinian civil control- while the outskirts of town are completely Area C. The structures at the center of Fasayil are larger and more permanent, therefore, because, due to zoning laws, this is the only part of town that is not regularly demolished. After demolitions in Fasayil 2 months ago, 134 people, including 64 children, were left sitting under the blazing sun, surrounded by their possessions, with nowhere to go.
Because the land is designated as an Area C Closed Military Zone, the Bedouin, who have either lived semi-nomadic lives in the region for centuries or who have moved there as refugees after 1948, not only are not allowed to build structures of any significant permanency, but they also cannot dig water wells of any significant depth, and because of Israeli military checkpoints and road closures they can scarcely export goods of any significant quantity or quality. The not-yet-published Jordan Valley Solidarity factbook ‘To Exist is To Resist’ describes the difference between the two areas in Fasayil-
“Because it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain construction permits in Area C, the difference between the two sides of town is stark. Indeed, when crossing from Area B to C the demarcation is not a checkpoint or a sign, but rather the end of paved roads and the drastic change from houses to shacks. Animal shelters mix with residences, electricity is scarce and water must be bought and brought in at exorbitant prices from Israeli companies.”
The web site of PEDAL (www.100daystopalestine.org), one of the international groups that work with us here, gives a great summary of the history of the Valley-
“After the 1948 Nakba (when over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled) many refugees arrived here and in 1967, in a deal between Jordan and Israe,l they had their refugee status revoked in exchange for small plots of land. Following this, many inhabited refugee camps were demolished while the UN turned a blind eye. Since 1967 Israel has taken nearly all the remaining land, leaving just 5% Palestinian (area a+b) consisting of Jericho and 5 villages: Lower Fasaiel, Bardala, Al Uja, Zubeidat, and Ein Al Beida. The rest of the valley (95%) is now area c and subject to military control. Of the 320,000 Palestinians that lived in the valley before 1967 only 56,000 remain (75% of which live in Jericho), the rest have been displaced.”
The stated purpose of Israel’s vise-like grip on ownership and control of the Valley is to hold a security buffer space between Israel and Jordan, necessary to defend the country; in reality, however, Israel covets the Valley because (1) the West Bank, which could serve as a future Palestinian state, is thereby surrounded on all sides by Israel; (2) the West Bank is thereby cut off from economic interaction and communication with Jordan, and the rest of the Middle East; and (3) in the words of Jordan Valley Solidarity, the Jordan Valley’s “abundance of water resources, fertile soil and natural minerals offer competitive economic advantages in agriculture, industry and tourism. It also constitutes a geographical “reservoir” of land where the Palestinians could establish housing projects and public facilities.”
Every day, at about five in the afternoon, after a long day of sitting around eating pita with hummus and talking politics (or hitch-hiking to Jericho), the internationals (usually anywhere from twelve to five of us, depending on the day) walk out to the desert beside the village to begin work. At this time, the sun has sunk down to touch the top of the mountains, it is no longer unbearably hot outside, and a strong breeze begins to kick up through the valley, sweeping sand up in its path, as the hot air rises and cool air rushes in to fill the vacuum underneath. As we walk in between the houses and animal pens of Area C Fasayil, mothers smile at us from their windows, children look up into our eyes and look away, fathers nod their heads and say ‘salaam aleikum’, the smell of Ramadan break-fast wafts out of open doors, donkeys stand and neigh, goats shift their feet, dogs bask in the afternoon heat; the enchantment of this beautiful community mingles with the haunting recognition that each of these structures has received final demolition orders, and thus could be bulldozed to the ground at any time. This entire village could disappear from existence in the blink of an eye, at 6 in the morning, with the Bedouin families standing beside the rubble of their homes screaming and sobbing, and international activists arriving just in time to offer their condolences, take pictures, and write a report for the news media.
At the site of work, a water tank drives up to the large pit we dug in the earth; somebody turns the faucet, and water pours out into the pit, mixing with the sand to create a thick, wet mud. Excitedly we pull up our trousers, dig our feet into the mud and begin working the sand in with the water, spreading the mixture evenly to make a consistent mushy, gooey mud which envelops everything it touches. Five mud-caked, wide-eyed, primarily European 20-somethings dancing around in the mud, surrounded by ten or so Palestinian shebab (young men) looking amused, is certainly a sight to see! We dump a bag full of ‘kash’ (straw) into the mix, and once that becomes suffused throughout the goop it is proper mud, perfect to make bricks. Some of us scoop the stuff into buckets, others carry the buckets to the third group, who stand hunched over in a line, shaping the mud into bricks, and leaving the mud bricks out to dry.
Recently, the IDF has begun to crack down on our activities. In the words of an international, who would prefer to go by the name Francis Taylor, ”the soldiers came every night the last five nights. The first night they just asked us what we were doing, the second night they said ‘you know you’re building illegal houses and you could be arrested today or tomorrow’. The third night we anticipated them coming, and we left before they raided the site. When they came they stole the tools and destroyed the equipment and smashed the bricks. Since then we have made new tools and are working harder.”
We work into the night, taking various tea and hookah breaks, and then come 11 p.m. we stumble back to our single collective room, with weary bones and muddy skin, and sit down to an amazing meal, cooked by a Bedouin woman behind the closed doors of her home and served to us by her husband, who gets all the thanks.
22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Hussein Al-Qawasmi was arrested 10 days ago. Yesterday Qawasmi was escorted back to his home by Israeli soldiers, who claimed there were explosives as well as a memory stick and other forms of information. The family home was ransacked and a section of it was destroyed.
Two sons have been arrested, 2 have been killed, and one is exiled.
His brother Hassan is also held in jail while another family member, 16 year old Abdel Razaq was taken to the Russian Compound, an Israeli court, in West Jerusalem after he returned from his travels outside of the West Bank. He is currently in prison, but his location is unknown. None of the family members were able to reach him.
The mother of Hussein saw her son handcuffed, blindfolded, and beaten as she tried to approach him. The soldiers pushed her back. She suffers from heart conditions and was severely affected and needed medical attention. The soldiers would not allow an ambulance to come, and when she tried to walk down to the road to go to reach the ambulance they blocked her way. Only after the soldiers had left around twelve thirty she was taken to the hospital at that moment in an ambulance full of injured protesters.
She was taken to intensive care in Al Mazan hospital where she remains.
The explosion in the yard blew up all of the windows of the house and burned the grape vines. There was shrapnel found in the yard and the neighboring house was also damaged.
