Category: Features - Page 12 - International Solidarity Movement

Bedouin village of Um al-Kheir fights against new demolition threats

The illegal settlement Carmel looks over the Bedouin village of Um al-Kheir

June 26 | International Solidarity Movement | Umm al-Kheir, south Hebron Hills, occupied Palestine

The Bedouin village of Um al-Kheir in the South Hebron Hills have launched a new bid to save their homes from demolition.

On Monday, activists from the village submitted a new master plan to the Israeli Civil Administration which, if accepted, would protect their community from the bulldozers.

Since 2011, 32 structures including houses, animal barns and a bread oven have been demolished in Um al-Khair with almost every family losing at least one home.

The village has been in crisis mode over the past week, going to bed each night with the fear that bulldozers could be rolling towards them in the morning.

An international presence (including people from the Good Shepherd Collective, Christian Peacemakers Team, All That’s Left and ISM) has been set up in solidarity with the people of Um al-Kheir and to provide a possible deterrence.

The community hopes to have a response from the Civil Administration in the coming days, which if given, will freeze the demolition orders for a few years.

But until a response is given, the village remains at risk of demolition.

The Civil Administration, the governing Israeli body in Area B and C in the West Bank, recently rejected the villagers’ previous master plan submitted three years ago. During this time period, demolition orders were frozen, giving the Bedouin community a brief respite. But now the freeze period is over and Um al-Kheir is once again at risk of demolition with orders against 45 homes.

The villagers are expecting a response from the Civil Administration tomorrow, which would begin the process again of freezing the orders while the master plan is deliberated.

Um al-Khair is one of the villages in the South Hebron Hills that is particularly at risk of expulsion.

It is gradually being surrounded by the illegal settlement of Carmel which is just feet away with a fence separating the two.

Five days after demolition: Picking up the pieces

June 21, 2019 | International Solidarity Movement | South Hebron Hills, occupied Palestine

Palestinian flags fluttered over the rubble of Mohammad al Dababsh home in the South Hebron Hills yesterday as local activists helped the family put up a temporary shelter.

Pots and pans lay scattered amongst bricks, metal and dust – the only remnants left of the two-roomed house which was demolished on Monday.

ISM joined activists from the Protection and Sumud committee – a group that protects locals from attacks by settlers – to the village of Khalet al Dabeh where they helped the Dababsh family to erect a tarpaulin tent.

The house was the first of four homes to face the bulldozers on June 17 as occupation forces went on a demolition spree across two villages, as reported by ISM.

ISM spoke to Jaber Dababsh, the brother of Mohammad about the impact the demolition has had on his family.

“They are completely destroyed because they lost everything at once – their electricity, their home, their stuff,’ Jaber Dababsh replied through a translator.

“The situation is very hard, now they’ve got this tent and hopefully they can move in it soon because all their stuff is outside and mostly they are outside.”

Villagers, local activists and ISMers erect a tent on the site of a demolished home in Khalet al Dabeh

The tent was cold and dark, the solar panels that once supplied energy to the house now destroyed and confiscated by soldiers during the demolition. In stark contrast, the illegal settlement of Havat Maon glared in the distance. ‘The settlers have big homes, running water and electricity,’ a member of the committee told ISM. ‘This family just has a tent.’

During Monday’s demolition, a member of the al Dababsh family broke through the closed military zone around his house in a desperate attempt to save it. He was aggressively pushed back by Israeli border police who threw him to the floor. He was later hospitalized.

Jaber told ISM that workers who had been removing his family’s possessions from the house just before the demolition stopped when his brother ran through the closed military zone. This meant many of their belongings were left in the house when the bulldozer ripped into it, including the children’s school bags and books.

The door of the al Dababsh home demolished this week

Even the tent is not safe from the occupation forces. Tents put up to shelter families after demolition are also routinely confiscated by the Civil Israeli Administration.

ISM asked what the family would do if the tent was taken.

‘We will stay here,” Jaber replied. “We will put up another one. This is not something that will surprise us, it’s something we expect to happen under this occupation.

“This is their [Israel’s] thinking, to make us get out of the village. It’s been five days since the demolition and they [the al Dababsh family] are still here, living outside.”

Villagers and members of the Protection and Sumud committee pose with a Palestinian flag outside the newly constructed tent

Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills are denied access to running water, electricity and permits to build new structures – including schools and medical centres – by the Israeli occupation. As a result most of 30 villages in the area are at risk of demolition.

Despite being deprived of their human right to shelter, the al Dababsh family remained defiant.

“If you demolish, we will build, if you uproot our trees we will plant more.” This is the family’s message to the occupation.

Villagers live in fear and uncertainty as four more homes demolished in South Hebron Hills

June 18, 2019 | International Solidarity Movement | South Hebron Hills, occupied Palestine

The al-Dababsh family watch as their home is demolished. *Pic: Basil Adraa*

Occupation forces went on a demolition spree yesterday in the South Hebron Hills, bulldozing the homes of four families in two villages.

A convoy of border police, Israeli Civil Administration officials, soldiers and two JCB bulldozers arrived in the village of Khalet al Dabeh at around 9am to destroy a house belonging to Mohammad al Dababsh.

Twelve members of the al Dababsh family including seven children, who have lived in the region for generations, are now homeless and have been given tents to sleep in by the Red Cross.

“People used to live in tents and caves and they had their dream come true to live in a house – they came up from under the ground into the light,’ Basil Adraa, a youth activist from the neighbouring village of al-Tuwani, told ISM.

“Now they have gone back 10 years, living before without light and houses.”

Adraa along with other local activists and ISMers arrived to Khalet al Dabeh just ahead of the demolition.

Members of the al Dababsh family were shouting in distress and at one point attempted to run through the line of border police – who had announced a closed military zone around the house – in a bid to protect his home before it was raised to the ground.

Omar al Dababsh was thrown to the floor by soldiers as he ran. His injuries required urgent medical attention and he was taken to Hebron hospital.

Soldiers also shoved local activists and ISMers in the scuffle.

A Palestinian man lies injured after being thrown to the ground by occupation forces by his demolished home

Adraa was filming the demolition from a roof near the al Dababsh house when soldiers threatened to throw a sound grenade at him if he refused to get down.

A separate building storing solar panel batteries was also destroyed and the panels were confiscated.

After forcing a family of 12 into homelessness, the convoy moved on to the village of al Halawe where they destroyed a further three homes belonging to the Aram family.

Adraa told ISM that a ‘demolition day’ has happened every week this year, except during Ramadan when there were two demolitions in five weeks.

The region of the South Hebron Hills is in Area C of the West Bank where almost all construction by Palestinians is banned by the Israeli government.

Most of the region’s 30 Palestinian villages have demolition orders on at least one building meaning they could be bulldozed at any time.

Local activist group, the Good Shepherd Collective, which raises awareness about demolitions in the South Hebron Hills area stated on its Facebook page: “It is worth noting that these demolitions, injuries, and confiscations do not simply impact and traumatize the families and individuals immediately affected – demolitions, especially during the oppressive heat of the summer, force families to rebuild in order to meet their basic needs, and in the meantime rely on their extended family and community members.”

An Israeli border police aggressively pushes locals and humanitarian observers

Adraa added: “It seems like a Nakba for these people, because the biggest goal for the occupation is to evacuate the people from these villages to the cities. So in this kind of demolition, big demolition, it’s a serious step to evacuate the people and take them from their land which is illegal by international law. They want to demolish houses so that the settlement can expand.”

Despite the ban, which also forbids Palestinians to hook up to the electricity grid and water supply, illegal settlers in the region continue to construct new buildings unimpeded by Israeli forces.

ISM Week of Action Against Eurovision

May 2019 | International Solidarity Movement| occupied Palestine

ISM’s week of action against the Eurovision in Tel Aviv In coordination with the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) and The Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and in collaboration with Israeli anti zionist groups has been a huge success! From before the opening ceremony until the Eurovision final there was not a Eurvison event that was not protested and their was no coverage of the Eurovision that did not at least mention the calls to Boycott the competition in Tel Aviv often bringing images from the protests that took place on the ground.

Photo by Activestills

The Week of action started rocking the Eurovision boat before it began. The international media reported on the campaign announcement: “Pro-Palestinian activists have urged supporters to “join us in disrupting Israel’s latest PR stunt” and to participate in a ‘Week of Action Against Eurovision in Tel Aviv’. The Israeli authorities were quick to state that it would not allow the activists in. The activists were prepared to remain in Israeli custody if they were denied and thus highlighting Israel’s policy of denial of access to Palestinians, their family members and human rights defenders to Palestine. But, we managed to enter!

While preparations for the international contest where underway Israel committed yet another massacre against the besieged population of the Gaza strip. Bombing the densely populated strip from the air, tanks and gun boats, Israeli soldiers killed to 25 including a family – mother, father and 4-month old baby, and two pregnant women and a twelve year old child. On May 5th, with bombs still raining on Gaza, Eurovision events and the protests against them began. Activists descended on Tel Aviv, postering pictures of slain Palestinians in the city centre, graffitiing slogans and opening a banner calling to Liberate the Gaza ghetto at a Eurovision event.

From the day that the Eurovision opened on the 15th of May we were there Blindfolded and handcuffed at the Eurovision in Tel Aviv to remind the participants of the stolen lives of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons. We projected images of the occupation taken by activestills, during one Eurovision party and held a die-in at another in solidarity with the Palestinian Great march of Return. And hung posters at the venue to bring the faces of the children murdered in Gaza to these parties were held on the beach the land of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian village of Manshiya in solidarity with the great march of return. At the semi final and ISM activists unfurled a banner inside the venue that read “We dare to dream an end of Apartheid”

We also brought our banners and joined forces with Israeli Anti Zionists at their protests on the 14th at the Eurovision finals on the 18th and highlighted the alternative events organised by our Palestinian comrades across Palestine in Haifa, Gaza, and Bethlehem as part of the International “Global vision.”

3 minutes after people finish praying at the al-Risan hill, the Israeli army fire tear gas; Protestors never give up

April 26, 2019 | International Solidarity Movement | Mount al-Risan, occupied Palestine

This Friday a large group of worshippers gathered for prayers at Mount al-Risan. When they arrived, two groups of Israeli military were already on each side of the valley waiting for them.

The worshippers prayed together in front of the hill, as always facing towards Mecca, thus having to face the illegal Israeli settlement as well.

A man from one of the surrounding villages explained the situation; “The plan from the Israeli is to build an outpost on this mountain, they want to build a road between […] the settlements. […] They want to make a connection between the settlements, and the plan, after they control this mountain, they will separate the west of Ramallah, this village, from the rest of Ramallah. It will be destroying the life, destroying the economic resources, destroying everything.”

After the prayers finished some of the people began to walk up the hill towards the illegal settlement in protest. Within three minutes of the prayers finishing the Israeli soldiers began shooting tear gas into the crowd of worshippers including the Imam.

The local man explained the protest: “For around nine months here in this area, we have been protesting, refusing this plan from the Israeli, asking them to move this outpost in the mountain, and to give the land to the owner. Before around one month, one of the owners of the land tried to build a small room here – they (the military) came and demolished it. […] But they allowed the settlers – the settlers on not their own land, this is Palestinian land – they allowed them to build farms and outposts, and as I say, this is a centre, they start it here for a big settlement in the area, to build a big road between the big settlements in the area.”

The Israeli military continued to fire tear gas canisters into the crowd to stop them from walking up the hill, which is rightfully and legally the protesters land. During the attack illegal Israeli settlers were seen at the top of the hill. And shortly after a drone was seen in the air hovering over protestors, possibly taking pictures.

Many people suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation, but thankfully there were two Palestinian medics and an ambulance there to hand out water and treat anyone injured.

A thoughtful and calm man, Abu Lara, wanted to speak to us and told us about the struggle:

“Every Friday we will try to go up the mountains, every Friday, but we can’t because the soldiers are shooting gas at us, and we don’t have weapons, nothing, we have nothing, with hands only. But we will still try, try every Friday. After 100, we will try, because this is our land, and we don’t have strong, but we will try. We have idea about this, our land. So, we will still be trying to go to our land, and take our land. Israel has taken our land in West Bank, we are not going to leave to other countries. We are still here, it’s our land. “

Watch the full interview with Abu Lara here, where he explains why these protests are important:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFUiNfAbQLs&feature=youtu.be