Category: Features - Page 120 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian life ground to a halt by Israeli forces’ violence in al-Khalil (Hebron)

27th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Monday, October 26^th 2015, Israeli forces entered the Palestinian market, fired tear gas into the busy market place and closed down part of the market.

Twenty minutes past two o’clock, a group of 14 soldiers entered the Palestinian market, bustling with school-children on their way home from school and adults doing shopping. The Palestinian souq is located right next to illegal Israeli settlements. The soldiers entered the souq from the direction of the settlements, took over the main junction at Bab al-Baladiyya and immediately stopped all civilians from passing by in any direction.

Israeli forces blocking the main Palestinian market

Watch a short video:

Just a few minutes after Israeli forces aggressively took over the main intersection, they started firing tear gas towards a group of children. In total, one stun grenade and 14 tear gas canisters were fired into the busy market by Israeli forces. All the time, settlers on top of the nearby Beit Romano settlement were watching and cheering on, as Israeli forces showered tear gas on civilians in the Palestinian market.

Israeli settlers cheering as soldiers shoot teargas at Palestinians

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While the soldiers were shooting tear gas and a part of the soldiers was going closer into a Palestinian neigbourhood to shoot tear gas, Palestinian freedom of movement was entirely stopped in the market for more than half an hour. A group of at least 20 school-girls was stopped on their way home from school by the soldiers yelling at them and raising their guns at them, ordering them to move back immediately. When the school-children were asking to be allowed to ‘just go home’, Israeli forces refused to allow them passage and continued yelling at them.

Watch a video:

A Palestinian man that drove up in his car was also denied passage. He got out of his car and requested soldiers to check his ID and pleaded to be allowed to go through, as it was an emergency and he had to go to the hospital. Even though soldiers in the beginning refused to let him pass dismissing his urgent request, they did finally allow him to go after about 2 minutes.

Watch a video:

While soldiers were blocking the market, about 50-80 Palestinian civilians were stopped and not able to move in any direction, forced to wait for the soldiers to finish their violent attack on every-day life in occupied al-Khalil. Once the soldiers went back through Bab il-Baladiyya towards segregated Shuhada Street, people were finally able to continue their everyday life.

School days become increasingly perilous as violence rages in Hebron

26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

The morning of October 26th, four high-risk locations near schools in Hebron were monitored by international human rights workers, and all four saw incidents of violence to Palestinians and internationals at the hands of Israeli forces and illegal settlers.

At the Qurtuba school location, two international observers were denied their legal right to stand ten meters from the checkpoint while counting children passing and recording any incidents. A police officer demanded both passports, copied down some information onto paper, and angrily barked orders for one observer to give his name. The international was confused, as the officer was holding his government identification, until it became clear he was attempting to read it right-to-left, as though it were Hebrew. The internationals retreated, but then soon decided to observe from the top of a stairwell for which they were previously given permission. Illegal settler and frequent violent offender Anat Cohen came out of adjacent Beit Hadassah illegal settlement, screaming and charging at the observers, then striking one observer with a closed fist in the back of the head. Six soldiers standing five feet from her made no attempt to prevent the assault or intervene after the fact, and the observers continued up the stairs while Anat continued screaming obscenities.

Today at the Salaymeh checkpoint, through which children pass to attend three different schools, two international observers witnessed soldiers provoking the children on their way school by pretending to shoot at them. Israeli forces opened fire with rounds of tear gas at children gathered in this dense urban area, where the buildings are tall and close together, and there is nowhere to quickly escape the thick clouds of CN particles. Suddenly, two soldiers charged toward a cluster of children and fired tear-gas again, at 20 meters, dangerously close range. In total more than thirteen tear gas canisters were shot over approximately fifty children. A settler was watching the scene, visibly enjoying it and photographing the pupils and internationals.

Palestinian schoolgirls running away from tear gas

The Al Faihaa Basic School is situated at the end of Shuhada street. This morning, two internationals who were stationed there, along with a caretaker who lives at the school stood in front of the gates, hurrying the girls into the school-grounds, watching for fast passing illegal settler vehicles, and accompanying the girls across the road. He explained that lately, teachers and school officials have been particularly worried that a student will be attacked or kidnapped on the way to school in light of recent settler violence. Tear-gas fired on children at nearby Salaymeh and Queitun checkpoints entered Faihaa school through the windows around 8am, during the morning assembly. Teachers hurried to close the windows to protect themselves and the children against it, but one teacher called to say she would be absent from school as she had to be rushed to hospital for teargas exposure, and another who was in attendance had to be administered an oxygen mask due to excessive teargas inhalation sustained on the way to and within the school yard. The school was closed at 9.30 due to teargas, and it was later reported from teachers in the school that 3 girls had been attacked on the way to school. An illegal settler attempted to run one over, a second had stones thrown at her by settler children, and a third was grabbed by the neck by settlers and threatened before being released.

Israeli forces right about to shoot tear gas at school-children

In the streets surrounding the Salymeh and Queitun checkpoints, over 30 youth, whose schools had already been closed due to excessive teargas in the area, were chanting and approaching the checkpoint. Israeli Forces shot at least 24 rounds of teargas at the youth, and clashes lasted until at least 9:15AM. An ambulance and several cars had to drive through the teargas. It was reported that approximately 50 children had already been taken to the hospital that morning due to teargas related medical issues.

Palestinian ambulance forced to go through clouds of tear gas

Watch a video of Israeli forces shooting tear gas at school-children

Yet another Palestinian life claimed in al-Khalil (Hebron)

26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

This afternoon, Israeli forces executed a Palestinian young man in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).
According to eye-witnesses at the scene, the man was walking towards a checkpoint in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi mosque. Israeli forces did not ask him to show his ID or even ask him to stop. Instead they just started shooting him when he was a few meters away from him. ‘There was no knife’, explains an eyewitness that does not want to be identified, ‘I heard four to five shots’. Even though an Israeli ambulance arrived at the scene shortly after, no medical attention was given to the youth. More ambulances kept coming to the scene, but still no first aid was administered. He was identified as 19-year old Saad Muhammad Youssef al-Atrash.
This is the second cold-blooded murder in the neighbourhood of the Ibrahimi mosque, after 17-year old Dania Arshid was gunned down by Israeli forces yesterday.

Another daughter of Palestine killed in cold blood

26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Yesterday afternoon, Dania Arsheid, 17, was gunned down in cold blood and killed by Israeli forces in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).

Dania was still wearing her school-uniform and school-bag, coming from school in the afternoon. Just twenty minutes before the incident, at a checkpoint leading to the Ibrahimi mosque, a female soldier was heard on the army-radio by passers-by announcing that she wanted “to kill a Palestinian person that day’.
Dania passed through the checkpoint leading from the Palestinian market to the Ibrahimi mosque, and a few meters further to the next checkpoint. She passed through the metal detector and gave her bag to the soldiers at the checkpoint. An eyewitness explains: “I saw with my own eyes, there was no knife – nothing.” According to eye-witnesses, soldiers then shot at her feet – at which point she immediately stepped back and raised her hands. That is when soldiers started shot her, according to witnesses, seven to eight times. While she lay on the ground bleeding from her neck, no first aid was given, not even the Israeli ambulance that arrived after about twenty minutes gave any medical help. A Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance was denied entry to the scene and ordered by soldiers to leave.

Palestinian ambulance denied access to critically injured Dania

While the Israeli army claims that Dania had a knife and was thus a threat to the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint, all eye-witness accounts refute this. Regardless of that claim, shooting a child numerous times into the upper body and neck, while she is moving back with her hands in the air, clearly scared and not a threat, will never be justifiable under any circumstances. Denying first aid and access of medical personnel to critically injured persons can not be excused.

Sadly, episodes where Palestinian youth are extra-judicially executed by Israeli forces and then denied medical aid are not an exception anymore. Dania is already the third girl killed by Israeli soldiers in al-Khalil within a month. It is hard to imagine the pain of the parents and the family of these victims learning about the pointless, tragic death of their loved ones. A witness to already more than one of the heinous murders states: “What can we do? They are not human!”

Israeli settlers trespass & attempt to enter the home of international human rights workers

26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On October 25th, around 2am, strange noises could be heard through the window of an apartment in Tel Rumeida where nine international human rights activists are currently living. Upon further inspection, four adult male settlers were identified, trespassing on the property. In full view of the soldiers who are constantly posted on the street directly in front of the house, two of the settlers ascended the staircase and attempted for several minutes to open the locked, latched door. They stopped and went back down the stairs, screaming “f*** you!” and making obscene gestures when the two at the bottom realized the scene was being filmed, and warned the others.

When the three soldiers at the bottom of the stairs were immediately approached by the internationals about the incident, their reactions were flippant and vaguely threatening, including laughter, repeating that “everything is fine”, and the flat out denial that any of them had seen any of the settlers, with the caveat that “though [they] didnt see any settlers, [they] told them to get down”. Soldiers reiterated to the shaken internationals that “Palestinians want to kill us all”, and referenced the ‘arab threat’ posed by all the alleged perpetrators of stabbing attacks, almost none of whom have been convicted though almost all have been executed. Soldiers reiterated that the settlers were gone and that internationals would be protected, despite repeated questions about why these heavily armed soldiers didn’t manage to detain or even address or perhaps even see the trespassing illegal settlers. When the soldiers were asked to produce their commander, one of the soldiers named himself, Yonaton Zair. He wore no standard markings of an officer, and when asked the number of their battalion, he simply said Tzahar. Neither he nor any other soldier would produce any other information.

Unfortunately, this is fairly standard operating procedure in Hebron, where soldiers effectively work at the command of the settlers.