Category: Features

Youth arrested in Hebron over cereal

2 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On 2 October in Al Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army and police arrested 2 Palestinian children based on petty, unfounded accusations whilst allowing settlers to employ violence with complete impunity. 13 year old Khaled Abu Snaeneh and 15 year old Said Abu Aisha were arrested and detained for over 4 hours at Kiryat Arba police station.

At 2:45 soldiers came to the Abu Aisha house in Tel Rumeida to investigate a complaint made by settlers that Palestinians had stolen some boxes of expired cereal from their backyard. A group of around 30 settlers gathered around the house shouting at both the Palestinian residents and the police and army. Under pressure from the gradually increasing number of settlers surrounding the house Israeli police made the decision to arrest the two young boys, solely on the evidence of being accused by the settlers.

Ibrahim Abu Aisha explained that the boys arrested had not taken the cereal as they were working at the time the incident took place.

Several Palestinians reported that Baruch Marzel from the Tel Rumeida settlement kicked 30 year old Fawaz Abu Aisha requiring him to go to hospital. Despite the visible bruising on Fawaz’s leg and attempts to complain to the police they refused to take any action on this assault. Marzel has a history of assaulting Palestinians and was formerly a spokesperson for the Kach party before it was made illegal in Israel as a racist, terrorist organization.

After being driven to Kiryat Arba police station and detained for 4 hours, the boys were not charged but still forced to pay a fine of 200 shekels each.

Gaza protest supports Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike

3 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today over a thousand Palestinians converged on the International Committee of the Red Cross building in Gaza, Palestine, continuing a tent protest that began outside the walled compound yesterday and bolstering a weekly sit-in by the families of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

These events began a week of action in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on their seventh day of an escalating hunger strike against the inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons. 35 Palestinian activists joined the prisoners in their open-ended hunger strike and a number of others, including the Gaza leaders of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, announced their participation in a one-day strike.

“I was in prison from October 15, 2003 until December 31, 2005,” said Mohammed Abu Uda, one of the many former prisoners in Gaza. He was arrested because someone had mentioned his name under torture, claiming that he was part of the resistance. He was taken to the prison in Ashkelon, where he was subjected to 68 days of investigation. “I was kept in solitary confinement for 30 days, I went out only for questioning. These interviews lasted from 8 to 24 hours, periods in which I could not eat nor drink nor sleep. Once I was questioned for 64 hours straight.”

Abu Uda was held from October 15, 2003 until December 31, 2009, serving a year beyond his initial sentence.

Abu Hamza, one of the organizers of the garrison to the Red Cross, explained that Palestinian prisoners “are kept in isolation, they are prevented from communicating with family or with anyone.” He also mentioned Palestinians like Abu Khaleel Khandeeja, Haragano Ishaq, Ali El Jaafri, and Elraiy Ibrahim, who have died in Israeli prisons due to torture, the denial of medication, and previous hunger strikes.

Israel currently detains over 6,000 Palestinians, including about 270 held under “administrative detention” without charge or trial.

Three cousins die in Gaza tunnel collapse

30 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Shortly after 5:00 pm on Sunday, September 25, three Palestinians died when sewage leaking from an Egyptian pipeline caused a tunnel connecting the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of the Rafah border, in which they were working, to collapse.

It was the second time that the pipeline, which pumps sewage east into the Sinai, had sprung a leak in the area.

The three, all cousins, lived in the south of the Gaza Strip. Feras Ahmed Al-Shaer, 18 years old, lived in Khan Younis with his parents, one brother, and seven sisters. He was completing his last year of high school. Fady Mostafa Al-Shaer, also 18, lived in Rafah with his parents, four brothers, and two sisters. He had decided to work in the tunnels to help support his family, which lived in two rooms. Anwer Eid Al-Shaer, age 22, lived in Rafah and needed money to finish his final year of studies at Al-Quds Open University.

After the collapse, other tunnels workers were able to escape to the Palestinian side. The bodies of the three Al-Shaer cousins, who had been closest to the Egyptian side, lay in rubble and sewage for two days until Egyptian rescue workers were able to excavate them at 5:00 am Tuesday.

Mohammed Abu Al-Shaer, the cousins’ uncle, spoke of the helpfulness of Egyptian authorities and said that the Al-Shaer family had brought oil to fuel the rescue workers’ lights.

“We hope that this siege will end soon, so others won’t be forced to take similar risks in the tunnels. We want to live like people everywhere else,” he said.

Israeli military conceals information about possible nerve agent used by illegal, violent settlers

26 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Sunday, September 25th, Riyadh Abu Armile was assaulted by settlers and the army in Hebron,causing for an open investigation by human rights groups as evidence suggests that settlers may have used an unidentified nerve agent during the assault.

On the night of the attack hundreds of settlers from around  Al Khalil (Hebron) arrived in the H2 area, in the centre of the city for the funeral of Asher Palmer and his son from Kiryat Arba who died in a car crash on Friday. Despite the fact that an investigation into the deaths is yet to reach a conclusion about the cause of the crash, soldiers on the scene echoed the proclamations of Israeli media sources, which labeled the incident as a “terrorist attack” because of speculation that the crash was caused by Palestinians throwing stones. A dangerously volatile situation was then created by the decision to hold the funeral in a Palestinian area of Hebron rather than the Kiryat Arba settlement where the deceased lived.

Armile was walking near the Ibrahimi Mosque with his uncle and 7 year old son at about 8pm on Sunday, when  he was met by around 30 settlers who began throwing rocks at the family. More settlers joined the violent assault, and within a few minutes he estimated there were as many as 200 settlers surrounding him. After the family attempted to take refuge in a nearby house, settlers broke the windows and continued the attack.

Armile told us that the attackers used some kind of chemical weapon that emitted a gas, causing symptoms very similar to those of a nerve agent.

Armile said, “‘I couldn’t see and went into convulsions, saliva was coming out of my mouth and afterwards I couldn’t move my muscles for one hour.”

When soldiers arrived at the scene they beat Armile as he tried to protect himself from the settlers. After the attack they detained him for over an hour and refused access for the ambulance that came to treat him. At 9:30PM he had to be carried to the ambulance, which took him immediately to the hospital in Hebron.

The Israeli army confiscated the gas canister used by the settlers and refused to give the doctors information about the chemical agent used. He had to stay overnight in a hospital and required 13 injections. Doctors were unsure how to treat him due to the unknown nature of the chemical and warned him that he may suffer long-term health problems. During the attack his son sustained head injuries from rocks thrown by the settlers, and Armile’s uncle’s hand was also broken.

Red Cross and other human rights organizations are currently investigating the incident as they suspect that the chemical may be some form of nerve gas, which is illegal under international law. The attack comes just weeks after leaked documents from the Israeli military revealed plans to train and arm settlers against Palestinians.

Essam Aoudhi: Martyred in defense of Qusra

23 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Today Essam Kamal Abed Aoudhi, a 35 year old father of 8 children from the village of Qusra, was murdered by the Israeli army as they fired live ammunition indiscriminately into a crowd of villagers gathered in their village.

From the nearby outpost of Esh Kodesh (“Holy Head”) built entirely on stolen Qusra land, a large group of settlers left the settlement and entered the village just after 1pm and began attacking villagers and burning olive groves. As the villagers gathered to protect themselves and their land, the soldiers arrived and stood between the settlers and villagers, protecting the settlers who retreated.

Soldiers instantly began to fire tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and live ammunition directly at villagers, making no attempt to disperse but intending solely to injure.

Mohammad Abdul Odeh, age 16, was shot in the stomach with a high velocity tear gas canister as he stood on his land.

Remi Hassan was shot with 4 rubber bullets and one dum dum from 2 meters away by the Israeli military.

Remi Yusef Faiz Hassan, age 35, was shot with 4 rubber bullets and one dum dum from 2 meters as he peacefully walked to soldiers to ask why they allow the settlers to enter his village and burn his trees.

Sameeh Hassan, age 24, was shot in the groin with rubber bullets as he attempted to reach his olive trees and extinguish the fire destroying them.

Essam Aoudhi was shot with live ammunition as he joined his fellow villagers protesting the army’s incursion into his village. According to Dr. Sameh Abu Zaroh, a doctor at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, the wound on Essam’s body shows that the bullet was shot from just a few meters away and from below in such a way to insure maximum injury. The bullet entered the right side of Essam’s chest and exited through the top of his back, fracturing his vertebrae in multiple places.

After Essam was carried to an ambulance, the soldiers left immediately, clearly understanding what had just happened. The people of Qusra returned to the centre of the village where children had gathered, shouting slogans expressing their anger over Essam’s martyrdom.

As the sun set in Qusra, the punishment continued, as two teenagers stumbled into the village before collapsing to the ground in pain. Both Amar Masameer, age 19, and Fathi Hassan, age 16, were arrested earlier in the day as they made their way towards Qusra’s burning olive trees.

They did not resist arrest yet returned to the village dripping with blood and faces so swollen they were barely recognisable. Once arrested, Fathi Hassan explained, settlers from the outpost had asked the soldiers detaining them for permission to beat the two boys. The soldiers did not interfere and so the settlers began stoning the boys whilst their hands where cuffed behind their backs. Amar Masameer was hit directly in the eye with a stone thrown from just a few meters and is now in Rafidia hospital awaiting treatment.