Category: Features

Sheikh Jarrah in need of more international presence

13 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In the early hours of September 12th, local illegal settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, torched and destroyed a protest tent frequented and inhabited by locals and international volunteers and observers in the midst of increased Israeli settler violence and aggression.

The tent sat between an extension of the Palestinian-owned building, half of which is now illegally occupied by Israeli settlers, while the rest of the building is still inhabited by the Palestinian Al-Kurd family. All that remains of the protest tent after the recent attack are books, sheets, mattresses and tent components that are completely singed by fire.

The tent was erected to accommodate international activists on a nightly basis as they observed and documented the behavior of the illegal settlers, while symbolically standing against the normalization of illegal settlers against Palestinian locals.

Due to a lack of volunteers, no internationals inhabited the tent on the night of the incident. Mohamed, a local, stated, “If there was somebody in the tent last night, it would not have happened. They would not dare. Maybe they try to insult, but they would not dare. They don’t like the tent, with or without volunteers. They hate this kind of symbol.”

The latest attack by settlers is no doubt a clear attempt to rid the presence of locals and international observers in Sheikh Jarrah.

“I was in the house…I heard something. I went outside, I saw firemen and I saw the policemen. I didn’t know anything until then,” said local resident Nabil Al-Kurd.

This is not the only case of harassment perpetrated by settlers in Sheikh Jarrah—abusive behavior typical of local settlers have included violent verbal incitement, sexual harassment, spitting, throwing rocks, provoking their dogs to attack, and throwing fecal matter into the protest tent.

Locals speculate when settlers will again attack the Palestinian neighborhood. “They will not try to do anything for the next few days, because the situation is bad for them,” said Mohamed. “We have pictures of who did it. A settler told me he was not responsible, that he doesn’t know who did it. I told him, ‘you are lying!’ He tried to tell me that during the last month there were no insults and nothing bad has happened. He is lying!’”

Locals and activists are yet to make complaints to the police about the incident.

Information is still being collected to be submitted to the police. However, very little has been done to protect the Palestinian family from the violence of the settlers in the past, and what remains to be seen is the action, or lack of, from the law, and the future of an international presence in Sheikh Jarrah.

Vittorio Arrigoni trial, day one

8 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

The trial of four surviving defendants in the April 14 kidnapping and murder of Italian journalist and International Solidarity Movement activist Vittorio Arrigoni began today in a Gaza military court.

The hearing, which began at 10:30 am, was open to the public. Two International Solidarity Movement members, along with a number of Vittorio’s Palestinian and international friends, observed it.

It was held in a light, airy hall in Gaza’s military court compound. The four defendants, Abu Ghoul, age 25, Khader Jram, age 26, Mohammed Salfi, age 23, and Hasanah Tarek, age 25, appeared to be in good health, occasionally smiling or waving to family in the courtroom.

Proceedings began with a request by attorneys from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which holds power of attorney for Vittorio’s family in Bulciago, Italy, that they be allowed to participate in the trial.

Military judge Abu Omar Atallah responded that while Palestinian military law does not allow for participation in criminal trials by third parties, the case and its files would be open to PCHR as well as the public.

After the PCHR attorneys moved their chairs from the front of the courtroom back into the public seating, prosecutors attempted to introduce the video contents of a compact disk, as well as a forensic report on the crime scene, as evidence.

The defense counsel responded that the prosecution had not yet made these materials available to them, and that they would need time to review them before deciding on their legal strategy.

Prosecutors also asked that testimony from their witnesses be postponed to allow them further time to prepare. The defense counsel objected, noting that testimony had been scheduled to begin today.

Taking these positions into account, Atallah opted to allow time for the preparation of witnesses by the prosecution, and the review of evidence by the defense. Before adjourning the court at 11:30 am, he scheduled its next hearing for Thursday, September 22.

13-year-old Gaza boy dies eight days after Israeli airstrike

1 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

After clinging to life for eight days, 13-year-old Haitham Ahmed Marouf succumbed to injuries received in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia and died on the morning of Monday, August 29.

The Palestinian boy had been farming with his father, Ahmed Marouf, on Sunday, August 21. Shortly after 11:00 am, a missile fired by an Israeli drone struck the field next to him.

The explosion shredded the left side of Haitham’s body, filling it with shrapnel from his shoulder to his thigh. His left leg was completely destroyed, while his right femur was broken.

His abdomen was so deeply wounded that his uncle Mohammed Marouf, a staff nurse at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, recalled, “I could have put my hand inside it.”

After he received initial treatment at al-Shifa Hospital, Haitham’s family secured permission from the Israeli government to transfer him to a hospital under its control. He was transported through the Erez Crossing on Wednesday, August 24.

Despite the advanced treatment he received in an Israeli Intensive Care Unit, including the surgical extraction of shrapnel and cleaning of his wounds, Haitham died at 10:00 am on August 29.

When he met with the International Solidarity Movement on Wednesday, August 31, Ahmed Marouf was too shaken by the death of his son to comment.

Two killed in bombing of al-Salama sport club in Beit Lahia

25 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

At about 1:30 A.M. on August 25, 2011 Israeli warplanes bombed the Salama Sports Club in Beit Lahia. The building was empty at the time. The sports club, however, is in the middle of a residential area. Two people from a neighboring house were killed in the bombing, Salama Abdul Rahman al-Masri, 18, the son of the house’s owner, who died immediately; and Alaa ‘Adnan Mohammed al-Jakhbeer, 22, from Jabalya. Twenty five other people were injured in the bombing, including eleven children and seven women. The bombing also caused heavy damage to the Dar Al Huda School and several surrounding buildings.

Salama was sitting with seven friends of his in the back yard of his family’s house. After evening prayers they often sat there. This evening, Salama had went shopping for gifts for Eid before joining his friends. Fourteen people lived in Salama’s house, his parents, three of his brothers, five of his sisters, and the wife and baby of one of his brothers. Salama was a hardworking young man. He wanted to help his family have a better life. He worked two jobs, one in a store that sold chickens, and another in at a falafel stand. He did this while he studied to retake the Tawjihi, the exam to enter university. Ambulances arrived quickly, only ten minutes after the bombing, but it was too late for Salama, he was killed instantly when a piece of shrapnel from the bombing struck the back of his head. His brother wants the international community “stop pretending that giving aid is enough, the people who were killed here were civilians, we are treated unfairly, we had to support us in our quest for our rights, not just provide food. Our problem isn’t food, it is that we are refugees expelled from our land and denied our rights.”

His friend Alaa was not so lucky. He died from his wounds two hours later. He and Salama had met through Salama’s older brother, they had become close friends. Despite the fact that Alaa wasn’t from Beit Lahia he often came to Beit Lahia to spend time with Salama. He had recently finished his degree in Islamic Law from a center run by the Waqf in Beit Lahia.

The Salama Sport Club is a large building. Three floors, the top floor was used as area to play sports, basketball, volleyball, football, the middle floor was used for practicing karate and other sports, the lower floor was devoted to weight lifting. The entire building is now destroyed. The bomb penetrated the top floor and exploded in the middle floor. The roof has collapsed onto the lower levels. Equipment lies scattered around the rubble. Thankfully the Israeli’s did not choose to bomb the club a day earlier, it was full of people having a celebration. The club opened in 2005 and served hundreds of local residents, providing much needed recreational possibilities in an area that lacks many choices. Employees don’t understand why the club was bombed, it was a public club, it was not affiliated with any political party, it was only a place for local young people to exercise and play games.

Next to the Salama Sport Club is the Dar Al Huda School. Unlike the Salama Sport Club the school wasn’t empty when the bomb struck. Workers were inside painting it, getting it ready for the new school year which starts soon. Two of them were injured. One of them is in the hospital now, in critical condition.

The Dar Al Huda School serves about three hundred and twenty students. Two hundred students in a kindergarten and 120 students through the sixth grade. When we arrived children were collecting books from the rubble, piling them up, trying to salvage what they could. The building is heavily damaged, the wall on the side facing the sport club is totally destroyed. Rubble fills the classrooms. The walls are still adorned with murals of cartoon characters, Bambi and Snow Whit seem to be the most popular. Dar Al Huda is a private school. It attracted students from all over North Gaza, families of refugees, from Haifa, from Lod, from Ashdod, from Beersheba. They came for the art programs, for the small classes. Now, the children’s paints lie scattered in the rubble, their art projects hang from the ceiling covered in dust. The walls of the kindergarten are still covered in posters of fruits and animals, but no students will be studying there any time soon. The front of the school is covered in plaques thanking donors who helped to build the school. The Canadian International Development Agency has wasted its money, they built a school, but Israel has destroyed it. No more students will be learning to paint in their building. We walk around the school with its director, he asks us why Israel would destroy a kinder garden, did the children learning to paint threaten them? Did the children learning to read threaten it? In truth, the existence of the children is a threat to Israel, they are living reminder of the Nakba, of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. If only the children would disappear Israel might be able to convince the world that its crimes are all in the past, that they are somehow less real. The children exist though, now they live in Gaza, not in their homes in Ashdod, Beersheba, and Lod.

Night of Israeli violence: Al Aqsa Mosque barricade, house demolition, gang beating, arrests

22 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Just after midnight on Monday, August 22  the Israeli military took the opportunity to trap 1500 Palestinian youth inside al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, blow up a house in Hebron (injuring 30 people in the ensuing riots), and arrested a member of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin.

In Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians gathered to protest the Israeli escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip. Starting from the Bab Al ‘Amoud (Damscus Gate) area and marching toward Salah El Deen Street, the protesters suddenly found themselves under attack by Israeli soldiers after the latter claimed that a soldier had been stabbed. Israeli soldiers and border police closed off the Bab Al Amoud area and Salah El Deen Street and kidnapped several Palestinian youth who were taken to the Al Maskobiyya interrogation center, west of Jerusalem. They also ttacked Palestinian medics and ambulances in the area.

The protesters continued their march into the Old City, prompting hundreds of policemen to break into several homes and cause damage in the area. The protesters ended up inside al-Aqsa mosque, where policemen trapped them inside, closed off the mosque, placed ladders on walls surrounding the mosque, and provoked protesters and those who were simply there to pray and worship during the last ten holy days of Ramadan.

In another incident in Jenin, Israeli soldiers surrounded the Freedom Theater at 2 am, closed off the area, and arrested Mohammed Naghnaghiye, the security guard and technician of the theater. On the way out, they fired live ammunition to disperse the crowd of Palestinians who had gathered.

This is the third attack on the Freedom Theater by the Israeli military this month.

This comes following a daytime attack by a gang of 15 masked settlers of a 10 year old Palestinian boy near Ramallah, outside the settlement of Ramat Migron. The boy is in the hospital being treated for deep wounds.