Category: Features

International and Palestinian Journalists Tear Gassed

November 17, 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Ramallah, occupied Palestine

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) decided to hold its annual meeting in Palestine this year, where they demonstrated at the infamous Qalandia checkpoint on Saturday. The dozens of journalists, holding only international press cards, were immediately met with canisters of tear gas.

“We went peacefully, wearing IFJ uniforms and carrying IFJ cards. It’s obvious that it was journalists who were demonstrating,” explained Nasser Abu Baker, Chairman of the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate, a representative to the IFJ. Nasser was one of the many journalists fired upon at Qalandia.

“In the last four years there were three 3000 crimes committed against journalists, 26 of which were murders… It’s obvious that the Israeli leadership couldn’t accept our demand for freedom of movement, and the scene of IFJ being there, standing with Palestinian journalists.”

Lack of freedom of movement is a common experience for Palestinians in the West Bank, most of whom are unable to leave. The few who leave the West Bank for work face the physical torment of waiting in line for hours, crammed together in zig-zagged cages, and facing the high probability of Israeli aggression.

Qalandia checkpoint is the subject of much reported abuse, though none of this would be known if it wasn’t for the Palestinian press. But their reporting has come with a price: It has created huge controversy and caused them to suffer incredible abuse. Today’s demonstration was no exception.
In Nasser’s words:
“This was a crime against Palestinian journalists… It was crime against the international press.”

Hebron: Seven weeks after the murder of Wael Fatah Ja’aberi by Israeli Forces, family still awaits his body for burial.

28th Oktober 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On Monday October 22, the family of Wael Fatah Ja’aberi gathered in Ibn Rush square in downtown Hebron to protest the murder of their son and the decision of Israeli forces not to return his body to their family for more than a month. In September, Ja’aberi was killed in a combined settler and soldier ambush. His body has still not been returned to his family, who have erected an information/communication tent in the main square of downtown Hebron in protest.

A week after the Ja’aberi family erected their protest tent downtown, fathers who lost their sons in similar incidents, gathered in the tent and showed their solidarity.

October 28: fathers gathering in the tent, showing their solidarity.

The Ja’aberi family demanded the body of slain Wael, but is waiting in vain for any answer since September 9, 2018 – the day of the brutal incident.

On Monday evening 9/9/2018, Wael Fatah Ja’aberi, a 37 year old father of two children, was shot down close to his home, near the intersection of the Hebron H1/H2 area division, from the entrance of the illegal settlement Givat Ha’avot, by a settler and a soldier.

According to witnesses, Wael and his 9 year old son were walking from their home to a nearby shop, for which they had to pass the road close to a the entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement Givat Ha’avot .

When they approached the location of the entrance, still 20 meters away from it, a settler together with a soldier ambushed and killed the 37 year old father.

His 9 year old son was lucky to escape and could run back home, in shock of the cruelty he went trough. As it seems, the armed settler fired at Wael and his son, after which a soldier, present at the checkpoint, continued the shooting with several live bullets.

Israeli forces left Ja’abari bleeding to death, without giving or allowing him any kind of medical assistance.

No health care was given or allowed. The Israeli ambulance belongs to Ofer, a paramilitary settler of Kyriat Arba – not a medic.

Video recordings of this fatal incident were posted on the internet. (here, here and here)

The Israeli military claimed afterwards, that it was self defense against a stabbing attack, and did not contact the family. This claim is disputed, however, given Israeli forces’ history of planting knives on murdered Palestinians and given the fact that Ja’abari was walking with his 9 year old child. No footage of the many security cameras on that location has ever been released.

Stealing corpses in the aftermath of a unlawful execution, is a standard procedure of the Occupation. Between 2008 and 2018 Israel held back more then 280 corpses.

More info on the incident:

2 realities

29st October 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Last Friday, nearly fifty Israeli and ISM protestors demonstrated at the Gaza Border in solidarity with nearly 15,000 Gaza protestors heading toward the border. This action was in conjunction with the weekly Right of Return March.


As the activists were confronted by a couple of Zionists counter-protestors and the Israeli Occupation Forces on the 48 border side, the IOF opened fire on the Gazan protestors marching to the border. The Palestinian and Israeli activists spoke on the phone via a loudspeaker from opposite sides of the border. During the conversation, a Gazan protestor was shot in the leg.


There were so many mixed emotions going through my head. This was my first trip to the Gaza Border and it was totally different from how I imagined. The area is beautiful despite the circumstances. I’d always thought Gaza was a desert area. This assumption was totally wrong. Everyday that I’m in the Occupied Territories, the more I’m seeing:

Most Israelis are living in a false reality. This was hammered in my head from the ride to the boarder. The Zionists have made an effort to “green” inside the 48 borders thus why they call the border the ”green” line. They’ve planted European landscape that is foreign to the Middle Eastern terrain. This effort has wasted valuable water resources, while there are daily water shortages inside the Occupied Territories.

Once we reached the military zone and park yards from the Gaza border. It was smoke in the air caused by the burned tires and missile strikes coming from Gaza. I noticed hundreds of crows flying in the air. Not sure what this was about, maybe the smoke threw them off path.

Gunfire and smoke in the background, I couldn’t believe that people were walking their dogs and a family of 4 was coming to the park like nothing was going on. Mind-blowing!!!!! These are the two realities: Palestinian and Zionists.

Later, i would find out, 5 people killed and close to a hundred killed in a non-violent protest. Palestinians resist occupation with violence, they’re met with heavy handed military force. Palestinians resist occupation with non-violence, they’re met with heavy handed military force. It’s a no-win situation.

“They take everything,” explains Bruqin farmer during 2018 olive harvest

October 22, 2018 |International Solidarity Movement | Bruqin, Occupied Palestine

 

 

ISM volunteers spent the day harvesting olives with farmers in Bruqin village, a day that began with Israeli soldiers confronting the farmer and his family and ordering them to leave their land no later than 5 p.m.  Since the harvest workday typically concludes around 4 p.m., this did not prove an obstacle for the harvesters.  But it was a potent reminder that the residents of Bruqin, a primarily agrarian village located in the fertile Salfit governorate area, continue to lose control over and access to their land due to ongoing Israeli military occupation.

In the last few decades, Israel has expropriated hundreds of dunams of land from Bruqin in order to build Israeli settlements, settlement “outposts,” military checkpoints, and Israeli-only settler by-pass roads.  Bruqin village has existed since Roman times.  Yet Israel’s historically recent military occupation is swiftly eroding this village’s existence.

Despite the vastness of the olive groves in which they were working, the buildings and vast structures of the hilltop settlements of Bruchin and Barkan Industrial Zone proved impossible for volunteers to overlook. These settlements are connected by settlement highway roads 5 and 446, which were both audible and visible from the land where volunteers were working.  The sound of cars zooming by on the settler roads was ever-present.

Since its creation, Barkan Industrial Zone has pumped its wastewater into Bruqin’s agricultural land, causing pollution and the spread of disease in both humans and animals.  As volunteers walked through the groves of olive trees, the stench of human waste was palpable, even in the middle of wide-open farmland.  This “policy” is a continuation of past practice when Ariel, another nearby settlement, began channeling its sewage into the northeast side of the village more than twenty years ago.

Palestinians and ISM volunteers were able to harvest the rest of the day without further Zionist interference.  In conversation with the farmer, however, ISMers asked the name of the settlement looming over them as they worked.  They were initially confused by his answer, because it sounded as though he were simply saying the name of his own village.  Carefully re-iterating and exaggerating the slight difference in pronunciation between “Bruqin” and “Bruchin” for his international listeners, the farmer explained, “They take everything.  They take our land, they take our freedom.  Then they take our names.”

 

Barkan pumps its wastewater into Bruqin’s agricultural land

 

The settlement looming over Burqin

 

Residents and schoolchildren blocked at the Tel Rumeida checkpoint for 30 minutes

21st October 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

This morning, schoolchildren and other passers-by encountered the Eastern Tel Rumeida checkpoint blocked in both directions and had to wait 30 minute to pass it on their way to school or workplace, while a young man was detained inside for 30 minutes.

At 7:10 on Sunday, October 21, a young man entered the Easter Tel Rumeida checkpoint and went in the concrete check-cabin inside it. ISM volunteers heard the soldiers inside this concrete check-cabin, shouting in Hebrew language very loud and aggressively to this young man from behind their bulletproof glass window. He was then ordered to wait, possibly for remote identity check. They kept him detained inside for half an hour, until 7:40.

Schoolchildren and other residents could not enter and pass the checkpoint while the young man was being detained inside. Some of hem tried to slip trough a hole in the barrier gate, but the Israeli forces inside strongly forbad them to do so. They all had to wait until 7:40 before they could pass the barrier, and were therefore late for school and work.

The outgoing turn-gate was blocked too. An old man and a female schoolteacher could not pass it.

First, the occupation forces inside blamed it on the electricity, and then on the unwillingness of the detained man inside the concrete check-cabin to pass the security scan inside, but ISM volunteers witnessed that it was plain harassment of the young man inside and of all the others who had to wait outside.

For blocking the outgoing turn-gate, there was no reason at all.

Tel Rumeida is located inside H2—under strict Israeli military control—and home to multiple and constantly expanding illegal settlements. Palestinian citizens of Tel Rumeida are are subject to constant harassment, delays and humiliation in the checkpoints around the area. Tel Rumeida’s settlers frequently carry weapons and intimidate Palestinian residents.

Israel’s military control of Hebron consists of settlements, settler-only roads, checkpoints and military bases. Because of this, restricted access, collective punishment and lack of freedom of movement is a part of daily life for Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron, who face settler harassment and looming Israeli military presence on a daily bases.