12th June 2018 | Mondoweiss | Nabi Saleh, occupied Palestine
This interview with Bassem Tamimi was recorded on May 4, 2018 in the occupied village of Nabi Saleh, by International Solidarity Movement activists.
His daughter Ahed Tamimi, 17, is serving an eight-month prison sentence for slapping an Israeli soldier on the family’s property on December 15 of last year, after Israeli soldiers shot her cousin in the face.
Bassem reflects on his daughter’s choice:
‘I think more than 300 times they raided inside my house… They took my electronic devices several times. They broke the windows several times. They shot most of my children several times. My son was arrested two times. My wife was arrested five times. I was arrested nine times. I was tortured and be paralyzed for a period of time. My wife was shot in her leg, two years she couldn’t walk. My home is under a demolition order. After all of that somebody asked, why Ahed slapped a soldier? She must slap the soldier. Sometimes I feel there is a triple standard or more than in dealing with the Palestinian issue.’
Also check out Tamimi’s comments on the two-state solution (a project of the Israeli left, and the Israeli left has disappeared) and the heart of the issue: a colonization project. Till the colonization project ends, the Palestinian resistance will not cease. And notice at the beginning when he shows visitors the surveillance balloon over Nabi Saleh.
‘You see that balloon watching us? It’s a camera for watching everything.’
International Solidarity Movement training days in Manchester & Ireland
Welcome to Palestine, International Solidarity Movement support group will be holding training days. If you are considering volunteering in solidarity with the Palestinian cause then you cannot miss this!
This training will include, amongst others, nonviolence strategies and philosophy, group decision making and cultural considerations for living and working in Palestine. In the course of this training, both you and the trainers will ensure that this is the kind of work you are prepared and ready for.
If at any point during the training you or the trainers realize that this is not what you want to or can do, we’ll be happy to help you find an opportunity in Palestine better suitable to your needs, skills and abilities. This is why it’s so important that you’re in contact with a support group first, in order to know what to expect. The training prepares volunteers for the solidarity work ISM is doing in Palestine against the ongoing Israeli occupation.
Manchester – time: 10.30 – 17.00 – date: Saturday 4th August 2018
Ireland – time: TBC – date: July 2018 (TBC)
Please contact training.ismlondon@riseup.net (stating which city you would like to attend training in) for details including specific locations, and give a brief outline of why you wish to work with us.
4th June 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Nisreen in her garden, Tel Rumeida, Hebron
Nisreen Azzeh’s house sits high up on a hill in the Tel Rumeida area of the occupied city of Hebron (al-Khalil is the Arabic name of the city) in the south of the West Bank. The way to her house is difficult to find as the Israeli army blocked the main walkway after the death of her husband, a dear friend of ISM, in 2015. We climb the hill from Shuhada Street, emptied of normal Palestinian life a long time ago by the occupation, then find the way up an alley, then a short scramble up some rocks, through an olive grove, and find the door to Nisreen’s beautiful house. She is an artist, using oil pastels to express her feelings about the occupation of Palestine and the violence that she sees around her. Some of her images are sad and some are celebratory, showing images of women clinging to their olive trees in front of Israeli tanks, protesting the occupation. Directly behind her house up the hill is the Tel Rumeida Israeli settlement, casting a long shadow over Nisreen and her family. Since the army closed the normal route to her house from the road, this uneasy path is the only way for Nisreen and her children to move to and from the house. We settle in at Nisreen’s and admire her artworks decorating the walls and table as she tells us her story.
‘Old City of Hebron’, oil pastel on paper
Nisreen was born to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 nakba, or catastrophe, when Zionist militias forced 700,000 from their homes in historical Palestine in the brutal creation of the state of Israel. She met her husband Hashem in Jordan while she was studying art, and together they moved back to his home in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. Like other Palestinians living in occupied Hebron, she lives under several complex layers of the brutal occupation. Hebron is the only place in Palestine where Israeli settlers live within a Palestinian city, and since 1997 has been divided into two parts: H1, under Palestinian control, and H2, under Israeli control. The 35,000 Palestinians living in the H2 area are subject to intense scrutiny and controls by the occupying Israeli forces, ostensibly there to protect the 500 or so Israeli settlers living in H2. Nisreen and her family, along with the other Palestinians in the H2 area of Hebron, experience the sharp end of the Israeli occupation, having to witness soldiers, checkpoints, border police and settler violence directed against them in a daily litany of militaristic abuse, alongside the more mundane humiliations of occupation: being stopped and searched, having a numbered ID card or not being allowed to open shops. Have a look at this short video to give you some idea of life for Palestinians living under Israeli rule in H2.
The view overlooking the city from Nisreen’s leafy garden
Nisreen has always produced art, but started to focus on her artwork more seriously during the second intifada after 2000. At that time, her neighbourhood became a closed military zone, and it was difficult for people to go to their jobs. She tells us it was a challenging time. With movement around the city so restricted, they had to spend a lot of time at home, always witnessing the violence of soldiers and settlers, with few distractions. During this time art became an escape for Nisreen, to channel her emotions into something productive, and a way of resisting. After encouragement by visitors to her home who saw her artworks, she began producing images for international buyers, and now sells her work all across the world for those looking to support a voice of resistance in Hebron.
Nisreen’s beautiful oil paintings fill her house
Perhaps the deepest cut of the occupation for Nisreen is the death of her husband Hashem in 2015. Hashem gave tours for international visitors to show them the difficulties caused by the occupation in Hebron, and was known and disliked by Israeli settlers and forces. Read more about his life and work here. He was suffering with an ongoing heart problem, and one day was badly affected by tear gas thrown by Israeli soldiers against protesters whilst he was taking a group of international visitors around the city. He returned home having trouble breathing and fell unconscious on the sofa. Israeli soldiers do not let ambulances get through to Tel Rumeida from the Palestinian controlled H1 area, and so his friends carried Hashem to the checkpoint on Shuhada Street to take him to the hospital. The Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint would not let them through for 10 minutes while Hashem was still unconscious. By the time he reached the hospital in the H1 area of the city he could not be resuscitated. Nisreen could not host his wake at her and Hashem’s house because relatives living in H1 would not be allowed across Israeli checkpoints to attend. When Nisreen returned to her house after the wake, Baruch Marzel, an extremist settler and member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party who lives in the Tel Rumeida settlement, stood outside clapping, calling out ‘where’s Hashem?’ Two soldiers stood nearby pointing their guns towards her.
‘Woman at work using a traditional Palestinian bean crushing machine’, oil pastel and glitter on paper
Nisreen remains in her house with her four children. Selling her artwork is one of the only ways she has to support her family after the death of Hashem. She knows that the settlers nearby want to take the house and her land for themselves, which is why they direct a tirade of abuse and violence against her and her family. She is worried for her children seeing soldiers every day and witnessing the behaviour of the settlers. During heightened tensions in 2015, the area of Tel Rumeida became a closed military zone for nine months, stopping all outsiders, including journalists and human rights activists, from coming to the area. She overheard a settler telling a soldier in the street near the house “I need to see Palestinians’ blood in the street.” Frequently the settlers scrawl “kill the Arabs” on the walls of Palestinian houses in Tel Rumeida. Nisreen also lives with the memory of violent settler attacks against herself during the second intifada. On two occasions, women from the settlement came to her land, threw stones and shouted ‘go and die in your home’. After both attacks, Nisreen miscarried, once at three months and once at four months. The incidents didn’t lead to any prosecutions, which is not overly suprising as impunity for settlers’ violence is the norm in occupied Palestine: see here and here.
Nisreen with one of her popular designs, ‘I Need Freedom for Palestine’
Despite the settlers’ attempts to intimidate Palestinians like Nisreen, she refuses to give up her land to them. The soldiers come and invade the house a few times each year, checking the house, taking measurements and messing everything up in a deliberate provocation. She knows they are sizing the house up to support a settler invasion. They haven’t come yet in 2018 but she is prepared to be steadfast when they do. She tells us, “I will not leave my house, I am not leaving here. I resist here. I called to Baruch Marzel [when he taunted her after Hashem’s wake] ‘I live here. Hashem died but I live here.’ I am here, I resist.” Her artworks encapsulate Nisreen’s quiet and determined resistance to the racist bullying of the nearby settlers, supported by the full force of the occupying Israeli army. Some are sad, some are hopeful, all are beautiful, and importantly, they are her voice to the world from her struggle here in Hebron, Palestine. It is a voice that refuses to be silenced.
‘Drinks in the Old City’, oil pastel on canvas
To purchase Nisreen’s unique artworks and support her voice of resistance in occupied Palestine, please visit her website (mobile site under construction – please view on desktop).
11 June 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine.
In the two weeks since the Zahida family moved into their new house on Shuhada street in the H2 area of occupied Hebron, they have been subjected to repeated harassment by Israeli forces and Zionist settlers, resulting in their door being welded shut on multiple occasions whilst they were still inside. Israeli authorities in Hebron want to make Shuhada street an area exclusively for Israelis, and carry this out by closing the Palestinian doors that lead down to Shuhada street.
Shuhada Street in the H2 area of occupied Hebron (photo by ISM)
On June 1, Israeli forces entered the Zahida house and closed the only exit with metal cords. Due to the extensive harassment by Israeli forces, around twenty Palestinian friends and family gathered in solidarity with the residents. All were locked inside the house. After Palestinians managed to break open the door and exit the house, Israeli forces assaulted a 14 year old boy who had been inside with the family. A soldier hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle multiple times.
On Friday 7 June at 8 AM, Israeli soldiers entered the home again, gathering the family in one room, confiscating their phones and keeping them there for a brief period. After detaining the family, Israeli forces broke one of the windows in the house and exited through it. They allegedly said that if the family wanted to leave their home, they should also exit through the broken window from then on. The soldiers then proceeded to seal the house’s only entrance by welding it shut and locking the residents; a young man, his pregnant wife and their two children (age three and four) inside the house for several hours.
At around 11 AM, Palestinian residents of H2 and activists from Human Rights Defenders came together to open the door again and free the family. As the door was being opened, a settler known for harassing Palestinians arrived at the scene. He began to verbally insult activists from Human Right Defenders and film the people present. At the end the door was opened again with the help of neighbors and activists.
At around 9 PM, a group of settlers, protected by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers and police, gathered on the steps to the family’s home. The group of settlers consisted mostly of children and teenagers, who were having a picnic (whilst shouting and trying to intimidate passers-by) on the steps leading to the only entrance directly outside the door, thus trapping the family in their own home for the second time that day. The soldiers stated that the settlers were protesting, but when asked to clarify the reason of the protests, they had no comment. Another group of settler children also physically assaulted a Palestinian woman and a group of children on Shuhada street, whilst under the protection of Israeli forces. The settlers stayed for several hours and left at around midnight.
On the 8th of June, international activists were present in the house with the wife and two children after the Palestinian friends and family had left for work or iftar. A commander and two soldiers entered the house, taking the remaining Zahida family members into a room without their phone and without allowing the activist to enter. The commander then photographed their ID’s and allegedly promised the family that he would “do everything in his power to register them, so they would be left alone.”
An Israeli commander talks to residents of the Zahida family on the doorstep before entering the house (photo by ISM)
On the 9th of June, the same commander (pictured above) returned stating that he could not appeal their eviction order and that they had to leave their home.
In the early hours of the 10th of June, at around 1 AM, a large group of Israeli forces came to the house to weld the front door shut for the last time. Palestinian and international activists were prevented from getting near the house and were forcibly pushed back and assaulted by soldiers, so they wouldn’t be able to see or film what was going on near the house. A soldier, who was preventing people from coming near the house, assaulted a Palestinian child as he tried to pass onto Shuhada street.
A Tel Rumeida resident, Haji Mufid al-Sharbati, was trying to reason with the soldiers but was then detained. It was during his detention that he was assaulted by a soldier and subsequently collapsed. Israeli forces stood by as the elderly man lay on the ground, motionless for around ten minutes, before a stretcher was allowed through the checkpoint and he could be taken to hospital.
Haji Mufid al-Sharbati after being assaulted by Israeli forces (photo by Human Rights Defenders)
Allegedly an Israeli ambulance should have been on standby at the scene, but Haji Mufid Al-Sharbati still had to wait for a Palestinian ambulance to arrive and then for a stretcher to be able to pass through checkpoint 56, before he could get professional medical assistance. He was sent home the same morning and is reported to have recovered.
At around 3 AM, Israeli forces let the people gathered come back onto Shuhada street to check in on the family. By then, the door had again been welded shut. International activists were shown the new way out by a family member, which had been created by knocking down a wall next to their staircase. The new route takes much longer than going through Shuhada street and the staircase leading up to the entrance is very steep and unsafe, with no bannisters to prevent a fall to the street below. For a 4 month pregnant woman and two young children this is highly dangerous.
Yasmine Zahida stated, “I’m worried about our entry and exit now. There’s nothing to hold on to when you walk down the stone stairs and it’s especially dangerous in the dark for me and my children. But I’m happy it’s all over, for now”.
The brother of Sami Zahida informed international activists that Israeli forces had ordered the door shut for two years before they would consider opening it again.
Throughout the morning of Friday 8th June, many Palestinians passed through Qalandiya checkpoint into Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, in order to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque. The Israeli government allows a slight easing of the travel restrictions that ban most Palestinians in the West Bank from entering Jerusalem, only for Friday prayers during the month of Ramadan. Older men above 45 or 50, women of any age and children under 12 are allowed to pass through to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Fridays, although this year the Israeli military have not allowed anyone from Gaza to travel to Jerusalem. Also, despite the easing of the occupation’s restrictions of freedom of movement for Palestinians during Ramadan, many older men, women and children do not get to make it through for arbitrary reasons or because of delays at the checkpoint. It was apparent that many women, children and older men were not allowed to pass through this morning.
Israeli forces eject woman from Qalandiya checkpoint waiting areaAfter ejecting her from checkpoint waiting area, Israeli forces push woman to floor
Outside a pedestrian entrance to the waiting area from the main road, at around 1145am, Israeli police assaulted a middle aged woman, ejecting her from the waiting area and shoving her onto the floor. Watch a video from Quds News Network here. Israeli police and border police then closed a pedestrian entrance towards the checkpoint from the main road and made many of the people, mainly women, trying to pass through walk around. Israeli forces pushed and shoved many young men and children gathered outside the checkpoint. Many Palestinians go to Qalandiya on Fridays during Ramadan to protest the ongoing travel restrictions that prevent them from going from the West Bank to the occupied city of Jerusalem. Some gathered to pray outside the checkpoint after not being allowed to pass through.
Israeli forces push people back from entrance to Qalandiya checkpoint waiting area before 12pmMen not allowed to pass through Qalandiya to pray in Al-Aqsa mosque gather to pray outside checkpoint
Israeli police pushes boy in waiting area outside Qalandiya checkpointIsraeli border police points tear gas launcher at people outside Qalandiya checkpoint
After pushing men towards the exit of Qalandiya checkpoint, Israeli security officer raises pepper spray at peopleIsraeli security officer threatens people at Qalandiya checkpoint
Women and children not allowed to pass through Qalandiya checkpoint to go to occupied Jerusalem
Inside the military checkpoint, Israeli forces harassed many men, women and children, some of whom were allowed to pass through while others were forced to wait for hours inside the checkpoint. At around 12pm, Israeli forces closed the main checkpoint going into Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli forces continued to assault people within the checkpoint, and one border police pointed a tear gas launcher at a crowd of men, women and children, threatening to fire tear gas at them. Israeli forces pushed a metal fence against a group of women and children, and started to push people out of the checkpoint, assaulting several women. The same Israeli border police officer who had pointed his tear gas launcher at a crowd of people then assaulted a group of women and children as he pushed them out of the checkpoint. Another Israeli border police officer pushed men and women from the checkpoint and threatened them by raising pepper spray in their faces. As far as ISM observed, no one was injured during the assaults, although two young girls around the age of 9 or 10 were visibly upset and crying. Outside the checkpoint, Israeli police and border police continued to push people away, including a group of women sat on the floor in a shady area, for no apparent reason.
One man, from the Nablus area, aged 50, had not been allowed to pass through to Jerusalem, and was stuck on the Ramallah side of the checkpoint, not able to meet his friend in Jerusalem and attend prayers at Al-Aqsa. As men, women and children continued to be pushed back from the checkpoint after it was closed, he laughed as he said, ‘what, do we need a Jerusalem ID to be here [in the waiting area outside of the checkpoint] now?’ He told ISM that he has been inside occupied East Jerusalem on the other side of the Israeli-controlled military checkpoints, and that it makes him sad. ‘Because it’s beautiful, and it’s our land, it’s my land.’ Many other men from the West Bank have never been allowed into the occupied city of Jerusalem because of the Israeli occupation’s travel restrictions. For more on the extent of travel restrictions imposed on all Palestinians across the occupied West Bank see here.
At around 2pm many Palestinians arriving on buses from Jerusalem walked back through Qalandiya checkpoint, returning to the rest of the West Bank. Israeli border police continued to harass people who not allowed through and were stood waiting for their friends and family to return. A group of border police started to push Palestinians selling bread, sweets and drinks on the Ramallah side of the checkpoint, demanding that they move their stalls away, despite there being plenty of room for people to walk through. Israeli border police seized cartloads of bread, sweets and drinks from the market sellers, moving them inside the gates of the checkpoint, and did not allow them to sell their goods for at least half an hour. ISM observed as two Israeli security forces filmed the Palestinians passing back through the checkpoint, apparently on personal mobile phones. One Israeli security officer approached international observers to harass and film them.
Israeli border police officer confiscates juice from market sellers in Qalandiya checkpoint waiting area
Israeli border police confiscate bread from market sellersIsraeli police keep market sellers’ bread on other side of fence and don’t allow them to sell itIsraeli security officer films and photographs Palestinians returning through Qalandiya from occupied Jerusalem
