Category: Features - Page 26 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli soldiers arrest 16-year old girl and her mother in Nabi Saleh

December 19th 2017 International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | International Womens Peace Struggle | Occupied Palestine

UPDATE: Bassem Tamimi, Ahed’s father, has also been arrested by Israeli occupation forces as he went to the court where his daughter and wife are held.

No break for the kid-targeted repressive operation of the Israeli forces. Tonight soldiers raided Nabi Saleh and arrested Ahed Tamimi. Since years, the village has been the scene for many protests against Halamish illegal settlement, whichs’ construction led to land confiscation and theft of water from the local spring belonging to the Palestinians. During the years this little village echoed the Palestinian struggle all over the world.

16-year old Ahed has often appeared in videos where she is seen facing Israeli military during protests. On the 18th of december, when soldiers shot 14-year old Mohammed Tamimi, in the face with a rubber coated steel bullet (still treated in a medically-induced coma in the hospital), she stood in front of the entrance pushing the Israeli soldiers back trying to keep them out. The video has been used by the Zionist press as a mean of propaganda to show the kindness and the courtesy of the soldiers as a contrary to the ‘violence’ of Ahed. Of course, the blocking action costed her the arrest. This morning at 4 the Israeli armed forces stole the families cameras and telephone, beat the son up, and arrested Ahed. No explanation has been provided about the case.

Furthermore, later in the morning, when her
mother Nariman went to Benjamin police station to ask for the daughter and the charges, the Israeli army reponse was to arrest her. The family still do not know anything about the evolution of the situation.

Meanwhile, this afternoon, Israeli soldiers kept on shooting tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at people protesting at the checkpoint at the entrance of the village.

Nabi Saleh, is a village in the occupied West Bank of only 530 residents, the villagers have protested since 2009 against the occupation and the illegal settlements on their land. 2 protesters were killed during these protests. One of them is Neriman’s brother Rushdi whi was lethally shot by Israeli soldiers on the 17th November 2012, he died from his wounds. The other Mustafa Tamimi was Neriman’s cousin was murdered on December 201114 year old Mohammed Tamimi was shot from close range in the face on the December 2017 and , remains in critical condition. Aljazeera.com

On the 21 November 2014 Nariman Tamimi was shot with live ammunition her femor was shattered and reconstructed in surgery. palsolidarity.org

Nariman Tamimi is a mother of four studied international law. Her daughter Ahed Tamimi has become a known face because of her courage standing up against soldiers. On Friday 28/08/2015 during another one of the protest marches in the village, a soldiers got hold of 12 year old Mohamed Tamimi who was treated for an injury to his wrist just 2 days before. Nariman Tamimi and Ahed managed to get him out of the hold of the soldier. Miri Regev said that the unarmed protesters should have been shot. mondowiess.net

Arrests of children as young of 12 by the occupation are no exception. More than 700 Palestinian children are imprisoned in Israeli jails each year, this number does not include children who are arrested for a few hours. Stone throwing charges often lead to jail sentences between 2 and 6 months with lawyers advising children to plead guilty since release on bail is hardly ever allowed and the time for the appeal often exceeds 6 months. Arrest is always a frightening experience for children of any age and even more so because during arrest and interrogation they are not accompanied by their parents or even a lawyer and even while serving prison sentences their parents are not allowed to visit.

The high cost of freedom – Israeli army targets kids

Mohyildeen misses being with his big brother Abdul-Khaliq.

18th December 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Occupied Palestine

During the past weeks an increasing number of children have been arrested and injured all around the West Bank. ISM met with Iyad Burnat from Bil’in who is witnessing how the second generation of activist, including his own children, are being targeted through made up charges and torture-like interrogation techniques. Right now five youth from Bil’in are being held in Ofar prison. But Ofar is filling up, and more kids are being moved to Meggido outside occupied territory.

Abdul-Khaliq, Iyad’s second son, was in the car with two friends, Hamzah Al-Khatib and Malik Radhi, driving in Bil’in to have pizza, when the soldiers stopped the car. Now they are under arrest, charged for cutting the apartheid fence. No videos, nor witnesses can prove it. But this is not a problem for the Israeli army as soldiers have been proven lying in court when called as a witness.

This is not Abduls’ first direct experience with the Israeli military repression, as he has been already injured in the head by a rubber coated steel bullet. Now the Israeli army focus on him since they have targeted him as a leader inducing other young people to join protests. Iyad Burnat tells the ISM that the Israeli intelligence has been interrogating his son for the last days. The Ofar judge ordered the boys to be released on a bail of thousands of shekel, but despite that the persecution is not over. During the interrogation, the soldiers claimed that they had many secret files have not yet been used by the court.

These last events reflect the general ongoing situation in Bil’in since the settlers’ colonization started in 2005. The construction of the Modi’in Illit settlement brought up the well-known military abuses that Palestinians always suffer from in situations like this. The daily confrontation with the massive Israeli military presence have forced the people from the small village of Billin to elaborate a strategy to respond.

Over the last decade, the non-violent protest, including fence-cutting and the blocking of the road to the settlements, has become a pivotal aspect of the anti-settlement resistance. The Israeli court charges people who cut and damage the fences of settlements as criminals, but the state of Israel never mention that all the settlements are illegal according to international law and some of them according to Israel law itself.

The non-violent method of resistance thus haven’t changed the Israeli violent methods of repression. Since many years, Iyad and his family represent a special target. Already known outside of Palestine from the Cannes-awarded film ‘Five Broken Cameras’, in 2015 he received the James Lawson Award for Achievement in the Practice, Study or Reporting of Nonviolent Conflict presented annually by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Iyad is constantly involved in the reporting and spreading of the activities of the Palestinian struggle around the world.

This year he met with the English Labour Party and invited them to visit Palestine. He also tries to focus on talking to and meeting Jewish associations outside of Israel, and together they are stressing how the anti-zionism and the fight against the occupation are not a religious matters. This year Iyad was also invited to talk at the UN conference ’50 years of Occupation’. He tells ISM that the first piece of news he read when he landed in the US was that soldiers went to his house to arrest his third son Mohammed.

Also the first son, Majd, has been targeted. In 2014, he was shot during a protest. In that occasion he was standing beside his father when an Israeli soldier approached them, gunned him and moved back. A scenario which reminds of a punitive action, more than a security one which is what the Israeli army usually claims. Majs was hospitalised for 10 days in the Ramallah hospital, where doctors indicated the necessity to travel to Jordan for a neurosurgical operation. The Israeli border police stopped and interrogated him for three hours at the border. In Jordan, he was directed back to the Quds Hospital. As the Israel authority did not give him the permission to travel outside the green line, he managed to get there just when two Israeli activists hid him in the trunk of their car.

What could be a simple report of isolated events underlines an ongoing strategy adopted by Israel. The choice of targeting kids reveals two goals. On one side, it’s easy to notice how the kids in question are usually the children of activists. It’s a way to hit the most human and vulnerable nerve.“Israeli authorities have said that we teach our kids hate,”Iyad says,“But who teaches hate to whom? At my return from the US it was my 3-year old son who explained to me what happened when the soldier came in the night to arrest his brother. A 3-year old kid forced to witness handcuffing and beating in his own home.” On the other side, targeting the young generation is an attempt to eradicate the ‘problem’ of the Palestinian resistance from the root, to scare and warn the people who will lead the struggle in the future.

Most of the 430 Palestinians arrested after Trump’s declaration the 6^th of December are under 18 years old. ”They want the youth to hate living in this land”Iyad says. When ISM asks him if he believes his son Abdul, the one now under arrest, is scared he answered that Abdul got used to it since he grew up in this environment:“He reminds me of myself at his age.”And he adds: “I resist and started this struggle to give my kids a better future. But now the story is repeating. Freedom has a high cost.”

Witness Report, Video: Israeli War Crimes Against Palestinian Youth in Hebron

December 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | al-Khalil, Occupied Palestine

Witness accounts and video footage confirm that the Israeli army has been and is committing war crimes in dealing with the current wave of protests against the occupation, colonization, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

On Friday, December 8, 2017 around 4:30 PM, ISM activists clearly witnessed and filmed a unit of of around 40 Israeli soldiers and commanders in the H1 area of Hebron – which, according to the 1997 Hebron agreement, should be fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority – intentionally injuring the backs, shoulders, and heads of two randomly arrested teens. Much of this occurred after they had been handcuffed, blindfolded, and were held in custody.

The incidents took place shortly after the Israeli forces invaded Bab al-Zawiya from the military Checkpoint 56 (Shuhada Street in H2) and stormed more than 300 meters up Adel Street, as well as two other main civilian thoroughfares.

The teens were captured near the Hasona Petrol station. If previous child arrests in that area are any indication, they were likely grabbed at random from the street without having been involved in any form of protest beforehand.

The video evidence below, a combination of 3 different camera positions, shows how cruelly the teens are treated by different soldiers, while and after they were handcuffed, blindfolded, and cooperating with the soldiers in walking to Israeli controlled H2.

The almost-raw video footage of all three cameras is included and viewable with the following hyper-links:

Camera 1: from 4:23:10 PM

Camera 2: from 4:23:30 PM

Camera 3: from 4:23:35 PM and from 4:24:05 PM

War Crimes

Human Rights Watch (HRW), an NGO that is widely acknowledged for its monitoring and determination of human rights abuses, compiled a readable publication based on the 685 page ‘ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law’ study manual.

In the HRW publication, war crimes are defined as:

“Serious violations of international humanitarian law, including the mistreatment of persons in custody and deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian property, when committed with criminal intent amount to war crimes. Criminal intent requires purposeful or reckless action. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for attempting to commit a war crime, as well as assisting in, facilitating, aiding or abetting a war crime. Responsibility may also fall on persons ordering, planning, or instigating the commission of a war crime. Commanders and civilian leaders may be prosecuted for war crimes as a matter of command responsibility when they knew or should have known about the commission of war crimes and took insufficient measures to prevent them or punish those responsible.” [emphasis added]

Based on this definition, the video depicts a war crime committed by the Israeli army, for which it’s soldiers and commanders bear responsibility.

This isn’t the 1st documented war crime committed by the Israeli state or its armed forces against the Palestinian people. Other examples include:

Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully;
Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial;
Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement;
Enforced disappearance of persons;
Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender;
The crime of apartheid;
The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

It is the obligation of all states that have signed the multiple international treaties violated here to stop these Israeli war crimes, and a duty of the people to put pressure on their governments to do so.

Israeli Violence Against Civilians, Press Continues Through Weekend in Hebron

9 December 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | al-Khalil, Occupied Palestine

Clashes continued throughout the weekend in Hebron, after Palestinian civil society groups called for “three days of rage” in response to Donald Trump’s widely unrecognized declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Across the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians organized general strikes, as well as non-violent marches and demonstrations, all of which were met with military violence by Israel.

In Hebron, the violence from the Israeli army included the use of numerous rounds of tear gas, sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets, and live ammunition against the press and civilians, including passing families and the elderly. Soldiers also entered shops and forced businesses to close, causing further disruption to daily civilian life. Some young Palestinians resisted the Israeli army’s invasion using stones, and also by throwing the Israeli army’s own tear gas canisters back towards the soldiers.

On Friday alone, between 15 and 20 Palestinian minors were arrested, including at least five that weren’t involved in the clashes, one of which was taken straight from his home. Of the five boys that ISM activists witnessed being arrested, four of them were brutally beaten by large groups of soldiers after they were subdued and handcuffed and posed no threat to the soldiers. As of 5:00 PM on Saturday, two of the boys remained hospitalized due to their injuries.

In declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Donald Trump formalized the United States’ position as one in contravention of international law and the opinion of the international community. The international community has expressly stated – through UN Resolution 181 and others – that it doesn’t recognize any claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem by Israel, which is why most states maintain their embassies to Israel in Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem.

Hundreds of Israeli Soldiers Violently Suppress Demonstration in Hebron

December 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | al-Khalil, Occupied Palestine

In response to Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel hundreds of heavily armed Israeli soldiers invaded the Palestinian controlled areas of Hebron to clash with demonstrators. The clashes were likely also fueled by a general strike of work and schools by Palestinians.

An elderly man waits to go home on a street taken over by soldiers. Such disruptions of Palestinians’ daily lives are common in occupied Hebron.

At roughly 10:30 AM, at least two groups of over 50 soldiers each entered H1 (Palestinian controlled Hebron) with rifles, tear gas cannons, sound bombs, and rubber coated steel bullet magazines. They entered through Checkpoint 56, from which they went into the city center, home to shops and restaurants, as well as innocent bystanders.

An elderly man, who was hit by tear gas while walking down the street, is helped to safety by a Palestinian Red Crescent Society medic.

Dozens of Palestinians, including small children, the elderly, those documenting the scene on their phones, and hospital patients at the Alia Hospital – at which soldiers fired multiple rounds of tear gas – were injured by tear gas and sound bombs. The soldiers also fired live ammunition aimlessly at buildings with no regard for civilian safety, a war crime and form of collective punishment. One boy, age 15, was shot with live ammunition when soldiers fired numerous rounds down a populated street. They then surrounded him, confiscated videos of the incident, and arrested him.

The blood of a 15 year old Palestinian boy shot by Israeli soldiers.

As of 3:00 PM, at least 7 young boys were blindfolded, handcuffed, and brought back into Checkpoint 56. At one point, soldiers held and terrorized an eight-year-old boy in a secluded, trash-filled corner of an alleyway, and proceeded to use him as a human shield while they walked up and down the street.

Protests are likely to continue throughout the West Bank and Gaza for at least the next few days, and possibly even longer, after Donald Trump formalized the United States’ position on Jerusalem as one in contravention of international law and the opinion of the international community. The international community has expressly stated – through UN Resolution 181 and others – that it doesn’t recognize any claim to sovereignty over Jerusalem by Israel, which is why most states maintain their embassies to Israel in Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem.