3rd May is number 186 of the closed military zone in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street. Since November 1st, only Palestinian residents have been allowed to enter the area due to “security reasons,” as stated by the Israeli military. This violation of the freedom of movement means that no friends, family, or repairmen are allowed, and Palestinians have to pass through checkpoints to reach their homes. However, it is possible for people to access the neighbourhood by using alternative routes to avoid being detected by the army, rendering the so-called security useless.
Instead, the closure serves another purpose, namely to pressure people out of their homes by making their lives there impossible. So far, more than ten families have left the neighborhood. The closed military zone is not only collective punishment (illegal under international law,) but also a thinly-disguised attempt at forced displacement of the Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron. Furthermore, the army assigned numbers to each Palestinian inside the closed area and required people to state their number when entering through the main checkpoint. Today we are launching a campaign to end the closed military zone in Tel Rumeida. Palestinians are people, not numbers.
1st May 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On the morning of the 24th of March around 8:30 am two Palestinian youths, Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, 21, and Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif, also 21, were shot to death by Israeli forces after an alleged stabbing attempt in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida. The world became aware of the extra-judicial killing of al-Sharif by the Israeli-French army medic Elor Azaria through the footage shot by Imad Abu Shamsiya, resident of Tel Rumeida, co-founder of Hebron Human Rights Defenders and contributor to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
Over the last month Imad has become something of a celebrity. He has appeared on Palestinian news, made appearances in international media and has even been interviewed by mainstream British newspaper The Independent. All of which has come at the same time as the settlers in Tel Rumeida and in wider Hebron have issued death threats and upped their campaign of persecution against him and his family.
Imad and his 3 sons, Awne (left), Soli (middle), Muhammed (right), who are all taking part in resistance against the occupation. Photo: Family photo
Last week ISM activists had the privilege of sitting down with Imad and talking about the impact of these events on his life, his family’s history in Hebron, his history of arrests by the Israeli Occupying Forces and his hopes and fears for his life both now and in the future.
Imad’s family have lived in Hebron for generations: “I was born here, my father was born here, my grandfather and my great-grandfather, all born here.” He can trace his family’s presence in Hebron back at least 218 years as the family had a house near to the Ibrahimi Mosque registered in their name from that time, in addition to the family home that they occupy to this day in Tel Rumeida.
Seven years ago in 2009, however, the family’s house in Tel Rumeida was standing empty. Imad knew that it would only be a matter of time before the settlers, by now established in Tel Rumeida and on Shuhada Street, would attempt to sieze the home. It was then that Imad decided to move from his home in H1 (Palestinian-controlled Hebron) to Tel Rumeida in H2. This extraordinary decision was supported by his entire extended family as well as his wife Faiza and his five children (then aged between 4 and 11). Imad himself felt confident in this choice: “At first we thought there was not a lot of difference, just that here there is a checkpoint when there was not one where we had lived before.”
But despite his initial downplaying of the situation, the decision had a huge impact on his family. From the get-go his children would go out to play in the street and they would be attacked by settlers or harassed by the army. However, this only served to strengthen Imad and his family’s desire to stay in Tel Rumeida. Even his youngest son – Salah, now 11 – knows that they are there to stop the settlers from stealing their home and their land.
Sadly this notion of resistance that runs through the whole family has, perhaps unsurprisingly, had some serious ramifications for all of them. No more so than for Imad’s oldest son – Aune, 17. Aune was shot in the foot with a ‘dum-dum’ bullet – live ammunition that splinters on entry – and Imad was further shocked when, at the checkpoint near his home, the local area commander of the Israeli Occupying Force told him that he would kill Aune if he saw him again. They decided it was best to send Aune away to live with relatives and so, a child of seventeen, he cannot live with his mother and father and never sees his four siblings. Moreover the other four children have all, at one time or other, been victims of abuse and attacks at the hands of the settlers. Although perhaps the worst that the family have lived through is the current situation and the death threats that Imad has experienced since his role in the video of the extra-judicial killing was made public. Imad, however, has been through extremely challenging times before and is undaunted by the situation he faces.
Imad in his house, which is regularly targeted by settlers and army
In the late eighties during the first Intifada a young Imad – sixteen years of age – would, like many young male Palestinians at that time, go to the demonstrations in protest of the Israeli occupation. The Israeli forces then, as now, would shut these demonstrations down with extreme measures. On one such occasion – on Friday 20th of January 1988 – Imad found himself hospitalised having been shot in the hand with live ammunition: “I was in hospital in Jerusalem for fifty days recovering and at that time the Israelis came and arrested me.” In prison Imad was questioned for eighteen days, accused of being a ringleader and organiser. Finally brought before the court he was sentenced to six months in prison for his role as a demonstrator: “then, thirteen days after I was released that first time, they arrested me again and sentenced me to another six months in prison.” He wasn’t to know it then but this was the first year of a total of four years and two months that he would spend in prison.
On the 16th of February 1991 Imad was arrested once again and this time he was kept in solitary confinement for 111 days: “Imagine it. You are alone, without water to wash with, you don’t see the sun, you are cold, it’s winter, you are in a t-shirt and shorts.” During this time he was tortured: beaten, subjected to stress positions and consistently interrogated. He was accused of throwing stones and molotov cocktails as well as being a leader within the Intifada. He denied all accusations and after 111 days, when they had nothing to charge him with, he was taken before the court and sentenced to another six months detention regardless.
Example of common stress-position (torture position) utilised in Israeli interrogation
Once again in 1992 he was arrested and again he was kept in solitary confinement, this time for a period of 75 days. Refusing to confess to the false accusations of violence that were leveled at him, Imad was sentenced to six more months of detention without charge.
In 1995 Imad, specifically due to his position as a citizen of the already divided town of Hebron, was part of a large group of Palestinians who objected to the terms of the Oslo Agreement. As such he was part of a mass-arrest and sent to the infamous Naqab Prison in the Negev Desert where he was detained for a further six months. Imad would be arrested twice more – in 1997 and 1999. On both occasions he was arrested in the middle of the night, taken from his family home, not questioned or interrogated, but sentenced to a further six months detention.
Taking this history of persecution and Imad’s lifelong resistance into account, it is perhaps less surprising to picture Imad and Faiza agreeing with their children to move to the front line of resistance when they moved to Tel Rumeida in 2009. Then two years ago he formed Hebron Human Rights Defenders with Badee Dwalik, and Imad’s journey towards infamy began. Having been trained in the use of video cameras by B’Tselem, Imad and Badee recruited others from Tel Rumeida and wider Hebron and trained them to use video cameras donated by anti-Zionist activists in the US. Imad even trained his wife and children to use the cameras: the whole family knows that if things get bad with soldiers and/or settlers then the first recourse is to pick up a camera and to document. Now Badee and Imad plan to teach the local children in Tel Rumeida how to use the cameras: they intend to resist the occupation by exposing it’s most inhumane and abusive elements.
Badia from Human Rights Defenders at a school in Tel Rumeida, teaching the kids how to film.
All of which leads us neatly back to the events of the 24th March this year (and you can read about the events of that day from Imad’s perspective here.) One would have thought that living with his wife and four of his children in occupied Hebron, with the constant threat of attack by settlers as well as harassment by soldiers out for revenge for him having made the video, Imad would feel some negativity about his life now, or at least have mixed feelings about having found fame in this way. Nothing could be further from the truth: “if I could go back in time and had the opportunity to maybe not shoot the film I wouldn’t take it. I would always want the world to see what Palestinians have always known goes on”. Still, one could forgive if he felt that perhaps it would be best if his family left Tel Rumeida: “we will never leave here. They can harass us and attack us but we will not let them have our family’s home and our land. This is something my wife and children agree with 100%. We will not leave.” And would he leave Hebron? “Never.”
The occupation could have ground Imad Abu Shamsiya down. They have tried everything that they can to ruin his spirit – from torture and arrest to death threats and harassment – but Imad is a man, supported by his extraordinary family, who personifies the strength and the generosity of spirit demonstrated by the Palestinian people in the face of such indignity and suffering. He certainly touched and moved the ISM activists that had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with him.
Lastly it is ISM’s pleasure to convey a message from Imad to the international community, to the political class and to all Palestinians:
“As Palestinians we always said that extra-judicial killings happened. Now people have seen my video I hope that the world will know that they do. Now people know what we live with and I hope we can work together to end the occupation so that we, the Palestinian people, can be free.”
3rd May 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Ni’lin, occupied Palestine
During nighttime on the 1st of May, Israeli Forces raided the village of Ni’lin in the West Bank in occupied Palestine without any reason.
First, with the arrival of one military jeep, villagers were already aguishly awaiting why the Israeli army is invading the village, fearing arrests. Later on, several armored military jeeps invaded the village and immediately started shooting tear gas towards the houses in an act of collective punishment, targeting civilians that were mainly still asleep. Additionally, the Israeli forces fired rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition towards the house. Ni’lin in the last weeks has repeatedly seen army attacks on civilians entirely uninvolved even in the weekly Friday demonstrations.
Photo from demonstration in Ni’lin. Photo credit: Palestine Solidarity Campaign
This night, a 17-year old young man was shot in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet, but luckily did not sustain any major injuries. Additionally, a newborn, only 7 days old baby, had to be taken to hospital for tear gas inhalation. This is a result of the Israeli forces tactic of deliberately targeting civilians and all the villagers in acts of collective punishment. In the recent weeks, several children and elderly had to be treated for excessive tear gas inhalation as Israeli Forces targeted a public park with a playground, showering it in tear gas; and shooting the potentially deadly long-range tear gas canisters straight into the village. As this long-range tear gas canister can not be heard and has an extremely hard metal tip, it is not only potenitally deadly – an international solidarity activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured with this kind of tear gas canister in the head in 2009 in Ni’lin and now requires 24-hour care – but it also easily breaks through windows and even walls. This is just another proof of how dangerous it is. Thus, tear gas can easily, and has already, trapped civilians inside their own homes, causing excessive tear gas inhalation.
During the last weekly Friday demonstration in Ni’lin against the illegal Israeli apartheid wall and the theft of the majority of the villages agricultural lands (the majority still located and theoretically accessible on the villages’ side of the wall has arbitrarily been declared a ‘closed military zone’ thus denying the villagers access), Israeli forces, surprisingly did not use the violence against the peaceful protestors, the villagers were forced to get used to.
The nightly raid on Monday, thus, appears to the villagers to be an even more twisted act of revenge by the Israeli forces.
2nd May 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Gaza, occupied Palestine
After more than six months risking their lives while ploughing, planting seeds and weeding their land, and after investing a large amount of money on seeds and on renting a tractor, the Qudaih family from the village of Khuzaa were finally ready to start harvesting their barley and the wheat two days ago.
We arrived at the fields, located around 100 metres from the fence, at 7am. Around 9am one jeep from the Israeli occupation forces stopped in front of the farmers and a group of soldiers emerged. After a few minutes they fired several shots in the air, then returned to the jeep and left.
A family member working on the land in Khuzaa
45 minutes later another jeep arrived. This time the soldiers fired shots on the ground next to the farmers and the ISM activists that were with them. The shots were near misses, just a few centimetres from their feet. As if this was not terrifying enough, next they fired shots close to the farmers’ and activists’ heads. At that moment most of the farmers started to run away from their fields terrified by the whistling sounds of the bullets flying around them: One Bedouin man that was picking herbs for his animals laid down on the ground hiding behind his donkey, while the soldiers fired shot more than five times just a few centimetres from him. The shooting didn’t even stop when everyone started to run away, preventing the farmers to secure their horse cart holding what little harvest they had collected until they were attacked.
The Qudaih family harvesting their barley on their land.
These families now have to choose between losing all the money invested as well as their main sustenance for the year, or continue trying to harvest the crops on their land – despite the risk of someone getting killed or disabled.
2nd May 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Deir Istiya, Kafr Qaddum, Ni’lin; occupied Palestine
Last week, as every week, Israeli forces attacked demonstrations in the West Bank against the illegal Israeli land-theft, the apartheid-wall and illegal Israeli settlements.
In Deir Istiya, near Nablus in northern occupied West Bank, farmers continued their protest against the closure of agricultural roads that are essential for them to reach their land and thus ensure their own and their families income. The protest, as during the last few weeks, started with a prayer close to the settler road that cuts the farmers off from their land and prevents their access.
Farmers in Deir Istiya protesting the closure of their agricultural roads
In Kafr Qaddum village, demonstrators went out in their weekly march to protest against the closure of their main access road to the closest nearby village, Nablus. With the closure of the main road, the once 10-minute drive to nearby Nablus now takes at least half an hour – time that can be essential in case of emergencies and can thus cost the essential time an ambulance needs to reach a hospital on time. This closure clearly illustrates the Israeli apartheid policies as the only reason is to facilitate movement for the illegal settlement of Kedumim.
Israeli forces fired rubber coated metal bullets, stun grenades and excessive amounts of tear gas at the demonstrators. Three Palestinians were injured, one had his hand burned when hit with a hot tear gas canister, and two were injured when hit with rubber coated metal bullets in the stomach and back. Several suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation, as the Israeli forces deliberately attacked the whole village in an act of collective punishment.
Israeli forces chasing demonstrators, illegal settlement can be seen in the back
In the West Bank village of Ni’lin, Israeli forces this week, unlike before, did not invade the village before the start of the demonstration. The demonstrators therefore marched up to the soldiers. Surprisingly – and in contrast to years of demonstrations, Israeli forces last Friday did not target civilian homes with tear gas or use any other means of supposedly ‘less-lethal’ ‘crowd-control’ weapons. Israeli forces did shoot some tear gas, but not the amounts the villagers have become used to in the years of struggle against the illegal apartheid wall separating them from the majority of their farming land. The villagers are now hoping, that the collective punishment of the whole village, the targeting of civilians and the use of excessive force has come to an end.
residents have been allowed to enter the area due to “security reasons,” as stated by the Israeli military. This violation of the freedom of movement means that no friends, family, or repairmen are allowed, and Palestinians have to pass through checkpoints to reach their homes. However, it is possible for people to access the neighbourhood by using alternative routes to avoid being detected by the army, rendering the so-called security useless.
