Category: Hebron - Page 106 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian children continue to be imprisoned

9th March 2014| International Solidarity Movement, Team Khalil| Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On Tuesday 4th March, 14-year-old Wassem Rajabi from the Jabal Johar area of Hebron (al-Khalil), was detained and driven away by Israeli soldiers on his way back from school. This Thursday, after nine days in prison, his family will go to the police station to find out his fate. Recently, more than 50 children from the area have been arrested and imprisoned. In the last week alone, between 15-20 children were arrested, all under the age of 18.

Wassem Rajabi is from a family with few resources. His father died eight years ago in a work-place accident inside the 1948 areas, and he now lives with his mother, an older brother and two younger sisters. When Wassen did not come home from school last Tuesday, his family discovered he was taken by the Israeli military, imprisoned and transferred to Ramallah. He was charged with throwing stones at Israeli forces. His family have stated that he was at home at the time the incident were supposed to have occurred. As Wassem is only 14-years-old, he is too young to be imprisoned according to the United Nation’s declaration of human rights. However, Israeli forces detain and prolong detentions for children on a regular basis.

Wassem’s family has been told that he will spend 10 days in prison and will have to pay 2000 shekel, an amount impossible to raise by the family. If they do not pay this money, Wassem he could be facing as much as six months in prison. This coming Thursday the court will give their decision.

The Jabal Johar area is in the southern part of Hebron, very close to several illegal settlements. The children of the area need to pass one or more checkpoints to travel to their school, and are often subject to attacks from tear gas canisters, stun grenades and other forms of harassment by the Israeli army. International groups have reports of children as young as seven-years-old being detained by the Israeli military, and each week children as young as four have to pass through clouds of tear gas to reach their classes.

Fifth annual Open Shuhada Street demonstration in Hebron

21st February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

The fifth annual “Open Shuhada Street” campaign took place on Friday the 21st of February in Hebron. Five people were arrested and 13 treated after being shot by rubber-coated steel bullets during a peaceful demonstration to open Shuhada Street for Palestinians.

On the 21st of February about two thousand Palestinians and international human rights activists took part in the “Open Shuhada Street” demonstration in Hebron, Occupied West Bank. The demonstration, organised by Palestinian activist group Youth Against Settlements and Hebron Defence Committee, started at the Ali Al-Baka mosque and then went towards Bab Al-Baladiya. Bab Al-Baladiya is a small square in front of the gate leading to Al-Shuhada Street at the illegal settlement Beit Romano.

Shortly after arriving at Bab Al-Baladiya the Israeli Forces threw a large amount of stun grenades right into the crowd of peaceful demonstrators and shot teargas at the part of the demonstration that had not yet gotten close to Bab Al-Baladiya. Several Palestinians were arrested following the chaos caused by more than ten stun grenades being thrown in a short time span. This dispersed the demonstration into several smaller groups.

Following the demobilization of the peaceful demonstration by the Israeli forces, clashes erupted near Bab Al-Zawiye.

According to medical sources thirteen were treated for injuries caused by rubber-coated steel bullets and a large number was treated at the hospital or on the spot for excessive teargas inhalation. A total of five were arrested.

Al-Shuhada Street, once the main market street in Hebron, was made off-limits to Palestinians following the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in 1994, when American-born Israeli Baruch Goldstein shot and killed 29 and wounded 125 Palestinians that had been praying inside the mosque.

The street was partially reopened to Palestinians following the Hebron Protocols in 1997 but was closed again to Palestinians after the outbreak of the Second Intifada. February the 25^th, 2014 marks the 20^thanniversary of the massacre.

Israeli settlers prevent shop renovation in Hebron

23rd February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On Sunday the 23th of February at around 9:30 a.m. more than ten settlers forced a Palestinian shop owner to stop renovating his shop. The settlers did this by sitting at tables and chairs they had brought from the nearby Gutnick Center in Hebron, an Israeli visitors center close to the Ibrahimi mosque, eating breakfast right in front of the shop while harassing the men at work.

The shop owner had gotten permission to do the renovation by the Israeli Civil Administration but this was not satisfactory to the settlers, who forced the Palestinians to stop working. When the Palestinians tried to continue their work the settlers became aggressive towards them, making them stop.

The Palestinian workers from the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, an organization which rebuilds Palestinians houses and helps improve living standards in the Old City in Hebron, asked the settlers to move the table and have their breakfast on the other side of the road but they refused.

The Israeli police, border police and soldiers were all present but did not interfere with the settlers’ harassment of the Palestinian workers. The stated reason for not interfering was that the settlers were on a public road and therefore were allowed to be there, ignoring the fact that the settlers confronted the workers each time they tried working.

The Israeli Civil Administration called the shop owner and ordered him to stop working for an hour until the settlers had gone away. As a result, the settlers managed to postpone the work of restoring the shop for about three hours.

Hebron was with the Oslo Protocol in 1997 divided in two parts, H1 and H2. H1 is area A and controlled by the Palestinian Authority, while H2 is under full Israeli control even though it is inhabited by around 30,000 Palestinians and about 500 Israeli settlers.

It is not rare that Israeli settlers from the Tel Rumeida or the Kiryat Arba settlements harass or even attack the Palestinians living in H2 in Hebron.

Israeli forces use tear gas against schoolchildren in Hebron

16th February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On Sunday, the 16th of February, Israeli soldiers and border police in Hebron fired tear gas and sound grenades at children on their way to school. The border police also chased the children, attempting to arrest them.

Soldiers and border police chasing schoolchildren in Hebron (photo by ISM)

At Checkpoint 29, around 7:30 a.m., a few children on their way to school (there are three schools near the checkpoint) were throwing stones at the soldiers stationed there. In response to this two border police and a soldier appeared from an alley and threw a sound grenade at the kids close to the United Nations school on Tareq Ben Ziyad Street.

This frightened not only the children who had thrown stones but all the children on their way to school, causing them to flee. When they did not catch any children the two border police and the soldier stood in front of the school blocking the entrance and started firing teargas at those who had fled.

As the border police and the soldier returned to the checkpoint, three new soldiers came out of an apartment across the street, preventing the children from entering their school. The soldiers continued firing teargas towards the crowd of upset and frightened children.

Tear gas is a nondiscriminatory nerve gas which affects all persons nearby. The gas often takes a long time to disperse, forcing children to go through the half-dispersed gas clouds on their way to school, leaving them crying and coughing. The use of tear gas against schoolchildren is common in Hebron.

In total, seven soldiers and two border police were involved in the incident, firing six tear gas grenades and two sound grenades at the children.

Eighty young olive trees uprooted in South Hebron Hills

14th February 2014 | Operation Dove | At Tuwani, Occupied Palestine

On the afternoon of February 11, Palestinians discovered about eighty olive trees uprooted alongside bypass road 317 near the Susiya junction in the South Hebron Hills.

Uprooted olive tree (photo by B'tselem) — Uprooted olive tree (photo by B’tselem)

The olive tree grove belongs to the Hushiya family from the nearby town of Yatta and had been planted only three weeks ago. Yesterday afternoon the owners and B’tselem staff members gathered near the destroyed trees, waiting for the police. The Israeli police and District Coordination Office arrived on the scene and documented the incident. Today Operation Dove volunteers and B’tselem staff went there to take more pictures.

This field is part of the area that settlers from the nearby settlement of Susiya illegally occupied during 2007, planting a vineyard. Immediately the Palestinians with the help of Rabbis for Human Rights filed a complaint and started a legal process concerning this land (for more details click here). In 2013 the Israeli High Court ordered the army to dismantle these crops and the order was implemented by force.

The number of Palestinian-owned trees uprooted and damaged in the South Hebron Hills area since the beginning of 2014 has risen to 100. Olive trees are an essential resource for the Palestinian community, and their damage causes serious economic loss.

Nevertheless the Palestinian communities of the South Hebron Hills area are still strongly involved in using nonviolence as a way to resist to the Israeli occupation. Just two days ago twenty-five Palestinians planted sixty new olive trees on their own land close to the illegal Avigayil outpost (for more details clickhere).

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the incident: click here

For further information:
Operation Dove, 054 99 25 773

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]