17th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Around 8:30pm on June 16th, a ten-year-old local Palestinian named Amed was arrested by Israeli soldiers in the market of the old city of Hebron. He was held for around an hour in the military base on Shuhada Street and interrogated. He was then taken, handcuffed, by two soldiers on foot through the street to the checkpoint between the Israeli and Palestinian controlled areas – he was then released to the Palestinian Authority police.
The alleged reason for this arrest was that the boy was throwing stones; his brother informed international observers that he had mimed throwing stones and the soldiers decided to arrest him for it. Amed was questioned by the Israeli military without a lawyer or family member present, illegal under international child protection laws.
16th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On Saturday, June 15, Israeli settlers and occupation soldiers spread through the old city of Hebron as part of a very provocative weekly tour that disrupts the daily lives of Palestinians living in the area. This week, soldiers also invaded the homes of several Palestinian families and climbed onto the roofs without the families’ consent.
Activist blocks the door trying to prevent soldiers from entering (Photo by ISM)
As it turns out, the settlers were not just innocent tourists, but bullies as well. As they were walking along Shuhadah Street, they threw a huge quantity of water at the window of a nearby Palestinian home, and it spilled through the window, down the outer wall and all over the steps. The soldiers then accused the Palestinians nearby of throwing the water and questioned the homeowner next door, as if they would throw water into their own houses, and as if soldiers of the illegal occupation had jurisdiction in such a case. The family whose house the water was thrown at has suffered many incidents of settler harassment and military intrusions of late.
Conversely, as the soldiers left one of the houses they’d invaded, the Palestinian owner said “Shabbat shalom” (Hebrew for “Good Sabbath”) to them, demonstrating the Palestinian spirit of resilience, steadfastness and hospitality even in the face of military oppression and occupation.
This weekly “tour” of Hebron disturbs the daily lives of Palestinians in the busy Souq of Hebron, which has seen an extreme decrease in trade since the Israeli occupation forces closed Shuhada street, which was formerly Hebron’s busiest market. Rather than closing the Souq, where there are several illegal Israeli settlements, Palestinian residents think the Israeli forces are trying to make life there as uncomfortable as possible and thus pressure them to move out of the area.
Soldiers crash through a living room with no regard for the family inside (Photo by ISM)
15th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Saeeda | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
I am an ISM activist living in the occupied city of Hebron. I arrived home late in the evening of Friday, June 14, and outside my door some of the neighborhood kids had built a small fire and were cooking corn. They tried to sell me a piece for a couple of shekels but I was more interested in sleeping at that point of the night. I put on some music and started cleaning up the apartment, but then I heard yelling outside my house. I looked down and saw an armed settler and a Palestinian man arguing loudly. Then I saw two Israeli soldiers escorting the settler from the scene. As I was home alone, I didn’t go down myself but called two other organizations, CPT and EAPPI, to help monitor the situation. Over the next few minutes I heard more yelling and glass breaking and saw more soldiers arriving at the scene. I didn’t see any arrests. I also saw that the corn and the materials the kids built the fire with were scattered all over the place and someone was cleaning them up.
When CPT and EAPPI arrived, we patrolled the area, which was at this point quiet but filled with more soldiers than usual. We were pleased to find that our neighbor Hani and his family were all safe, and then went visit Palestinian human rights group Youth Against Settlements. There one of our activists friends Jawad finally had some answers for us. He took us to the Abu Haqel house, and acted as a translator for us as we interviewed Abu Hussein. This is what he said.
View on the old city of Hebron from Tel Rumeida (Photo by: Activestills)
When the kids were cooking the corn and selling it for about a shekel apiece, an angry settler man came up to them. He cocked his M16 and chased the kids away, shouting that if anyone took a shot at his son, he would kill that person. He then came back and spilled the corn out in the street. Abu Hussein heard this and came down and was very angry about what the settler had done. The settler shouted that Abu Hussein and those kids must leave the area, or he would burn their houses and anyone inside. Abu Hussein said that this is his home – he lives right above my house – and said the settler should leave. Israeli officers arrived and escorted the settler away from the scene and told Abu Hussein to leave, threatening to arrest his children and take them in for investigation. Supposedly a settler kid was harassed earlier in the day. Abu Hussein told them that if they want to know what happened, they should question the soldiers who are in the area all day or use their many security cameras, rather than arresting children. Abu Hussein’s son, who was in the room while we spoke to Abu Hussein, said he hadn’t seen the settler children all day.
Our neighborhood of Tel Rumeida, part of the Israeli-controlled H2 district of occupied Hebron, is the site of frequent settler attacks on Palestinian families. In most cases the Israeli soldiers look on and do nothing to stop the violence. The continued attacks are seen by some Palestinians as part of an overall effort to make life as difficult as possible for Palestinian residents so they will choose to move out of the area. However, to our knowledge none of the Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida are giving in to Israeli pressure any time soon. This is their home, after all.
11th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On the evening of Thursday, 6 June 2013, a fellow activist and I were walking home from an innocent venture to get a refrigerator door in the Prayers’ Road area of the H2 area of Hebron. My companion saw out of the corner of her eye one Palestinian youth throw one rock at one settler car, then scuttle away before anyone could approach him. The settler got out of his car and ran to the nearest checkpoint and gave a description of the Palestinian to the soldiers there. Almost immediately, seven Jeeps full of soldiers arrived on the scene, and we followed a group of soldiers as they dispersed over the area, stopping at every Palestinian home to ask for ID cards and whether there were any shebab (Palestinian youth) in the house. We then returned to the place the soldiers dispersed from and watched in case there were any arrests. Fortunately, to our knowledge, there weren’t any, but the soldiers stayed for hours talking to settlers, including a woman we know to be particularly extreme. At one point my companion approached the soldiers conversing with this settler woman and, as I followed suit, the woman tried to get behind me and stop me from walking, as if she wanted to assault me. I kept on walking as if nothing had happened as my companion pulled me away from the settler woman. The soldiers made no response.
Broken window (Photo by ISM)
We continued down Shuhadah Street to go home, figuring the Souq (marketplace) would be closed down at this late hour; it was well after sunset. We were approached by a group of teenage girls on bicycles, who I misjudged to be Palestinian because most of the settlers here are Caucasian. They asked me if I was Muslim and where I was from; I was nervous because of the hour and in hindsight, I didn’t notice that they were talking to each other in Hebrew and dressed in a way more common for settlers than Palestinians (mid-length sleeves and skirts). Then one of them ran up behind me trying to grab me and my companion came in front of her, warned her not to touch us and pulled me away from the attacking settlers. We detoured up the path Palestinians take to exit Shuhadah Street before the checkpoint and a soldier ran after us with the attacking settlers at his heels. He was yelling at us in rapid Hebrew interspersed with “Passport, passport!” His use of Hebrew, even though we were clearly internationals, seemed meant to confuse and delay us. My companion yelled “But this lot are giving us trouble!” and the soldier was undeterred. She finally argued that we had shown our passports at the last checkpoint and he let us continue.
The settler girls followed us home via Shuhadah Street and, as we passed through Checkpoint 56, they gathered around our house. We later found that the women’s bedroom window in our house had been partially shattered, with a hole in what remained of the window and a rock sitting on the floor. A word of caution to internationals – especially those who, like me, are clearly Muslim – if you travel home via Shuhadah Street after dark.
11th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
The Hebron street where the Israeli army and Police have recently been regularly intimidating schoolchildren and teachers was today the scene of harassment of a different nature.
Israeli military stopping cars in Hebron (Photo by ISM)
Tareq Bin Ziyad Street in Hebron was the scene of a mass arrest of schoolchildren earlier this year and intimidation continued until the end of the school year. Now that school’s out for summer, soldiers have found another way to harass the local Palestinian population – using a large military presence to check for cars that, as one soldier said, ‘might have been stolen from Israel.’
Today, four jeeps and a dozen soldiers stopped cars, demanded to see IDs, and chased one driver down the street menacing him with their guns. Children playing in the street were ordered to clear the area around where soldiers were harassing drivers. After a couple of hours, the Israeli army and police removed one vehicle from the street ‘for further investigation’.
Stopping people going about their daily business by car is one of many ways that the vast military presence in Hebron harasses the local population. Others include arbitrary arrests, ID checks and detentions at the multiple checkpoints that hinder movement by Palestinians through their own city.
Israeli soldiers and Police running at one car with guns ready (Photo by ISM)Israeli military remove one car ‘for further investigation’ (Photo by ISM)
