Category: Hebron - Page 93 - International Solidarity Movement

Injured and forced to walk

27th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

It was a warm Saturday night in late August in al-Khalil (Hebron). For the Palestinian children school was starting the next day, and a feeling of anticipation and excitement for a new year of learning floated over the hot Palestinian night. A group of ISM members were invited to a barbecue with a local activist organization, which we happily attended.

After eating, I went with a group of from the organization that invited us, to a nearby kindergarten for Palestinian children from the neighborhood. The kindergarten had been created in an empty house last year so young children would not have to pass through a checkpoint everyday on their way to school. We went to bring some toys, clean up, and prepare for the coming invasion of toddlers. When I, along with the rest of the activists, wanted to leave the kindergarten again, three settlers from one of the illegal Israeli settlements of Hebron appeared and blocked the entrance. They accused us of bringing in building materials to the kindergarten, due to Israeli law, building an extension is forbidden for Palestinians in the H2 area of al-Khalil (H2 is under full Israeli military civil and security). The kindergarten was created in 2013, a bathroom was built, and then demolished by the Israeli army since it was an extension to the house and was therefore ‘illegal’.

As we tried to leave a group of settlers surround us and began to yell and scream in Hebrew. One of the settlers called the Israeli police and about 10 minutes later the army arrived. They escorted the settlers away and made space for the police on the narrow path up leading up to the kindergarten. The police then quickly searched the kindergarten for building materials and left after none were found.

Following this unprovoked confrontation, we drank tea on the fake grass of the outside kindergarten floor, a football was found, and the Palestinian kids enjoyed their newly renovated kindergarten in advance. Unfortunately I fell badly fall on my left side while playing with the children, resulting in a dislocated shoulder. Of course I had to go to the hospital and an ambulance was out of the question since all traffic, other than that of the Israeli settlers and the army, is forbidden in H2 except with explicit permission from the military.

Another ISM member had previously seen how injured Palestinians were carried through the checkpoint on a stretcher after a settler attack. The ambulance did not have the right permit to pass the checkpoint and the injured were forced to be physically rushed through.

I, and three ISM friends, decided to try to walk through the checkpoint and then find a taxi. The checkpoint we needed to cross in order to reach the hospital was Checkpoint 56 on Shuhada Street. During a clash a couple of days ago the checkpoint had been burned on the inside, and it was now closed for everyone except for the army. This is a form of collective punishment as it was still possible to cross if the soldiers decided to allow it. In recent days some people have passed and other have been denied.

The soldiers at the checkpoint could easily see that I was in pain. We asked the soldiers if we could pass, since it was an emergency, and the alternative route around the checkpoint would be extremely long and demanding. The soldiers did not really seem to take much notice of our situation; it even looked like they were having fun at my expense. When we asked a soldier for his name and ID, he gave two different answers the two times we asked him, even though the soldiers are required to provide that information when asked.

The encounter ended with the soldiers telling us, with plastic handcuffs in their hands that we had two minutes to leave the area or we would be arrested – even though it is out of their jurisdiction, and we hadn’t done anything illegal. We decided it was not worth it and started the long walk around the checkpoint to the Government hospital in H1 (under Palestinian Authority civil and security control).

Now I am sitting with my shoulder in a sling; the treatment was quick and very professional. The Palestinians at the hospital were extremely helpful, showing me the different places I needed to go in order to get the right treatment. Now I cannot help thinking of how it must be to live under these circumstances, when the way to the nearest hospital is hampered by several checkpoints, manned by soldiers who do not care about except settlers and their fellow soldiers. I was lucky that my injury was not more serious; in another situation the outcome could have been much worse.

Shepherds detained for crossing a road

26th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Qawawis, Occupied Palestine

While shepherding approximately 1 km south of Qawawis, a village south of al-Khalil (Hebron), on Sunday 24^th near the illegal settlement and army base of Suseya, three shepherds were stopped by the Israeli army and detained for 20 minutes.

The three shepherds were just on their way back from grazing their sheep in the fields outside of the village when the Israeli army arrived in a jeep, stopping the shepherds who were attempting to cross the street. After shortly talking to one of the shepherds, the soldiers drove the sheep down the hill without any explanation.

As the sheep began to run away, one of the shepherds asked to look for them, but was refused by one of the soldiers. The soldiers accused them of passing over into land prohibited for Palestinians. It is an open area with no sign marking any borders.

One of the soldiers claimed to have explained to the shepherds where the border of the ‘prohibited’ land was located in the morning, however ISM volunteers accompanied the shepherds in the morning and know that this did not happen.

After being detained for roughly 20 minutes and their documents checked, the soldiers threatened to arrest them the next time they are seen “trespassing”.

Afterwards the shepherds were allowed to collect their sheep and continue their way home.

Qawawis is located in a “Firing Zone”, surrounded by a growing number of expanding illegal settlements and illegal outposts. For most of the families living there, the income depends on shepherding. The shepherds report that they are regular harassed and attacked by both the Israeli army and settlers from nearby illegal settlements.

VIDEO: 15 tear gas grenades and 5 stun grenades fired at schoolchildren

25th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Today in al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces fired 15 tear gas grenades and canisters, as well as five stun grenades at children as they waited to go to school.

Each morning and afternoon the children of al-Khalil, some as young as four-years-old, are forced to cross through a checkpoint manned by Israeli border police.

This morning, the second day of school after summer break, four young teenagers threw stones at the checkpoint and Israeli forces present threw two stun grenades.

An ISM volunteer who was present at the checkpoint stated, “I was standing with my fellow ISM’er next to two young boys who were both under six-years-old. We were all very close to the stun grenades. We tried to comfort them when they [the stun grenades] exploded close by, but what could we say? They were both terrified. We walked with them down closer to their school and they began to run. At that moment, a tear gas grenade was fired and there were no children throwing stones. The smoke was thick and I began choking, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I can’t imagine what this sensation would have been like for a child, and there were so many present. From there the situation just seemed to get worse, with so much tear gas in the air, children were unable to reach their schools.”

One young boy spoke to an ISM volunteer, with his eyes still red from tear gas, he pointed towards the checkpoint and said, “The soldiers from Gaza are here!”

Tear gas drifted into the courtyard and many children and teachers choked and spluttered in the playground. School was delayed for over an hour. At one point a Red Crescent ambulance had to be called as two teachers and two children, aged 10 and 12-years-old, required medical treatment for excessive tear gas inhalation.

Another ISM volunteer present this morning said that, “Overall the Israeli forces shot 5 stun grenades. I also counted at least 15 tear gas grenades and canisters, two of which were shot at a group of Palestinian teachers, myself, and my fellow ISM activist.”

International activists monitor the checkpoints the children are forced to pass through on their way to school, both to document the events and to stand with the children. Israeli forces’ firing military weapons at children is unfortunately common. Last school year ISM documented many cases of tear gas and stun grenades used against schoolchildren in al-Khalil, some as young as 4-years-old.

Resistance and tear gas

21st August 2014 | Saeeda Al-Rashid | Occupied Palestine

It’s late May [2013], and the air is stifling. Heat sizzles from the pavement, and Khalili youth, though well-adapted to these conditions, can be seen wiping sweat from their brows as they trek home from school. A few trickle through Checkpoint 56 into the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, formally designated Israeli-controlled territory under the Hebron Agreement. Soldiers search their bags and detain one, but finding no reason to arrest him, release him an hour later, a routine form of harassment youth are all too accustomed to. At some point, a school-bus turns up the road. It’s labeled in Hebrew and English, “Air-Conditioned Video.” The school bus is only for settler children, whereas many Palestinian vehicles are not allowed to drive in Tel Rumeida.

The word “apartheid” is often used to criticize Israeli racism and the Israeli state’s policies of segregation. But on the street level, what does apartheid actually look like? While living in occupied Khalil under Israeli military occupation for a few months, I experienced only the beginning of the answer to those questions. The rest is in the lived experience of businessmen and women, school children, farmers and shepherds who have lived under occupation for forty-plus years.

Apartheid Defined

In his final report as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the oPt [Occupied Palestinian Territories], Richard Falk called for an investigation into the Israeli practices, broadly referred to as hafrada meaning “separation”, that could constitute apartheid under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Offenses that come in conflict with the Convention include the unlawful taking of life, administrative detention, and torture, and also the segregation of land and parallel legal systems in the West Bank that “prevent participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the full development of a racial group” (18).

This invokes a flood of memories from my short time in Palestine, including a young couple in Masafer Yatta living in a former sheep pen because the Israeli Civil Authority won’t grant them a permit to build a house; shops forced to close down during Jewish holidays so that settlers can illegally pass into the Palestinian-controlled part of Khalil; a B’tselem caseworker laughing aloud when we asked whether any action would be taken after Abu Shamsiya documented Israeli settlers’ assault on his family and was himself arrested on false charges of spitting at the nearby soldiers throwing stones and a tomato, whilst at the same time an Israeli boy of similar age threw eggs at internationals and went unpunished.

Saeeda waits outside the IDF compound with the family of a child arrested for 'throwing a tomato' (Photo by Youth Against Settlements). — Saeeda waits outside the IDF compound with the family of a child arrested for ‘throwing a tomato’ (Photo by Youth Against Settlements).

Apartheid, as Falk points out, is not a recurrence of isolated crimes; rather, “the combined effect of the measures designed to ensure security for Israeli citizens, to facilitate and expand settlements, and, it would appear, to annex land, is hafrada, discrimination and systematic oppression of, and domination over, the Palestinian people.” Apartheid is in the rain that flooded the Khalil Souq (market), ruining goods that provide needed income for Khalili families, because Israeli authorities have prevented the construction of appropriate drainage facilities.

Women in Hebron shop flooded (photo by Women in Hebron).

Apartheid is in the rocky, rat-infested paths Palestinians travel on to climb the prayer road because the main roads are only for settlers. Apartheid is in the children who inhale tear gas nearly every day on the way to school, and every family stuck in the Qalandiya checkpoint during Ramadhan, barred from entering Jerusalem to worship. Apartheid is the reason ISM volunteers on the ground believe strongly in only taking actions led by Palestinians – this is their home, and their lives are impacted every day by apartheid years after we’ve flown home to our respective countries.

Resistance and Tear Gas

Richard Falk’s final report also pointed out that persecution of those who resist apartheid practices falls under article 2(f) of the Convention. Upon investigating the types of tear gas deployed by the IDF against peaceful protestors, from an organic chemistry perspective with the help of a leading chemist who was my professor, I unearthed a plethora of information on this vile substance.

The IDF principally uses CS gas (o-chlorobenzilidenemalononitrile). Exposure to CS gas has been implicated in a number of deaths in the West Bank as well as South Korea because it’s a potent Michael acceptor, making it able to inhibit many important chemicals in our bodies including the amino acid cysteine, which can be found on the TRPA1 protein channel that mediates our continued responsiveness to a wide variety of irritants and has been implicated in the prolonged sense of irritation experienced by some who are exposed to tear gas. (This is potentially the reason biting into an onion, a popular on-the-ground treatment for tear gas exposure, also counteracts the toxicity of CS gas – the inert sulfur-containing compounds in onions serve as alternate Michael donors).

Additionally, CS and CN gas produce methylene chloride, which as a nervous depressant and mild carcinogen reaches dangerous levels at exposure above 250 ppm by the constant barrage of intense tear gas deployment I witnessed at demonstrations. Finally, CS gas has been shown to be a mild mutagen (via intercalation with DNA) and thus it is also a potential carcinogen. Much has been said about the disparity in living conditions that results from the Israeli military occupation; prolonged exposure to dangerous chemicals for not only activists who resist the wall but shop-keepers and schoolchildren intertwines with the many different ways the system of apartheid and physical and legal segregation impact the daily lives of Palestinian people.

I believe this apartheid in and of itself is violence; there is no state of peace from which the more obvious forms of violence such as stone-throwing and shootings arise. There will only be peace when real justice is served – when apartheid is nothing more than a history lesson for our children.

Palestinians and ISM’ers clean up after demolition of Palestinian home

20th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | al-Walja, Occupied Palestine

At 10am on the 18th of August in al-Walja, north of Bethlehem, the Israeli army demolished the residence of a Palestinian man. The man was alone on his land when the solders arrived with a bulldozer. The soldiers stated that they had a court decision to demolish the area but refused to show it to the man.

Approximately 15 Palestinians from Aida refugee camp and a group of ISM volunteers set out on the morning of the 19th of August to clean up the area. Before the demolition, the area consisted of a patio, a small home where the man slept, a kitchen and a toilet. Most of the structures were completely destroyed and the owners belongings were scattered around the broken bricks and stones.

Palestinians and ISM’ers cleaned up the area and gathered what was left of the man’s belongings. After a few hours of work, most of the debris from the demolition had been cleaned. It was possible to reuse broken bricks to create a new stone patio. The Palestinians also built a tent to create some shelter from the hot sun.