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 24th 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
19th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday, the Israeli army demolished the homes of three Palestinian families in al-Khalil (Hebron).
At around 11pm on August 17th, a large Israeli military presence began to accumulate in the area of Daersat Alser where the homes of Abu Eisha and Marwan Qawasmeh’s families are located. Parts of both of these homes were demolished last month as part of the collective punishment that took place all over the West Bank after the deaths of three Israeli settler youths.
A group of Palestinians and internationals made several attempts to move closer to the home to document but soldiers began to target the group with the lasers of their guns to prevent them from moving closer. Immediately after the Israeli army had left the path to the home of Abu Eisha, it was possible to view the damage made. A side of the house on the top floor was blown out and damage to most of the walls and interior of the house was extensive.
Before dawn rounds of tear gas were fired from an Israeli jeep towards the home of Abu Eisha. Internationals also noticed a small white drone circling around the entire area.
Up until the early hours there was still a heavy military presence on the main road of the Daersat Alser area. 17 armoured military jeeps, eight cement trucks and around 80 Israeli soldiers and police were visible at the beginning of the path towards the home of Marwan Qawasmeh.
Preparation had begun to seal the home with cement in order to render it unusable.
Close to 5am, the Israeli army began making preparations to evacuate the area as a group of soldiers began to load several trailers with what appeared to be metal piping, electrical wires and tubing that had been confiscated from the home of Marwan Qawasmeh.
Meanwhile, a soldier that was standing near the Qawasmeh home began to aim the laser of his weapon at the heads of various international volunteers and members of the press, for no apparent reason.
The front yard and door of the Qawasmeh family were completely blocked by large piles of rubble. Piles of wet cement covered the path to the back of the home. The entire bottom floor of the home was filled with cement and there were notices on the sealed door in Arabic and Hebrew which stated:
“This building is being shut under the command of the Military Commander. Due to the shutdown of this building, no new buildings are allowed to be built on this land. Due to the shutdown of part of this building, this place is declared unsafe and no one is permitted to enter.”
Almost the entire façade of the home had been destroyed and remains unusable with most of the rooms burnt and now completely visible from the outside. In the home, there were no doors or windows and all sinks and toilets had been smashed.
Other international volunteers arrived in the area of Wad Abu Ktela at around 2am where Israeli forces had congregated to detonate the family home of Hussam Qawasmeh. Clashes between Israeli military forces and local Palestinian youths had broken out nearby.
In the meantime, soldiers shot several tear gas canisters inside another Palestinian home in Abu Ktela and eleven people suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation and had to be taken to the Alia Hospital.
Solders hid throughout the neighborhood and around 50 additional solders surrounded the targeted home of the Hussam Qawasmeh family. Solders aimed snipers at internationals walking in the area and prevented locals from walking or driving down surrounding roads.
From a rooftop of a neighbouring house, Palestinians and internationals saw solders placing explosives inside the home and heard drilling noises for several hours. At the start of the morning prayer, at around 4:30am, the Israeli military forces blew up the home of the Qawasmeh family.
The home was completely destroyed and only dust and ruins remain. When Palestinians, media and internationals rushed down the street in an attempt to get closer to the home the Israeli military fired several stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets in their direction. Around 150 Palestinians gathered at the home around 5am in solidarity with the family. Family members were crying and visibly distraught.
Shortly after 5 am, all the homes had been demolished and the military presence had been lifted. According to Israeli officials, the homes of Hussam Qawasmeh, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Eisha were destroyed as punishment for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli settler teens in June. As the forces left, a group of soldiers exchanged congratulatory hugs and took a celebratory picture together.
