Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.
13th May 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Verena, Al Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Leaving the meeting I was searching for a safe way to go through the old City of Hebron alone, where there was a celebration of ”Israeli Independence day” going on. I wanted to reach my ISM team members who were already patrolling there. I took off my Kufiya, the Palestinian scarf, because I would probably not be safe wearing it amongst crowds of settlers. I went by taxi to the nearest checkpoint; I got out, passed the checkpoint and descended the hill on the palestinian side.
Palestinian boy watching the celebration of Israeli Independence day. Photo credit: ISM
Loud, happy music had been playing for days and at the main square, there was a stage surrounded by Jewish families cheerfully dancing, clapping hands watching the event going on. Reaching the entrance of the event, even soldiers at the checkpoint were dancing happily.
Only one old palestinian man with a cane was observing the scene melancholically. I felt his grief. Once that had been a palestinian place, with Palestinians celebrating on it. But those days were gone.
I found my friends and we started to walk through the old city, to check on the situation. The streets were empty, houses locked up and you could see Palestinian children behind lattice windows, trying to catch up on some of the events going on outside. Their parents had them made stay at home, being scared of clashes and attacks by settler groups, as they had been in past celebrations of independence day.
Reaching back to the top of the hill, we met some young Palestinian men, watching the festivities from above. Between them and the square was a checkpoint and soldiers. The boys were making jokes to hide their true feelings. One young man told us, that there had been
times when Israelis and Palestinian had celebrated together on this square. After some time we walked down the hill, again on the Palestinian side of the fence. Palestinian boys and men were standing and watching the joyous triumphal dancing and cheering, through the fence.
Palestinian boys excluded from celebration on their land. Photo credit: ISM
Soldiers and jeeps on the other side of the fence protected the square. We stood with Palestinians for quite some time. Young men behind a fence, children and women behind the lattice windows, excluded from happiness in their own country, watching THEM celebrating the day when 68 years ago they violently took over the country.
When the festival ended, settlers flooded the streets so we walked back into the city. Most of them went in cars but walking an empty street we could suddenly hear the triumphal procession coming towards us. Singing, shouting, waving flags the crowd was coming towards us and we sought protection near Israeli soldiers. They would most of the time protect Internationals for not getting media attention for violent behaviour of the settlers. But they would never protect Palestinians from their violence. The next day we heard that the procession had aggressively crossed the Arab quarter.
“There was a single Israeli army jeep that invaded the village late at night. This was very strange, as usually if the army come, they would come with 10 or more jeeps…“
This is what we were told when we visited Ni’ilin on Friday 6 May, referring to the start of the terrible Israeli incursion into the village a night earlier in the week – where a seven day old baby suffered tear gas inhalation and had to be taken to hospital.
The village of Ni’ilin. Photo credit ISM
The village children, concerned and curious about the invasion of the village, had followed the jeep and blocked the road which meant the jeep could not get out. The soldiers then called for back up and four more jeeps came into the village on a rescue mission. This is when the occupation forces started indiscriminately firing vast amounts of teargas. No one is clear about the reasons why the first jeep decided to invade the village nor why they felt the need to use so much teargas.
The army often come at night to arrest youg people accusing them of partaking in the weekly demonstrations, but no arrests were made that night even after all the violence. However in the last six months, five boys aged 16 and 17 have been arrested and are still in prison without any charges being made against them.
We had come to the village to establish what had happened on that night and to show solidarity by joining their weekly demonstration against the apartheid wall. Apart from a committed group of Israeli protesters, the demonstration no longer attracts many international activist or media attention.
However, as the paramedics from the Red Crescent told us, the Israeli occupation forces are far more aggressive when there is no international and/or media presence to record their actions and monitor their behaviour. The villagers would therefore welcome any support international activists can offer. For a relatively small demonstration, that has only been going for eight years, there have been a significantly high percentage of deaths. Five people have been killed since it started, most by live ammunition, and notable as well as heartbreaking for our organisation, an ISM activist was severely injured by a tear gas canister here in 2009 and has sadly not recovered.
The village of Ni’lin is located only about three kilometres from the Green line (which marks the pre-1967 border) and has suffered extensive land theft and settlement expansion. Our guide pointed out one of the many illegal settlements encircling the village: Hashmonaim, which was built in 1985, and is located next to the apartheid wall and is one of the reason it was built where it is.
Hashmonaim settlement and the apartheid wall. Photo credit: ISM
The village, being so close to the Green line mean the apartheid wall (which for the most part does not follow the agreed border anyway), has been routed through land belonging to the village. By positioning the wall well into Palestinian territory and thereby stealing large areas of land in the process, Israel ensures the further expansion of the illegal settlement. The Israeli supreme court judged it unlawful at one point but eventually the build went ahead, and since then residents have been protesting and campaigning against it.
The weekly demonstration has been ongoing since 2008 with the villagers of Ni’lin non violently protesting against the apartheid wall and the annexation of their lands. When the wall was first erected, some of the young boys in the village manage to cut through what was then a wire fence. The army responded by erecting the very high concrete wall now standing there, resulting in even more of Ni’ilins lands being lost. Many villagers are farmers and with the loss of their land, have also lost their main form of income. Many others used to work in ’48 (Israel proper) but because of the wall and the impossibility of gaining permits to enter Israel, they can now not continue to do so and have also lost their source of income.
Peaceful protester at the demonstration. Photo credit: ISM
During the weekly demonstration, protesters walk from the village towards the wall with the aim of reaching it. However, the army now enter into the olive groves in the village preventing any chance of protesters reaching their goal. This means there are often clashes with the army firing teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. But on Friday we were fortunate that the army used no violence at all – instead they spent their time filming the protesters to be able to identify them, presumably for later arrests. This may be a worrying sign- since it was a repetition from the previous week’s demonstration which was also quiet- that further night raids may occur. The villagers, however, are not deterred and will continue to assert their rights and peacefully protest the illegal appropriation of their lands the, the apartheid wall and the injustices they face. I dearly hope to be able to join them soon again as they deserve all the support they can get.
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.”
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.
17th April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Today volunteers from ISM attended a demonstration in Al-Khalil for Prisoners’ Day. Once the main demonstration had ended in the city a group of young Palestinians invited the volunteers to the Fawwar refugee camp outside the city.
Prisoner’s day demonstration in occupied Hebron
At the camp they were greeted by the Janazreh family, relatives of Sami Janazreh who invited the volunteers into their home for tea so they could tell us his story. Sami’s brother Haitham explained that Sami was detained on the 15th of November 2015 from his home in front of his family. The Israeli military brought no charges against Sami, but he was brought before a military court, with no jury or media present and sentenced to 4 months in a military prison. Once the 4 months were up he was brought before the military court again and sentenced to a further 4 months, without charge.
Three young demonstrators hold images of Sami
On the 3rd of March 2016 Sami was left with no option but to begin a hunger strike in protest at his detention. He is now 46 days into his hunger strike, and for the last 20 days his family has had no contact with him. The last information they received was that his kidneys were failing, his teeth had begun to fall out and he was unable to walk. The family have made concerted efforts to contact the prison to get updates on his condition but to no avail. They have had no contact from the Israeli government and there have been no official reports made.
On April 3rd 2016 two other prisoners, Adeb Mafaga and Fuouad Asse also began a hunger strike in protest at their illegal detention. The three men are striking in the hope that the Israeli government will release them to their families with signed papers to say they will no longer be detained without cause.
Sami’s brother Haytham
Sami’s home is within the Fawwar refugee camp where he live’ with his wife, 3 children, Feras (13), Mahmod Darwesh (7), Marya (4) and other relatives including his brother, Haitham. The family has accepted that their father will die in prison without them having the chance to say goodbye. They asked the human rights defenders from ISM to highlight the plight of these men and raise awareness in the international community to give Sami the strength to continue his protest. As the hunger strike on its own has not been successful, it is now vitally important that we highlight this issue and put worldwide pressure on the Israeli government to release the men and save their lives.
Sami’s children
On this Palestinian Prisoner’s Day we urge you to show support for Sami, Adeb and Fuoud by tweeting #FreeSami and by spreading his story through social media as much as we can.
