Category: Journals - Page 28 - International Solidarity Movement

Journal: When walking becomes a crime

13th July 2015 | Peter Cunliffe | Al Khalil, Occupied Palestine

Last night at around 11:30 PM, we received a call from one of our Palestinian neighbors about an incident that was unfolding outside our window.

A group of five Israeli soldiers were guarding two Palestinian youth, who did not look to be older than fifteen. The kids were sitting on concrete steps, and the soldiers had them surrounded, so they could not get away. The boys were detained around 11:15, according to our neighbor.

As is our policy, we observed for a few minutes, and then tried to talk to the kids. One of the first things we do when Palestinians are being detained by soldiers is ask them (the Palestinians) if they are OK with us taking photos and video. The answer is almost always yes, but we always ask first.

Taking photos and videos has two purposes. The first is to document what is happening. The second is to let the soldiers know they are being observed. This sometimes leads to people being released more quickly, and the soldiers being less rough than would be the case if no one was filming.

The boys gave consent for us to take photos, and we started to ask them for their names, when the soldiers angrily told us to go away and physically forced us to move back. We kept asking them why the boys were being detained. What had they done?

One of the soldiers, who seemed to be the commander, and who we have had run-ins with before, told us he does not have justify to us what he and his men are doing. Another soldier, however, who seemed to be younger and less experienced, told us the truth… the boys did not have their ID with them. The reason they were stopped and made to sit down and surrounded by heavily armed troops was that they did not have in their possession the papers that every Palestinian needs to have on them, if he or she hopes to not be harassed by the army. I asked the soldier if this was the only reason, he said there was another one, but refused to say what it was.

We kept trying to talk to the boys, and the soldiers kept pushing us away. Eventually their father came, and after some discussions with them, he showed them the boys’ papers. It was only after this that they let them go, one by one. The incident took more than one hour.

Imagine living in a place where armed men can stop you and hold you- and if they feel necessary, confine you in a jail- simply because you don’t have a document on you that can tell them at a glance your first and last name, where you live, where you are from, and what religion you follow.

Palestinians are obliged to carry such ID on them at all times. Any Israeli soldier or police officer can randomly stop them, and demand to see it. If they don’t have it, things can turn ugly.

The boys who were detained were not threatening anyone. They were not carrying out a suicide bombing. They aren’t terrorists. They were not even throwing rocks, which the military often uses as an excuse to do detain, arrest, beat, or even kill Palestinians.

They were simply going for a walk, and some guys in uniforms thought they looked suspicious. A piece or two of forgotten ID led to an hour of stress and intimidation, and could have ended with arrests and possibly worse behind the closed doors of a police station or military base. The only crime these teens were guilty of was being Palestinian, and going for a walk.

Fortunately, their ordeal ended in a lot better way than experiences of others, who face similar situations on a regular basis in this city, and all parts of the West Bank which are under Israeli military rule.

“…but still with a few hope in our hearts”

20th May 2015 | Inas Jam | Khuzaa, Gaza.

Editor’s note: This is the testimony of a 23 year old woman who survived the land invasion of Khuzaa, Gaza, in the summer of 2014. This is the original version of her writings and no edits have been made.

We were in Khuzaa in our grandfather’s house when the war started. We thought Khuzaa was the safest area. But the 23rd July Khuzaa was a surrounded by tanks, drones and we started hearing many bombs.

We went to the basement to hide from the shooting but my grandfather stayed in the first floor with the other men…
Four days passed by very slowly and with a lot of difficulty, in the last day someone came to tell us that we had to leave Khuzaa.

We accepted and hurried up to the street, we were frightened, the planes were upon us, we were surprised because we thought there was nobody left in Khuzaa, but we saw many people crying, shouting, men injured by gunshot, they were walking covered in blood.
All was very sad.
While we were walking we saw the smoke from the bombs. Everyone was crying, men, women, old people and children.
The trepidation got into our hearts.
Some bombs felled in front of our eyes.
The streets were full of people running.
At some point we had to return back because we found in the street a big hole made by a rocket that prevented us to continue.

When we returned back we found many families in the ground floor.
At night Apache helicopters started hitting the homes with the families inside.
We heard the footsteps of the occupation soldiers; the children were very quiet, they were afraid that the soldiers would hear them.
We heard many people getting killed in their homes.

In the morning somebody came and told us we must leave Khuzaa because Israel was killing everyone, they were shooting at everything, moving or not…
We forced ourselves to go out, but my grandfather refused to leave “I want to die in my home, not in the street like the people from Shijaia”.

We went out thinking that we would be killed by the zionist occupiers, but still with a few hope in our hearts.
I left with my mother, my sister and some other people; we saw rubble, glass and corpses in the street.

I saw a child in the street with his stomach and bowels out. I started shouting what was that, where was the world, where were the Arab countries… and kept crying while going on.

We couldn’t do anything because we were afraid we would get killed by an helicopter or by any kind of weapon, we didn’t know where were the zionist soldiers.

We kept running and running. When we arrived to the entrance of the village we saw many tanks and many soldiers, I was crying so much, and the soldiers started laughing at me.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop crying!

When we arrived to Khan Younis we received the bad news, my grandfather had been killed by the occupation. My uncle, who also stayed in Khuzaa, explained me what happened: “grandfather went out from the basement to tell the soldiers that there were just men, women and children in those homes, who had no weapons to defend themselves. But the soldiers killed him putting two bullets in his heart. Everybody was crying then, we were frightened. After that they took us out and took the men to the homes that they were using as base and put them in front of the windows, as human shields. Later they started hitting the men with sticks. Then ordered Alaa Qudaih (the nephew of my grandfather)to take off the clothes of my grandfather. Alaa couldn’t stop crying while doing it. After he covered him with a red blanket. Finally the occupation ordered us to leave Khuzaa and go to Khan Younes.

After three days the occupation allowed us to finally take the corpses to the Hospital.
There were many corpses in the streets, in their homes and under the rubble.

By Inas Jam.

Jerusalem Day: Palestinians met with extreme violence

On Sunday 17th May 2015, I witnessed some of the most violent and painfully blatant acts of Apartheid since my time in Palestine. I went to Al Quds for the annual ´Jerusalem Day´, to document the racist chants, commonly known to occur. ‘Jerusalem Day’, or ‘Yom Yerushalayim’ is a zionist celebration of the 6 day war in ’67, when Israel claims to have reuinited Jerusalem. Having ethnically cleansed West Jerusalem in 1948, Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since ’67, which had previously been under Jordanian control. The day consists of thousands of hard line Israelis, many of them young men, marching with flags through the muslim quarter of the old city, chanting racist and abusive slogans such as ‘Death to the Arabs’, and forcing shops to close their doors for the day.

Naively, I expected a relatively uneventful day, videoing marchers as they passed through the street. In reality, the day consisted of an abusive demonstration of the Zionist apartheid state and the ethnic cleansing upon which it is founded.

We arrived at Damascus gate just after 2pm to a crowd of young Israelis waving Israeli flags and, closely watched by soldiers, a small group of Palestinians and internationals waving Palestinian flags. All seemed tense. Throughout the city were swarms of zionists, dancing, chanting and celebrating their deemed ‘ownership’ of this city. Their loud chants through the Old City and choice to gather at Damascus Gate (The entrance to the muslim quarter), was a nod towards the provocative nature that this day would inevitably take.

Over the course of an hour, I witnessed a number of arrests. Although all separate to each other, they all had a common thread; they were all arrests of Palestinian men, and all included acts of violence shocking even within the context of the abusive occupation. I saw the first of these arrests only once the man’s head was locked in the arms of two soldiers. I burrowed under the arms of the soldiers and pulled the man away, a group of us successfully dearresting him. As he ran, the soldiers grabbed him again, holding his arms behind his back and squeezing at his chest. The man collapsed. His body fell to the ground between the soldiers, and as people rushed forward to perform CPR, the soldiers pushed them back, not allowing them to reach him. Eventually the man was carried away to hospital. We heard no news as to how he was later in the day.

Pushed against some close by metal railings, another man was grabbed by around 6 soldiers and thrown to the ground, before being stamped on and kicked as he lay there handcuffed. Just below the same railings, an Israeli soldier throttled another Palestinian man. Whilst his two hands were round the mans neck, other soldiers swarmed in and pushed him to the ground, hitting him in the face. He too was taken off by paramedics. An older man who looked in his sixties, whose arrest I didn’t see, was carried by his four limbs through the crowd by police.

These arrests were all at the entrance to Damascus Gate, watched over by a group of Zionists who were left to stay in the area. The agenda of the police and military at the scene, was to clear the area and road leading to it of any Palestinians. All Palestinians were moved to a side street, by police on horses charging through the crowds. Palestinians were pushed shoved and pulled away from the gate, many of whom had shopping bags and were with their children.

One elderly man passing through was thrown forwards onto his face by two soldiers. I next saw him as his bloody mouth was tended to by paramedics. Another was grabbed by a number of soldiers, and thrown with such force onto his back, he traveled a meter or so passed me before landing. A Palestinian man who attempted to stop a young zionist from pulling a scarf from a Palestinian woman, was pushed down the steps by two soldiers, as the zionist boy and his friends watched on. The woman, reclaimed her scarf and sat on the spot holding a Palestinian scarf in one hand, gesturing the peace sign with the other.

At around 7pm, what looked like tens of thousands of Zionists marched to Damascus Gate and on through the muslim quarter of the Old City. Largely consisting of young men, they chanted in Hebrew, directed at any Palestinian watching from the side. An older man next to me held a Palestinian flag, as the Zionists threw broken sticks from their flags at him. Later, standing among a small group of press at the side of the square, I found myself on the receiving end of sticks, as the crowd took any opportunity to attack onlookers. Press were hit with sticks, and dragged by police away from the gate. One police officer rugby tackled me from behind, as sticks were thrown from overhead. The crowd hurled abuse, as the soldiers watched on, many laughing along to the chants. As a Palestinian man nearby shouted back to the crowd, he was abruptly arrested and pulled away by soldiers.

The scenes witnessed at Damascus Gate on Sunday were not however the full extent of the day. A family we later visited whose house has just been demolished in East Jerusalem, had their area surrounded by Israeli flags, with people chanting ‘Death to the Arabs’ outside their window. Their 8 children, who were too afraid to leave the house, are daily witnesses to hatred inflicted towards themselves and their families.

Jerusalem Day to me was Zionism personified; the racist apartheid state that Israel is unashamed of. There were violent attacks on Palestinians by soldiers, police, and Zionist marchers alike. The soldiers and police supported Zionist youth as they hurled verbal abuse at passers by. Palestinian shops were forced to close as Zionists banged on their front shutters. Palestinians were made to move from the Muslim quarter to watch from afar as Zionists chanted hatred towards them – inciting ethnic cleansing and death to the Arabs.

This day was not one of watching on the sidelines as a group marched through the street – this day was a new awakening for me as to the systematic violence the Israeli state relies on. The city was turned into a playground for the new generation of right wing Zionists, as they were taught the abuse that’s accepted against all those not waving the same flag.

Recollection and memory, Al-Nakba continues

15th May 2015 | Karam (Muhannad) | Ofer military prison, Occupied Palestine

The following post is written by the medic that was present on the scene on May 15th 2014, during the killing of Mohammad Odeh and Nadeem Nuwwarah as protesters commemorated al-Nakba near Ofer Military Prison.

During Nakba day commemoration, Birzeit’s student council were trying to gather students to go to Ofer, but it seemed that no one was interested. I decided to go by myself, so I gathered some friends and went to Ramallah and then to Ofer.

En route to Ofer, I received a call saying “a kid got shot with live [ammunition]..it’s bad.” I then asked the driver to hurry. We arrived to Ofer and there were many people. Three Israeli soldiers were standing up the hill 120 meters away with the rest of them standing 500 meters away in the field across. There was teargas and rubber bullets, which was normal. Nothing I’m not used to.

Two kids were going back and forth throwing stones at the three soldiers, even though they kept missing the soldiers they continued to try because they are kids. I went down to open my bag and I looked back to see if it’s safe and I could see the two kids coming back.

I can still remember the two kids, and two flags. One green and the other black, one was for Hamas and the other was the Nakba flag.

Medic pressing against Mohammad Odeh’s chest after he was shot with live ammunition. May 15th, 2014 - photo by AP — Medic pressing against Mohammad Odeh’s chest after he was shot with live ammunition. May 15th, 2014 – *photo by AP*

I searched inside my bag to find something that to this day I can’t remember what it was I was looking for. Suddenly I heard a shot. One shot and it was live ammunition. I jumped to the left and went down even though I know it was live and live travels faster than the sound it projects. But it was the natural accustomed reaction. Two seconds is all the time it takes for the sound to disappear. I look to my left and he was falling. Mohammad was falling to the ground. I ran to him as he was two meters away.

I was able to reach him before he hit the ground. I looked at him, checking his body. I saw a hole in his chest and I put my hand on it to apply pressure and stop the bleeding, basic first aid training.

He held my hand and looked at me trying to say something but he didn’t have the time. I screamed for an ambulance and asked for help. Two people came to help me carry him. The ambulance was 10 meters away, the man next to me was saying “Mohammad stay with us.” That’s how I knew his name.

We put him in the ambulance and returned to where we were.

I began to tell myself he is alive and he was shot in the lung and fainted, that’s why there was no blood only a hole. Only one spot of blood was on my hand. I tried to convince myself that he is alive. He is alive.

I knew though. I knew something was wrong. I became a ghost walking in Ofer back and forth towards the soldiers. News started to arrive about two martyrs. Nadeem and Mohammad. I started asking about Mohammad Abu Al Dhaher and the other Mohammad who was shot before I arrived. I started calling my friends at the hospital asking them to confirm the name.

Mohammad Odeh being carried to a nearby ambulance. Ofer military prison, May 15th, 2014 - photo by AP — Mohammad Odeh being carried to a nearby ambulance. Ofer military prison, May 15th, 2014 – *photo by AP*

Twenty minutes later, my friend who worked at the hospital called and said “it was Mohamad Abu al Dhaher. The last one you put in the ambulance.”

I stayed in Ofer. I didn’t know what to do, I wrote their names on the wall and stayed there, but I wasn’t really there. I was a ghost.

Two hours later I went to the hospital, I’m not even sure if it was two hours later. I had lost track of time at that pont. I couldn’t feel it anymore. It’s as though the whole world had stopped at that moment. I arrived to the hospital and entered inside. There were tons of people gathering. Friends, journalists..but I couldn’t look at any of them.

Afterwards, a group of protesters had marched to the hospital coming from Ramallah after they closed down the shops in honor of the martyrs. I stood in the middle of the street as they all passed by me. I didn’t know where to go, or what to do. Journalists that were asking for interviews were saying “we heard you were the last one next to the martyr.” I went away. I couldn’t say anything. I tried to find a place where I can’t see anyone, so I went behind a car and stopped for a few minutes trying to understand but I couldn’t. Everything began to flash but I couldn’t remember. I began to breathe fast and wasn’t able to move my face. People gathered around me in attempt to take me inside the hospital but I resisted and began to call out the name of a friend that can take me out. Someone knew her and after a while she arrived and tried to take me inside the hospital. I asked her to take me out of there and she did.

That’s when my trip began.

I still remember his masked face, I never remembered his face because I only saw his face on posters, a week later.

3 minutes. 3 minutes is the time we had. They always told us that our job as medics is to keep the patient alive until the ambulance arrives. But this time, even 3 minutes weren’t enough.

It has been a year now but it still feels like yesterday. Everyone has forgotten and it’s only his family that is living in torment. Today I realize that he is gone and nothing that we could have done would have stopped it. Nothing.

The only thing that we should do is keep fighting for them and for ourselves, until we find justice. Until every soldier is held accountable for their crimes.

The dead are gone…and the living are hungry.

By Karam (Muhannad)

Journal: House demolition in East Jerusalem

27th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Al Khalil | East Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine

The family and internationals sitting around a fire during the night

This has been hard to write down. The three of us put off again and again the thoughts and fears of that day, to remember them and to finally write them down. We have been avoiding it, because it is easier to simply try and forget. But then at the same time, for us it was just this one night, whereas for the families living in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz this is everyday life.

An illegal demolition of the majority of the Amro-family home on the 31^stof March, 2015 left all the families in Wadi al-Joz scared for the future. If Israeli forces can just turn up one early morning and tear down half a family home without prior notice or any legal grounds, might this also happen to the other few families still living in this neighborhood?

On a Sunday night, the 18^th of April, 10 international activists and journalists as well as a few members of the Tutalji family sat outside the family’s home. It was a cold night but we had set up a fire to warm us up. The stars were shining and we were drinking tea and chatting. The children were asleep inside.

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

The truth is, the atmosphere was filled with fear and despair. Only a few days earlier, the Tutalji family had received a demolition order for their house, home to Aref Tutalji, his wife and adult daughter, as well as twelve children, aged between 4 and 18 years. They were told the Israeli army would come to demolish their home at four o’clock that night. At very short notice the family now stood to be homeless. After seeing what happened to their neighbours, the Amro-family, the Tutalji family tried to store their life, their most precious belongings, in cardboard-boxes to be kept outside the home.

The Amro family told us that they wanted to get rid of the rubble of their house, but felt it difficult to do so due to their connection to the house. They felt attached to the rubble. The house of your family is not just four walls and a roof- it is your history. You feel the memories in the walls, and you know every corner and every crack, even if you are blind – as is the case with Nureddin, the father of the Amro family.

It was a long night; sitting outside the house, listening to the family’s stories, their fears and desperation. What are they going to do if their house, the only home they’ve ever known, gets destroyed? What kind of future would that bring for their children? Were they going to be killed by the army, that told them that, when they come, they “see nothing in front of them”? As a precaution, the family-dogs were given away and animal shelters were moved to the outer limit of their land.

Most of the family was unable to sleep that night. They were too scared they would wake up to their house being demolished or not being able to get out of the house fast enough. Listening to the family talk about their fears, not only for this night, but also for the longer run, it was hard to hold back the tears.

Earlier that night, the three of us sat down for a pizza in the old town of East Jerusalem – self-care, we called it. We went through possible scenarios for the coming night, scared and unsure of what was about to happen. What would we do, if the army immediately starts demolishing the house? Were people going to get hurt – were the children going to be beaten by the army, as happened during the demolition of the Amro-family’s home? It was good to talk about all the possibilities, but also hard to admit how scared we were of what might happen during this night.

We felt the frustration of the father who kept asking why this was happening to his family. Why did their house pose a threat to the Israeli state? Where were they going to sleep? What about the kids? He pleaded that he doesn’t hold grudges against Judaism, Christianity or any other religion, and told us that he wanted nothing more than to live in peace, side by side with his neighbours. But how can he live in peace when they come and ruin his home? These house demolitions are strange. After having lived for several generations on their land, these people are pushed out of their homes in order for Jews from Brooklyn to come and replace them. You have to wonder why.

In the early evening, we tried to get some sleep, but every time we heard the sound of a car driving past the house, we would sit up, turn our heads and look at each other, sure that now, they were coming to tear down the house. It would take some time listening to what was going on to realise that again, this was just a car driving past – until we heard yet another car. Next morning the Amro-family told us that having internationals stay with them meant they were able to sleep through the whole night for the first time for three weeks. Having stayed only one night, not being able to fall asleep dreading what might happen, we were able to understand that easily.

For us it was only one night. For the families living in this neighborhood, this is everyday life. Every night, the families wonder what to do, how to continue their life, if all their belongings are destroyed with their house. Every night, going to bed they are worried they might not have a house the next morning. Every night, they have to worry about getting beaten, to have their home – and their future – destroyed.

Maja, Siggy and Jenny.