Category: Nablus - Page 20 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli soldiers delay medical treatment to arrested Palestinian

1st October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Khirbet Al-Tawil, Occupied Palestine

On Monday morning, the 29^th of September, settlers and the Israeli army invaded the village of Khirbet Al-Tawil east of Aqraba. They destroyed the village’s main electrical cable and water pipe. The inhabitants of the village have been without electricity and running water since then.

At noon, Wednesday October 1^st, a Palestinian man accused of repairing the electrical cable destroyed by settlers and Israeli soldiers was arrested by Israeli forces in Khirbet Al-Tawil. Asked for the reason for the arrest, an Israeli soldier replied that the electrical cable, placed on Palestinian land, was illegal due to the village not paying for the use of the electricity.

The Israeli soldiers took the Palestinian’s ID from him and forced him to drive his motorbike in front of the military jeep to the Alhamra checkpoint for interrogation. During the drive, a car with one Palestinian, one international and three ISM activists stopped to give the man some water. The Israeli soldiers stepped out of the jeep and yelled orders to the group, trying to prevent them from giving the man water. The man was shaking and while drinking the water he collapsed on the road, suffering from an epileptic seizure.

The Israeli soldiers came closer and interrupted the group that was trying to give the Palestinian first aid. Even though his condition was serious the soldiers did not call for help until the group started working on getting an ambulance. Then the Israeli solders called for backup and medical help. At that time the man was still cramping and fighting to catch his breath. One soldier stayed with the man to prevent him from escaping and the other soldiers stood by and laughed.

After about forty minutes a military ambulance followed by a group of more soldiers arrived. The man was stable at that time, but still suffering from the aftereffects of the seizure. A woman dressed as a soldier, identifying herself as a doctor took a quick look at the patient where he was sitting on the road after denying taking him inside the ambulance, even though the sun was very strong at that moment and not helping his condition.

An Israeli military commander arrived at the same time as the ambulance. He commanded the group of Palestinian, civilian and ISM activist who were taking care of the man to back off. One ISM activist refused to leave the patient and was immediately surrounded by armed soldiers. The Israeli commander became aggressive and forced the patient to stand up and walk to the military jeep and get in between two soldiers. Right before they drove away, on ISMe activist noticed the soldiers handcuffing the Palestinian. The man was released later that day.

Israeli settlers sabotage the olive harvest in Awarta

23rd September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Awarta, Occupied Palestine

Awarta Olive Trees — Photo by Maan News Agency

On the 28th of August, around 7:00 a.m., Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Itamar cut down and burnt more than 30 olive trees belonging to Awarta village before the harvest.

For the farmers living southeast of Nablus City, the olive trees are a basic, continual part of life.

The large, illegal settlement of Itamar is built on the lands of Awarta, Yanoon, and Aqraba villages. The settlers there have a company of shepherds. They have stolen the northeast lands from Awarta, so now people cannot work in that area without permission, and then only for a few days during the harvest.

Every year before harvest, settlers burn and cut the trees until the farmers cannot collect their fruit. In this way, they want to make people give in and forget their land. And they do not stop there. During the harvest, they attack the farmers, and release pigs onto Palestinian land to destroy it. Then settlers attack in groups, throwing stones and burning the grass, and most of them pick out the remaining fruit before the DCO gives permission.

These are the policies Israel uses against the land and the farmers.

Palestinian school set on fire

21st September 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team |As-Sawia, Occupied Palestine

On the evening of the 10th September, unknown assailants broke into the As-Sawia Secondary School, forced open the door and set the school on fire. Bedouins living close to the school saw the fire and alerted the fire brigade. By the time it was put out, the principal’s office and teachers’ rooms were completely burned.

“We lost six computers, four printers, all the teachers’ books and materials, but most of all, the administrative documents and files of the students and about the school situation over the past years. The whole damage is around 140,000 shekels,” the principle Adnan Hussein told ISM. The school was closed for three days after the arson attack.

As in many schools in the occupied West Bank, the students and staff of As-Sawia Secondary School suffer from constant settler and military harassment. Three days before the arson, armed settlers who called themselves “security” from one of the nearby hilltop illegal settlements stood at the school gates. When the principal spoke to them, they claimed that children threw stones at the settler cars on their way to school.

The school is located by Road 90, which was paved in 1944 and runs across the West Bank. The road is used by Palestinians and by illegal settlers. The children have to walk alongside it to get to school in the mornings and to go home after school.

“Our school is suffering both for the settlers and the army,” explained Hussein. “We constantly have the army at our gates, checking ID’s and bothering children”

On the 3 September, armed settlers stopped in a car marked as the illegal settlement Eli’s “security” at the gate of the school. One of the settlers came out of the car, jumped over the fence and started following some of the children, who have finished their classes and were leaving for home. The principle approached the settler and told him that he is not allowed in the school with weapons, and the settler responded that he was looking for a child who threw stones and shouted at the settler car earlier.

After agreeing to move outside the school gate at the head teacher’s insistence, the settler with the machine gun was joined by another settler and they insisted that the boy in the red T-shirt was brought to them. They also wanted the head teacher’s mobile phone number so that they could call him in the future.

“I had a bad feeling that something horrible will happen and that they will start shooting,” related Hussien. “I left some teachers with the settlers and with other teachers went to escort children through another gate and send them home, when three soldiers appeared. I went to speak to them. I told them that they cannot be in school with their weapons and in their uniforms but they insisted that they wanted to speak to a boy in the red T-shirt for 10 minutes.”

The principal and staff stood between the soldiers and settlers and the pupils to protect them while they were leaving the school. By this time worried parents were at the gate and they took the children away.

Throughout 2013, the army entered the As-Sawiya 51 times and children and the staff had to put up with teargas, sound bombs and arrests of pupils.

Hussein explained, “It is a constant worry that the settlers and the army will come. It is hard enough to control 350 teenagers even in the countries where there is no occupation. It is not easy and we do what we can to try to do our best keep the education for our children going. We have no problem with Jewish people and I can say that many of them are nice and honest, but settlers are generally dangerous people. I know that people should be able to choose where they live, but that does not include taking someone else’s land without permission.”

Israeli settlers and soldiers invade Balata refugee camp

20th September 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Occupied Palestine

On the 17^th of September, under heavy Israeli army protection, Israeli settlers from nearby illegal settlements entered Nablus with the aim of praying at Joseph’s tomb in Balata refugee camp.

Just after midnight, the Israeli army closed the district that surrounds the monument, blocking all the streets leading to the tomb and preventing anyone from passing nearby, either by foot or by car.

Around 1am, between eight and 10 buses full with hundreds of settlers invaded the area.

Clashes began in the area, particularly in the junction just in front of the entry to Balata refugee camp.

Youths threw stones for more then two hours against the army vehicles, that were moving up on the hill and back, seemingly in order to keep them busy and far from the large groups of Zionist settlers. Military trucks also tried several times to run over the Palestinian youths while they were throwing stones.

The Israeli army fired many stun grenades, and the road blockades were kept in place until the settlers left the area.

Clashes around Balata occur almost weekly, any time that the settlers decide to invade the area for praying. The settlers claim this monument belongs to the Biblical patriarch Joseph, while most of the Palestinians believe that the religious guide Sheikh Yusef Dweikat was buried there, according to Islamic tradition. Though Joseph is a sacred figure as well in Muslim, Christian and Samaritan religion, Muslims are not allowed to pray there.

Labeling their own actions as “security measures”, the army can easily shoot down a whole neighborhood and guarantee the Israeli settlers the freedom to move and pray wherever they wish, even in a site which is deeply inside Area A, which is supposed under Palestinian civil and security control. On the other side, most of the Palestinian living in the West Bank are not allowed to pray in their holy places, starting from this Joseph´s tomb to the biggest example of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem.

These evidently different treatments intensify the inequality in rights between Palestinians and illegal Israeli settlers and make the life under occupation more and more unbearable.

Israel army cuts electricity to Kufr Qaddum, six villagers dependant on oxygen machines evacuated to hospital

14th September 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Kufr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine

Kufr Qaddum was without the electricity since 11pm on Thursday night. Six villagers who are dependant on oxygen machines have been evacuated to the nearby hospital in Nablus. The following morning, at the Friday village demonstration, a young man was hit in the head by a gas canister and was taken to the hospital as well.

Boys and men of Kufr Qadum set out to the weekly Friday demonstration. (Photo by ISM)

The deliberate power cut was an added rage to the weekly Friday demonstration in Kufr Qaddum. A resident explained that the village electricity comes form the illegal Qedumim settlement and that “somebody decided to press the button and cut the supply to the whole village.”

Since 2011, villagers from Kufr Qaddum demonstrate each Friday against the Israeli military. The village of Kufr Qaddum has had much land stolen by the nearby illegal settlement of Qedumim and in 2003 the main road connecting Kufr Qaddum to city of Nablus was closed to Palestinians. “Protests would not stop until the main Kufr Qaddum road, currently usurped by the illegal Qedumim settlers, is returned to us,” the resident added.

The military bulldozer was already at work attempting to clear the rocks demonstrators had placed on the road to prevent the army vehicles from entering the village. As the demonstrators attempted to repel the bulldozer, a group of soldiers tried to keep the protestors away from the bulldozer with continuous barrage of tear gas, frequently fired directly at the protestors, a practice which is against the army’s own regulations, as it turns the “less-lethal” crowd dispersal means into a small rocket.

Early on in the demonstration, a young man was hit in the head by a tar gas canister and was taken to the hospital where he was treated and later released. The army withdrew at around 3pm.