3rd July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Qarawat Bani Hassan, Occupied Palestine
At 9 o’clock in the evening of July 2nd, Israeli forces invaded the small Palestinian village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, approximately 10 km northwest of Salfit in the northern half of the West Bank.
They approached the mosque in the center of town and fired tear gas and stun grenades inside. One witness described the scene as follows:
“There were maybe 500 people inside the mosque – many old men, women and children. The tear gas was horrible. It was difficult to breathe. The sound bombs were terrifying, and the children were so afraid.”
Photo by a villager from Qarawat Bani Hassan.
The motives of the soldiers remain mystifying, since the streets surrounding the mosque had been empty before the attack. “They just come here to make problems,” suggested one witness.
The occupants of the mosque escaped the tear gas, and clashes ensued on the nearby streets. Qasaam Mareh, a fourteen year old boy, was detained by the soldiers. According to witnesses, they interrogated and beat him, before they took him away in a jeep. Qasaam was held for approximately eighteen hours before finally being released the next day.
2nd July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Aqraba, Occupied Palestine
Fadi Bassem is a farmer who lives in the village of Aqraba, 20 km south of Nablus, in the northern half of the West Bank. He lives with his extended family, 15 people in a single house.
At 03:30 in the early hours of the morning, Bassem was awoken by the sound of footsteps outside his house. When he went to investigate, he saw four men running away in the darkness. Turning back, he smelled smoke and realized that his barn, which was adjacent to his house, was on fire. Bassem and his family spent the next four hours dousing the flames and rescuing the sheep from the barn. There were two large water tanks nearby, and the family was able to extinguish the fire.
The next morning they saw that graffiti had been spray painted on one of his walls. “Price tag, revenge of the Jews”, it read in Hebrew.
Photo by ISM
These events occurred two days after the discovery of the bodies of three Israeli settler youths, who had allegedly been kidnapped by supporters of Hamas. The nationwide outrage at the deaths of the teenage settlers has precipitated calls for revenge from diverse elements of Israeli society, and especially from settlers.
“I don’t know whether they were settlers or soldiers who did this,” Bassem said, “but all the footprints were identical, which tells me that they were probably soldiers.”
The presence of Israeli soldiers in the village was confirmed by the fact that they arrested two young men in Aqraba that night.
28th June 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Awarta, Occupied Palestine
During the early morning hours of June 26, the Israeli army invaded the village of Awarta, 8 km south of Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank. According to witnesses, between 150 and 200 soldiers entered Awarta just after midnight and raided approximately 300 houses before leaving several hours later.
Some residents mentioned that the soldiers knocked on their doors and asked for identification, however this was not the case for Mahmud Awad, a local schoolteacher, and his family.
At midnight approximately 15 soldiers entered Awad’s home and demanded that Awad show them the location of his guns. Were he not to obey, he could be confident that the house would be destroyed. Awad replied that Israeli soldiers had already been to his house many times and had never found anything. He had no guns, he assured them.
The soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed Awad’s 20-year-old son and took him outside for an interrogation that lasted three hours. They herded the rest of the family, which included an eight-month old baby and several other children, into the living room. Again they asked Awad about his guns.
“Watch what we will do if you don’t give them to us!” An Israeli soldier yelled.
The children listened in terror as the soldiers proceeded to ransack the house. They ripped apart sofas and chairs, threw the contents of shelves on the floor, knocked over electrical appliances, destroyed two computers, and slashed the family’s water tank on the roof. Awad begged the soldiers to allow the baby a drink, but this request was denied.
Sometime during the night, Awad’s 13-year-old son was taken outside the living room and interrogated for half an hour. A soldier held his rifle to the boy’s face and demanded the location of the guns. He held a piece of cloth (chloroform, a family member assumed) to the boy’s mouth until he became dizzy.
The soldiers finished searching the house, having found no weapons. They released both of Awad’s sons and left the house at approximately 4 a.m.
25th June 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team| Madama, Occupied Palestine
At 12:30 a.m. on June 22, 2014, approximately 50 Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Madama.
Madama, which is located 10 km southwest of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank, has approximately 2000 residents. The soldiers raided close to 100 homes and took 80 men to the local elementary school, where they held them for several hours. The men were blindfolded, and their arms were tied behind their backs with handcuffs.
The soldiers released all of the men at 5 a.m.
At 1:00 a.m., the soldiers invaded the house of Nizar Abdullah Sadaq Ziyaada in Madama. They asked Ziyaada about the whereabouts of his money and proceeded to ransack the house. They drilled holes into the walls and threatened to destroy his home. They found a total of roughly 200,000 shekels underneath a cupboard and in various hiding places throughout the house. Finally, the soldiers took all of the money, two laptops, and several mobile phones before leaving.
The reasons for the theft of Ziyaada’s money are unclear.
Ziyaada had worked in Israel until the year 2000 and kept all of his earnings from that time in his house in Madama. It is likely that the Israelis knew about this money, as they asked him about it as soon as they entered his house.
Hany Ziyaada’s house was invaded by 15 Israeli soldiers the same night at 1 a.m. They broke down the door, but Hany asked them to wait a few minutes, so that the women of the house could get dressed. The soldiers swore at him, and he responded in kind. They proceeded to kick him in the back and stomach for several minutes and dragged him to their jeep, where they continued to beat him. They blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to the school, where they held him by the throat, forced his arms back and drove their knees into his back. At 4 a.m. they allowed him to go home.
“Why do they not respect human rights?,” Hany asked an ISM activist. “I’m a policeman, and I know about human rights. Why don’t they?”
23rd June 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Hares, Occupied Palestine
During the early hours of Saturday 21st June, before dawn, the Israeli army invaded the town of Hares and raided 11 houses. The house raids were generally violent and property was damaged.
During the raid, Jamil Ali Jaber (60-years-old) – whose house wasn’t raided according to a local witness – suffered a heart attack while arguing with the soldiers during the invasion and died soon after. Unlike other villagers, he was allowed to receive medical attention by Palestinian paramedics, although their ambulances are not equipped to deal with heart attacks and could not save him. No arrests were reported that night.
A local source stated that he heard a helicopter nearby which could have transported the soldiers by air. The Israeli army deployed approximately 150 soldiers loaded into 3 buses. Then at 01:30 the house raids began, starting at Dawood’s family house. At first he thought that the noises outside could have been wild animals but then the Israeli soldiers knocked on Mr. Dawood’s door and he opened up on their command. The rest of the family was detained outside the house while he was in one of the rooms. The search began, furniture was being turned upside down, crockery was broken, and a door lock was broken. The soldiers demanded silence while they searched the house, they did not state why they were raiding his house. Mr. Dawood stated that they used pepper spray in the room where he was held, exacerbating his delicate health condition as he has recently had surgery before and suffers from low blood pressure. He required medical attention but the Israeli army did not allow the Red Crescent ambulance to enter into Hares. Mr. Dawood only received medical attention, and was taken to the nearby town of Biddya, once the soldiers left, there he learned about Jamil’s death.
Jawad Muhammad Dawood, the brother that lives next door, went outside to see what was happening. He counted 30 soldiers approximately – many of them covering their faces – raiding his brother’s house and tried to support him, but him and a younger member of the family were pushed back by the soldiers. Jawad’s wife has heart problems and the situation worsened her condition. At that point Jawad, who is receiving psychiatric treatment, lost his temper and physically confronted the soldiers. They kicked and then hit him with the rifle butt on his hand which was still swollen when he was interviewed, but it wasn’t broken as some media outlets suggested. Jawad’s son called for an ambulance but again they were denied entry into the town of Hares. Fortunately, Jawad’s wife fully recovered from the episode.
Afterwards, at 02:00 a building nearby hosting five families was raided. The soldiers knocked on the door and went into the house quickly when they realized the door wasn’t locked. All the family members were detained in a room, sitting on the floor for the duration of the search which lasted over two hours and there were no witnesses while the soldiers searched the various floors. The families asked if the 13 kids could carry on sleeping but the Israeli soldiers insisted in waking them up and keeping them with the rest of the family. Their mobile phones were temporarily confiscated so they couldn’t contact anyone.
Shops nearby were also searched and the soldiers noticed that in one of the shops, they were recording the surroundings of the residential building. “They demanded the cameras to be turned off or else they would break them” said Bilal, one of the residents in the building. His brother quickly turned off the cameras and deleted the footage from the hard drive to avoid further problems with the soldiers.
Photo by ISM
As in other houses, while their homes were being searched the soldiers used excessive and unnecessary force. Again the soldiers turned the furniture upside down, using knives to cut into the sofas in the living room and also broke one wardrobe. Bilal speaks Hebrew fluently, but the soldiers refused to answer any questions and simply demanded him to translate their commands to the rest of the family members.
One of the last houses to be raided was that of Talal Hosni Dawood. The Israeli soldiers knocked loudly on the door at around 03:30. One of the family members opened the door soon after after seeing that that soldiers were about to break into the house. The eleven family members were held in their the living room, again sitting on the floor until 05:00 when the soldiers left.
Israeli forces, with their faces covered or painted in black, searched the house without any witnesses to oversee them. In this house, many items and valuables were broken. Among the items or furniture broken are: a door, a sink and a couple of sofas that were cut open, two windows were cracked, one smartphone, and one laptop valued at around 4,000 NIS (850 euros). In fact Israeli soldiers turned on the computer and they saw a Palestinian flag as the desktop image, they turned to Talal and questioned him as to why he had that photograph on his laptop. He said it is the flag of his government, to which the soldier replied: “if you want you can go to Ramallah and show it [Palestinian flag] to Abu Massen [Mahmoud Abbas]” and then smashed the laptop on the floor. The laptop was taken to a repair shop in Salfit, hoping it can be repaired.
Talal’s eldest son was taken apart from the rest of the family into another room and the commander asked him “where is it?” He didn’t know what the Israeli soldiers were talking about nor did they specify, so they continued ransacking their home.
Photo by ISM
Under the pretext of an Israeli military operation in search of the three missing settlers – initiated 10 days ago – episodes of collective punishment are erupting all over the West Bank. This is just another example.
