Category: Photo Story - Page 6 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli snipers target civilians, kill father of 3-year-old in Tulkarm

13 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Tulkarm

By Diana Khwaelid

On the evening of Friday, October 13th, 2023, Israeli snipers opened direct live fire on a white civilian car while it was passing near the Sanaoz military checkpoint, in Tulkarm city.
Ahmed Abed, who was one of the two passengers in the vehicle, said that Israeli snipers on the tower opened fire on the car as they were on their way to the gas station to fill up on fuel. Ahmed was hit by four live bullets in the back and shoulder area, but was lucky to survive, he said.

Rami Hassan, 33, from the village of Arta, husband and father of a 3-year-old girl, Abe, was mortally wounded by several bullets that penetrated his body. His condition was initially described as serious. Rami did not withstand the wounds and died 8 hours after the shooting. Rami worked in a blacksmith shop and as a government employee in the municipality of Tulkarm to support his family.

The wounded and witness to the incident, Ahmed, said that they were about 500 meters away from the miltary checkpoint and they did not pose a danger to the Israeli occupation forces, as they were not near a military area and did not cross the border. Nevertheless, they were surprised by direct live fire on them.

He added that the Israeli occupation forces directly targeted them knowing that they were civilians, and that the snipers clearly intended on killing them. No warning shots were fired. Ahmed said he survived miraculously.

The National Action factions in the city of Tulkarem mourned the martyr Rami Hassan, dozens of Palestinians participated in his funeral, and he was given a farewell look by his family and friends. Palestinian demonstrators chanted patriotic phrases expressing anger and sadness at the continuation of the Israeli occupation forces targeting Palestinian civilians.

6 Palestinians killed by settlers with the protection of the Occupying forces in Qusra village

By Diana Khwaelid

Qasra village – 12/10/2023
On the evening of Wednesday 11-10-2023, a group of extremist settlers stormed the village of Qusra,
north of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian citizens. The settlers were working with the protection of the Israeli occupation army.
Palestinian youth from the village came out to try and defend from the attacks of the settlers and the Israeli army. Settlers immediately began shooting in the direction of the young Palestinians, which led to the injury of 8 Palestinians, two of whom died immediately afterwards. Two others of the injured died soon after in hospital.
The four Palestinians who died as a result of confronting settlers and defending the lands and residents of the village, are martyrs Moaz Odeh, Hassan Abu Sorour, Musab Abu Rida, and Abu
Sorour.
The settlers also attacked the funeral procession of the martyrs on their way from Salfit hospital to Qusra, near the Alsawya junction in Salfit and near Qiblan again. Here, the Israeli occupation forces also fired gas canisters and live bullets directly at the Palestinians on their way to mourn the four martyrs from the village. This led to the killing of Secretary of the Fatah movement in the village martyr Ibrahim al-Wadi and his son Ahmed al-Wadi, 25 years old.

The village of Qusra reached 6 martyrs in less than 13 hours.
The martyr Ibrahim al-Wadi and his son Ahmed, are among the most prominent Palestinian activists in
the village, and they have always been in the front lines of resisting the occupation and the settlers. They had been arrested in the past by the Occupation forces because of their political activity against the occupation.
Hundreds of Palestinian citizens participated in the funeral of the six martyrs of the village of Qasra.
Mass popular anger is palpable in the village and in all of Palestine at the continued occupation of committing its crimes against the Palestinian people, whether in the West Bank or Gaza.

Watch: Israeli soldiers harass Palestinian teenager and try to intimidate internationalists in Masafer Yatta

On August 10th, three israeli soldiers harassed Abud Huraini, a palestinian teenager from the village At-Tuwani, in the region of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, while he was brining out his flock of goats to graze.

The three soldiers arrived by jeep from the illegal israeli settlement of Ma’on, which is located just few houndred meters away from At-Tuwani, and tormented Abud, asking him to leave the road from which he was tending to his flock. However, the three soldiers were confronted by a large group of Palestinian men and women accompanied by internationalist activists, including three ISMers, who filmed the soldiers and interposed themselves between them and Abud.

Just a few hours earlier Hamoudi, Abud’s older brother and an activist of the palestinian group Youth of Sumud, had been arrested arbitrarily by israeli soldiers as he was driving his car to return home in At-Tuwani. Hamoudi would be released a midnight without charges from the police station of Qiryat Arbaa’, after being blindfolded and physically abused by the soldiers who kidnapped him.

The three israeli soldiers, who had gotten nervous due to the determination of the group, asked for orders on the radio and thus tried to intimidate the internationalist activists present by filming them with phones and by trying to take pictures of their IDs. The soldiers also lied by insisting that the internationals were legally obligated to hand over their passports and allow them to take pictures.

Having this last intimidation tactic failed, the soldiers had no choice but to wait for Abud to finish herding the flock.

A palestinian told us that the three soldiers were likely new in Masafer Yatta: “They have rotations. These ones [the three soldiers] clearly don’t know the area, they don’t know what’s happening here. They probably just received a call from a settler who told them to go and bother [Abud]”.

Last year, on the very same place where Abud was harassed by the soldiers, Abud’s father Hafez, a human rights defender, was brutally attacked by five settlers. That time, the settlers broke both of Hafez’s arms with metal pipes. When Hafez’s family rushed to the scene, one of the settlers began shooting into the air with an assault rifle. Sami, Hafez’s oldest son and an activist, recounted that when soldiers arrived, they started pushing the Palestinians away from Hafez, who was lying on the ground.

“The settlers were giving orders to the soldiers. They told them that my father had attacked them and ordered the soldiers to arrest him” said Sami

When an ambulance of the Red Crescent arrived to the scene, the soldiers blocked the entrance of the vehicle to prevent medics from transporting Hafez to the hospital, while a settler pierced the tyres of the ambulance with a knife.

Eventually, Hafez was arrested and charged with attacking the settlers.

Palestinians accused of a crime are not tried in civilian courts, but rather in military courts, which according to Amnesty lnternational “systematically fail to meet international standards of fair trial, and where the vast majority of cases end in conviction”. Hafez would probably have spent the rest of his life in prison, had it not been for the videos recorded by Palestinian and internationalist activists on the scene, which clearly showed that he had been the victim of the attack. The charges were dropped, and after recovering Hafez was able to go home to his family.

Beit Dajan faces the occupation

By. Diana khwaelid for ISM

Palestinian activists marked the third consecutive anniversary of the revival of national events to resist the occupation of the lands of Beit Dajan – east of Nablus. At noon on Friday-2-9-2023, Palestinians set off to participate in the weekly march from the village of Beit Dajan to the illegal outpost in the village to confront the occupation and settlers, and to demand the departure of the occupation and the return of confiscated lands.

Palestinian, international and Israeli activists have participated in the weekly demonstration against the occupation and in defence of the village lands that were confiscated by the Israeli occupation forces for 3 years in a row.

Palestinian activists from the National Action factions and the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) participated in the weekly demonstration to express their anger and condemnation and continue to face the occupation until the liberation of the village lands. The occupation forces suppressed the demonstrators with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets, and the Israeli occupation forces assaulted the demonstrators.

The Palestinian activist Mansour, Moayyed Shaaban (the head of the CWRC), and Nasr Jaish (the activity and coordinator of the National Action factions in Nablus
and the village of Beit Dajan) were attacked.

Medical and press crews were also attacked. Journalists Abdullah Bakhsh and Diana khwaelid were assaulted and dozens were injured by suffocation.

For three years now, the Palestinians in the village of Beit Dajan have been continuing their patriotic activities and weekly demonstrations until they regain their right to stay, liberate the village from the occupation and settlers, and regain their lands. The demonstrators were threatened to retreat and leave the area at gunpoint, but the Palestinians decided to continue and face the occupation despite everything.

An international activist from the International Solidarity Movement also suffered an injury to her foot and was treated earlier by Palestinian medical staff.

Palestinian, international and Israeli activists raised the Palestinian flag to emphasize the right to survival and the Palestinian presence in the village, the area and the confiscated lands.

Report on the weekly protests in Kafr Qaddum

The Palestinian village of Kafr Qaddum is located 13 kilometres west of Nablus and has a population of roughly 4300 citizens. Eleven thousand dunams of the village’s land (roughly 52% of the total area) are part of area C, under full control of the Israeli Occupation Forces. Saqerobeed, the former mayor of the village told ISM that, for the residents of Kafr Qaddum, this means being banned from accessing the land where their olive trees are planted. Olives are the main source of employment for the locals.

Saqerobeed, who served as the mayor of the city for six years, told us:

The army gives us permission to reach this land only twice a year; one week during olive harvest season and two other days during the year to take care of the land, which is not enough”. He also explained how settlers often go to these Palestinian lands and destroy the olive trees or impede the harvesting of these.

Other than being denied access to their land, Palestinians in Kafr Qaddum have been banned from using the main road of the village since 2003, one which easily connects it to Nablus. This is because of the presence of a settlement, which was built by the extreme right-wing Zionist group Gush Emunim in 1975 and has been enlarging ever since.

Reaching Nablus used to take only 15 minutes by car, but the trip now takes at least 40 minutes due to this permanent roadblock.

Soldiers shoot at demonstrators in Kafr Qaddum

After bringing this issue to an Israeli court multiple times throughout the years with no result, the citizens of Kafr Qaddum began organising weekly demonstrations in 2011, taking place every Friday.

For the past 12 years, the Israeli Occupation Forces have violently repressed these protests by shooting tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition. On the 12th of August, a 15-year-old boy lost an eye after being shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet. A week after, seven more Palestinians were hit with the same ammunition, one of which led to hospitalisation. The number of people suffering from suffocation due to tear gas reaches the dozens every week, and this includes many children.

During the demonstration of the 1st of September, for instance, the IOF arrived to shoot tear gas canisters outside of a shop where people were sitting while drinking coffee, forcing them to run away immediately. Moreover, 175 people have been arrested for attending these demonstrations, leading the villagers to pay more than half a million shekels of bail-out money over the years. It is also routine for the IOF to place one or two snipers in an abandoned building adjacent to the site of the demonstration.

Four attempts at negotiations with the IOF have taken place, the last one in 2014. The community offered to halt the weekly demonstrations if the road was re-opened. During his time as mayor, Saqerobeed participated in these and recounted how, during the last negotiations, they had come close to reaching the goal of re-opening the street. Even though an agreement had been made and the demonstrations were due to be halted, the IOF still refused to open the road.

When asked about the steadfastness with which the villagers attend this demonstration, the ex-mayor said:

We believe in this form of protesting because there is no one helping us from outside. If we ask for help to NGOs and human rights organisations, or other countries, no one will do anything so we do it alone. We will continue even if we lose people to jail, we all pay the price of this, because the alternative is to accept the way things are right now, which is impossible for us.

Demonstrators in Kafr Qaddum

Photos by Diana Khwaelid