Category: Press Releases

CPT: At-Tuwani children’s march to Tuba a success – Palestinians walk on road unused for 11 years

To learn more about the Christian Peacemaker Teams’ work in Palestine click here

3rd August 2008

At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills: On August 2nd, more than one hundred children and their parents from the South Hebron Hills marched from the village of At-Tuwani to Tuba, calling for an end to settler violence and expansion in the area.

In a major success for the area, the children and their parents took the most direct path to the village of Tuba. For the past eleven years, school children escorted by the Israeli military have been the only Palestinians able to use this road. Palestinians parents organized the march to call attention to the violence faced by school children, the failure of the Israeli army to protect them and the effects
of Israeli settlement expansion. The march was a part of the annual South Hebron Hills summer camp for children.

The march initially attempted to take the path that children use when unaccompanied by the Israeli military, around the unauthorized outpost Havot Ma’on (Hill 833). The Israeli military declared the whole area a closed military zone and restrained the march with force, targeting leaders. Soldiers attacked and tried to arrest a Palestinian man. When a CPTer intervened, they knocked them both down and started choking the CPTer, but marchers nonviolently intervened and stopped the attack. One Israeli and one international member of Operation Dove were arrested. Palestinian organizers negotiated with the Israeli military and it was decided that the Israeli military would accompany the children and parents on the short path, using the road between Ma’on settlement and Havot Ma’on (Hill 833). A large group of settlers left Ma’on and harassed the marchers. A smaller group of settlers followed directly behind the marchers, but Israeli military and police prevented them from attacking the group. One village elder accompanying the children walked this road for the first time in years. Surprised by the settlement expansion, she
shared with a soldier about how she plowed this land years ago.

Participating in the march were children from the villages of Tuba and Maghaer Al-Abeed who have been regularly attacked by Israeli settlers as they walked to primary school in At-Tuwani. The children rely on an Israeli military escort to accompany them to school and prevent Israeli settlers from attacking them, but the Israeli military has recently declined to carry out their responsibility. The most recent settler attack took place on July 27th when the Israeli military refused to escort the children. Settlers flung rocks at the children with slingshots and physically assaulted CPTer Joel Gulledge.

Yousef Amira, shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin, has died

A Palestinian teenager, aged 17, who was left brain-dead on the 30th July after being shot in the head by Israeli forces, died this morning. His funeral will be held in Ni’lin later this afternoon.

Photos courtesy of Activestills

Israeli forces shot Yousef Ahmad Younis Amera with two rubber coated steel bullets from close range, leaving him brain dead. Actual death occurred at approximately 10am today. Yousef is the second child killed in the village over the past week. On Tuesday (29th July) 10 year old Ahmed Husan Yousef Mousa was shot dead by an Israeli border policeman.

According to ISM volunteers staying in the village, confrontations broke out hours after Ahmed’s funeral. Villagers built five barricades of rubble and stones that blocked the main road into Ni’lin preventing Israeli forces entering the village. At about 5:30pm an Israeli bulldozer attempted to clear a path through the barricades.

About 50 Israeli soldiers then attacked with sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas. They shot Yousef twice in the head at close range at approximately 7:30pm. Two other men suffered head injuries from a rubber coated steel bullets, but these injuries were not life threatening. A total of 17 people were injured.

According to Israeli Human Rights organisation B’Tselem, “the minimum range for firing ‘rubber’ bullets is 40m… the regulations emphasise that the bullets must be fired only at the individuals legs and they are not to be fired at children…”.

For several months protests have been held at Nil’in against the illegal Apartheid wall that annexes approximately 2,500 Dunums of agricultural land. The people fear this latest land grab will make their village economically untenable.

Yousef is the 8th child and the 13th Palestinian killed protesting against the Apartheid Wall. The other 12 are:

Ahmed Husan Yousef Mousa, aged 10.

Mohammad Fadel Hashem Rayan, age 25.

Zakaria MaHmud Salem, age 28.

Abdal Rahman Abu Eid, age 62.

Mohammad Daud Badwan, age 21.

Diaa Abdel Karim Abu Eid, age 24.

Hussain mahmud Awwad Aliyan, age 17.

Islam Hashem Rizik Zhahran, age 14.

Alaa Mohammad Abdel Rahman Khalil, age 14.

Jamal Jaber Ibrahim Assi, age 15.

Odai Mofeed Mahmud Assi, age 14.

Mahayub Nimer Assi, age 15.

To date, no soldiers or border police have been prosecuted for killing demonstrators.

Free Gaza: Can unarmed seaborne civilians break the siege of Gaza?

A press conference at The Journalists’ House, Nicosia

At RIK / CBC Avenue 12, Nicosia
Monday, 4th August, 2008 at 10.00 a.m.
[Camera crews to come early, please, for set up]

Inaugurating The Free Gaza Movement Sailing to Gaza

DESTINATION: GAZA PORT

In August, unarmed Palestinians, Israelis and internationals will sail directly to Gaza without going through Israeli territory or seeking permission from Israeli authorities. They include an 81-year-old Catholic nun, an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, Palestinians from Gaza, 17 nationalities, four major religions and the international press (including Tony Blair’s journalist sister-in-law, Lauren Booth).

On Monday, August 4, 2008, the Free Gaza Movement publicly introduces its international team that will take volunteers from Cyprus to Gaza in popular solidarity with Palestinian human rights. From that day, any attempt to damage the project will be considered an act of aggression against a nonviolent international human rights mission.

Media places on the boat are taken. Since there are many journalists on a short list, we suggest journalists work together to find a separate press vessel, and we are prepared to help network those interested.

At the press conference in Nicosia (see above address and scheduled time), participants will be available for individual interviews.

For more information go to www.freegaza.org where the actual voyage can be watched in real time, by video streaming from the satellite broadcasting on board. Since this [non-violent/entirely peaceful] voyage is being funded by private donation, Free Gaza Movement welcomes donations online at its website.

For more information contact:
Greta Berlin, +357-990 81767 (iristulip@gmail.com)
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein: +357-990 75194 (angela@icahd.org )

Angela Godfrey-Goldstein (Action Advocacy Officer)

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)

Bil’in Supreme Court hearing on 3rd August

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On Sunday 3rd August Israel’s Supreme Court will decide if the State of Israel is in contempt of court regarding the withdrawal of the Apartheid Wall from the village of Bil’in.

Bil’in is a small village close to Jerusalem near the illegal Israeli settlement of Mod’in Illit. The Apartheid Wall skirts around this
illegal settlement and cuts off much of Bil’in’s agricultural land. The wall, which is a quadruple fence and military road in this area, left plenty of space for the settlement to expand; the planned “Mod’in Illit B” building project.

On September 4, 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the Israeli authorities to redraw the path of the wall because the current route was deemed “highly prejudicial” to the villagers of Bil’in. The judgement set out four conditions for a new route for the wall, which must:

– Leave the land for the planned expansion of the settlement on the Palestinian side of the wall.

– Take a minimum of Bil’in’s cultivated land.

– Be built as much as possible on illegal settlement land, rather than Bil’in’s land.

– Leave 5 areas of Palestinian land currently within the settlement ‘outside’ and back on the Bil’in side of the wall.

After months of inaction, and facing a legal challenge for not enforcing the court’s judgment, the authorities finally submitted a
new plan for the wall at Bil’in in July this year.

The proposed new route returns a mere 26 hectares to the village out of approximately 200 hectares taken by the exiting route. Of these 26 hectares, about 14 hectares were devastated by the old route, and the remaining 12 hectares are planted with olive trees. The new route will take almost 15 hectares densely planted with olive trees and destroy them completely. In other words, the village will lose even more land if the revised plan is accepted.

Michael Sfard, the atterney who acts on behalf of Bil’in, will argue that this new proposal for the route of the wall meets none of the criteria and that the proposal constitutes contempt of court.

Bil’in has become famous for holding a protest march against the apartheid wall every Friday afternoon for past three and a half years. In that time the Friday march has attracted world famous artists, celebrities and politicians. They have been joined by a wide variety of international and Israeli pressure groups.

For further information contact:

Bil’in’s Popular Committee:

Abdullah Abu Rahme : 054-725-8210
Mohammed Khatib : 054-557-3285
commit…@bilin-village.org

ISM Media Office: 02 297 1824.

Palestinian teenager brain dead after being shot by Israeli army in Ni’lin

A Palestinian teenager, Yousef Ahmad Younis Amira, was shot in the head with rubber coated steel bullets by Israeli forces in the Palestinian village of Nil’in.

Photos courtesy of Activestills

According to ISM volunteers staying in the village, approximately 200 boys and young men from the village protested against the military presence in the afternoon. The army responded using sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas. At around 7:30 pm, Yousef Ahmad Younis Amera was shot in the head by two rubber coated steel bullet. Eyewitnesses claim that Yousef was shot at a distance of ten meters from inside a military jeep that drove up towards him. He was taken to Ramallah Hospital where an ECG scan showed no signs of brain activity. One bullet penetrated the head while the other is stuck inside. He is now kept alive by respirator.

About 50 Israeli soldiers then attacked using sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas. At around 7:30pm, Yousef Ahmad Younis Amira, 17, was shot in the head by a rubber coated steel bullet. He was taken to Ramallah Hospital where an ECG scan showed no signs of brain activity.

There are reports of two other men suffering head injuries from a rubber coated steel bullets, but these injuries are not thought to be life threatening. A total of 17 people are thought to have been injured in today’s fighting.

Emotions have been running high in the village since the funeral of 10 year old Ahmed Husan Yousef Mousa earlier today. Ahmed was shot dead by an Israeli soldier yesterday (29th July)