7th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On November 7th 2015, Israeli forces violently took over several homes of Palestinian families in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), trapping the families inside their own homes. Large parts of the city have been declared a ‘closed military zone’, preventing Palestinians from moving, while settlers are freely roaming the streets.
Early in the morning, Israeli soldiers stormed various houses in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood, each time locking up the residents in one room of their home. The local activist group Youth Against Settlements’ centre was taken by the Israeli army. Tom, a German volunteer states: “the soldiers searched everything and left a chaos on the lower floor; we could hear children’s voices from inside the house, so it must have been settlers inside the house”.
Watch a video of Israeli forces attacking journalists arriving to the center to cover the takeover by the Israeli forces.
Whereas Tom’s release from the closed military zone was secured through the intervention of his embassy, Italian journalist Francesca Borri and Palestinian activists are still held hostage by the Israeli forces. Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements in Hebron have been seen dancing, chanting ‘death to Arabs’ and celebrating outside another Palestinian family houses misappropriated for military use by the Israeli forces.
Illegal Israeli settlers celebrating the takeover of Palestinian homes by Israeli forces Photo credit: Youth Against Settlement
Israeli forces have also declared the neighbourhood around the Ibrahimi mosque a ‘closed military zone’, following almost a week of forced closure for Palestinian shops in the area. The Palestinian market has also been closed by the Israeli forces, denying Palestinians passage. “Soldiers and settlers are making life for the Palestinians intolerable to force them to leave their houses voluntarily. This is a crime under international law. They are targeting activists to silence the truth and stop the truth from reaching the whole world”, explains Tel Rumeida resident Abed Salaymeh. Other international human rights observers have been directly targeted by Israeli forces through arrests, evictions and settler violence.
Israeli soldiers in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood of occupied Hebron Photo credit: Youth Against Settlement
In the last few weeks, Israeli forces have continuously cracked down on Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement by declaring the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood a ‘closed military zone’ and forcing all Palestinian residents to register with the Israeli army to be allowed access. Palestinians are subjected to regular body-checks at gunpoint or denied access to their homes while Israeli settlers, often armed with machine guns, are freely walking the streets. As one Palestinian resident of Tel Rumeida related, “Everyone is too scared to leave their house now.”
4th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Two international human rights defenders were arrested in Hebron (al-Khalil) yesterday morning, November 3rd, while six others were ordered to leave an apartment in the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida by threat of arrest.
The German and American nationals were arrested at 7.50am while monitoring checkpoint 56 at the entrance of Shuhada Street, after being seemingly arbitrarily denied access to checkpoint 55 further down the street. They were arrested while peacefully observing the checkpoint on allegations of ‘disturbing soldiers’ and being in a closed military zone after a soldier at the checkpoint made a complaint to officers in a passing police vehicle.
The internationals were denied their legal right to communicate with their embassies, and were only given water to drink at the police station after repeated requests. ‘We were scared about what was going to happen, but we were still so much better off than the Palestinian we heard being beaten by Israeli forces in the police station’ one of the women announced. They were released at 4.30pm, on agreeing to sign conditions barring them from Hebron for one week. Immediately before being released from the police station, the investigating officer actually admitted that there was ‘no evidence’ against them, but they were still being punished for the soldiers allegations.
Several hours later, other members of the team were prevented from passing through Checkpoint 56 which divides Tel Rumeida from the H1 area of Hebron, which is under full Palestinian authority. As of Saturday, 31st of October, when Tel Rumeida was declared a ‘closed military zone’ for 24 hours, both internationals’ and Palestinian movement through the area has been severely restricted. Residents were ordered to register their ID’s or risk being prevented from passing the checkpoints which intersect the entire district.
While official documentation of the zoning of Tel Rumeida has been conspicuously inconsistent recently, the activists were shocked this afternoon when their passports were confiscated and they were confronted with an order to leave the closed military zone which encapsulates their apartment. Israeli forces demanded that they immediately sign an absent legal contract declaring their residency in the area, or they would be forcibly removed and deported.
Checkpoint 55 is frequented by students from several school groups, who pass it on route to and from schools which abut the Tel Rumeida illegal settlement. It was blocked for passage last Sunday in what soldiers described as “new measures against terrorism.” For years now international agencies have been monitoring the impact of the occupation on the schoolchildren of Hebron however this work has been severely restricted in recent weeks, amid mounting tensions in the district.
A volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a school teacher from Australia known as Phoebe, stated: “Will they never be satisfied? In the past month, Israeli forces have blatantly disregarded international law. They have performed extrajudicial executions of Palestinians in front of eyewitnesses with complete impunity.” She added: “We have been physically attacked on a daily basis by settlers in front of soldiers and police and then been ordered to leave, by threat of arrest for provoking them by our presence. We have been intimidated, harassed, abused, detained, and now this: arrest for our monitoring of human rights abuses on children and eviction for our presence in a fraught neighbourhood. Our presence is lawful and we believe more essential than ever.”
However, the internationals have stated their greatest concerns remain for the Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida and the disturbing intensification of both settler violence and the physical manifestations of the occupation, including an expansion of infrastructure used to limit movement on the streets. Echoing concerns by local Palestinian residents, a Dutch volunteer stated that such measures have created an alarming sense that, “Hebron is being ghettoized.” He added, “if the international community does not react to this now then the illegal settlement will surely take over all of Tel Rumeida…This is what we are most afraid of.”
The internationals, from Holland, Italy, Britain, Germany, Unites States, Poland, France and Australia have vowed to return to their work of protective presence, monitoring and journalism in the district and consider this to be an appalling reflection on Israel’s supposedly democratic ideals.
internationals being forced to leave their apartment
Closed military order presented to the internationals when told to leave apartmentmap of closed military zoning presented to internationals
30th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | al-Khalil, occupied Palestine
On October 29th Mahdi Mohtaseb was executed by Israeli forces at the Salaymeh (160) checkpoint, near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city of al-Khalil (Hebron). The 23-year-old from Jabal Johar, who was employed in a local sweets shop, was supposed to meet his fiancée later in the day.
At 0:22 seconds it shows an Israeli soldier shoot Mahdi in the back from close range as he lies wounded on the ground.
In a statement released the 27th of October by Amnesty International, they concluded that: “Israeli forces have carried out a series of unlawful killings of Palestinians using intentional lethal force without justification”. Amnesty also stated that “wilful killings of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, over which all states can exercise universal jurisdiction.”
In the last week in al-Khalil, seven Palestinians have been murdered. Ezzedin Nabi Sha’ban Abu Shakhdam, 17 (Gush Etzion), Shadi Nabil Dweik, 22 (Gush Etzion), Houmam Adnan Sa’id, 23, Islam Rafiq Hammad Ibeido, 23, Mahdi Mohammad Ramadan al-Muhtasib, 23, and Farouk Abdel Qader Omar Sidr, 19.
Mahdi Mohtaseb, who is survived by four brothers, four sisters, and many grieving family and loved ones, joins the daily rising death toll of mostly Palestinian youths gunned down by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers since October 1st.
30th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Palestinians gather in the street to be registered in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood in occupied Hebron. It is being reported that the area will be closed off completely for people who are not residents of the area and who are not registered within the next few days.
“For the people living in the area, it will become like a prison. For people living in Hebron, the closure of Tel Rumeida will mean that the city will be split in two”, says local resident to international activists.
The names and ID-numbers of the people living in the area are being written down by soldiers on long lists, and there are dozens of Palestinians standing around Gilbert checkpoint waiting to hand over their information or be forced out. Even for the residents who will be allowed in the area, this will mean severe restriction of their movement. Every time Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida & the area around Ibrahimi mosque (between checkpoints 209 and 29) cross a check point to get to their home, the soldiers will have to search the long list for the name.
It is not the first time the Israel has imposed such restrictions on the residents of the area. In 1994 after the Illegal settler extremist Baruch Goldstein committed a massacre in the Ibrahimi Mosque, similar measures were taken. At that time, Palestinian residents refused registration and were punished with a six month 24-hour-curfew and only allowed a few hours a week during which the residents could buy food.
Due to the increase in violence by army and settlers against Palestinians they do not dare to refuse registration this time.
28th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On Wednesday 28th October at 3.25pm, Islam Rafiq Obeido, 23, was shot in cold blood in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. Human rights observers from International Solidarity Movement witnessed the young man being murdered while walking in the street near the Gilbert Checkpoint.
The eyewitness from ISM, identified as Orion, states: “I am 100% sure he was unarmed. I saw the two soldiers creeping slowly along the road outside our apartment window with their guns cocked, so I looked down the street to see why. I saw an unarmed man walking normally towards the soldiers and suddenly they shot.”
The young man was shot at a distance of around two meters and at least 12 shots were fired. He died immediately after being shot.
No shouting or running was heard on the site prior to the murder. Minutes before the incident, a policewoman was overheard at the Shuhada Street checkpoint 56 saying on her radio “he looks like a good one, shoot him.”
Another activist from the ISM states: “It was just like last night, when they shot Hoummam Said. Everything was quiet and suddenly we heard many shots outside our apartment. I am sure he was unarmed and they murdered him for no reason, just like Hoummam”
