Category: Press Releases

Palestinians appeal for release of Western activists kidnapped in Iraq

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
RAMALLAH

Palestinians, led by their top Muslim cleric, appealed to Iraqi insurgents on Wednesday to release four Western peace activists, saying three of them had spent time in the West Bank aiding the Palestinians.

The four workers for the group Christian Peacemaking Teams – an American, a Briton and two Canadians – were shown in a video released Tuesday by insurgents in Iraq.

While in the West Bank, American Tom Fox and the two Canadians demonstrated against the construction of Israel’s security fence, helped Palestinian children to get through Israeli army checkpoints and pitched in with the olive harvest, Palestinians across the West Bank said Wednesday.

“We demand that these aid workers be released immediately,” said Mufti Ikrema Sabri, the Palestinians’ top Muslim clergyman. “We tell them that these aid workers have stood beside Palestinian people and it’s our duty now to stand beside them.”

Sabri said Islam opposes taking civilians hostage and said such kidnappings are “inhumane.”

Palestinians in several towns said they had worked with the three activists and asked Sabri to issue the appeal. Hundreds of international activists have aided the Palestinians in largely nonviolent demonstrations during the more than five years of fighting with Israel.

“They subjected themselves to grave dangers when they stood in front of Israeli bulldozers,” said the mayor of the West Bank village of Jayyus, Shawkat Samha. “We knew them as people who were against occupation and supported freedom for occupied peoples, like the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples.”

Samha said he had met Fox and recognized him in the video that was shown on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

Fared Tomallah from the West Bank village of Salfit said he cried when he recognized captive Canadian Harmeet Sooden on television.

“I saw him many times suffering through tear gas with the Palestinians when demonstrating against the wall,” Tomallah said, referring to the separation barrier. “We appeal to Iraqi insurgents to release him and we assure them that these people have nothing to do with the occupation.”

The local branch of Christian Peacemaking Teams in the West Bank city of Hebron said that one of the captives, James Loney from Toronto, Canada, had helped Palestinian children get through Israeli army roadblocks in the divided city. Loney was slated to return to Hebron next week to continue his work, said Rich Meyer, an activist with the group.

“The kidnapping prevents him from coming here to work,” Meyer said.

The group’s Toronto branch released a picture of Fox sitting with children.

Palestinian Solidarity Activists Amongst Four Peace Activist Hostages in Iraq


Harmeet Sooden working with the ISM in the Jenin region of the West Bank

CORRECTION: Three of the group of four have previously been in Palestine, not only two as previously stated. James Loney was in Palestine five years ago as an activist with CPT Hebron.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Two of the four Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) hostages in Iraq of whom a video was released today have been in Palestine working as Palestinian Solidarity activists. Tom Fox (54) worked with CPT Hebron and participated in demonstrations against the apartheid Wall in Jayyous. Harmeet Sooden (32) a Canadian citizen who had been living in New Zealand, came to Palestine to join the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in December 2004 and stayed until January 2005. He worked in solidarity with local Palestinian people, mostly in Nablus and Jenin. While in Jenin, he worked with a group of ISM activists who planted Olive trees on the ‘Swithart’ farm outside Jenin, He was committed to come to Palestine for three months to join the ISM again at the beginning of December 2005 as a long term activist for the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation, but first decided to join a two week CPT delegation to Iraq.

Palestinians in Ramallah will hold a demonstration tomorrow at 3pm in solidarity with all four kidnapped peace activists and to appeal for their release. The demonstration will be attended by notable Palestinian religious and resistance figures.

Mustafa Jayyousi a local Palestinian activist in Jayyous who knew Tom said: “When he worked in Jayyous, Tom was part of a group who went down to the gates everyday with local farmers to help them access their lands made inaccessible by the wall. He also participated in demonstrations with the people of Jayyous against the apartheid Wall in Jayyous”.

Mohammed Ayyesh a local Palestinian activist in Balata camp, Nablus said of Harmeet: “I was touch with Harmeet and was looking forward to him coming here to work next week. We must do everything we can to secure his release.”

Basem Abu-Bakar a local Palestinian activist in Jenin said: “Harmeet came as a volunteer in solidarity with the people of Jenin. He supported the Palestinian people and the people of Jenin with his presence here, and with his work in New Zealand.”

In an email to his friends Harmeet described the purpose of the four-person team’s work in Iraq as: “providing humanitarian aid in the form of training and documentation of non-violent responses to lethal inter-group conflict. We will also record the current conditions in Iraq, meeting with representatives of NGOs, Christian and Muslim clerics, Iraqi human rights groups and others”. He also recounted a story from Iraq: “A little 3-year old girl, Alaa, ran up to me and gave me a big hug me yesterday. She reminds me of my niece. She, however, does not see as my niece sees. She sustained severe shrapnel injuries to her abdomen and micro-fragments peppered her eyes, face and body during a US military attack in May on al Qaim, Iraq. Her mother lost an eye. She lost two brothers and several other relatives”.

Some of his friends who worked with Harmeet in the ISM appealed to the kidnappers for his release:

Donna: “Since he was back in New Zealand, Harmeet formed a new Palestinian Solidarity Group on Auckland University campus and organised speakers and forums about Palestine. He is a very shy, quiet guy, but very committed and hoped to return to Palestine next month.”

Asa: “Harmeet is a great person – we worked in solidarity with the Palestinian people together. He cares deeply about the plight of all oppressed people and is unequivocally against the occupation of Iraq and Palestine. He has also been involved in work around the conflict over Kashmir and in favour of the right of the people there for self determination. He would never act as a spy for any government. He is a sound peace activist.”

Patrick Connors: “I know Harmeet from when he volunteered with ISM in Palestine last winter. Harmeet is a very good, serious, committed person. CPT is a solid organization, with serious training and procedures, that does great things.”

For more information:
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824

Settler Mobs Attack Palestinians and Besiege Internationals In Hebron

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Between 2pm and 5pm today, a hostile mob of between 100 and 150 Israeli settlers visiting from outside Hebron besieged five Human Rights Observers (HROs) and one photo-journalist inside the HROs’ apartment in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. Palestinian families, who were the main target of the settler’s hate, were also besieged in their homes. Other settlers attacked Palestinians throughout the city on a day that was advertised as a “mass prayer” for Jews only in the Ibrahimi Mosque. ISM and Tel Rumeida project volunteers alone recorded six assaults on Palestinians and twelve assaults and five stonings on HROs. The police were called on eight separate occasions and the army/DCO 4 times, but most of the time they did not arrive.

In one such incident on Tel Rumeida street, two HROs were present when settlers threw stones at Palestinians on the roofs of their houses, as well as at the HROs. Local Palestinian Basem Rajeb Abu-Aisha’s solar panels were broken by the stone throwers. In another incident, an HRO was violently pushed by one of a group of three settler girls who were trying to attack a Palestinian school girl the HRO was accompanying.

The HROs spent the morning spread along Tel Rumeida street and Shuhaddah street ready to observe the situation in anticipation of settler violence. Many were doing their usual accompaniment of Palestinian children returning home from school. Palestinian children in Hebron are regularly attacked by settlers with stones and other forms of violence.

They heard of a disturbance near to their apartment which is about 100m from Tel Rumeida settlement. They arrived to find a mob of about 150 settlers nearby throwing stones at a small group of Palestinian youth on the street. Israeli soldiers prevented the settlers from following the Palestinians. Police and soldiers picked one settler out of crowd to arrest him. He was detained for about five minutes before he escaped into the crowd of settlers. The soldiers ran after him but the crowd surrounded them and scuffles broke out between the settlers and soldiers. One of the HROs tried to take pictures of this confrontation but was met with hostility from the settlers and soldiers. The HROs were still trying to accompany Palestinians despite the hostile mob. One settler with an M16 automatic rifle threateningly followed one of the HROs, so he decided to come inside. Others from the small group of HROs also sought refuge in their apartment, fearing for their safety if they were to leave. At first they retreated to the roof where they could continue their observations, but were soon driven down when the settlers began throwing stones up at them. The settlers stayed outside singing in Hebrew and chanting slogans like “No Arabs” in English.

Other quotes from settlers throughout the day: “death to the Arabs”, “we hate all the Arabs”, “Palestinians are animals who should be in cages”, “they shouldn’t be caged just in Hebron but everywhere”, “I hope that God burns all the Arabs in hell… they are not men but dogs”.

According to Israeli Police and military, around 3000 Israeli settlers from around the West Bank and Israel have come to the Palestinian city of Hebron today to show “solidarity with the pioneers of Hebron” as they stated in their advertising for the day.

For more information:
David: 054 651 7234
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824

Settlement Expansion Under the Guise of Security

CORRECTION: both demonstrations start at 12pm tomorrow, and not 1pm as previously stated.

Settlement expansion under the guise of security- Two villages rise up against the wall tomorrow

[Ramallah District] The West Bank villages if Bil’in and Abud will both march to the construction sites of the Annexation Wall on their land Friday, November 25 at 12:00 PM. The Abud and Bil’in protest marches are part of the ongoing efforts of Palestinians to stop the destruction of their land and the ghettoization of their communities. Palestinians, joined by Israelis and internationals, have conducted almost weekly protests, marches, direct actions and other forms of civil resistance and disobedience since the beginning of the construction of the wall in 2002.

Abud, a village of approximately 2200 Christian and Muslim Palestinians, will lose over 4,000 dunams (about a 1,000 acres) of its land due to the route of the barrier. The route of the wall around Abud is designed to enable the unapproved planned expansion of the Ofarim and Beit Arye settlements. Both of these settlements are illegal under international law.

The village of Bil’in, now a symbol of persistent community organizing and cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis in the struggle against the wall, is losing over 60% of its agricultural land to the construction of the barrier. The route of the wall in Bil’in will de-facto annex the village’s farmland for the planned expansion of the illegal Modi’in Elite settlement.

Abud and Bil’in are not alone. According to a report from Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, “ the currently approved route of the Barrier leaves fifty-five settlements, twelve of them in East Jerusalem, separated from the rest of the West Bank and contiguous with the State of Israel. Study of a map of the route indicates that in most of the cases… the Barrier’s route was set hundreds, and even thousands, of meters from the houses at the edge of the settlements.”

The B’tselem report also shows that not only were security-related reasons of secondary importance to the Israeli government in certain locations, but that in cases where security concerns conflicted with settlement expansion, the planners opted to enable expansion at the expense of security.

For more information on the demonstrations, please contact:
ISM media office:
+972-(0)2-297-1824
or Abdullah AbuRahme
+972-(0)547-258-210
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