Category: Press Releases

House-demolition scheduled for Wadi al-Joz – Families call for support

18th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Al Khalil | East Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine

The Amro and Tohta families in the occupied East Jerusalem Wadi al-Joz neighbourhood are calling for international presence on Sunday, April 19. The Tohta family received a demolition-order for their house and were warned that the demolition will take place on Sunday morning at 4 am. As the majority of the Amro family home has already been illegally demolished, they are afraid that the remainder of their house will be leveled on Sunday morning. Both families ask for supporters to be present during the night from Saturday to Sunday.

Early in the morning of March 31, 2015, Israeli forces demolished part of the house lived in by Nuredin Amro and his brother, both of whom are blind and live with their families. There was no prior notice or demolition order and Israeli forces barely waited for the family to leave the rooms that were going to be demolished and physically attacked the family, including women and children. Since that day, the Amro family lives in the rubble of their house, crammed into the only remaining rooms, in constant fear of further demolitions.

The same morning, Israeli forces used the opportunity to also demolish animal shelters on the neighbouring Tohta family’s land. Only two weeks later, in the night of April 15, 2015 the Tohta family received a demolition-order for their house and was told that soldiers will come for the demolition Sunday morning at 4 am. With only a few days till the demolition and the holiday on Friday and Saturday, there is no possibility of taking any legal action against that demolition-order.

Both families are asking for supporters – Palestinian, internationals and Israelis to be present on the premises during the night from Saturday to Sunday. The Amro family, even though there is no demolition-order for their house, is worried that – just like before – what is left of the family home will be destroyed when Israeli forces are in the neighbourhood on Sunday morning. Supporters can either arrive at the family’s premises late Saturday night or very early Sunday morning. With part of the Amro family home demolished, they can not offer a place to sleep inside the house, on Sunday morning the roads to reach the neighbourhood are very likely to be closed by Israeli forces to prevent documentation of the demolition. Any person coming to show their support for these two families should try to bring recording equipment and cameras to document this aggression by the Israeli military.

Wadi al-Joz is located directly outside the Old City of Jerusalem, is in a vulnerable neighbourhood with three demolitions in the last three and a half weeks. Land across from this neighbourhood was already annexed by the Israeli authorities to create a national park encompassing an illegal Israeli settlement.

Contact for any further questions and coordinating supporters:

Jenny 0595824987


Further reading:

Four people shot in the first 5 minutes at Nabi Saleh protest

3rd April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine

The weekly Friday protest in Nabi Saleh was met with extreme violence by Israeli Occupation Forces. Four people were shot in the first five minutes of the protest. One man and one woman were shot and wounded by snipers using .22 caliber live ammunition. Both were shot in the leg. Two others, including a 14 year old girl, were later hit with rubber bullets. 6 more hours of protest saw two more  injured protesters, private homes attacked with stun grenades, and live fire from M16 assault rifles during the army’s invasion of the Nabi Saleh village.

Protesters march in Nabi Saleh (photo by ISM)
Protesters begin their march in Nabi Saleh (photo by ISM)

After midday prayer Palestinians and internationals gathered for a peaceful protest against the Israeli occupation in the village of Nabi Saleh. Villagers in Nabi Saleh are protesting against the confiscation of their community spring, taken by Halamish settlement in 2008. As the protest made it down the main road leading out of the village it was very violently attacked by Israeli occupation forces:

“We had very little warning. We had only been protesting for 5 minutes before two people were on the ground, shot with .22 caliber live ammunition,” reported an International Solidarity Movement volunteer at the scene.

X-ray photo showing the shattered bone caused by a .22 caliber bullet (photo ISM)
X-ray photo showing the shattered bone caused by a .22 caliber bullet (photo ISM)

A young man named Hammad from Al Am’ari Refugee Camp near Ramallah, and Manal Tammimi, a woman from Nabi Saleh, were both shot. In both cases the live bullets tore through their shin bones and they were immediately taken to the hospital. Medics on the scene say their injuries will take several months to heal and then only if no complications arise.

Children in the line of fire
A rubber bullet struck a fourteen year old Palestinian girl in the head. The girl is a native of Nabi Saleh village and medics say she was lucky to not be more severely injured.

Home invasions and M16 live ammunition
After the initial attack the protest changed location to a hill on the west side of the village of Nabi Saleh. This time the army responded by invading the village itself. Soldiers shot tear gas down the village streets and stun grenades in private houses. At one point an entire Palestinian family including around 5 children had to flee their home with severe tear gas poisoning after the army shot tear gas canisters into their back yard and the nerve gas spread through the windows.

The military shot with M16s (firing 5.56 NATO rounds) down the narrow streets of the village. “People were shouting to be careful of stray bullets and ducking behind anything that might pass for cover. Being shot at by M16 machine gun fire at a completely peaceful protest that even includes children is both absurd and extreme,” recalled one international activist on the scene.

International activists confronts soldiers (photo by ISM)
Activists confront Israeli soldiers during Friday’s protest (photo by ISM)

Israeli occupation forces are escalating violence on the West Bank
The injuries in Nabi Saleh today and the use of lethal weapons are novelty. In both the villages of N’ilin and Kafr Kadum the Friday demonstration were also met with shots of M16 live ammunition. Internationals present in occupied Palestine report that the use of lethal weapons has never ceased since the massacre on Gaza last summer. In fact, they say the level of violence used by the Occupation, including both .22 and the much more lethal 5.56 live ammunition, is escalating.

Video by Anarchists Against the Wall

Home demolition in Jerusalem: “They want our land. We need help to protect it.”

1st April 2015 | Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine

Nureddin Amro and his brother Sharif Amro and their families were awakened at 5:30 am by over a hundred Israeli soldiers who came to demolish their home in the Wadi Al-Joz neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, March 31, 2015. Both men are blind. The brothers live with their ill 79-year-old mother, their spouses and children. Nureddin has three young children, Sharif has four; all are under 14. Israeli soldiers pointed their guns in through the windows of the house while the children were still asleep and cut the electricity and phone lines to the house.

“We were asleep. They banged on the doors and shouted. Soldiers completely surrounded the neighborhood. There were dogs and aircraft. It was frightening,” said Nureddin. “There was no advanced notice. No reason given. They announced that they came to demolish the house and they started doing it while we were still inside.”

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The Amro family stands in the rubble of their demolished home

Nureddin asked for time to go to court or the municipality for an explanation, but the soldiers refused. The soldiers assaulted the family, kicking Sharif and beating everyone, including the women and children. “They attacked us and locked us in one of the rooms. My son and brother were injured. They stayed for four hours and destroyed four rooms, the garden. They would not give us time to take anything from the rooms. All of our things, the children’s pets, their rabbits and chickens were killed under the rubble” Sharif was taken to the hospital after a soldier kicked the blind man hard in the ankle. Israeli forces refused to even let the family salvage their belongings before they tore it down.

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Members of the Amro family gathered beside the part of their home that is still standing

Nurredin is the founder and principal of the Siraj al-Quds School for visually impaired and sighted children in Jerusalem. He is a Synergos Institute Social Innovator and was recognized by the British Council for his leadership working for positive change and social development for people with special needs. According to Nureddin, there was no demolition order against the homes although there have been demolitions in the neighborhood before. They had received warnings a couple of months ago to clean up scrap wood, wires and materials that were around the house, and they did the cleaning as required.

While they were demolishing the rooms of the Amro family’s home Israeli forces destroyed a fence on the neighboring Totah family’s land, along with a shelter that housed a horse, chickens, and a dog. Soldiers also cut the family’s internet and broke the water line. The father of the Totah family was beaten, handcuffed, and arrested; he was later released.

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The Totah family’s land after Israeli forces destroyed a fence and a shelter for animals

As of this writing, the part of the house that remains standing where Nureddin and his brother are staying with their families; still has no electricity, water, sewage or telephone services. Soldiers returned to the family’s home again this morning, moving the rubble that was visible from the street and threatening that they would be back.

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The Amro family children climb on the rubble – all that is left of four of their rooms

Israeli authorities have already annexed land across from the Wadi Al-Joz neighborhood, creating a national park which encompasses an illegal Israeli settlement. Local residents reported, speaking of the constant threat of settlement expansion under the Israeli occupation, that “they want to get rid of all the houses, all the neighborhood. They want to put their hands on this land from here to the Old City.”

Peaceful tree planting attacked by settlers and soldiers, two hospitalised and one arrested

1st April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On March 31st around 40 Palestinian children and adults gathered in Hebron near Qurtuba school, a Palestinian school in the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida, to plant trees in commemoration of Palestine’s Land Day. Israeli extremist settlers from the illegal settlements in Al-Khalil (Hebron) attacked them as Israeli forces stood by, threatening to arrest the Palestinians and international volunteers while doing nothing to stop the settlers’ violence. Settlers pushed a 13-year-old girl down the stairs leading up to the school, and soldiers injured a 48-year-old man with a back condition; both were hospitalised. Israeli soldiers also arrested Jenny, a 24-year-old German solidarity activist, while she was filming the action.

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Palestinians gathered to plant trees in Tel Rumeida in an event marking Land Day

Military harassment began even before activists had reached the planting site. Jenny, the German activist later arrested at the demonstration, recalled the difficulty of getting the trees to the site: “Half of the trees had already gone through the checkpoint when Israeli soldiers decided that, as one officer put it, ‘trees are sensitive items’ and that the children carrying them would not be allowed through.”

“It was a very peaceful action,” she recalled. “Small children were planting trees near the school in Tel Rumeida.  Everything was calm until Anat Cohen (a notoriously violent extremist settler) turned up; she began taking down the Palestinian flags demonstrators had put up on the fence beside the tree planting site, then randomly attacking Palestinians and international volunteers.”

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Young children planting trees beside Qurtuba primary school

Extremist settlers pushed a 13-year-old Palestinian girl down the stairs close to the tree planting site. She was taken to the hospital half an hour later. Israeli soldiers harassed her friends and told them they were not allowed to sit beside her. A 48-year-old Palestinian man who had just undergone surgery on his spine was pushed violently by Israeli forces, despite the fact that soldiers were told several times that the he suffered from severe damage to his back. When they continued to shove him against a wall, he collapsed and lost consciousness for several minutes, and was taken to a hospital via ambulance.

khalil land day on the ground
Soldiers and onlookers gathered around Palestinian man after he fell unconscious after being shoved by soldiers
khalil land day ambulance
Injured Palestinian being taken via stretcher to the ambulance, as a settler in the foreground watches the scene

Settlers and soldiers continued harassing people; settlers accused many of being nazis, swearing at and insulting the demonstrators. Palestinians looking out from their houses were told to step away from their front door. When internationals tried to document the situation, they were met with yelling and pushing from Israeli soldiers as well as settlers.

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Israeli soldiers at the tree planting demonstration in Hebron

Amanda, an ISM volunteer present at the scene, recalled what she experienced at the hands of settlers and soldiers. “I was being attacked from all sides. A soldier shouted at me, brandishing handcuffs at me and threatening to arrest me even as a settler woman physically assaulted me. She stepped on my feet, kicked at my legs and punched me in the stomach, calling me a nazi and a[n extremely vulgar word for prostitute].”

Jenny spoke of her arrest, based on spurious testimony by the settler woman. “At the police station I was accused of attacking Anat Cohen. While I was filming her and the soldiers earlier as soldiers forced back the Palestinian group, she grabbed my hand and attempted to take my camera. I told soldiers at the time that she attacked me, but they paid no attention. They grabbed me and violently pulled me away from where I was documenting the tree planting.” Israeli soldiers took her to the military base on Shuhada street before transferring her to the Israeli police, who interrogated her and held her at the police station before releasing her early that same evening, after about five hours in custody. She has been temporarily barred from the city of Hebron.

“As people were leaving I saw soldiers trampling all over the area,” an ISM volunteer recalled. “I doubt that the trees survived.” Tuesday’s action was the third time in the last few months that Palestinians gathered near the school to plant trees on their land in Tel Rumeida. Three weeks ago olive trees were planted in the same area, but zionist settlers uprooted and stole them.

Later in the afternoon a Palestinian funeral, in the nearby Muslim cemetery, was disrupted by settler children who taunted the mourners.

Continuing harassment of activists in Palestine

Occupied Al Khalil (Hebron), West Bank

On an almost daily basis Israeli forces in Al Khalil harass and arrest local and international human rights activists as they try to do their tasks. The activists document violence towards Palestinians and act as a protective presence around children who are on their way to school. The volunteers’ feel that accompanying children on their way to school, through various checkpoints, is important because of the risk they face. In the past the children of Al Khalil have routinely detained, searched, arrested or attacked with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber coated steel bullets, shot at them by Israeli soldiers and border police.

Throughout Palestine in general, and in particular Al Khalil, volunteers play an important role documenting day to day life under occupation. With illegal settlements in the heart of the city and daily violence from settlers under the protection of the Israeli forces, the only word to describe life here is ‘apartheid’.

Israeli forces have detained and arrested volunteers many times without reason, declaring only that they wish to prevent them from documenting these human rights abuses. The internationals’ accessibility to city areas are also being restricted by soldiers prohibiting them to pass through checkpoints.

“We are not wearing vests like Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) for exampel, which makes it easier for us to pass through the checkpoints. But they don’t like us either. Only a few days days ago one of us was arrested and held for seven hours for bogus reasons, and now he’s not allowed in the city for two weeks” ISM volunteer Franceska explains.

In four different incidents within one week in late February, Israeli forces raided the ISM apartment without having a warrant or any legit reason. Franceska was in the apartment when the soldiers came:

“It was in the middle of the night, the same time they usually come to Palestinian families as well. First they threatened us with retaliation if we don’t open, and then they came back a few nights later and broke down the door. It’s clear that they want to scare us away from the city, but we are not going to leave.”