Category: Press Releases

The Stories of Quawawis and Massafer Yatta

On Tuesday, June 8, the Israeli civil administration told the villagers of Quawawis to remove the roofless structures built in front of the caves where they are living. If they don’t tear the structures down themselves, the civil administration will bulldoze them into the ground. Last week, Israeli authorities bulldozed structures in the Massafer Yatta area, a place similar to Qawawis.

It is quite possible that a campaign to remove these people from their land has been put into place so that outposts, which are considered illegal by Israeli Authorities, are flourishing in this area, in direct defiance of the 2001 Road Map.

The story below illustrates the destruction wrought by Israeli Occupation Forces as they continue to force families out of their homes, after which their homes are demolished:

Illegal demolition of 4 Houses in Massafer Yatta area, the poorest zone in the West Bank South of Hebron

Written by Operation Dove
22 May 2005

At 9.30am on the 22nd of May in the small village of Halt-El Thabit, three IOF jeeps and two bulldozers destroyed the only remaining house in the village. No demolition order had been delivered to the family, who were ordered to leave in five minutes. The 11-member family tried to take as many of their belongings as they could, then stood helplessly as they witnessed the Israeli military demolish their house.

It had been built in 1998 next to the cave where they had previously lived. Now, the occupation forces have given them no choice but to return to the cave.

The military took about 15 minutes to tear down the house, then left, and proceeded to the nearby village of Sarourah, where they destroyed three more Palestinian homes.

Several illegal Israeli settlements have also sprung up in the area, populated by extremist settlers who have frequently attacked the local Palestinians. When international volunteers have accompanied shepherds to their pastures or Palestinian children from the small village of Tuba to their school in Al Tuwani, these same extremist settlers have often attacked and wounded them as well.

All access roads to the Massafer Yatta area have been closed since the beginning of the current Intifada. In order to enter or leave the area, Palestinian residents must sneak onto the settler-only roads, risking reprisals from the military.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense has already drawn up a plan, called Firezone 918, to forcibly displace about 1300 Palestinians and create a military zone for maneuvers. These plans are already being carried out despite the presence of the villages, because Israel insists that the area was given to them in the Oslo agreements.

According to OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs),the Massafer Yatta area is the poorest in the West Bank. People have no choice but to live in caves, because they can’t get authorization to build from the Israeli administration, which has total control of the area. Living in these caves has become the choice of last resort for many of the families who refuse to leave their land.

by ISM Nablus

On Tuesday 7th June, Electronic Intifada reported the extra-judicial killing of Muraweh Khaled Ekmayel in Jenin by Israeli forces, under the headline “Israel Resumes Assassinations of Palestinians”. Al Jazeera news reported six deaths on the same day. The violence has continued, with the attempted assassination of four Hamas members in Gaza on 8th June.

Residents of Nablus would be surprised to hear that this killing marks the departure from Israel’s commitment at Sharm to end the assassinations. Three residents have been shot dead by Israeli forces in the area of Balata camp since the “ceasefire” heralded by the Sharm talks.

On 16th April Israeli forces shot and killed Brahim Al Smere on Al Quds Street just outside Balata Refugee Camp near Nablus. When the army handed Brahim’s body over to Palestinian medics, he had been shot multiple times in the limbs and body. Witnesses to his killing are sure that Israeli special forces came in to assassinate Brahim and made no attempt to arrest him. At the time the witnesses told us that he seemed to be lured in to the road and compelled to identify himself by someone he was speaking with on the phone. He was shot, but not fatally, first from one direction and then from a second location by a gunman in a car. Nobody made any attempt to arrest him or to take him away alive.

We spoke with the driver who saw Brahim on the morning he was killed.

“I picked him up and he asked me to drive slowly into Al Quds Street. When I asked why, he said he was meeting a friend he knew by telephone. I said “Forget him. You don’t know him. You’re wanted now. Meeting someone like that is a risk for you.” but Brahim said “No, he’s a good guy, he talked nicely to me on the phone.” Then he asked me to wait for him to meet this person so I could take them back, but I said no. It’s a sensitive street. I have to think about my family and so on. So I took him to the place he asked to go to.

The man called him again. I heard Brahim describe what he was wearing and the man said it would be good if he wore a hat too. I told him then “It’s an Israeli. Leave.” but Brahim didn’t believe me.

I left. On my way to Nablus I heard they shot him.”

The arrests and killings continue. Israel cannot claim to be maintaining a ceasefire. And yet the outside world has not acknowledged that the Sharm talks have not brought a resolution to the conflict in the region instead It is pretending that the killings are not happening and that talks are progressing.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights issues a report detailing Israel’s contraventions of international law each week. Despite the ceasefire the violations reported every week continue to include killings, tens of arrests and injuries, incursions into Palestinian towns and villages, raids and demolitions of homes, curfews and closures amounting to siege, settler attacks and denial of the legitimate right to non-violent protest.

Each one of those figures represents a violation of an individual’s right to liberty or life or a community’s right to access education and health services, employment or the land which they farmed to support themselves for generations.

The violent military occupation is not over. It is not time to stop campaigning for human rights and Justice in Palestine.

The Palestine Right to Return Coalition/ Al Awda

International Solidarity Movement is first recipient of PRRC/Al-Awda Rachel Corrie Award (given at the annual meeting in Toronto, June 20-22, 2003)

The first Rachel Corrie Award given to the International Solidarity Movement

About Rachel Corrie and the award in her honor

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American college student, was the first non- Palestinian peace activist to be killed in the Occupied Territories by the Israeli Defense Forces. On March 16, 2003, Rachel was in the Al-Salam neighborhood of Rafah, in southern Gaza, where she had been for seven weeks as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. In an effort to save the family home of a Palestinian pharmacist about to be razed, she interposed herself between the house and the Israeli military bulldozer. Photographs of the encounter, show her before the huge machine in a bright orange jacket, clearly visible. The massive machine rolled over her and then backed again. She thus shared the fate of some 2300 Palestinians (the vast majority of them civilians) who were murdered by Israeli troops or settlers since the onset of the Palestinian uprising for freedom (Intifada) in September, 2000.

PRRC (http://Al-Awda.org, Al-Awda is Arabic for “THE RETURN”) is a broad-based non-partisan global democratic association of thousands of grassroots activists and organizational representatives concerned for the Palestinian Refugees Right of Return. The purposes for which PRRC is formed are educational and charitable and relate to human rights of Palestinian Refugees. With active chapters and committees in over 20 countries and 30 states in the U.S., PRRC is the largest grass-root network for Palestinian rights.

The Palestine Right to Return Coalition instituted the Rachel Corrie award to honor non-Palestinian individuals or groups who demonstrated exceptional dedication to the cause of Palestinian rights especially the rights of refugees. It will be awarded yearly at our annual convention.

The 2003 Recipient of the Rachel Corrie Award

The Rachel Corrie Award for 2003 will be conferred upon the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) at the annual convention held in Toronto, June 20- 22. The ISM has organized Palestinian and international activists of all ages and faiths to use nonviolent direct action in protecting the human rights and lives of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Since its inception two years ago, hundreds of ISM volunteers like Rachel, acted as witnesses and shields. They have escorted thousands of Palestinian children to safety in streets rendered dangerous by Israel’s heavy military presence, protected many critically needed wells, and prevented the demolitions of numerous homes. The ISM also draws attention to the daily violence committed by the Israeli occupation forces. By attempting to mitigate the effects of the occupation, often at considerable personal risk, they fulfill an essential task which, in different circumstances, would be undertaken by more formal international bodies.

The surest sign of the efficacy of their work has been the response of the Israeli government, which has in the last year detained and deported many ISM members, hectored and harassed them, and attempted to sharply restrict their movements. After the death of Rachel Corrie, two more members have been shot, one lies in an apparently irreversible coma, while the other suffered severe facial trauma. The Israeli government has denounced the ISM as “interfering” with army operations, which, in the deepest sense, is precisely true, entirely consistent with their aims, and wholly in the spirit of Rachel Corrie, whose memory we honor with this award.