Category: Press Releases - Page 47 - International Solidarity Movement

Expansion of Karmel settlement prevents inhabitants of Umm Al Kheer from accessing their land

9th June 2013 | Operation Dove | Umm Al Kheer, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine

On Saturday June 8 an old Palestinian man from the village of Umm Al Kheer, Suleiman Aid Yameen Hadleen, was detained for more than three hours by the Israeli army while affirming his right to access his own land. In the last two days the soldiers denied the Palestinians from Umm Al Kheer the access to their own land until Sunday morning, without any official order.

Israeli forces chasing away Palestinian shepherds from the hilltop (Photo by Operation Dove)

The above-cited land is on a hill that belongs to Hadleen family. On the top of it the settlers of Karmel Israeli settlement in 2011 planted some olive trees and about two weeks ago built a small tent. Two days ago the settlers started to dig holes on the ground with the intention of planting more olive trees in a row that would go along the top of the hill, preventing Palestinians to enter the land behind it. That hill is crossed everyday by Palestinian shepherds, since it is the only way that takes to the valleys grazed by their sheep.

On Saturday June 8, three Palestinian shepherds with their flocks, together with other Palestinians, Israeli activists and international volunteers were chased away from the top of the hill by the Israeli army. Suleiman remained on the place in order to affirm the right to access his privately-owned land until he was brought into one of the army jeeps present on the place. According to his statement, he was blindfolded, beaten and driven around in different army jeeps. The soldiers also prevented him from praying. He was detained for more than three hours and left with no explanation in the Palestinian village of Ar Rakeez.

Umm Al Kheer is a Bedouin village in Area C (under Israeli civil and military administration) built in 1948. It is located nearby the Israeli settlement of Karmel built up in the beginning of the ’80s and still expanding. The village experiences periodic harassment from Israeli settlers and army.

Operation Dove maintains a constant presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Palestinian shepherd arguing with Israeli border police officers just before he was detained (Photo by Operation Dove)

Israeli border police officers carrying away Suleiman Aid (Photo by Operation Dove)

Israeli forces demolish Jerusalem building, displace thirteen

29th May 2013 | Coalition for Jerusalem | Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine

Israeli Forces demolished an apartment building in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem, on May 29, 2013, displacing thirteen members of the Al-Salaymeh family. Badran Al-Salameh attempted previously to obtain a permit for his two-story building, constructed in 2000, but was unsuccessful and subsequently fined a total of over 200,000 NIS for a lack thereof. Two bulldozers arrived at 10:00am on Wednesday morning and began to demolish the building, consisting of four apartments. Two minors were arrested during the demolition and another suffered injuries from exposure to pepper spray.

This demolition is one of nine that have occurred in Jerusalem within the past two weeks, directly displacing a minimum of seventy-seven people. Al-Quds Daily reported on May 28 that an additional 450 Palestinian homes in the occupied city are currently awaiting demolition after receiving orders against them by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem. According to a 2009 OCHA report, a conservative estimate of 60,000 Jerusalemites are vulnerable to having their homes demolished.

Israel’s escalation of housing demolitions in Jerusalem comes in the midst of an attempt from the international community to re-launch peace negations. US Secretary of State John Kerry was in the region last week, yet his visit went without comment on the demolitions despite being in Jerusalem a mere 48 hours after seven homes had been bulldozed. Such consistent inaction in holding Israel accountable for its rights violations has led the occupying state to escalate its human rights abuses without regard to international consequences.

Home demolitions are just one of many policies Israel imposes in Jerusalem with the intent to forcibly evict the city’s Palestinian population and ensure a Jewish majority. With building permits difficult to obtain and property rates sky-rocketing, those whose homes are seized and demolished are often forced to move outside of the city’s borders, rendering them vulnerable to having their residency IDs revoked and thus losing their right to live within Jerusalem. These policies exist in blatant violation of theFourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring an occupied population.

The Jerusalemites Campaign therefore demands that Israel immediately cease all of its policies that serve to alter the demographics of Jerusalem, reverse their effects to the fullest extent possible, and compensate the victims of said policies for the suffering they have endured. The Jerusalemites Campaign calls upon the international community and all people of conscience to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law through all possible mechanisms, including the adoption of the call for broad boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS).

About the Jerusalemites Campaign – The International Campaign to Protect Palestinian Residency in Jerusalem is a global initiative to end residency revocation of Palestinians in Occupied Jerusalem. Follow us online on Facebook, Twitter (@jerusalemites), and at Jerusalemites.tumblr.com.

UPDATE: Woman arrested in Hebron is accused of stone throwing by a settler

19th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Khalil | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

UPDATE: Zleikha was released from custody at around midnight, on the condition that she reports back to the police station today.

During Zleikha’s interrogation, an Israeli settler was brought by the Police and asked, ‘is this the woman who threw stones at you?’ to which she replied ‘yes’. This fundamentally flawed method of identification further illustrates how far removed the Israeli military is from any credible system of justice.

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Zleikha Muhtaseb being arrested from her home

Israeli forces tonight,18th May, abducted 51 year old Zleikha Muhtaseb from her home on Shuhada Street, in the old city of Hebron. Zleikha was helping her son complete his homework when a squad of Israeli soldiers invaded her house and took her. She was subsequently taken to be interrogated at the police station in the illegal Israeli settlement of Givat Ha’avot.

Israeli forces claim she was taken on suspicion of stone-throwing, although she was abducted from her home. Such unfounded allegations are regularly used in Hebron to justify arbitrary arrests and detention, of young and old alike – for example, 27 children arrested at random on their way to school in March of this year were accused of throwing stones. It is more likely that Zleikha was arrested for her defence of human rights and resistance to Israeli Occupation.

Zleikha Muhtaseb’s home is on Hebron’s Shuhada Street – an area closed to Palestinian access by the israeli military. Because of these closures, she and her family can only access their home from a back entrance, experiencing the extreme restriction of movement imposed by the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian city of Hebron. Zleikha speaks out strongly about the injustices suffered by Palestinians in Hebron – a more likely reason that she was arrested than throwing stones.

Video by muthich.

‘Price tag’ attack in South Hebron Hills

10th May 2013 | Operation Dove, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine

On May the 10th at about 6 a.m. some Palestinians from At-Tuwani and two Operation Dove volunteers found out that 62 olive trees had been cut during the night in a field next to the Bypass road 317.

Olive trees cut down (Photo by Operation Dove)

On a small wall nearby the olive field the sentence “price tag for those who steal” was found. The “price tag policy” (Hebrew: מדיניות תג מחיר) is, according to B’Tselem, the name given to “acts of random violence aimed at the Palestinian population and Israeli security forces” by radical Israeli settlers, who, according to the New York Times, “exact a price from local Palestinians or from the Israeli security forces for any action taken against their settlement enterprise”.

The olive trees grove belongs to the Amor Palestinian family and had been planted approximately 30 years ago. The members of the family which were present on the scene were particularly shocked for the loss.

The first jeep of soldiers arrived at about 7 a.m. followed by another army vehicle and a DCO (District Coordination Office) car. Around 7.30 a.m. a police car reached the area and an officer taped the incident’s scene with a camera. One member of the owner family spoke with the policeman giving him some information about the history of the olive trees. The Israeli police did not speak with the international volunteers and did not give any further details about the investigation. Around 8 a.m. Ma’on security chief arrived near the olive trees, spoke with the police and the soldiers and took some pictures. Some ten minutes later a DCO officer tried to detain a Palestinian shepherd from At-Tuwani accusing him of lacking respect to his authority. The Palestinian man denied and claimed that he did not say nothing bad to the officer.

Around 8.30 a.m. an Israeli soldier in charge of analyzing footprints started his investigation on the field. At the end of his research he declared that 6 people damaged the olive trees (5 men and 1 woman) while others were watching from distance.

In the afternoon, at about 2.30 p.m. a group of settlers set fire to a Palestinian wheat field close to the Palestinan village of Tuba. A Palestinian teenager saw them from distance while they were running away. The field belongs to the Aliawad family that has immediately called the Israeli police. When the police arrived the kid and his brother have been driven to the police station of Kiryat Arba for filing a complaint.

The olive trees and the wheat are an essential resource for the Palestinian community in South Hebron Hills area and their damaging causes a serious economic loss.

Nevertheless the Palestinian communities of the South Hebron Hills area are still strongly committed in the nonviolent popular resistance against Israeli occupation.

Operation Dove maintains a constant presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Palestinian woman protests the destruction of the olive trees (Photo by Operation Dove) — Palestinian woman expresses her devastation at the destruction of the olive trees (Photo by Operation Dove)

Message from settlers "price tag for those who steal" (Photo by Operation Dove) — Message from settlers: “price tag for those who steal” (Photo by Operation Dove)

ISM condemns Ynetnews misinformation, calls on Ynet to correct false allegations

7th May 2013 | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By Team Nablus

International Solidarity Movement calls on Ynetnews, a popular Israeli digital newspaper, to correct the false allegations against the recently arrested Swedish human rights activist and a young boy in Al-Khalil (Hebron).

Ynetnews reported that the Swedish activist allegedly attempted to take an Israeli soldier’s gun and resisted arrest. Also reported was that the young boy arrested was throwing stones. Both allegations prove entirely false in the Youth Against Settlements full video of the event. Story here.

Support our demand to report accurately on events in Palestine. Contact the Ynetnews editor-in-chief at editor-in-chief@y-i.co.il or the Ynetnews editorial department at news@ynetnews.com.

Below is the letter sent to Ynetnews editor-in-chief, still awaiting response.

TO: Ynet News Editor-in-Chief

RE: Inaccurate Ynet Article

It has come to our attention that ynet recently posted an article about the arrest of a child and an international activist in Hebron last week that contains entirely false information regarding the nature of the arrests. If ynet intends to report accurate information, unattributed allegations such as those that appear in that report are unaccountable as the basis for a posted story, especially as those sources turn out to be entirely false. You may see a full video of the event here. We hope that ynet will attempt to restore its lost credibility on this article and uphold an honest journalistic ethic by both correcting the falsity of that report in addition to posting the entire video of the event to display without a doubt for misinformed readers that the two arrests were made without illegal action by either the child or the international man. False information in reporting on a story such as this is, as ynet must agree, unacceptable.

Please also note that this false reporting has not gone unnoticed, as +972 magazine has already reported that ynet clearly misrepresented the events as evidenced by video of the event. You may see that report by +972 here.

Awaiting your response,

ISM Palestine Media

P.S. ISM will make this letter to the editor public awaiting appropriate remedy of this misinformation by ynet news.

N.B. In actual event, in the afternoon of the 28^th April, several children from an illegal Hebron settlement attacked two Palestinian children, aged 11 and 12, who were walking home from school. The soldiers proceeded to arrest the Palestinian victims of the attack despite the fact that according to eyewitnesses, they never struck back.

Having witnessed the arrests of the children, Swedish human rights observer Gustav Karlsson asked Israeli soldiers “why are you arresting these children?” only to be violently grabbed and also arrested. Following this, the children and Gustav were taken to a nearby military base. Gustav said, “I was blindfolded, but I could hear the children crying and screaming next to me. Twice, the soldiers pointed their guns at me, loaded them and pretended to pull the triggers”. As well as these mock-executions, soldiers violently shoved Gustav with their guns as they moved him and the children around.

The children were released later the same day, while Gustav is currently in Givon prison accused of assaulting a soldier, despite clear video evidence to the contrary.