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.
———————————————————————–
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.
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 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)
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.
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 28th 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.
28th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
UPDATE 2nd May 09.30 Full video of child arrests now available from Youth Against Settlements. Swedish activist Gustav is resisting deportation to highlight the issue of child arrests in Hebron which have seriously escalated in recent months.
UPDATE 29th April 20.00 Gustav, the arrested Swedish activist is currently being held in Givon immigration prison, having had his visa revoked by the Israeli authorities. He was beaten during his arrest and hit with a gun. Soldiers conducted two mock executions by pointing guns at his head, loading them and pretending to press the trigger. He was blindfolded and kept inside the military base in Hebron, where he could hear the crying of the arrested children next to him. He is now awaiting deportation back to Sweden by the Israeli authorities, for peacefully objecting to the arrest of two Palestinian children.
UPDATE 28th April 19.30 The two Heikel brothers were released around 18.30. Ahmed (aged 12) has had his fingerprints taken by the police and his younger brother Mouawieh (aged 11) was kicked in the stomach by an Israeli soldier.
UPDATE 28th April 18.30: The Swedish activist has now been transferred to Jerusalem. He is facing possible deportation by the Israeli authorities for trying to non-violently intervene in the wrongful arrest of two Palestinian children.
_______________________________________________________________
28th April 14.00:Israeli military today arrested Ahmed Abu Heikel, aged 12, and his brother Mouawieh, aged 11, in Hebron after they were attacked by a settler child from the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah. One Swedish activist was also arrested after intervening in the arrests of the children.
12 year old Ahmad being protected by the headteacher of the Qortoba School as he was being arrested
At around 1pm Palestinian children were walking home from Qortoba school when they were attacked by the child of extremist settlers living in the centre of Hebron, who was accompanied by his two older brothers. The youngest settler boy started throwing sticks, beating Ahmed and hurling insults at him. As soon as Ahmed defended himself against the beatings, the settler children immediately called for soldiers at nearby checkpoints who came running. Eyewitnesses state that the Palestinian children were not violent. The settler children pointed out Ahmed and Mouawieh as well as their classmate Bilal Said, who were violently grabbed and pushed against a wall by soldiers.
A crowd of about 50 people quickly gathered, mostly Palestinian neighbours and classmates as well as international activists, journalists and settlers. The crowd, and especially the headmistress of Qortoba school, Noora Zayer, who was walking with the boys and witnessed the attack, insisted that the arrest was unacceptable. Bystanders and international activists managed to de-arrest Bilal, who then ran away. However Ahmed and Mouawieh were arrested; Ahmed is apparently being charged with assaulting the Israeli soldier who was called to the scene by the settler children and grabbed the Palestinian rather than the settler child.
A non-violent Swedish activist who intervened peacefully on behalf of the children has also been arrested and is being charged with assaulting a soldier. The two children and the Swedish activist were taken away separately in military jeeps. The Swedish activist is currently being held in Givat Havot settlement near Hebron city, whilst Ahmed and Mouawieh are being held in interrogation centres.
Gustav Karlsson being arrested. Photo credit EAPPI
The Israeli soldiers took no action against the settler children who had instigated the attack. The police summoned the youngest settler child who had attacked Ahmed and spoke to him in the presence of his parents for about half a minute, after which he was allowed to go back home without any repercussions. Israeli children living in illegal settlements across the West Bank are subject to civilian law, meaning they are not criminally liable when they are under the age of 14, whereas military law is applied to Palestinian children, who are deemed by the Israeli authorities not to be minors if they are over 12.
This is the latest in an escalating series of arrests of children by the Israeli military in recent months. Christian Peacemakers Team Hebron have compiled a report of these child arrests, which includes 27 children attacked and arrested outside of their school. The report is available here.
Jamil in hospital – photo by Rosa SchianoJamil Wael Risha, 17 years old, Palestinian youth of Gaza City, was injured on the afternoon of the 26th April by the Israeli army at the Jabalia border, North Gaza Strip.
International activists visited Kamal Odwan hospital to understand what happened to him and check his condition. Dr. Muin Almasri, director of the public relations department of the hospital, informed us that Jamil had been transferred overnight to Shifa hospital in Gaza City. “We suspected the need for vascular surgery,” he told us.
At Shifa hospital international activists met Jamil, who had been admitted to the orthopedic ward. Beside him was one of his brothers and his father Wael.
Jamil told us that usually on Friday he went with his friends to the cemetery that lies to the east of Jabalia, near the barrier separating Gaza from the territories Israel occupied in 1948. This Friday they headed to the cemetery after Friday prayers, around 15:00.
Suddenly they saw Israeli soldiers out next to two jeeps. Four soldiers, Jamil told us. So the boys, at the height of the separation barrier, started throwing stones at the soldiers. The Israeli soldiers started shooting heavily at the Palestinian youth.
Jamil hit a soldier with a stone, but the soldier responded by shooting and injuring him in his left leg at around 17.00, when he was transported by car to Kamal Odwan hospital. A nurse told us he could leave the hospital in a week.
An x-ray of Jamil’s leg shows the fracture and the presence of fragments of explosives inside of the leg. All the muscle had been damaged. The bullet used by Israeli soldiers was a dum-dum bullet, also known as an expanding bullet, which is prohibited by international law. The expanding or dum-dum bullet, expands inside the body causing fractures and huge damage to internal organs, bleeding and in many cases death. Despite the international ban on the use of these bullets, the Israeli army continues to use them. Jamil’s leg after having been shot – photo by Rosa Schiano
Jamil was asked by international activists if he felt fear when he goes along the border – if he was aware he was risking his life. Jamil said: “I am not afraid.” His family consists of 9 people, who he supports with his work.
The cease-fire agreement which began on the evening of 21st November after the Israeli military offensive “Pillar of Defense”, was supposed to mean that the Israeli army would stop firing on civilians along the border. The agreement allegedly said they would allow farmers in Gaza access to farm their land freely, at least to 100 metres, thus eliminating ‘the “buffer zone” of 300 meters, illegally imposed by the Israeli army.
The agreements also consented to the fishermen of Gaza reaching 6 nautical miles from the coast. These agreements have never been respected by the Israeli army, who continued to shoot at farmers and civilians in the lands along the border and attack fisherman even within 6 nautical miles from the coast. During the recent visit of Obama in March, an armed Palestinian group launched four rockets into southern Israel, missiles that have not caused any damage, but the Israeli authorities decided to cancel all agreements which had come with the ceasefire.
However, this means little change for Palestinian civilians, who despite the agreements, have constantly been victims of Israeli aggression. Since the beginning of the ceasefire in fact, there have been more than 90 Palestinian civilians wounded, and 4 young civilians killed.
Jamil, like many boys his age, was throwing stones at the soldiers. This is one way to protest against an illegal occupation, a siege against Gaza, that reduces Gaza to a prison. He was throwing stones from beyond the walls of this prison, in which he was wrongly detained.
The soldiers, however, do not mind the age of these kids, do not hesitate to shoot, even if they use live ammunition prohibited by International conventions.
Our governments and the international community should not remain indifferent to the use of illegal bullets, nor in front of the crimes that are committed for years against the Palestinian civilian population.
The international community should intervene by putting pressure on the Israeli government to cease these practices. One of the ways at the disposal of international civil society and governments to hold Israel to account is through the movement to boycott, divestment and sanction the Israeli State, until it abides by international law and grants Palestinians their basic rights.
This is a growing movement internationally that gives us hope for change in Palestine. Not to act is to be complicit.
Hopefully Jamil will be better soon without complications. To him and to his family, our solidarity and our affection.
