Category: Press Releases

18th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By Team Khalil

There are growing concerns for the safety of non-violent Palestinian activist and organiser Issa Amro, following a recent letter to Israeli security forces from Israeli settlers of Hebron, accusing Amro of terrorism and incitement, and warning that a failure of the Israeli authorities to remove him “could be costly”, and threatening “bloodshed”. This is the latest in a long line of threats and attacks against UN human rights award winner Amro.

In the letter, the mayor of the Jewish “Hebron Municipal Council” and the director general of the “Hebron Jewish Community” insist that army commanders “use administrative detention until you are able to find a long-term solution to completely end this hostile and dangerous activity” referring to Amro’s extensive work with various human rights groups. The full letter can be read here.

Amro has been violently attacked by this same community of Israeli settlers many times in the past – his nose and wrist have been broken and he received five stitches to his head. He and his family regularly receive death threats from the settlers of Hebron over the phone, continuing their campaign of threats and violence against him.

Despite having received numerous death threats and abuse from settlers over a period of many years, Amro is particularly concerned about the letter of the 20th March, because of the status and influence of its authors. Various Zionist websites have since issued calls for his execution, publishing various pictures of his face marked by red circles. Despite Amro’s long dedication to non-violent principles he is constantly identified as a terrorist by these websites.

You can see examples of this here :

1. http://rotter.net/forum/gil/26497.shtml
2.http://rotter.net/forum/gil/18247.shtml
3.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QerqKiWwUwM
4.http://www.kr8.co.il/BRPortal/br/P102.jsp?arc=408240
5.http://www.kr8.co.il/BRPortal/br/P102.jsp?arc=562306&order=down
6.https://www.facebook.com/hebron.machpela/posts/385071061601175

Amro states “I have been arrested and detained on too many occasions to count, but I have never been charged with anything.” He says that he is regularly abducted by soldiers from his home, blindfolded and driven around for several hours before being left back at his house. On other occasions, he has been beaten by soldiers who have threatened to kill him and his family. During his most recent arrest in March 2013, Amro was stripped naked and made to stand outside for three hours.

On the 27th of March 2013 there was an arson attempt against the Youth Against Settlements community centre in Tel Rumeida – Amro was verbally abused and humiliated by police officers when he attempted to file a complaint and was ejected from their office twice before the complaint was filed. There has yet to be any investigation by the police.

Background

Issa Amro has been involved in founding many non-violent organisations in Hebron, working peacefully against the occupation. This includes the Hebron branch of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the Arab Non-Violence Network, Youth Against Settlements and the Hebron Defenders. He won the One World media award in 2009 for his involvement B’tselem’s “Shooting Back” project, which provides media training and distributes cameras to Palestinians to document settler and military abuse for Palestinians. Amro’s work with these organisations, as well as numerous other projects intending to document and non-violently resist human rights abuses and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements led to his winning of the UN OHCHR ‘Human Rights Defender of the Year in Palestine’ award in 2010.

8th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine

On 7th April around three kilometres from the Palestinian village of Al Majaz, the Israeli army conducted major training exercise with tanks and automatic weapons, using live ammunition. Al Majaz in the South Hebron Hills is in what the Israeli authorities refer to as ‘Firing Zone 918’, a closed military zone regularly used for training for the Israeli army and eight villages are at risk of eviction and destruction.

At least eight tanks and several armoured personnel carriers could be heard moving into the area during the night and at around 6am helicopters were seen over the village of Al Majaz. Between 6.30am and 7.30am at least thirty shots were fired from Merkava tanks – each creating a noise loud enough in the village to wake people and to scare birds from the trees. Hundreds of soldiers moved around the tanks and during this hour there was also a large amount of automatic gunfire.

The military troops moved between two hilltops to the east of Al Majaz, repeatedly firing weapons and driving military jeeps around the Palestinian villages of the South Hebron hills throughout the day. As this military exercise was particularly large, the villagers of Al Majaz had received a phone call from the Israeli army to inform them – but for other military training exercises, which occur at least once a week, the villagers state they are not notified.

Village life went on throughout the military exercise and children from Al Majaz had to travel to their school in the village of Al Fakheit several kilometres away. The children travel over the rocky terrain in a Unicef donated jeep which the military have in the past threatened to confiscate, stating that it is not permitted in the area. Upon reaching the school, the children still had to listen to the sound of tank- and gun-fire, easily audible even from their classrooms.

There are twelve villages in Firing Zone 918, all of which have been threatened in the past with eviction and demolition in order to make way for a huge Israeli military training area, free of Palestinian villages. Eight remain under threat, with a temporary injunction by the Israeli Supreme Court having recently been extended in January 2013. The headmaster of the school in Al Fakheet said “The Israeli authorities know it is illegal to evict people for military training, so they will try to make people’s lives very bad so they just leave. Then if we leave, they will use the land for settlements.”

The Israeli forces have stated that they wish to create a general military training area in Firing Zone 918. This would be a breach of the 4th Geneva Convention, which states that an occupying force should not destroy property unless it is “rendered absolutely necessary by military operations” – general military training is not deemed “absolutely necessary” in international law.