Category: Press Releases

Family members of Gazan activist Ahmed Abu Artema killed in Israeli airstrike

Ahmed Abu Artema

ISM PRESS RELEASE 

October 27 

Our friend, the poet Ahmed Abu Artema, whose social media post inspired the Great March of Return in 2018, has been targeted in an Israeli airstrike that shelled his home in Tel al Sultan, Rafah, Gaza, killing five members of his family.

Ahmed was also seriously injured in the attack on October 24, suffering second degree burns. He is now in a stable condition. Ahmed’s 12-year-old son, Abdullah, two of his brothers and mother-in-law were killed. His other son and Ahmed’s sister are in a critical condition.

His home was one of many targeted despite being in the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where people from the north were ordered to go by the Israeli army for their ‘safety’. There is no safe place in Gaza.

Commenting on the targeting of Ahmed’s family, Neta Golan, a co-founder of ISM and Return Solidarity, said: “In the weeks leading up to the attack, Ahmed had used his voice to call for global protests to stop Israel’s genocide and criminal bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.

“It was Ahmed’s words in 2018 that inspired thousands of Gazans to march unarmed towards the fence besieging the Gaza ghetto, to demand their right to return to the lands from which they’d been expelled. The Israeli occupation forces killed Ahmed’s family because Israel feared the power of his words.”

On top of cutting off electricity to the Strip, voices of dissent are being extinguished by Israel’s brutal bombing campaign. Since October 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 24 Palestinian journalists. Family members of Gazan journalists have also been targeted. On October 25, an Israeli airstrike killed wife, son, and daughter of Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh.

Israeli attacks have massacred 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in Gaza.

In an audio recording to ISM days before the attack on his family home, Ahmed said: “This did not start on October 7. Unfortunately, the world has been blind to the suffering of the Palestinians for decades. Only when Israel lost people, did the outside world pay attention here.

“What’s happening now in Gaza is exactly the same thing Israel started in 1948. The Israeli government is not targeting Hamas. As all of can see on the TV and internet, the vast majority of the targets in Gaza are civilians, neighbourhoods, hospitals, churches and mosques. And it’s not only Gaza, in the West Bank there is the Smotrich plan to displace Palestinians. This confirms how it’s an Israeli strategy of genocide and completing the Nakba of 1948.”

Golan added: “Help us to spread Ahmed’s message, and put an end to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. We need you to raise your voices, so that Palestinians and those facing genocide, will not be silenced.”

 

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led non-violent direct-action movement, founded in 2001. Read more about ISM here.

Return Solidarity is a group of anti-Zionist Israelis working in solidarity with Palestinians in support of the Great March of Return. Learn more about their actions here.

A video of Ahmed Abu Artema calling on the international community to put an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza here.

” The man behind Gazan’s Great March of Return” – Al Jazeera documentary.

“The Gazan leading a popular uprising against Israel”, CNN.

 

 

Revenge attacks in Masafer Yatta

Mohammed Hathaleen, a disabled resident of Umm al-Khair who was shot at by Israeli soldiers next to the settlement fence of Carmel (pictured behind)

 

16 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Masafer Yatta 

In the week since Israel began its onslaught on Gaza, soldiers and settlers have bulldozed homes, carried out night raids and attacked Palestinians across the Masafer Yatta region.

Occupation forces have taken advantage of the state of emergency to escalate their violence and displacement of Palestinians in the southern region of the West Bank.

Olive trees have also been uprooted and rampaging settlers have opened fire on shepherds and villagers.

Villagers in Umm al-Khair have been documenting the growing number of attacks by settlers in Masafer Yatta. The community shared this information with ISM, which we are reporting here.

On October 7, settlers set up road blocks throughout Masafer Yatta, preventing villagers from accessing vital services and disrupting their daily lives.

On the same day, a group of settlers entered the village of Khalet Adabe, attacking one resident and breaking his arm.

On Tuesday, October 10, settlers in military uniforms entered Umm al Khair and proceeded to detain the young people of the village, checking their IDs and confiscating cell phones.

The settlers claimed that they had seen someone from the village walking ‘dangerously’ close to the fence surrounding the settlement of Carmel. This turned out to be Mohammed Hathaleen, a disabled man, who was left with severe brain damage after being brutally beaten by Carmel settlers 23 years ago.

“Mohammad currently lives in a state of unawareness of his surroundings,” his brother Tariq Hathaleen said. “In his condition, he is unable to perceive or react to danger, particularly when walking near the settlement fence.

“It’s difficult to fathom or even endure such an accusation, given that the Carmel settlement is located merely one metre from Umm al-Khair village.”

The settlers left with a warning that they would shoot anyone who comes in close proximity to the fence that separates the settlements from the village.

On Monday, October 16, the village of Umm al-Khair was terrorised once again when a military patrol stopped and soldiers pointed their guns at Mohammed Hathaleen. They are said to have put down their guns after villagers shouted at them to stop.

Carmel was built in 1981 on the doorstep of Umm al-Khair, a Bedouin village that has lived under constant threat of demolition for many years.

Also on Tuesday (October 10), settlers accompanied by the military demolished five Palestinian homes and two animal barns in the village of Simri.

On Wednesday, October 11, several villagers including Susyiah, at-Tuwani, Adirat, Umm Al-Khair, Al-Karmel and Ajawaiah came under gunfire by settlers.

A military patrol also opened fire on a shepherd near the village of at-Tuwani without warning. He was left unharmed but two of his sheep were shot and injured.

As previously reported by ISM, a settler shot at-Tuwani resident Zakarya Adra in the stomach on Friday, October 13.

Hathaleen continued: “What is happening is unlike anything before; nobody can predict what tomorrow may bring. There seem to be no openings for hope or a clear vision of tomorrow at this time.

“As the ordeal enters its second week, the people endure immense suffering, despite limited media coverage of these distressing events. It begs the question: How much longer must Palestinians endure before the world takes notice and acts?”

Palestinians hospitalised in settler attack near Ramallah 

Wadi Siq school has been regularly attacked by settlers from new outposts set up near the Bedouin village, east of Ramallah

 

 

15 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Wadi Siq

Armed settlers attacked Palestinians and international volunteers in the Bedouin village of Wadi Siq, east of Ramallah, on Thursday (October 12) hospitalising two people. 

Villagers were also beaten after the illegal settlers returned for a second attack later that day, ISMers were told. 

ISMers and Israeli activists in partnership with the Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) have been based in the village several nights a week at the request of residents due to increasing intimidation and violence by settlers following the setting up of outposts nearby in recent months. 

The villagers have experienced harassment, intimidation, assault and damage to, and theft of, their property on a regular basis. This usually happens at night, increasing the trauma inflicted on villagers. 

Wadi Siq, which consists of individual family encampments widely dispersed over rocky, hilly terrain, is served by the Al-Tahidi School. Providing education for 60 Bedouin children from the age of five to 14 years, the school is also on the receiving end of attacks by settlers.

The headteacher reported that settlers have rammed the school bus with children onboard and teachers’ cars as they leave work. Thefts of school property are common with the building’s generator being stolen last week. The head is also very worried about the impact of the attacks on the physical and mental wellbeing of the children.

Last week, Israeli activist Rabbi Arik Asherman was detained after he reported to the police that the entrance to the village had been blocked by the settlers. He was then arrested and, at the time of writing, is still being held.

Following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza last Saturday, settlers have ramped up their attacks even further. 

On Thursday at around 11am a group of armed settlers set upon volunteers based at the site. Two of the CRWC personnel (Abu Hassan and Mohamad Nada) were badly beaten, requiring hospitalisation.  

Settlers also circled the village in SUV to intimidate residents while a group of volunteers were threatened with guns when they approached two settlers who were standing on the track close to one of the encampments. 

After sunrise settlers broke into a large metal storage container and stole valuable items including a solar power unit and batteries and vandalised the other items being stored. This represented a serious loss for the family concerned. 

 

Israeli soldiers open fire on unarmed protesters in Tulkarm, killing four

14 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Tulkarm

By Diana Khwaelid

Four Palestinian protesters were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in Tulkarm, northern West Bank, on Friday, October 13.

Soldiers shot live rounds into crowds who had marched from the city to the apartheid wall to condemn Israel’s crimes in Gaza on the seventh day of its deadly bombing campaign of the besieged strip.

Medical crews and ambulances were also subjected to direct fire by occupation forces.

The protesters were unarmed and had come out onto the street in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Four died from their wounds. They were the martyr Islam Abu Zant, 23, Sameh Abu Tabikh, 25, Bakr Jamin, 39, and Qasem Hakam Qasem, 23, from Tulkarm refugee camp. Qasim did nothing but hold the flag of Palestine.

Paramedics were fired on as they tried to reach the injured: a crime in broad daylight.

Another Palestinian was shot by an Israeli sniper while riding his bicycle after crossing the checkpoint. The man had not been part of the protest but was simply travelling home from work.

The march started on Friday morning from the Gamal Abdel Nasser roundabout after Friday prayers before moving on through the city towards the Tasnawuz checkpoint near the Apartheid Wall. Protesters raised the Palestinian flag and phrases were repeated condemning the Israeli occupation for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people and in Gaza.

The protest was part of the ‘Friday of Anger’, which also saw demonstrations take place worldwide and in the occupied West Bank in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Earlier on the same day, the Israeli occupation forces targeted a civilian car crossing the Sanaoz checkpoint near the apartheid wall with live fire, injuring people inside.

The injured were transferred to Thabet Thabet government hospital in the city. Later the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the martyrdom of one of them, Raafat Mehanna, 20, from the suburb of Shuwaika, raising the death toll in Tulkarm on Friday to 5 martyrs in less than 8 hours.

A general strike and mourning were declared in the city of Tulkarm on Saturday in honour and respect for the souls of the martyrs.

Fifty Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the week since the start of the war on Gaza last Saturday.

Israeli Forces Kill Unarmed Teenager in Umsafa

Mohammed Fouad Atta Bayyed’ sister standing next to a banner of her late brother

On Friday 23rd July, Israeli occupation forces fatally shot Mohammed Fouad Atta Bayyed, 17, at a demonstration in Um Safa, a village north of Ramallah which, for the past few months, has been marked by increased settler violence and encroachment.

With at least hundreds of Dunams of land confiscated by the Israelis for the purpose of settlement construction, the village faces similar threats to many rural Palestinian communities. With the vast majority of the village located inside area C—under full Israeli civil and military control—both formal and informal incursions by occupation forces are common.

However, marked by the establishment of a new outpost in late June, the village has seen violence escalate. Settler violence and encroachment has increased, with houses and fields being burned, rocks thrown, and shooting: the outpost was only dismantled on July 14th, after demonstrations were met with violence, and ultimately the killing of Abdul Jawad Hamdan Saleh, 24.

It is in this context that Mohammed Fouad Atta Bayyed, just two weeks after Abdul Jawad Hamdan Saleh, was killed at a peaceful demonstration against settlement expansion. After Friday prayers, an orderly march was held that led out of town, before being stopped by the Israeli army and Border Police. Palestinian, international, and Israeli activists chanted ‘Settlers out’, and ‘Umsafa is Arab’. Soldiers, some in balaclavas, pointed their guns at demonstrators: as the crowd returned to the village, they started firing rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at demonstrators.

As the crowd dispersed, young Palestinians responded to this aggression with the throwing of rocks, and the creation of small road blocks. After the army called in reinforcements, the mood remained relatively calm: despite the rock throwing and tear gas, there were no physical confrontations between the army, police, and Palestinians, nor were there arrests.

This changed when the military began to use live fire against demonstrators and journalists, culminating with a sniper shooting Fouad Atta Bayyed in the back of the head at a distance of forty metres from an occupied house. A second Palestinian youth was shot in the stomach who, while in hospital, is out of critical condition. The situation was such that an ambulance did not take either of the boys to hospital, and they had to be driven by car.

Israeli occupation army stopping Palestinians during the Friday peaceful demonstration

After the shootings, and the pronouncement of Fouad Atta Bayyed’s death, the Israeli army stayed in Um Safa for several hours, blocking traffic in and out of town, and preventing the movement of individuals and mourners down the main road through the village.

The death of Fouad Atta Bayyed comes only 25 days after the death of his grandfather, who despite an autopsy not being performed for religious reasons, died in hospital after exposure to teargas, and three years after the death of his father. Born in Jalazone refugee camp, where he is buried next to his father, Mohammed, who worked on a farm and hoped to return to education, is survived by his sisters and mother, the latter of whom told ISM interviewers that she calls for “increased protective presence” in Palestinian communities, and for “the violence to end so that children can live in peace”, and cases such as Mohammed’s are not repeated.