Category: Reports - Page 117 - International Solidarity Movement

URGENT Update: Help Hamzeh start 2016 with his family!

30th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine

Hamzeh’s family has managed to raise 1880 shekels! This is over half of the amount needed so that Hamzeh can come home in seven days! We still need 564.5 dollars to pay his fine to release him.

Hamzeh was taken from his home in Amari refugee camp by Israeli forces on February 5th, 2015. He was forced to accept a plea bargain despite denying the charges leveled against him by Israeli military court. Now his family must pay the fine or he will remain in prison for another four months.

‘This fine goes beyond the financial means of my circle of family and friends,’ Hamze explains. ‘My financial situation is very difficult, and has worsened by the fact that I have been unemployed for the past 2 years. I was forced to leave school at grade 9 to begin working and help my family. My family still depends on me for financial support, and my imprisonment has exerted an enormous burden on them. I ask all people who understand me to support me and my family.’

If 50 people give 11.29 $ each, or if 100 people give 5.65 $, or 200 people give 2.83 $, Hamzeh will go free. If you’re broke, you can be creative: Pass your hat around friends and family, make a soup kitchen tonight and invite everyone to donate a little!

Please donate here!: https://palsolidarity.org/donate/

Also, please send us an email to palreports@gmail.com with “Free Hamzeh” in the subject line to let us know your donation is for Hamzeh, or if you want information about other ways to donate.

Any donation is greatly appreciated; If we all put our efforts together we can fulfill Hamzeh’s desire and right to freedom!
Please share his story with your friends and family, in your social media and with all the people who care.

Further land grabbing in Jordan Valley

31st December 2015| International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Jordan Valley, Occupied Palestine
During the past 6 months, the Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign has registered further land grabbing in Fasayal village in the Jordan Valley. The land, which originally belonged to a Palestinian owner, was invaded 6 months ago by Israeli authorities accompanied by settlers from nearby illegal Israeli settlements and bulldozers. Locals say that they were seen working on the land in order to level the surface of the soil to prepare it for planting trees. Locals reported that on the 19th of December Israeli authorities with Israeli settlers were digging holes for trees; so far, 400-500 date trees have already been illegally planted on the ground. The land is located between two illegal Israeli settlements, Yafit and Masu’a, and furthermore borders with route 90, which has resulted in the denial of access for many Palestinian land owners to their land because of “security reasons.”

Israeli bulldozers seen preparing the Palestinian owned land in Fasayal, Jordan Valley. — Israeli bulldozers seen preparing the Palestinian-owned land in Fasayal, Jordan Valley. (Photo credit: Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign)

As 87% of the Jordan Valley is declared area C and an additional 7%, which is formally part of area B, is declared a nature reserve, most of the Jordan Valley is off limits for the Palestinian people. Furthermore, 50% of the area is controlled by the illegal Israeli settlements, and 45% is declared military bases, “closed military zones,” “nature reserves,” and “firing zones,” denying access for Palestinians and facilitating the demolitions of Bedouin tents, houses, wells etc. In area C obtaining permits to build schools, hospitals, water networks, roads or other basic service infrastructure is practically impossible, which violates the basic needs and human rights of the residing Palestinian population. Israeli forces destroy infrastructure and buildings built without a permit.

By oppressing the people in the Jordan Valley in this manner, Israeli occupation forces have succeeded in decreasing the Palestinian population from 320,000 in 1967 to approximately 55,000 people. In the same four decades, 37 illegal Israeli settlements have been established and are now housing 10,00 settlers, who enjoy a 75% discount on their water bills and cheap stolen land. In contrast, Palestinians suffer from extreme lack of access to water by having their water tanks confiscated and their wells demolished. Furthermore, the Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinians from digging new wells or reallocating old wells, forcing Palestinians to have wells only 150 meters deep where the water is either salty or nonexistent due to the construction of Jewish-only wells nearby. Israelis are allowed to dig 400-500 meter wells, sometimes hitting salt beds causing the water in the Palestinian wells to be salty.

Israeli forces using skunk-water as a form of collective punishment

30th December, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil team | Al Khalil, occupied Palestine

On 30^th December 2015, Israeli forces showered the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) in tear gas and shot skunk water at family homes and a kindergarten.

When students at the schools in the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood were leaving school after finishing their exams, Israeli forces started throwing stun grenades from the checkpoint the students must cross on their way home from school. They advanced towards the schools firing several rounds of tear gas at the students. One school boy was randomly grabbed off the street by the border police and taken first to the checkpoint and then to the police station. The 13-year old student is accused of throwing stones. Whether he was released or not is unknown at this moment.

13-year old school-boy arrested by Israeli forces — 13-year old schoolboy arrested by Israeli forces

Israeli forces then fired endless rounds of tear gas towards the group of students still in the street as well as directly into the neighbourhood. Schoolchildren were suffocating on the tear gas, running away trying to hide from the clouds of gas making their eyes and throats burn and making it almost impossible to breathe.

Once the streets were empty, Israeli forces drove the ‘skunk’ truck into the neighbourhood, spraying the foul-smelling liquid aimed from large trucks all over the streets. At the time they sprayed the skunk water, the neighbourhood was already deserted, as clouds of tear gas were still lingering in the streets. Right after, the skunk truck directly targeted a kindergarten and several windows of family homes. This is clearly a collective punishment on the whole neighbourhood, as the foul-smelling skunk water – intended for ‘riot control’ purposes – was arbitrarily used on residents living in the area. Incidents like this, in the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood, are not a rare occurrence, with Israeli forces often firing tear gas directly at or even into family homes and soaking the streets in skunk water.

Watch a video of the skunk truck targeting residents of the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood.

Israeli forces continue slaughtering Gazan protesters

30th December 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza strip, occupied Palestine

Last Friday, 25th of December another youth, 22-year-old Hani Wahdan, was killed in Shijaia in Gaza. One week before, 20-year-old Mohamed El Agha was killed in El Faraheen in Gaza.

Since the beginning of October Israeli snipers have killed unarmed demonstrators along Gaza’s fence almost every week, and injured hundreds with live fire.

Mohamed Abu Taima, 22 years old, is one of those injured by the Israeli snipers. He was shot in the leg minutes before the killing of Mohamed El Agha took place in the same area.

In the European Hospital of Khan Younees, 19-year-old Abdel Kareem Kalwaji lies in a bed beside Mohamed’s. He was shot a week before Mohamed; unfortunately the explosive dum-dum bullets used by the occupation completely destroyed both bones in one of his legs and one bone in the other leg. He has already undergone two surgeries and doctors say that he’ll need a lot of rehabilitation in order to move around by himself again.

When questioned regarding their reasons to demonstrate despite the high risk of getting shot, both answered that they do it for the liberation of Al Quds and Al Aqsa Mosque and in support of their brothers and sisters in the West Bank.

Yet another day of body searches and intimidation in Hebron

21st December, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil team | Al Khalil, occupied Palestine

Children and teachers of Ziad Jaber elementary school in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) are daily subjected to body searches and intimidation by armed Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, as they walk to school.

International ISM activists monitored a checkpoint right in front of the school two times today: during the morning when children go to it and during the afternoon, when they go back home.

During the morning, when teachers and students went to school, as well as during the afternoon when they left school after the exams, international observers monitored:

20 male adults body searched
12 male teachers body searched
11 females bag searched
34 boys body searched
~150 people passed throught the checkpoint

Some boys turned around because they did not want to be humiliated due to the body search, avoiding the street they were walking through.