11th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
This morning, for four hours from 9am to 1pm, a group of Israeli Settlers were training on the rooftop of the illegal settlement building, Yona Menachem Rennert Beit Midrash, on Shuhada street. An instructor taught them how to hold a gun properly and how to adopt the best body position for shooting correctly. The young settlers were all carrying guns and shouted continuously during the exercises, disrupting the children and the teachers of Qurtuba school during their lessons, and also the neighborhood life, like for the Palestinian farmers who were picking olives on their land, near the school.
This kind of settler training, which takes place several times a week in the illegal settlements of Al-Khalil, are part of the Israeli settlement strategy. This is one example of how they are indoctrinating their youth, teaching them to hate Palestinians, and encouraging attacks against them.
Israeli law allows any Israeli who has a firearms license to carry a gun in the street. While the Palestinians have to endure the daily humiliation of being searched at each checkpoint as well as total military control of their daily life in case they might be carrying a knife,
the Israeli government has declared that the restrictions around obtaining firearms licenses will be reduced for the Israeli security forces and Settlers alike. Last Thursday it was the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat who called on all Israelis with firearms licenses to keep their weapons permanently with them, to protect themselves from attacks by Palestinians.
11th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil (Hebron) Team | Khalil (Hebron), occupied Palestine
Since October 1st from Gaza to the OPT, casualties are rising almost daily as are injuries, arrests, raids and the outrageous closure of the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron along with segregated Shuhada Street by military order.
A crisis within a crisis is slowly devouring the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Israeli military controlled Area C Hebron. In an urgent alert released just days ago by the International Solidarity Movement, with teams on the ground in both the Gaza strip as well as in the West Bank;
“The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) urges the international community to take immediate and urgent action against the Israeli occupation forces’ recent declaration of the Tel Rumeida neighborhood and Shuhada Street in downtown Hebron as a closed ‘Closed Military
On November 1st, the occupation forces instructed all Palestinian residents to ‘register’. Since November 3rd, all non-residents, including human rights workers, doctors, teachers, plumbers, and others are barred from entry.
Army presence at school runs
This declaration comes amidst a month long escalation claiming the lives of over 70 Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza – one third of them in Hebron. Many of the extrajudicial killings in Hebron are occurring in the areas now evacuated of all internationals who had been monitoring and reporting what they witness.”
The International Solidarity Movement’s flat, housing international human rights monitors has since been evicted of residents under threat of arrest. It is incumbent upon the international community to get involved in such a way that empowers paths to immediate solutions and allows for the opening of downtown Hebron as well as the return of human rights activists into the area who have endured violent attacks from ideological extremist Israeli settlers, including enemy of the state style wanted posters picturing internationals and inciting harassment, violence or worse against them.
Palestinians suffocating under the violent pyrotechnic confluence of Israeli settlers/soldiers in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood are being forced to register, facing Israeli extremist violence unabated and are undergoing the isolating vaccumization of their community which is not only under occupation but now under closed military zone orders by Israeli forces.
Youth detained by Israeli army
The mayhem continues and its scenes are as dramatic as they are unbelievable. Hospitals are being raided after Israeli soldiers disguised as injured Palestinians file in, storm the medical facility and arrest those with injuries suspected to have happened during clashes and demanding Palestinians private medical files.
Palestinian medics as well as journalists have consistently been targets of the Israeli military monster and have endured violently imposed injuries including the pepper spraying of a journalistby occupation forces and the destruction and damaging of emergency medical vehicles which prompted the declaration of a state of emergency in early October when IOF became habituated to attacking Palestinian emergency medical personnel.
But Palestine is fighting back.
Injured in the head by rubber coated steel bullet
Solidarity organization Stop the Wall has an interactive map detailing current acts of resistance, mobilizations and demonstrations in reaction to the wave of violence sweeping across the West Bank and Gaza.
The escalation has featured snapshots of breathtaking moments of terrorism acted out with precision by occupation soldiers acting with a brazen impunity instilled in them by either deadly silence or deadlier financial support from global governance which collectively looks on while Palestinians are violently felled on a routine basis.
“Ramadan Thawabteh, eight months old, died from asphyxiation today after inhaling tear gas, fired by the Israeli army, that entered the house of his family,” a ministry spokesman said back on October 30th; a violent crescendo to a month of the violent bloodletting of dozens of Palestinians, mostly youth. The infant’s death came just days after an ominous threat was levied via loudspeaker throughout the quiet streets of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem by Israeli occupation soldiers.
In transcripts from the statement, “People of Aida Refugee camp we are the occupation army. You throw stones and we will hit you with gas until you all die. The children, the youth, the old people, you will all die, we won’t leave any of you alive. And we have arrested one of you, he is with us now. We took him from his home and we will slaughter and kill him while you are watch if you keep throwing stones. Go home or we will gas you until you die. Your families, your children, everyone we will kill you. Listen to me, all of you go home, it’s better for you. “
Youth at a demonstration
Again circumventing international humanitarian law, occupation forces have taken over the private residential home of the Abu Rajab family in Hebron, leaving them with a military order declaring part of their home a ‘closed military zone’ for an unspecified period of time. This was preceded by the storming of a Palestinian radio station in Hebron, destruction of equipment and the issuance of a military order to halt broadcasting.
The isolating of a people already under attack. In a Speak Out Loud piece, a piece which is actually aimed at breaking down in digestible pieces different psychological warfares utilized in domestic abuse situations. They expose tactical stratagems abusers use to coercively control a population of one or several- here Israel has managed to expand these stratagems to an entire population; a population they are working tirelessly at making invisible to the global community.
Isolation is a pivotal tactic used in order to weaken their victims, prevent them from hearing others’ perspectives and to bring them into line with their own beliefs and requirements.
The machine rages and it is imperative for criminal acts perpetrated under the cloak of night, in Palestine’s case- a night eternal, to be exposed.
The ISM has set forth demands in reaction to the closures of both Shuhada Street as well as the Tel Rumeida neighborhood. They call for:
– An immediate end to the ‘Closed Military Zone’ order on Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street
– Cessation of threats and harassment of residents and foreign human rights activists
– Removal of restrictions on movement throughout downtown Hebron
– Removal of all illegal Israeli settlers from Hebron
We call on civil society worldwide to support the above demands and do all they can to pressure the Israeli government to cease its severe human rights abuses against the Palestinian people, includin g joining the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Organise a protest or visually exciting, creative action in solidarity with Palestinian popular struggle.
Take steps to ensure your actions are covered in the media and shared through social media. Please use the #SolidarityWaveBDS hashtag.
Ensure that calls for a comprehensive military embargo is a key demand of all protests.
Pressure parliaments to impose a military embargo on Israel, particularly if they have or are in the process of developing military relations with Israel.
Campaign against Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems.
Support and launch boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit companies, such as G4S and HP that are most blatantly complicit in Israel’s infrastructure of oppression.
Pass effective and strategic, not just symbolic, BDS resolutions in unions, academic associations, student governments and social movements that can lead to concrete measures, and enhance the cultural boycott of Israel.
We have been given a microphone to cry from. A path to charge down. A goal to speed towards. For those trudging with steps made heavy by occupation and self-appointed, global government approved religious entitlement, we cannot begin soon enough.
November 10th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwarra Team | Ramallah, Occupied Palestine
In the early morning of November 2nd 2015, Ahmad Nasser was kidnapped by Israeli forces from his home near Ramallah. He was accused of attempting to kill soldiers by throwing stones and molotov cocktails, and was released without charge 15 hours later. He was repeatedly assaulted during his arrest and suffered broken ribs and further injuries. It is Ahmad’s belief that the arrest was directly related to his work as a medic and humanitarian activist at demonstrations. Just 60 hours before his arrest he was acting as a medic in a private ambulance service, administering medical aid to demonstrators injured at a Friday clash in Beit El. Along with journalists and other medics, he was directly targeted in his work on the day and prevented from tending to a demonstrator run over by an army jeep. Israeli forces threw a sound grenade at the group, teargassed the ambulances and then proceeded to viciously pepperspray press and medics. The media surrounding this, coupled with his work in previous weeks tending to those shot with live ammunition in clashes near Ramallah, are likely reasons he was chosen for arrest as another victim of the recent increase in intimidation tactics being used against Palestinians, especially young men. As he states: “they try to accuse me of some charges but they cannot – if they had some real evidence that I threw stones they would never release me, but they didn’t – they just want to punish me for my work.” This is his account of his arrest and assault: just one story in the daily narrative of the occupation.
Israeli forces attacking journalists and medics (Ahmad) at clashes near Beit El Oct 30 – Photo credit Fadi ArouriAhmad in his work as a medic at demonstrations near Ramallah in October. Blood is from a man wounded in the chest with live ammunition shot by Israeli forces.
On the night of the 2nd of November I got home around 2 in the morning. Five minutes later I heard the Israeli army jeeps stopped outside my house and I took a look from my window to see what was going on. I didn’t know they were looking for me, and I saw the soldiers go to my neighbor’s house and start to knock on the door. When someone answered they questioned him and asked about who is living in the building. The neighbor, an old man, said that he didn’t know, so they started to beat him – they struck him with the end of the gun and they hit him and they took him with them to check the other houses and they entered his house with his family inside.
Then they knocked on my door and I opened it for them and I saw a lot of soldiers, about 60, standing there with their guns and ready to shoot. I saw the hatred and anger in their eyes and one of them asked me “who are you?” so I told him my name is Ahmad so he asked me “Ahmad what?” so I said “Ahmad Nasser.” He checked his phone and asked me for my I.D. but I didn’t have it at the time so I gave him the number of my I.D. He told me to stand on the side outside our front door, and to take my jacket off and give it to my mother. My mother and my brother, who was recently released from prison, were both in the room. My mother was very scared – you know, she is a mother. They kicked my kitten because she was playing around them, and they started to check me and he asked me again about my I.D. number to confirm it.
After that they went through my house and started to look and search for something and the soldiers outside were asking me if I have guns so I told them I do not. One of them asked me to take my shoes off and he checked it and after that asked me to put them on again. He told me to face the wall again and put the zip-tie hand-cuffs on my hands, behind my back. I told him that I have a problem in my right hand from an old injury and he said okay, but he tightened it more. They blindfolded me and asked me to sit on the stairs, with my arms back behind me, and after a few minutes they came out off my house with some personal things they had taken, and they told my family not to move or they will shoot them. They told me to walk and one of the soldiers grabbed me in a bad way and told me “MOVE!” and I told him that there is stairs but he pushed me down the stairs so that I fell onto my knee and slid down.
He started to say bad things about me and my family and started to beat me up until we arrived to the jeep and he shoved me into the edge of the front door. After that they pushed me against the side of the jeep and then against the back door and another soldier told him that there is no space in that car, so he took me to another jeep and hit me on the back door and start to punch me and hit me with something from metal, I think the end of the gun. This is when they broke my ribs. There were many soldiers around. I heard one shout at my brother “GO! Or I will shoot you!” because he was trying to film from inside.
I was on my knees in front of the back step and a soldier put all his weight on me and after that he tightened the zip-tie (hand-cuffs) again but this time more strong. He told me to sit but I couldn’t do that because I don’t see a thing so they just pushed me inside the jeep and after a few seconds grabbed me out again so that the soldiers can sit and pushed me again inside the jeep on the ground. I was in a bad position until we arrived to the Ofer military base near to that area. After that he opened the door and grabbed me again and one of them helped me to stand and he was holding me in a bad way and another one came to me and he started to ask me if I throw stones at the Israeli soldiers. I said no and he told me that I am lying and said bad things to me and hit me in my stomach again and pushed me until we get to the arrest truck and he told me there is steps. I got into the truck and a female soldier asked me to sit and to shut up so I told them that they should take the hand-cuffs off, because they were so tight that my hands were swollen, but they didn’t listen to me.
When we arrived to the clinic to check me one of the soldiers was fighting with the zip-tie trying to take it off and that hurt me more but in the end he took it and the doctor checked me. They took the blindfold off inside the closed room and asked me questions, like if I am sick, if I am taking medication, if I have had any surgery, if I have any problems with my health. He checked where I was sore but said “you are fine.” They put the blindfold back on me and they took me out and I was waiting for 20 minutes until some soldiers came and took me to the truck again. I was waiting in the truck for a few minutes and they brought another prisoner from my town. I knew he was there because I heard them say “watch your head” but it hit against the truck, and I knew him from his voice. When we tried to talk to each other the soldiers shouted at us to shut up and they start to move and they took us somewhere, we didn’t know where. After a while driving they stopped and we got out and they told us to sit and it was so cold and windy, and we just had to sit out like that for a few hours.
Medical certificate which Ahmad initiated after he was released, when Israeli forces medic had said he was “fine” directly after beating. Report reads: “The patient came to the clinic 2/11/15; He was suffering from – Pain on the left side of his chest and back, caused by beating by the Israeli occupation forces. Patient has been X-rayed and broken ribs found on the left side, number 8 and 9. He has been administered treatment and this report on request.”
When I was talking to the other prisoner, a female soldier came and told us to shut up and said we couldn’t talk. I asked why and she said “I am treating you as a human being, just stop talking.” So I told her “it’s boring for us! So I will talk to him…and if you are treating me like a human being, for the first place I shouldn’t be here, and for seconds, you should bring me a jacket and a blanket and water and we should be sitting in a warm room, not outside.” So she didn’t know what to say and she said, “just stop talking,” and she left. After about one hour, they brought me a jacket and a blanket and they left. After about 3 hours, another soldier came and took the blankets from us. A few hours later again, around 7am, he came again with the blanket, put it on us, and he left. In the morning, around 8.30, we told the soldier who was guarding the gate that we wanted to go to the toilet, but he didn’t listen to us, and after we hassled him for a few minutes, he went to check whether there was another soldier to take us. He came back and said there is no-one to take you, so you can’t go. So, we kept annoying him for one hour, and after that, a female soldier came and she said “the toilet is closed, so there is no toilet” and she took me to a spot, behind the jeep. She would not give us any privacy. After that, they put us both on chairs and they left again for about half an hour.
Another jeep came with three soldiers, they put us in the jeep, and they took us to the Ofer military prison again. We stayed there for half an hour, and then they took us to Sha’ar Binyamin [illegal settlement] police station. They put us in a room with another 2 prisoners and we stayed there for a while, sitting on the ground until the investigator (police) came and took us to interrogate us. It was only at this point that the blindfold and handcuffs were taken off…all the time before that, I was blind. He started to ask me questions. He told me “we suspect you – you were throwing stones and molotovs, and you tried to kill soldiers with stones. What do you say about that?” So, I said “about what exactly?” He said “about what I told you” I told him “you are imagining that….nothing like this could happen” And he said “OK but we have evidence.” I asked him “who told you that?” He said “just, we have evidence” so I demanded that they show it to me. They showed me a photo of another guy, someone I don’t know. I told him “this one is not me and I deny what you are saying and I want to talk to my lawyer,” so he called my lawyer. This was the first time I had been allowed to contact my lawyer, so many hours after I was arrested.
I talked to my lawyer for a while and after that he told me “stop talking and give me the phone.” He started to ask me if I have ever thrown stones or molotovs, and do I know people who throw stones or molotovs and if I join demonstrations against the soldiers or if I am thinking to join a demonstration. So, I told him “I don’t join demonstrations, and I would not do that, because when I go to a demonstration I go as a medic and work as a humanitarian mission.” And they said “but you still don’t want to tell me if you know anything.” So I told him, “I don’t know anything, and I deny everything that you have, and your evidence is fake.” So he decided to take my DNA and fingerprints and they also took photos of me. Another investigator, he asked to see my hands, so I showed them to him and he said “these hands are not throwing stones…these hands are throwing molotovs.” I started to laugh and told him “you are dreaming” and he said “OK, what is your name” so I gave him my name and he told me “we have been looking for you for a long time.” I said “really? I am in Ramallah…and you are 10 minutes away, and you could take me any time..so don’t make fun of me.” He said “OK, go down” and when I was about to go into the elevator, he showed me his hand, with 4 fingers, and he asked me “how much is it?” So I told him “it’s four.” He said “no, it is five.” I told him, “no it’s four.” He flipped his hand around, and said “no, like this it’s 4,” he flipped his hand again, “and like this [with a bent thumb on the palm side], its five.” I told him “if it’s four or five it’s your problem, I see four.” They told me “OK, just go.”
So, the other policeman took me to the room where I was sitting with the soldiers and the other 3 prisoners and they kept us there for about 2 hours. It must have been about 3pm by then. Three policeman came, and they said “these 2 guys [pointing at the others, from Jalazon camp] – to Ofer.” And me and the other guy, “to the custody room.” We stayed there around one hour before the policeman came and opened the door for us. He said “we have nothing against you. So, you can leave. And, do you know how to go out from here [the police station]?” I told him yes, but when I got to the main door I said to him “you didn’t charge us, but your release us inside a settlement, and we might get killed here” He said “no, you are fine, just leave,” so we left. They try to accuse me of some charges but they cannot – if they had some real evidence that I threw stones they would never release me, but they didn’t – they just want to punish me for my work. And I am free now. Thanks for everyone who tried to help me, in any way. I appreciate it.
***
Ahmad’s room having been raided and items taken by Israeli forces
The Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) estimates that approximately 1,350 night raids are occurring annually in the West Bank, with that number having escalated in the tensions of recent months. Most of these raid occur between 2:00 and 4:00am “and commence with aggressive banging on the front door. In some cases the door is simply kicked in or blown off its hinges.” While night raids are used extensively as an arrest tactic, the WCLAC explains that in fact in the majority of cases no arrests are made, and it is moreover a “strategy of mass initimidation of the Palestinian civilian population.” According to the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, in October alone, Israeli occupation forces arrested 1,195 Palestinians including 177 children, 16 females and 23 after they were injured. Among those arrested, 128 were placed under administrative detention, 31 of whom were arrested for alleged “incitement” including through social media, 3 of whom were children from Jerusalem. This brought the total number of Palestinian political prisoners to 6,700 by the end of October. They state that the “Israeli occupation authorities have publicly declared that these mass arrests as well as other measures taken against Palestinians in the occupied territory are aimed at suppressing the recent uprising, clearly indicating that the mass arrests are a form of collective punishment and political oppression aimed at forcing Palestinians to submission.”
According to another source, The Prisoners’ Affairs Authority affiliated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) documented 800 cases in which Palestinian minors were arrested during the past months, mostly in Jerusalem. This equates to the average number of Palestinian children’s arrests by Israeli forces annually.
9th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On November 7th 2015, the Abu Rajab family in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) received a military order by the Israeli forces declaring most of their house of being under military control for an indefinite time. The house is right on the corner of the Queitun checkpoint and has previously been targeted by Israeli forces.
Abu Rajab house
Since 2000, the Israeli military has occupied the roof of the building of the Abu Rajab family. On Thursday evening, the 5th of November 2015, the Israeli forces broke into the house and raided the family’s home, barricaded the front door, broke the windows and doors and left the family living next door startled without any further information. The home was empty the night the Israeli army broke in as the resident was visiting a relative. The following night, Friday the 6th of November 2015, around 12 am, around 70 soldiers and 21 military jeeps gathered around the house of Abu Rajab family. Shortly after that the Israeli forces arrived at the house questioning the family about their whereabouts. Around 6.30am, the residents of the Abu Rajab family were forcefully woken up by the Israeli army who presented them with a military order that declared part of their house a ‘closed military zone’ for an unspecified time. They were told that they would receive a new order soon, leaving them completely in the dark about what would happen to their house in the future and unable to enter their own home until the military order will be revoked.
Barricaded entrance to the house
In 2011, the Israeli forces took over the second and third floor of Abu Rajab’s house in addition to the roof. Although the family has tried to take the case to court, they have been unsuccessful so far in regaining the parts of their home that have been taken by Israeli forces. According to international humanitarian law, it is illegal to take over private residential areas for military purposes. Nevertheless, Israeli forces have been continuously raiding homes and restricting Palestinian access to several parts of al-Khalil (Hebron) with complete austerity.
Abu Rajab house after being ransacked by Israeli forces
One of the members of the family has reported that many houses in the Abu Al-Rish neighbourhood have been raided during the past week and military presence has been increasing rapidly in the area. Just last week, one of the family members was beaten up by Israeli settlers who entered their house through the garden from a house next to the Abu Rajab compound, which is under control of the Israeli army. Until now, the family, like many others, are left completely in the dark about whether they will be able to take back what is rightfully theirs and live in constant fear of escalating violence and illegal confiscation of their lands.
November 8th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine
Thursday evening November the 5th, Egyptian Forces opened fired on 18-year old Faris Meqdad and his younger brother while fishing in Palestinian waters. The brothers were in a small fishing vessel within the 3 nautical mile limit of the Gazan coast when Faris was hit in the abdomen and his brother injured. Faris died after being brought to the hospital.
Family mourn the passing of Faris Meqdad, 18
Maha Hussaini, spokesperson for the Gaza branch of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EMHRM), told Al Jazeera on Friday: “Meqdad wasn’t in Egyptian waters, he was in Palestinian waters and was shot by the Egyptians. He was completely unarmed and posed no threat to the Egyptian forces”.
The boys were in fact within the current 3 nautical mile limit (5,6 km) that during the past two decades has been reduced from 20 nautical miles (37 km). The reduced limit is an element of the naval blockade on Gaza that prevents Gazan fishermen from accessing “quality” fish. Higher value fish such as tuna are not present within the 3nm limit and fishing is desolate concerning the size of fish.
Faris Meqdad is yet another victim of the stranglehold grip on Gaza. Another son has been lost, and the world watches on.
