21 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Umm Safa
Maher Sabah, a village leader, holding an olive tree during the day of work in Umm Safa. Credit: ISM.
On January 20, ISM volunteers joined with Israeli activists to work alongside villagers of Umm Safa, a village 30km north of Ramallah, planting olive trees and vines on part of the 200 dunums (50 acres) of the village’s communal land. Replacing some of the many olive trees destroyed by settlers is both an economic necessity and an act of resistance, clearly saying this is our land and we intend to stay on it.
As the day progressed and we came in view of the illegal settlement, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) turned up to disrupt this challenge to the Zionist settler colonial project. Immediately, they started pushing people around, shouting and pointing their weapons, demanding everyone leave the area, declaring it a “Closed Military Zone”. They seized gardening tools, uprooted some of the newly planted trees and seized mobile phones when they could.
After another jeep full of soldiers arrived, it became apparent they were going to escalate their violence. As we moved back, volleys of tear gas were fired at us whilst a military drone hovered overhead collecting intelligence (fortunately it did not eject a cloud of tear gas as we have experienced at previous confrontations). To avoid more serious violence from the IOF (like use of live ammunition) and/or arrests, the village leaders decided to stop the work and return to the village.
Umm Safa is one of the many Palestinian communities at the sharp end of ethnic cleansing. It is subject to regular violent attacks by armed illegal settlers – backed up by the IOF- from the nearby settlement of Ateret and its outposts.
The villagers’ land is being stolen from them in front of their eyes. Only one week ago, 14 dunums (around 3.5 acres) of land cultivated with olive trees was seized and cleared by settlers with IOF in tow, with the apparent intention of establishing a new outpost. Further pressure has been put on the community since 7th October, with the Israeli army blocking the village’s only access road to the main road network with a locked gate and impassable earth mounds.
Despite the premature end to the day, the community had made a clear statement of resistance. Most of the olive trees had come through the confrontation unscathed, the tools and phones seized were left behind by the IOF, but, most importantly , the community’s determination and right to stay on their land had been unambiguously asserted.
Existence is resistance.
A video of the disruption caused by Israeli army can be found here.
16 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Masafer Yatta
Muhammed being led away by IOF soldiers. Credit: ISM.
For the villagers of Khallet Al Dabaa, in Masafer Yatta, shepherding is a traditional way of life. One which they have followed on their traditional lands in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills since Ottoman times. For the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) however, it is apparently an existential threat and one which needs to be dealt with severely.
Yesterday afternoon (Monday 15th January), Khallet resident Muhammed Debabse was with his flock on a hillside on village lands. It appears that, in response to illegal settlers from a nearby hilltop outpost taking exception to this, the IOF soldiers arrived soon after. They summarily detained Muhammed and took him away. His whereabouts were not known until the lawyer engaged by the family was able to establish that he had been taken to Kharyat Al Arba police station near Al Khalil (Hebron).
Anxious hours passed for his family until, at around 8pm, they received notification from the lawyer that Muhammed would be released but only on payment of a 1,000 NIS (£250) fine, a significant sum of money for the family. The fine being paid, Muhammed eventually returned home late in the evening, ten hours or so after being detained.
So what was his “crime”? The official letter (written in Hebrew only) which the police gave him on release did not specify any offence and only made reference to a “financial penalty”. In the eyes of the occupation however, any expression of ownership of the land by the Palestinians is an act of resistance and that’s the “crime” which Muhammed, along with his fellow villagers are guilty of.
Since the genocidal attack on Gaza began, the Israeli government has used it as an excuse to increase crimes in the West Bank and forcible expulsion of Palestinian from their ancestral land. Masafer Yatta has been no exception.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) has been approached by the “Movement to Save the Prisoners” with an urgent request to highlight the current crisis faced by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Under the directive of the Kahanist illegal settler Itamar Ben Gvir, the Israeli Minister of Internal Security, Israeli prisons and detention centers holding Palestinian prisoners have been transformed into torture centers. In the last few months, seven Palestinian prisoners have been murdered by their jailers through torture and neglect.
Family members of the prisoners explain: “These crimes are continuing in light of Arab and international silence that gave the green light for the Israeli occupation to commit crime after crime against our prisoners. Moreover, these crimes occur with no punishments due to the absence of international accountability to those who ordered and committed them.”
Families of prisoners demonstrating in Ramallah. Credit: ISM.
Palestinian prisoners held by Israel have experienced brutal beatings, strip searches, threats of sexual assaults, denial of freedom to worship, pray and recite the Qur’an, deprivation of medical care, overcrowding, the reduction of already poor nutrition meals, starvation, the cutting of water and electricity, denial of warm clothes, and the deprivation of visits from family members, legal representatives, and humanitarian groups. Gaza prisoners face all these in addition to continuous torture where other prisoners hear their heart breaking screaming day and night. Some prisoners are missing and it is unknown if they are even still alive.
Family members of prisoners carry a banner that says. “The Movement to Save the Prisoners: Our prisoners are in danger. Let us be a light in their darkness!”
“While the world focuses on 136 Israelis held in Gaza they ignore 7,000 Palestinians held and abused by Israel. This discrimination is a grave injustice.” The ISM is passing the call of the families to you: “For all the free people, be the light of the prisoners’ darkness and their loud voice in all forums, they are addressing your consciences from the borders and edges of death.”
12 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | The Hague, Netherlands
One day after a chilling presentation by South Africa’s legal team, constructing a sweeping case against Israel for genocidal intent and acts amounting to genocide of the Palestinian population in Gaza, Israel took its place before the 15 judge panel to try and convince the world that 3 months of mechanized, relentless mass-killing should escape the designation. Despite a trove of documentary evidence to the latter, Israel contended before the court that it is not committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel’s legal team in the International Court of Justice. Photo credit: The Independent
The “right to self-defence” was the main argument that the Israeli legal team, lead by British lawyer Malcolm Shaw KC, brought forward at the second and final day of the preliminary hearings at the International Court of Justice for the case brought by South Africa while denying that Israel is carrying out a genocide in the brutal attack on Gaza.
Opening statements in today’s hearing were made by Co-Agent of Israel, Tal Becker who expressed what he termed as Israel’s ‘singularity’ in understanding the birth of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide for which the state is evidenced to be committing.
Becker’s claim that Israel is “defending itself in a war it did not start” showed yet again the blatant denial of a 75-year history of land grab, abuses, violation of human rights, illegal occupation, as well as an illegal 16 year blockade on Gaza. “Israel is in a war of defense against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.”
The duality of Becker’s statements on what he states to be the “outrageous” nature of the use of the word genocide to explain Israel’s actions in Gaza stood out sorely in juxtaposition to Professor Malcom Shaw who next assumed the floor to dismiss statements of genocidal intent distributed from the highest political offices in Israel, offices which are directing military operations on the ground in Gaza.
From Becker’s court address, “We live at a time when words are cheap. In an age of social media and identity politics, the temptation to reach for the most outrageous term, to vilify and demonize, has become for many irresistible. But if there is a place where words should still matter, where truth should still matter, it is surely a court of law.” Indeed. The point was made the day prior when South Africa legal team lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi stood before the International Court of Justice presenting testimony related to Israel’s genocidal intent expressed by Israeli authorities of the highest order.
Ngcukaitobi platformed the frequent and routine nature of genocidal discourse spoken explicitly and how it translates into real-world violence on the ground by occupation foot soldiers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaaz Herzog and the Israeli Minister of Defense’s explicit exterminationist rhetoric were highlighted to support the case for intent. Yet, that incontrovertible evidence was dismissed in court today by Professor Shaw as not legally significant. “Sometimes statements are made which are nothing more than a part of the recent war-time rhetoric intending to put the blame and shame on the other side.” Shaw further stated that they were “not to be ascribed an importance…nor of legal significance.” To counter, using Tal Becker’s words, “if there is a place where words should still matter… it is surely a court of law.”
Galit Raguan addressed the panel on Israel’s behalf to argue the “facts on the ground.” Most shocking of all was her claim that “hospitals have not been bombed” when, in fact, Israel struck several hospitals including the Indonesian Hospital, the International Eye Care Centre, the Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital among others.
With three quarters of Gaza’s hospitals profoundly destroyed to the point of relegation to non-functional status, Raguan stated that while “Hospitals have not been bombed; rather, the IDF sends soldiers to search and dismantle military infrastructure, reducing damage and disruption.” If the reduction of damage and disruption are what Israel’s military in Gaza were seeking to achieve, they have failed beyond measure. We have seen successful Israeli military surgical operations unfold which spared civilian life in the very recent past during its breaking of another international law when it assassinated Hamas Deputy Leader Saleh al-Arouri in a residential structure in Beirut, Lebanon. One imagines if Hamas fighters were positioned in a hospital in Israel, operations would be similarly surgical in nature.
In an attempt to justify the atrocities committed, Galit Raguan claimed that “urban warfare will always result in tragic deaths, harm and damage,” saying that these are the “desired outcomes of Hamas.” While Raguan explained away three months of mass civilian murder, ascribing the most morally sound intentions and actions on occupation forces, her only roadblock to successfully making the case were the countless occupation foot soldiers who have filmed themselvescommitting atrocities on deceased Palestinian bodies, blowing up entire residential blocks as birthday gifts to their family, looting Palestinian civilian homes, raising the Israeli flag over the wreckage of Mosques, holding skits where they lie in Palestinian children’s beds in homes they have bombed and dancing gleefully amid the wreckage and body parts of Gaza’s people while singing explicit songs about ethnic cleansing.
Throughout the hearing, no address was made as to why clearly marked journalists, ICRC medics, UN staff, humanitarian aid workers and Palestinian Civil Defense rescue workers were massacred in targeted killings. No argument was made to explain the moral navigation involved in documented occupation forces committing of extrajudicial executions or the rounding up, blindfolding, stripping, shackling and abduction of Palestinian civilians, nor of the doctored videos where Palestinian civilians were directed to act on film as though they were surrendering Hamas fighters.
Further, Raguan’s assertion several times that Israeli occupation forces had acted to explicitly mitigate civilian harm flies in the face of prolific genocidal rhetoric from the Israeli political and military directors of this onslaught which is being acted out on the ground in real time. While Raguan touted the supposed Israeli humanitarian mobilization to bring critical supplies into Gaza, it would seem counterintuitive for the very same politicians and ministers of the Israeli government to be simultaneously touting their starvation and total siege of the “human animals” of the Gaza Strip.
Omri Sender assumed the floor to address the condition of risk of irreparable harm and urgency. Sender’s opening sentiments were the wholesale blaming of what he recognized as a “grave” humanitarian situation, on Hamas “prosecuting war from under, and within, the civilian population.” Sender’s statement continued to fly the torch carried by his predecessors speaking in Israel’s defense in that it painted Hamas as an agent of terror that Israel was battling to protect Palestinian civilians from. A common sentiment expressed publicly among Israeli political and social society is that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.”
Sender touted its opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing for aid delivery to enter three months, thousands of dropped bombs and tens of thousands of murdered civilians later. Gaza’s population is now starving. As Sender’s statement to the court focused on Israel’s direction of aid in recent history to enter through Gaza’s border crossings, the entire problem was missed; the fact that Israel is controlling the land, air and sea borders of another people and has unilateral say over what comes in and what goes out, when it wants to starve the population and when it will open a crossing under conditions of a looming famine to allow a truck to enter for which its entry will be used to exhibit Israel’s kindness to the Palestinians it is mass murdering at the very moment the words were spoken to the court.
Christopher Staker was the next speaker for the Israeli defense. He did so to denounce the context for requested provisions as made by South Africa on the first day of the hearing. His argument centered around the sentiment that neither South Africa, nor Palestinians, “have a plausible right” to request provisional measures and went point by point through South Africa’s 9 provisional requests in this manner.
The final speaker was Co-Agent of Israel, Gilad Noam who concluded Israel’s arguments through requesting the International Court of Justice “(1) Reject the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa; and (2) Remove the case from the General List.” With the final words of their arguments brought to a close, Israel has now requested the judges of the ICJ to refuse the words of every humanitarian agency who has worked on the ground in Gaza, the millions of Gazans who have filmed their own destruction and the tens of millions of horrified people across the world who have watched this massacre unfold for over 90 days, and to instead find Israel not guilty of violating the 1948 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
The final day of the court hearing occurred during another day of the active destruction of Gaza itself as she is reduced to mass rubble fields, indistinguishable from the universities, hospitals, schools, shops, residential blocks, utilities buildings, Mosques, Churches and shelters which once comprised her streets. With Oxfam noting that the “Israeli military is killing 250 Palestinians per day with many more lives at risk from hunger, disease and cold,” during the course of the two-day hearing on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, 500 Palestinians were massacred.
12 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | East Jerusalem
Video showing the attack by the IOF on worshippers at Wadi Al Joz. Credit: ISM
The arbitrary restrictions on Palestinian Muslims accessing the holy site in Jerusalem for prayers have now been in place for over four months. These restrictions continue to be imposed by means of an excessive and intimidatory presence of Israeli Occupation Forces around the access points to the Old City where the Al Aqsa Mosque is, especially around the time of Friday prayers.
Worshippers have responded steadfastly to the occupation forces’ denial of their rights by praying in the streets close to the Old City and Al Aqsa, in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Wadi Al Joz. The occupation forces appear to view this as a threat of the highest order, one which cannot be tolerated, and respond with extreme brutality.
Worshippers praying in the Street in Wadi Al Joz.
At today’s (12th January) Friday prayers, twenty five worshippers laid down makeshift prayer mats on a side road in Wadi Al Joz, in a very calm, dignified and non-threatening manner. However, within two minutes, IOF soldiers could be seen running down the road towards them brandishing weaponry, from the direction of the Old City. Volleys of tear gas were launched towards the worshippers forcing them to abandon their prayers and run further into the residential area, pursued by their attackers and a skunk truck, a weapon used for its nauseating bad smell.
“Skunk truck” in action at Wadi Al Joz. Credit: ISM
The IOF prevented ISM volunteers and most of the Israeli activists, as well as the media, from following and documenting what happened. But ISM understands that in their pursuit of the worshippers – a phrase that in itself shows the absurdity of the occupation forces’ behaviour –, IOF soldiers fired excessive amounts of teargas including inside residents’ homes before withdrawing from the neighbourhood.
IOF blocking access to the mosque to media and activists.
IOF brutality in the service of enforcing a collective punishment on the Palestinian Muslim community in East Jerusalem will not deter the Al Aqsa faithful. For four months they have endured this, and every Friday they have continued to resist.
