30 December 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Jerusalem
They came covered in black and wearing ski masks. On December 28, thirty extremists, armed with clubs and tear gas, invaded the Armenian Quarter’s ‘Cow’s Garden’ (Goveroun Bardez) in the Old City of Jerusalem and attacked members of the Armenian community. The coordinated ambush, caught on film, left several seriously injured, including seminary students, as well as two Armenian youth abducted by occupation forces. The vigilantes vandalized the grounds as part of the assault. Several of the injured were transported to a hospital for medical treatment.
The Armenian community of the Old City is resisting a controversial land grab coordinated by investors with ominous links to extremist settler factions.
The pressure campaign by extremist settlers utilizes violent tactics mirroring settler attacks on Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. But Armenians have also learned from their Palestinian counterparts the importance of steadfastness and unity. Every settler attack thus far has been repelled by the close-knit Armenian community.
Armenians celebrate Christmas later than Christians in the West, and have begun installing a cross and a manger in the rubble (photo credit: ISM)
28 December 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | West Bank
Early this morning, between 1:00 am and 6:00 am, Israeli Occupation Forces invaded several cities across the West Bank. Seven of the eleven Palestinian governorates in the West Bank were invaded in a coordinated attack, the largest since October 7. Clashes were documented in Jenin, Hebron, Qalqilya, and Ramallah, with reports of invasions in Tulkarem, Nablus, and Jericho. Invasion forces stormed the cities, targeting money transfer stations, stating that funds were being funneled from these major cities to Hamas. Many eyewitness reports observed soldiers breaking open safes and, according to The New Arab, stealing at least $2.8 million from these targeted locations after classifying them as having involvement with “terrorism”.
IOF Soldiers in Ramallah steal millions (source: FajerTV)IOF in Qadura Refugee Camp
On the ground ISM members in Ramallah report dozens of army tanks storming and patrolling the streets before direct clashes with Palestinian youth resistance in Al Manara square and in the Qadura refugee camp. Youth were preparing to resist by smashing large rocks to break them up while tanks loaded steel bullets into their assault rifles (steel bullets, as opposed to copper, are intended to be able to penetrate helmets, concrete, and other industrial materials).
Israeli military shell casings vs Palestinian defense weapon
Palestinians fiercely resisted the military invasion for hours, throwing rocks, metal pieces and molotov cocktails at the indestructible tanks. Invasion forces responded with live fire, rubber tipped steel bullets, tear gas, sound grenades, and other explosive devices. This bombardment withstood for several hours, mostly concentrated between 2 and 5 am, resulting in one IOF soldier shot, 14 Palestinians injured, at least 4 of which were with live ammunition, and one Palestinian, named Hazim Al-Qatawi (23), shot and killed.
⭕ Hazem Al-Qatawi ascended to martyrdom as a result of being shot by Ziomist forces during violent confrontations in the center of Ramallah.
Along with bodily harm, this extension of the ongoing occupation has resulted in storefront destruction, shattered car windows, and the street littered with remnants of destruction.
Community cleans up after shop destroyed near Al Manara squareCab in Al Manara
In an age of disinformation, spectacle, and erasure, remembrance is revolutionary. Palestine has a rich 20,000 year history. Amid an ongoing catastrophe in the Holy Land that rivals the nakba in 1948, people in Nablus are keepers of memory.
One such project is the The Cultural Center of the Palestinian Narrative which raises awareness about Palestinian history, including mapping what Palestine was like pre-1948, and archiving witness testimony of ethnic cleansing.
Interactive Palestinian history archive from The Cultural Center of the Palestinian Narrative
Tanweer, another cultural center in Nablus, in addition to current efforts to introduce art, joy, and more freedom into the public sphere, has chosen to uncover the ancient names of the springs in the Old City of Nablus and surrounding areas. After rediscovering the names, they create and install signs to connect the present with the past and remind people what has been and what will be. In Arabic, the word for spring also means way or path. Names of words and places, like names of people, are often repositories of ancient wisdom.
Spring sign in Nablus (photo credit: ISM)
Fitra is an Arabic word meaning “original disposition” or “innate nature”. It is common belief in Palestine and throughout the Arab and Muslim world that every person is born innocent with innate goodness, and only through social conditioning are people led to oppression and injustice. And so the inner work that must be done isn’t achieving something far removed from one’s self, but rediscovering, reconnecting with, and remembering one’s original nature.
Some of the people honored by Palestinians at the Tanweer Center include ISM activists killed while doing solidarity work (photo credit ISM)
Just as Jewish people throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East remember the horrors of their past and honor those who maintained their humanity amid the inhumanity around them, Palestinians remember the horrors of their past (and present), honor those who maintain their humanity amid the inhumanity around them, try to make a way where there is no way, and hope that the people of the world will not watch from afar their extermination, but instead, choose to remember their essential, original, buried under the rubble humanity.
A new Israeli incursion into the Nour Shams refugee camp northeast of the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.
Israeli incursion:
Tuesday evening, December 26th the Israeli occupying forces stormed the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm, accompanied by military vehicles, including D9 bulldozers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and troop carriers. The Israeli incursion lasted 7 continuous hours from Tuesday until the next morning. The Israeli occupation forces were stationed in more than one area in the city and the vicinity of Nour Shams camp and in some areas belonging to the camp.
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
Destruction:
The Israeli occupation did not stop with the destruction of streets, houses, and walls of houses in the penultimate storming, but returned to complete its work the destruction of streets and roads again.
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
The Israeli occupation forces managed the secondary streets leading to the camp destroyed the infrastructure and the water and sewage network in more than one area of the camp, and some walls of houses and some cars belonging to citizens from inside the camp were destroyed.
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
7 Palestinians wounded 6 killed
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 6 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli incursion into the Camp, 7 others were injured of them in moderate condition and 1 in serious condition .
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
The Israeli occupying forces targeted 7 Palestinians with a drone from the air while they were in the quarry area near the Al-Nasr mosque. 7 Palestinians injured. 2 of them in moderate condition and another Palestinian in serious condition.
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
According to the head of the Palestinian doctors in the city of Tulkarm, he said that the Israeli occupation soldiers obstructed the movement of ambulances while they were working to transport the injured Palestinians from the camp to the hospital.
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
He added that the occupation soldiers stopped an ambulance with an injured person inside on the way to the hospital, the occupation forces stormed the ambulance, one of the occupation soldiers stabbed the injured in the neck area while he was inside the car on his way to the hospital. The six martyrs are Fares Fahmawi, Khalil al-Tabal, Ahmed Hamarsha, Yazan Fahmawi, Ahmed Abu Issa and Wahid Fahmawi. 4 of them are from the same family.
Photo Credit: Diana Khwaelid
Hundreds of Palestinians mourned the bodies of the six Palestinian martyrs, and their families took a last farewell look at them. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the death toll of the martyrs of the West Bank has reached more than 300 martyrs since October 7.
Mourners gather for the funeral of the martyrs. Photo credit: Diana Khwaelid
We witness an unbreakable will in the Nour Shams refugee camp, located north-east in the city of
Tulkarem, despite being subjected to more than 10 incursions, killings, arrests,
destruction of roads and other infrastructure, shelling, and burning of houses and shops.
Storming the Nour Shams camp
On the evening of Monday December 25th, the Israeli occupation forces stormed
the Nur Shams refugee camp northeast of the city of Tulkarem in the north of the West
Bank.
Dozens of Israeli military vehicles accompanied by troop carriers and 4 D9 bulldozers were used by the occupation forces to destroy infrastructure in preparation for the entry of occupation soldiers on foot.
This Israeli military operation launched by the occupation forces on the camp lasted for more than 9 continuous hours.
Confronting the occupation forces and defending the camp.
Palestinian resistance fighters defended the camp and its residents and confronted the Israeli occupation forces who stormed the camp without warning. Armed clashes occurred between Palestinian gunmen who tried to defend the camp and the Israeli occupation forces who targeted residents and houses with live ammunition.
Destruction of infrastructure and roads.
The main and secondary roads were largely destroyed and neighborhoods of Nour Shams camp, mostly concentrated in the Al Damj neighborhood and Manshiyeh neighborhood. The Israeli occupation forces
destroyed the main roads by using military vehicles to bulldoze land and streets with military-type D9 bulldozers. Agricultural land with farming of crops was also destroyed.
Bombing of a house and burning of another.
The Israeli occupation forces targeted two Palestinian houses, one of which was
destroyed by aerial bombardment, and another one that was burned. Everything within it was destroyed from clothes to furniture. Other homes nearby suffered partial damage, such as glass being broken, doors being ripped off. The first house belongs to the citizen Youssef Zandiq one of the camp residents. the second house that was burned belongs to the family of the young man Musa
al-Azeb. The family of the young man Youssef Zandiq said:
“We evacuated the house before it was bombed as no one was inside. Thank God for
everything, we are lucky that there were no human losses.”
Some Palestinian homes were also stormed during the incursion, including the house of the Dahrouki family.
Israeli occupation forces also painted the logo of the star of the state of Israel, as a sign signalling that it will be bombed in the next incursion.
Despite all the violence and destruction carried out by the Israeli occupying forces during the past weeks and months, despite the human and material losses caused by the destruction of houses, roads, agricultural land andshops, the residents of Nur Shams camp still have a strong and unbroken will.
