Category: Reports - Page 169 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian family’s agricultural building demolished by Israeli forces in Hebron

6th January 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On Monday morning in al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces destroyed the building the Jaabari family used to house their farm animals.

They appeared at 9:00 AM, armed with a bulldozer which tore up the ground and reduced the sturdy structure, used to house seventy sheep and thirty calves, to rubble. The Palestinian family, who rely on agriculture for their livelihood, had received no warning of the demolition, nor were they offered any explanation.

The Jaabari family had seen the bulldozer approaching, and had enough time to move the animals out of their shelter to a neighbour’s property. Their onion crop, however, planted in the earth between the road leading to the family’s house and the place where the animal pens once stood, was not so fortunate. Walking through the jagged ruts and mounds left behind by the bulldozer, a few glances revealed hundreds of crushed plants. The family, which includes four boys and three girls, derive their income from their small-scale farm; the Israeli military’s attack on their property is a significant economic blow.

One part of the building had already been demolished once, two years ago. In practice, once a demolition order has been issued for a site, Israeli forces do not require another order to destroy a rebuilt structure. However, an adjacent part of the animal shelter, which was not issued with any demolition order, was also destroyed. It had cost 190 thousand shekels to build, the farmer recalled. Now all that remains is broken concrete and twisted metal, a testament to the harsh, senseless reality of the Israeli occupation.

Living in Wadi al Ghrous, a neighbourhood to the east of al-Khalil sandwiched between the illegal Israeli settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina, the Jaabari family and their neighbours experience regular incursions and violence from the zionist settlers and the Israeli military system charged with upholding the settlers’ presence and power. Though an overwhelming international consensus holds that that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, it is the Palestinians living near settlements who are punished. From the ripped up ground in front of the Jaabari family’s house the settlement is clearly visible: large, sturdy grey houses with orange roofs. A colony insulated from the suffering it causes.

“The first demolition of 2015,” one Palestinian observer at the scene commented. The sad, though true, implication is that many more Palestinian families will wake up this year to see Israeli bulldozers come to destroy their livelihoods.

Zionist settlers poison 13 sheep near Aqraba

6th January 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Aqraba, Occupied Palestine

Yesterday, ISM volunteers traveled to the area of Lifjim in East Aqraba, where shepherd Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Hamed grazes his sheep. Thirteen sheep lay dead there, foaming at the nose and mouth, one with green vomit visible – a clear case of poisoning.

Close-up of one of the poisoned sheep with frothing at the mouth and nose (photo by ISM).

Close-up of a poisoned sheep where green vomit can be seen (photo by ISM).

Abu Hamed and the Aqraba Municipality reported seeing a settler named Assaf spread an unknown substance over the land shortly before the sheep died. As the area is under illegal cultivation by settlers, this could have indicated intentional poisoning or indirect toxicity from herbicides.

Three of the thirteen sheep killed, stretched out across the land (Photo by ISM).

At the municipality office, ISM interviewed a Public Relation Officer named Gloria, who detailed the many difficulties the villages around Aqraba continually deal with. The town of Aqraba is in Area B, which is under Palestinian Authority civil control but partial Israeli security control, but many of the villages under the Aqraba municipality are in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control.

Thus, these communities are constantly threatened by the expansion of Israeli settlements, including the Gittit settlement just south of Lifjim where the sheep were killed.

Furthermore, the Israeli military prevent people from building life-sustaining infrastructure such as water and electricity grids and new houses. In the last month and a half alone, the Aqraba municipality has repaired the electricity grid three times after soldiers cut it.

On Saturday, five shepherds were out grazing their sheep in the Area B part of Aqraba when at least seven armed settlers came down and attacked them. The settlers shot at the unarmed shepherds and two were injured. A number of people from Aqraba came out with the municipality in response to the shepherds’ call. An hour later the Israeli military showed up, deployed tear gas on the crowd and arrested four shepherds, accusing them of trying to steal from the settlement.

Aqraba residents who showed up for the shepherds are met with tear gas (photo by Aqraba Municipality).

They are still in prison as of now. This attack is emblematic of the violence experienced by Palestinians who live near the illegal Israeli settlements.

Smiling even as she finished describing the hardships of life under Israeli occupation, Gloria told us she thinks the people here are strong. They hold onto their homes and lives here while facing violence and destruction week after week. Gloria herself speaks English, French and Spanish, allowing her to communicate with many international groups about the occupation.

In Aqraba, the phrase “existence is resistance” holds true.

VIDEO: “They look like they’re in a war zone, but what they’re aiming at is five-year-olds”

31st December | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By 10:30 am on Tuesday morning of December 30, Palestinian children attending school near Qeitun checkpoint in al-Khalil (Hebron) had endured over forty tear gas canisters, multiple rounds of rubber coated steel bullets and stun grenades, and the arrest of a twelve-year-old boy.

Israeli forces fired down the road leading from the checkpoint to the schools, filling the street adjacent to the schools with a choking cloud of gas and preventing Palestinians walking through the checkpoint from continuing down the street. As it is exam season in al-Khalil’s schools, children were attempting to reach school between seven and eight am and leaving again between nine thirty and eleven. Israeli military forces kept up a sporadic barrage of fire from the time some children were still walking to school until after school finished, forcing anyone traveling in either direction to brave whistling tear gas canisters and the dizzying smoke which still lingered even after the shooting had halted.

Early in the morning, Israeli occupation forces grabbed the twelve-year-old near the checkpoint, accusing him of throwing stones. Eyewitnesses present at the scene denied the accusation. After they took the young boy away to the police station, Israeli army and border police advanced further down the road away from the checkpoint, heavily armed with tear gas, stun grenades, and the long rifles used for firing rubber coated steel bullets. Sometimes they fired systematically, setting off five or more rounds of tear gas at a time; at other times it seemed bizarrely random, as when a single border policeman would suddenly run up the street and fire off a tear gas grenade at the distant crowd of children.

In between assaults, when the Israeli military temporarily halted their fire, young boys kicked stun grenades around and tried to squash tear gas grenades with their shoes. Many of them were stuck, waiting behind and among the soldiers as lingering clouds of tear gas fogged the road in front of their school. Looking down the road from near the military’s position to where the tear gas was landing, one could catch glimpses of the impacts: a small child coughing, a teacher dodging the falling tear gas canisters.

Israeli forces advanced down the main road, standing menacingly across it and also occupying the corners of side-streets, aiming their rifles up towards nearby neighbourhoods. Some stood far down the street, partly hidden by a parked car, in the same location where Israeli border police had arrested a seventeen-year-old boy a couple of weeks earlier. “They look like they’re in a war zone,” one ISM activist commented at the scene, “but what they’re aiming at is five-year-olds.”

As some of the ISM activists walked home, travelling up through the souk (market) in al-Khalil’s Old City, they asked if the tear gas from the area around Qeitun checkpoint had reached all the way up to the shops. “Not too much today,” one shop owner replied. He asked how the activists were. After they gave a brief summery of their morning, he responded matter-of-factly: “there’s always tear gas down there.”

It is a fact of life in al-Khalil – one which perfectly illustrates the senseless, violent injustice so characteristic of the zionist occupation. This morning is only one of countless violent mornings and afternoons these children will face along their everyday route to school. Military assaults and checkpoints are as familiar to them as their daily assignments and schoolbooks. These repeated attacks expose the absurd lengths to which the Israeli occupation has invaded the lives of Palestinians, when even the road to school becomes a battlefield.

VIDEO: Israeli soldiers close key checkpoint in Hebron

31st December | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

At approximately 14:30 yesterday afternoon, ISM activists approaching Checkpoint 56 from both directions found that it was closed and Palestinians were stuck on either side. Israeli soldiers gave conflicting excuses for closing the checkpoint, none of which were supported by any apparent evidence.

On the H2 (Israeli controlled) side of the checkpoint, ISM members were told that a youth had thrown a Molotov cocktail from the H1 (Palestinian Authority controlled) side. On the H1 side, a soldier shouted down to an activist: “Hey! You speak English? Tell the people we cannot open the checkpoint because the people on the other side are throwing stones!”

However, there were no stones on either side, nor were there broken glass or large patches of liquid on the ground as would be seen from a Molotov cocktail. A survey of the area showed nothing at all out of the ordinary.

This did not stop the soldiers from behaving in a crude manner, as shown in the video below. Palestinian human rights activist Issa Amro asked the soldiers why the people below, who were causing no problems, couldn’t pass. The soldier in the observation box shouted, “I hate you! F*** you! I’m gonna eat you!” The soldiers also launched a sound grenade, also without any apparent reason. When asked by an ISM activist why they would not open the checkpoint, the soldier simply referred to his commander.

Checkpoint 56 not only separates H1 and H2, but separates many Palestinians from their homes and workplaces. Hundreds of people, including children, pass through the checkpoint every week and are subject to random searches and detentions, which disrupt their day-to-day activities. Checkpoint closures like this are one more form of harassment people have become accustomed to because they can happen at any time.

Palestinian bystander shot dead during nightly Israel army arrest raid

18th December 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Qalandiya, Occupied Palestine

The Israeli army shot dead a young Palestinian man in Qalandiya refugee camp.

The army invaded the camp at around 3:00 am on the 16^th of December with the aim of making arrests. The young people of the camp came out to repel the army from the camp and clashes erupted.

Mahmoud Abdullah Addwan (21) was shot in the forehead with live ammunition during the clashes while he was standing on the balcony of his house.

He was pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital.

After arresting Mujahid Mazen Hamad (26) from his home, the army finally left the camp.

The army had been shooting tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at the heavy traffic near Qalandiya checkpoint since the morning, because of small protests by the local children.

Mahmoud’s body was taken to Abu Dis for an autopsy, and the funeral was attended by hundreds at 2:30pm.

20141216_144502 — http://www.qudsn.ps/article/56151

After the prayer most of the youths marched to Qalandiya checkpoint, chanting “justice for Mahmoud”, continuing the morning clashes until later that evening.