Category: Reports

Unprecedented Coordinated IOF Attacks in West Bank

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.

 

 

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 square
Cab in Al Manara

 

Remembrance in Nablus

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.

Ongoing Israeli incursion: Nour Shams Refugee Camp

12/27/2023 Occupied West Bank

By Diana Khwaelid

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

 

 

 

Nur Shams Refugee Camp – An Unbreakable Will

By 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.

 

 

 

 

Palestinians Demand to Rescind the “State of Emergency in Prisons”

Rally for detainees, Ramallah.

19 December 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah

 

This morning, ISM volunteers joined with the relatives, friends and supporters of Palestinian detainees at a rally in Ramallah, one of many held across the Occupied West Bank, demanding to immediately rescind  the “state of emergency in prisons”, introduced by the Israeli authorities in the aftermath of October 7 and which gives the National Security Minister (illegal settler Ben Gvir) unrestrained powers in relation to the conditions in which detainees are held.

Called for and coordinated by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs and supported by a wide-range of civic society groups, the rallies highlighted the huge upsurge in the numbers of detainees, and the severe deterioration in the conditions of detention, since October 7 under the emergency provisions.

Over two months, the number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons has more than doubled to 7,800, with 4,605 Palestinians (including the 30 people arrested last night) detained since October 7. Of these, 260 are children, 150 women and 2800 are held under Administrative Detention (AD). These figures do not include detainees arrested by Israeli forces in the Gaza strip as Israel does not provide any figures on this.

Even before October 7, the number of Palestinians detained under AD was running at a 20 year high with 1,300 so detained. AD is an apartheid tool used by the Israeli Occupation Forces to persecute Palestinians. It allows for detention for a period of six months, indefinitely renewable, by a military court without charge or trial based on secret security grounds which are not made available to the detainee or their lawyer.

With the powers under the emergency provisions, the security minister has installed a brutal, degrading and inhumane prison regime. Detainees are denied access to visits by lawyers and family members and the Red Cross has been denied access to prisons to monitor conditions. Information from lawyers who have managed to speak with their clients provides evidence that detainees are held in grossly overcrowded cells, denied adequate food and medical care and outdoor exercise and association for education and recreation is severely restricted.

The use of cruel and collective punishment measures such as cutting off water, heating and electricity for long hours is common. Beatings and threats start at the point of arrest and continue within the detention centres.  As noted by Amnesty International in its report of November 8, torture is routinely used. Six detainees have been killed in the Israeli detention centres since October 7, with the suspicion that these deaths were as a result of neglect and torture.

The Israeli occupation authorities are committing serious offences against detainees, offences which are in breach of international law. Under international law, torture and other ill-treatment committed against protected persons in an occupied territory is a war crime. The detention of protected persons outside the occupied territory, as is the case of Palestinian prisoners from the OPT held in Israel, is also a violation of international humanitarian law as it amounts to forcible transfer.

Relatives and advocates for the detainees made it clear at this morning’s rally that Israeli authorities must immediately reverse the inhumane emergency measures imposed on Palestinian prisoners and grant them immediate access to their lawyers and families. Israel must also allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to carry out urgent visits to prisons and detention facilities and to monitor conditions. All Palestinians arbitrarily detained must be released.