17 September 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Akram Taysir Daoud from the Palestinian village of Qusra, was beaten unconscious on Saturday 15,September by Israeli settlers from the illegal outpost of Aysh Kodesh. He sustained extensive injuries, including a broken arm and major damage to his eye and face.
Akram’s sister Sanora reported that the family had been farming their land, which is on the outer edge of the village of Qusra, when they heard shouts and threats from settlers. Akram urged his family to go back to the house, leaving him alone. In response to a shout in Arabic, Akram moved to a more isolated area, not realising the call had come from settlers. It was at this point that the settlers attacked him.
Akram Taysir Daoud sits half-conscious in his hospital bed
Akram’s injuries are consistent with his report of a sustained beating with sticks and rocks by three settlers, after which he fell unconscious and was left for dead. After 15 minutes, Akram regained consciousness and was able to call his brother and identify his location over the phone. He was found in one of his fields and taken by car to Rafidia hospital in Nablus.
Around twenty further settlers reportedly then arrived, clashing with villagers who had come to protect Akram and his family, after having heard about the attack. Israeli military also arrived at the scene, but took no action to halt the extremist settler attack – instead reportedly shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the Palestinians. This is the third attack of a similar nature in 3 weeks on the village of Qusra, and according to Akram, last week settlers directly threatened to kill him.
Illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank often attack Palestinians with impunity, with the Israeli army standing by or even amongst settlers during attacks, or reacting violently when Palestinians act to defend themselves. When attacks and injuries occur, it is often difficult for ambulances to reach villages like Qusra, due to Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints, so despite the additional dangers of transporting injured people by car, it is often necessary in the West Bank.
Ellie Marton is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
14 September | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The Israeli army and border police blocked a road in the village center. Picture by Ellie Marton
Just after noon on Friday 14th September, Israeli forces invaded the village of Kufr Qaddoum, prior to a demonstration due to begin at 1.15pm. The Israeli army and Border Police blocked a road in the village center, stopping villagers from attending Friday prayers at the mosque – this is the first time that the tactic of pre-emptive invasion has been used to suppress the weekly demonstration in Kufr Qaddoum.
Prayers were held instead outside the mosque, after which chanting commenced as a start to the planned protest. Israeli forces responded immediately with tear gas rounds, advancing further into the village. Further tear gas rounds were fired at head height, directly towards houses in the street where protesters were gathered.
Israeli forces then regrouped in two positions – one group of 11 soldiers on the hill above the village, and a second group on the road leading to the planned site for the demonstration. Israeli forces also brought a bulldozer and a skunk truck to block the road leading the planned demonstration site.
Israeli forces on the hillside sought to isolate groups of protesters by attacking via side streets. The combined effect of the Israeli actions was to cause the demonstration to be pushed into the heart of the village, increasing the danger for civilians.
Following the end of the demonstration, Kufr Qaddoum Popular Committee representative Murad reported that there had been a village invasion at 5pm Thursday 13th September also, by soldiers in jeeps who entered the village and fired tear gas for no reason. He continued, ‘We don’t want to demonstrate for the sake of demonstrating. We don’t want to see our children killed, our houses damaged. Give us our rights. We will demonstrate until then.’
The weekly demonstration in Kufr Qaddoum is to protest against the closure of the main road between the village and Nablus, the nearest city, which is 13 km away. The road closure doubles the distance from Kufr Qaddoum to Nablus.
Israeli tactics at Kufr Qaddoum – invading the village from several sides, meeting demonstrators with immediate excessive force, blocking roads to prevent access, and bringing Border Police to try to arrest international observers – follow a pattern seen throughout the West Bank that aims to systematically deny basic human rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom to protest and freedom of movement, and also violates the obligation of military forces not to use disproportionate force.
Ben Greene is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
15 September 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
In the afternoon of Tuesday, 11 September 2012, settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzhar burned farmers’ land containing almond trees in the Palestinian village of Burin.
Around 10 settlers came down from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar and started to burn the trees; when Palestinian shepherds came to investigate the fires they returned quickly to the settlement. They were guarded by security officers as they watched from above.. The firemen arrived within several minutes and were successful in their efforts to control the fires. After one hour the Israeli army, Israeli Disctrict Coordination Offices (DCO) and border police arrived.
Land belonging to villagers from Burin burns as firefighters struggle to put it out.
This small village of approximately 3,000 people deal with a constant threat of settler attacks and Israeli army harassment. Two illegal settlements and one illegal outpost surround Burin: Yitzhar, Bracha, and Givt Arousa. The residents of these illegal colonies make it clear that they will do whatever it takes to force the Palestinians out of their homes. Their criminal acts range from burning olive trees, to shooting home made rockets at the village. In 2011, approximately 4000 trees were destroyed, burned and uprooted, by the settlers’ violence.
An almond tree burns
Alex Marley is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
14 September 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On Sunday evening, settlers entered Nabi Saleh village. In clashes that followed Israeli soldiers shot Omar al-Tamini, 25, with live ammunition in the abdomen, and then arrested him and Eyas from inside the ambulance which was taking Omar to Ramallah hospital. On Monday, September 11 at 2:30 a.m., Israeli forces forced entry to homes in Nabi Saleh and arrested Mohammed, and Zeyad, younger brother of martyr, Mustafa Tamini.
Most of the local residents were at home on Monday as a result of the Palestinian general strike. Settlers entered the village in an attempted attack which was reported on PSCC. Residents of Nabi Saleh resisted the intrusion, and then clashes broke out between local youth and the military. Omar al-Tamimi was shot with live ammo during clashes which continued in to the night.
Later that night around 2.30 a.m, Israeli military invaded again (see video here.) They raided the family home of martyr, Mustafa Tamini, who suffered a fatal injury on December 9, 2011, after being shot in the face with a tear gas grenade from a distance of less than 10 meters (see photo here and video here.) Heavily armed soldiers once again, stood in the hall of their home, this time demanding another family member to be taken away to an Israeli jail.
“i feel so so angry that they had the nerve to go into that house once again, that they dared to harrass this family once more. its not even been a month since they released loai (20) from ofer military prison – and already when they had arrested him, in the middle of the night, from inside their home, barely two months after they had shot dead mustafa in cold blood in their own village, i (like so many others) could almost not believe it, felt so so enraged that they would enter their home again with their guns. it still makes me furious that they actually imprisoned loai – FROM INSIDE THEIR HOME – only two months after he saw his eldest brother bleed into the street in their village, before friends carried him into a car and away from him forever. (watch this video: loai, wearing a grey/black checkered jacket, can be first seen at 0:22). I still feel a mixture of rage and pain and i struggle to grasp that they not only murdered mustafa in the way they did, but that they did storm the house of the bereft family so shortly after and violently arrested the brother who actually saw mustafa dying, when they had only released his twin odai from military jail the day of mustafa’s funeral – AFTER the funeral. i still can’t grasp that odai heard in jail that someone in his village was severely injured, heard in jail that the injured young man was his eldest brother, heard in jail that it was a serious injury and that he might lose his eye, heard in jail that he might be fine after all, and heard in jail the next day that his brother was martyred. and that he was denied the right to spend that terrible day with his family and friends, with his twin brother.”
The legal office of Gabi Lasky said yesterday that Zayed and Mohammed were being detained at Ofer prison but was still unaware where Omar and his friend were being held.
For background information about the struggle and further information in Nabi Saleh see blog here
Paddy Clark is an activist and writer living in the West Bank (name has been changed).
September 13, 2012 | International Solidarity Movement
See photos from demonstration here and get up to date information from Nabi Saleh Solidarity here
Weekly Demonstration
On Friday, September 7, Israeli forces sealed off the village early in the morning and at least 4 people were detained hiking over the hill and two cars of Israeli activists were also detained while on route in to Nabi Saleh. All were released in the evening.
Israeli forces broke up the demonstration with tear gas. Clashes broke out with local youth throwing stones, with Israeli forces firing rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas.
On Friday evening after the weekly demonstration, Israeli forces drove through the village playing loud noises through speakers. Clashes broke out and Israeli military fired tear gas and at least one live round in the air. This week was relatively quiet with no serious injuries sustained.
Locals also reported that soldiers used an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or surveillance drone during the protest. Israel’s practice of testing weapons or security industry products on Palestinians is well documented.
A military grade surveillance scout drone, manufactured by DATRON being tested in Washington D.C. (Photo courtesy of Popsci).
Palestine as a weapons industry laboratory and BDS
“The Israeli Export Institute estimates that Israel has 350 corporations dedicated to selling homeland security products, and 30 new ones entered the market in 2007. From a corporate perspective, this development has made Israel a model to be emulated in the post-9/11 market. From a social and political perspective, however, Israel should serve as something else—a stark warning. The fact that Israel continues to enjoy booming prosperity, even as it wages war against its neighbors and escalates the brutality in the occupied territories, demonstrates just how perilous it is to build an economy based on the premise of continual war and deepening disasters.”
Israeli economist Shir Hever wrote an essay in 2011 which made the point that Israeli arms companies such as; Elbit, Magal and Nice increasingly rely on Palestinians to test their weapons, and then advertise their products in arms trade showrooms as ‘battle tested’ in the field.
Private companies operating in ‘conflict’ zones are often not subject to the same laws and treaties governing states making it even more difficult to hold perpetrators of crimes responsible, and move away from impunity.
Ibrihim Shikaki, economics teacher at al-Quds University commented:
“In places of armed conflict where International humanitarian law applies, the obligation to respect and ensure respect is for “high contracting parties” i.e states. Even though there have been several attempts to start regulating the work of Private Military and Security companies (PMSC) such as the Montreux Document, and some efforts on self regulating such as the International code of conduct for private security service providers, things are only in the first steps.”
The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (see handbook here) is increasing pressure against weapons companies who are profiting from the occupation. In August, 2011, members of Palestinian youth movement, Hirak Shababi, symbolically delivered a Palestinian call for military embargo on Israel to the United Nations office in Ramallah.
Youth activist Aghasan said: “We face Israeli repression and violence on a daily basis. Our generation has grown up under occupation and seeing friends and relatives killed, injured or imprisoned. We demand that the international community stops funding and profiting from the military and security apparatus that sustains the colonial Israeli apartheid regime. All trade and cooperation must stop. Young Palestinians demand a comprehensive military embargo now.”
International solidarity and anti-arms trade BDS
The Smash EDOcampaign in Brighton, UK, is a great example of local resistance to illegal arms trade at the point of production in Europe. In an article recently published in Electronic Intifada, Jessica Nero, BDS and anti-arms trade activist and researcher, wrote about some of the groups’ tactics; using direct action at a community level as a means to legally challenge an international weapons manufacturer, exposing corporate complicity in war crimes in the process. Jessica spoke about one of their biggest successes saying:
“The biggest success so far came in 2010, when nine defendants were found not guilty of criminal damage after breaking into EDO and smashing it up “to the best of their abilities” as a response to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza during winter 2008-09. After hearing all of the evidence, a jury acquitted the activists on the basis that they had acted with the intention of preventing war crimes against Palestinians.”
Paddy Clark is an activist and writer living in the West Bank (name has been changed).
