Category: Reports

Bethlehem: 18 year old Palestinian stabbed

By Richard Frank and Dan Stingy

27 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

18 year old Saleh al-Zoghayer, who was recently stabbed by Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem, has been at the centre of the media recently. Several contradicting and false reports surfaced along with a shocking photograph of Saleh following the stabbing.

The photograph which circled social media shows 18 year old Saleh al-Zoghayer following his stabbing with soldiers stepping on his hands.

On Sunday, May 20, Saleh took a day off. Leaving his construction job in the town of Tobas, he travelled to Bethlehem to visit doctors there due to an illness. Upon arriving in Bethlehem, it is uncertain as to why, he was instructed by Israeli soldiers to exit the vehicle in which he was a passenger. Saleh found himself in the midst of a bike tour held by illegal Israeli settlers. The tour in question was held for Jerusalem day and was heavily guarded by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

According to Israeli media sources such as Ynet and Hareetz, Saleh attempted to stab an IOF soldier and instead harmed himself. At first, both Palestinian and Israeli news sources suggested that Saleh had died from his injuries but this was not the case.

Saleh’s father, Nidal Mohamad al-Zoghayer, was interviewed by International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers on May 23 and an entirely different story emerged. Nidal says his son is not the “Palestinian terrorist” that Itamar Fleishman of Ynet baselessly suggests. Saleh was on the receiving end of criminal violence, said Nidal, and not from IOF soldiers but from the illegal settlers.

Having been denied permission from Israeli authorities to go visit his son, Nidal relays to ISM what his lawyer said after seeing Saleh with his own eyes.

According to Nidal’s lawyer, Saleh is recovering and in stable condition. He suffered multiple stab wounds, with two perpendicular wounds across his abdomen and one near to his heart. Barely able to sit up in his hospital bed, his legs are tied together at the ankles with cuffs. Three IOF soldiers are positioned at his door at all times.

Saleh al-Zoghayer is currently chained to a hospital bed recovering from his wounds.

Nidal tells us the IOF are detaining his son and upon his recovery, Saleh will be charged with ‘assaulting a soldier.’ He finds the IOF’s version of events highly unlikely. If Saleh had indeed attacked a soldier in an area with a large military presence, says Nidal, he would have immediately been shot.

Saleh is not a political activist, said Nidal. “My son has no political affiliation, and has never been detained before this incident. He works 6 days a week, Saturday to Thursday, only to come to Hebron on Friday evening to spend time with his family and friends.”

Illegal settlers are known for their violent behaviour against Palestinian men and women of all ages. Just one day prior to Saleh’s stabbing, settlers attacked the town of Asira Al-Qibliya, shooting live ammunition and injuring several including one man who was shot in the head. Israeli soldiers were present but did not interfere with the settlers’ attack as has become routine in the occupied West Bank.

Nidal showed photographs of wounds to Saleh’s neck that indicate a struggle as well as further photographs of his son covered in blood, with IOF soldiers standing on his hands.

Nidal says that if the IOF is able to stand by as illegal settlers fire live ammunition at unarmed villagers, then it should not be controversial for him to suggest they stood by and allowed an attack on his son. “There are many cameras in that area and soldiers are on hand 24 hours a day. I want to see the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage of what really happened to my son.”

This would be the only hope for Saleh to prove his innocence as the Israeli military courts are notoriously unjust: 99.74% of cases heard by the military courts against Palestinians in the West Bank end in a conviction. In Israeli military courts, the word of a soldier is enough evidence to convict even a minor.

Saleh was in the midst of saving money for his wedding and the purchase of a home. He is one of 8 children, the eldest of which is currently held in an Israeli prison. Originally having been detained by the Palestinian Authority for his political views, Saleh’s eldest brother was re-incarcerated by the IOF upon his release, without a chance to see his family in between.

Saleh’s uncle, Ahmed al-Zoghayer, also sat down with the ISM. He reenforced Nidal’s belief that if his nephew had attempted to attack a soldier he would have been shot.

Ahmed clarified one of the reasons for Saleh’s presumed death. The ambulance carrying Saleh was late to arrive at the scene. When it arrived, his heart had stopped and he was believed to be dead. Defibrillators were used and his heart began beating again. Saleh was then successfully operated on.

An 18 year old has been accused of attacking an IOF soldier. His family contests this and their demand for CCTV footage has not yet been responded to. ISM supports the call for its obtainment.

Richard Frank and Dan Stingy are volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).

Farmland exploited for Israeli military exercises

By Alex

22 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Monday the 21 of May is the third day in a row of Israeli military exercises in and around the small Palestinian village of Khirbet Atwayel outside Nablus. These exercises prevent the farmers from working on their lands and force the villagers to sleep under the sound of heavy shelling with the constant presence of soldiers.

Khirbet Atweyel is a village located on the slopes West of the Jordan valley. The 18 families that reside there are almost exclusively farmers and have been victims to the actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) for a long time.

Every month, Israeli soldiers arrive, erect tents, and stay for a few days while they receive various kinds of military training. These include the shooting of live rounds, rocket missiles, and other heavy artillery. During these days, the farmers are denied entry to their own lands and can only stand aside and watch while soldiers drive their jeeps and other vehicles over the fields.

Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), together with members of the municipality of the nearby town of Aqraba, approached the village on Monday, May 21.

“As usual, the soldiers stop their activities when they see internationals in the village. Only ten minutes ago they were shooting rockets on the hills a couple of hundred meters from the town’s houses,” Basem, the mayor of Khirbet Atwayel says.

Tents erected by the Israeli military to house soldiers during military training.

Later, whilst two ISM activists attempted to approach the field in order to better photograph the military tents, Israeli soldiers opened fire nearby. The activists were forced to turn around and flee the way they came. A rocket was fired on an adjacent hill, creating an ear piercing bang.

“These rockets are the kind of weapons they usually shoot at night. If you come here between 10-11 p.m. you will find they shoot dozens, making it impossible to sleep,” Basem says.

The military training, however, is only one of many aspects of oppression that the people of Khirbet Atwayel suffer on a daily basis. Like many other villages in the Jordan valley, Khirbet Atwayel is in Area C. It is under full Israeli civil and military control. One result is that the villagers are not allowed to have wells or water cisterns. Instead, they are forced to buy water from Aqraba and transport it in tanks to their houses. This makes the basic necessity of water enormously expensive. Irrigation of crops has become impossible and farmers are left to hope that the winter will bring enough rain.

When asked for his thoughts about the future of his village, Basem replied, “the occupiers are obviously trying to get rid of us, but we were born in this village and this land has been within our families for generations. We will never leave and give up what is rightfully ours.”

Alex is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Burin: arbitrary arrests continue

By Maria Erdely

22 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Castro Risaq was arrested on the night of the May 1 in Burin, a village just 7 kilometres south west of Nablus. The Israeli military arrived at 1 a.m. demanding Castro. Waking up the family, they barged through the front door. The 38 year old man was arrested and blindfolded without an opportunity to get dressed. His wife and 6 children were forced to watch as the head of the family was taken away without explanation. No charges have been pressed yet. The soldiers who arrested him stated only, “this is our job.”

Castro was told that he would have a hearing within 3 days. This date has since has been postponed to the end of the month.

Castro and Salam Risaq’s three sons

Castro holds both a Palestinian and British passport. He lived in the United Kingdom for a period of 7 months before he was called back to Palestine to stay with his ill mother. He intended to pass on his UK citizenship to his to eldest daughters, 15 and 18, but did not have the opportunity to do so before being arrested.

Upon Castro’s arrest, his wife, Salam Risaq, contacted the British Embassy. Their response was simply that they are unable to help.

The Risaq family has so far been denied visitation. They will only be allowed to see Castro in court during the promised hearing.

To support his family, Castro worked as a shepherd alongside his brother. Now that the family is left without a primary breadwinner, life is difficult. Castro’s 13 year old son wants to take over his father’s position. Salam only receives support from her brother-in-law and some Burin residents whose family members have also been taken by Israeli authorities.

Salam’s youngest son will soon need a second eye surgery in Jerusalem. His father’s arrest might make this impossible. Raising 6 children by herself for an unknown period of time has put a great deal of pressure on Salam.

Castro Risaq’s youngest son requires a costly eye surgery that may be impossible now due to his father’s imprisonment

Burin has been subject to many arrests on a daily basis for the past years. The village is surrounded from all directions by four illegal Israeli settlements. The Israeli military often patrols through the village at night, raids homes, and arbitrarily arrests members of Palestinian families. There has been a series of harassment and arrest of Burin’s youth, particularly those with a connection to the youth community centre in the village.

According to previous reports, between 200 and 300 Israeli soldiers have been known to raid Burin village. Arriving at night, the military will awaken entire families and destroy the inside belongings of the home. Parents complain that their children have not slept peacefully in years due to the constant threat of an army night raid.

On 21 April 2012, 10 youth were arrested in Burin. 5 of them were expected to take their final exams this year. It is unknown what their fate, or Castro’s, will be.

Maria Erdely is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Occupied Palestine: farce, tragedy, travesty

By Patrick Keddie

20 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The three snapshots below are composed from interviews conducted whilst working for the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank from September to December 2011.

FARCE

Rodni Jaber is a Palestinian woman who lives and works as a farmer in Al-Baqa’a, a windswept valley situated a few kilometers East of Hebron in the West Bank. Her family is regularly attacked by Israeli settlers and harassed by the Israeli military.

In 1998 Rodni’s son Raja was born. A few days after his birth, settlers attacked the house; one settler made a complaint to the police that someone named ‘Raja’ had put a knife to his chest, threatening to kill him.

Rodni: “Several days later the soldiers came to arrest my son. So I showed them my son who was 40 days old and I showed them his birth certificate because they didn’t believe he was Raja.”

The soldiers left but they contacted the family shortly afterward with a demand.

Rodni: “They said that Raja should come to the court and at the age of 50 days I had to take him. They said, ‘where is the defendant Raja’ and I showed them my son”.

OK, so that was the end of it then?

Rodni: “No – the judge ruled that when he reaches 16 years old he will have to come to back to court!”

Surely when the case comes to court and it becomes apparent that Raja could not even sit up or support the weight of his own head at that time of the incident, let alone threaten to harm anyone, the situation will go beyond parody?

Rodni (laughs): “Of course!”

But the ruling still stands; Raja is 12 years old now and in four years’ time he will have to go to court and explain his role in the incident.

TRAGEDY

Mustafa Tamimi, 28, was fatally injured during a protest in Nabi Saleh in December 2011. The protests began after the village’s Ein al-Qaws spring was taken over by residents of Halamish, a nearby illegal Israeli settlement, in 2009. Hundreds of protesters have been injured in Nabi Saleh but Tamimi was the first fatality during the village’s demonstrations.

Ibrahim Bornat, a 28 year-old artist and activist from Bil’in was with Mustafa when he was fatally injured.

Ibrahim: “We were alone, with the rest of the protest quite far behind. We were chasing after the [Israeli military] jeeps, telling them to leave the village.”

One jeep slowed, opened its rear door a fraction and fired two tear gas canisters directly at them, from a distance of around three meters. As the first tear gas canister was fired…

Ibrahim: “Mustafa pushed me so it went over my head, the second one hit him.”

He saw Mustafa lying prone on the floor but did not realize exactly what had happened.

Ibrahim: “I thought maybe he had passed out from the gas. I went to him and turned him over and took the cloth off his face. The side of his face was blown off, the eye was hanging out and I pushed it back but I could see the inside of his head.”

There were no ambulances around, so they put Tamimi in a service [communal taxi] but the Israeli military stopped it and tried to arrest Tamimi, until they realized how seriously injured he was.

Mustafa lay on the ground for half an hour, receiving ‘treatment’ by the Israelis. He was not allowed to leave until his ID card was found, wasting valuable time.

Although Mustafa’s heart may have been revived later temporarily, Ibrahim knew he was dead.

Ibrahim: “When I was holding him, I’m sure that he died in my arms. He let out a gasp and his soul left.”

Ibrahim was not surprised at the actions of the Israeli military.

Ibrahim: “The occupation maintains itself through killing.”

TRAVESTY

Khowla Wazwaz from Hebron in the West Bank recounts the night in 2005 when her son Moussa, then 23 years-old, was arrested by the Israeli military.

Khowla: “It was around 6pm and it was raining. The soldiers surrounded the house and started to throw sound bombs. When Moussa went outside – every gun has a laser – it was like there were hundreds of laser dots on his body.”

The soldiers told Moussa to remove all his clothes and threw him a white jumpsuit, he took it and they separated him from his family.

Khowla: “After that they started to interrogate me – [the interrogator] asked me ‘where does Moussa go, when does he come back,’ all these questions. I told him everything I knew but he told me, ‘look, the soldiers are beating him, so tell me where the gun is’. I said, ‘he doesn’t have any gun.’”

She was interrogated for three or four hours but she did not know anything. As she was interrogated, she could hear awful sounds from the next room.

Khowla: “I heard someone screaming ‘mother, mother!’. I do not know if they were beating Moussa or not, I think that perhaps it was someone acting.”

Once the interrogations had ended, Moussa was arrested and taken away. The soldiers then turned their attention to the house.

Khowla: “They destroyed the inside of the house. We have a library and they started to open fire [with live ammunition] at the books, they destroyed the computer and took the hard drive.”

Khowla was denied permission to speak to or visit her son for a year after this arrest. Moussa was given 8 life sentences for participating in the resistance – a total of 792 years. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing and was released on 18 October 2011 in the first wave of the deal to exchange Palestinian prisoners for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

But Moussa was not released home to his family in Hebron. He was exiled to the Gaza Strip against his wishes, which Palestinian prisoners’ group Addameer describes as “a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and qualifies as one of the most serious war crimes.” At the time of the interview (November 2011) the family had not been able to visit him.

[This piece is part of an exhibition in creative journalism at the Nolias Gallery, London running from 19-23 May 2012, which features work by a range of journalists and photojournalists, including a selection of David Shaw’s photography from Palestine.]

Settler Attack: Palestinian man shot in head in Asira al-Qibliya

By Maria Erdely

20 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Asira al-Qibliya, a village located south-west of Nablus, was attacked by illegal Israeli settlers yesterday. The attack lasted all afternoon leaving 7 Palestinians injured, of which 5 required hospitalization. Settlers fired live ammunition at the Palestinians, and one man was in critical condition after being shot in the head.

Israeli settlers arrived at Asira in the afternoon and before any Palestinians or Israeli soldiers came they began the attack by setting fire to the land. The people of Asira arrived and responded by throwing stones towards the settlers, attempting to force them off the land they were destroying. 3 of the 60 settlers were carrying weapons with live ammunition. They began to fire at the Palestinians and 20 year old Nemer Fathir Asaira was shot in the head.

Palestinians carry an injured man who was shot during an attack by illegal Israeli settlers | AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh

Paramedics were prohibited from entering the street so a private car had to evacuate Nemer to an ambulance. 4 more Palestinians were seriously injured by stones that were thrown by the Israeli settlers, including an elderly woman, who was hit in the head, Ahmed Jaber Saleh, whose nose and cheekbone were shattered, and his brother whose leg was broken.

All victims of the attack were taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus. A lot of minor traumas were treated at the scene of the attack, amongst them 13 year old Mohammed Dawood Salah, whose upper arm was hit by a stone.

Shortly after the attack began, the illegal settlers were joined by the Israeli Army. Approximately 30 soldiers arrived at the scene. They watched without intervening as the attack by settlers intensified and increasingly more Palestinians were injured.

Some of the Israeli soldiers began filming the crowd of Palestinians who were throwing stones. An elder from Asira commented that they do this because, “they want to feed a certain stereotype to the Western media.” Filming is also used to intimidate and threaten a future arrest.

The settlers retreated in the late afternoon leaving only soldiers behind, who continued to intimidate and attack the villagers by using tear gas and sound bombs. The fires that had been started by the settlers earlier in the day continued into the late afternoon. The Israeli Army preventedthe Palestinian firemen from putting out the flames that were destroying the land.

Following the attack, the Israeli army proceeded to enter the village from its two main roads. The number of soldiers seemed to outnumber that of the Palestinians, of whom many were minors. Many inhabitants of the village feared that the situation would escalate even further. In the evening, the Israeli military retreated, but not without leaving behind several tear gas grenades and sound bombs.

Whilst confronting the soldiers, the residents of Asira chanted, “our land, our streets.”

A middle aged Palestinian man who chose not be named, stated that, “the settlers usually shoot and go. They come prepared to kill.”

Awaiting treatment in hospital

One day after the attack, Nemer Fathir Asaira, the young man shot in the face, remains in hospital. He was released from Intensive Care Unite, but doctors have yet to determine if he requires surgery.

According to Nemer’s father, his family and friends have been by his side day and night and they will continue to be so until he is released from hospital.

33 year old Ahmed Jaber Saleh, whose nose and cheekbone were broken by a stone, was visited by his mother, wife and son today. His brother, whose leg was broken by a stone, had already been released from the hospital. Ahmed and Nemer both remain in anticipation of a decision by the hospital of their treatment plans.

Settlements: a culture of impunity to the law

Approximately 700 Israelis live in the illegal Israeli settlement adjacent to Asira al-Qibliya. This colony, like 250 others throughout the West Bank, is considered illegal under international law as a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This illegality has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Security Council.

The recent attack was only one of many in the history of the village. In 2011, similar attacks occurred on a weekly basis. This year, the settlers have attempted attacks on Asira up to 3 times each month. The Israeli settlers participating in these aggressions are not always inhabitants of the area. Nevertheless, they show their unity by wearing similar coloured cloth, on the most recent occasion white t-shirts. This may be an indication of long-term planning behind the attack.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 90% of complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians with the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment. OCHA reports that, “ the root cause of the settler violence phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory. This activity has resulted in the progressive takeover of Palestinian land, resources and transportation routes and has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favoring Israeli citizens at the expense of the over 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank.”

The residents of Asira al-Qibliya are unable to lead a secure life under the constant threat of harassment, intimidation, and attack by the Israeli Occupation Forces and illegal settlers alike.

Maria Erdely is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).