21 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Last Friday two people were injured and two arrested when the repression of the Israeli army came down on the regular demonstration at Kufr Qaddoum. Attack dogs were used to frighten and incapacitate protesters, besides the usual tear gas, sound bombs and skunk water. But the village is anticipating that this week’s demonstration will be even larger.
Ahmed Ashtawi’s worst nightmare came true this Friday at the demonstration against the roadblock that cripples Kufr Qaddoum’s access to the rest of the West Bank. The 23 year old traffic police officer, who works his station in Qalqiliya, has a phobia for dogs.
“What happened to Ahmed could have happened to any man in this town,” said Ahmed’s cousin, Mahmoud. “We thank God that it wasn’t worse and hope that he will be with us again at the next demonstration.”
He was attacked by one of the two attack dogs released by the Israeli border police. It was during the beginning of the demonstration, just as the soldiers had pushed the demonstration back with a heavy bombardment of teargas. One of the dogs got hold of Ahmed’s leg and he fell to the ground. When his friend tried to reach him the soldiers fired more tear gas to keep them away. The dog was allowed to keep biting Ahmed for almost 15 minutes while other protestors and international activists tried to free him.
“I saw that his pants were torn and bloody” sais Riad Ashtawi, one of Ahmed’s relatives who tried to reach him while he was on the ground being bit by the dog. “One of the soldiers carried a rifle with live ammunition, aiming it at me, so I was forced to hide behind a tree. When I looked out I saw how a soldier was about to fire towards my head with a tear gas canister from a few meters distance, so I dove for cover again and the canister hit my leg. As I laid on the ground, unable to move I could still hear Ahmed screaming.”
As Ahmed was on the ground with the dog still biting into his hand, his uncle Morad Ashtawi, one of the leaders of the demonstration, was able to reach him. When the soldiers saw Morad they sprayed his face with pepper spray and put him in handcuffs. The official statement of the Israeli army has been that Morad was trying to hit one of the soldiers.
In the video of the event that has been circulated on the internet since Friday, however you can clearly see that Morad poses no threat to the soldiers and that his only aim is to free his nephew from the dog.
“The soldiers have been out for Morad since the beginning of the protests” said Abu Moushab of the city council, who anticipates this weeks demonstration to be bigger and more forceful than last week’s. According to him many people who have seen the video of Murad being arrested are angry and upset.
Ahmed’s cousin reflected on the question of expectations for next week. Smiling and with laughter in his eyes, he declared, “We are afraid of the dogs, so this Friday we will not come to the demonstration,” bursting with laughter. His humor was refreshing despite the gloom cast by the violent Israeli military.The organizers of the protest expect people to turn up from all over the West Bank for this week’s demonstration in Kufr Qaddoum. The video on Youtube of Ahmed being bitten and Morad being arrested have been viewed over 70,000 times.
Locals worry that their village son has not received care following the attack and his arrest by the Occupation forces. “We still don’t know if he has received any care for the injuries he sustained,” said Abu Moushab. “We have been in contact with his lawyer but they are unable to get any information. All we know is that he was given first aid on site.”
Once the teeth of the dog had been pryed off of Ahmed’s hand he was arrested, accused of throwing stones towards the soldiers.
“This is what they do,” said Abu Moushab. “They accuse people of throwing stones to have an excuse to lock them up for months.”
Now the small village waits for Friday to get to voice their rage against what has happened.”Everyone who has seen the video is very angry, and we will continue the protests with more strength” said Mahmoud.
Jonas is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
21 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On March 19th 2012, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, ISM volunteers joined demonstrators in solidarity with Ms. Hana Shalabi, now entering her 35th day of hunger strike.
Marching from outside the headquarters of the Red Cross, a group of around a hundred demonstrators marched towards Nablus city centre waving flags, signs and ‘Free Hana Shalabi’ posters. Some of the people attending were the parents of prisoners held illegally by Israel and held aloft photographs of their missing loved ones as they chanted slogans ranging from ‘Free Hana Shalabi’ to End Administrative detention’ and ‘End the occupation’.
Hana was violently abducted from her home in the West Bank village of Burqin on the 16th of February 2012 and was taken into Israeli custody without justification or pretense. Only after she was in custody for close to two weeks did the Israeli courts issue an ‘Administrative detention’ order on the 29th of February.
Administrative detention is the arrest and confinement of individuals by the state without charge or trial, ostensibly for security reasons. Amnesty International believes that administrative detention breaches Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which “makes clear that no-one should be subjected to arbitrary detention and that deprivation of liberty must be based on grounds and procedures established by law”.
According to Amnesty International, approximately 310 Palestinians are currently held in administrative detention inside Israeli prisons. Administrative detention allows Israel to hold detainees for indefinitely renewable six-month periods. The arrest is granted on the basis of ‘secret information’ and without public scrutiny. Therefore, administrative detainees and their lawyers cannot defend against these allegations in court. Hunger strike is therefore the only non-violent method of resistance open to prisoners whose sole demand is that their human rights are respected in accordance with international law.
In a recent report, Amnesty International expressed particular concerns that prisoners in administrative detention were being “held solely for the non-violent exercise of their right to freedom of expression and association.” Hana Shalabi had previously spent two years in administrative detention but was released last October as part of a prisoner exchange negotiated between Israel and Hamas, making this the second time she has been held in this way.
In the last few days we have begun to receive reports that Hana’s health is deteriorating rapidly. ‘Physicians For Human Rights’ have made clear their concern for Hana Shalabi’s life. The organization also expressed its alarm at the recent proposal that doctors and prison staff are still considering the possibility of force-feeding, despite the fact that international treaties explicitly forbid this. A call to action has been issued by various groups in solidarity with Hana and others held alongside her. According to Palestinian human rights group Addameer, at least 24 other prisoners our at various stages of hunger strike inside Israeli prisons. This includes Ahmad Saqer, the longest serving Palestinian prisoner under Administrative detention, held since November 2008.
Christopher Beckett is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
19 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The Pharmacy District, once a prosperous part of Al Khalil (Hebron) centered around the now closed pharmacy, is now subjected to the violence and harassment of the Israeli military which continues to abuse residents of this historical area.
Monday night International Solidarity Movement activists in Al Khalil received a call that there was trouble in the area at the checkpoint. Four volunteers went there and witness around 100 soldiers in full combat gear and military vehicles, including 3 police cars.
“We stayed there from 9:30 pm to 11:30 pm, trying to figure out what was going on. We witnessed one arrest of a 25-year old man, who was blindfolded and put into a police car around 11 pm. He was released later that night, around 2 am. Soldiers also detained four people, and feigned shooting their guns at some of the houses,” said on international volunteer.
Thursday at noon the volunteers went to speak with Palestinians from the area about the situation with which they must cope.There international activists met a man who has a small metal workshop, who told us how the occupation makes his work a lot more difficult. Recently roadblock gate with barbed wire on was added to the checkpoint, so now people going through have to pass through a turnpike one by one. The turnpike doesn’t allow large objects to pass through, so the workers will have to wait for the soldiers to come open the gate, which can take quite a while, even in urgent situations.A Palestinian fire truck stopped at the Kaytuun checkpoint. Notice the soldier on the roof doing nothing to let it through.
A Palestinian fire truck stopped at the Kaytuun checkpoint. Notice the soldier on the roof doing nothing to let it through.
“While we were there, a fire truck on call for an emergency came to the closed roadblock gate. A soldier on an overlooking roof, just sat there finishing his cigarette, before slowly walking to open the gate. It took four minutes before the fire truck was through, and one of the local residents said that when there were no internationals around, it could take up to half an hour,” said an ISM volunteer.
This week ISM volunteers also met Ismael Ahmad Osman, 46, a father of four sons and two daughters. He told ISM that the soldiers often harass the people in the area. There were soldiers searching the houses multiple time during the weekend, and on Saturday they were especially rough to him and his family.
Ismael went with his 20 year old son to buy groceries, and on their way back, a group of soldiers took the son away for questioning and a body search. There they beat him, and because he defended himself, they beat him even more. His father heard it, and rushed in, and they stopped only because he apologized for his son’s behavior. As he recalls it, it was very undignified having to apologize for his son getting beaten up.
Ismael Ahmad Osman with his son and daughter.
“The simplest human right is to go inside your house with dignity,” he said, before continuing his story.
10 minutes after he got home, the soldiers from the notorious Golani brigade came back, searching his house, handcuffing and beating his four sons, before turning on Ismael himself.
In front of his 2 small daughters he was beaten badly, and when he asked for his medication, they allowed him only some of it, denying his wife to give him his asthma medicine as well.
Following more beatings, including kicks in the ribs and hits on the shoulder with the butt of the soldiers’ guns, he went unconscious and fell to the floor, before the soldiers gave him an injection and allowed his family to send for an ambulance. Three of his sons followed him to the hospital, where the x-rays showed a broken rib.
When ISM volunteers met him five days after the attack, his arms still had large bruises.
When they got back from the hospital to their family house, the soldiers were still there. They had handcuffed the son who stayed behind to try and calm the family. He was beaten some more before they blindfolded him and forced him into a jeep. They drove him to a village on the outskirts of Hebron, took off his handcuffs, and kicked him out, still blindfolded, not knowing where he was. He managed to stumble to a nearby house, where the family there drove him home.
“The next night they came again, searched the house and beat up the sons once more,” Ismael says with a sad smile as he finishes his story. The recent events have been hard for him and his family; the two daughters are very scared and since then, they have been wetting their beds at night.
This is unfortunately only one of many recent examples of excessive soldier violence against Palestinians.
Rune is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
19 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
With the change of the Israeli army brigades last week, it has not been quiet in Al Khalil. It seems like the new soldiers are using the city as a training field.
It started about one about a week ago, on Sunday March 18th, when the 100 soldiers from the Kfir brigade arrested one boy, closing down several streets in the process. On Sunday the streets were once again filled with hundreds of soldiers, many houses were raided, and many more Palestinians were detained for several hours without reason.
The raids began at approximately 9:00 PM in the Tel Rumeida area, and continued well past midnight on Shuhada street, near the Qeitun checkpoint, and in the area of the Qordaba girls’ school. At 10 pm around 100 soldiers escorted 17 men and teenage boys taken during the house raids through Qeitun checkpoint where they were forced to stand lined up against the wall while soldiers screamed at them in Hebrew. All were eventually let go, though four young men were held until 1:00 AM.
Among the raided houses, is the home of the Abu Mohammad family which had suffered much harassment from the military in the past few months. The house is split in two parts, and about 2 months ago the soldiers started to occupy the left half of the building, forcing the almost 30 people living there to move to the right part. The families living in the house have filed a lawsuit that is yet to be decided. Sunday night the soldiers raided the entire house, forced all the inhabitants outside and searched every room. After that they moved to the roof, were they broke the water-pipe, and stayed for several days. The water is leaking in the house, but the tenants are not allowed to go on the roof and fix it.
The house of the Abu Ahmed family was raided three times throughout the course of the night, the Israeli army forcing the family out on the street while the soldiers searched the house again and again. Three generations live in the house including four children all under the age of 7. The soldiers did not explain why they were there or what they were looking for. A 65 year old resident of this house explained that this is normal for them.
In another house raid near the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah, a young girl fell and hit her head and was unconscious for several minutes after soldiers forced her and her family out of their front door. As the ambulance could only reach as far as the checkpoint at the end of the road, the girl was forced to walk to the checkpoint to meet the ambulance. The soldiers at the checkpoint prevented her from crossing to the ambulance for fifteen minutes.
Mira, Rune, and Paige are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).
19 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On Sunday 18th of March, an 18-year old Palestinian student, Mustafa Abu Salime, got attacked by settlers between Checkpoints 56 and Gilbert. Mustafa passed the Gilbert checkpoint on his way to visit his friends. He saw three settlers talking to a soldier. Few meters down from the checkpoint the same settlers came behind him and sprayed him with pepper spray and started beating him.
The settlers hit him on his head, back and knee then pushed him on the ground and kicked him. In the attack Mustafa lost his eye glasses and phone. The soldiers did not interfere. After the beating the soldiers came and made him stand next to the wall while they did a body search of him before taking him to Checkpoint 56. From the checkpoint Mustafa was taken to an army ambulance, in which he was driven around and questioned before they handed him to the Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital where he spent two hours. Issa Amro, a local human rights activist, filmed the ordeal and can be viewed here.
Satu is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
