Category: Reports

Kufr ad-Dik: At the crossroads of Israeli confiscation

by Neil

30 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The village of Kufr ad-Dik in the Salfit region of the West Bank has become the latest in a series of villages to launch weekly protests against mass land theft by Israeli occupying forces.

Residents of Kufr ad-Dik took part in their fifth demonstrationon Friday, 27th of January. While this demonstration was short due to weather conditions, the previous demonstration on the 20th of January was much longer. Israeli forces used large amounts of tear gas to repel the protesters before firing more gas directly into the village and using rubber bullets on some remaining demonstrators.

Two ISM activists were the only internationals present at the most recent demonstration, and there were   no Israeli activists. This is in spite of the presence of perhaps dozens of internationals and Israelis at the  nearby demonstration in Nabi Saleh.

Eighty percent of the land of the village has been confiscated by  the Israeli military  in the name of security. The village is surrounded by four different settlements as well as a collection of recently built Israeli factories. Israel currently has plans to build a fifth settlement nearby atop a hill.

Eleven houses are currently under demolition orders, some of them for the past three years.  A total of twenty-one farm buildings have also been served with demolition orders. So far five of them have been demolished. Most recently, on 17th December, three wells and five rooms belonging to one farmer were destroyed.

The region of Salfit, in which Kufr ad-Dik is situated is extremely important to Israel both because of its possession of significant water resources. Its location comes at at a point where the border separating 1948 lands and Palestinian villages is quite thin. There are currently eighteen illegal Israeli settlements in the Salfit region, but only eleven Palestinian villages.

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

Detention of Palestinian political prisoners

by Shazia Arshad

29 January 2012 | Middle East Monitor

FACT SHEET

As candidates prepared for elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006, the Israeli authorities began a campaign of detention and imprisonment to thwart the growing move towards democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli authorities began to arrest members of Hamas: 450 were detained in 2005 to prevent their participation in the election the following year; many were held in administrative detention, without trial or charge. Despite this the elections took place and a number of the candidates in prison were elected to the PLC.

The 2006 Palestinian elections were overseen by international observers, who declared them to be free and fair (more open, it has been said, than the 2004 re-election of George W Bush). Hamas ended up as the democratically-elected Palestinian government. A number of PLC members under the Change and Reform List (including Hamas members and supporters) were also chosen by the electorate and became the target of the Israeli authorities’ constant campaign of arrest and detention.

There are, at the moment, 27 PLC members and 2 Ministers being detained by the Israeli authorities.

Download Fact Sheet

“We die a little bit inside us each time”: 2 more homes demolished in Bedouin village of Umm Al Kheer

by Tom

26 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Israel demolished the homes of two families in the Bedouin village of Um Al-Kheer in the South Hebron Hills last week, on Wednesday January 25th.

Demolitions in Umm al Kheer - Click here for more images

The demolition team arrived with a bulldozer at 9:00 in the morning together Israeli soldiers and police. Villagers reported a chaotic situation of shouting and screaming and extremely aggressive behaviour on the part of the Israeli demolition team, soldiers and police. A video of part the demolition was taken by the Italian group Operation Dove:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTY_wYlzxdQ&m

An international observer for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israeli (EAPPI) who arrived on the scene later the same day, described hearing the news as “the message we had feared for two months.”  A video from later that Wednesday can be found on the Norwegian-language blog, showing  village residents searching through the rubble, looking for belongings.

Um Al-Kheer is a so-called “unrecognised village” of 150 people, situated next to the settlement of Karmel. Its Bedouin residents originally settled in the village after they had been forced out of the Neguib (Negev) in 1948.

One of the houses belonged to a widow and her nine children, who was left crying for their lost home. The second house was home to a young couple and their three children.

Um Al-Kheer has been repeatedly subject to Israeli house demolitions. The events of January 25th were the fourth such assault on the village since February 2007 and brings the number of Israeli demolitions in the tiny village to a total of sixteen houses and one restroom. The most recent previous demolition was in October 2011.

Village resident Eid Suleymann said of the demolitions, “We die a little bit inside us each time.”

The primary reason for the demolitions is the adjacent settlement of Karmel. Part of the Israeli excuse for the demolitions is the security of the settlers,  but residents feel that the actual purpose is to  “clear this area of people”and to expand the already-growing settlement into it. This settlement is considered illegal under international law.Only a few metres away from the village and the rubble of the house, house construction can be seen under way in Karmel. Several cranes and newly or partly built houses are clearly visible.

While the story of Um al-Kheer is one of tremendous suffering and of inhuman and racist behaviour on the part of the Israel state, it should however also be regarded as an outstanding example of  endurance and solidarity. A temporary metal shack has already been constructed to house the widow and her children. Palestinians and Israeli activists from Ta’ayush worked through the rain on Saturday January 28th to begin rebuilding of the houses’ stone walls.

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

2 youth dead in attack on Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip

by Rosa Schiano

22 January 2012 | il Blog di Oliva

Israeli Apaches and land forces shelled an area east of Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday morning, January 18 2012.

Two young men were killed and another was injured. As we hurried to the scene we met an ambulance driving at high speed. Upon arriving we heard immediately that one of the young men, 20 year old Mohammed Shaker Abu Auda, had died instantly, while the other man was rushed to the hospital.

We went to the Beit Hanoun hospital morgue, and we saw the massacred body of Mohammed. While we were at the morgue we heard that the other young man was in critical condition at Kamal Adwan Hospital. While we were moving to that hospital, we learned that Ahmed Khaled Abu Murad Al-Zaaneen, 17 years-old, had also died.

We waited for his funeral.

Mohammed Shaker Abu Auda, martyred at the age of 20

Family members and friends told us that the two young men went near the border to find building materials to sell. The poorest youth of Gaza frequently go to the border, in the so-called no go zone of 300 meters imposed by Israel, to find building material to sell.

They also told us that the two young men were catching birds.

The body of Ahmed was at about 300-400 meters from the border.

Saber Zaaneen of the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative told us that Ahmed was losing blood from his head but that “he was still alive, he was breathing heavily” when he found him.

The ambulance could not reach the body of Ahmed immediately because tanks and soldiers were continuing to shoot and it was too dangerous to approach the area.

The ambulance was forced to back away because of the continuous fire.

The entire time the father of Ahmed was crying, “I want to see my son! I want to see my son!”

Ahmed was still alive when he reached the ambulance.

The day after, we went to the mourning tent and we met the families of the two victims.

Ahmed’s mother did not stop crying. I remained seated with her and the other women of the family, silently, I was speechless at so much pain.

Then we went to the other mourning tent. Here, the brother of Mohammed, Zahor Abu Auda, told us that the two young men were catching birds to sell them for pets.
If they were lucky, they made 100 shekels from the sale of the birds (100 shekels are equivalent to about 20 euros).

His mother can’t walk, Mohammed took care of her.

Zahor told us, “Let the world know that the Israelis killed a man that was only trying to get money to live. The Israeli forces, supported by the Americans. kill people in Gaza regularly and nobody hears about it, the world is silent.”

Missile fired by an Israeli Apache during the attack

Meanwhile we knew that Israeli spokespersons were spreading the story that the two victims were armed militants and that they were about to place explosives in the area of the border.

These Israeli declarations and their powerful influence on the mass media induce a feeling of powerlessness. Members of the families and friends told us that Mohammed and Ahmed were not part of armed groups.

Mohammed and Ahmed were civilians, they were just workers.

We join the appeal of Zohar, and we will continue to give a voice to the people of Gaza so that the silence will never completely obscure all of this pain over the agony of the mothers and over the bodies massacred.

Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement. You can read more of her writing at il Blog di Oliva.

“Each Arab dog will have his day:” Military raids Khalil youth center

by Tom

22 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In an action that appears to have been carried out purely for the entertainment and satisfaction of Israeli settlers, the center of the activist group, Youth Against Settlements, in Tel Rumeida, Al Khalil (also known as Hebron) was stormed by Israeli soldiers at 3pm on the afternoon of  Saturday 21st  January. Organisation leader Issa Amro was  briefly arrested and taken away without reason.

Settlers surrounded the Centre of Steadfastness and Challenge,  as soldiers broke in and seized Amro while simultaneously seeming to attempt a search of the building.

Amro was forcefully handcuffed behind his back, despite his having a medical condition which means that this should be prohibited; a fact of which Israeli authorities are well aware having detained him on fifteen different occasions last year. He was then blindfolded and taken away to a military base, where he was beaten. Soldiers also threatened to kill him.

Soldiers then proceeded to assault several other activists who were attempting to document the incident, including Badia Dwaik, Tamer Atrash, Hamad Israir and Sundos Assilay, an eighteen-year old girl.

As Amro was taken away, settlers who had gathered for the show cheered triumphantly, spat at him and chanted slogans such as “each Arab dog will have his day.” No reason was given for the arrest and no provocation was made. He was subsequently released without any kind of charge less than half-an-hour later. Many more Jews were visiting the city for Shabbat and the Settler Tour of the old city, and it seems that the army wanted to put on a show for the settlers.

The Youth Against Settlements centre was previously occupied by the Israeli military before being reclaimed for Palestinians in a major victory for the organisation.

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