Category: Reports - Page 342 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli soldiers raid Hebron homes “to stay in shape”

by Carol Vans

15 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Today on December 15, Israeli soldiers raided private property and at least one school in what appeared to be a military excercise in Hebron. Around 7:30 in the morning soldiers entered the playground of Ibrahimi elementary school and claimed that children had been throwing pieces of plastic. When the director was notified and went outside to talk to the soldiers, the military captain picked up a piece of glass from the ground and accused the children of throwing glass as well. The captain then threatened to close the school if it would happen again, but it remained unclear as to what excatly he meant since he was in the schoolyard of an elementary school where children frequently play during their breaks.

In the occupied area of Hebron known as H2, soldiers entered a family’s residential building and positioned themselves on the roof where they threw soundbombs and pointed their weapons towards civilians on the street. When ISM was notified soldiers on the street prevented them and other residents in the area from crossing the permanent barrier. One man living in the area referred to the event as an “excercise madness” and raised concern over children living in the area. After entering the homes the soldiers later withdrew into the nearby observation tower but returned back to the house after a short period of time. When internationals from the ISM followed the soldiers tried to block them from reaching into the building. When asked about the reason for the exercise in someone’s private home, the soldiers claimed that they needed “to stay in shape.”

Families living inside the apartment had not been notified of the exercise and did not know the reason why their homes were being used as military training camp.

In the Old City soldiers entered several families homes and continued to move up to the rooftops were they took firing positions towards the street were men, women and children were moving. At one instance soldiers lined up approximately twenty teenagers against the wall choosing two of them to stay and ordering the rest to leave. The two teenagers that were left were encircled by 6 soldiers who staged an arrest in what appeared to be part of the exercise.

Israeli soldiers frequently raid Palestinian homes and property in the occupied area of Hebron known as H2.

ISM regards the recent aggression against Palestinian civilians as part of escalating harassment, violence and attacks made by Israeli soldiers and settlers stationed in the area and surrounding illegal settlements. Israeli occupation of the Westbank and Hebron is considered illegal under international law. Many international organizations and human rights organizations have expressed deep concern over the situation in Hebron where between 3000 to 4000 soldiers are protecting the approximately 500 settlers who are occupying the city centre from within.

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

Narratives under siege: Overcrowded living

14 December 2011 | Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Muhammed Salman Abu Rashad, 45, Amna Abu Rashad, 31, and their nine children live in the Jabalia refugee camp, one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The family represent just 11 of the 1.1 million refugees who make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population of approximately 1.7 million people.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Jabalia is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and is home to around 110,000 registered refugees in an area of only 1.4 square kilometres; unsurprisingly, the camp is infamous for its overcrowding. Israel’s illegal closure policy, first used to isolate the Gaza Strip in 1991, has been particularly devastating on the residents of Jabalia camp, who, like Muhammed Abu Rashad, previously relied on jobs within Israel to support their families. Since the beginning of the complete closure of Gaza in 2007, the now-unemployed residents have been forced to rely on UNRWA aid to survive.

The Abu Rashad’s home, consisting largely of a 3 meter by 3 meter room, is typical of many homes in Jabalia camp. A single room acts as the sleeping, living, studying and eating area for all eleven family members. With winter approaching, it is obvious that the house, which displays long winding cracks along its walls and an open doorway where there should be a functioning door, is entirely inadequate for the couple and their nine children, with a tenth on the way. When the rain comes it flows into the house and onto their blankets, and despite the fact it is a crisp dry day outside, the damp in the room is particularly noticeable. Muhammad is quick to point out that the conditions would be better in prison: “it is not a home but a cemetery”.

The crowding affect’s all aspects of family life, but for the couple’s 9 children the effect is crippling. A majority of the family’s children study during the evening shift in the local UNRWA school, which is forced to run double shifts to facilitate all the camp’s students. When the children return home it is dark and, given the constant power cuts, lack of space, and loud noise from electrical generators the children are unable to study. As a result, two of the Abu Rashad children have failed a year in school and been kept back.

With a lack of space to play – either in the home or in the tight, rubbish strewn, alleyways outside – the children have little physical or emotional space and tend to lash out against each other as a result. The boys resort to violence against their younger siblings and Muhammed tells me that his two daughters are unable “to behave like young girls”, instead imitating their brothers violence in an attempt to “hold their own”. Muhammed himself regrets lashing out at his children when they misbehave, saying that the stress of living in such close quarters leaves him anxious and prone to outbursts.

The crowding has repercussions not only on the family’s mental health but also their physical health. Greeting the children it is obvious they are all suffering from colds and flu. Muhammed says that “when one child comes down with an illness, with no space to isolate and treat them, the rest of the children are all rapidly infected”. Given the constant damp and cold getting the children well again once they become sick is no easy task.

While the crowding has left the family at crisis point, the situation is only getting worse. The children are currently young, the eldest being 15, but as they grow older the tiny room will become progressively more cramped. The eldest daughter Sundus, 10, will soon be too old to sleep next to her brothers. Muhammad tells us that with the neighbours building on top of their current houses in an attempt to alleviate their own crowding problems, the sun will soon be blocked entirely from the already dank family home. The result, according to Muhammad, will be “the families’ destruction”.

The Palestinian refugee crisis is one of the largest and most longstanding refugee problems in the world; today approximately one in four of the entire world’s refugee’s are Palestinian. The rights of Palestinian refugees, and in particular the ‘right of return’, are protected in numerous UN Resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 194. However, for as long as the international community refuses to enforce international law, these resolutions will continue to bear little relevance for the Gaza Strip’s refugees, whose fundamental human rights continue to be systematically denied.

Planting the seeds of resistance and steadfastness in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey

13 December 2011

Photo: Beit Hanoun Local Initiative – Click here for more images

We set off from in front of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College under the flags of half a dozen countries, but listening to the music of Palestine. Every Tuesday, for three years, we set off from here into the no go zone, that three hundred meter strip of death which surrounds Gaza. We are a diverse group, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other Gazans. We march down the road into the no go zone, the tension builds, we play music, we chant.

Today, as we approached the buffer zone a shot rang out. Israeli soldiers shooting into the air, shooting from the concrete towers which line the border of the prison that Israel has created in Gaza. We do not stop, we keep walking into the no go zone. The no go zone is different this week, it is green. Usually it is a dead brown, every couple of weeks Israeli bulldozers come and uproot any plants that manage to sprout, nothing is allowed to live in the no go zone. It is hard to imagine that this used to be an area of thriving orchards, that their used to be houses here, they have all been destroyed, not just destroyed, erased like the hundreds of Palestinian villages which most of the people of Gaza are refugees from were erased after 1948. Just as Palestinians have refused to be erased by the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, or the war on Gaza, the no go zone steadfastly refuses to become a place of death, green plants emerge from the land after every rain.

We march all the way to the giant ditch which scars the no go zone. We plant a Palestinian flag. It joins the other flags we have left in the no go zone, the orchard of olive trees which we planted here last month. Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative spoke, he vowed to “continue the popular resistance despite the bullets of the occupation, resistance would continue until the liberation of Palestine.” Almost on cue he was answered by the bullets of the soldiers, shots began to ring out, not at us; the soldiers were shooting into the air. We calmly walked back to the road to Beit Hanoun; we still had work to do.

On the road to Beit Hanoun we met a tractor. We had brought the tractor to farm, to plant the land of the no go zone. Israel claims that the no go zone extends only three hundred meters, but in reality the danger extends much farther, just before the demonstration today the Israeli’s had shot a fourteen year old boy from Beit Hanoun while he gathered scrap metal to help support his family, he was not in the no go zone, it didn’t matter, they shot him anyway. We drove the tractor into a large patch of unfarmed land next to the road. We lowered the disc and began to turn the soil. The thistles that grew here were turned under the red soil of Gaza. Young men pulled stones from the field; they were left by the cactuses which mark the border of the land. As soon as the soil was turned young men spread out and began to plant it, barley. When the rains come, the barley will sprout, in four months we will harvest it. We will harvest it under the guns of the Israeli army, just as Palestinians have done for sixty four years, steadfast in their refusal to abandon their land. We are planting not only barley, but also resistance, steadfastness.

“Like the Wild West:” Ex-prisoner lives with bounty on his head

by Alistair George

13 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement West Bank

“I see my situation as a cowboy film, like the wild west” says Hani Jaber, showing ISM a poster, written in Arabic saying: ‘Wanted: if anyone has any information about the whereabouts of the killer Hani Jaber, please call us on this number and you will receive a reward.’

The number goes through to an answer machine where the message instructs callers to leave a phone number, promising to guarantee confidentiality and to pay good money. Other leaflets have been handed out showing pictures of Jaber and other recently released prisoners, offering rewards for information and leaflets for soldiers so that they can alert settlers if Hani passes through a checkpoint. Reports in the Israeli media suggest that the reward is $100,000 for information on Hani’s whereabouts.

After serving eighteen years of a life sentence, Hani was released from prison on 18 December 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal which saw 477 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.

In 1993, Hani, 18 years old at the time, took a kitchen knife and stabbed to death the settler Erez Shmuel, who Hani claims had attacked his nine year old sister as she came come from school. Hani’s rage had built as he and his family experienced frequent attacks by settlers over many years. Hani had his jaw broken during an attack by four settlers, on another occasion his leg was fractured. His cousin, Aziza Jaber, was shot and killed by a settler as she was in labour and on her way to hospital – she was 30 at the time.

Hani was sentenced to life imprisonment and was kept in isolation for a total of five years. He spent two years without seeing his family – the only person who could visit relatively regularly was his mother; his father only got permission around once a year to visit and he has a brother which he didn’t see for 18 years.

Despite his prison term, Hani looks strong and healthy, his beard neatly trimmed and hair carefully side-parted. He seems calm and relaxed as we talk in a quiet corner in a nondescript café in Hebron. However, Hani and his father, Rasami, are careful to sit with their backs to the wall where they can see the layout of the shop. Rasami has rarely left his son’s side since his release from prison. “It’s a very difficult time, I’m afraid to leave him in case something happens – I stay with him or his brother stays with him to protect him.”

“I take the situation seriously” says Hani – “I don’t give any opportunities to anybody. I believe that I won’t lose my happiness with my freedom but I should be afraid sometimes…I don’t have any weapons or anything to protect myself, I only feel safe when I am with my family”.

When he was released from prison, Hani was given clearance to travel anywhere in the West Bank. However, a few days after his release, the police gave him a verbal order that he had to remain in Hebron for his own safety and that he had to sign in with the DCO (District Coordinators Office) every two months. But Hani says that his confinement to Hebron makes him feel like he is living under huge pressure in a “big jail” and is more vulnerable from attacks.

He says that his primary fear is from Palestinian collaborators rather than from settlers or soldiers. He is also fearful for his family, who have been attacked by settlers many times since his release.

Hani Jaber lives in secret location in Hebron for his own safety, it is too dangerous for him to return to his family’s home in Wadi Al-Hussain, a valley situated on the edge of Hebron’s old city. Their house faces Kiryat Arba, an illegal Israeli settlement of around 7,000 people, a few hundred metres away on the opposite side of the valley.

The Jaber family’s house has always been a focus of attacks by settlers, due to its proximity to the settlement. However, the attacks have escalated since it was announced that Hani would be released from prison. The house was attacked on the day of his release and Ibtisam Jaber, 33, Hani’s sister-in-law, was beaten and suffered a miscarriage three days later.

“The settlers came and attacked the house. Ibtisam lost her baby, nobody else was here because we were celebrating [Hani’s release]” said Moutasem Jaber, 21 – Hani’s brother.

On 19 November 2011 thousands of Israeli settlers and Zionists crowded into Hebron for Shabbat Chaye Sarah – celebrating Abraham’s biblical purchase of land on the site of the Ibrahimi Mosque. The family experienced a surge in attacks; they were attacked around 10 times – at one point there was over 100 settlers outside the house. They threw stones, urinated in the family’s well, and chanted “We will kill you” outside the house. The soldiers responded by entering the house and forcing the family to stay in one room for seven hours.

According to Hani, the family’s shop has been attacked and the house has been attacked at least seven times since his release. The Jaber family have reported the attacks and the threats to kill Hani to the police but they don’t expect any action to be taken.

“The government does not do anything against the settlers,” said Hani. They also say that the Palestinian Authority is unable to offer any kind of protection to Hani and his family.

“My case is not the only one” says Hani – “Many people have the same pressure. There are much harassment to all Palestinians – even if you’re not resisting and no settlers have been arrested after they harassed my family. They have evidence against them but the Israeli government will not do anything.”

Now that he has been released, does Hani think he can ever have a normal life with the death threats hanging over him and a bounty on his head?

“I’m not a terrorist, I didn’t do anything wrong and I think that I deserve to live a normal life, to get an education, to get married and to live like normal people” he replied “but now after all this harassment from the settlers I’m afraid to get married because I will destroy someone else’s life.” Hani says that if he was to study or work it would be a huge risk to take at the present time.

Even considering the brutal attacks that his family has faced from settlers, does he not think in hindsight that his actions were wrong? Does he have any regrets?

“I believe that I haven’t done anything wrong, and I have the right to live a normal life, and I have the right to be a fighter if there is an occupation in Palestine. With all the attacks from settlers it makes people react and to fight and resist – this is the normal thing, it’s not normal to sit and do nothing.”

But does he still believe that this is the most effective way to resist?

“At that time I was 18 years old, it was impossible to take all this darkness from the Israelis except in this way. Even after 18 years in the prison I see that the settlements are larger, the occupation is stronger and everything is getting worse. I believe that I did the right thing at the time but now I want to live as a normal person. I believe that I have to stay in one place, and that is the only resistance I can do because I think the fighting time is over.”

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

Khan Al-Ahmar: Forced expulsion of Bedouins from Area C

by Alistair George

13 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

“From the 1970’s until today, the Israelis used to demolish our tents and houses but not to deport us” says Abu Hamis, a member of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe . “We used to rebuild our places but the new policy which they are adopting is that they want to not only demolish the houses, but to deport us from the area.”

Abu Hamis lives in the tinyvillageof Khan Al-Ahmar, located in the arid, rocky East Jerusalem periphery where steep mountain slopes plummet to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. The Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, considered illegal under international law, is visible on the hill above the village. The settlement is currently home to around 35,000 people; however,Israel has plans to expand it to create a city of 100,000.

This massive expansion will require the transfer of Arab Bedouin communities living in the area and is part of a wider plan – outlined to the UN by the Israeli authorities – to forcibly transfer all Bedouin communities from Area C, the 62% of land in the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military control. The plan would involve transferring around 27,000 people and it could begin as soon as January 2012.

“This is a huge story” says Eyal Hareuveni, a researcher at Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. “Evacuating Area C for all the Bedouin communities actually means taking 20% or more of all the Palestinians that live in Area C and transferring them without their consent to another area. Legally, forced eviction is considered a grave violation of human rights, and there are some NGOs that are already calling it a war crime.”

A mass forcible eviction, which seems the most likely outcome of the plans of the Israeli authorities, would be a breach of the Geneva Conventions – which is a war crime, for which there is personal criminal liability.

There are also grave environmental concerns with the proposed relocation site for many of the Jahalin Bedouin communities, which is located next to a potentially highly toxic rubbish dump east of Jerusalem.

Furthermore, B’Tselem and the Bedouin communities of Area C claim that the plan to expand Ma’ale Adumim will sever the connection between the southern and the northern part of theWest Bank for Palestinians – effectively ending the possibility of a two-state solution.

The forced transfer of the Jahalin community

The 22 Bedouin families (160 inhabitants) of Khan Al-Ahmar have homes that are mostly shacks made from corrugated iron and wood, with metal fences holding livestock – the primary source of income for the village. The village had 1500 goats for over 10 years, but now they have 150. They have a single camel, when they once had thirty. The inhabitants are no longer allowed to work in the Israeli settlements as they once did. Two electricity lines pass nearby, but the village is not allowed to connect to these networks, so they have to use small diesel-powered generators. Unlike many of the Bedouin communities in the area, who have to import water in highly expensive containers, the village does have some running water.

The village’s existence is in stark contrast to Ma’ale Adumim which has swimming pools, libraries, a transport system, health facilities, shopping malls and subsidized water and electricity.

Demolition orders have been issued by the Israeli authorities for all of Khan Al-Ahmar’s structures, including the village’s school which serves five Bedouin communities in the area with 85 students.

Abu Hamis said that, “The most basic need for any human being is to have an education…after we built the school I invited the council of Ma’ale Adumim to the school in order to create some kind of cooperation between us and they came here and they showed us they are very happy that we have a school now. Three days later we received a demolition order and the excuse was that it’s a ‘danger for the settlement’.”

Nicola Harrison, from UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency), says that the timeline of Israel’s Civil Administration’s plan is unclear, and they refuse to show the written plans to anyone outside of the Israeli authorities. “What’s very clear is that the civil administration has confirmed that they do plan to move the Area C population who do not have a building permit, and they are going to go ahead with identifying different locations throughout Area C,” she said. The plan would remove around 2,300 members of the Jahalin tribe in the area.

A previous expulsion of Bedouin communities by the Israeli authorities occurred in the 1990’s, after the Oslo Agreement was signed in 1993. However, Harrison said, “The 90’s was a compensation package after the forcible relocation, with bulldozers and multiple demolitions. This time they are very much trying to avoid the chaos of that, and they’re going to use much smaller drip-by-drip techniques to exhaust everyone into accepting the package so they don’t have to come with bulldozers. However, they have confirmed several times that, if the Bedouin refuse this ‘nice package,’ they will be demolished anyway and moved by force.”

According to Harrison, the relocation package is likely to include a plot of land, building permission, leaseholds and a certain amount of money, depending on the size of the family. Abu Hamis says that the plans would not leave them with enough land to graze their livestock and would endanger their traditional way of life. The area has been home to the Jahalin tribe since 1948, when they were forced to leave the Negev following the creation of Israel. There is no doubt that Khan Al-Ahmar badly needs development, but the school and the struggle to gain running water are examples of progress.

Environmental Issues

Israel’s Civil Administration have indicated that they will try to re-locate around 100 Bedouin families, comprising around 800 people, to a site next to Jerusalem’s primary rubbish dump, near Abu Dis and to the homes built for Jahalin people forcibly transferred by Israel in the 1990’s. The Jahalin communities, human rights organizations, and UNRWA are concerned that this site would endanger the health of the community.

According to Eyal Hareuveni, “The dumpsite was supposed to be closed in 2006, then 2007, 2010, 2011 and now it’s supposed to be closed down in 2012. 95% of the dumping is from Israel, the only reason they choose to dump here is that it is cheaper than dumping in Israel….This is the legal justification because the Palestinians are ‘enjoying it’ as well. According to the Israeli Ministry of the Environment, this is the worst dump that Israelis using.”

The site contains 7 million tonnes of waste and the Israeli authorities have failed to monitor the gases emitted from the site, so they have no way of knowing whether it is safe. The rubbish-choked valley is completely open for anyone to access; people from the nearby Bedouin community can be seen searching through the mounds of trash for valuable scrap metal.

The Israeli authorities plan to rehabilitate the rubbish site in order to forcibly re-locate Bedouins in Area C and house them there – however, the Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim municipalities and the Civil Administration have not yet agreed on a plan to rehabilitate the site.

Hareuveni says that relocating the Bedouins to the site of the rubbish dump is “typical of any plans that the civil administration has all over Area C…the main purpose of the civil administration is to limit the possibility of expansion for any Palestinian community. The plan for the dump site is another example of how they don’t care about the livelihoods of the Palestinians.”

He claims that the plans to remove Bedouins in other parts of Area C will inevitably produce more environmental problems.

In the Jordan Valley most of the areas were closed down for Palestinians because there were settlements or fire zones or nature reserves or even landmine fields. So there aren’t any places were the Bedouin communities can keep their traditional way of life or livelihood in the Jordan Valley and the issue of water is much more crucial there than it is here. Water has been taken by the settlements in theJordanValleyfor many years and there are established [Bedouin] communities in theJordanValleythat are losing their livelihood because of the lack of water or diminishing water resources.

Expansion of Ma’ale Adumim and the end of the two-state solution

“This is the most strategically important expansion of settlements in the West Bank. If this compound will be built, it’s most likely that the two state solution won’t be viable anymore” says Hureuveni.

The so-called E1 compound is the proposed site for the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim. Around 10 Bedouin communities reside within the compound and will be forced to make way for the planned expansion, including the village of Khan Al-Ahmar.

The E1 compound was annexed to Jerusalem municipality after the Oslo agreement in the beginning of the 1990’s. The Israelis plan to build 4000 houses here to expand Ma’ale Adumim; according to Hareuveni, the master plan for the expansion in E1 has already been passed by Israel’s Civil Administration. It only needs the approval of the Ministry of Defense.

The only road connecting the south of the West Bank to the north, that Palestinians are permitted to use, passes through the municipality of Ma’ale Adumim– it is also the only road Palestinians are allowed to use which passes through a settlement, as the road does not pass through a built-up part of the settlement.

According to Hareuveni, if the Bedouins are transferred from the area, and the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim is enacted, “it will seal East Jerusalem from the east and East Jerusalem will be disconnected from the West Bank because there will be no territorial contiguity between the north of the West Bank and the south part of the West bank. Any future Palestinian entity will be divided by a northern canton and a southern canton.”

It will also facilitate the breaking up of the Ramallah – East Jerusalem -Bethlehem economic link which comprises 35-40% of the Palestinian economy

There are currently no credible plans for an alternative road for Palestinians to use. Israel had begun to build part of a road that could eventually pass near Jerusalem but the project stalled in 2007. Hareuveni adds that there is another alternative, “but this seems like a fantasy – it is called ‘Road 80’ that is supposed to encircle all of Ma’ale Adumim block and connect them [Palestinians] back to Ramallah – but this is a huge engineering project that will cost billions of dollars, and there is no approval.”

Hareuveni says that when articles are published in the press, they usually only cover one part of the story, focusing on either the house demolitions, or the plan to move Bedouin communities to the rubbish site, or the plans to expand the E1 compound – with all issues covered in isolation. However, he insists that “all these [issues] are interrelated. They wouldn’t do anything with the Bedouin communities unless there was some wish to expand Ma’ale Adumim to E1, and they wouldn’t speak about transferring the Bedouin communities unless there was the option of expanding the Jahalin village near the dump site.”

As UNWRA and many human rights organizations claim, the forcible transfer of people under occupation is a grave breach of the Geneva Convention and a war crime with personal criminal liability for those in power. Furthermore, the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim will, in all likelihood, carve up the West Bank into unconnected northern and southern cantons, destroying any possibility of a future two-state solution.

It is under this threat that Abu Hamis of the Bedouin Khan Al-Ahmar village makes an appeal to mobilize forces.

“[We need to] put pressure on the Israelis to stop their plans,” said Abu Hamis. “We want to live in freedom, we want to live in dignity in our land here and we want our children to live in the best conditions without any problems or deportation…Next month, there is a real danger that we will be pushed from this area – we need all of you to be beside us.”

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