Category: Reports

The Israeli Army shot at me and 3 Palestinian kids in Gaza today

Children duck to avoid Israeli Army gunfire - Click here for more images

Radhika S.
28 October 2011 | Notes from Behind the Blockade

After a lovely day of drinking excessive amounts of tea with a few families in South Gaza (Faraheen and Khuza’a, to be exact), an Italian colleague, Silvia, who used to live in Khuza’a, suggested walking down the road towards the local school.  It was late afternoon, about 4:30 p.m. and dozens of children played in the area.  We walked past  slices of a giant concrete wall placed in the middle of the road.  The slivers reminded me of Israel’s Apartheid Wall in the West Bank — 25 feet of reinforced concrete.   The local villagers had apparently retrieved these sections from a former settlement and placed them there so that children could play outside while being (somewhat) protected from Israeli army gunfire.

Silvia pointed to a school farther down the road.  “That’s where the children go to school,” she said.  The sun was beginning to set and the area was quite beautiful if one didn’t look too hard at the Israeli military towers in the distance.  I took some pictures, and even asked Silvia to take a photo of me.  Kids played nearby and a donkey cart passed us.  I photographed a house that looked like it had been bombed, but the bougainvillea had grown back in vibrant fuchsia.  Two boys playing with a piece of plastic ran towards us from farther up the road and begged me to take a photo.  I snapped a sloppy photo, and they eagerly checked their digital images on my camera.  One in a green sweater thought it was terribly funny that the  boy’s in a red hoodie’s head was missing in my photo.

They ran up ahead, and we walked for about 15 seconds when I heard a strange whiz, a whistle, eerily close to my ear. I paused, a bullet?  Red hoodie and two younger boys up ahead hit the floor as I momentarily pondered the strange sound.

The kids turned around and yelled at us to stupid foreigners to get down.  We bent down and started to walk away — fast — and they yelled at us to get completely on the ground.  The Israeli army left us no time to be scared. No gunshots over our heads.  No warnings.  A second bullet whizzed  past the three kids, and then us.  The Israelis were shooting at us from the towers 500 meters ahead. This time, we were on the ground. I continued to look at these 9-year-olds or 10-year-olds or whatever they were for cues–walking towards their school under Israeli fire was clearly routine for them and they knew what they were doing.  We waited on the ground for several minutes.  As I still had my camera in hand, I snapped a quick photo of them from the ground.

A minute or two later a father and his toddler, also further up on the road came towards us and offered a ride on the back of his motorized cart. We jumped in and he “sped” back to behind the wall.  Anyway, I got back to my apartment about an hour later, just in time for my Arabic class.  Even though I had actually studied this time, I couldn’t concentrate.  Why was the Israeli army shooting at our heads?

And I realized this is what Palestinian first, second, third, fourth graders experience daily in Gaza.

Israeli army shoots at children and two ISM activists

Silvia Todeschini
28 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Witnesses in Gaza today reported an escalation of Israeli aggression in the Khuza’a – Abasan, governate of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.  The Israeli army also shot at two ISM activists and local children.

Israeli tanks entered Gaza this morning, from approximately 7.30 to 8.30, moving from the village of Faraheen to Khuza’a.  Residents reported hearing numerous gun shots. Suzanne, who lives in the north of Khuza’a, confirmed that in recent days, Israeli tanks have entered Gaza on a daily basis. Another women, Taragi, who lives in the south of Khuza, also confirmed that Israeli gunfire has become more frequent.

The Israeli army shot at two ISM activists and two Palestinian children just in front of them today at approximately 4.30 p.m. as they walked on the road towards the school in the village of Khuza’a, approximately 500 meters from the border. At the time, the area was populated by children and youths, some on foot and others in a cart pulled by a donkey. They were just driving along the road to go home. Without warning of any kind, the Israeli army fired two shots, close enough to the heads of those walking down the street to hear the distinct and strong hiss of the bullets that passed through the air.

Khuza’a is a small farming village and the area around it is not new to raids and attacks by the Israeli army. The school in particular is just a few hundred meters from the border and often children are forced to return home because of gunfire. One village girl lost her kneecap after she was shot by an Israeli bullet as she was walking back home from school.  The Israeli army bulldozed the fruit trees in the area ten years ago. Today, Palestinians in Khuza’a cultivate mainly wheat, which requires less attention, so as to avoid being attacked by the Israeli army.

Israeli committed horrific atrocities in Khuza’a during Operation Cast Lead. The majority of the population was forced to leave the village and suffered heavy attacks from white phosphorus. Eight civilians have been deliberately killed in a bombing in the center of the village during the casefire, between them a child. It was in Khuza’a where the Israeli army shot Roya’a Al Najar when she held a white flag while attempting to leave her house after days of siege, and Yasmeen Al Najar and Mahmmod Al Najar while trying to help her.

“With children visible” Israeli military assaults Kufr Qaddoum

by Rana H.

28 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Israeli military fires with aim – Click here for more images

Soldiers fired teargas directly into crowd at peaceful protesters in Kufr Qaddoum. Internationals and Palestinians, including children, were gathered behind barbed wire that runs across their main road, and were not advancing when soldiers began to fire around ten canisters of tear gas at once from a short distance. Two protesters were injured while escaping tear gas, including one international woman, and many suffered from tear gas inhalation. They continued to shoot tear gas at the approximately 100 protesters for over an hour. Many civilians from the village were affected by the perpetual firing of tear gas.

Protesters were holding signs calling on the International community not to support Illegal Israeli settlements when the tear gas began from a distance of only 25 metres. A Swedish International activist was not expecting such an assault on un-advancing protesters.

“It was my first time at a protest here and I was shocked that they would fire tear gas directly at a peaceful crowd with children visibly among them.” She fell while escaping the surrounding tear gas. “I was blinded by the smoke and I fell on rocks.

Two Palestinian men picked me up and when we escaped from the gas I was covered in blood.”

When she tripped, her hand broke her fall, but was cut on the palm, requiring her to go to the hospital and receive three stitches.

The protest, held by the Popular Committee of Kufr Qaddoum, was protesting the closure of their main road, which up until 2003 had been the mean ways of transportation from Kufr Qaddoum to Nablus. The original journey of 15 minutes now takes 40 minutes by an indirect road. The Expenses to the 3500 Palestinian inhabitants have increased significantly as a result, particularly for the many students of the village who study daily in Nablus. Two Palestinians have died in the past few years, after not reaching the hospital in time for treatment.

This is the 18th protest in a row that Kufr Qaddoum has held on Fridays, after more than six years of no protests  while the village was involved with legal arguments with the Israeli Court. Finally, the court ruled that they could use the road again, but that the road is not “suitable” for transportation. It was closed. The road passes the illegal Israeli settlement of Qadumim. Israel has a thorough history of closing, to Palestinian cars, roads which pass settlements.

Weekly, soldiers have responded to the unarmed protesters by firing tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and sound bombs on civilians. Often the soldiers have entered the village, firing in between houses with families within them and seriously affecting the lives of civilians.

More than half of the villagers’ land, approximately 11,800 dunams, are situated in area C which means that the Palestinians need permission to work there from the Israeli District Coordinating Office. Last week, following the protest, the Israeli military revoked the permission they had previously given the village for the following weekend.

Rana H is an activist with International Solidarity Movement.

New Israeli military tactic: Headbutting in Al- Ma’asara

by Alistair George

28 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The Israeli military violently obstructed a peaceful demonstration against the Israeli separation wall in Al-Ma’sara, near Bethlehem, today.

Around 25 Palestinians and a similar number of international observers marched from the village at 12:20 PM today and attempted to reach olive groves on Palestinian land just outside of Al-Ma’asara in time for this year’s olive harvest.  A line of thirteen soldiers, backed by reinforcements in three armoured vehicles, pushed and shoved protesters, including a small Palestinian boy, in order to prevent them from leaving the village.

As demonstrators attempted to walk around the line of soldiers, one officer snatched a Palestinian flag from a protester and then head-butted him.

Mahmoud Alaaelddin, President of Al-Ma’sara local council and member of the Popular Resistance Committee, said “Every Friday we try to go to our land and the soldiers always prevent us from going.  They don’t care if there are children at the demonstration; they use more and more violence every Friday.”

After being prevented from peacefully marching to Palestinian land, protesters chanted, sang and remonstrated with the Israeli military for around 30 minutes.  The protest dispersed at 1:00 PM, with Mahmoud Zawahra, member of Al-Ma’asara’s Popular Committee of Resistance, alerting the soldiers of their continued persistence.

“Next Friday we will come with more people and we will fly kites with Palestinian flags.  And for the hundredth time we tell you – you are not welcome here. You are killers and occupying forces,” he said.

Around five minutes after today’s protest ended, a small group of Palestinian youths threw stones at the military, who responded by firing a tear gas canister, causing billowing gas to enter a house and garden at the edge of Al-Ma’asara.

Demonstrations take place in the village every Friday in protest against the separation wall – illegal under international law – which has been used by the Israeli military to expropriate much of the village’s land since 2005.  Work had ceased on the wall near Al-Ma’asara in 2008 after an Israeli court ruling, but it is scheduled to re-commence on 1 January 2011.

If completed, the barrier will expropriate more Palestinian land and will result in the closure of the main road that links Al-Ma’asara to nearby cities in the West Bank.  Al-Ma’sara residents will be forced to take alternative routes, tripling the length of time it takes to drive from the village to Bethlehem or Hebron.

Alaaeldin says that over the past few years Israeli soldiers have come into the village late at night before the Friday’s protest; forcing entire families – including children – to stand in the cold, often for 2-3 hours.

According to Alaaeldin, the Israeli military “wants people to be afraid [to protest].  They say ‘we will arrest you, we will kill you ‘but more people come to the demonstrations and refuse to be scared.”

The Israeli military has not carried out such incursions into the village for three months, but Alaaeldin is concerned that they may start again as soldiers have taken advantage of the cold winter nights to harass people in previous years.

Alistair George is an activist with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Tel Rumeida: International observers and Palestinians alike targeted by checkpoints

by Alistair George

27 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

 The Israeli military is continuing to harass and intimidate Palestinians and international volunteers at checkpoints throughout Tel Rumeida, Hebron.

 On 25 October 2011, around 7.15pm, a Palestinian woman was held at checkpoint56 inTel Rumeida for around an hour after refusing to pass through the metal detector.  The woman claimed that she was unwell and had been instructed by her doctor that it was not safe to pass through metal detectors.  Although she produced papers from the doctor showing that she was ill, the soldiers refused to let her pass.  She was eventually allowed to continue her journey, without passing through the metal detector, after the Israeli police were called and allowed her to return home.

Since 11 October 2011, the Israeli military has stated that pregnant women, people with heart devices and those with medical conditions are required to pass through the metal detector, despite the health risks posed.  Furthermore, teachers at Qordoba school have also been forced to pass through the metal detector and submit their bags for inspection, despite passing through a separate gate for the last seven years.  Six children were sent to hospital on 11 October 2011 after being injured by the Israeli military during protests against the treatment of the school’s teachers.  On October 16 2011, Israeli soldiers shot tear gas at a group of young schoolchildren and female teachers, who were attempting to hold a lesson outside of the checkpoint as an act of protest.

However, the Israeli military has repeatedly attempted to confiscate the passports of international activists as they pass through the checkpoints of Tel Rumeida; a practice which is illegal under Israeli law and appears designed to harass international observers going about their work in the area.  The military has the right to ask to see passports and record details if deemed necessary – provided that the passports remain in the possession of the owner  In several instances where international activists have refused to hand over their passports, the Israeli police have been called to intervene – often resulting in a 30 minute delay at the checkpoint.

On 25 October 2011, at around 12.50pm, an international activist was assaulted by the Israeli military after refusing to comply with an illegal demand to hand over their passport.  The soldier pushed and then kicked the activist with significant force; the activist stated that “It seemed that perhaps my awareness of Israeli law and my refusal to comply to his illegal demands antagonised the solider.”  Again, the police were called and looked at the passport before allowing the activist to continue their journey.

On 27 October 2011, several international activists were held at checkpoint56 inTel Rumeida for over an hour after refusing to hand over their passports to the Israeli military.  The police were called – however, in this instance they colluded in the military’s illegal activity by taking the passports and then handing them to soldiers for inspection.  The Israeli military confiscated three of the passports and kept them at the checkpoint for around 20 minutes.  The senior police officer, who gave his name as ‘Assaf’, threatened to arrest any international visitors to the area who refuse to hand over their passports to the military in the future; effectively threatening to arrest international activists for obeying Israeli law.

Alistair George is an activist with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).