30 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement West Bank
During a settler tour around the old city in Hebron on Saturday, where dozens of Israelis were guided around in a sort of parade, a Palestinian man named Yousef Salim Issa Al Batch, passed by and was stopped by Israeli police. He had a small fruit knife in his pocket and had forgotten his ID. As a result he was arrested and taken to the police station at the Kiryat Arba settlement at 4:15 PM.
Earlier in the day Al Batch had been cutting apples with a small knife and forgot to take it out of his pocket. When stopped by the police he was asked for his ID. He did not have it with him, and so, Al Batch called his mother to ask her to give him the ID number. The officer who had stopped him suggested that this would be acceptable so long as Yousef had not been in any trouble in the past. If he did have a previous record with Israelis, they would have to bring him to the police station.
Although Al Batch has never been arrested before and never been in trouble, the police officer decided to bring him to the police station anyways.
Al Batch was released at 8:30 PM after his cousin paid 1,000 shekels in cash to the police.
His cousin, Amer, called International Solidarity Movement on Sunday evening and said with an anxious voice:
“This is not normal, I think it’s pocket money for the police men”.
Lisa is an activist with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
30 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, 2011
What started as a peaceful demonstration soon erupted into violence when soldiers and settlers from Karmei Tzur settlement attacked a demonstration in Beit Ummar today. The demonstration of around 30 Palestinians and internationals started from the outskirts of the village and continued through a field of olive trees to a fence which separates the village from the settlement.
A group of soldiers from the settlement entered the field and positioned themselves in front of the fence and initially let the peaceful demonstration continue. Settlers from Karmei Tzur arrived soon after and began to verbally abuse the protesters. Arguments broke out between the demonstrators and the soldiers who responded by deploying a few sound grenades and a canister of teargas. The demonstration continued but the atmosphere became increasingly tense.
The settlers and some of the demonstrators entered a shouting match between each other, and the military then decided to force the demonstration back towards the back of the olive field by using a significant amount of teargas. Encouraged by this, the group of settlers began hurling stones and rocks from behind the fence and a Palestinian journalist from a French agency was taken to hospital with a head wound.
Before being taken to the hospital, the journalist said, “The strange thing was that the soldiers didn’t stop the settlers, but they used violence against the demonstrators and journalists…they left the settlers free to throw stones.”
Three people suffered from teargas inhalation, among them a 74 year old French woman and two villagers.
Beit Ummar is a village located to the south of Hebron. There are weekly demonstration against the illegal Israeli setllement. The security fence seperates Beit Ummar from the settlement of Karmei Tzur. It has expropriated a significant amount of Beit Ummar´s land.
Anders and Aurelie are activists with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed)
29 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On Thursday October 29, in Huwarra, around 3:00PM, soldiers detained busses and services for no apparent reasons.
The busses that were stopped were filled with children going home from school. The passengers passports were taken from them, without any explanation, and held for about 45 minutes. Two internationals on their way back from olive harvesting in the area saw what was happening and made an attempt to ease the situation.
They were met with an aggressive appearance and threatend with arrest. The soldiers showed no concern that the detained were mostly young children. They said, “This is our job. We are the law, we only protect our country from people like them” and pointed at the children.
The internationals sat down and observed from a close distance after being threatened and insulted by the soldiers.
Soon after, the detained were given back their passports and were allowed to leave and the soldiers left as well.
Another group of soldiers placed a spike carpet at a near by road, to make it difficult for cars to pass, and randomly stopped cars.
When questioned about their presence the answer was ,”This is a dangerous area, we can´t talk about it.”
Emma and Becka are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names changed).
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.
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.
