50 arrested during pre-dawn sweeps in Hebron

21 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Just before dawn today, Sunday August 21, IDF forces raided the towns of Hebron and Bethlehem in the West Bank. Preliminary reports indicate that up to 250 people have been arrested in Hebron, including at least 70 Hamas leaders. Twitter feeds on the ground speak of occupation forces closing all entrances to the city and stationing themselves in the streets. Later reports finalized the count to approximately 50 Palestinians being arrested, as others were released.

No statement has been released by Israel concerning the reason for the raids and arrests. A group of ISM activists stationed in Hebron have rushed to the scene, as have ISM activists in Nablus.

At approximately 1:30 am, 40 soldiers raided four family homes on Ein  Sarah St.  alone and around. According to the International Middle East Media Center,over 100 military vehicles and jeeps entered Hebron from 4 entrances, and raided 6 villages in addition to Hebron City, breaking into homes and occupying the streets, from which Palestinian security services were conspicuously absent  The soldiers moved from home to home in  4 jeeps, a transport carrier (presumably for those arrested), 2 Land Rovers (thought to be Shabak) and two regular cars. Soldiers were carrying live ammunition but met no resistance to the arrests.

In one household they failed to find the person they were looking for so they arrested his 60 year old father instead.

B. Jabal , a local resident, described why he felt the arrests had taken place.  “This is collective punishment for the Palestinians in response to the recent shootings in Eilat.  We want peace, and our leaders want peace , but the Israelis keep killing and destroying our houses and destroying trees,” he said.

Gaza was surprisingly quiet tonight, given that it is has been under seige for the last 3 days; apparently, the occupation forces spent the night gearing up to sweep through the West Bank. So far, it looks like the only rationale behind the offensive may be the targeting of Hamas leaders, in retaliation for Thursday’s attacks in Eilat; this retaliatory gesture is surprising, however, since not a shred of evidence exists to tie Thursday’s attacks to Hamas.

Locals in Hebron also reported that a 17 year old Palestinian was run over and killed by a settler near the illegal settlement of Qiryat Arba.  Israeli forces also assaulted and detained a Palestinian man during a raid on the home of the Mufti of Bethlehem, in the refugee camp of Duheisha. So far, 2 Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli gunfire in Bethlehem. Details have yet to be confirmed.

Israeli forces continue to bomb Gaza: 13 year old boy dead and 18 injured

19 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza 

Israel’s price tag campaign is not waged only by the settlers in the West Bank; it is also waged against the people of Gaza.  It isn’t exactly clear what the Gaza Strip is paying the price for. In contrast to Israeli propaganda, people are killed in Gaza all the time.  This has been a bloody week.  An 18 year old mentally disabled man was shot to death on Tuesday, another young man was shot in the leg on Tuesday.  Perhaps the price must be paid simply for existing.

Overnight Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza.  Nine people have been murdered in Gaza since yesterday. 13-year-old Mahmoud Abu Samra was one of the killed, he and 18 others were injured in one bombing attack in Gaza.  The Abu Samra family lives near the former intelligence services headquarters in Gaza City.  Their house was destroyed by an Israeli bomb last night at 12:30 A.M.  Their house was completely destroyed, one of their neighbors houses was also destroyed, one more, heavily damaged.  Thirteen people from three families live in these houses.  All of these families are refugees, expelled from their homes in 1948, and now, in a repeat of history, once again their houses are destroyed.  When we arrived family members were picking through the rubble, trying to salvage what could be salvaged.

The Abu Samra house was completely destroyed.  All that is left standing is a bathroom with the door torn off, a sink, and a broken mirror in it.  Mahmoud is dead, the latest causality in the Israeli assault on Gaza.  Neighbors and relatives pick through the remains.  A shattered computer monitor sits on a pile of rubble.  Israel bans the import of concrete into Gaza, so the house will probably live on in another house after the rubble is recycled.  Mahmoud is dead, he was buried today.

Next to the Abu Samra house is the Al Helal Sporting club.  It is one of the few places for young men to hang out in the neighborhood.  When the bomb hit it was packed with young men trying to escape the heat, entertaining themselves playing football and watching TV.  Many of the injured were young people from the neighborhood at the club.

We spoke to Seham Awad, a forty five year old mother of two.  She and her nephew were picking through the rubble.  Thankfully, her son is away at university studying, her daughter is married and no longer lives with her.  Her ex-husband is in an Israeli prison, seven years into a twelve year sentence.  She is unemployed and lives on charity and help from her neighbors.  She is a resourceful woman though, her backyard, maybe 25 square  meters, has been turned into a garden.  It is overhung by a shattered trellis for passion fruit vines.  She grows vegetables on the rest of her land, in old tires that have been turned into planters, on every square meter of land vegetables grow.  Her house is small, only two rooms, now both destroyed.

Her house was also destroyed during Cast Lead, she received no help rebuilding, only some mattresses and household supplies.  She lives without windows; only sheets cover the holes in the walls that would be windows.  Perhaps, this was lucky last night, there was no shattered glass to cut her.  After the attack, she slept in the garden, on mattresses placed in the back corner.  She is undefeated, after her house was destroyed in Cast Lead she rebuilt as best she could, concrete blocks, an asbestos and tin roof, and no windows.  She expected that her house would be destroyed again, she was right.  As she said, “I expect little from life, I planted this tree, now it is big, it provides shade, that is enough.”  When asked what she would do now, where she would go, she said, “I will stay here, I will rebuild again as best I can, where else can I go?”

Her neighbors, the Abbas family was not so lucky.  Their father, Abu Akmed was injured in the bombing.  This family too is picking through the rubble, praying for their father.  Their home, heavily damaged was all that they had.  In the back a horse still lives in a small shed.  Abu Ahmed, like most men in Gaza, had no job–they’re just simple refugees trying to rebuild their lives.  Nine people crammed into a small concrete block house, now, mostly destroyed.  Out their front door you can see the old security headquarters in Gaza, heavily bombed during Cast Lead and now abandoned.

Behind the Abbas family lives Hajjer Abu Duwani.  She is a fifty five year old mother of twelve.  She is a small woman; she looks older than her years.  She doesn’t really have a house, just two tin sheds that she lives in.  A chicken coop takes up one end of her land; on the rest of it she tries to grow vegetables.  She has no job; she depends on the help of her children to live.  Shrapnel from the bombing hit her.  She has an ugly hand sized bruise on her leg, another bruise on her arm, and her head was cut with shrapnel.  She is happy, at least she is alive, Mahmoud, her thirteen year old neighbor is dead, the houses of her other neighbors destroyed.

Kufr Qaddoum cutting the wire on illegal settlements

19 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

A joyful demonstration occurred in Kufr Qaddoum today, when more than 100 demonstrators successfully cut open and tore down a razor wire fence on a road leading to Nablus just outside the city.

The demonstration began at around 12:30 p.m., when about 100 Palestinians and 15 international activists began to march down the main road of Kufr Qaddoum. Amid the clapping and chanting, they encountered around 20 armed soldiers further down the road towards the settlement of Qadumim, standing about 50 meters beyond a razor wire fence that blocked the road at waist’s length. As the soldiers and Palestinians watched, a few ISM activists used wire cutters to sever the fence, and dragged it off to the side. The crowd erupted in cheering, and after 20 seconds the soldiers began firing volleys of tear gas into the crowd. At that point, a cat-and-mouse game ensued for about 20 minutes between Palestinians and soldiers, whereby the former threw stones and the latter shot tear gas. Through the course of the demonstration, soldiers fired tear gas at protesters’ bodies and faces, and on at least 2 occasions fired high velocity tear gas canisters.

The deliberate act of cutting the wire fence, in plain view and in plain defiance of Israeli soldiers and the illegal settlement, inspired feelings of great hope and perseverance among Palestinians and activists alike. This was the 9th week of Friday protests, organized by the Popular Committee in Kufr Qaddoum since the beginning of July. The main road, which has been used by residents of the land for centuries, has been closed at portions by the Israeli government for nine years, as part of the expansion and colonial policies resulting from the illegal settlement Qadumim, which was established in 1975. Because of the settlement, which itself occupies 600 donums of land, there is now an Israeli Military Camp on Kufr Qaddoum land, many colonial neighborhoods have been established around the settlement, and more than 3,000 olive trees have been uprooted. After this great success, the weekly protests at Kufr Qaddoum will surely continue well into the future.

As protesters hold Iftar in the “buffer zone,” Israeli bulldozers sever Gaza’s links with the world

16 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On Tuesday, August 9, members of the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip joined the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative for its weekly protest by the Erez Crossing against the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone.” During Ramadan, these protests take the form of Iftars with local farmers threatened by Israeli incursions. Protesters observed Israeli military bulldozers operating by the crossing, and later learned that they had severed electronic cables running under it, shutting down the Gaza Strip’s telecommunications and Internet networks for between 12 and 18 hours.

Illegal settlement, Qadumim, upheld over Kufr Qaddoum’s rights

13 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Friday the 12th of August, the weekly demonstration called by the local Popular Committee in Kufr Qaddum was held. Despite the blazing heat and that most of the participants are fasting for Ramadan, an impressive contingent of around two hundred began the march towards the illegal Israeli settlement of Qadumim. Sitting at the head of a spit of land, protruding, in violation of international law, past the green line by seventeen kilometres into the West Bank, the settlement has brought with it the land confiscations, restrictions on movements, and arbitrary harassment that typifies Zionist incursion into Palestine.

Before passing the last house in the village, the noisy and spirited mass was confronted by two groups of Israeli soldiers; one blocking the road to Qadumim along with Border Police, and the other on higher ground to the left, on a ridge above an olive grove. Those on the left are recognised by some of the demonstrators as being armed with rubber coated steel bullets. After a standoff in which the crowd voiced their anger at the forces of the occupation and reasserted their rights to freedom and self determination in the face of carefully planned ethnic cleansing, the military opened fire with volleys of tear gas.

Some young Palestinian men answered each volley with stones and defiance as the amount of gas fired steadily increased. Over the course of an hour or so, the back and forth continued, ending with an unknown number of mostly older people treated by the Red Crescent, converting the Mosque into a makeshift field hospital although no one was seriously hurt. At one point several soldiers managed to out flank the front of the demonstration, throwing sound bombs directly into groups of people. Towards the end, the Israeli military deliberately fired high velocity tear gas rounds into dry scrubland, setting alight a large olive grove, owned by Kufr Qaddum.