Category: Reports

Music guides peaceful resistance in Kufr Qaddoum

1 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Friday July 29, 2011 the Popular Committee of Kufr Qaddoum included musical guests from the Netherlands, Fanfare, to play for Kufr Qaddoum’s weekly demonstration against a roadblock that closes off the main road to the village. The demonstration began  around 1:30pm after Friday morning prayer. Dressed in an array of bright colors the band greeted young and old men exiting the mosque. As everyone gathered, they began playing, which created a positive energy throughout the gathering demonstrators. The excitement grew as the protesters began marching down the road. The band started playing “Wayn `A Ramallah,” causing everyone to sign along.

As everyone marched members of the Popular Committee tried to keep the band in front while the young men followed behind them. Earlier that morning they had decided that it would be safest for the band to be in front in case the soldiers fired tear gas. This was mostly successful, but at one point approximately 20-30 Palestinian demonstrators had gathered in front of the band. When marchers reached the final point, the band stood towards the front with Palestinian demonstrators dispersed among them filming and taking pictures.

Fanfare continued to play when everyone arrived at the barbed wire fence. Twenty soldiers gathered with several tear-gas guns and a Jeep stood behind them with a raised Israeli flag. After about seven minutes of music, a couple of Palestinians took hold of the loudspeaker to express their demands. Several soldiers stood behind the press that had gathered. Unlike the demonstration on July 22nd, the demonstrators stood about 200 meters away from the soldiers. Earlier Popular Committee had decided that it was best to keep a distance. But when a handful of Palestinians marched about 50 meters forward towards the soldiers, the Israeli military began firing tear gas into the crowd. As everyone started to run many more tear gas canisters were fired towards the back. Many people ran off the road and down the hill to avoid the gas, but the soldiers fired tear gas in their direction as well.

Approximately thirty five people were treated taken to the hospital to be treated for inhaling tear gas. One American activist was hit in the shoulder by a tear gas canister. An older Palestinian man was treated for head and face injuries by Red Crescent volunteers in the village.  He was bleeding from his head and the bridge of his nose, but the specific cause of his injuries are unknown.

The illegal settlement of Qadumim occupies Palestinian land next to Kufr Qaddoum. Over the past month, the people of Kufr Qaddoum have organized weekly demonstrations against the barrier that blocks the main road to their village. Every week the Kufr Qaddoum Popular Committee provides the Israeli occupiers papers issued by the Israeli court to lift the barrier that closes off the main road to their village.

Israeli soldiers violently suppress demo; sweep through houses to carry out arbitrary arrests in Nabi Saleh

29 July 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Military checkpoints were set up early in the morning on all roads leading in and out of Nabi Saleh this Friday, as the Israeli army does every Friday in its attempt to prevent people from outside the tiny village to support the villagers in their struggle for land and dignity under the Occupation.

A few hours before the demonstration was scheduled to begin, a number of armored military vehicles drove into the village and unloaded dozens of soldiers into its single street. In the clashes that ensued with local youth, the soldiers shot volleys of tear-gas and took over two houses. In the first of what seemed to be a systematic attempt to stifle media coverage, a Palestinian cameraman was beaten and then detained despite having showed his accreditation with the al-Ayyam daily newspaper, only to be released a few hours later without his camera’s memory card.

Meanwhile, and American activist on his way to the protest, was detained by the soldiers manning the checkpoint at the main entrance to the village. His wallet, phone, passport and driver’s license were taken away from him as he could see smoke and hear shooting coming from the direction of the village.

Eventually, his possessions were returned to him and he was told to turn around and head back to Ramallah. A military jeep was sent trailing his car to make sure he indeed does so. Shortly after regaining his phone, the activist found out that soldiers at the checkpoint used his logged-in twitter account to post anti-protest messages in broken English.

After the Friday midday prayer, people were able to gather next to the village’s mosque, but were attacked less than a hundred meters after the peaceful march began in a hail of tear-gas shot from multiple directions. Every attempt to regroup and resume marching was again answered by a shower of tear-gas projectiles, many of them shot directly at demonstrators. Three protesters were injured that way, including one in her head.

At some point, soldiers begun sweeping through houses, going door to door, randomly detaining people in the street or from inside their houses. Three Palestinians and three international activists were detained this way, only to be released later with no charge and without even being questioned. Soldiers also detained an Israeli cameraman who tried to film the soldiers wanton rampage through the village. His camera was violently snatched from him, causing it to break. Like the other detainees, he, too, was released shortly after.

Military resorts to violence in Al Walajah peaceful demonstration

27 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

A peaceful protest against the construction of the apartheid wall in the village of Al Walajah was brought to a violent end by the Israeli army this morning with five arrests.

At 09:00 AM a group of Palestinians, Israelis and international activists walked through the village’s threatened olive groves to where the Israeli diggers were destroying a road, which was funded by the EU to facilitate the villagers’ access to their land.

The protesters attempted to block the digger from reaching the olive groves but were met by fifteen Israeli soldiers, who proceeded to arrest an Israeli activist. The protest continued peacefully for fifteen minutes before the assault and arrest of a Palestinian villager and another Israeli protester. An international activist, David White, who witnessed the arrest said “the Israeli soldiers used disproportionate force to arrest the man, he was screaming – they seemed to be causing him a lot of pain, it was horrible to see.”

The soldiers used sound bombs to disperse the protesters and forced them from the area. As the protesters made their way back through the village the soldiers surounded and arrested Sheerin Alaraj, a member of the village’s Popular Committee. International protesters attempting to leave the village were then harrased at a flying checkpoint.

Al Walajah is already surrounded by the apartheid wall on three sides; if planned construction on a fourth side continues the village will retain only 1800 dunams of their original 13000. A map of the area reveals the extent of the separation barrier surrounding the village. A legal challenge has been mounted by the local Popular Committee but the Israeli Supreme Court has so far refused to rule. An appeal will be heard in 14 days but meanwhile construction work continues.

The Israeli Security Commission claims the wall is necessary for security purposes, but the Popular Committee has stated its belief that “the wall is a structural displacement tool, which aims to deprive the local population of their freedom of movement and natural growth area.”

 

 

 

 

Bedouin community endures demolitions

24 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On July 24th at around 1PM, a bulldozer accompanied by 10 military jeeps arrived in the Bedouin community of Mughayyar ad-Deir, about 12 km north east of Jerusalem, near the Ma’ale Michmas settlement and demolished residential structures, structures for livestock, and confiscated vehicles, displacing three families.

16 people were affected by this demolition, including children and a baby less than a year old, who were all forced to sleep on the ground that night with no shelter from the sun in the morning. The community had been issued two eviction orders: one was issued two years ago, the other 5 days before the demolition. Israel justified the demolitions by claiming the community was established on land that was a closed military area. Israeli further suggested that if the community had moved 10 meters or so to the other side of the dirt road, then the demolitions would not have occurred.

Israel justified confiscation of village tractors because they were not licensed. Confiscation of their tractors, according to community members, takes away their means of transporting water. It will also prevent them from transporting goods such as food or taking the goods they produce to be sold at markets. The community did not obtain licenses because of the price (1200 NIS per tractor). Of course now that they have been confiscated, they will have to pay fines if they want to get the tractors and the a trolley back.

After the families slept without shelter the night of the demolition, the neighbors constructed a small temporary wood and tin shelter so that the families would have somewhere to sleep. The Red Cross and the ICRC will be returning to the village with basic aid such as tents and perhaps hygiene kits.

Ni’lin demonstrator hit with shrapnel during weekly protest

23 July 2011 | Ni’lin Village

Today in Ni’lin, one demonstrator was hit with shrapnel and dozens suffered from tear gas inhalation during the suppression by the Israeli occupation forces of the anti-wall weekly protest.

The march organized by The Ni’lin Popular Committee was supported by many Palestinians, International’s and Israeli peace activists. Upon arrival at the gate of the racism wall, the people of Ni’lin sent a message to the Israeli Occupation Forces, (IOF) confirming that the weekly protests will never stop until our land is free, and we have dismantled the illegal racism wall.

The protest was stressful, following the threats of the Israeli Occupation Forces who had claimed to be planning a trap to surround the demonstrators in order to arrest them. However, their threats were all in vain.

After about fifteen minutes from the start of the protest, Israeli Occupation forces began to shoot tear gas grenades at the protesters which lead to many suffering from the effects of tear gas inhalation. One protester who was hit with shrapnel in his eyes had the necessary treatment.