Category: Reports - Page 385 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli army supress peaceful demonstration in Iraq Burin

21 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Around 80 Palestinians and international activists held a peaceful demonstration today in the village of Iraq Burin to protest the theft of village land for settlement construction. The demonstration began at about 16.00 when protesters marched through the village and over the hills towards the illegal settlement of Bracha. The peaceful demonstrators carried Palestinian flags and banners calling for an end to the occupation and for justice for Rachel Corrie whose trial continues tomorrow. They were immedietely met with a barrage of tear gas from the Israeli forces. The demonstrators had been at the top of the hill for only fifteen minutes, peacefully chanting slogans about freedom for Palestine and an end to the occupation and illegal settlements, when troops began firing tear gas at them. The protesters were forced to retreat quickly down the rocky hill as the soldiers shot at them; they narrowly missed the protesters and caused some to suffer adverse effects of strong teargas inhalation. One man was taken away by paramedics as he suffered from asphyxiation. The army continued to fire on protesters as they made their way down the treacherous hillside. However undeterred by the army’s brutality and disproportionate response to the peaceful protest, the villagers plan to continue their demonstrations on a weekly basis.

Iraq Burin is a small village 8 km southwest of Nablus. The illegal settlement of Bracha is located about one mile southeast of the village, and is situated on around 100 dunams (25 acres) of village land, as well as more land from surrounding villages. As with other settlements, it is not just the actual land of the settlement that is a problem, but also the land near it There is a swathe of “off-limits” land around the village that farmers are often prevented from using due to its close proximity to the settlement, leaving them with less land to graze sheep on or harvest from.

The villagers of Iraq Burin held weekly demonstrations last year to protest against the expansion of Bracha, and their continuing inability to access the village’s agricultural land. This began as a reaction to a sharp increase in provocative (and often violent) attacks initiated by residents of the settlement. These attacks were frequently aided and abetted by the Israeli military, who in turn invaded the village, firing rounds of tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition at Palestinian civilians. However the village took the decision to stop the weekly protests when Mohammed Qaddous (16) and Asaud Qadous (19) were shot dead by the Israeli military during a demonstration.

iraq burin protestors attacked by Israeli army

Israeli army imposes curfew on Madama

21 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

On Thursday May 19, the Israeli army invaded Madama with many jeeps, and imposed a curfew lasting from 21:30 to 4:00am. During this time a man called Hani Muhammad Nassar was arrested and tortured inside a jeep for 3 hours.

Whilst being interviewed Hani said: “The army came when I was visiting my aunt at her house. When they entered the house and found me they asked about the reason of being at the house. I answered that I was visiting my aunt, but they did not believe me, so they held all of the family outside with Abu Firas’s family, the neighbor of his aunt, for 2 hours, through which they asked me about my ID which I did not have at the moment, so they asked me to call my family to bring it to me which I did.” After two hours Hani was taken alone to an unknown place where he was blind-folded and had his hands tied behind his back, he was interrogated here for half an hour. He adds: “They insulted me with obscene words and kept beating me on my neck with their palms and kicking me all over my body. A soldier raised me suddenly and let my head strike the ceiling of the jeep. At the end they kicked me out the jeep shouting with obscene words.”

In addition, five houses were broken into and checked during the curfew and the army shot bullets in the air to intimidate the villagers.

Palestinian testimonies about settler attack in Tuba

20 May 2011 | Christian Peacemaker Teams

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has released a video of Palestinian testimonies about the recent settler invasion in the village of Tuba. On 16 May, shortly before midnight, Israeli settlers invaded Tuba, damaged property, and stole and injured several sheep belonging to the Ali Awwad family.

Members of the Ali Awwad family reported that they counted seven masked settlers, who entered the village throwing rocks with slingshots. Besides stealing seven sheep, the settlers beat the sheep and injured several, including one which lost an eye. Two of the sheep were so badly injured that the family had to slaughter them the next morning. In addition, the settlers overturned three large water tanks, damaged fences and a goat pen, punctured a storage tent and three sacks of yogurt, and destroyed the ventilation pipe of an outhouse.

Although the family called the Israeli police the night of the attack, the police did not come to Tuba until two days later. Tuba residents saw Israeli soldiers near the village immediately following the settler invasion. But when the Palestinians tried to speak with the soldiers, the soldiers were not able to communicate in Arabic and left the village.

Christian Peacemaker Teams and Operation Dove have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Green Palestine marks Nakba day

19 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Palestinians planting a tree to mark one of the villages wiped out in 1948

With the creation of Israel in 1948, four hundred and eighteen Palestinian villages were wiped out and destroyed, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people from homes they had lived in for generations. This year on May 17, in further commemoration of the Nakba (the Catastrophe), the ISM joined the Palestinian organisation Green Palestine in planting olive trees in the village of Al Tayba, near Jenin in the north of the West Bank. After each tree was planted a laminated tag with the name of each individual village was tied to a branch.

Arwad and Fakreh Adiri, two Palestinian activists for the Green Palestine, put together a schedule of events over the Nakba period, which included 63 horses (standing for 63 years of exile) riding to Jenin, 418 bicyclists wearing the names of the 418 villages cycling for 3 kilometres to the centre of Jenin and an Ambulance alarm sounding during a 63 second silence in which the whole of Jenin observed.

ISM talked with Arwad, one of the organizers of the event.

What has been the aim of today?
To tell the young people that these 418 villages existed. The Palestinian people are patient enough to wait to go back home. We chose Al Tayba as it is next to the 1948 border, the wall has split this village so half of it is in Palestine and the other half is in Israel, leaving families cut off from each other.

This is just the beginning, we are planning to turn this into Haifa’s garden, we will invite other districts in Palestine to come and visit and also put an information board in French, German and English to tell this story so that we raise awareness in the international community.

What is the significance of planting trees?
Olive trees are the strongest trees in Palestine, they last for hundreds of years. This is to indicate that our roots will remain in Palestine, we are going deep in the ground and we will stand tall.

What do you think the future of Palestine will be?
That’s a very hard question but I will be honest… as long as we have internationals coming to Palestine, we see the light coming close. And I don’t mean governments I mean regular people like you. We feel like we have solidarity which is more important to us, it will take longer this way ´[to bring about change] but finally I’m sure we can and we will have change, Inshallah.

I am for having Israel as a state, but living all together. Don’t steal my stuff, let’s share it or leave it alone. Look at this water issue, settlers use 80% of the water available to Palestine and the rest of us have just 20% because they dig their wells deeper. They are stealing. It is not fair.

Free Bassem and Naji Tamimi

18 May 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Recent events have once more proven the potency of civil resistance, and its ability to bring about change and end injustice. From the Arab Spring to the recent demonstrations commemorating the Nakba, ordinary people are affecting change. While Abdallah Abu Rahmah is finally out of Israeli prisons, a new wave of repression is underway in the West Bank, and more protest leaders have been rounded up as Israel once more is set to suppress civil resistance to the Occupation. We need your help to stand by them.

Recently, two leading protest organizers have been put behind bars. Naji and Bassem Tamimi from the village of Nabi Saleh were jailed on equally dubious grounds to Abdallah Abu Rahmah. They were arrested based on confessions from teenagers who were themselves seized in midnight raids, denied legal counsel, and beaten. This is not justice. We must raise our voices again to secure their quick release.

The case against both Naji and Bassem is based on coerced confessions of teenagers taken at gunpoint from their beds in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers. The main “evidence” against them is the testimony of a 14 year-old who was beaten up on his arrest, denied legal counsel, denied his right to have his parents present during his questioning and instead of being told by his interrogators of his right to remain silent, he was told that “it is better you tell the truth”.

Please consider making a donation towards Bassem and Naji Tamimi’s legal defense and/or use the templates in the following links to send an email to your Minister of Foreign Affairs and ask that your government acts for their release.