Category: Reports - Page 391 - International Solidarity Movement

Family of 20; women and children, locked up for 11 hours without food or water in latest Awarta raid

13 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

In the latest military raid in the village of Awarta, south of Nablus, 20 members of the Awwad family were forced to sit outside in the cold for four hours, guarded by soldiers, before they all were locked inside one room for another seven hours. During the whole time, no one was allowed to eat, drink or go to the toilet, and two women were taken to hospital as a result.

The Israeli army came to the home at 2 o’clock Monday night, waking the sleeping family by throwing sound bombs through the windows. According to family members, after the soldiers had entered the house, they forced everyone to go outside, shouting the orders through a megaphone. The extended family consists of 20 people, 14 of whom are children, one a 75 year old man, one a pregnant woman and one a young mother with a baby. They were still in their pajamas when they were forced outside and made to sit on the ground until 6 o clock in the morning. The soldiers then arrested Hassan Awwad (39), and Salah Awwad (33), and completely destroyed the homes from the inside.

Zahwa Awwad (27), is six months pregnant. After sitting outside in the cold for four hours, she felt pain in her back and womb and she started to bleed. At 8 am, she called her doctor. The doctor, who was afraid the woman was having a miscarriage came directly, but was not allowed to go inside the home until 9.30 am. Nouf Salim Hassan Awwad (37), suffers from diarrhea, caused by traumatic stress syndrome which she got after being brutally arrested together with her husband Mazen Awwad and their 16- year- old daughter Julia Mazen Awwad last Saturday. Nouf was released on Monday morning, however her husband and daughter and her two sons George and Hakeem, who were arrested on Thursday, remain in Israeli custody. When the army occupied her home on Monday, Nouf was not allowed to go to the toilet or to drink for nine hours, causing her to become dehydrated. When the doctor finally got access to the family, he was prevented from treating Nouf or giving her anything to drink. He called for an ambulance to take Nouf and Zahwa to hospital however the ambulance was prevented from reaching the women for a further hour and a half. The women were eventually allowed to leave for the hospital only after Nouf had lost consciousness.

By the time the soldiers left the family’s home at 1.30pm, the family were hungry and dehydrated. During the 11 hours that they had been captive, one woman had tried to sneak to the kitchen to get some food for her hungry son, but a soldier had pointed his gun at her and forced her to put the food back and return to the room. The crying mother of a baby who was only weeks old told international activist minutes after she was released that she had not been allowed to feed her child during the whole time the family was guarded by the soldiers. At lunchtime, the Israeli soldiers had been brought food which they ate in front of the hungry children who started to cry.

International activists who came to the house just minutes after the Israeli Army had left witnessed the devastation: “Everything there is to destroy has been destroyed, there is nothing left.” Windows, mirrors and photo frames had been smashed, as well as the TV, wardrobes and beds which were tipped over and broken. The washing machines were made useless, school books were ripped into pieces and thrown outside the window, in the garden a tree had been uprooted, there were several holes in walls, floor and ceilings and several doors had been broken and left with big holes. The floor in one of the rooms was completely covered with broken glass, dangerous for the small barefoot children.

At the same time as the Israeli Army stormed the home of the family in Awarta, they arrested Noman Awwad (40), Jasid Awwad (26) and Nooh Awwad (30) from their homes in Ramallah.

Howaa Awwad, mother and grandmother, sad and upset, said: “The problem is not that they destroy our homes, the problem is that they put our people in prison.”

During the last month, Awarta has been put under curfew no less than six times, following the murder of five members of a family in the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar. Hundreds of homes have been raided and destroyed by the Israeli soldiers, more than 600 people have been detained or arrested, including elderly, women and children. Several people have been hospitalized after being beaten and kicked by the soldiers or bitten by the dogs.

No one knows when this is going to stop, and since the Israeli courts have issued a gag order on the investigation into the murders in Itamar, the media is prevented from reporting any details of the ongoing military operation. Proof that any Awarta resident is involved in the murder of the Fogel family on 11th March has yet to be made public. ISM activists that have been present in Awarta since the first five days of curfew claim that the last month of military harassment is a clear case of collective punishment of Palestinian civil society and is not connected to investigating the Fogel murders.

Updated – Woman and daughter killed in ‘Abasan with propelling projectile missile

11 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On April 8th, around noon, the southern villages around Khan Younis were shaken up when four artillery shells were fired from a tank. One of them hit a house located in ‘Abasan village. Najah Harb Qdeih (41) was making bread outside and her daughter Nedal Ibrahim Qdeih (19) was with her, they both instantly died in the blast. The bodies of the victims were riddled with dozens of the sharp projectiles that were contained in the missiles which the Israeli army had ruthlessly fired at their house.

Two other daughters, Fida’a (15) and Nida’a (12) remain in hospital. Nida’a is critically injured and is struggling to survive; she has shrapnel in her brain and is currently waiting to be transferred from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to the West Bank to undergo surgery.

The next day, her older sister Fida’a, who had not fully understood what had happened yet, asked for her mother. They told her that she died. Then she asked about her sister, and had to hear that she too died. 19 year old Nidal was engaged and was supposed to get married next month. The family was re-organizing the house to prepare for the wedding. No more: she has been snatched away from this life and there is only grieving to be done by the remaining family members.

The missile contained hundreds of small propelling projectiles, which riddled the bodies of the women and the children, the walls, the doors, the plants and the trees. All are pierced. Seats were smeared in blood.
This missile is a weapon designed to kill as many people as possible, to clear as many lives as possible. There is no justification for this, it is not possible to call it defence. This missile was not created or meant to kill a single person that threatens the safety of someone else, it is made to kill as many people as possible. You cannot see where the propelling artillery ends up: it entails a high probability of killing innocent people. And it has intentionally been used against civilians, by what they call “the most moral army in the world”.

The women are mourning the family losses and are receiving visitors bringing their condolences. Two girls, sisters and daughters of the victims, stare into the void, their eyes have cried all tears possible. Their faces state incomprehension of the unjustifiable killings of their dear ones, by a missile that is designed to kill as many people as possible and used against those that have the only guilty to be born in the wrong place – the Palestinians from Gaza.

One of the women in the mourning place angrily exclaims: “They claim they are democratic, but we are paying for their democracy with our blood, our sons and daughters, our lives, our homes, our land, our future and our dreams!”

One of the girls’ cousins was desperate: “Should the international community take care of civilians or not? Where are they now? Where are they? All in Libya? They kill our children, they bomb our wives and our daughters and where is the UN?”

UPDATE:
Nida’a will not now go to the West Bank for surgery. Her relatives say: “Now she can not move, or speak, or feel any part of her body; whichever movement will drive her to death. There is basically no more hope for her, we are only waiting her to die.”

Children and youth under fire in Gaza: two killed and more than ten injured

13 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

WARNING: Contains graphic images some may find disturbing.

On Friday April 8th at approximately 5.30 pm a drone dropped a bomb on a group of children and young people who were playing football next to a school in the Al-Shijaija neighborhood, east of Gaza City, near the border. People hurried to come to the rescue of the injured when a second bomb hit the exact same place. A child and a young man were killed, while 10 more civilians were injured, including a paramedic and six children.

It took a day to identify the brutally dismembered body of a young man after initially only a headless body was found. It belonged to 23 year old Bilal Mohammed Al A’arer.

Mahmoud Wa’el Al-Jaro is the name that goes with the other young face, drained of the joyous expression it had until the vicious attack. The bewildered dead darkness in his eyes and his half open mouth makes one feel and see the moment. A split second: the abrupt discontinuity of his activity, the inner alarm that causes panic, the anxiety that instantly swells to mortal fear and is immediately followed by death, mercilessly cooling the intensity of his last life experience. Ten years old he was and he has paid dearly for trying to enjoy his young life, playing football under Gaza’s dangerous sky.

In the mourning tent, one of Mahmoud’s cousins, Yasser el-Jaro, explains how this is not the first time that the Israeli army has targeted children. Ramadeen Mohammed el-Jaro was nine when in 2003 a bullet, fired from an Apache, hit him in the head. He was on his way home from school when he was killed.

“They deliberately target children, it can’t be an error. They have the most advanced technological weaponry. They kill civilians because they want the population of Gaza to rise up against the resistance. They want people to start hating the resistance, but it is not the resistance who kills our children. We ask the international community to protect our children and our women from Israel.”

The injured were brought to Shifa hospital in Gaza City. 12 year old Jaber El-Kouss was one of the boys playing football when they were directly targeted by one of the drones, that have been buzzing loudly in Gaza’s sky over the last two weeks. But life goes on, despite the constant threat of violence. “This is our life. What else can we do?”, sighs one of the men in the hospital room, indicating that life in Gaza is uncertain and the threat of destruction and violence is always there. Jaber’s father, Salim, jokingly says the injured have themselves to blame as they have chosen to live despite the risks. While the people around him are laughing, Jaber misses the joke and feels accused. Softly he says: “But daddy, I was only playing…” His punishment for playing is severe: seven pieces of shrapnel pierced his chest and belly, while other pieces are stuck in his arm.

Next to him lays Osama Mahmoud El-Ghoula (15), he wasn’t playing football with his friends, but he heard the bomb and ran to the scene to see what was going on. While running a second bomb dropped from the sky, injuring young Osama. He went home, but was afraid to tell his parents what had happened and did not want to worry them. “He said; ‘Mom, I just want water and need some sleep’. I saw the blood coming through his shirt and lifted it to see what had happened to him and then he lost consciousness”, says his worried mother, Sana El-Ghoula. Osama is now waiting for surgery to remove the shrapnel from his belly.

In the third bed lays Riziq Said El Imalwi, an 18 year old university student. He was returning home after visiting the graveyard where his two brothers, who were martyred by the Israeli occupation forces, are buried. While walking, the ambulance stopped to ask for directions of the bombed place. He drove along with them to point out the place and when he got out, he was hit in the arms, chest and legs by shrapnel from the second bombing. Riziq lays silent in the hospital bed, while his saddened father Said says: “These are crimes against humanity, they shoot civilians! We are all sad, but keep on hoping for peace in all of the country.”

14 year old girl taken in the latest wave of Awarta arrests

11 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Halaa aged 6, kicked by soldiers as they raided her home

On Saturday night the Israeli army once again raided Awarta, putting the village under curfew for the fifth time since the murder in the illegal settlement of Itamar on 11th March. Awarta is situated next to Itamar and has endured a constant military presence for a month now.

According to the village mayor Qays Awwad, 23 people were arrested in the latest night raids; 20 males and three females.

One of the females arrested on Saturday night was 14 year old Julia Mazen Awwad, who was taken from her home together with her mother and father; Noaf and Mazen Awwad. Two days earlier, her two brothers; George and Hakeem were arrested, leaving only the smallest children not in Israeli custody. They were left alone after the latest arrests and were taken care of by one of the family’s neighbors until their mother was released Monday morning. Their sister, brothers and father remain in Israeli custody

One of the families that had their home raided is the family of Muhammad Fawsi Awwad.
At 4 am, while Muhammad was sleeping in his brothers home, Israeli soldiers awoke his sleeping wife and six children by throwing sound bombs threw every window of the house. After entering the house, the soldiers forced the family to go outside and to sit on the ground while they were still in their pyjamas. One of the daughters, Halaa, who is six years old, was kicked by the soldiers in the process. Her brother, Amjad, 19 years old, was locked inside the bathroom where he had to stay for six hours, while the soldiers completely destroyed his family’s home from the inside. International activists who came to the house after the soldiers had left witnessed the devastation: windows, mirrors and photo frames had been smashed, wardrobes and beds were broken, the washing machine made useless, the bathroom sink was completely demolished, school books were ripped into pieces and oil poured into the sugar supply.

After destroying the family’s home, the soldiers arrested the sons – Majdi Awwad (20), Amjad (19) and Hakam (18) and took them to the Huwwara military base together with their father who had come home in an attempt to help his family. The remaining children and their mother have no place to sleep since their beds have been destroyed and the children are too scared to stay in their home.

Windows smashed by sound bombs in the night

At 5 am, the soldiers arrived to Muhammad’s brother’s home. Hassan Fawsi Awwad and his family were also woken by sound bomb being thrown through their windows before the soldiers entered the house. The soldiers only stayed for 30 minutes, but managed to destroy the family’s washing machine and to pour sand and flour on the floor, before they arrested Hassan and left. This is the second time Hassan has been arrested since the beginning of the curfews. According to his wife Iman, and other eyewitnesses, he was blindfolded and handcuffed before he was forced to walk the road up the center of the village, the soldiers beating and kicking him along the way.

Ayoub Mustafa Daraoshi, 22 years old, was taken from his home at 10 am Sunday morning. According to his mother and his brother, who witnessed the arrest, the soldiers poured petrol on the piece of fabric they used to blindfold Ayoub with. After being blindfolded and handcuffed, he was dragged out on the ground just outside the house where he was beaten and kicked by the soldiers for an hour. At half-past midnight the night before, the soldiers had also arrested his 13- year- old brother Naje. He was forced to walk up to the center of the village where he was put in a military jeep and taken to the police station in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel. Naje, who was accused of throwing stones at military jeeps was kept in custody for five hours and questioned without his parents, or any lawyer being present, before he was released, contravening both international and Israeli law.

Since the brutal murder of five member of a settler family in the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar, hundreds of Awarta residents have been arrested, amongst them elderly, women and children. Some have been released after a couple of hours while others have remained in Israeli custody for one month, without being charged with any crime.

20 sound bombs thrown into one house on one night

Bags of flour opened and thrown everywhere

Army fires on Iraq Burin during olive tree planting

10 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Bullets and tear gas were fired upon Palestinians and internationals whilst they planted olive trees on the land legally owned by the village of Iraq Burin yesterday.

The popular committee asked for a group of internationals to assist them in planting olive trees on the village land which is close to an army out post and the illegal Israeli settlement of Bracha. The trees were successfully planted even under the aggressive presence of the Israeli Army.

As the trees where being planted one army jeep came close and was a looming presence as local people took the chance to go further into the land to pick “akoub” (a plant used for cooking.)

After some 20 minutes, another jeep turned up, and the heavily armed soldiers started moving towards the people. One of the soldiers was seen aiming his gun directly at one of the boys.

When one boy, who in a symbolic act of resistance, threw a stone towards the soldiers in the far distance, they responded by firing shots and tear gas directly at the people, who had to run and duck to avoid being hit. More shots where fired at the youth but it is not clear if they were live or rubber coated steel bullets. However, what was clear was the completely disproportionate use of weapons and force on people partaking in a peaceful act of planting trees.

Despite the dangerous aggression of the Israeli army all 50 olive trees were planted on the hillside and three in the local cemetery – one for each of the boys that were killed in the village in the last year. On 19th March 2010, 16-year-old Muhammed Qadus, together with his cousin Asaud Qadus were shot and killed by the Israeli Army during a peaceful demonstration. On the 27th January this year, 19-year-old Oday Maher Hamza Qadous was shot dead by a settler on the hilltop just outside the village.