Today, approximately 1,000 protesters in Hebron marked Palestinian Prisoners day with a demonstration calling for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners. At the same time thousands of prisoners joined in a one-day hunger strike to protest their treatment and their legal rights as prisoners.
Protesters in Hebron began by gathering at the Eben Roshd school in Hebron City. Amongst the participants were families of prisoners, members of the Palestinian Authority and international activists. After speeches by family members and local authorities, the demonstration continued with a peaceful march from the school to the Manara square. Protesters carried pictures of imprisoned family members and banners calling for Israel to release prisoners and uphold international laws.
Prisoners Day commemorates the release of Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Hijazi in the first prisoner exchange between Palestine and Israeli in 1974. According to a report released today by former Palestinian detainee Abdul Nasser Farwana, just about every Palestinian household has had members jailed. According to the report Israel has arrested around 750,000 Palestinians since the six day war in 1967, including nearly 12,000 women and tens of thousands of children
Today over 6,800 Palestinians, from the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and 1948 Palestine, are currently imprisoned by the Israeli state according to ADDAMEER. Of those, over 300 are children, 34 are women, 18 are elected Palestinian representatives and almost 300 are ‘administrative detainees’ – that means that they have been detained without trial not having been charged with any crime or seeing the evidence against them.
Remembering Palestinian prisoners in Hebron
A Palestinian girl shows a photo of a relative held in Israeli jails.
Late on Thursday afternoon sixteen year old Julia Manzen Awwad arrived back to the village of Awarta, following her release from Israeli military prison. She had been detained for five days after being arrested by force during an army raid on her family home in the early hours of Sunday morning. Upon arrest Julia was taken blindfolded and bound by her wrists and ankles to the military base at Huwwara, where she was detained for a night. She was then transferred to a military prison.
During her detention Julia was denied basic human rights and prevented from contacting either her family or a lawyer. Instead she was confined to a dark room and intensively interrogated about the murders of the Fogel family at Itamar, the nearby illegal settlement. Julia described being woken at regular intervals and asked the same questions repeatedly. Confused and frightened she answered that she knew nothing, only to be met with aggressive retorts accusing her of lying.
Ill treatment and abuses included the refusal of her request for a doctor when experiencing stomach pains, being fed food she described as fit for animals, and being handcuffed and marched to the toilet furthest from her cell. At times she was not even allowed to use the toilet. Prior to her release Julia was coerced into signing a document she could not understand and had wires attached to various parts of her body during a lie detector test.
Whilst Julia was welcomed by her mother, Noaf, and extended family members, she spoke of the sorrow she felt returning to her house as her brothers, George (20) and Hakim (17), along with their father, Mazen, still remain in custody. Her mother, who was also detained in the raid last weekend, was released on Monday.
Earlier in the day a demonstration organized by a local Palestinian womens group marched through Awarta in protest at the barbaric treatment of the community at the hands of the Israeli army over the last month. In a show of solidarity it finished outside the homes of other members of the Awwad family, which were ransacked and destroyed by soldiers in a raid last Monday night.
Since the brutal murder of five family members in Itamar settlement at the beginning of March the villagers of Awarta have been subjected to near continuous incursions by the Israeli army. Men and women, some in their 80s, and children, some as young and 14, have been arrested. Whilst many have been released after a few days, others, mainly men, remain in detention. On these early morning raids, the army fire sound grenades through windows prior to forcing their way into homes and brutalizing the occupants – regardless of age.
15 April 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Bilin Protester Shot with Live Ammunition by Sniper
Soldier throws rocks at protesters (Simon Kreiger - pic)The protester, a 35 year old resident of the village was hit in his shoulder and foot by 0.22 mm live bullets shot at him by a sniper during a protest in memory of Vittorio Arrigoni, murdered last night in Gaza.
Around 300 people participated in the weekly demonstration against the Wall in the village of Bilin today. This week’s march was dedicated to the memory of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, and protested his murder in Gaza City last night. As the peaceful procession approached the gate in the Wall, soldiers immediately began shooting tear gas projectiles at the protesters.
While most protesters were forced to retreat due to the gas, smaller groups of protesters remained in the area of the Wall, where clashes ensued. At some point, Samir Bournat, a 35 year-old resident of the village and regular demonstrator, noted that a sniper was aiming his rifle at a group of protesters standing near the iron gate in the Wall. He approached in order to warn them, and was shot by the sniper twice. One bullet hit his right shoulder, while a second bullet penetrated his left foot.
A Red Crescent ambulance which rushed to the sport to evacuate Burnat was also attacked with tear-gas projectiles shot directly at him by the soldiers. Burnat was eventually taken to the hospital in Ramallah, where an x-ray was taken and proved beyond a shadow of doubt that he was indeed hit by 0.22″ caliber live bullets.
A short while after Burnat’s injury, a few Border Police officers crossed the Wall in the direction of the village and proceeded to clash with the youth using tear-gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Moreover, one of the soldiers, even threw rocks at protesters.
Following a number of deaths and subsequent ballistic tests held at the Adam military shooting range in 2001, the Judge Advocate General ordered the classification of 0.22″ bullet changed from “less-lethal” to “live ammunition”, forbidden for use as crowd control means. Despite the classification change, the Israeli Army resumed using these bullets against demonstrators, causing at least two deaths – 14 year-old Az ad-Din al-Jamal from Hebron on February 13th, 2009, and Aqel Srour from Ni’ilin on June 5th, 2009.
Two other protesters who were lightly injured were treated by a medical team on the ground and did not require being evacuated to the hospital.
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.
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.”
