Category: Reports

Two youths detained in Hebron

5 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

A 14-year old boy was arrested at a checkpoint in Hebron on Friday morning. His family have contacted the Israeli authorities, but have received no answer as to his whereabouts. The following day, his cousin was detained at the same checkpoint, apparently for calling someone German. The Palestinian youth claimed he was just joking around with his friend; he was released an hour-or-so after his family promised to discipline him.

Hebron is unique in that the town has the presence of Jewish settlers within the city itself, with five illegal settlements in the city centre. Since the Goldstein massacre in 1994 – when Baruch Goldstein fired on Palestinians while they prayed in the mosque, killing 29 men and boys, and injuring a further 200 – al-Shuhada street (which is located in the heart of the city) has been closed to Palestinians. This has severed the city in two, paralyzing trade and destroying the commercial centre.  More than 500 shops and businesses have been forced to close under military order.  The continued repression enforced by the occupation has led to the mass abandonment of more than an additional thousand shops, businesses, and homes in the city centre.

Three injured as Israeli army fires upon rock collectors

06 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Forty-five year old Abdallah Rabea Odwan works as a rock collector around Beit Lahiya. On the morning of 6th February, he and many others were working outside Abu Samra, around 700 meters from the border, when they were fired upon by Israeli soldiers. Abdallah was hit once below the knee and taken to the Kamal Udwan Hospital. Thankfully, no bones were broken, and doctors say he will recover over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, 19 year old Bilal Abdallah Al Daour and 22 year old Ibrahim El Nabaheen were fired upon whilst working in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood to the east of Gaza city. Hundreds of people were out collecting rocks in the area, about 500 meters from the Israeli border. At around 8:30am the first shots rang out, but no one was injured. The soldiers stopped shooting and, assuming it was safe, people returned to work. An hour later, the soldiers started shooting again; Bilal was shot in the knee and Ibrahim was shot in the pelvis. The other workers rushed them to a nearby car, but the car was out of gas due to the shortages caused by the closing of the tunnels under the Egyptian border. Bilal was finally taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza city; when we found him, he did not know where Ibrahim had been taken.

These are not the first rock collectors shot by the IDF, as countless others have been shot over the last two years in the ever expanding buffer zone.  Originally 50 meters under the Oslo agreements, it was expanded to 150 meters in 2000, and then to 300 meters in January 2010. However, the buffer zone isn’t really 300 meters: Adballah was shot 700 meters from the border; others have been shot at up to 2 km from the border – it is as big as the Israeli military wants to make it on any given day.  The Gazan economy has been choked by the three year Israeli siege. Unemployment is widespread, and so poverty – combined with the impossibility of importing cement to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed and damaged during Operation Cast Lead – forces people to collect rocks. These new injuries are yet another result of Israel’s inhumane policy of shooting anyone it thinks is too close to the border, even if they are forced there, risking their lives to feed their families. 

Beit Ommar youth brain-dead in hospital after being shot by settlers

29 January 2011 | Palestine Solidarity Project

Earlier today, Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl, a 17-year-old youth from Beit Ommar who has worked very closely with PSP over the years, was shot in the head by settlers and he is currently brain-dead in Hebron hospital. Yousef attended nearly every unarmed Saturday demonstration, was frequently around the PSP house, and anticipated in both the Freedom Flotilla Summer Camp, and the photography class organized by the Center for Freedom and Justice. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Please consider holding solidarity actions or events in your communities to demand his killers be brought to justice, and for Yousef to be the last victim of an ongoing brutal occupation.

Friday, January 28th 2011, 9am: Around 100 settlers from Bat Ayn settlement descended upon the Palestinian villages of Saffa and nearby Beit Ommar in the southern West Bank, shooting 17-year-old Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl in his head, leaving him critically injured. Doctors have announced that Yousef is
currently brain-dead in a Hebron hospital.

Settlers also shot 16-year-old Bilal Mohammad Abed Al-Qador with live ammunition in his arm.

The large group of armed settlers began shooting towards Palestinian homes in Saffa at around 9am, leaving Bilal injured. At the same time, a second group of settlers attacked an area of Beit Ommar called Jodor. Yousef was shot in the head in this area while he was standing in grapes vines he had planted on his family´s land.

Dozens of Palestinians from Beit Ommar and the nearby village of Surif began coming to the area to defend their communities. Seven jeeps of Israeli Forces also arrived in the area and escorted the settlers back to Bat Ayn.

This is the second settler attack with live ammunition on Palestinians in as many days. On January 27th, Uday Maher Qadous was shot and killed in Iraq Burin, in the Nablus district, by armed settlers as he was working his land.

Yousef Fahkri Ikhlayl is from the village of Beit Ommar and has worked on initiatives with the Palestine Solidarity Project, an ant-occupation organization in Beit Ommar. In the summer of 2010, Yousef attended the Center for Freedom and Justice´s Freedom Flotilla Summer Camp where he engaged in educational projects, community service, and unarmed demonstrations against the Israeli occupation. In the fall of 2010 Yousef was a participant in a youth photography class also sponsored by the center.

“Yousef was a kid who hoped for a better future for Palestine. His life was ended prematurely by right-wing extremists. People around the world should be outraged by his shooting, and should work to bring his attackers to justice. ”

-Bekah Wolf, American citizen who worked with Yousef in the Center for
Freedom and Justice

Settlers from Bat Ayn routinely attack and harass Palestinians in the Beit Ommar area. In January 27th, 2011 settlers in the area destroyed several hundred olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.

Funeral held for Palestinian youth killed by settlers south of Nablus

29 January 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

On 27th January, 20-year old Oday Maher Hamza Qadous was killed by settlers whilst farming between the villages of Burin and Iraq Burin, just south of Nablus. According to family sources, the Palestinian youth was alone and gathering wood when settlers – most likely from the nearby, illegal settlement of Bracha – shot Qaddous once through the chest, with the bullet entering his right shoulder and remaining lodged beside his left lung. Sources say that it was over an hour before an ambulance was able to reach him, and he was pronounced dead-on-arrival at the hospital. There was evidence that he was also beaten: his face was covered in blood, and a left-rib broken. Doctors concluded he died of surgical emphysema as a result of the gun-shot wound.

The funeral for the deceased was held the following day in the village of Iraq Burin, and was attended by around 500 people from the villages and surrounding areas. A large police presence followed the procession, which lead from the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus – where the body was being held – to the village. No clashes were reported to have followed the ceremony.

This tragedy comes less than a year after his younger brother, 16-year old Mohammed Ibrahim Qadous, was killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the same region of the West Bank.

Photos by Wael Faqeeh

One citizen wounded and dozens asphyxiated in Bil’in

28 January 2011 | Popular Committee Against the Wall

Ramallah-Bil’in: A resident of Bil’in was wounded and dozens of residents, peace activists, and individuals wishing to show solidarity suffered severe asphyxiation today. This was due to extensive tear gas use in clashes resulting from the Israeli occupation forces suppression of the weekly demonstration march against the wall and settlements in Bil’in.

Participants in today’s demonstration included Dr. Mai Al Kaila, the Palestinian ambassador to Chile and a high level delegation of lawmakersled by Chilean Vice President of Parliament Ivan Moreira. A delegation from the Arab Liberation Front was also in attendance. Residents of Bil’in, peace activists, Israeli citizens, and internationals participated as well.

The participants marched carrying Palestinian flags and photographs of the martyrs of the Abu Rahma family, Marwan Barghouti, and Abdullah Abu Rahma, the coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in. They also carried banners reading ‘Our battle is with the settler who murdered Uday in Iraq Burin. Our battle is with the occupation and the setters. We will not change our course and will continue our resistance.’

The demonstrators marched from the village chanting national slogans and calling for unity and the rejection of differences. They confirmed the need for a powerful Palestinian resistance to occupation and demanded the release of all prisoners. They also called for freedom for Palestine and chanted slogans condemning all aggression against Jerusalem as well as the policy of deportation.

The march headed toward the wall behind which the Israeli occupation forces were already waiting. There were also a large number of forces deployed along the path to the wall. When protesters attempted to cross the wall to the land behind it, owned by the residents of Bil’in, the army responded with sound bombs, gas canisters, rubber-coated bullets, and live ammunition fired in all directions. Demonstrators were chased into the olive groves. The occupation forces also fired foul-smelling sewage water mixed with chemicals of an unknown chemical compound at the protestors. Mohammed Abu Rahma, aged 17, was injured by a tear gas canister striking his hand. Dozens of cases of severe asphyxiation and vomiting were also reported.

Yesterday the village of Bil’in was visited by Mr. Edgar Motsisi, a political representative of South Africa in an effort to show solidarity with the family of Bassem and Jawaher Abu Rahma and the family of Abdullah Abu Rahma, who remains in prison. Mr. Motsisi paid his respects to them for suffering for the people of Bil’in in an effort to end the occupation’s oppression of the village. He commended the People’s Committee for the use of art and creativity in the demonstration. Mr. Edgar Motsisi also gave attention the type of weapons used by the army to suppress the demonstrations near the apartheid wall. He visited the village again today with the Chilean delegation led by Ivan Moreira. They met with the Popular Committee Against the Wall and the village council members in the village council. They listened to the Popular Committee’s detailed description of Bil’in’s experiences with peaceful popular resistance for the past six years. The Committee also detailed their achievements and the role of effective international solidarity in popular resistance in Bil’in.

The Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in also denounced the ruling of the Israeli military court for the officer and soldier who opened fire on Ashraf Abu Rahma while he was blindfolded and handcuffed at the entrance to the village of Nil’in. The ruling was the diluted, illegal, and immoral decision of an illegal occupation court. We call on all human rights organizations and international legal bodies to stop Israel’s violations of international law, and to prosecute the leadership of the Israeli army and it’s officers and soldiers as war criminals in international court, respecting the rights of the Palestinian people. We also condemn the actions of settlers to kill young Udai Qadoos (19) in cold blood in the village of Iraq Burin, and Youssef IKhalil (17) from the village of Safa, as well as the brutal murder committed in Hebron of a man sleeping in his bed. We call on our people to respond to the barbaric actions of the settlers and Israeli soldiers with the popular resistance in all areas impacted the settlements and the wall. They will not choose to deviate from their course alone, and we will continue our resistance.