Israeli forces fire excessive amounts of tear gas at demonstrators in An Nabi SalehOn Friday, the village of An Nabi Saleh combined Land Day celebrations with their weekly demonstration against the illegal expansion of the Hallamish settlement onto village land. Speeches were held before the demonstration, and activists marched and resisted Israeli forces until sunset. Three demonstrators were injured and hospitalized, and another was arrested.
Land Day celebrations delayed the start of the demonstration for nearly two hours, as speeches of liberation, anti-occupation and perseverance were given by Popular Committee members, PLO and Fatah representatives in the town square. Hopes were high that the military would be fooled and not make their weekly, violent appearance in the town. After the celebrations ended, a crowed of over 100 people marched through the town and towards the illegally confiscated land and spring. Demonstrators succeeded in coming within 50 meters of their land and spring before Israeli forces rained tear gas onto the nonviolent crowd. The military then began their ascent of the road leading to the village. Clashes broke out along the road as the demonstration tried to stop the military invasion of An Nabi Saleh. Israeli forces used rubber coated steel bullets, stun grenades and tear gas to advance their attack. Soldiers surrounded the village, indiscriminately attacking homes, demonstrators and village residents.
Ten Palestinian demonstrators were hit with rubber coated steel bullets, hospitalizing three. Walid Abdullah Barghouthi, 20, was arrested during the invasion of the village.
The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settlers’ attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Hallamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
H&M Occupation fashion show in Gothenburg, SwedenISM groups from around the world are taking the anti-apartheid and anti-occupation campaigns, plus a bit of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) revolution out of Palestine and into the streets of their home countries. Here is a summary of some of the action from the past week.
ISM London took the opportunity to tell Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat how the world feels about the recently announced plan to build 1600 new homes in occupied East Jerusalem and to draw connections between the Israeli state and the apartheid South African regime. At the March 22, 2010 demonstration held outside of London’s Chatham House, over 100 activists made it clear that Israeli’s ethnic cleansing policy and anyone who represents it, is not welcome in London!
To read the full story visit ISM London.
One week later, ISM activists from across England disrupted the IOF sponsored Jerusalem Quartet during their performance at Wigmore Hall in London. The Jerusalem Quartet receives special designations from the IOF and plays regularly for the occupying forces. This action was to promote the cultural boycott of Israel. Palestinians are calling urgently for an international consumer and cultural boycott after decades of failed talks. As with Apartheid South Africa, we must respond – until Israel meets its obligations under international law and a just solution is agreed. BDS supporters agree that states which maintain occupation and violates international law do not deserve invitations to cultural promotion events. To read the full story visit ISM London.
The Ahava Dead Sea beauty product shop in central London received a visit from ISM activists. Ahava manufactures its goods in the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Shalan in the occupied territories (Click here for more information). This was the second demonstration at the Ahava shop in an ongoing BDS campaign of Israeli products. A third demonstration is planned for April 10, 2010. Read the full story here.
The fashion capitol of the world, Paris, France, participated in unveiling H&M’s new Occupation Spring Collection. On March 20, 2010, over fifty activists dressed in army fatigues complete with plastic guns and clown noses, educated H&M shoppers of their inadvertent support of Israeli’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and apartheid policies.
Swedish ISM activists are also actively participating in BDS actions. March 31, 2010, activists participated in their own H&M Occupation Fashion show in an H&M shop in Gothenburg. Activists strutted their Israel apartheid clothing along a catwalk while distributing information to potential H&M customers. Click to read the ISM Swedish report.
If your Palestine solidarity group has actions you’d like to share with the world, please send them to us! Solidarity from abroad offers hope to those suffering at home.
Repairing the historic natural springs in Wadi QanaA group of internationals, including two ISM activists, joined supporters from Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank in assisting the villagers of Qarawat Bani Hassan repair and rehabilitate the historic natural springs which lie in the nearby Wadi Qana. The springs which issue at the base of the wadi feed into a series of reservoirs cut into the stone, said to date from Roman times. From time immemorial they have been the source of water for those villagers without their own wells. Today the springs and their surroundings, a location of outstanding natural beauty, are the most important cultural heritage for the village.
Situated between Ramallah and Nablus, Qarawat Bani Hassan has the misfortune to be surrounded by a number of settler colonies, including Nofim, Yaqir, Revava and Kiryat Netafim. Settlers routinely trespass onto village lands and two weeks previously, in an act of deplorable vandalism, emptied sacks of cement and steel mesh into one of the Roman-era tanks. This followed upon the previous dynamiting of a nearby cave which, too, contained a natural spring and pool.
On this Friday the villagers and their supporters labored under a hot sun to clean out the reservoirs, build dry stone walls nearby and bring the site back to its original condition. They were interrupted twice by groups of settlers attempting to access the area. A confrontation was avoided only when the villagers returned to their work and ignored the presence of the intruders who, after a short time, returned to their colony on the overlooking hilltop. The presence of international and other observers armed with cameras undoubtedly deterred the settlers, on this occasion, from any further acts of vandalism.
Qarawat Bani Hassan is a village of approximately 4,000 Palestinians, located in the Salfit District. The village owns 9,684 dunams of land (approximately 2,421 acres) which includes the Ein Enwetef natural springs that serve the locality as a primary source of water for agricultural and herding purposes. Eighty-nine percent of this land is in Area C, under total Israeli control.
Demonstrators gathered today in Al Masara, near Bethlehem, in commemoration of Land Day, marking the anniversary of mass confiscation of Palestinian land in 1976.
Palestinians, Israelis and internationals marched peacefully towards the village’s land. However, Israeli military, police and border police blocked the road with barbed wire, at which point the demonstrators stopped and began chanting resistance anthems. Speeches were given by representatives of the non-violent popular struggle committee. The soldiers then announced that the area had been declared a Closed Military Zone (CMZ), removed the barbed wire and moved on foot and in jeeps towards the protesters, throwing percussion grenades and tear gas canisters directly at them.
Two protesters were arrested after asking to see a copy of the CMZ order. One was released in Al Masara. The other is being held at Gush Etzion Prison.
Last Sunday, a number of men from the village were arrested in Bethlehem when attempting to retrace Jesus’ Palm Sunday route into Jerusalem. The Israeli and International activists arrested with them were released on the same day, but, in a clear act of racial discrimination, the Palestinians were held in prison until Thursday, when they were released on bail to reappear in court on the 18th April. The judge rebuked the police and prosecution, agreeing that it had been an entirely non-violent demonstration.
Al Masara has held a weekly demonstration since November 2006. The villagers are restricted from accessing their land, as it is the area in which the Israeli authorities are continuing to build the illegal separation barrier. When completed, it will run for a total of over 700 km, the large majority of which runs through and annexes Palestinian land.
Activist arrested on the freedom march from Bethlehem to JerusalemJudge Dahan of the Ofer Military Court in the West Bank ordered the release of the ten peaceful demonstrators arrested in Bethlehem last Sunday, among them PLO Executive Committee’s Abbas Zaki. The judge criticized the police and prosecution saying that the protest was nonviolent, and that the only force used in it was that used by police to apprehend the demonstrators.
After five long days in an Israeli military prison, the Bethlehem Ten were finally brought in front of a judge today at the Ofer military court. After hearing the arguments of both the military prosecution and the defense, the judge, Amir Dahan, decided to release all ten on bail and without posing restrictive release conditions. The judge also voiced his criticism of the police and prosecution by asserting in his decision that “There is no dispute that the march was not violent, and that no harm was done to anyone or to property, except for the force used by police officers during the arrests”.
The Bethlehem Ten were arrested together with four Israeli activists and an international activist, during a march marking Palm Sunday and the Christian tradition of pilgrimage to Jerusalem on that day last Sunday. Demonstrators hoped to highlight Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement and freedom of religion in Jerusalem. Despite having been arrested under the exact same circumstances and suspicions, the Israelis and international were released that same evening, in a clear example of racial discrimination.
“When referring to the repression of demonstrations, Israel always claims that it is the demonstrators’ so-called violence that compels the Army to use such mesures”, said Mohammed Khatib of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee. “But today even their own judge, in what is most clearly the court of the Occupation, acknowledged that any protest, any form of resistance, is met with an iron fist”.
The arrest of the Bethlehem Ten, especially that of Abbas Zaki, motivated the Fatah movement to declare an escalation in the use popular struggle strategies during these tense times. It has also brought hundreds of people to demonstrate at the Bitunya checkpoint yesterday, where demonstrators tried to break through the Separation Barrier in order to reach Ofer prison.
For more details:
Jonathan Pollak +972.546.327.736
Background
Fifteen demonstrators were arrested by Israeli forces during a peaceful demonstration near Rachel’s Tomb last Sunday, protesting Israeli violations of Palestinian freedom of religion and lack of access to Jerusalem. The demonstrators marked Palm Sunday and demanded to exercise the centuries old Christian tradition of pilgrimage to Jerusalem on that day. In a clear act of racial discrimination, the Israelis and international were released with a slap on the wrist that same night, while the police extended the arrest of all ten Palestinians by 96 hours.
After soldiers tried to stop the procession at a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem near Rachel’s Tomb, demonstrators overwhelmed the few soldiers positioned there with their numbers, and peacefully continued to march towards Jerusalem. They were, however, stopped by a large contingent of Israeli Police officers a few hundred meters into Jerusalem. When the crowed could not advance farther, a number of Palestinian dignitaries held speeches, after which the protesters began retreating back towards Bethlehem.
It was at that point, that the police began its unprovoked assault at the demonstrators, making fifteen arrests, including those of Abbas Zaki of the PLO Executive Committee, four members of local popular committees and an AP photographer. Abbas Zaki is one of the most prominent Palestinian leaders to have been arrested in grassroots demonstrations in recent years. His arrest has stirred vocal protest by PA officials in this already tense period.
All demonstrators were arrested under the exact same circumstances, and on the same suspicions. The four Israelis and one international detained during the incident, were released that same evening. The Palestinians, however, were subjected to much harsher treatment. The police extended the arrest of all ten of them by 96 hours, which are likely to be extended by another 96 hours even before they will be brought before a judge.
While Israelis and internationals are, as a matter of policy, subject to Israeli law, which only allows for a 24 hours detention by the police, Palestinians are subject to Israeli Military Law, which allows for their detention for a period of eight days before being brought in front of a judge. This blunt policy of racial discrimination is applied even in cases where Palestinians and Israelis are arrested together and under the same circumstances, and despite the fact that both Palestinians and Israelis are, in theory, subject to the Israeli Military Law when in the Occupied Territories.
