Category: Reports

Racial Discrimination By Israeli Police: Bethlehem Peaceful Protesters Still Detained

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

29 March 2010

While the Israeli and international protesters detained in Bethlehem yesterday have been released, the police extended the arrest of the ten Palestinians, including PLO Executive Committee Member, Abbas Zaki, by 96 hours under military law. A demonstration held in Bethlehem today in support of the arrestees was dispersed by the Army.

Fifteen demonstrators have been arrested yesterday by Israeli forces during a peaceful demonstration near Rachel’s Tomb 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.

For more details:
Jonathan Pollak +972546327736

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.

The Army had also used concussion grenades to disperse a demonstration in support of the ten arrestees in Bethlehem today. One demonstrator was lightly injured after a grenade hit his back.

An Nabi Saleh continues to defy military repression

International Solidarity Movement

27 March 2010

Demonstrators in An Nabi Saleh protest the theft of their agricultural land and the ongoing Occupation
Demonstrators in An Nabi Saleh protest the theft of their agricultural land and the ongoing Occupation
In recent weeks there has been an escalation of Israeli military violence against the weekly demonstration in the village of An Nabi Saleh, which last week led to 25 injuries, as well as attacks on 12 homes and 3 cars. Despite this, approximately 100 villagers joined the demonstration on Friday and attempted to reach their land, much of which has been stolen by the nearby illegal settlement of Halamish. The Israeli army prevented the demonstration from leaving the village by surrounding it on all sides, and firing large amounts of tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets directly at the demonstrators.

The demonstration was preceded by a press conference in which representatives of the village spoke of the land they have lost, and the importance they attach to continued resistance against the occupation, as manifested in the nearby settlement and the attacks from the Israeli military. Following these speeches, the demonstration began, but quickly came up against a barrage of tear gas from Israeli jeeps which had moved into the village.

Soldiers illegally fired a number of tear gas canisters directly at the demonstration, aiming at the head or chest height of most participants. They also invaded a Palestinian home, and fired down into the central square of the village, where people were gathered near the mosque.

No serious injuries were reported, though a number of villagers suffered respiratory problems due to tear gas inhalation.

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.

Teenager shot by Israeli forces in northern Gaza


ISM Gaza
26 March 2010

Hamdan's knee after being shot by Israeli forces while gathering scrap metal
Hamdan's knee after being shot by Israeli forces while gathering scrap metal
Said Abdel Aziz Hamdan, 15, went for his first time to Gaza’s northern border area to try gathering scrap metal for re-sale. Although an area lined with Israeli military towers and notorious for Israeli soldier shooting, shelling and abductions of Palestinian workers and farmers, Hamdan did not feel he would be in danger.

“People go there everyday to gather bits of metal and concrete. The Israelis see us and know we are just working, it’s normal,” he said from his hospital bed in Jabaliya’s Kamal Adwan hospital.

Hamdan set out from home shortly after 10 am Friday, going with his younger brother Suleiman, 13, to earn whatever shekels they could. From a family of 7 brothers and 5 sisters and whose father is unemployed, Said Hamdan had no other options for employment.

“My friends go every Friday, so I decided to join them today, to try this work.”

The bullet which struck Said shortly before 2pm as he was leaving the area came from the direction of a nearby Israeli military tower. It pierced his upper left thigh, entering from outer thigh and exiting from inner thigh, leaving a 2 cm exit wound, his doctor said.

“The Israelis fired without warning,” said Hamdan.

“There were many people there, working like me,” he said of the area, a former Israeli settlement known as ‘Dugit’.

Still in high school, Hamdan is training as a mechanic and hopes to find work to supplement his family’s income. “My father used to work in Israel, but he’s been unemployed for years now.”

Said Hamdan’s injury is neither new nor surprising. Every week, Israeli soldiers shoot upon and abduct Palestinian workers in the border regions of Gaza.

Some of the recent IOF aggressions against Palestinians in the border regions include:

-Naji Abu Reeda, 35, shot in the leg on the morning of 25 March as he worked collecting rubble 500 metres from the border for re-sale.

-On 24 March, 7 am, Israeli soldiers invaded northern Gaza and arrested five Palestinians collecting rubble, including:

Mahmoud Ma’rouf, 18

Shadi Ma’rouf, 18

Mustafa Ghanim, 43

http://www.mezan.org/en/details.php?id=9871&ddname=&id2=9&id_dept=9&p=center

-On 20 March, around 2:30 pm, Israeli soldiers arrested 17 Palestinians collecting rubble in the Beit Hanoun industrial area approximately 900 metres from the border, including:

Mohanad Al Kafarna, 11

Khalid Mahdi Hamdien, 14

Ismail Mahdi Hamdien, 13

Mohammed Al Basioni, 22

Mohammed Salih Afana, 22

Tareq Zyiad Al Afifi, 20

Mohammed Zyiad Al Afifi, 18

Tawfeq Samir Sababa, 19

Usama Mhammaden, 19

Ali Jamal Akhrawat, 24

Kamal Jamal Akhrawat, 20

Anwar Mohammed Hamad, 51

Alaa Al Masri, 18

Diab Al Kafarna, 20

Attaf Rafeq Hamad, 25

Ibrahim Mahdi Hamdien, 16

http://www.mezan.org/en/details.php?id=9835&ddname=IOF&id2=9&id_dept=9&p=center

http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6325:weekly-report-on-israeli-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory-18-24-march-2010&catid=84:weekly-2009&Itemid=183

Those venturing to the border regions to gather rubble and steel do so as a result of the siege on Gaza which, along with Israel’s 23 day winter war on Gaza, has decimated Gaza’s economy, including 95 percent of Gaza’s factories and businesses, according to the United Nations. Additionally, these recycled construction materials are vital in Gaza where the Israeli-led, internationally-complicit, siege bans all but under 40 items from entering.

The barbaric siege prevents vitally needed construction materials from entering Gaza, where over 6,400 houses were destroyed or severely damaged in the Israeli war on Gaza, and nearly 53,000 sustained lesser damages. Hospitals and medical centres, schools, kindergartens and mosques are among the other buildings destroyed and damaged during the Israeli war on Gaza.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza, only 0.05 percent of the monthly average prior to the siege had been allowed into Gaza as of December 2009.

Fisherman shot in the head and critically ill in Shifa’a Hospital in Gaza

ISM Gaza

25 March 2010

Fisherman Hazem Gora’ani, age 26, from the town of Deir Al Balah, south of Gaza City, was brought to Shifa Hospital with serious head wounds around 9 o’clock this morning.

gaza fish
Hazem Gora'ani in intensive care unit

An urgent operation lasting one and a half hours was performed to stop the bleeding inside his brain. Dr Samir Kahlout from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) told the ISM volunteers who visited Mr Gora’ani that his condition was critical and unstable and that he was unconscious following the operation.

Over the next 72 hours Mr Gora’ani will be monitored and the decision will be made about the need for further operations, including to remove bits of shrapnel lodged in his brain.

We talked to Mr Gora’ani’s brother Nafiz who was anxiously waiting in front of the ICU with a relative and another two fishermen for news about Hazem.

Nafiz was not present when the incident happened and he gave us an account by their brother who was fishing with Hazem and a third fisherman in a small hassaka boat this morning.

They were fishing well inside the Palestinian waters, less than three nautical miles away from the shore with another hassaka, when they were approached by the Israeli speed boat who attempted to kidnap them and take them to Ashkelon.

They panicked and tried to sail towards the coast. In response the Israeli soldiers opened a barrage of fire which critically injured Hazem. A collegue who was present in the hospital told us that there are a number of bullet holes in the hassaka.

A group of Gazan fisherman whom ISM talked with recently told us that Israeli soldiers fire at the fishermen so frequently that incidents are rarely reported if they did not result in serious injury. Only a few weeks ago two hassakas were kidnapped by the Israeli soldiers and destroyed after being taken to Ashkelon, whilst the fishermen were being interrogated and later released.

Palestinian organizer tortured in Israeli jail

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
23 March 2010

Lacerations on the back of a Palestinian organizer who was tortured in Israeli jail before being released with no charges.
Lacerations on the back of a Palestinian organizer who was tortured in Israeli jail before being released with no charges.
Omar Alaaeddin from the village of alMa’asara was nabbed from the Container Checkpoint on Sunday the 14th. He was released yesterday with no charges pressed against him. Alaaeddin reports having been tortured in the Israeli Russian Compound Jail in Jerusalem.

Omar Alaaeddin, who is involved in organizing demonstrations in the village of alMa’asra south of Bethlehem, was arrested a week ago on Sunday at the Container Checkpoint, as he was making his way back home from Ramallah, with a group of students and university professors. The groups was in Ramallah to see a theater play. Alaaeddin was beaten repeatedly, both by the soldiers who detained him, and later, in the Israeli Russian Compound jail in Jerusalem. He reports to have been kicked, punched and even electroshocked with a taser by the soldiers and his jailers.


Alaaeddin, who suffered an injury to his leg from the beating, was questioned over an unsubstantiated suspicions of participating in demonstrations and assaulting the soldier who arrested him. Dozens of eyewitnesses who were at the checkpoint at the time of his arrest can attest to the fact that it was, in fact, Alaaeddin who was assaulted. He was finally brought in front of a judge for the first time last Sunday, which was also his first opportunity to see a lawyer and inform him of his torture.

Following a short hearing, the judge harshly criticized the prosecution and police, saying there is no evidence connecting Alaaeddin to any violence and ordered his unconditioned release on bail. Despite having been injured and repeatedly having asked to see a physician, Alaaeddin did not receive any medical care throughout his detention.

This is the second time this month that an organizers from alMa’asara are detained and assaulted at the container checkpoint after Border Police officers recognized them from demonstrations. On March 2nd, the mayor of alMa’asara, Mahmoud Zwahre was detained and beaten on his way to a meeting in Ramallah.

Alaaeddin and his lawyers are now considering the option of filing both criminal and civil suites in an attempt to challenge the impunity and inaccountability of members of the Israeli armed forces.