Category: Reports

Silwan Demands Justice in Anticipation of Home Demolitions

International Solidarity Movement

19 February 2010

Silwan Protest
Silwan Protest

A vigil began close to 12:30PM at the protest tent in the neighborhood of Silwan, East Jerusalem. More than one hundred Silwan community members gathered to listen to speeches and commenced mid-day prayer in unison. Following the collective prayer the community members marched through the streets of Silwan.

Today’s demonstration is a response to the pending demolitions of over 200 homes in Silwan. These demolitions were slated to be government sanctioned “price tag” actions in response to the anticipated eviction of the illegal Zionist squat Beit Yonatan. Ateret Cohanim, a Zionist settler organization, built Beit Yonatan in the heart of Silwan. Their building plan was approved for a four story complex, but and extra three stories were added without approval. This is in contradiction to the four-story limit to which Palestinians in the neighborhood are held.

In a hard-fought battle, the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, grudgingly agreed to evict the settlers after more than a year of attempting to find a legal strategy to avoid serving the orders. Before the legal appeals, State Prosecutor Moshe Lador demanded the sealing orders be served. Mayor Barkat will execute the sealing orders of Beit Yonatan, but only in conjunction with the execution of nearly 200 home demolition orders for Palestinian homes in Silwan.

The illegal squat will be allowed to remain through extra-legal machinations until 200 homes housing 1500 individuals are demolished. The main reason for the displacement of so many Palestinians is to pave the way for a tourism center pertaining to the history of King David and the excavations undertaken to find relics related to his dynasty.

Peaceful Al Ma’sara Demonstration Faces Continued Aggression

International Solidarity Movement

19 February 2010

Palestine Popular Struggle
Palestine Popular Struggle

The peaceful demonstration in the Occupied West Bank village of Al Ma’sara by Palestinians and Internationals was aggressively dispersed using tear gas & sound bombs, today, by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). This is the second week that the IOF have been using increasingly violent methods to repress non-violent demonstrations in Al Ma’sara, a reflection of their tactics across the villages of the West Bank.

Approximately 70 Palestinians and 14 Internationals, including 3 Israelis, gathered to protest against the construction of the Israeli apartheid wall which is illegal under international law. The wall runs through the land of the village, the completion of which will block the residents from their farmland; they have already lost more than 350 hectares of land to a nearby Israeli settlement.

Men and women of all ages assembled after the Friday prayer, marching through the main road of the village where they were addressed by the organisers of the demonstration, the Popular Committee Against the Wall. This was followed by an address by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who participated in the demonstration as part of their 41st anniversary.

Tear Gas Repression
Tear Gas Repression

Barbed wire was laid across the road and the procession descended towards their farmland onto a parallel road used by Israeli Settlers, at which point an IOF jeep approached. Soldiers exited and began firing tear gas and throwing sound grenades into the group. Some local youths responded by throwing rocks at the IOF as the whole group fled back to the village. Soldiers pursued into the village whilst continuing to fire tear gas and sound grenades at the group. Many residents suffered from the effects of the tear-gas in their homes and an eighteen-year old participant was injured by a tear-gas shell.

Sound grenades were used at very close range by the IOF to displace the press and international activists, and physical aggression was used against both an ISM member and a Palestinian man. An ISM member also filmed a soldier firing tear-gas canisters directly into the crowd at head level, which included young children.

Israeli Army Raids Nablus Apartments

International Solidarity Movement

18 February 2010

Damage to door.
Damage to door.

Last night at around 2.30am, the Israeli army illegally stormed into 5 apartments in the Ashref Building on Suki Street in Nablus. The city is located in “Area A”, which is under full Palestinian Authority control under the Oslo II Agreement, making this raid illegal under international law.

Without any warning, Israeli soldiers forced their entry by blowing open all five apartment doors as it left visible dents on the metal door frame, deformed metals doors and cracked walls. Residents described the device to have been pushed against both sides of the door frame, as the dents on all the door frames indicate, with a control box in the middle, making a loud explosive sound as the doors blew open. After hearing the description of this device, two former Israeli soldiers have recognized it as a “Fox”, an Israeli military device loaded with two fingers of TNT to blow open doors.

Damage to wall from new device.
Damage to wall from new device.

In each of the five apartments, armed soldiers, three of whom wore masks, stormed directly into the bedrooms and separated the husband from his wife and children and proceeded to interrogate them in the apartment lobby. The husbands of all three families on the second floor said that they were questioned about the names of their families, neighbors and if they recognized different names soldiers listed off.

After the interrogation, soldiers locked all three husbands on the second floor in one room as their wives and children were crying, separated in other rooms. Residents also stated that one woman on the third floor was pushed by a soldier after she said that there is a doorbell and asked why they didn’t just knock. One of the families on the third floor also told us that the children had stayed home from school today as a consequence of the night raid. The simply still were afraid.

None of the families were asked the same questions regarding the names of the people the soldiers were looking for, yet the commander clearly stated they were searching for one individual. This inconsistency points to the possibility that In the past, other ISM volunteers have heard villagers explain that night raids have occurred as training for soldiers, especially before certain campaigns have been launched by the Israeli army.

This is the second time Ashref Building has been illegally raided in the past two months, but the first time such a device was used for forced entry. Each door will cost around 1,500 NIS to replace and the illegality of the Israeli army entering “Area A” will likely remain without any consequence.

Violent Zionists Tour Sheikh Jarrah

International Solidarity Movement

14 February 2010

At approximately 1 pm today, roughly 20 Zionist tourists entered the yard of the occupied al-Kurd home in Sheikh Jarrah as part of a settlement promotion tour. Verbally harassing both Palestinian residents and Internationals and attempting to block their cameras,  tourists listened as a guide expounded upon the religious claims which Zionists use to justify the eviction of Palestinians from their homes. After concluding with song, the tourists passed through the gate  as several verbally attacked Palestinians present. 85-year-old Rifqa al-Kurd was roughly pushed while observing the visitors. Upon crossing the street to view the Gawi home, a particularly violent woman verbally attacked an ISM activist, flinging the activist’s camera several meters into the air.

Although intentionally provocative Zionist tours are nothing new in Sheikh Jarrah, the explicit racism and violence exhibited today proved particularly troubling to Palestinian residents. The guide’s script included lines such as “Eventually the Arabs will have to wake up. Some will leave, on their own choice, and some will have to be dragged out. And the world can kick and scream from today ’til tomorrow, but the bottom line is that this land belongs to the Jewish people…” Unlike many of the other tours that have passed across the al-Kurd lawn in the past days, comments made by the guide suggest that participants in today’s program are prospective home buyers.

Background on Sheikh Jarrah

Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.

So far, settlers took over houses of four Palestinian families, displacing around 60 residents, including 20 children. At present, settlers occupy all these houses and the whole area is patrolled by armed private security 24 hours a day. The evicted Palestinian families, some of whom have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular violent attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.

The Gawi family, for example, had their only shelter, a small tent built near their house, destroyed by the police and all their belongings stolen five times. In addition, the al-Kurd family has been forced to live in an extremely difficult situation, sharing the entrance gate and the backyard of their house with extremist settlers, who occupied a part of the al-Kurd home in December 2009. The settlers subject the Palestinian family to regular violent attacks and harassment, making their life a living hell.

The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to evict all Palestinians from the area and turn it into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.

Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.

Legal background

The eviction orders, issued by Israeli courts, are a result of claims made in 1967 by the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesseth Yisrael Association (who since sold their claim to the area to Nahalat Shimon) – settler organizations whose aim is to take over the whole area using falsified deeds for the land dating back to 1875. In 1972, these two settler organizations applied to have the land registered in their names with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA). Their claim to ownership was noted in the Land Registry; however, it was never made into an official registry of title. The first Palestinian property in the area was taken over at this time.

The case continued in the courts for another 37 years. Amongst other developments, the first lawyer of the Palestinian residents reached an agreement with the settler organizations in 1982 (without the knowledge or consent of the Palestinian families) in which he recognized the settlers’ ownership in return for granting the families the legal status of protected tenants. This affected 23 families and served as a basis for future court and eviction orders (including the al-Kurd family house take-over in December 2009), despite the immediate appeal filed by the families’ new lawyer. Furthermore, a Palestinian landowner, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, has legally challenged the settlers’ claims. In 1994 he presented documents certifying his ownership of the land to the courts, including tax receipts from 1927. In addition, the new lawyer of the Palestinian residents located a document, proving the land in Sheikh Jarrah had never been under Jewish ownership. The Israeli courts rejected these documents.

The first eviction orders were issued in 1999 based on the (still disputed) agreement from 1982 and, as a result, two Palestinian families (Hannoun and Gawi) were evicted in February 2002. After the 2006 Israeli Supreme Court finding that the settler committees’ ownership of the lands was uncertain, and the Lands Settlement officer of the court requesting that the ILA remove their names from the Lands Registrar, the Palestinian families returned back to their homes. The courts, however, failed to recognize new evidence presented to them and continued to issue eviction orders based on decisions from 1982 and 1999 respectively. Further evictions followed in November 2008 (Kamel al-Kurd family) and August 2009 (Hannoun and Gawi families for the second time). An uninhabited section of a house belonging to the al-Kurd family was taken over by settlers on 1 December 2009.

Sheikh Jarrah woman arrested as far-right MK tours settler-occupied homes

International Solidarity Movement

14 February 2010

Sheikh Jarrah resident, 45 year old Fatima Diab was arrested by Israeli police on Saturday evening, February 13, following the provocative appearance of far-right Knesset member Micheal Bin Ari at the Al-Gawi home in solidarity with the extremist settlers occupying the house. Diab was released on a bail of 2000 shekels following an appearance in Jerusalem District Court on February 14.

Tensions were raised in the neighbourhood as MK Bin Ari arrived around 7pm, entering the occupied Al-Gawi house to inspect the state of the settler takeover, accompanied by heightened settler and police presence. Shouting broke out as Bin Ari exited the stolen home, with settlers and Palestinian residents exchanging taunts. Diab, who stood in the crowd, flicked water on Bin Ari as he walked to his car, causing police to immediately demand that she accompany them to the police station for questioning.

Returning home to Sheikh Jarrah at 2am, an exhausted Saleh Diab (brother of Fatima) informed the some ten residents and international solidarity activists assembled for night watch that his sister was being forced to spend the night at the police station. In a split second the entire atmosphere of the neighbourhood had morphed from the relaxed air of the nightly, fire-lit vigil to one of distress and renewed tension. Diab was the first woman of Sheikh Jarrah to be imprisoned.

Diab appeared in the Jerusalem District Court the following afternoon, by which point she was suffering dehydration and exhaustion from her night in an Israeli cell. She was permitted no access to a doctor or medicine until she was finally released around 7pm on the bail of 2000 shekels and was able to return to Sheikh Jarrah. Diab was sentenced to one week of house arrest and is banned from attending the weekly Friday demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah against settlement expansion in the area.

The incident has only served to exacerbate tensions in the community by the settler takeover, and further highlight the racist and discriminatory nature of Israeli police working in east Jerusalem. Diab herself was burnt by a cup of boiling coffee hurled on her by a settler youth two months ago, who was never reprimanded for the action.

Micheal Bin Ari of the National Union party is known for his position in the Israeli far-right as a provocateur, having been arrested in West Bank settlement demonstrations and protests against Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan in 2005. Several right-wing Members of Knesset have visited the settler-occupied homes in Sheikh Jarrah in recent months to show their support for the process of ethnic cleansing that is being waged on the Palestinian population.

Background on Sheikh Jarrah

Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.

So far, settlers took over houses of four Palestinian families, displacing around 60 residents, including 20 children. At present, settlers occupy all these houses and the whole area is patrolled by armed private security 24 hours a day. The evicted Palestinian families, some of whom have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular violent attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.

The Gawi family, for example, had their only shelter, a small tent built near their house, destroyed by the police and all their belongings stolen five times. In addition, the al-Kurd family has been forced to live in an extremely difficult situation, sharing the entrance gate and the backyard of their house with extremist settlers, who occupied a part of the al-Kurd home in December 2009. The settlers subject the Palestinian family to regular violent attacks and harassment, making their life a living hell.

The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to evict all Palestinians from the area and turn it into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.

Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.

Legal background

The eviction orders, issued by Israeli courts, are a result of claims made in 1967 by the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesseth Yisrael Association (who since sold their claim to the area to Nahalat Shimon) – settler organizations whose aim is to take over the whole area using falsified deeds for the land dating back to 1875. In 1972, these two settler organizations applied to have the land registered in their names with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA). Their claim to ownership was noted in the Land Registry; however, it was never made into an official registry of title. The first Palestinian property in the area was taken over at this time.

The case continued in the courts for another 37 years. Amongst other developments, the first lawyer of the Palestinian residents reached an agreement with the settler organizations in 1982 (without the knowledge or consent of the Palestinian families) in which he recognized the settlers’ ownership in return for granting the families the legal status of protected tenants. This affected 23 families and served as a basis for future court and eviction orders (including the al-Kurd family house take-over in December 2009), despite the immediate appeal filed by the families’ new lawyer. Furthermore, a Palestinian landowner, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, has legally challenged the settlers’ claims. In 1994 he presented documents certifying his ownership of the land to the courts, including tax receipts from 1927. In addition, the new lawyer of the Palestinian residents located a document, proving the land in Sheikh Jarrah had never been under Jewish ownership. The Israeli courts rejected these documents.

The first eviction orders were issued in 1999 based on the (still disputed) agreement from 1982 and, as a result, two Palestinian families (Hannoun and Gawi) were evicted in February 2002. After the 2006 Israeli Supreme Court finding that the settler committees’ ownership of the lands was uncertain, and the Lands Settlement officer of the court requesting that the ILA remove their names from the Lands Registrar, the Palestinian families returned back to their homes. The courts, however, failed to recognize new evidence presented to them and continued to issue eviction orders based on decisions from 1982 and 1999 respectively. Further evictions followed in November 2008 (Kamel al-Kurd family) and August 2009 (Hannoun and Gawi families for the second time). An uninhabited section of a house belonging to the al-Kurd family was taken over by settlers on 1 December 2009.