11th August 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Yesterday, on the 10th of August, the Friday demonstration in the city of Hebron (Al-Khalil) was violently repressed by Israeli forces. Unarmed protestors gathered after Friday prayers, around 13:30, to protest against the occupation and in solidarity with Gaza. During the first hour of the demonstration the soldiers held back, staying around checkpoint 56, but eventually stormed out from the checkpoint and into H1, the Palestinian controlled part of the city.
First, they stormed Baba Zawya, trying to capture and arrest youths protesting against the occupation. The soldiers shot large amounts of tear gas and stun grenades at the demonstrators during their break into H1, with the result of two young children suffering excessive tear gas inhalation. ISM activists followed the soldiers to witness their actions, and while they stood close, watching defiantly, the soldiers shouted at the activists and violently pushed them. Israeli forces arrested three youths and two men. Four of them were eventually but released, but the whereabouts of the fifth is currently unknown. The demonstration ended at 19:30.
The Friday demonstrations in Hebron are an important part of the inhabitants’ resistance against the apartheid and occupation of their city. Checkpoints, restricted access, collective punishment and lack of freedom of movement is a part of daily life for Palestinians in Hebron. As an example, al-Shuhada street used to be the heart of the old city, but was closed to Palestinians in 1994 after a settler from a nearby illegal settlement, named Baruch Goldstein, murdered 29 Palestinians and injured over a 100 inside the Ibrahimi mosque. After that shops were forced to close down and it became known as a ghost town. Palestinians are restricted from walking or driving down al-Shuhada, and Israeli forces have welded the doors shut on Palestinian homes facing the street. Meanwhile, settlers face no such restrictions.
Israeli and international protesters demonstrated at Gaza fence in solidarity with The Great Return March
On Friday August 3rd, “Return”, a group of Israeli and international anti-Zionist activists, including activists from the International Solidarity movement, protested on the east side of the Gaza fence in solidarity with the Great March of Return.
They raised the Palestinian flag so that demonstrators in besieged Gaza could see it. They also carried a banner in Arabic reading “Jews for Return”. The Israeli and international demonstrators were assaulted and arrested by the Israeli military and police. Hours later they were released from the Netivot police station.
At the same time, one Palestinian demonstrator was reported to have been killed by the Israeli military and 220 injured, many from live ammunition. According to health officials in Gaza, this brings the number of slain protestors to at least 153 and injured to more than 16,000 since the weekly protests began on March 30.
“”We were beaten and abused by the Israeli military today but it is nothing compared to the violence Gazans face on a daily basis,” said Omer upon his release from police custody. “We will continue to do whatever we can to subvert this violent and horrific siege, and work for justice.”
27th July | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Deir Abu Mash’al
Palestinians demonstrate for Israel to return the dead bodies of their sons, husbands and fathers
Some 300 Palestinans from the West Bank (including occupied East-Jerusalem) gathered today in Deir Abu Mash’al to protest Israels practice of withholding the bodies of dead Palestinans from their families. The practice of doing so is a war crime that creates immense suffering for families already dealing with the trauma of having lost a loved one. Deir Abu Mash’al is a village of roughly 5000 inhabitants, 25km from Ramallah.
Palestinians—women and men, children and elderly—gathered on a main road of the village to demand the return of their lost family members, whose bodies are still being kept by Israel. Many of the men died during their imprisonment, others were shot and killed during protests or other incidents. Some families have been waiting for decades, for their husbands and sons to receive a dignified burial in their homeland.
Amongst the protestors were also the families of Baraa Saleh, Adel Ankoush and Osama Atta from Deir Abu Mash’al. The three young men were shot after having stabbed an Israeli border police in occupied East-Jerusalem on June 17, 2017. Immediately after the incident, Israeli soldiers and border police blocked all roads in to and out of Deir Abu Mash’al, raided the villagers’ houses, searched their cars and revoked the villagers’ permits to access Israel for work and family visits; these repercussions are internationally regarded as collective punishment. Such measures are considered a war crime, in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Namely article 33: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.” Moreover, it constitutes a breach of customary international humanitarian law. The roads to the village have been opened successively, but today the villagers are still traumatized and suffer from ongoing repercussions (for example punishments regarding their work permits or their house demolition).
Additionally, the families of the three men killed on June 16, 2017 received punitive home demolition orders. These families were made homeless. It’s not only the three families, but the whole village and all Palestinian families who haven’t received the bodies of their lost sons, brothers, cousins and husbands yet; thus, still suffering from collective punishment. Indeed, Israel’s practice of holding the bodies of the slain Palestinians is considered collective punishment, therefore a violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law by the Committee against Torture, the United Nations Secretary-General and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Two days before the protest in Deir Abu Ma’shal, a young Palestinian, Mohammad Tareq Dar Yousef (17) from neighbouring village of Kobar was shot and killed, after having stabbed three settlers in the illegal settlement Adam in the West Bank. One of the settlers died of his injuries. The village of Kobar has allready been raided, the roads in and out have been blocked and the family of Mohammad are facing homelessness as their home is now about to be demolished (reported by IMEMC). It is expected that the body of Mohammad will also be witheld by Israel.
Between 2008 and 2015 Israel held back 253 corpses, since 2015 Israel has held back another 26 corpses.
In 2011, 91 corpses were returned to Palestine, 11 of those remain in Ramallah as their identity remains unknown. From 2013 to 2014 Israel returned 21 Palestinians who lost their lives in the Second Intifada. One body was kept for 35 years before it was given to the family.
UN Committee against Torture, Concluding Observations on the fifth periodic report of Israel, UN Doc CAT/C/ISR/CO/5, 03 June 2016, para. 43.
UN General Assembly, Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, UN Doc A/71/364, 30 August 2016, para. 25.
Israeli and international protesters demonstrated at Gaza fence in solidarity with The Great Return March
On the 20th of July, Friday afternoon, a group of anti-zionist Israeli and international solidarity activists approached the Gaza siege fence at the same time that Gazans gathered by the fence on the other side during the weekly ‘Great Return March’, calling for the right to return to their land and for an end to the decade-long siege.
The activists carried a large banner saying ‘Liberate the Gaza ghetto’ along with flying the Palestinian flag. Additionally, the protesters held posters depicting the faces of Gazan protesters, journalists and medics who have lost their lives to Israeli soldiers since March 30th this year.
Protesters on both sides of the fence were visible to each other and interacted.
The activists read short biographies of the slain Gazans to Israeli soldiers who were trying to get them to leave the area. Finally, the solidarity activists were forcibly removed from the site and briefly detained by police before they were released. A sister action was held in New York City the same day
On Thursday 13th July Israeli forces came to the village of Bardala in the northern Jordan Valley, Palestine, and confiscated water pipes that supply water to the village, cutting off the water supply for all of the farmers in the village. The villagers are currently trying to reconnect the water supply that is so crucial to their livelihoods. The village relies on agriculture as its main source of income, and is currently preparing for the harvest of guava and corn as well as other fruit and vegetables, and so the recent Israeli attack on the water supply comes at a critical time for farmers.
This is not the first time that Israel has deliberately targeted the water supply in Bardala. On Thursday 5th July Israeli forces came to the village of Bardala and confiscated water pipes that supply water to the village, cutting off the water supply for around 20% of farmers there. Two months ago, Israeli forces entered the village to cut Bardala’s water supply and confiscate the water pipes, also arresting two farmers. Read the report from that incident here. Water is a critical way in which the Israeli occupation is deliberately squeezing the livelihoods of Palestinians from the Jordan Valley. Much of the village of Bardala is in Area C, where the Israeli occupation controls building permits and almost all areas of local administration. 87% of the Jordan Valley is designated as Area C, and Palestinians living in Area C are not given permits for building any structure, including water tanks. This means that farmers from land in Area C cannot legally set up their own irrigation systems, even though there is plenty of water in the Jordan Valley. The Israeli government deliberately restricts the water supply to Palestinians in Area C, using most of the water to supply illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Save the Children estimates that the 9,000 Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley consume almost 7 times as much water per day on average than the 60,000 Palestinians living there. Due to building restrictions in Area C, Palestinian farmers living in the Jordan Valley have no choice but to resort to connecting their water pipes to the Israeli-controlled water supply, which is deemed ‘illegal’ by the Israeli occupation. Read more about Israel’s ‘water apartheid’ policies in the Jordan Valley here.
Get involved with Jordan Valley Solidarity: http://jordanvalleysolidarity.org/
