Category: Reports - Page 63 - International Solidarity Movement

Settlers of Yitzhar set fire to olive fields and attack farmers the next day

15th November 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Huwarra, Occupied Palestine

Israeli settlers of Yitzhar, set fires in two places in Palestinian olive fields around their illegal outposts, and attacked a group of farmers a day later, under the eyes of around 30 border police, present at the site.

On Sunday 5 November, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, ISM activists saw smoke coming from olive fields on both hillsides underneath an outpost of Yitzhar, the illegal settlement south of Nablus, built on the Hill between the Palestinian villages Huwarra and Burin.

It wasn’t the first time this has happened. Since the expropriation of the farmland of Huwarra, Burin and Madama, and the illegal creation and steady expansion of the Israeli settlement Yitzhar, violent settlers do anything they can to harm the Palestinian farmers and families without any risk of being punished for these crimes.

Attacked in 2016. No sign of life a year later.

A farmer from Burin, whose olive field was set on fire, explained to us that the settler group chased him and his two companions and that they managed to escape.

The Palestinian Fire-brigade of Burin waited for permission from the Israeli authority to extinguish the fire, which they apparently did not get.

Israel is authoritative for the security in Area-C, and should instead of blocking the Palestinian Fire brigade, fight any fire in Area-C themselves, which it has not done in the 25 year since this authority was agreed on in the Oslo accords.

Instead of this, we saw border police, settler security and the settlers side-by-side in the illegal Hilltop outpost, looking at the burning fields.

The next day, 6 November 2017 already at 8:30 AM, a group of nine settlers tried to attack farmers and workers who had official permission of the Israeli security authority, to harvest and cultivate the fields of the Owda family, which was partly burned down the previous day.

The large group of border police refused us entrance to the the area, which apparently was declared a closed military zone. The commander showed us the declaration on a paper, which didn’t show many details.

Instead of assisting the farmers, we could only be remotely present and filmed the situation from a distance. We again witnessed a close cooperation between the settlers, the settler-security and the border police. The threat of an instant attack was constantly felt that day.

Around 14:30, a group of around 20 settlers attacked the farmers, and most border-police did little to avoid it and arrested none of the settlers. Instead it commanded the farmers to stop their work and quickly leave their land.

Settlement outpost are illegal, even by Israeli law, although that law may change one day.

In February 2017, the Israeli Knesset passed a new law to legalize all 4000 illegal outposts. But, the High Court had concerns and postponed the implementation in August 2017.

However, if that law ever comes to reality, it would accept these 4000 outposts as new settlements ready to expand, and would give legality to the expropriation of more private Palestinian land, in a clear violation of the Oslo Agreements of 1993.

‘Feast of Sarah’ Holiday Draws Thousands of Settlers to Al-Khalil

12th November 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | al-Khalil, Occupied Palestine

The Feast of Sarah did not pass unnoticed for the Palestinian residents of al-Khalil (Hebron). Jewish worshippers had been arriving from Israel in large numbers for days prior, together with a consequent increase of military presence. Yesterday morning, at 9:00 AM, soldiers started to isolate the road in H1 – the area of the city that is supposed to be Palestinian controlled – from the Shuhada Street checkpoint (Checkpoint 56) up towards the bus station in order to let the feast visitors pass from the H2 area to a prayer site. Two Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) and two Jeeps surrounded by numerous soldiers, border police, and riot police blocked the intersection at the base of Bab Al-Zawiya, and snipers were placed on the roofs of the main buildings.

An Israeli soldier aims her rifle at the chest of an international observer as a tactical unit gathers in Bab al-Zawiya.

Around 1:00 PM, the worshippers started to walk down the road, many of them stopping to yell insults to the Palestinians watching the scene from behind the blockade.

Jewish worshippers, both from Israel and from the illegal settlements in al-Khalil, gather to taunt Palestinians in Bab al-Zawiya.

After the settlers went back into H2, the soldiers and police stayed in the area, and gathered at the cement roadblocks in front of the checkpoint. They continued down towards the market, which led to some stone throwing from protesters up the street. Soldiers replied by throwing sound bombs into crowds of civilians and journalists.

The soldiers ultimately retreated into the checkpoint, only because they had to carry a 25-year-old Palestinian man that they had brutally beaten and placed under arrest. The man was carried to Checkpoint 56, where he was held for almost three hours while the Red Crescent ambulance staff was disallowed from giving him medical treatment.

A protester is finally allowed access to medical treatment from the Red Crescent after being brutally beaten and kept for three hours in Checkpoint 56.

Settler tours into H1 from H2 occur every Saturday under the protection of Israeli forces, fanning Israeli support for migration to and the expansion of the illegal settlements in al-Khalil, both of which necessarily lead to the expulsion of Palestinian civilians from their home. However, during Jewish holidays, the number of Israelis increases dramatically, often forcing Palestinian civil society to come to a grinding halt without warning.

Israeli armed forces and settlers harassing farmers in As Sawiya

31st October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine

On Sunday the 29th of October 2017 – near the Palestinian village As Sawiya – Palestinians and Internationals harvesting olives were met by the Israeli army. Three ISM’ers joined two Palestinian women harvesting in their family land. The family has been facing major problems in the area because of an illegal Israeli outpost close to the village, which is a part of the illegal settlement Eli.

The group of Palestinans and Internationals walked for half an hour to reach the olive trees since the road next to the olive trees is for settlers and the Israeli army only. After picking for around an hour a group of five boarder police officers, three soldiers from the Israeli army accompanied by settlers from the nearby outpost stormed up to the group demanding to see their ID’s. “They were very threatening and did not give any reason for taking our passports. We were just five women picking olives,“ an ISM’er says.

The Israeli border police demanded that the Internationals would leave the land immediately, showed the passports to the settlers and scanned them. “The settler stood on the olives and smiled at us, he even asked us if we were afraid of him,“ another ISM’er says. The Palestinians had been prevented from pruning the trees earlier this year which made the olive picking more difficult since it is an important part of the olive groves.

After a while the army agreed that the Palestinians were allowed to harvest their olives until three o clock the same day and that internationals were not allowed in the area the following day. The armed forces stayed close to the group harvesting for the rest of the day, and kept watching them and sometimes circled trees.

The day before a group of Palestinians and Internationals had also been prevented from picking olives in the area that is owned by the Palestinians.

Israeli army arrest son during night raid in Fasayel family house

21^st October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement | Nablus Team | Jordan Valley Solidarity | Occupied Palestine

The night between Wednesday and Thursday the house of Abu Jamil got raided by the Israeli military. At one AM four military jeeps arrived to upper Fasayel and about 20 Israeli armed soldiers entered Abu Jamils house, forcing the family of 9 outside and started searching the three rooms. The soldiers showed no documents of a search warrant.

After one and a half hour the military had destroyed food in the kitchen, stolen two kilos of farming chemicals (value of 200 NIS) and stolen the six mobile phones (value of 4000 NIS) that the family had. They then kidnapped the 22-year old son Jamil who is still in Salem military base awaiting a court hearing. Together with another young man from the village, the 25-year old Ishteyan, he is accused of having broken into the illegal settlement of Tomar stealing farming chemicals.

Recently another young man have been arrested and accused for the same break in. He was released after several days since he was falsely accused. The family of Abu Jamil does not have enough money to afford a lawyer for their son. Jordan Valley Solidarity and International Solidarity Movement will work for supporting the court process.

In total, 95% of the land in the Jordan Valley is off-limits to Palestinians: 50% is controlled by Israel’s illegal settlements, and the other 45% is military bases, ‘closed military zones’ and ‘nature reserves’ (areas controlled by the occupation, that Palestinians are refused access to). This matrix of oppression suffocates Palestinian life in the Valley and stifles traditional forms of subsistence farming and grazing undertaken by the Bedouin throughout history.

Israeli Forces closed media production companies in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus last Wednesday night.

18th October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine

The army raided the Pal Media and Trans Media headquarters in Ramallah and seized their equipment and video material. Also other companies and branches of the two companies in Nablus, Bethlehem and Hebron were raided the same night. Soldiers closed the entrances of the Pal Media and the Trans Media offices with iron plates and left a poster which warns journalists and other workers not to work for both companies in the next six months.

This means a shut down of the work from thesr two major Palestinian media companies and also saboutages the other media and news sources within Palestine. Pal Media and Trans Media work together with news agency’s like the BBC, RT and Al Jazeera from outside Palestine to share information about the occupation. It’s not the first time that the Israeli army targeted media companies to silence the Palestinian cause and also to interrupt Palestinians in their daily life of consuming television and radio shows.

During the raids in the occupied city’s, three of them declared Area A zones under full Palestinian control according to the Oslo agreement, the youth gathered around the army and tried to prevent the Israeli forces from maintaining the illegal closures of the media outlets and from accessing their cities. In the following clashes several Palestinians were shot with rubber coated steel bullets in all cities or injured by stun grenades and two journalists in the city of Hebron were arrested by the Israeli forces. With these new acts of violence against the freedom of speech from Palestinian journalists and media companies and the several night raids all over the West Bank, Israel shows yet another ugly face of it’s occupation politics to silence and interrupt Palestinians on a daily basis.