Category: Reports

Israeli Army Harrassment in Hebron Continues

Eyewitness reports from two days in Hebron by Missy

Soldiers violently attack Palestinian man in his home: August 25th, 2006

To watch video of this event, click here. To download it, click here.

There were two cameras filming most, if not all, of the following incident. A few soldiers are easily recognizable by Human Rights Workers (HRW) given the number of times they have been present while soldiers have been invading numerous Palestinian homes.

At approximately 5:15 PM, an HRW posted at the Tel Rumeida checkpoint heard yelling and screaming coming from up the hill. The HRW moved up the hill, and a Palestinian woman was able to point out the house and medical facility from which the screams were issuing. The HRW asked Israeli soldiers immediately inside the building’s door what was going on. They refused to answer, and the soldiers physically prevented the HRW from entering the house. At this point, Dr. Taysir, the building’s owner, broke free from the soldier who was holding him, and pulled on the HRW’s arm while begging him to enter. The HRW managed to enter the door, and saw two, elongated contusions high on Dr. Taysir’s left arm. While being pushed out once again, the HRW negotiated with the soldiers to leave the door open on the condition that he remain outside.

Shortly thereafter three more HRWs arrived. The HRWs managed to enter the building. Three HRWs demanded access to Dr. Taysir, who was now out of sight, while a fourth video taped the encounter. Dr. Taysir could be heard yelling and crying out in pain from a room further in the house. The HRWs attempted to move past the soldiers in order to prevent further injury to Dr. Taysir, but were repeatedly forced back. The soldiers refused to explain why the doctor’s home had been entered, why he had been struck, or why the HRWs could not see him. Throughout this time, the soldiers were physically and verbally aggressive towards the HRWs, repeatedly shoving them towards the door, and yelling at them to get out, shut up, etc.

At this point, an Israeli major arrived with approximately six more soldiers. The major entered the building and began speaking with Dr. Taysir’s brother, who had observed some, but not all, of the incident; this conversation is filmed almost entirely. The major spoke briefly to the soldiers already on site, who quickly became considerably less aggressive toward the HRWs. After approximately ten minutes, the major and all soldiers departed the house without speaking to anyone else. The HRWs then videotaped interviews with both Dr. Taysir and his brother regarding the incident.

Dr. Taysir told the HRWs that he gone to open the door for the soldiers when almost immediately they began shoving him around and pinned him against a wall by pressing on his chest. The doctor told the soldier not to push him, and the soldier responded by punching him in the temple. Other soldiers joined in, and Dr. Taysir received blows to his arms, legs, and torso. At least two blows, those to his left arm, were strikes with the butt of a rifle; these injuries are documented with video.


Dr. Tayseer’s injury from the soldiers as it looked the next day.

Seeing that Dr. Taysir was being attacked, a female patient who was present attempted to intervene, putting herself between the doctor and the soldiers. She was struck by a soldier, and fell unconscious. The patient was later placed on a medical exam table with an oxygen feed to help her recover, where she was videotaped (with permission) by the HRWs. Dr. Taysir’s adult
daughter was also beaten at some point during the encounter, though the events are not clear to us what happened. Dr. Taysir and his brother both stated repeatedly that soldiers used and regularly use foul language towards him and his family, including his wife and small children.

Later that evening, before sunset, soldiers could be seen on the roof of Dr. Taysir’s house. HRWs were standing on their own roof, and when they looked in the direction of the soldiers, the soldiers used their arms in a gesture to say ‘fuck you’ to the HRWs. The soldiers were laughing the entire time. The HRWs did not respond.

* * *

Soldiers invade yet another home in Tel Rumeida, Hebron : August 20th, 2006

At approximately 12 PM HRWs arrived at a house being invaded by IDF soldiers. HRWs found the the door blocked by two soldiers, who refused to let them in the house; these soldiers did not tell the HRWs to not film them. After a few minutes of attempting to negotiate our way into the house, HRWs walked around the soldiers, and were met with little resistance. One HRW went to the family and asked if they were OK; the family appeared to be nervous but unharmed. Other HRWs proceeded to come into the house and look around, seeing if anything was disrupted or broken. None of us could see evidence that the soldiers had done this, unlike the previous week, in which the neighbor’s house was destroyed from the inside.

An HRW approached the commander of the unit with her camera on and asked him what they were doing; his face is clearly seen on film. The commander told the HRW that if she and her friends wanted to stay in the house, she should turn the camera off. The HRW told the commander that she could film and that if the soldiers weren’t doing anything wrong, it shouldn’t bother them. The commander then stepped closer to the HRW and said, “Look, i’m in control of this house now. If you want to stay and watch us search, then turn the camera off. If you don’t do that, then I will make all of you go outside, lock the doors, and you can wait for us to finish outside.” The HRW put her camera down and proceeded to follow the soldiers through the house. They did not break or take anything that was obvious. The soldiers left about ten minutes after HRWs had arrived. As the soldiers were leaving, one HRW said to the commander, “Hey, see you later, Yosi.” The soldier then replied, “You have a lot of guts saying that to me.”

The family told the HRWs afterwards that the soldiers come frequently to their house. The soldiers always tell them they’re looking for weapons, but have never found any. An HRW asked the family if the soldiers ever break or steal things, and one of the women replied, “Sometimes yes, sometimes no; we are always at their mercy. Today they behaved very well, and I think it was because all of you came.” The family thanked the HRWs repeatedly as we sat and drank tea with them.

Peace Demonstrators Beaten in Bil’in

by ISM Media Office volunteers

At today’s weekly demo against the Apartheid Wall in Bil’in soldiers attacked protesters with batons and fired rubber bullets at them from close range. Around 100 protesters including international and Israeli peace activists marching from the village mosque to the site of the Wall were confronted by lines of soldiers in riot gear at the edge of the village. Without provocation or intimidation the soldiers waded into the demonstration lashing out indiscriminately at the marchers. An American peace activist, Magan, suffered a concussion and severe bruising after being beaten on the forehead whilst Anna an American activist suffered severe hand injuries.

Demonstrators attempted to sit down but the soldiers’ repeated beating led them to disperse. An Italian and an Israeli activist were beaten so badly they had to be stretchered off to the ambulance to receive medical attention. Although injured both are now able to walk again. Palestinian non-violent activists Mansour and Saif also suffered particularly heavy beatings who later in the day arrived at the hospital for treatment. A Spanish activist and two Palestinians were arrested but released at the end of the demo suffering minor injuries.

As protesters dispersed the soldiers continued to pursue them back to the village. When Saif called for activists to avoid the soldiers’ beatings he was shot at and hit twice with rubber bullets. Not content with this level of brutality soldiers shot several more protesters with rubber bullets as they walked back to the village. Shooting Saif one more time in the back, and shooting at a group of other ISM activists. Anna in addition to her hand injury suffered one rubber bullet in the back and one in the hip. The soldiers then detained two activists but they were de-arrested by fellow activists.

The severe beatings indiscriminately given out at today’s demo continue to portray the Occupation forces’ escalation in violence against peaceful protest. The villagers of Bil’in will not be intimidated by such brutality and vow to return next week to continue their struggle against the Occupation and theft of their land.

Injuries and Arrests

  • Andrianes an Italian activist beaten badly with a baton.
  • Mansour Mansour the Palestinian ISM Campaign Coordinator was severely beaten with a baton.
  • Saif Abu Keshek the Palestinian Coordinator living in Spain was beaten with a baton and shot with 3 rubber bullets in the back and one in the leg.
  • Anna from US suffered injuries on her hand as well as 2 rubber bullets, one in the back and hip.
  • Lina from Germany suffered a rubber bullet wound on her leg.
  • Jonathon Pollack from Israel suffered severe beatings with a baton.
  • Dave from Ireland suffered beatings and a rubber bullet wound to the back.
  • Magan from US suffered harsh beatings with the baton, including one to her head, resulting in a concussion.
  • Coby from Israel suffered beatings from a baton.
  • Adeeb a Palestinian suffered beatings and was detained and later released.
  • Mohammad Khatib local Popular Committee member was detained and later released.
  • David from Catalonia was detained and later released.

Twelve Year Old Boy Shot in the Back in the Name of “Security”

by ISM Nablus

The Israeli military blocked the road to three villages south-east of Nablus city for nine hours on Thursday. Iraq Burin – a breathtakingly beautiful village of 1,000 people situated on top of a cliff from where, on a clear day one can see all the way to the Mediterranean (or “the white sea” as the villagers call it), and its bigger neighbors Tel and Sara were all isolated from one o’clock until ten o’clock, supposedly because of information received about a alleged suicide bomber. Nearby Huwarra checkpoint was also completely closed from mid afternoon as soldiers held a crowd of people at gunpoint under the red hot sun, preventing them from even entering the shaded checkpoint. Throughout the day, an American made and supplied Apache helicopter circled overhead, and soldiers with M-16s patrolled the roads and overpasses on the way to and from Nablus.

Late afternoon, a long line of cars, buses and donkeys were backed up on the winding hill-road, waiting to be allowed to pass. The 10-15 soldiers manning the flying checkpoint consisting of two hummers and one jeep – were extremely slow in checking vehicles and also very aggressive, with one constantly pacing around on the bank of earth by the side of the road, proclaiming that he hates “all Arabs” and pointing his machine gun at people in the crowd. During the checkpoint procedure, all car passengers were made to exit their vehicles, and the men were forced to pull up their shirts to show their bellies and backs from a distance to prove that they were not carrying explosives. Bags, purses, and vehicles were searched with varying degrees of thoroughness.

Earlier in the day, a 12-year old boy was, for no apparent reason, shot in the back with live ammunition. He is now being treated at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, where they report that the bullet narrowly missed his kidney. An older man was also shot in the foot by a ricocheting bullet, right in front of the eyes of human rights workers. Upon returning from hospital with his foot bandaged and painful, he was only allowed to pass through the checkpoint after long negotiation.

Despite the apparent danger, young boys scuttled back and forth through the checkpoint fetching water from a nearby well for the people waiting in the Palestinian midday heat. One man was especially grateful, having been forced to sit beside the road in the sun for eight hours because he was recognized by one of the soldiers at the checkpoint as having disobeyed an order while working his land with a tractor last week. Any such resistance against the occupation is routinely met by harsh punishment. He was finally given his ID back and allowed to leave, when a senior officer arrived at the scene.

The security concerns offered by soldiers to justify the humiliating and oppressive practice of checkpoints are painfully transparent in their arbitrariness. As soon as it gets dark, they invariably pack up and leave and the thoroughness of checks relies on the mood of the commanding officer on that particular day. Furthermore, as a man waiting at the checkpoint put it, “Security is not created by forcing men to lift up their shirts in front of their neighbours, their students and their daughters. Security is not created by making the 10-minute journey from Nablus into a six-hour one. Security is not created by shooting children in the back. Security is created by justice and respect.”

Full Account of Israeli Army House Invasions in Hebron

The following is a more detailed account of the events first publicised in yesterday’s press release.

by ISM Hebron and the Tel Rumeida Project

Today, August 23, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) forcibly entered and searched many Palestinian homes in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. The checkpoints in the area were closed, and Palestinians were denied passage to and from the area late into the evening. The military operation may have been related to two separate situations. First, the settlers of Hebron had planned a “tour of Hebron” today, and there were many tour busses present as well as far more settlers and religious Israelis than usual walking about the streets. There was very likely an increased number of soldiers present to escort the settlers and Israeli tour groups and make them feel “secure.” The second, unrelated occurrence is a shooting that happened outside of Tel Rumeida in area H1 (the Palestinian controlled part of Hebron) prior to the military operation. What follows is an account of the events as the Human Rights Workers (HRWs) present observed them.

At around 2:45pm two HRWs were stationed on Shuhada Street, between the Beit Hadassa settlement and the checkpoint separating H1 and H2, when they heard exchange of gunfire from outside Tel Rumeida in area H1 that lasted for at least a minute. There was then an immediate increase in military activity on Shuhada Street; two police jeeps, two military ambulances, and several army jeeps were rushing down Shuhada Street, lights flashing, in the direction of the checkpoint. The HRWs then decided to leave their post and head up the hill towards their apartment. At that time another HRW called the HRWs on Shuhada Street to inform them that settlers from the Tel Rumeida settlement were shooting in the streets.

The HRWs walked toward the checkpoint, where many military vehicles were congregated, and saw that the checkpoint was completely closed to passage in either direction. They confirmed from others in the area that the other two entrances to Tel Rumeida had also been closed by that time. The HRWs continued up the hill to their apartment. The first thing out of the ordinary that they noticed was that some twenty soldiers were guarding the Tel Rumeida settlement up the hill from the apartment, and seemed primed for action. All of the Palestinians in the area seemed frightened or on alert and were closing up their homes and apartment buildings.

Soon after the HRW arrived, at around 3:00pm, about ten of these soldiers rushed down the hill to the Palestinian apartment building across from the HRW apartment. The soldiers banged on the main door of the building with the barrel of a gun and demanded entry, and then forcibly entered and searched the Palestinian homes inside. While around five soldiers searched the homes in the building, one soldier was stationed at the door and another two were at the corner of the building, positioned on their knees with guns poised. At 3:25pm, the soldiers moved on to the neighboring house. In the next two house, almost every house in Tel Rumeida within eyesight of the HRW’s apartment was forcibly searched. Based on information gathered from others in the area at the time, it seems that many, likely most, Palestinian homes in Tel Rumeida were searched during that time.

During the following two hours, the military presence and activity in the area seemed to constitute a full scale military operation. Many police and army jeeps, as well as Israeli intelligence vehicles were highly active in the area. Strangely, many settlers, some of them armed, were out on the streets during the military activity, walking about as they pleased. Two settlers contentedly sat on the neighbor’s stoop and watched the military go from house to house, humiliating one Palestinian family and then the next.

During the operation, two soldiers also tried to enter the HRW apartment. The HRWs demaded to see a warrant, and although the soldiers insisted they did not need one as they just wanted to talk “person to person,” the HRWs assured them that they did need a warrant and refused to answer any questions. The soldiers left and did not return after they realized the HRW would not be cowed into complying.

During the two hours of observation, the HRW called several sources to try to understand why this military operation was happening and how it was related to the shooting that preceded it. From information gathered from the Temporary International Presence in Hebron and other sources, the initial shooting the HRWs heard was internal fighting between Palestinians. There was a feud between two Palestinian families somewhere in H1 that led to shooting, which caused four Palestinians to be injured. Settlers from the Tel Rumeida settlement apparently responded to the sound of gunfire by firing their weapons toward H1. The settlers purportedly told soldiers that they saw Palestinian militants in the streets of Tel Rumeida, and this was why they were shooting. This apparently led to the IOF becoming involved and invading the homes to seek the non-existent militants.

By 5:00pm Tel Rumeida had calmed down considerably, the systematic home invasions seemed to have ended, and the army seemed to retreat to its usual positions in Tel Rumeida. In the following hours there were an unusually high number of settlers walking about the streets, some of them apparently here for the tour. Then around 6:30pm the HRWs were called and informed that soldiers had invaded homes again in the Tel Rumeida area.

When the HRW arrived at the invaded house (Abu Haykal Family) they found that the family was forced to sit outside while the soldiers searched their home. The soldiers had the identity cards of all the men in the family. Only the father of the family was allowed inside the house while the IOF searched their property. The HRWs tried to get into the house to monitor the behavior of the soldiers and be with the father, but the soldiers forcibly prevented them. When the HRWs insisted that they were allowed into the house unless the soldiers had orders that the house was a closed military zone, the soldiers guarding the entrance made such remarks as “I am the law!” and “I’m going to be violent and arrest you if you don’t leave!” They also joked between themselves in Hebrew that they planned on beating up the HRWs later on. In response to attempts by the HRWs to film the situation, the soldiers threatened to break their cameras. After about 15 minutes, a military jeep arrived and five more soldiers entered the house. The HRWs were continually threatened with arrest for “interfering with our [the soldiers’] work.” At one point two soldiers tried to forcibly push one HRW to the jeep as if they were going to detain him, but he sat on the ground and prevented them from doing so. In retaliation, the soldiers arbitrarily ordered the entire family and the HRWs to move behind the military jeep, and were threatened with arrest if they crossed an imaginary line. Meanwhile the soldiers searched a neighboring house. About 15 minutes later, the army then tried to order the Abu Haykal family into their house and to close the door. The HRWs and some family members refused to do so, and after about 10 minutes, the IOF handed out the IDs again and left.

The HRWs then proceeded to another house in the area that was being searched. The HRWs walked up the stairs to the front door despite the shouting of the soldiers outside that they were forbidden from doing so, and the HRWs told the soldiers that they would leave only when they saw the order that this house was a closed military zone. The soldier repeatedly threatened to arrest the HRWs and made calls as if he was arranging to have this done. The HRWs then noticed that soldiers were angrily shouting and preventing Palestinians from walking down the nearby hill to their homes. A group of older men insisted to know why and moved defiantly toward the hill as if they were going to ignore the soldiers’ orders. In response the soldiers became very aggressive, cocked their guns, and began shouting loudly at the men. About five minutes later another group of soldiers, including the commander of them all, came towards the scene. The commander ordered the angry soldiers to allow the men to go down the hill towards their homes.

The exhausted HRWs then went home for the night.

Palestinian Companies Forced to Buy Israeli Products

by Lina

Israel is constantly inventing new ways of making life in the occupied Palestinian territories ever more difficult and humiliating and several companies in the Nablus region have recently been subject to one of these policies. ISM Nablus visited but one of the affected companies – a small enterprise started in 1995, employing only three people.

They receive tenders from various private and public medical institutions in Nablus, and import supplies directly from abroad – mainly from Turkey, Italy and China. The majority of their shipments are based on inquiry and most items are low-cost such as syringes, casts, stethoscopes, gloves and IV-bags. Occasionally, larger and more expensive items such as infant incubators and electrically powered beds are needed and imported. In the past year, the price to import and process shipments has drastically risen, although it is only recently that companies in Nablus have been affected. One particular order got stuck in Israeli customs for more than 2 months and the company was forced to pay an additional import fee of 25,000 NIS (about $5,000 dollars) to access the order.

The fee was officially required for covering the cost of a so-called CB (Certification Body) Test Report. The CB scheme originated in Europe, where nations were moving toward adopting a common set of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards. It was originally intended to provide a common test format to be used by all participating certifying agencies, but manufacturers are increasingly using the CB test report as final proof of compliance to a specific international standard. Although the goal of the CB scheme is to provide a harmonized international environment, manufacturers must still comply with local electrical installation codes and practices. This creates deviations for many countries, which greatly decreases the value of the scheme.

Despite these difficulties, Israeli authorities claim that these new fees are designed to ensure quality. It is, however, clear that the addition of these fees to the regular costs of foreign imports, has a prohibitive effect on small companies such as that described above. On average, this new policy means that each item will be 10 times more expensive to import.

The only way to circumvent the CBTR and related costs, is to buy directly from Israel. By adding these fees for foreign imports, Israel is in fact forcing Palestinian companies to buy Israeli. This is, apart from politically unappealing, also much more expensive than importing directly from foreign manufacturers.

The interviewed company and its client institutions are not the only ones to suffer from this unprecedented offensive on foreign imports. The proprietor of one Nablus company was unable to meet the costs and consequently had to send back a large shipment to China and buy the same items from Israel. Several other company owners are now, reluctantly, considering doing the same.