Category: Reports - Page 756 - International Solidarity Movement

Land Day Actions

Since 1976 Land Day is marked by Palestinians on the 30th of March to protest against the grabbing of Palestinian lands by Israel.

This year, thousands of Palestinians, along with Israeli and international activists held a series of large-scale peaceful protests against the ongoing occupation and continued theft of Palestinian land by Israel.

Demonstrations took place in the villages of Beit Sira (Ramallah area), Zabda (Jenin area), Rafat (Salfit area) and Tulkarm city (Tulkarm area) with marches alongside the annexation barrier where local residents attempted to plant olive trees.

In Beit Sira, about 400 or 500 demonstrators marched down to the village land where they were met by a large presence of Israeli soldiers blocking the path to the area where they wanted to plant olive trees. They were geared up with riot shields, clubs, rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas and live round. After roughly a 5 minute stand-off, the soldiers decided to attempt to drive the demonstration away with physical force – beatings and sound bombs. The Palestinians responded to this mostly by running away, though some threw stones. The soldiers then used the stone throwing as an opportunity to open up with rubber-coated bullets, which in turn provoked further stone throwing. By the end of the demonstration, the soldiers had used a lot of their tear gas and some live rounds were heard. An ambulance was directly hit with a tear gas canister. Several minor injuries were inflicted on Palestinians by the soldiers, including one boy who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet.

Thursday’s nonviolent demonstration in Rafat was quickly met by Israeli soldiers and border police jeeps which blocked the main agricultural road leading to the Annexation Wall. Israeli soldiers threw sound bombs to disperse the demonstration which was peacefully walking with Palestinian flags and signs and chanting “No to the Wall” in Arabic. Despite the sound bombs, the demonstrators pushed forward and more sound bombs and few tear gas canisters were thrown directly in the middle of the crowd.

The demonstrators then sat in front of the jeeps and the Palestinians demanded that they be allowed to go to their land. The Israeli military recently declared 300 of the remaining 500 dunam of village lands are in a closed military zone and have restricted access to pasture and olive groves on the east side of the Wall. After the noon prayer in the road, the Palestinians returned to the village.

Recently, Rafat and the adjacent village of Deir Ballut have been the site of demolitions and access restrictions. While the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the area has winded down, the Israeli military have issued demolition orders and restricted access to pasture and olive groves on the east side of the Wall. Bulldozers are flattening part of the hillside for unknown purposes.

In 2003 and 2004 the Salfit region, particularly the villages of Deir Ballut, Azzawiya, Rafat and Mas’ha, was the center of mass actions against the building of the Apartheid Wall. While not stopping the building of the Wall completely, the resistance of the villages resulted in the High Court ordering the re-routing of the wall in mid-2005. Still, Rafat lost all but 500 dunums of its land. Rafat is adjacent to the 27-settlement bloc of Ariel, the largest Israeli settlement network in the West Bank after Greater-Jerusalem. As he campaigned in Ariel last week, Kadima frontrunner Ehud Olmert pledged to supporters that “the Ariel bloc will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel under any situation.”

Border Police enter home And beat Palestinians and 75 year old Australian volunteer

By Jane

Baruch Marzel’s Mug shot

Living in the settlement building just up the road a few hundred yards from the violent episode described below is Baruch Marzel, extreme right winger, well known for his hatred of Arabs and support for transferring all Palestinians to Jordan. His wife and son are among the worst for attacking the Palestinian inhabitants of Tel Rumeida. He is standing as a candidate in Tuesday’s Israeli elections

On Sunday 26th March, 25 soldiers and Border Police entered a Palestinian home And beat two Palestinians and 75 year old international volunteer for no apparent reason.

My first evening in Al Khalil/Hebron. I have just poured myself a cup of tea and Mary is telling me about the situation here. There’s a commotion outside and we go to investigate. As we come down the stairwell a young boy says “soldiers, soldiers” and points into the apartment.

On entering the apartment of Radey Abu Aesheh I see first one soldier, gun raised and pointing at people, then I see another and another, 6 altogether. All with guns raised. The apartment seems full of women and men shouting, there are 5 or 6 children. Radey Abu Aesha had been hit in the mouth. Hasan Abu Aesheh tells Mary the soldiers kicked him.

Suddenly the soldiers decide to leave and back down the stairs. Perhaps there were too many people for them. Many people follow, shouting their greivances at the soldiers for entering their home and their violent behaviour. The soldiers are shouting back. The Captain of the soldiers says they went into the house because they heard shouting, nobody believes this.

More soldiers and Border Police arrive until they are very many. The Captain confers with his men. They decide they want to take Bilal Abu Aesheh. In the chaos I don’t know if the soldiers reentered the building. What I saw was 4 soldiers wrestle Bilal to the ground and handcuff him with plastic cuffs behind his back, using aggressive force, banging his head on the ground. After he was cuffed a soldier approached him and kicked him. The Police arrived and he was taken away. Besam persuaded everyone to go back into the building. We stood at the entrance. The soldiers decided they wanted Husan. Soldiers surrounded the doorway, they tossed me aside. Mary refused to let them enter saying “ these people are my family, you can’t come into my house”. They hesitated, they yelled at the Palestinians inside. Husan appeared on the stairwell. They grabbed Mary very roughly twice and threw her aside and grabbed Husan. They pushed him up against the outside wall of the building and rubbed his face across the stone. They hit him and threw him on the ground, they kicked him. They cuffed him behind his back. The women are screaming out of the windows. They take Husan behind one of their vehicles.

For me when I see a Palestinian being taken behind a vehicle I think he will get beaten so I stood nearby, the 2 soldiers guarding him demanding ‘get back, get back’. A large man in civilian clothes shone a bright video camera light in Husan°s eyes and filmed him. He stood right over him as Husan was crouched down on a low ledge. I turned my back for a second, on turning round Husan signaled with his eyes and motioned that the man had spat at him. An action I had half caught in the corner of my eye. Then I understood the man was a settler. The soldiers continued to let him stand over Husan and verbally abuse him. Soldier had lined up behind vehicles and trained their guns on the building. It seemed to take forever before the Police arrived again and Husan was put in the back of their vehicle. Mary said she wanted to go with Husan and the Police did not object, so she climbed in too.

In Radey Abu Aesheh’s home the wait began. The street had been closed but now people began to arrive. The older men clicked their prayer beads whilst they talked. Women made coffee, peeled oranges and apples. Yechye, a lawyer, regularly rang the Police. No news, no news and then bad news, Bilal and Husan were accused of attacking the soldiers. Radey Abu Aesheh says “Bush is claiming we are the terrorists and all the Euopean Governments go along with him and support him. But look how Palestinians are treated, you can see the reverse is true”. Rajab Abu Aesheh says “The settles want the Palestinians to leave the area but the people will not follow this plan, so they are harassing us to force us to leave, but we will not leave until we die and this will be transmitted from son to son”.

Suddenly the police tell Yechye good news, Mary, Bilal and Husan are all being released. It’s a fast walk up hill to get to a car. It’s parked outside the Israeli controlled area, where Palestinians are not allowed to drive. We skirt round Tel Rumeida in the car, to get back to almost where we had left the house and on to the Police station. At the gates of the Police station, Yechye has to stick his fingers though the metal gate to use a phone to communicate with the Police inside. At midnight, the 3 are released. Mary who mis seventy five years old has also been accused of attacking the soldiers. Husan is very sore and bruised, he has blood in one of his eyes.

Beit Sira Demonstration 24th March 2006

Just like many other Palestinian towns and villages, Beit Sira has it’s share of grotesque Israeli annexation barriers and surrounding of isolating settlements. In this case Makabim settlement. An ongoing expansion of land theft has resulted in thousands of olive trees being uprooted and huge areas of agricultural land being cut off from the village.

Today Palestinians of Beit Sira village, accompanied by Israeli and international peace activist, held yet another weekly demonstration to protest against all of this.

The nonviolent demonstration took off from the village around midday and headed of for the fields where the annexation expansion is taking place. Demonstrators were met by military jeeps and about 50 to 60 soldiers, border police and shield equipped special forces. A prayer was then held in the fields. As prayers finished a group of about 10 Israelis and internationals took off to chain themselves to the olive trees and barbwired fences close to Makabim settlement. This was done as a symbolic protest against trees being uprooted and the absolutely vital land being stolen from Beit Sira village.

In spite of the rather large media presence soldiers almost immediately started to shoot teargas directly at the chained, seated and obviously harmless protesters. As the situation turned completely chaotic the chained protesters had to be aided and unchained. The soldier’s violence escalated and they bombarded the demonstration with soundbombs and teargas, including a special type that spreads.

Five demonstrators got badly injured and taken away by ambulance, two by teargas, two by rubber coated steel bullets and the last one, eighteen year old Mahmood Monseer Khattab, was hit by a sound bomb grenade in his neck. A UPMRC-ambulance was also hit through the window by a teargas cannister, injuring the medical team inside.

In retaliation Israeli soldiers broke two of this protesters teeth by hitting him with a club.

Two young boys arrested in Beit Sira

By Anna Svensson

Today, in the village of Beit Sira, Israeli occupation forces stopped a group of school children between the ages of 8 to 16 walking home from school. The soldiers had with them photos that where taken at the demonstrations against the apartheid-wall held in the village. After checking all the students, two were then supposedly identified from the pictures, 13 year old Muhammad Dib Nimer Khatab and 14 year old Ziad Muhammad Kamel Khatab. Last Friday Ziad was injured by rubber coated steel bullets from Israeli soldiers. The two young boys are now detained at the Ofer military detention centre.

Beautiful, Terrible

more photos here

By Katie

Tel Rumeida is beautiful this time of year. Today I stood on my roof and talked to my roommate Wes in San Francisco. Wes is awesome and one of the people I miss the most. He’s been so supportive of me coming here for which I am very grateful. I originally called him to see if the woman who is subletting my room in San Francisco would like to stay there a month longer. Unfortunately she couldn’t and it was at that moment I could finally say out loud what I’ve known for the past few weeks, that I want to come back here.

From my roof I have a 360 degree view of Hebron, the second oldest city on earth. This place is so messed up and so beautiful all at the same time and I am constantly in awe of the patience, kindness and selflessness of the Palestinians who live here. They are subjected to violence, racism and harassment by settlers and soldiers on a daily basis and it would be so easy to become bitter and violent back but they are patient and full of restraint. They’re waiting for their time and I hope I live to see it. For every settler or solider who spits at me, throws rocks, calls me a Nazi, says something vulgar or threatens to arrest me, there’s a Palestinian who brings me coffee, tea, candy, fruit, invites me for lunch, or thanks me and my volunteer friends here for the work we are doing. That’s the ridiculous irony of the situation, it’s the Israeli settlers and soldiers who are doing the terrorizing here.

I need to come back here because for the first time in my life I feel like I am doing work that actually matters and really helps people. During the day I film and intervene in incidents of harassment, and when the streets are quiet, I study Arabic or draw. In the evening I go to Kung Fu with Grandmaster Jaafar and at night I paint, play soccer or hang out with my friends here. I really miss my friends at home though. I’ve already spoken to a couple of you about coming back here with me and I’d like to take this opportunity to invite anyone who is reading my lj. One amazing thing about this place is that it’s really easy to get things done. There’s less bureaucracy and red tape so if you see something that needs doing, you just do it. There are huge opportunities for creative people because there’s so much to do here whether you want to teach English, make a documentary film, write, take photos, work with kids, or just brainstorm clever non-violent methods of resistance. Don’t be scared because of all the crazy stuff I’ve written about, it was my personal choice to be in those situations. You can pick and choose the kind of work you like to do.

I’m leaving for Jordan in a couple of days and I am going to miss Palestine terribly. Everyone I’ve met here is so strong and brave and I admire them all so much. My heroes are people like H. who was tortured in jail and could have easily emerged a violent and bitter fighter, but instead became a leader of the non-violent resistance, people like N, who I admire because she is so dedicated and tough, people like M.A. and M.M. who’ve had so many friends killed but haven’t lost faith in non-violence, people like B. who is the first person I’d choose to have by my side when a group of settlers are looking to cause trouble, (I’m always repeating to myself “it’s gonna be ok, B. is here..”), R. who is young enough to be my daughter but has lived more than most people twice her age, F. who has been so gracious and entertaining, all the Israeli activists who use their position of privilege to support Palestinians in their struggle against the occupation, and Grandmaster Jaafar, my Kung Fu teacher. Several years ago Jaafar was stopped by some soldiers for a search. They told him to put his hands on a wall and spread his legs. Then a soldier kicked him in the balls. He reacted, of course, and ten soldiers jumped him. He kicked all their asses and was thrown in jail as a result. His Kung Fu school here was bombed during the first intifada and he built the next one himself. And also all the kids from Tel Rumeida. I used to find kids annoying at best, but these kids won me over; they’re adorable and so much fun to be around.

Me and Sifu Jaafar in front of the school’s logo I painted for him:

So yeah, I have to come back here. My heart was broken in Balata when I saw all those kids in such a hopeless situation. M.A. asked me to do an art project with them but I didn’t have time. I want to come back to Palestine and go to Balata to work on murals with the kids. In addition, I’d like to paint murals over all the racist graffiti in Hebron. There’s a lot of it: I did one the other day on a house down the street. The owners had moved out because they didn’t want their kids subjected to violence from the settlers. On the wall of the house, some settlers wrote this:

I painted this on top of it:

B and I made bets on how long it would last before some settlers graffiti over it. I don’t think it’ll be more than a few days.

I want to make more postcards of the inspiring people I meet and I want to keep monitoring the streets in Tel Rumeida because I feel like people in this neighborhood are finally beginning to trust me and to ask me for help when they are having a problem. I’m so sad to leave!

Well that’s about it for my time in Palestine, I have a bunch of paintings I need to scan which will have to wait til I get home. Thank you all for opening your minds and learning about a side of Palestine you will never see on television ! I’ll see some of you soon in Jordan, inshallah.