Category: Reports

Jab’a Ploughs its Land

This morning I travelled to the village of Jab’a, just South of Bethlehem, where local Palestinian farmers have faced intimidation by settlers when trying to access their land. Jab’a is a village of 900 people facing annexation of part of its land by the Apartheid Wall. It is near the Gush Etziyon settlement block and faces frequent problems with settler violence.

This morning about 50 Internationals, Israelis and Palestinians converged at Om Al Jamjoum below the illegal settlement of Beit Ain to plough the land. Settlers watched from the hilltop settlement as Palestinians brought a tractor onto the land for the first time in five years.

The army and border police arrived at about 10.30am and spoke to the activists. There was talk of a closed military zone in the area but Israeli activists convinced soldiers that this would be illegal in light of the Israeli Supreme Court ruling on land disputes.

The Palestinians ploughed the land up to about 200 feet from Beit Ain. Settlers tried to intervene, sitting in front of the tractor and blocking the work on Palestinian land, but were outmaneuvered. The action was very calm, passing with the minimum of confrontation. And the Palestinians successfully accessed their land.

Many of the activists were Israeli, from Ta’ayush, Anarchists Against the Wall and Rabbis for Human Rights, and the settlers tried to convince them in Hebrew that they had been fooled by the Palestinians and that they had no problem with the Palestinians accessing the land. However, the land told a different story, it was completely overgrown and untended to. Settler intimidation and violence had prevented the farmers’ access before today… If we had not had large numbers of activists then the settlers would have behaved very differently.

Overall a very successful and productive act of resistance to the occupation

The Wall Must Fall

Update on Occupied Home in Nablus

The Israeli army has withdrawn from one of the homes occupied earlier today in Nablus, although as many as five other houses remain occupied.

The twelve soldiers left the Mushara home at 3pm, after having occupied it since 3:30am Monday. The family, four children between the ages of six and twelve, their father, and their four months pregnant mother, were held in the kitchen for the entire time. The mother has now been evacuated to a hospital.

Bassam Mushara, the father of the home, reported that their cell phones were confiscated, and that they were told that if they made any noise the soldiers would kill them. When their neighbors knocked on the door this morning, to pick the children up for school as usual, the soldiers responded by firing shots at the ceiling.

The neighbors realized that the army must have occupied the house, now for the second time this week. Word of the house’s occupation spread, and soon a crowd of about 200 youth gathered outside the house, some of whom threw stones at soldiers through the windows.

In response soldiers fired live ammunition into the crowd, which included journalists and international human rights workers. A 13 year-old boy was hit in the neck while “standing next to the wall doing nothing,” according to Chilean activist Ana Maria who witnessed the shooting. ISM volunteers saw another four people in the crowd be injured, at least one by shrapnel.

When the soldiers left at 3pm, internationals went inside the house to survey the situation. They reported that the house was completely trashed. All of the windows were broken, shells from the soldiers firing were seen under every window, and pieces of the house, including a door, were torn apart to be used as shields in front of the window. The house was filled with rocks and rubble.

19 people were injured in Nablus today during the invasion, according to Palestinian news sources. Most of the injuries occurred in the center of town, where there were not any occupied houses. The army was seen driving through the center of Nablus for no apparent reason. When children threw stones at the army vehicles, soldiers responded with live ammunition.

Settler Attacks and House Occupations in Hebron

by Tom

Settlers attacked Palestinian houses and targeted the Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida today, the first Shabbat of the Passover period.

A Palestinian boy was attacked at 4.30pm by five settlers on Shuhada Street. The settlers knocked him off his bicycle and attacked him in full view of the IDF.

Later in the afternoon fifteen settlers were seen by Human Rights Workers attempting to break into a Palestinian home near Beit Hadassa settlement, the settlers became aware of the internationals and moved on, crossing into H1. H1 is the Palestinian controlled area of Hebron and settlers are restricted from being there.

Human Rights Workers monitored the settlers as they walked through the Palestinian neighbourhood targeting Palestinian homes. When the settlers became aware that they were being observed they left H1. However, they then attacked the Human Rights Workers, and tried to steal their camera. The internationals were kicked, punched and subjected to threats. Israeli police were nearby but did not pursue the settlers.

At around 8pm the IDF occupied the community centre in Tel Rumeida. The troops unloaded a large truck of equipment and sleeping bags, signifying that they were to stay for a long period of time. They draped an Israeli flag over the roof of the building. Three ISM activists approached the door of the community centre with rackets and ping pong balls, requesting that the army let them in to play ping pong. After the troops refused their request, the activists asked them if it would be possible to enter only the first floor while the troops occupied the roof and until when the troops would be occupying the building. After several minutes of persistent request a local resident approached the commander of the unit and explained to him that the first floor of the building should be made available to people in the community, while the army continued to occupy the other floors. The commander agreed to allow us to enter the first floor and told us that the floor would be kept open to the public for the immediate future.

ISM activists were called to another house in the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood which was being occupied by a unit of soldiers. The flat was home to five people including three children. ISM activists and local residents attempted to negotiate for the soldiers to take the roof of the apartment and leave the flat free for the family. This was refused but the soldiers promised to be sensitive around the children. One Human Rights Worker is staying in the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood tonight in case there are more problems. Two more houses have been occupied by the IDF in Hebron.

The Palestinian residents of Hebron are afraid that further tensions may arise over the Passover period.

Interview with Dr. Ghassan Hamdan of Palestinian Medical Relief Services

Listen to an interview with Dr. Ghassan Hamdan of the PMRS as he tries to gain acess to two families of 15 people in Nablus imprisoned and held captive by the Israeli army as they use their home for a sniper base.

Audio Interview with Dr. Ghassan Hamdan of Palestinian Medical Relief Services. – mp3 10M

Devlish May, IMEMC

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/338134.html

Bil’in Breaks the Chains

by an ISM Media office volunteer

On Friday the 14th of April, the villagers of Bil’in held their weekly demonstration against the apartheid wall that is de-facto annexing over half of their land to Israel. Land that the government of Israel uses to build illegal Israeli settlements on.

The Popular Committee in the village organises different creative themes that illustrate the plight of the village and the Palestinians in general. This week, they wanted to draw attention to the economic strangulation of the Palestinians by the international community after the recent Palestinian elections. Palestinians, Israelis and international demonstrators bound themselves together with iron rings, and were led along by other demonstrators bearing US, EU and UN flag symbolising the control and oppression of the Palestinians people by the international community.

When we got to the gate in the fence, the way was barred by two jeeps on the opposite side. When we approached, singing and chanting, several soldiers with clubs and riot shields emerged and stood on the jeeps threatening to beat the demonstrators over the razor wire. Several of the demonstrators soon opened the gate and started trying to move the razor wire out of the way. Soldiers swung their clubs at the demonstrators, though they were usually too far away to make contact because of the wire.

After about half an hour standing-off in this way, we started to demonstrate around the perimeter of the fence. At several points along the way, demonstrators tried to crawl through gaps in the razor wire to reach the patrol road fence and access the annexed village land. The first attempt was thwarted by a wall of soldiers, but at two other points demonstrators managed to get through before the soldiers could take action and we held sit down demonstrations on the patrol road.

The soldiers tried unsuccessfully to drive us away with beatings, but since we were already on the road, there was little they could do. They hit one Palestinian, giving him a bloody nose. After about 20 minutes, we decided to end the sit down protests and retreat back to the village side of the razor wire, one by one in a calm fashion (Palestinians leaving first to avoid arrests). Four Israelis and a Jewish American student were detained for an hour and released without charges when the demonstration had finished.