Budrus Village in the West Bank has a long history of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation and to the construction of the Apartheid Wall on its land.
This video was made by Israeli activists. It documents a typical nonviolent demonstration and the violent response from Israeli soldiers.
By ISM volunteers in Hebron
I visited Hebron between the dates of September 13th and 20th 2004, part of a group of 10 ISM activists which included 5 Buddhists from the UK. Tariq was our local coordinator. He is 24 years old, a student of engineering. I learnt that his father had been detained without trial by the Israeli army for the past 2.5 years, the rest of his family had emigrated to Jordan but that he was refused exit from Israel because of his father – who he is not allowed to visit.
His top two projects for us were first to help local villages resist the Israeli Apartheid Wall that was being built on their land, and second to help the situation in the Old City, now almost a ghost town because of the great number of soldiers there and the difficulty of living so close to the aggressive Israeli settlers. This report focuses on the Old City not the Wall. Topics:
Closure of Shuhadda Street to Palestinians Checkpoints and Soldiers patrols – Freedom of movement
Army closure of shops Continuous curfew for 3 years Death of the Old City market Settlers’ harassment Process of colonization, extension of illegal settlements Tit-for-Tat violence Collective punishment Water rights – Economic warfare Settlers’ propaganda / Media blackout
Hebron is presently unique in the West Bank because it has a substantial illegal Israeli settlement (Beit Hadassah) right in the very centre of the Old City, creating a situation where the lives of some 60,000 Palestinians are systematically disrupted by some 4,000 soldiers for the sake of some 400 settlers. It is a ludicrous situation and would almost be funny if it was not so real and the cause of so much suffering for so many people. It is also a part of a much larger process of gradual illegal invasion and colonization.
During the time we were in Hebron the situation was relatively quiet and there was little for us to do except walk about the Old City meeting people and speaking with them. Most people were very friendly as soon as we said “Salaam Al-e-Qum” and smiled, however there was clearly a lot of tension in the air and some suspicion – probably because the settlers are in the habit of walking up and down ‘their’ city and there is a real fear of them extending their territory.
We were staying for a night in one of the further suburbs of Hebron, and when leaving in the morning, passed a little girl who started crying violently – we learnt later that she thought we were settlers! In general though we were made very welcome indeed – very few friendly foreigners find their way to Hebron these days.
Quiet it might have been, but I should emphasize very strongly that ‘quiet’ does not mean ‘all right’. Once or twice in the silent streets I found myself thinking “this seems all right” and had to remind myself of the facts of the matter.
Closure of Shuhadda Street to Palestinians
Despite Hebron being a part of Palestine and not Israel, the main street of the town (Shuhadda Street) is now completely closed to Palestinians, except for the very few who live there. This means the town is effectively cut into two halves, to cross those few yards means a detour of several kilometers. The town’s graveyard is on the wrong side of the road, this means local people are unable to visit their family tombs.
Shuhadda Street has become a sort of mid-Western film set – hot, dusty, and empty, with guns never very far away. The only people who walk up and down it now are the settlers, who generally carry machine guns, even the young teenagers, strange to see them toting machine guns and their Jewish kippa caps on. This is quite scary to see, even for me, who was less likely to be shot at.
We were not able to speak to any settlers although we could probably have arranged it if we had wished, being Internationals. It was clear however that there is absolutely no communication between locals and settlers. The soldiers are supposed to be there to keep the peace between the two sides but this seems to mean keeping the locals firmly to the edges and allowing the settlers to walk where they please. Certainly the Palestinians do not see the soldiers there to keep the peace, rather to dominate them.
Checkpoints and Soldiers patrols
Behind the main street are a maze of smaller streets leading up to the Old City. These can only be reached by passing an army checkpoint continuously manned by soldiers with machine guns, making passage into the Old City a nerve-wracking affair.
Most days however, what is in a way worse than the machine guns is the arbitrariness of the soldiers: they can detain any Palestinian at any time for any or no reason, and often do, making them sit at the side of the road in the hot sun for many hours at a time.
Not surprisingly people have chosen to avoid the area, and the town’s main market has moved about 1km away.
In addition to the checkpoints, in the narrow streets of the Old City there are frequent 6-man soldiers’ patrols, before they enter you can hear them lifting their machine guns into firing position and cocking the trigger. No doubt they are afraid themselves but it is very intimidating to hear.
Hebron is well-known among international aid agencies, we met CPT (the Christian Peacemaker Team) and TIPH (the Temporary International Presence in Hebron) while there. TIPH’s job is to monitor and report on the situation, CPT intervenes more actively if local people are being harassed.
Army closure of shops
As well as the checkpoints and the patrols, about 200 of the Old City shops have been summarily closed by military order, and many houses have had their front doors welded closed by the army. This means that in some cases the owners can only enter and leave their homes through a window at the rear of the house, or over the rooftops.
Continuous curfew for 3 years
In addition to the checkpoints, the patrols, and the closed shops, the Old City has suffered from a strict curfew for three of the past four years. An Israeli army curfew generally means that the soldiers have orders to shoot to kill on sight, it creates an extremely dangerous situation for any person to go anywhere at any time, even outside the official curfew hours. This includes delivery of basic supplies of food and medicine, and also the movement of children, who are as likely to be shot as adults under a curfew.
Who can blame the shopkeepers and market stallholders for moving?
Although the curfew is not presently in force, evidence of the effects of Army violence and repression is everywhere – bullet holes in shopfronts, cobwebs on the fronts of shops…
Although things were quiet, the Army has retained all its observation and sniper positions around the city – many of the most strategic buildings have camouflage netting draped over the top balcony or steel observation posts perched on the roof. We were told that in reality sniper positions are often concealed, but occupied or not, the visible ones create a constant and frightening reminder that the city is under armed occupation and that curfew can be reimposed at any time.
Settlers harassment
In addition to the checkpoints, the patrols, the closed shops and the curfew, we heard a great many reports of vandalism and verbal abuse by the settlers.
In many cases the houses of the settlers directly overhang the streets of the Old City, and here the locals have had to fit thick metal mesh across the streets to catch the rubbish that has been thrown out of the settler’s windows onto the street – and the Palestinians – below. In several cases the metal mesh was sagging due to the weight of debris above. It is of course impossible for me to say what motives the settlers may have for throwing rubbish in this way – had they wished to continue being malicious t hey could have thrown foul water, but I did not hear of this being done. Nonetheless they must have known full well that the streets below their windows were Palestinian streets. A lot of Palestinian windows were smashed, apparently by stones often thrown by settlers’ children.
These all combined – together with the real violence of recent years – have made the whole of the Old City into a ghost town. The reason given by the Army is always “security”, but one feels the real aim is colonization, certainly the effect is depopulation of the Old City through fear and strangulation.
These processes of displacement and harassment have not ended yet.
Process of colonization, extension of illegal settlements
On the outskirts of Hebron is the much larger illegal Israeli settlement of Qiryat Arba. For those interested, this means ‘Town of the Four’, referring to the four biblical couples reported to be buried here in the Cave of Machpelah under the Ibrahami Mosque – Adam and Eve (!), Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. This biblical fame explains a good deal of why the city has become such a battleground and focus for extremist Israeli settlers – it is the no.2 site in Palestine for both Jews and Muslims. The locals probably wish it had never been mentioned! It was a women from Qiryat Arba who in 1979 illegally occupied the old Jewish hospital of Beit Hadassah in Hebron’s Old City, leading directly to its present death-like state.
Walking up to Qiryat Arba, and along the road which marks the border between Israeli and Palestinian areas, one sees graffiti which has been sprayed on the doors of many Palestinian homes – Stars of David and angry writing in Hebrew (which I have not yet been able to translate but will). The feeling I get is that the graffiti is saying “you’re next…” and I can imagine that it is extremely intimidating to receive. It is in fact eerily similar to tactics used by the Nazis in Germany, not a happy thought.
Of course you can dismiss provocative graffiti as being ‘only’ spray paint, more concretely there are plans afoot for a new Israelis-only road to link Qiryat Arba with the Cave of Machpelah and one can be sure that it will not be long before it is extended a few yards further to the illegal settlement in the heart of the city. Up on the border road, there are plans to construct a new Jewish synagogue on the Muslim side immediately adjacent to Muslim homes. This is presently being blocked by the Israeli authorities – but it is probably only a matter of time until they arrange the necessary military cover – ie a new Army checkpoint or base – and it goes ahead!
Hebron has a long history with ownership moving between Jews and Muslims many times over the centuries. For this reason, since the Jews started their illegal settlements in the area there have been major propaganda efforts to justify their right to be here, an Internet search looking for ‘Hebron’ or ‘Beit Hadassah’ will quickly lead you to some of these.
They consider their occupation of Hebron to be legitimate because there were Jews living there in the past, most recently in 1929 and most anciently when Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah for his burial site sometime around 1,800 B.C! Their desire to live here would not be so bad if it was based on a desire to peacefully co-exist. Instead the settlers have gone on record as aiming to completely expel the Palestinians from Hebron or at least from its Old City. This is no idle threat as the 4,000 soldiers based here constantly remind one.
Tit-for-Tat violence
Over the years there has been a great deal of violence in Hebron, not least in 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, a settler, entered the mosque and massacred 29 Muslims while they were at prayer, wounding a further 200. According to my guidebook, there is now a shrine to him in the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Qiryat Arba. The guidebook (Lonely Planet) describes him as “a popular settler hero”. Not surprisingly there has been a good deal of tit-for-tat violence over the years, but with the massive army presence in town it is mostly Palestinian civilians who are injured or killed.
Palestinian suicide bombers have certainly killed settlers over the years, and this led to an Israeli Army invasion of whole district & city in 2002 – after similar invasions of Jenin, Tulkarm, etc. We were told that the Israeli Army becomes nervous if it is not able to operate inside a city. The invasion is partly a tactic to expose & kill – to ‘flush out’ – the most active resistance fighters.
Collective punishment
As well as being in the Old City, we spent some time in other areas of Hebron, and it was here that it was most obvious that what is happening on Hebron’s Old City is part of a much larger violent occupation of the whole country. The reality of the situation is not immediately apparent to the naked eye, you have to have things explained by a local. For instance, there are many gaps or piles of rubble between the houses. Why?
Collective punishment has been very much used by the Army, this usually takes the form of blowing up or bulldozing the family home of anyone who has been discovered to be a suicide bomber or other form of fighter. To give an example, we stayed in a house in the suburbs, next door there was an empty space with a big pile of rubble. On asking, we were told that this house was blown up by the Israeli Army some three months ago, the explosion was so violent that it blew in all the doors and windows on that side of our host’s house. The family were living in a makeshift tent in one corner of the space. Across the small valley we could see a bulldozer working, we were told that was a house which had been blown up only last week. On the corner of the street was a small corrugated iron shop, the owner used to occupy a five-storey house on the site before that was blown up some years ago.
These are examples of collective punishment, which is specifically outlawed under international law and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the punishment of innocent people who may be connected with a ‘guilty’ party. Israel and her Supreme Court have consistently refused to uphold the Geneva Conventions and the illegality of its collective punishment, using a variety of reasons but notably that the Occupied Palestinian Territories (ie the West Bank) never constituted a sovereign state so Israel’s invasion and occupation of Palestine do not count as the invasion and occupation of another country – and so international humanitarian law does not apply!
Water rights – Economic warfare
Besides collective punishment, there is lower-level but on-going economic warfare being waged by Israel against the Palestinians. An example of this is water – Hebron has many natural springs, but local people are not allowed to use them. Instead they have to buy water at considerable cost, often delivered by tankers, while Israel helps itself to 80% of the water in the underground aquifers for intensive agriculture and ‘modern’ plumbing. .
Conclusion
We went to Hebron at Tariq’s invitation, inspired by his vision of bringing life back into the Old City. He thought that our presence might give locals confidence to re-enter it in greater numbers. Maybe we had some effect, it is hard to be sure. One idea he had was to organize a daily ‘boy’s march’ through the checkpoint (children below a certain age do not need ID) to generate momentum and confidence in entering the Old City, followed by us or others putting on a concert or other entertainment to draw in the locals.
One thing we realized while there was just how hard it is to actually DO anything faced with such overwhelming odds and where people have more-or-less got used to the wrongness of the situation. We felt very strongly Tariq’s – and I am sure, thousands of others’) acute frustration and yet puzzlement what to do.
ISM has now established a flat for volunteers in the centre of the Old City, as we left five others arrived, and hopefully they will build on what we have done so far. One day, Palestine will be free …
Military jeep blocks ambulance
[Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus] – Saturday morning an Israeli soldier firing from inside a military jeep shot dead seven year old Khaled Maher Walweel. When shot, Khaled was in his home near a 2nd story window. The bullet pierced the window hitting the boy in the neck. In the street below two military jeeps were making their way out of the camp under a barrage of stones.
Moments later the boy’s uncle was seen carrying a severely bleeding Khaled into the street, where he first held the boy up at the window of an army jeep and then walked towards a waiting ambulance. As the uncle walked towards the ambulance, approximately 20 meters away, one of the jeeps attempted to cut him off. The uncle was pinned momentarily between a shopfront and the jeep. As the ambulance approached, it too was blocked.
One jeep maneuvered behind the ambulance while the first jeep moved to block the ambulance’s front. Khaled was able to be slipped inside the ambulance, but the two jeeps in the narrow street blocked the ambulance from leaving the scene. Soldiers clearly were intent on blocking any movement by the ambulance. As the ambulance driver attempted to move around the jeeps, the jeeps themselves moved so as to continue blocking the ambulance’s departure.
Eventually the ambulance, with the assistance of the surrounding crowd, was able to maneuver from between the jeeps. Paramedical workers with the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees performed CPR during transport to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus but the boy was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Earlier that morning the same two military jeeps were present at the northern entrance to the camp, before driving around the camp to its southern entrance. There the jeeps waited for approximately half an hour. During this time they were pelted by stones and began firing tear gas and concussion grenades into the groups of boys throwing stones.
At approximately 10:00 am, the two jeeps moved into the center of the camp firing live bullets into the crowded streets and into the air. Three more jeeps soon arrived at the same entrance. Local camp residents reported that a group of Israeli soldiers had occupied a home in the center of the camp during the previous night along with two other houses near Jerusalem Street on the camp’s western edge. The two jeeps were presumably in the camp to evacuate the central group of soldiers. After several minutes at least four soldiers were seen leaving a house and entering the back of one of the jeeps. Shortly afterwards, the barrage of indiscriminate shooting from the two jeeps into the camp intensified and Khaled was killed. No armed Palestinian fighters were present in the area during the incident.
The occupation of homes, the killing of children, and the blockage of emergency vehicles while in performance of their duties all constitute grave breaches of International Human Rights Law. The Israeli military’s attempt to block an ambulance carrying a dying child is particularly disturbing.
by Tom Wallace
At approximately 1:00 PM today, April 27, 03, Israeli contractors, protected by Israeli army, police and private security, blasted rock with 50 – 60 sticks of dynamite. The blast was 25 meters from the Peace Camp at Mas’Ha. The Contractors have been charged with building the “security fence” otherwise known as the “apartheid wall” At the time of the blast there were 26 people in the area. They had evacuated the peace camp and move to a safe location. As a result there were no injuries. Damage to the camp is minor with boulders the size of basketballs landing on the tents. In the other direction, boulders the size of couches landed in the olive groves.
Mas’ha was set up 3 weeks ago by local Palestinian farmers and land owners whose land is being expropriated by Israel through the erection of an aparthied wall. The Mas’ha locals made a call to internationals for help. Two weeks later, internationals from the ISM, IWPS and Israel arrived. The Israeli government claims that this wall is for security. However, this claim does not withstand even the slightest scrutiny.
Mas’ha village is isolated and located close to the 1967 ’Green Line’. Relations between Israeli’s and Palestinians were traditionally good, with Israeli’s and Palestinian’s shopping together in the well known local market. During both the first and second intifada there was no resistance to the occupation from Mas’ha. Clearly, there was no security threat from the people of Mas’ha.
However, the Israeli’s want to build their wall through the middle of Mas’ha, separating the villagers from their farm land. Once the wall is erected, the farm land will fall on the ’Israeli’ side of the wall. The map of the proposed wall identifies its’ location between the illegal Israeli settlements and the Palestinian village. It is clear that the wall is planned to wind around the settlement’s annexing the farm land to Israel. In total the wall will expropriate a further 10% of the West Bank from the Palestinians thus contravening UN Resolution 242. It is easy to conclude therefore, that the wall is not for security reasons, but rather, to further Israel’s land interests.
The implications of this wall are enormous. The people of Mas’ha rely on the sale of their olives and other crops as their sole source of income. Currently, thousands of olive trees are either being destroyed or stolen. Normally the villagers of Mas’ha could also rely on work within Israel – though this is considered an embarrassement to the resourcefulness of the Mas’ha people. However, since the start of the second intifada, it has been deemed illegal for Palestinians to work in Israel, eliminating this source of income as well, although some Palestinians do risk short term work in Israel. Presently, the villagers are being forced to rely on charity from Israeli organizations. And again, this is humiliating for the Palestinian people and not a permanent solution.
In order to protect the Palestinian locals from Israeli army aggression, the peace camp is not actively trying to stop the bulldozers from continuing with their work, rather, the camp acts as an information point to locals, Internationals and Israeli peace activists. The locals are not really aware of what the Israeli army is doing to Mas’ha, So locals visit the camp to get more information about the land being annexed and to drink tea with the internationals and Israeli peace activsits. In fact, the camp is a place of relationship building, where all nationalities, including Israeli’s and Palestinians live together and oppose the destruction of the apartheid wall.
Last Sunday there was a demonstration and an information centre with maps and pictures set up in the camp, which the media visited. The most frequent visitors are the Israeli soldiers, who come to the camp an average of three times per day. Sometimes soldiers will ask people at the camp if they need anything, other times they try to push them around. During the night, people staying at the camp work in shifts They keep watch not only for soldiers but more worryingly, for the violent Israeli settlers, who are known to carry Uzi’s with them, even whilst conducting normal daily activities.
At the moment, the land has been cleared and the wall is ready to be erected using stone quarried from the land at the site where the wall will be constructed. When looking over the mountain from the peace camp, you can see the Israeli settlements encircling Mas’ha and its’ olive farmland.
We hope that the peace camp will continue to flourish, and that the people who pass through will tell the story of Mas’ha’s plight to the world.
In this article Michael Shaik, Media Coordinator of the International Solidarity Movement writes about two recent events with direct bearing on Israel’s murder of Rachel Corrie.
On 14 February 2002 the ISM faced two almost simultaneous crisis in Rafah and Nablus. Both involved incidents where members of the ISM were in danger of being killed or seriously injured by the soldiers of the Israeli Occupying Army while conducting non-violent resistance to the occupation.
Rafah
At 2 pm on Friday the ISM received word that Israeli military bulldozers were demolishing houses in Rafah town in the south of the Gaza Strip. The destruction is part of Israel’s “Apartheid Wall” policy towards the Occupied Territories. Whereby Palestinians communities will be sealed from the outside world by a massive series of walls, complete with towers from which military sharpshooters can monitor their activities. The section of the Wall under construction near Rafah stretches along the entire length of Gaza’s border with Egypt. To give the snipers in the wall’s towers clear fields of fire, the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza intend to demolish all the houses within 70 – 100 metres of the wall
As soon as they received word of the demolitions seven activists (3 US, 3 UK and 1 Dutch) left ISM Rafah headquarters in Gaza to resist them. The site of the demolitions was in an area of Rafah known of “Block O” that is overlooked by four of the wall’s towers including the infamous Saleh e-Deen Tower from which Israeli snipers have murdered several of Rafah’s residents. When they arrived the activists saw a row of six houses being systematically bulldozed by two Israeli military bulldozers guarded by a tank. They were unable to approach the bulldozers directly because of landmines but found an alternative route to the devastation, which bypassed the minefield.
As soon as the activists began to approach the bulldozers they were fired upon from the towers and the tanks which directed rifle and machine gun fire at the ground in front of them. Using their megaphone the activists announced that they were unarmed international peace activists and continued to advance. The tank and the soldiers in the towers continued to fire warning shots at them but the activists refused to submit to their intimidation and continued their approach.
As soon as the activists came under fire they phoned the ISM media office to alert me to the danger they were under and I immediately made an emergency call to the US consulate in Tel Aviv to inform them what was happening and request that they alert the headquarters of the Israeli occupying forces in the Gaza Strip that there were international peace activists (including 3 Americans) in Rafah Town that were coming under fire from Israeli troops and ask them to please exercise restraint (the standard ISM procedure in such circumstances).
After being put on hold several times. I had the following conversation with US consulate staff:
Diplomat: I’m sorry but its Shabbat and we can’t contact anyone in the Army because they’re all on holiday.
ISM: On holiday? Then what are they doing demolishing houses in Rafah and shooting and international volunteers for?
Diplomat: I’m sorry but we don’t have anyone we can contact in the Army.
ISM: Then phone the Department of Foreign Affairs and tell them to contact the Army. [The standard protocol under such circumstances.]
Diplomat: What are they doing in the area?
ISM: They’re trying to stop house… Can I speak to the consul please?
Diplomat: Please hold a minute…
Ingrid Barzel: How can I help you?
ISM: This is an emergency call about a group of International Peace Activists in Rafah Town that are being fired upon by Israeli troops. I’m phoning you because I want you to get in contact with the Army and advise them that there are American nationals in the area and ask them to please exercise restraint.
Ingrid Barzel: Please advise your people there to leave the area.
ISM: Look they’re in the area and they don’t intend to go anywhere. They’re trying to stop houses being demolished by military bulldozers.
Ingrid Barzel: We have a travel advisory against traveling to the Gaza Strip and if these people are there they are there illegally. [This is untrue to enter the Gaza Strip one has to have a special authorisation stamp in one’s passport and all the Rafah activists have one.]
ISM: What if one of them gets killed? Will you hide behind your excuses then?
Ingrid Barzel: They’re not excuses. It’s State Department procedure endorsed by the Secretary of State.
ISM: So what you’re saying is you take no responsibility for the welfare of your nationals dong peace work in the Gaza Strip even if this means one of them gets killed because of your inaction?
Ingrid Barzel: We do not accept any responsibility for anyone who ignores our travel advisories and illegally enters the Gaza Strip.
ISM: What is your name?
[Pause]
Ingrid Barzel: I’d be happy to give you my name. It’s Ingrid Barzel.
ISM: Right, now I know how useless you are I’ll never phone you again. I also got in touch with the British consulate who said they’d phone me back but seem to have got in touch with the Gaza military headquarters and the Dutch consulate which was on holiday and had an answering machine operating.
Meanwhile the ISM activists had reached the building that the bulldozers were demolishing while the tank and the towers had fired warning shots at them every step of the way. Two of the activists then stepped into the partially destroyed building preventing the bulldozers from any further destruction while the tank fired its machine gun over their heads. The bulldozer then retreated but then the tank rolled forward to within three feet of them and an uneasy stalemate followed until the tanks backed away. Then the bulldozer came forward again as the other five activists rushed to join their companions in the building and the tank resumed firing its machine gun.
This time the bulldozer didn’t stop and five of the activists were able to scramble away while two others became trapped by the bulldozer in a corner of the building. When the bulldozer found its path blocked by rumble and backed off before resuming its advance the two were able to get away and stand on some barrels next to the building to photograph and film the destruction but the bulldozer then began ramming the barrels.
By this time the tank had begun firing its machine gun at some nearby houses which the activists knew were inhabited by families so the activists went to stand between the tank and the houses so that the tank was unable to continue terrorising the people in the houses although it resumed firing its machine gun at the feet of the activists.
At this point a member of the Palestinian resistance seems to have thrown a pipe bomb at one of the bulldozers. This development increased the risk to the activists because there was now a danger that they would be caught in a fire fight between the Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian resistance so they retreated to a nearby house to watch and film the demolition. They were joined in the building by two old women who were the owners of the houses that were being destroyed who wept at the sight. When the bulldozers finished their demolitions of the block of six houses they withdrew with the tank.
When they had gone, the community who lived in the neighbourhood rushed out to the site of the wreckage to help its former residents salvage what they could from what had once been their homes. Among the items they retrieved were a bicycle, a water tank, and electrical cord and some planks of wood. After 20 minutes of searching the rubble the soldiers in the towers began firing at them, forcing them to abandon the wreckage. A man told one of the activists that this was the pattern of such salvage operations: the sentinels generally give the people about half an hour to retrieve what they can before firing on them.
Nablus
At 3.50 pm, just as the Rafah crisis was drawing to a close, 12 ISM activists based in Rafah were trying to deliver chocolates to the Abu Sanfar house in East Nablus which the Israeli army of occupation had been using as a firing position for forty days while detaining the three families resident in the house in two of its rooms.
When the activists approached the house they were confronted by Israeli soldiers commanded by Ariel Ze’ev who is known by Palestinians and ISM activists living in Nablus to be an insane sadist. Ariel and his men quickly became violent toward the activists and then, at 4.10 pm, seized Hussein Khalili, a Palestinian member of the ISM, and dragged him back to the house before firing warning shots at the activists, forcing them to fall back.
Immediately, the activists phoned the ISM Media Centre to alert me of their situation and I immediately called the Hamoked and Gush Shalom human rights organisations (the ISM’s allies in the struggle against the occupation) and Dennis Brenstein of Flashpoints Radio in the USA before drafting an email to our supporters informing them of what had happened. Through our combined efforts we were able to alert people around the world of Hussein’s plight and issue a joint appeal for them to phone the District Coordination Office of the Israeli Army in the Nablus area to demand Hussein’s immediate release.
Meanwhile, an Israeli member of the ISM and another activist returned to the Abu Sanfar house to negotiate Hussein’s release. When Ariel realised that one of the activists was an Israeli Jew he became furious and promised that he would make Hussein suffer more because of her and that he would arrest a Palestinian every time he saw her. He also said that he would hold him for two weeks if necessary “as revenge” for what she had done.
He then went into the house and took Hussein into he garden of the Abu Sanfar house where his men bound his hands behind his back forced him to kneel on the rocky ground in the rain while Ariel Ze’ev kicked him in the back.
Hussein was forced to kneel in the rain for what he estimates were forty five minutes. Eventually, Ariel went inside and a new group of soldiers released his hands and took him under shelter where they verbally insulted him and told him that the only good Arab was a dead Arab and that he was just a fucking peacemaker. They also told him that the Israeli activist was a whore for helping the Palestinians and that what she had done made her no longer Israeli and that she should be kicked out to the country. When Hussein protested that the activists had only come to the house to comfort the children the soldier said that they did not care and that they were in Nablus to kill all the Arabs.
“Even the women and children?” Hussein inquired.
“Yes!” they replied. “They throw petrol bombs and stones at us and threaten our lives so we will kill them too!”
While Hussein was being abused, the Nablus area DCO was being inundated with phone calls. We have no way of knowing exactly how many people phoned in to demand his release but ISM activists watching the Abu Sanfar house saw an Israeli lieutenant-colonel arrive in a hummer soon after the phone-in campaign started. He told the activists that he had made a decision that Hussein would be held in the house until 10 pm and then released.
Shortly thereafter I began receiving calls from people from around the world asking what more they could do. I said all that they could do was to forward the email to their everyone in their address book. One man told me that he had already emailed it to over 200 people. A woman asked me if she should contact the US consulate in Tel Aviv but I told her it would be futile since they no longer accept responsibility for their own nationals in the ISM.
At 8.50 pm Hussein Khalili was set free. He told his captors that he was afraid to go out into the streets in the dark because there were tanks and soldiers on the streets who might shoot him if they saw him but was told that all the soldiers in the area had been warned about him and that he would be safe. He then made his way across the road to a neighbouring house where he was given tea and water and used the phone to phone his companions in Nablus who came over to take him home.
As soon as I received word of his release I alerted his wife and then sent out an email to our supporters informing them of the success of our phone in campaign. Even so the Nablus area DCO continued to be flooded with phone calls until mid way through the following morning. Two supporters have informed me that as soon as she got through the officer on duty said: “Hussein Khalili has been released before they could even state the reason for their calls.
Conclusion
On February 14 2002 the ISM’s mission in Occupied Palestine came as close as it has ever come to collapse. Though its international activists have often encountered a level of hostility from their missions in Israel which are expected to protect them, this is the first time a consulate has stated explicitly that it will take no responsibility whatsoever for the welfare of its nationals performing peace work in the Occupied Territories.
Had Ariel Ze’ev made good on his threat to hold Hussein for two weeks and had the ISM proved powerless to protect one of our own from such arbitrary abuse, it would have proven to both the Palestinians and their occupiers that we are now an irrelevant movement.
Yet thanks to the efforts of our supporters throughout the world we were able to confound Ariel’s threats and secure Hussein’s release and safe passage in less than four hours. Though many activists made their calls to the DCO after Hussein’s release, they should not feel that their calls were wasted. This marks the first time the ISM and its allies have organised a phone-in campaign on such a large scale at such short notice and with such an effect.
Throughout Occupied Palestine but particularly in the Nablus area, ISM activists have come under increasing pressure from the Israeli occupying forces in an effort to intimidate them into ineffectiveness through threats and low-level violence. We believe that this is part of an Israeli plan to step up its campaign of terror against the people of Palestine once the US commences its invasion of Iraq.
The remarkable effectiveness of the campaign to free Hussein Khalili on Friday has demonstrated to the architects of this terror that the ISM can no longer be considered as only a handful of brave activists scattered throughout the Occupied Territories but has now matured into a truly global movement capable of mobilising a very large number of people around the world in defence of Palestinian human rights.
Thank-you to everyone who participated in the phone in. Thank-you for your messages of support. And thank-you for forwarding the emails to your friends. We’ve still got a long way to go before Palestine becomes a free country but, because of your efforts, ISM activists working in places like Rafah and Nablus can continue their work in the knowledge that they are not alone, even if their governments have now renounced their responsibility to protect them.
