2nd August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Surif, occupied Palestine
At 10:30pm on the 26th of July the Israeli military entered the town of Surif, near Hebron, blocking all entrances and surrounding one house with tanks,bulldozers and dozens of soldiers. Surif was declared a closed military zone and electricity was cut out during the army’s entrance.
After raining live ammunition on the home for many hours the army took out one injured elderly woman, afterwards striking the 4 story house with air-borne missiles and finally demolishing it with bulldozers.
The attack lasted until 5:30 AM. During this time rubber bullets,tear gas and live bullets were shot at youths who appeared at the scene, 7 of whom were injured.
The target was Mohammad al-Faqeeh, a 29 year old who was not living in the house nor had been previously seen in the area. Following requests on the loud speaker for Mohammed to surrender, he appears to have fired shots from the building before it was shattered to the ground. His body was recovered from the ruins by soldiers and taken away in an army vehicle.
Bulldozer destroys family home already destructed by missiles
The Al-heeh family had been living in the building for 4 years. the father, Ibrahim, said luckily his pregnant wife and small children had been out when the army arrived and were informed by a friend of the situation, who called fearing the family were still inside the building. They are now staying with family and searching for a new home, a difficulty considering the lack of compensation and the loss of all their possessions.
Young boy stands in the ruins of his home of 4 years
1st August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On Sunday, 31st July 2016, Israeli forces in the Old City souq, the Palestinian market, of occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), were searching for a group of three Palestinian boys. Claiming they were throwing stones, Israeli forces were searching for them in order to arrest and incarcerate them.
A group of Israeli soldiers went into the Palestinian market on the search for the children they claimed were throwing stones, stopping any child they encountered on their way, that more or less fit the age-group of around 10-14 years old. They stopped and questioned a 12-year old boy at Bab al-Baladiyya, one of the entrance and exit-points for the soldiers to enter from the illegal settlements located on Shuhada Street into the Palestinian market. Without any family or a lawyer present, the soldiers questioned the boy, first claiming that he was throwing stones and threatening to arrest him and take him to the police station. Only because of the intervention of a local, the boy wasn’t kidnapped by the Israeli forces, that eventually admitted that the video-evidence they have is not even showing him. Still, they claimed that he was there and thus were attempting to force him into giving information.
After they finally allowed the boy to leave, they arbitrarily stopped any child that fit their age group to question them about their whereabouts and where they were going, even entering a Palestinian shop to interrogate a child. After about half an hour, they gave up their search, but approached human rights observers to ‘justify’ their behaviour, showing them a video on a phone that showed a boy throwing small stones, at a securely fenced military tower, without any possibility of the pebbles even hurting anyone. Despite only one boy throwing these small stones, Israeli forces were out looking for all the three children in the video. Israeli forces ‘justified’ their search for the children to the human rights observers, stating that because of what can be seen in the video, they went out to look for ‘a boy in a white T-Shirt’ – despite the boy in the video clearly wearing a green T-Shirt. In spite of both these facts, they stopped and interrogated any child loosely fitting the age-group of around 10-14.
Israeli forces cornering children in the street for interrogation
In the evening, Israeli forces again entered the market, to stopp, harass and question children fitting this age-group, and another arrest of an arbitrarily picked child could only be prevented by the intervention of a local.
The fact that the arrest of any children under the age of 12 is ilegall even under Israeli military law that applies to all Palestinians in the West Bank, did not bother the Israeli forces. Despite the boy in the video clearly less than 12 years old, they went out to hunt down children that are below the legal age for arrest even under the apartheid military law, the orders in clear violation of not only international law, but even the racist and apartheid Israeli military law.
30th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Beit Ummar, occupied Palestine
Beit Ummar, a small town outside of Hebron, has a population of just 18000 people, around 200 of which are imprisoned, with 6o of those being below 18 years old. These children are often in administrative detention for over a year without charge and repeatedly the police seem to be arresting all the males of one family at a time, creating both an economic and traumatic disaster for the family. Many of these young adults have been forced to take their exams in the prison, and these long-term incancerations have been effecting the mental health of many children in the area, whilst also seriously detrimenting their chances of a good education.
The Awad family have been especially targeted by the police due to their houses location close to the checkpoint. For many months both of their 2 young sons and the father were in prison, leaving the mother to run the shop and house alone. One night in October 2015 they were all arrested for ‘throwing stones’ and taken to a military centre where the father was blindfolded and hit with an army vechile, subsequently spending 2 days in hospital before being moved to his prison cell. For their youngest son Muhanned it was his third time in prison after being arrested when he was 13,15 and this time 17 years old. Having experienced extensive physical violence by the military when he was 13, which led to a court case against the militairy in the Israeli supreme court, his family only wish to see him safely away from army harrasment. Having payed huge amounts of money (5000 shekels) for the father and elder son’s release this month, they still wait for their youngest son to be released from prison. Despite being released, the military has visited the house 3 times this month, forcing the father to accompany them to the investigation centre, each time leaving the family fearing for a subsequent arrest.
Army watchtower at Beit Ummar village
Whilst Doctors Without Borders and the local authority are trying to help the young men leaving prison through therapy and education programmes, the reprecussions of these arrests are haunting this small town. The weekly protests in Beit Ummar, which is surrounded by a large cluster of illegal Israeli settlements, seems to have spurred the army into arresting local families living near the demonstration point, despite these families absence from any demonstration. The influence of the militairy and settlers on so many aspects of village life from water shortages, to attacks by settlers accompanied by the high imprisonment rate has increased tension and despair within the village.
The arrests of these young men have serious consequences on their lives and their family’s and their treatment in prison often violates international law, it is clearly time for the Israeli authorities to be accountable for their illegal treatment of these young Palestinians.
30th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
A demonstration in solidarity with hunger striking prisoners and against the cut of family visits by the International Commmittee of the Red Cross was organised by the Hebron Defense Committee in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on 28th July 2016.
solidarity sit-in for hunger strikers & in protest to family-visit cut at the ICRC in Hebron
The sit-in took place at the Red Cross headquarter in al-Khalil, and was attended by locals, the press, family members of prisoners, former prisoners, and international solidarity activists. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently announced that they would cut one of the twice-monthly family visits for Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli occupation jails. The ICRC has been running a family visit program since 1968. With the majority of the Israeli prisons located outside of the West Bank, many families depend on the program by the ICRC to be able to cover the distance, costs and bureaucratic process of being granted a permit for the visit. Additionally to these hurdles and obstacles, the ‘normal’ occupation prevents families from reaching their loved ones through road-blocks, closures of whole cities or villages, revocation of permits and the arbitrary denial of passage at checkpoints.
Furthermore, the protest was in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners hunger striking against the practice of ‘administrative detention‘ – detention without charge or trial. Administrative detention allows the Israeli forces to imprison anyone without even charging them with a crime, making it the perfect tool for an occupying power to lock-up anyone who is considered a dissident or a ‘threat’ – without having to even justify why. This, for the imprisoned and their families, in turn, means that they never know for how long they’ll be imprisoned, as administrative detention can be extended. Administrative detention, as a tool to illegally and without cause imprison Palestinians – and only Palestinians, not settlers – clearly violates international law.
30th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
The Tel Rumeida neighborhood and Shuhada Street, in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) are still declared a ‘closed military zone’ by Israeli forces. This form of racist collective punishment deliberately targeting the Palestinian population, has now been implemented for almost 9 months.
The area was first declared a closed military zone (CMZ) by the Israeli forces on November 1st, after Palestinian residents were forced to register in order to be allowed access to their own homes. Orders for the CMZ have been repeatedly extended, and Palestinians were degraded to a mere number, that Israeli forces marked on their green West Bank ID-Cards and checked on a list of registered ‘numbered’ Palestinians to decide whether or not to grant access for men, women, old people, sick people, repair-men, medical personell etc. through the checkpoints. Anyone not registered as a number with the Israeli forces, is denied access to their own homes.
Family visiting, repair-men coming for urgent repairs, friends coming for a visit, children going to see their parents or grandparents – is only allowed for the settlers living in the illegal settlements. Palestinians are prevented from crossing the checkpoints, if they’re not registered as a number. This kind of collective punishment – obviously and deliberately racist as only applied for Palestinians – is common in al-Khalil, and aims to further increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave the area and thus facilitate the connection of settlements in a ‘Palestinian free’ zone.
