12th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
This Friday, like every other Friday, was a day that many Palestinian Muslims go to the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to worship. It was also yet another day that the Israeli Army and Border Police chose to harass the people.
In the morning, we met shopkeepers who pointed out to us that the metal grates that had been installed in the market on the request of the Palestinians to protect the shopkeepers below from Israeli settlers who sometimes throw things down at them, had been removed by the Army. They did so for alleged security reasons, but the removal of the grates makes the shopkeepers vulnerable to increased harassment.
As people were going to pray, the Border Police were stopping many young men and ordering them to produce their identification and in some cases also empty their pockets. Sometimes they searched people one-by-one, forcing others to wait. One man was denied entry and forced to go back. The Border Police officers often spoke in a loud tone to the people, and forced some to stand against the wall.
Later that day, a group of Israeli soldiers were going on a patrol in the Souq. They entered three homes, not asking for permission from the families. When asked what they are doing, entering homes of Palestinians, they replied to the activists “it is none of your business” and also “we are doing our job”.
Such actions are nothing new in the patterns of harassment faced by Palestinians in Hebron at the hands of the Israeli Border Police and Army.
Israeli soldiers force Palestinian men to stand against the wall as they try to go to the mosque.
A metal grill that was installed to protect Palestinians from the Israeli settlers had been removed by the Israeli Army.Israeli soldiers enter a Palestinian home, one of the three they invaded that day.
Israeli Border Police harass Palestinians as on their way to pray in the mosque.
7th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza-team | occupied Palestine
As every year during the summer, the water shortage in the Gaza Strip is accentuated. At the same time, the energy shortage caused by the blockade prevents engines and water pumps from pushing it from wells and tanks to houses and farming fields.
The Beach Camp is one of the more densely populated areas of Gaza and therefore one of the most affected by water scarcity. In addition, because of its location, directly on the seafront, its aquifers are some of the most affected by the infiltration of seawater and wastewater.
We collected several testimonies of people affected by this problem in order to discuss them with the engineer Monther Shoblak, General Director of the Palestinian National Authority Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU).
The first testimony is that of Azzam Miflah El Sheikh Khalil, who says “the water comes only once every three days, and just for a few hours, which is not enough [to fill the tanks]. People can’t imagine how we are suffering because of the lack of water. In addition, there is no difference between the water from our wells and the sea water… The main problem is that when there is electricity there’s no running water and when there is running water there’s no electricity . The only solution we have is to buy a generator to produce electricity when there’s water, but who can buy it if there is no work?”
Azzam El Sheikh Khalil
In the next block lives the Mokhtar Kamal Abu Riela, who stressed the same problem, “when there’s water there’s no electricity, and vice versa. Maybe once every four or five days we have water and electricity at the same time for a few hours. Every day we buy gasoline to run the generator the hours when there’s running water, but the economic situation of the people is very precarious and not everyone can spend 20 NIS a day on gas just to have water in the tanks. We spend more on gasoline than in electricity or water itself”.
We asked the Mokhtar if he remembers when that problem began “ten years ago or so, with the blockade”.
Finally Im Majed Miqdad explained the difficulties she and her large family are faced with in their day to day life due to water scarcity “there’s people who build underground tanks [as those can be filled without bombs] or who buy a generator operated with gasoline. But not everyone can afford these things. I’m one of those people who can not pay NIS 20-30 a day in gasoline to run the generator. Today, for example, in my home and in the homes of my four sons and their families we don’t have a drop of water, the four tanks are empty. We are waiting until running water and electricity will coincide in order to fill them. The situation is very hard, we have no water, we have no electricity, we have no work … If water and electricity would coincide at least three hours a day it would be enough to fill the tanks enough to spend the day. People must understand that when there is no water you can not use the bathroom, you can not take a shower, you can not clean the dishes, the house, the clothes … And here the families have five, six, ten members … we are not just two or three people in each house”.
Im Majed Miqdad, who is often left without water supply
Given the frequent complaints of the population the first thing that the engineer Monther Shoblak wants to explain is that the failures in the water supply are due to the power cuts and therefore they can’t control them. “It is impossible for us to match the running water with the electricity, as to carry water from one area to the other, motors and pumps are needed and those can’t operate without electricity. We can’t control it because we don’t know which bomb will fail and when”.
Mokhtar Kamal Abu Riela
However, he explains, the water problem in the Gaza Strip is more serious than that. “Indeed there is an over-exploitation of the aquifer in the Gaza Strip. This is because the coastal aquifer, which runs from Sinai to Yaffa and that is the only source of water available today in the Gaza Strip, has been nurtured historically by rainwater and by the water from the mountains of Al Khalil (Hebron) and the Naqab. However, for decades our neighbors [the zionists] have been building dams that prevent the water from following its natural course to Gaza, leaving rainwater as the sole source of the coastal aquifer. These dams are illegal, since they involve a violation of the conventional agreements on transboundary water sources. “
Because of these illegal practices of the zionist entity “the production capacity of Gaza’s aquifer has dropped to 55 million cubic meters a year. While the water demand of the Strip is 200 million cubic meters a year”.
This overexploitation is decreasing to an alarming point the level of the aquifer, causing seawater to seep and fill that vacuum, mixing with the fresh water and contaminating the aquifer. Additionally to this chloride contamination caused by seawater seeping into the aquifer, the water is contaminated by nitrates from leaking sewage and fertilizers. “These are more dangerous than chlorides, as they can’t be detected by smell or taste”.
The successive attacks on the Gaza Strip have severely affected the sewage systems and destroyed thousands of septic tanks, causing in many cases wastewater to end up in the acquifer.
In addition, due to the lack of resources of local authorities only 72% of Gaza is ecquiped with sewage systems, the rest depends on septic tanks that are built without supervision. “The occupation never provided the necessary services, such as mandated by international law. They didn’t build enough plants for wastewater treatment in order to protect the environment. If we look at the objective data it seems that their intention was just the opposite. These plants shouldn’t be built in sandy areas, to avoid leaks, and should have an exit to the sea to prevent overflow in case of emergency. However they built the main one in Beit Lahia, the sandiest area in Gaza and without exit to the sea. So when there is an overflow, which is quite common, wastewater inevitably ends up in the acquifer and contaminating farmlands in the area”.
Gaza water supplies
At the same time several cases of viral meningitis arose all along the Gaza Strip, with some mortal cases. Those seem to be caused by wastewater contamination. This situation has forced the local authorities to close many swimingpools and advice the people not to swim in the sea during the next weeks.
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.
