The eight artists recount the hardships that Israel imposes on Palestinian artists, and the history of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. They explain the Palestinian boycott call, and why they endorse a cultural boycott.
The video marks the launch of a New York-based initiative calling for more artists and cultural workers in New York, the US and around the world to pledge to respect and support the Palestinian boycott call. Artists in the video join a growing number of cultural workers who are heeding the boycott call from Palestine to refuse to do business as usual with Israel until it ends its occupation, apartheid and colonization.
Ms. Lauryn Hill, Roger Waters, Elvis Costello, Santana, the late Gil-Scott Heron, Cassandra Wilson, Cat Power, Stevie Wonder, Talib Kweli, Mira Nair, Ken Loach, Alice Walker, Mike Leigh, Arundhati Roy, Jean-Luc Godard and many others have declined to perform or participate in cultural events in Israel or with institutions complicit in Israeli human rights abuses.
12th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Yesterday, international activists regained access to their Tel Rumeida apartment after being denied entry for a week. This morning at 8.45am another activist tried to enter the apartment but was prevented by soldiers, even after showing them the rental contract granting her the right to reside in Tel Rumeida. Soldiers then came up the stairs to the front door and threatened the three activists with arrest if they failed to leave the apartment within five minutes.
After a short delay, the police arrived and demanded the activists open the door and leave the building. When the activists questioned this, the Israeli forces replied that they were in a closed military zone and were not allowed to be there. This was despite the activists having demonstrated the right to reside in the property on the previous day.
The Israeli forces began to batter down the front door with a crowbar. When they were unable to get in after 10 minutes, other soldiers climbed onto the roof and smashed their way in through the roof access door within a few minutes. The commander and two soldiers entered the room where the activists were sitting without showing any resistance.
They demanded the activists leave, stating they had no right to be in the area and they were acting illegally. They then claimed that they had checked with their lawyers and the contract ‘is illegal…because it’s a closed military zone’. The commander said the activists are not residents, just ‘guests’ and that they didn’t understand the contract because it was written in Arabic.
Then several more soldiers entered, together with 2 police officers. They took the activists’ passports and told them to leave aggressively. They also showed them the closed military zone document. When the activists questioned the army’s right to break in to the apartment, the police officer told them to take the case to court.
The commander then twisted the arm of one activist, forcing him to the floor, although none of the activists offered any physical resistance. The activists were then escorted out of the apartment, down the street to checkpoint 56 and out of Tel Rumeida.
30th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | al-Khalil, occupied Palestine
On October 29th Mahdi Mohtaseb was executed by Israeli forces at the Salaymeh (160) checkpoint, near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city of al-Khalil (Hebron). The 23-year-old from Jabal Johar, who was employed in a local sweets shop, was supposed to meet his fiancée later in the day.
At 0:22 seconds it shows an Israeli soldier shoot Mahdi in the back from close range as he lies wounded on the ground.
In a statement released the 27th of October by Amnesty International, they concluded that: “Israeli forces have carried out a series of unlawful killings of Palestinians using intentional lethal force without justification”. Amnesty also stated that “wilful killings of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, over which all states can exercise universal jurisdiction.”
In the last week in al-Khalil, seven Palestinians have been murdered. Ezzedin Nabi Sha’ban Abu Shakhdam, 17 (Gush Etzion), Shadi Nabil Dweik, 22 (Gush Etzion), Houmam Adnan Sa’id, 23, Islam Rafiq Hammad Ibeido, 23, Mahdi Mohammad Ramadan al-Muhtasib, 23, and Farouk Abdel Qader Omar Sidr, 19.
Mahdi Mohtaseb, who is survived by four brothers, four sisters, and many grieving family and loved ones, joins the daily rising death toll of mostly Palestinian youths gunned down by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers since October 1st.
28th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team| Hebron, occupied Palestine
At 10.30pm last night, Tuesday 27th October 2015, a Palestinian man who has been identified as 23 year old Hoummam Said was shot in al-Kahlil (Hebron) at the Gilbert checkpoint, directly outside the ISM apartment. The man was in the H2 neighborhood of Tel Rumeida which was otherwise quiet at the time.
No commotion, shouting or running was heard prior to the six gun shots echoing suddenly through the streets and no other security risk could otherwise be perceived.
Immediately following the incident, Israeli forces, who are permanently posted at the checkpoint for 24 hours a day, surrounded the body of the fallen man. Within minutes settlers from the nearby illegal settlement arrived and were allowed to approach and photograph the scene. Further forces then arrived, including soldiers and several police vehicles. An Israeli ambulance arrived but no medical aid was delivered to Said, instead paramedics stood close to the bleeding man and watched passively as he died.
Said was then stripped of his clothes, revealing that the gunshot wounds were all on the back of his body. He was then placed in a bodybag and the street was cleaned. By midnight the scene was totally cleared of all evidence of the incident.
A short video shows Hammam after he was stripped of his clothes by Israeli forces:
Eyewitnesses reported that no knife was originally witnessed on the scene, though one appeared after the soldiers surrounded the body. “I cannot say for sure they put the knife there, but I know even 5 seconds after the shooting I looked, I really looked, and I could see nothing. I am 99% sure of it. But afterwards, it was there.” She added “if an attack was planned at this location it wouldn’t even make sense. He was still 20 meters from the soldiers or checkpoint, in the middle of the night. Why would he wave the knife around?”
The body of Hammam Said after Israeli forces stripped him of his clothes
Extrajudicial executions of this kind are illegal in international law and there is no evidence that warning or deescalating force was applied before the lethal shooting of Said. The checkpoint has a camera positioned above the street and the International Solidarity Movement is demanding that Israeli forces release the raw footage to prove an association between the man and the knife allegedly found at the scene.
An hour and a half after the incident, an eyewitness reported that “it is like nothing happened, there is no bloodstain, nothing but a dog sniffing the ground. The street is eerily quiet and there are just the normal number of soldiers at the checkpoint.” They added that “they cannot really feel like there is a security threat here right now.” An hour after that an illegal settler vehicle was parked by the location of the shooting, playing loud festive music.
Listen to audio of settlers playing party songs after Hammam Said’s blood was washed off the ground:
Said’s death marks four Palestinian deaths in Hebron within two days, and brings the total death toll within the Occupied Territories of Palestine to 64 since the start of October. Hebron has been a centre of the rising tension in the West Bank, and today witnessed extreme suppression of peaceful protests in Bab Al-Zawwiya, when innumerable rounds of teargas were shot directly at dense crowd of demonstrators who were demanding the release of Palestinian corpses killed by Israeli forces.
It is anticipated that with allegations that Said had a knife that no investigation will be launched, yet another Palestinian will be branded as a terrorist, and as a final injustice another family will be denied their rightful mourning rites.
27th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team| Hebron, occupied Palestine
On Tuesday afternoon, 27th October, a mass peaceful demonstration took place in the streets of occupied Hebron (al-Khalil) with about two thousand people, including men, women and children demanding the release of the 11 bodies of martyred Palestinians kept by Israeli forces this month.
Palestinian women with image of Dania Ersheid, 17, killed by Israeli Forces 25th October
Answering the call made by different Palestinian factions, the people of al-Khalil took to the streets to join the “rally of anger,” beginning at the Al-Haras mosque and moving towards Bab Al-Zawwiya following speeches.
Demonstrators peacefully sang, clapped and waved flags in Bab Al-zawwiya before the rounds of teargas were shot at the crowdIsraeli Forces at the Shuhada street checkpoint 56
At the Shuhada street Checkpoint 56, hundreds of people were gathered, standing with flags and clapping and chanting when suddenly, without other apparent provocation than their presence, Israeli forces began to shoot round after round of teargas, stun grenades and live ammunition against the peaceful protesters. At least 10 Palestinians were injured with live rounds and gunshot wounds, according to Dr. Walid Zalloum, the director of Hebron’s governmental hospital.
“It was a peaceful demonstration, really just clapping and with flags, and suddenly everything was on fire’’ said human rights activist group International Solidarity Movement who were present at the march.
Rounds of teargas fired directly at the crowd filled the entire area, trapping many
One more time, Palestinian peaceful resistance has been repressed by the occupying power in an unjustifiably harsh and criminal way. The occupation authorities also detained eight Palestinians, including lawyer Farid Al-Atrash.
