9th May 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al Khalil Team | Al Khalil, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday evening in Al Khalil (Hebron), a Palestinian woman and her two small children were attacked by settlers from the illegal settlement as they were on their way to the shops.
Marwat Abu Remele lives in Tel Rumeida, an area in Al Khalil under Israeli control. She was on her way to buy groceries, when about twenty settlers gathered around them and attacked her son. A Palestinian man, Mohammed Abu Hazerh, promptly ran to protect them from this harassment. Harassment of this kind is not unusual for the Palestinians living in this part of the city.
A settler woman managed to convince Israeli soldiers that the Palestinians were in the wrong, and Mohammed narrowly escaped arrest. When the soldiers agreed to release him, the Israeli woman became hysterical and with a crowd of children ran after him. While she was shouting and insulting everyone standing on the street, the settler children spat, harassed and kicked other Palestinians and internationals that had come to witness the scene.
The soldiers attempted to stop all filming of what was going on and were failing to prevent the settlers harassing and taunting local people. The Abu Shamsiyeh family, who live on the street where the attack took place, were unable to enter their home as settlers were blocking their entrance. One of the Palestinian women who was trying to film the scene was violently attacked by two settlers.
About an hour later, Marwat and her children came back from their errand down in the old city but were afraid of passing through the crowd of settlers who were blocking the road, preventing her going home. Finally, some soldiers and Palestinian neighbours escorted her back to the house while settlers hurled insults at her.
The video clearly shows how the settlers, who have taken over much of the neighbourhood from local Palestinians, are making it harder and harder for them to live in peace. Palestinian children are terrified and full of frustration and anger, as they cannot move freely outside their homes without the fear of being attacked or arrested. The Israeli forces remit is to protect the settlers and they are not interested in the welfare of the Palestinians.
3rd April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine
The weekly Friday protest in Nabi Saleh was met with extreme violence by Israeli Occupation Forces. Four people were shot in the first five minutes of the protest. One man and one woman were shot and wounded by snipers using .22 caliber live ammunition. Both were shot in the leg. Two others, including a 14 year old girl, were later hit with rubber bullets. 6 more hours of protest saw two more injured protesters, private homes attacked with stun grenades, and live fire from M16 assault rifles during the army’s invasion of the Nabi Saleh village.
Protesters begin their march in Nabi Saleh (photo by ISM)
After midday prayer Palestinians and internationals gathered for a peaceful protest against the Israeli occupation in the village of Nabi Saleh. Villagers in Nabi Saleh are protesting against the confiscation of their community spring, taken by Halamish settlement in 2008. As the protest made it down the main road leading out of the village it was very violently attacked by Israeli occupation forces:
“We had very little warning. We had only been protesting for 5 minutes before two people were on the ground, shot with .22 caliber live ammunition,” reported an International Solidarity Movement volunteer at the scene.
X-ray photo showing the shattered bone caused by a .22 caliber bullet (photo ISM)
A young man named Hammad from Al Am’ari Refugee Camp near Ramallah, and Manal Tammimi, a woman from Nabi Saleh, were both shot. In both cases the live bullets tore through their shin bones and they were immediately taken to the hospital. Medics on the scene say their injuries will take several months to heal and then only if no complications arise.
Children in the line of fire
A rubber bullet struck a fourteen year old Palestinian girl in the head. The girl is a native of Nabi Saleh village and medics say she was lucky to not be more severely injured.
Home invasions and M16 live ammunition
After the initial attack the protest changed location to a hill on the west side of the village of Nabi Saleh. This time the army responded by invading the village itself. Soldiers shot tear gas down the village streets and stun grenades in private houses. At one point an entire Palestinian family including around 5 children had to flee their home with severe tear gas poisoning after the army shot tear gas canisters into their back yard and the nerve gas spread through the windows.
The military shot with M16s (firing 5.56 NATO rounds) down the narrow streets of the village. “People were shouting to be careful of stray bullets and ducking behind anything that might pass for cover. Being shot at by M16 machine gun fire at a completely peaceful protest that even includes children is both absurd and extreme,” recalled one international activist on the scene.
Activists confront Israeli soldiers during Friday’s protest (photo by ISM)
Israeli occupation forces are escalating violence on the West Bank
The injuries in Nabi Saleh today and the use of lethal weapons are novelty. In both the villages of N’ilin and Kafr Kadum the Friday demonstration were also met with shots of M16 live ammunition. Internationals present in occupied Palestine report that the use of lethal weapons has never ceased since the massacre on Gaza last summer. In fact, they say the level of violence used by the Occupation, including both .22 and the much more lethal 5.56 live ammunition, is escalating.
3rd April, 2015 | Miguel Hernández | Khuza’a, Gaza, Occupied Palestine
As soon as we arrived at the land where the farmers wanted to work, about 80 meters from the zionist fence which borders and cuts of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli occupation military jeep stopped in front of us. A group of soldiers left the car and started shooting while cowardly hiding behind a sand mound. From the first moment we used our speaker to let the soldiers know that there were just farmers working, that we were all civilians. After staying there for a few minutes shooting and shouting bad words to the farmers, such as “sharmuta” (bitch), they jumped again on the jeep and left.
Some people from the village came to ask the farmers to go home; they said it was too dangerous. The farmers didn’t listen and luckily they could finish their work without more trouble.
When we were almost done another family approached us and asked if one of us could go with them to a piece of land they have near where we were, at about 50 meters from the fence. We said yes and one of us left with them. The family were terrified the entire time, repeatedly asking us if there would be no problems. We could only tell, that hopefully not.
Israeli Zionist military tower overlooking the farm fields of Khuza’a – photo by Rina Andolini
Once all the work was done and we were leaving the land, two of the youngest farmers explained to us how the father of one of them was killed in the last aggression, along with the brother of the other. They were killed by a rocket along with 4 other people.
During all the journey we could see, on the far side of the fence, the farmers from the nearby kibbutz working peacefully with their modern vehicles, tractors and even airplanes, while the Palestinian farmers locked in Gaza have to work only with their hands, almost lying in the ground, hiding from the zionist bullets and wondering if they will get killed today.
In less than two months the harvest season will commence, and hundreds of peasants will leave their homes ready to risk their lives in their attempts to harvest the crops that are supposed to feed their families. This year they are more afraid than ever, due to the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt. It has been impossible to enter Gaza for most of the international activists that would accompany them and serve as witnesses and protective presence.
Farmlands early in the morning in Khuza’a, Gaza – photo by Rina Andolini
30th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine
On the 28th of March 2015, close to 200 protesters from all over the West Bank gathered in Nabi Saleh to protest the occupation in commemoration of Land Day. The protest was met with extreme violence as the Army and Border Police fired large amounts of tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets as well as several rounds of M16 live ammunition at the protesters.
On March 30th 1976 a general strike and marches were arranged all over Palestinian cities within present-day Israel from the Naqab to the Galilee. The actions were a response to the Israeli Government’s expropriation of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land. During the actions six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed, 100 wounded and hundreds more arrested. It was the first time since 1948 that the Palestinians within the borders Israel declared 1948 organised as a Palestinian national collective and the date is commemorated yearly with a series of protest all over Palestine. This year the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh marked Land Day on Saturday, the 28th of March.
Around 12 pm on Saturday, protesters from all over the West Bank, from Hebron to Kafr Qaddum, gathered in the village of Nabi Saleh. The demonstration was a local protest in commemoration of Land Day and of the two villagers Mustafa Tamimi and Rushdi Tamimi, who were murdered by the Israeli occupation soldiers.
Poster displayed at the rally before the march, showing the two residents of Nabi Saleh who have been killed by Israeli forces since protests in the village began – photo by Tamimi Press https://www.facebook.com/Tamimipresspage
After midday prayer protesters made their way down a main road of Nabi Saleh chanting and singing. On the outskirts of the village nine army and border police jeeps was gathered and as the demonstrators approached the road the about 60 soldiers and police rained tear gas on the unarmed protesters. Several people suffered from severe tear gas inhalation as the military pushed them back into the village.
Protesters chanting slogans against the occupation and marching down the road in Nabi Saleh, before the Israeli military opened fire with tear gas – photo by Tamimi Press
Undeterred by the initial choking barrage of tear gas, protesters marched towards the military once again, this time cutting across the farmland and fields outside the village. Many youths remaining on the hillside and threw stones and tear gas back towards the military.
Palestinian youth standing behind a wall of tear gas in Nabi Saleh. The illegal Israeli settlement of Hallamish is visible beyond the tear gas – photo by ISM
Israeli forces overpowered and arrested one unarmed Palestinian activist, as they continued to shoot tear gas up the into the hills. Israeli forces also threw stun grenades at unarmed Palestinians, international and Israeli activists. “They attacked me twice with stun grenades for no reason,” recalled one Palestinian photographer at the scene.
As the protest continued in the hills around Nabi Saleh protesters gathered again and threw back a large number of the tear gas canisters still being rained down on them by the army and border police. By resisting the tear gas and throwing the canisters back towards the military themselves the protesters managed to push the soldiers and police back down the hills towards the village gate. Here they took cover behind their jeeps, unable to disperse the demonstration.
Photo by Tamimi Press
As the protest continued the soldiers began firing rubber coated metal bullets at the protesters who took cover behind stones and trees as the bullets jumped off the road between them. The bullets came repeatedly and several protesters were hit and carried from the scene.
As demonstrators ducked from the rubber coated steel bullets the sound of M16’s began to fill the air as soldiers fired towards Palestinian protesters, children, internationals and journalists on the hill with live ammunition. However, the protest continued for about half an our longer until the military got back in their jeeps and moved back towards the checkpoint at the outskirts of the village.
After most of the demonstrators had returned to the village, some gathered and continued the protest on a hillside in Nabi Saleh, above the valley where several soldiers had stood watching the protest. The Israeli forces once again opened fire with live ammunition. Fifteen M16 bullets ricocheted of the stones on the ground very close to the protesters, landing near children, women and a photographer but fortunately not hitting anyone.
The Land Day protests continue all over the West Bank throughout the week.
21st March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine
Israeli forces arrested three women in Nabi Saleh and injured several protesters, one with live ammunition, during the village’s weekly Friday protest on March 13.
The demonstration was met with the usual military violence as Israeli forces threw stun grenades and fired live ammunition at unarmed and peaceful protesters. After Friday prayers about forty Palestinian protesters together with international and Israeli activists marched down the main road towards the military tower and checkpoint at the entrance to the village, which Israeli forces had closed before the protest. Within less than five minutes the Israeli military fired the first of many rounds of tear gas canisters. The protesters continued regardless and were meet by a line of Israeli soldiers whose use of unnecessary physical violence and many stun grenades resulted in multiple injuries.
Israeli forces threw stun grenades at nonviolent demonstrators gathered in the streetThis young girl from Nabi Saleh faced an Israeli border policeman after being hit in the head in a confrontation with Israeli forces. Behind her illegal an illegal Israeli settlement occupied the hill beside Nabi Saleh.
Israeli forces threatened Nabi Saleh children, who walked down the road nearer to the closed gate. One young girl was hit with a rifle in the stomach and the head; she went to the hospital for treatment. Two Palestinian women – Bushra Tamimi and Shireen al-Araj – and Israeli activist Tali Shapiro were arrested and dragged away by Israeli forces.
Girls from Nabi Saleh confronted heavily armed Israeli soldiersIsraeli forces pursuing the children in Nabi SalehIsraeli forces arrested protesters after they sat down across the street
The violence escalated near the end of the protest; Israeli forces used live .22 caliber ammunition and shot a young Palestinian in the lower leg. The bullet missed the bone, and he will likely recover soon.
Israeli forces shot a young protester in Nabi Saleh in the leg with live ammunition.
The village of Nabi Saleh has been demonstrating against the theft of its natural spring by the occupation since 2009. Israeli authorities have violently suppressed the weekly Friday protests since their inception – in the last few months alone, several villagers have been shot in the leg with live ammunition. Since the actions began, two people have been killed in the village – Mustafa Tamimi and Rushdi Tamimi; many others have been seriously injured. Despite the Israeli forces’ severe repression, the people of Nabi Saleh continue to fight against the brutal military occupation.
Israeli forces released Tali Shapiro on the night of March 13, and Shireen al-Araj the following day. Bushra Tamimi was released on the evening of March 15 after paying 2000 NIS bail.
