Within 48 hours of Yahya Atta Rayahin Bani Minnah’s death, the official Israeli statement on the cause of death changed considerably. As documented in previous report, the Israeli army physician who was present at the scene of the murder told the mayor of Aqraba, Mr Jabr, directly that the wounds were caused by M16 bullets. This was confirmed in official statements from the Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld, who is reported as saying:
Settlers murder 18 year old boy from the village of Aqraba, Nablus
On Saturday 27 September settlers from the illegal outpost of Itamar settlement, to the east of Nablus city, executed 18 year old shepherd Yahya Atta Rayahin Bani Minnah from Aqraba village.
Yahya Minnah had left the village of Aqraba in the early morning along with a number of other shepherds to graze their sheep in the Alifjem area 10km from Aqraba village. This area had been stolen by Israel after 1967 and declared a closed military zone. The area covers over 80% of the fertile land for Aqraba and contains essential farmland with over 20,000 goats and sheep grazing in the area.
Shortly after Iftar (the breaking of the day-long fast during the Holy month of Ramadan) goats and sheep belonging to Yahya returned to the village of Aqraba without their shepherd. Relatives and local villagers immediately became concerned for his safety and went out to search the surrounding area. At approximately 22:00 that evening they made the shocking discovery, finding Yahya with multiple bullet wounds to his body.
The villagers called the Israeli army and police who attended the scene at approximately 23:30 where an Israeli army physician examined the body and told villagers the wounds were likely to have been inflicted by an M16 machine gun. This gun is the usual attire of settlers in the region.
Yahya had suffered between 3-4 bullet wounds to both the neck and chest with the remaining 6-8 bullet wounds inflicted upon his legs. It is believed that he was shot 20 metres from the site where his body was found which would be consistent with the blood seen by witnesses. Local shepherds in the area report seeing a white van containing two settlers driving to the area where Yahya was found dead at approximately 14:00 that day.
The Israeli DCO made contact with the local mayor of Aqraba, Jowdat Beni Jabr in order to ascertain if Yahya had any reason for dispute within Aqraba, however, witnesses to the settler presence have not as yet been contacted by the Israeli authorities. At 03:00 the next morning the army took the body of Yahya to the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine in Israel for an autopsy, the body being returned to the village on Monday morning. Over a thousand villagers filled the streets of Aqraba for the funeral march to pay their respects to the young shepherd. Yahya was engaged and due to be married in the coming year.
In recent weeks settler attacks and violence in the villagers surrounding Nablus has increased. The murder of Yahya echoes the killing of a shepherd from Aqraba two years ago where settlers from the Itamar settlement attacked and killed in the same area. A settler is currently on trail in Israel for the murder, and villagers suspect that Yahya’s murder may have been an act of vengeance in connection with this trial.
ISM Rafah: Life on the Green Line
This is the story of a family living in the Al Farahin neighbourhood of Abassan Alkabeera in southern Gaza.
Translated, filmed and edited by Fida Qishta
Language edit by ISM Rafah
The family’s home is situated extremely close to the ‘Green Line’ with Israel and subsequently has suffered many cases of Israeli military aggression. There was a major incursion into the area on 1st May 2008, which resulted in Palestinian deaths, home demolitions and widespread agricultural damage, particularly the vast destruction of olive and citrus groves. The family was terrorized during this attack and has not slept in their house since. Activists from the International Solidarity Movement began accompanying them in September 2008 in their first attempt to return to their home
The Israeli army’s cooperation with settlers in Hebron increases pressure on Palestinian residents
Sunday, the 29th of October – 15 Israeli soldiers invaded the house of the Samouh-family in Hebron. Its 22 members share three apartments in their house in Tel Rumeida, opposite the Beit Hadesa Settlement.
Claiming a search for weapons, the soldiers forced their way into the apartments. From 12.00 to 15.00 the family-members were detained outside the house, while the soldiers turned the apartments upside down, destroyed the furniture and consecrated two Korans. An estimated 2000 shekels of damage was caused and the soldiers appeared have left the house with more than when they arrived.
The Samouh-family house lies between the Tel Rumeida Settlement and the Beit Haseda Settlement. Since August, when a new unit of soldiers replaced the old one, the pressure on the family and the Palestinians in the the area has augmented, with the harassment and the violence of the Israeli occupiers increasing dramatically.
The invasion of the Samouh-house was performed with immense brutality. Two young family-members were beaten. The women were told, they would be shot. The owner of one of the apartments offered the soldiers a key to the door, but the soldiers preferred to use a sledge-hammer to open it. To check an empty house close to the Samouh-family, the Israeli soldiers used a human shield, a young man of the family, as the first to enter.
The Samouh-family called the police at 12.00 o’clock. The police arrived at 16.00, and told the family to file a complaint at the police-station the next day. Six years ago the windows in the family’s house were broken by settlers. The Samouh-family complained to the police and underwent two days of humiliation at the police-station.
The Samouh-family fear that it could happen again.
Former Iraq hostage, assaulted, unlawfully deported by Israel for human rights work, files official complaint
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – Harmeet Singh Sooden, who was held hostage in Iraq for four months in 2005-2006, has filed an official complaint to the governments of Canada and New Zealand and the United Nations for human rights violations committed against him by the Government of Israel in the course of denying him entry to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Mr Sooden travelled to Israel on 14 June 2008 to work as a human rights defender with International Solidarity Movement (ISM). ISM is an international human rights organisation composed of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals who monitor the human rights situation and protect human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
After declaring the purpose of his visit, Mr Sooden was assaulted and injured, threatened, held in solitary confinement, denied the right to legal counsel and consular representation as well as the right to appeal his deportation order in a court of law, and unlawfully deported on 18 June 2008—all in contravention of Israeli and international law.
Israeli authorities told Mr Sooden that he was being deported because he constitutes “a threat to the security of the State of Israel”.
“The Government of Israel appears to be pursuing a policy of refusing entry to international human rights defenders, particularly ISM volunteers,” says Mr Sooden. “Israel as a sovereign nation has the right to determine who enters its territory. However, unless a State has credible reasons for deporting human rights defenders, one can only conclude that the actual reason is concern that they will defend human rights and publicise human rights violations.” He also adds, “ISM is an integral part of a regional Israeli-Palestinian non-violent movement and is actively contributing to the security of Israel through its efforts to protect human rights in Palestine.”
According to Ms Hina Jilani, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, “Israel’s defiance of international norms has caused serious harm, including killings, to human rights defenders.” She notes in 2006 that ISM “has been specifically targeted, with over 93 volunteers deported in the last four years”. In 2003, the Israel Defence Forces killed American Rachel Corrie, 23, and fatally shot Briton Tom Hurndall, 22—both ISM volunteers.
The Supreme Court of Israel has determined that sustainable security can only be achieved through compliance with the law, including international law. Israeli courts have repeatedly ruled that association with ISM is not a valid reason for denying an individual entry into Israel. Israeli law also guarantees an individual facing a deportation order with the right of appeal.
Mr Sooden, a citizen of Canada and New Zealand, is formally asking the Canadian and New Zealand governments to protest his mistreatment and the denial of consular access, to seek a full explanation for the reasons for his deportation and the cancellation of his deportation order, and to secure an agreement from the Government of Israel that human rights defenders will no longer be mistreated and denied access to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He is also asking the United Nations to undertake an investigation into this incident in accordance with its mandate on human rights defenders.
Mr Sooden and three others were kidnapped in Baghdad on 26 November 2005 while participating in an international Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. One member of the group, American citizen Tom Fox, was murdered on 9 March 2006. Mr Sooden and the other remaining hostages, Canadian James Loney and Briton Norman Kember, were freed two weeks later in a military operation.
Mr Sooden first volunteered for ISM in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2004.