Susya faces demolition for the eighth time

27th February 2017  |  International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team  |  Susya, occupied Palestine

 

Susiya
Susiya

The village of Susya in the south Hebron hills faced complete demolition again yesterday as the Israeli court, and the villagers, waited for the Israeli government to announce its plan for demolition.  The Israeli government asked the court for a 48 hour continuance, which means that the plan will probably be provided to the court on Tuesday 28th February and demolition may begin on Wednesday 1st March.

Internationals from ISM and from Christian Peacemaker Teams were asked by villagers to be present in Susya yesterday to give support should demolition go ahead.  The presence of internationals cannot prevent demolition but may encourage Israeli forces to empty the tents about to be demolished with more care, and will provide the international community with documentation of the demolition.

Nasser al Nawajja from the village is used to facing situations like this.  He told us that he felt that some demolition this year is inevitable, but that delays are good because when the weather is better it is easier to cope with the disruption and to rebuild.  The Israeli government is under intense pressure from local settlers and Israeli right wing political groups to remove Susya altogether, but there is strong pressure and support also from the international community which will make complete demolition difficult.  What is most likely, says Nasser, are piecemeal demolitions.

This will not be the first demolition or expulsion faced by the village: since the villagers were turned out of their cave dwellings half a mile away in 1986 for a ‘Jewish archeological park’ they have lived in semi-permanent tent dwellings which have been either demolished or expelled seven times already.  This will be the eighth demolition and, Nasser says, ‘We will rebuild.  We rebuilt seven times already.  We will rebuild again.  A seventh and an eighth time.’

Susya is a symbol of what is happening in the rural West Bank.  Strong settler pressure for expansion of confiscated land meets weak international pressure to preserve some vestige of hope for a two state solution (still championed by the international community).  Who will win this battle is anyone’s guess now that Trump is in the White House.  But the lives of the people of Susya continue to be under threat. As Nasser says, ‘The settlers are in the White House now.’

 

 

 

Israeli army attacks peaceful demonstration in Hebron and injures protesters : eye-witness accounts

24th February 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On 24th February several hundred people joined together for a demonstration in al-Khalil (Hebron) in occupied Palestine.  Palestinians, Israelis and international activists protested together against the occupation of  Shuhada Street and Tel Rumeida in the heart of the city, closed by the military after the massacre of 29 Palestinians in the al-Ibrahimi mosque in 1994.  The protesters marched from the centre of the city to the military base at the entrance to the closed zone but were fired upon with tear gas and stun grenades within minutes of the start of their peaceful protest.  The protesters were immediately forced to disperse with many suffering from tear gas inhalation.  Some needed treatment on site and some were taken to hospital.

ISM activists attended in groups of two and three to support, document and protest. Here are some eyewitness accounts:

Group 1

“After midday prayers people started marching towards the old city, chanting slogans against the Israeli occupation and the settlers. After about ten minutes, the march was faced by a sizeable group of Israeli soldiers and border police. They marched towards the Israeli forces nonetheless, but were soon met with two stun grenades thrown towards protesters in the front line and teargas canisters shot throughout the street. I saw a teargas canister hit a north American army veteran below his left shoulder: it is entirely plausible that it was shot intentionally into the crowd. Shooting these canisters directly towards people is not only in direct contradiction of Israeli ‘rules of engagement’ but also potentially lethal.”

Group 2

“I was in front of the demo when the teargas canisters were fired directly into the first lines of protesters.  Stun grenades exploded next to me and I couldn’t hear anything for the next minute.  Everywhere on the street were clouds of teargas expanding and the demo turned into a big escape.  I and many other protesters took refuge in the side streets, hiding from Israeli soldiers and tear gas.”

 Group 3

“Our group started near the back.  Tear gas started in great quantity within minutes  and together with a large number of Palestinians and other internationals, we scrambled up a side set of stairs and spent the rest of the demonstration trapped there, tear gassed frequently and running in different directions to escape.  There was no possibility of rejoining the march route.  Red Crescent ambulances, with paramedics in gas masks, attended to the large number of people who were suffering from excessive gas inhalation and some were taken to hospital.”

Group 4

“Emotion, censored freedom, pain, oppression, … these are the words which describe the commemoration of the Ibrahimi mosque massacre, fifty years of occupation and the closure of Shuhada Street for over twenty years.  After just ten minutes, the Israeli forces showed up in front of the crowd. They immediately stopped the demonstration, leaving no freedom to Palestinians and internationals to commemorate the Ibrahimi mosque’s victims.  The atmosphere was tense as Israeli forces started to throw teargas into the crowd.  Once again, Israel pretends to be a democracy but leaves no freedom to Palestinians to express themselves and to commemorate those they lost.”

 

Elor Azaria verdict: a personal view

22nd February 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team, | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Yesterday the Israeli soldier Elor Azaria was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the extra-judicial killing of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, which happened last year in Hebron. Everybody in Hebron was waiting for the sentence. Everybody knew by one o’clock what it was. Everyone was heavy hearted. Palestinian friends compared a sentence of two years for stone throwing with Azaria’s eighteen months for murder. The implications here on the ground for what soldiers can do with impunity is also clear to all.

We at ISM had been in touch with Imad Abu Shamsiya, the Palestinian who filmed the execution, in case he wanted our support if the settlers were angry at the sentence as he has experienced large amounts of threats and harassment from both soldiers and settlers for bringing this incident to light.

Today I get email from the UK with news of how the case was reported on the BBC flagship morning show:

‘…almost all of the piece consisted of a discussion with their Jerusalem correspondent about Israeli anger that Azaria had been jailed. The fact that Palestinians were angered at the brevity of the sentence was tacked on as an afterthought. It was not explained that the Israeli soldiers are an army of occupation that is protecting settlers who are in Hebron illegally. It was not explained that Abdel Fattah al-Sherif had been lying injured and motionless on the ground for ten minutes and presenting no threat to anyone before Azaria executed him. Al-Sherif was described as “an attacker”, Azaria as “a soldier”. The framing of what happened could have been scripted by the IDF. The impression given was of the IDF acting in support of the civil authorities and being subjected to a military assault by enemy combatants. The right-wing Israeli perspective that Azaria was an inexperienced conscript who acted in the heat of the moment in battle was reported unchallenged. The alternative view that al-Sharif had committed grievous bodily harm or some such criminal assault before being totally incapacitated and that he was then murdered in cold blood by a heavily-armed agent of an occupying power was not given.’

Shame.

To see the video so bravely filmed by Imad which led to the case being heard at all:

 

Remembering the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre

25th of February, 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine

 

Today, February 25th marks the 23rd commemoration of the Ibrahim Mosque Massacre in Hebron. “On February 25 1994, a US-born Israeli military physician walked into the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron armed with a Galil assault rifle. It was early morning during the holy month of Ramadan, and hundreds of Palestinians were crammed inside, bowed in prayer. Baruch Goldstein, who had emigrated to Israel in 1983, lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the city. As worshippers kneeled, Goldstein opened fire. He reloaded at least once, continuing his barrage for as long as possible before finally being overpowered and eventually beaten to death. By the time he was stopped, 29 worshippers were killed, and more than a hundred had been injured.

The Israeli government immediately released a statement condemning the act and stating that Goldstein acted alone and was psychologically disturbed. Twenty years later, Palestinians are carrying out memorial events and Hebron’s settlers are preparing celebratory pilgrimages to Goldstein’s shrine inside Kiryat Arba.”

29 were massacred in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the Muslim holy site at the Cave of the Patriarchs. It wasn’t only the 29 people who were killed but also many other people from the locality- people living in the area estimated about 200 people wounded from the incident happened.

After 22 years of the Ibrahimi maosue massacre, the Palestinian people are still sufering calling to end the restrictions imposed on the people living in Hebron. Every year they protest to against the rules forced on them, asking for opening the Shuhadaa’ street that has been closed for seven years!

This 7th annual Open Shuhada Street protest comes after months of increasing violence, restrictions and collective punishment imposed by Israeli authorities on al-Khalil’s Palestinian residents. At the end of October Israeli forces began imposing a ‘closed military zone‘ on the short portion of Shuhada street where Palestinians were previously still allowed to walk, along with a large part of the adjacent Tel Rumeida neighbourhood. Palestinian residents and activist groups have been nonviolently resisting the closed military zone, which requires residents to register in order to be allowed into their homes and bars other Palestinian and human rights defenders from entry. The closed military zone, along with the widespread, deadly violence and closures deployed against Palestinians in al-Khalil, has also been broadly condemned by Palestinian and international human rights groups; on the February 25th anniversary of the Ibrahimi mosque massacre, Amnesty International released a public statement calling on Israeli authorities to “lift the discriminatory restrictions, end the collective punishment of Palestinians in the city and protect human rights defenders there.”

 

 

Awareness campaign to boycotting the Israeli occupation

23rd February 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

The Boycott campaign-Palestine PCB organized an awareness campaign for some Schools in Gaza City in order to raise awareness of the importance of Boycotting the occupation and supporting local products.

A number of the boycott-campaign-Palestine activists took part in the campaign by entering classes and delivering a short speech in which they urged the students to the importance of the boycott and the seriousness of normalization.

Additionally, the campaign included a distribution of sample of  local products. In their speech with the students, the activists pointed out the benefits of boycotting the occupation: reducing unemployment, supporting Palestinian economy, and raising public awareness of belonging to the homeland and resisting the Israeli occupation.

This activity is one of several others that the Boycott campaign-Palestine intends to  organize during the upcoming period, targeting the Palestinian public to boycott the occupation and resist the normalization.