International Solidarity Movement - Page 124 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Palestinian woman arrested in Al-Khalil accused of carrying a knife

2nd November 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

A Palestinian female was arrested on the 1st of November near Qeitun checkpoint accused of carrying a knife. Eyewitnesses described her being ordered to kneel on the ground, open her dress and loosen her hijab in public, before being handcuffed and escorted behind the gate at Qeitun checkpoint. However, none present saw any sign of the knife she was accused of carrying.   The Palestinian woman was initially attended to by around seven armed soldiers, who were joined shortly afterwards by two jeeps each carrying several more, including female officers who presumably conducted a more vigorous physical search. Internationals present were forced back and ordered not to photograph or film the ensuing incident.

Her four children, aged 10, 8, 4 and 1, lingered ominously at the checkpoint gate, hoping to see their mother emerge unscathed. Unfortunately this was not to be as she was later walked to the nearby police station were she may be detained indefinitely. As explanation for her arrest and the time frame of her detention, an Israeli officer claimed, “we are not above the law”, implying that they would conduct themselves in a lawful manner whilst carrying out their investigation against her.

Arrested womans children wait at the checkpoint gate hoping to see their mother return

Such statements as this offer little comfort to her children or the Palestinian residents of Hebron, who are far too aware of Israeli policy against Palestinian arrestees and the stark double standard between the laws that exist for Palestinians and the laws that exist for Israelis. Putting to one side the humiliating way in which this woman was treated and the total disregard for cultural sensitivities as regards the removal of her hijab in public (in which concealment of a knife is almost inconceivable), in the eyes of the law, Palestinians’ rights are hugely diminished relative to the Israeli settlers that occupy the same space. In fact, they are subject to two entirely different legal systems.

Palestinians arrested in the West Bank area are, after intensive interrogation, sentenced and trialled in Israeli military courts. However, an Israeli arrested for an identical offense, within the same jurisdiction, is sentenced and trialled in Israeli civil courts. The differences between military and civil law are vast and are designed to legitimize discriminatory and oppressive policies implemented against Palestinians in the name of maintaining Israeli “security”. In 2010 it was revealed that a whopping 97.4% of Palestinians trialled in Israeli military courts are convicted of the crimes of which they are accused. Bearing the brunt of this prejudiced system are Palestinian youths, who, under military law, can be detained initially for up to 6 months for otherwise minor offenses. The most common of these is stone throwing, which carries with it a potential 20 years in prison. Any West Bank Palestinian, under the military law, is immediately presumed guilty – unless he or she can manage to prove otherwise – whereas at the same time settlers from the illegal settlements in the West Bank are presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

The only distinction between these two peoples is ethnicity. Therefore, differential treatment of Palestinians by law enforcement and judicial systems is fundamentally racist. These are facts from which Israel cannot escape, and for which the international community must hold Israel to account.

Imprisoned life: the feeling of a ‘closed military zone’

30th October 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

‘Closed military zone’ – a sterile term for an act of deliberate apartheid policies and dehumanisation with the clear and deliberate target of forcibly displacing Palestinian civilians: women, children, elderly, anyone that is Palestinian, from the Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street neighborhood with the deliberate aim of connecting the illegal Israeli settlements in the heart of the city of occupied al-Khalil. A connection of illegal settlements: ‘sterile’, ethnically cleansed of any Palestinian presence.

‘Closed military zone’ – such an objective term for obliterating human rights and even a sense of security and justice for Palestinians – in ambitions to in the end, finally, obliterate the people as well.

‘Closed military zone’, a sterile and objective term, that is hard, if not impossible to grapple. A term, just like ethnic cleansing and genocide that seems very far away, and hard to get the gist of, the feeling, what it means to struggle with it every day. Day in and day out, no escape.

‘Closed military zone’ (cmz) means degradation, dehumanization. Every Palestinian is made a number, stripped of their humanity, at the endless checkpoints, only numbers will pass.

‘Closed military zone’ is the denial of friends and families to visit relatives and friends, as humans aren’t allowed in the cmz by the Israeli forces, only the few ‘registered’ and listed- yet still human – Palestinians will pass – if a soldier, emboldened with impunity and the privilege to act on their own whim, allows them to.

‘Closed military zone’ is the all-to-familiar humiliation at the checkpoint, the yelling, having to empty your handbag, all your grocery-shopping. To put it in plain sight, on a table, for the soldiers behind the bullet proof glass to stare and gaze, to crack jokes and laugh. It’s being forced to lift up your shirt, undershirt, trouser-legs and take off your shoes, after passing a metal detector twice. The soldier enyojing the spectacle laughing with his comrade.

‘Closed military zone’ is the wait, the endless wait, when soldiers at the checkpoint turn up the music, so they can’t hear you asking to open the gate at the checkpoint for you. The endless wait, when you ask them to open, the soldier looks at you, and with impunity just goes back to playing on his phone, pretending not to have noticed your presence, with a smirk on his face. The endless wait, when a ‘busy’ soldier is reading, talking to someone on the phone, watching a movie, playing an ego-shooter, or simply decides to not allow you to pass.

‘Closed military zone’ is the obvious and deliberate instrument for the humiliation and dehumanization of a whole people. The Palestinian people. Humans. Humans denied basic human rights, treated like prisoners in their own homes, simply because they’re Palestinian. Because they don’t move out of the way for a racist, zionist, apartheid venture of an ethnically cleansed strip of illegal settlements.

Last but not least, the ‘closed military zone’ can only succeed, if the world turns a blind eye, if the injustice perpetrated by the Israeli forces is allowed to prevail, if the dehumanization of a people with the aim of their obliteration is silently accepted by the international community, by a country, and by an individual.

‘Closed military zone’ means ethnic cleansing of humans not spoken against, dehumanization not spoken against, the forcible transfer of humans not spoken against; even the idea of a human being behind the term of ‘Palestinian’ being denied, the existence of Palestinian human beings denied, their existence destroyed.

Imprisoned lives: closed military zone in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron)

30th October 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

It’s like living in a prison. That’s how residents describe what Israeli forces are doing to their lives in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood and Shuhada Street in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). The area was first declared a ‘closed military zone’ on 30th October 2015 – solely and deliberately affecting the Palestinian residents. One year of collective punishment, open discrimination, racism, apartheid policies and rampant attempts at ethnic cleansing in this area, commonplace tactics of an illegal occupying force in an obvious attempt to rid the area of any Palestinian presence and instead, create a continous ‘sterile’ strip of illegal settlements.

The ‘closed military zone’ has several times been extended within this year of collective punishment of the Palestinian population, adding even more areas and ‘re-inforcing’ and creating more checkpoints, exclusively for the Palestinian civilian population. Only the Palestinian civilian residents, who must register to pass through a checkpoint to gain access to their family home, have been degraded to a mere number on a list by the Israeli forces. Only ‘registered’ residents are allowed to reach their homes. The lists of Palestinian residents have been changed repeatedly lately, arbitrarily dropping various names from the list. Apparently registering with the occupying force as a resident in one’s own home just once often isn’t sufficient. This dehumanization of the Palestinian civilians who at the checkpoint are reduced to a number, is a deliberate tactic to create a forcible environment directly furthering ethnic cleansing. For some time Palestinian residents were assigned numbers that were marked on their IDs, completely ridding these civilians of their human aspect, instead making them a mere number on a list. Now, with those numbers temporarily not in use, Palestinians are reffered to by their ID-number. The Palestinian civilian trying to live in their own home is just that for the Israeli forces, a number, void of any humanity.

During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, Israeli forces basically declared a curfew on the whole area, closing Shuhada checkpoint, denying Palestinians passage while allowing exclusive access tor settlers at the same time. The prison this area is becoming for the Palestinian civilian population is further exacerbated by the fact that, if there’s a large number of Israeli forces or settlers from the nearby illegal settlements on the street, leaving the house is not an option. One year of collective punishment – a sad anniversary that proves that the Israeli state does not need to fear an outcry by the international community when implementing their racist, apartheid measures, ethnically cleansing an entire neighborhood. During a year in which the residents have not been allowed to receive visitors like family or friends, workers of any sort have been denied entry and even medical personnel will be turned away at the checkpoint.

I’m sorry we never knew each other

29th October 2016 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, occupied Palestine

This is a the personal thoughts of an ISMer, remembering the execution of Hummam Adnan al-Saeed and Islam Rafiq Hammad Ibeido, on 27th and 28th October 2015. Israeli forces gunned down the two Palestinian men right in front of the ISM-apartment.

The only thing we have in common is:

That you happened to die in front of my eyes

Corrected: that you were shot in the back just behind my back, Hummam.

Corrected: that you were shot dead while holding your hands up high, Islam.

My initial thought was that the soldiers were “poking fun” at us

by intimidating us with some terrifying sounds.

Until I finally grasped that what sounded like barking machine gun bullets

were barking machine gun bullets

pumped into your precious bodies

to remain there for good.

For terror.

Also: you didn’t die

for you weren’t even granted the time to die.

You were mowed down and wiped out.

You were dead before you touched the ground.

I wish I had walked down the stairs and held your head.

Or touched your shoulder.

Or covered you with a kuffiyeh.

Anything, just anything to give you back what they tried to wipe out:

Being human in inhuman times

which is the only thing we have in common.

Settlers attack boy’s school, Israeli army traps students

26th October 2016 | ISM & IWPS | Urif, occupied Palestine

Last Tuesday both the IWPS team and ISM team were harvesting olives in separate areas when we received a phone call telling us that there had been trouble with settlers from the illegal settlement Yitzhar and Israeli occupation forces near the high school for boys in Urif, south of Nablus. Urif is located 2km away from Yitzhar, which is known for its especially violent settlers, and the school is situated at the highest point of the village, nearest to the illegal settlement. This is not the first time the school has experienced problems of this kind and we quickly left the fields to make our way to Urif.

By the time we arrived, the settlers and Israeli occupation forces had left and the children and teachers had managed to leave the school. We were able to speak with an eye witness, Mr A. Amer, who works in Urif’s municipality and who had been the first person to reach the boys’ school. He showed us the footage he had captured and informed us that around 12pm the infamous settler responsible for security in Yitzhar, known as Jacob, approached the school with two younger settlers by foot carrying an M16 along with another gun. Shortly after, around twelve Israeli occupation soldiers also arrived at the school, meaning that students and teachers were trapped inside. The eye witness told the settler to leave because he worked for Yitzhar security and not in Urif, and was far away from the illegal settlement. The reason given for the intrusion was a false accusation that some boys had set fire to land closer to Yitzhar. We were informed that anyone from the village approaching those lands, would face an immediate response from the army and not settler security. The army demanded to see his ID, which they retained for one hour for no apparent reason. The army also never gave any reason why they were there in the first place, but they did make their way into the village below the school under the pretext of preventing children throwing stones; this possibly as all soldiers have small cameras attached to their uniforms. At 2pm the settlers and army left the area, and the children and teachers were able to leave the school grounds.

This is the second time in the last two months that the settler security has come close to the village. In August he harassed local olive farmers and demanded they leave their fields. Villages in the area often have problems from Yitzhar settlers during the olive harvest, with trees burned or uprooted and villagers attacked, and this was clearly an attempt to terrorise the local community. IWPS and ISM continue to support farmers and villages during this time, and hope to seek further support from the international community to highlight the ongoing plight.