Frenchman shot by Israeli forces in Bil’in

by ISM media team, November 3rd

For the second week in a row the Israeli military have shot a demonstrator with live ammunition at the Palestinian village of Bil’in. This week was the turn of 69-year old Frenchman José Jeandrot, a volunteer in the olive harvest as part of a delegation from a French solidarity group. He was shot in the wrist and received treatment in Sheikh Zaid hospital in Ramallah. José was shot by Israeli forces that were still in the village after the demonstration ended.

On their way back to the village the demonstrators encountered soldiers facing resistance from the village youth who threw stones at the invaders. As the soldiers were withdrawing they started firing rubber bullets and live ammunition at the youth. In addition to José’s injury, 8 other people were shot with rubber bullets and one woman broke her leg while running away from the soldiers.

As the village youth were trying to repel a military jeep that invaded the village with stones, Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition at them and drove up a driveway where onlookers were gathered. The soldiers then got out of their jeep and fired at the youth. The onlookers were standing around a corner and José, who was filming the incursion, was standing at least 50m from the village youth when he was hit in the wrist.

Earlier on Bil’in villagers had been joined by international and Israeli supporters as they marched to the Israeli annexation barrier, which has ceased over 50% of the village land. The marchers managed to cross one of the fences and marched to the gate where they demanded to be let through to reach the olive groves. Many of the internationals present, including José, are accompanying farmers to their olive groves in areas where they face violence and intimidation from Israeli settlers and soldiers. The protest passed off peacefully despite the military’s use of tear gas and sound bombs against the protesters. When this violence failed to intimidate the marchers the soldiers started violently pushing and shoving them. Towards the end of the demonstration some border policemen violently pushed protesters returning to the village.

Injuries

Amjad Abu Rahme, 11 – shot with a rubber bullet in the shoulder
Amer Nasser, 22 – shot with a rubber bullet in the shoulder
Ibrahim Burnat, 25 – shot with a rubber bullet in the hand
Ashraf Khatib, 24 – shot with a rubber bullet in the leg
Bader Khatib, 35 – shot with a rubber bullet in the leg
Sharar Mansour, 22 – shot with a rubber bullet in the leg
Wael Nasser, 31 – shot with a rubber bullet in the neck
Leila Zoada, 32 – leg broken while running away from soldiers

For more information contact:
Abdullah Abu Rahme: 0547258210
ISM media office: 02 2971824, 0599943157
José – 0525169105

The Sounds of War: Israeli incursion into Tulkarem

by Bill Dienst MD, November 3rd

04:15 – The roosters start crowing. The minarets start calling the faithful to prayer. I wake up here on the top floor dormitory of the Women’s Center in Tulkarem where I have been staying these past 4 nights alone. At night, I have had this whole building to myself. During the daytime a kindergarten and school for developmentally delayed children is held downstairs. Today at 07:20, I will be returning to Ramallah. I begin to finish my packing.

04:45 – I hear 2 very loud explosions and then the staccato of gunfire from a semiautomatic weapon. I hear shouts of Allahu Akbar! (God is greatest) twice. It seems to be coming from a pink and white building 3 blocks to the north. I look down the street and see an Israeli Armored Personnel Vehicle (APV) just 1 block away. I turn off the lights to my room. Now the APV passes just below my room, and I back away from the window until it passes. I hear stern shouts from a megaphone ordering someone to do something. I think the shouts are in Arabic, but with a distinct Hebrew accent.

04:55 – I hear another very loud explosion from the direction of the pink and white building and then another round of gunfire.

05:00 – I hear 3 low pitched loud thuds and a flash (Mortar Fire?). More shouts from the megaphone. More shouts in Arabic: Allahu Akbar!

05:08 – More shouts over the megaphone in Hebrew this time; more roosters crowing and crickets chirping.

05:13 – More megaphone shouts

05:26 – Electricity is cut off in several buildings to the North. I check; the electricity in our building still works.

05:45 – I think the Israeli occupation forces are gone now. I see people on the rooftops and out in the street.

I am not sure exactly what happened here this morning, but I am sure we will hear about it in the news.

Israeli Army Allows Settlers to Steal Palestinian Olives in Hebron

by Mary, October 30th 2006

At 4.20pm, international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) at the Tel Rumeida crossing noticed that Israeli settlers from the Tel Rumeida settlement were picking olives by the Israeli army post nearby the settlement. These olive trees belong to the Abu Hekel family, who are due to start picking tomorrow. There has been an Israeli court order that Palestinians are to be provided with protection for their property by the Israeli army or police and allowed to pick their olives in safety.

A HRW approached the soldiers at the crossing and drew attention to the Israeli boys in an olive tree and women on the ground. The boys had a long stick and were beating the branches of the tree and the women and others were picking up the olives from the ground. A soldier, who spoke little English and no Arabic, seemed to understand the situation. He contacted the soldier, who was near the settlers. This soldier spoke to the settlers, who took no notice and continued stealing olives. After pressure from the HRWs, the soldier at the crossing continued telephoning. After about 15 minutes, more soldiers arrived. These were followed by an Israeli police jeep. The settler boys came out of the tree and a settler woman walked across the street to the settlement and brought back more women and children to the olive grove. Despite the presence of a soldier, the picking continued and at least one woman managed to take away some olives. Then an Israeli army officer and soldier arrived. These were followed by an Israeli police jeep, an army vehicle and a third police jeep. At least three cars driven by Jewish men came up the hill and parked. Eight orthodox Jewish men walked out of the settlement and down towards Beit Hadasa settlement. It was not clear if they had been involved in the theft of olives or not. In the end there were eight Israeli police, border police and soldiers. They were gradually able to get the Israeli settlers to return to the settlement. The settlers took the olives they collected with them. A clear case of theft.

Israeli settlers were chanting outside the settlement for about ten minutes. Then a number of settler children were driven away. Apparently they had been brought to Tel Rumeida settlement to take part in this illegal action. Israeli children under the age of twelve cannot be arrested here, no matter what they do. Their parents and adults who supervise them in such actions are not held responsible.

Chaos Caused by Israeli Checkpoint

by ISM Nablus, Wednesday 1st November

At one o’clock this afternoon, the Israeli checkpoint of Beit Iba, just west of Nablus City was closed for all vehicles and pedestrians attempting to pass it. Located at a junction between the villages of Beit Iba, Quusin and Deir Sharaf, this is a central thoroughfare to and from Nablus, especially for students and workers from Jenin and its surrounding villages.

At five o’clock in the afternoon, buses and trucks were queued up in two lines which were at least 500 meters long on each side of the checkpoint. Hundreds of men, women and children, subject to orders barked out by Israeli soldiers, were continuously forced to move from behind the turnstiles into the car lane and then back again. A group of students from Tubas had been waiting for at least three hours to go to their homes. Tension was rising as finally the soldiers started to open the checkpoint, allowing a slow trickle of women and children to go through. One hummer and three soldiers blocked the entrance to the pedestrian passageway on the west side of the checkpoint, forcing people to wait in the way of the traffic which created chaos.

Three jeeps were also stationed in the middle of the junction, blocking the road for ambulances, trucks and buses that were -with difficulty- squeezing past them. At least twenty soldiers milled about, pointing their machine-guns into the crowd to enforce their conflicting orders. At one point, an international human rights worker approached an officer from the “Humanitarian Division” of the Israeli occupation forces, standing to the side seemingly observing what was going on. When asked what he thought of the situation, the soldier answered “very bad”. As the human rights worker expressed a concern that someone could be shot at any moment, the soldier nodded in agreement but said “there is nothing I can do. I am not from here”.

At about six o’clock, the checkpoint opened up completely and the men, some of whom had been waiting to pass since two o’clock, were finally allowed to pass. Three men who had been detained a few hours earlier were released and the line of vehicles started to move. As a large coach full of al-Najah students were forced to step off their bus while it was being searched, one of the girls remarked that “this gives us no time to study, or to spend time with our families. I ate here today, at the checkpoint! It will take me another hour to get home and then I must go straight to bed. And tomorrow I have to go through here again. This is not a life.”

Fortunately, no one was hurt today. Similar closures frequently take place at the more than 518 checkpoints, guarded gates and other forms of road blocks located throughout the West Bank, and often lead to injuries or even death. These restrictions on freedom of movement cripple the economy and prevent people from being able to plan their daily lives – yet another aspect of the slow genocide orchestrated by the Israeli government and sanctioned by the international community’s silence.

International Accompaniment Makes a Difference in Zawata

by ISM Nablus, Wednesday 1st November

“What do you think of this place? Isn’t is beautiful?” The woman asking the question, a mother of four polished and polite children, looks at us expectantly. What can we say? Wadi Al-Khrazey on the outskirts of the 2,000 person village of Zawata, west of Nablus city, is not an immediately attractive place. The olive groves, made up of two long rows of trees rooted in red sand, are crammed in between a military road and a slope leading up to the notoriously violent Sabatash checkpoint (named after the Palestinian security force that used to man it) with its watchtower looming ominously on the highest hilltop.

Yet by the time the blue sky has been replaced by dark clouds weighted down by rain, and the donkey has tottered up and down the hillside on his spindly legs for the fourth time, the place seemed to transform. We can see gophers scurrying among the rocks, paths carefully trampled over by two hundred years worth of hooves and sandaled feet, and gnarled trunks of trees spiraling into branches lovingly trimmed to perfection. We know now that the military street used to be a railway track planned by the British colonial administration, and that it led from cities as exotic as Damascus and Baghdad to the ports of Haifa and Jaffa. We sit on the uppermost chair-like branches sprinkling olives on the people below while three young girls squeeze into a wheelbarrow singing the latest Arabic pop hits. This is truly a beautiful place that before long has a whole history of joys and sorrows ringing in our ears.

Last Wednesday, a few families tried to start picking olives from their trees along side the military road, with jeeps and hummers speeding past every 10 minutes. After only a couple of hours, the harvesters were chased off their land. Soldiers stepped out of their hummer, screamed at the people through megaphones to leave the area and fired several rounds into the air. Frightened for their own and their children’s lives, everyone left. Since then, people have been reluctant to return to their land without international accompaniment.

Today, three families and a group of internationals harvested every last olive from the area. It would, however, be wrong to say that the work proceeded without interruption. Every time a hummer passed by, one of the younger children’s knees would involuntarily buckle. As he ducked behind a bush, his father Maher Saleh smiled at us sadly. A father’s powers of consolation scorned. And again, we did not know what to say. Only last night, Israeli forces entered the village under the protection of darkness and abducted two young men from their homes. This is a regular occurrence that, apart from being horrific in itself, completely undermines parental authority and children’s general sense of security.

Come to Palestine! There is a great need for international accompaniment during the olive harvest – supporting the sense of civil resistance that has people out in their fields every single day reclaiming their rights to their land. Together, we can try to make sure that every last olive is picked and that the children are allowed to play among the olive trees in peace, if only for a day.