Soldiers Occupy Houses in Balata


Israeli soldiers shot the ceiling of a home when they entered to set up snipers inside

by Anna

Early Wednesday morning, August 9, soldiers invaded Balata Refugee Camp. They began the operation by occupying 2 homes. The mother in the first house heard them outside the door preparing to blow it open, but jumped out of bed screaming “No, wait! Just let me open it!” Twenty soldiers and one spy entered the home and woke both of the sons by nudging them and shouting in Hebrew, “wake up!” The sons opened their eyes to see the barrel of an M16 a foot from their face. The entire family was rounded up and stuck in one room where they were held without being able to use the restroom and without water for 3 hours. The Isaeli military was using this house to monitor the target of the operation, the house across the alley. As this was happening the soldiers also occupied another home in order to set up snipers in the flat as it was overlooking the alley.

Meanwhile in the street, there were about 70 soldiers and 4 spies waiting outside the target house. They called for everyone to come out of that house. When no one immediately immerged they began throwing sound bombs and grenades through the windows. The family was forced out. Four of the young men were arrested and taken to Huwara detention center. The rest of the family, including an elderly mother and small grandchildren were forced to wait in the street as the soldiers destroyed many of their possessions. They searched with dogs while continuing to explode grenades. They left about 5am. This is not the first time the army has come and destroyed the home. On May 18, 2003 they came in the middle of the night and blew it up and a nearby home as well, despite the efforts of ISMers who had chained themselves inside. The army arrested them and then proceeded to blow up the house. The mother says, “Every time we rebuild, they destroy.”


Soldiers trashed the house before they left

The family has seven sons. One is dead, two are in jail and now they have taken the remaining four. The army has said that one of the remaining four is “wanted” and for what they did not say. “There are currently 1,000 Palestinians being held without charges or trial, and 8,000 being held after military courts have convicted them, almost always on the basis of confessions which were extracted by torture”, Norman Finkelstein stated in a recent interview on DemocracyNow.

They released 3 of the sons in the early morning. One of the sons, Ahmed, 28, had already served time in prison when he was 14 for being wanted and since then has been shot 5 times by the Israeli army. Once they made him get out of his taxi and then shot him in the head and hand. He was also shot during a nonviolent support ralley for the prisoners on hunger strike and has been shot just being outside in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had just returned yesterday from a hospital in Jordon where he was seeking treatment for his hand. As he explained this to one of the soldiers last night, the soldier looked at his hand and pushed his finger in the hole where the bullet hand been. Then he slapped the cuffs tightly across the portion of his wrist that had been deformed from the injury. After cuffing him, he was beaten with guns, batons and fists.

There is still no word on the son in detention. They have 18 days to return him or renew the order.

Bil’in to Protest Israel’s New Style of Killing

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Tomorrow, August 11, 2006, at 1pm the people of Bil’in will conduct another demonstration against the wall and war crimes Israel is committing daily in Lebanon and Gaza. With the support of Israelis and internationals they will carry five coffins with fake, bloodied bodies inside representing a family of one mother, one father and three children. The coffins will read: “The New Style of Killing, but the Israeli Way”, referring to how the Israeli army not only kills the fathers, but the mothers and children as well.

The Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements has organized weekly demonstrations since January 2005. Throughout their struggle Israelis and internationals have been supportive in resisting army incursions into the village, imposed curfew, and the wall that has estranged them from 60% of their farmland.

For more information:
Mohammed Katib 054 557 3285
Abudullah Abu Rahma 054 725 8210

Settlers Attack Internationals in Suseya

A woman from Sweden, Gabby, and a man from Austria, Sebastian, were kicked, pushed, jumped on, and bitten by settlers while they walked on Palestinian farmland the evening of August 8th.

The internationals live in Suseya in order to accompany farmers to their land, provide support for the community, and prevent attacks from settlers. They were living in a valley where eight Palestinian families live, and staked their tent on the Palestinian-owned land nearest to the Israeli settlement of Suseya.

At about 7pm on the 8th, two internationals and one Palestinian were confronted by two Israeli settlers, with their sheep at first. One of the settlers began yelling and charged at the internationals and the Palestinian. The settler attacked the internationals by kicking and pushing, as the internationals attempted to document the attack. The settler and the internationals both backed away, but the internationals noticed that the settler was calling for others.

Soon after, six additional settlers (two of whom were armed with guns), and one Israeli soldier appeared. Three settlers jumped on the Austrian man, grabbing his camera. The settlers grabbed the Austrian man by the throat, hit and pushed him. They kicked him in the back and another settler bit him on his hand. While the Austrian man was pinned to the ground, the Swedish woman appealed for help from the Israeli soldier, who appeared to be escorting the settlers. The soldier responded in English, “I don’t speak English.”

The settlers managed to steal the video camera that contained the footage of the first attack, before retreating. The internationals called the police to file a report, and while the police initially agreed to meet, they later claimed that they were unable to find the area and did not respond.
“I have to admit, I am really scared,” said the Austrian man. “I mean, there is no law here, it is just gang violence and I don’t know what those people want, or what they will do to me.”

Israelis Arrested for Blocking the Road to Air force Base

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For arabic version click here


Direct action against the war, Ramat David Israeli Air Forces base, 8/8/06, Israel
For more pictures click here

Today, August 8th, tens of leftist Israeli activists are blocking the road to the Israeli air force Ramat David area, close to Haifa. Police have already arrested more than ten activists.

The group issued a press release stating their motives which is translated below:

The international law requires of every human being the duty of resistance to war crimes using every possible means. At this moment, when the rockets are falling, the war crimes are committed, the victims buried, it is time to fight to stop the war.

The activists are carrying a clear message: Stop civilian killings; Stop the war crimes; Stop the Israeli government criminal policies.

It is the duty of every soldier to refuse to serve orders which are war crimes. The support by the Israeli people of this criminal government means they are participants in committing these war crimes.

The number of dead is continuously increasing. The attacks by Israeli air force are planting death, destruction and hate. In Palestine, the occupation continues killing and torturing Palestinians. The civilians of Northern Israel are used as human shields and are paying their lives as a price to serve the ego of generals who are even unable to acknowledge failure and defeat.

The war crimes are committed everyday, hundreds of kids have been killed. The number of those killed is over a thousand. There are tens of thousands of injured and over one million refugees and Israel continues the air strikes, the killing, the destruction, and the annihilation in order to prove who is powerful in the region.

We repeat and we say what is known for everyone; there is no military solution. We are calling on the Israeli government and its people to wake up and behave in a moral way.

We must stop the war machine and the destruction. we demand an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners, and the release the political prisoners in Israel.

for more information:
0544 486 667
052 355 4815
0546 327 736

How can you send love with a missile?

writing from Shatila refugee camp, Beirut, Electronic Lebanon, 6 August 2006

My name is Usama Abu el-Sheikh, and I am from Tabaria, Palestine. I am of course a refugee and have never been to my hometown in Palestine though I learned about it from my grandparents and I read some books about it. I have never been to Tabaria, but I am Tabarian, and will remain so, as I am from Shatila too and will remain so. Although I always dreamt of corresponding with my country and my hometown to see if I still have relatives there, I was unable to because there is no mail between Lebanon and the State of Israel. Ironically, only the missiles of Hizbullah can be sent to Israel. We are not allowed to return, but the missiles go where we cannot. But how can you send love to Tabaria with a missile?

I am nineteen now, and I grew up in Shatila camp. As a child I wanted to be many things, sometimes a doctor, other times an engineer or a journalist. As a child, you know, I could dream whatever I wanted to and I wanted to be many things. As I was growing up though, my dreams started to be hit by my reality, by my being a refugee in Lebanon where we have no civil rights. Being the oldest son of a widowed mother with seven children and no one to care for after the death of my dad when I was just seven years old, I lived a real struggle inside. My father’s words as he was on his death bed asking me to “care for the family” are words that keep echoing in my head. I got to be the “man of the household” without choosing it, without knowing it. As a child, it was ok, but as I was getting to be a teenager, I wanted always to fulfill this responsibility, always. I was not able to stand the fact that I’m not fulfilling my responsibility as the head of the household. My mum, like all Palestinian mothers, wanted me to get my education. For her it was the way to help the family out, because the identity “educated” is kind of a compensation of our lost identity as Palestinians — not lost in terms of our own feelings but in terms of how the world deals with us. It was hard to focus though, especially because I couldn’t see a future. How could I be a doctor in a country where we have no rights? So I left school, and now I work in a telephone calling shop in the camp.

Maybe you are wondering why I am writing to you about my personal life at a time of war. I just wanted to express that this war reinforced my ideas that what we need is a collective solution for everyone, not individual solutions such as are offered here and there. Just as being “educated” will not replace my loss of identity, a solution for Palestine, separate from Lebanon or Syria or Iraq is not going to be possible. I sit in the camp and think about how much effort is put to separate us all from each other. And now we have the F-16s over our heads joining us together all in one camp. I do not mean Shatila camp, but a much bigger camp for all those whose lives are cheap in this world, the camp of those who die like bugs, the camp for those on whom they test their weapons. As proud as I am of Lebanon’s resistance, I do not think I will be returning to Palestine soon. I will keep sending my love to my hometown in Palestine. I know that the world never hears our cries. But they do hear the roar of the missiles. Can you send love on a missile?

With love from Shatila.