More Settler Attacks in Hebron, While Soldiers and Police Watch

by Andrew

At around 1.20pm on Thursday the 27th of October I received a phone call from one of the three internationals who had come to the aid of a Palestinian schoolgirl near Qurtuba School, and who were now under attack from a mob of settlers.

I made my way quickly to the end of Shuhada Street, stopping at the soldiers’ post there. All the buildings immediately beyond this post on the left are the Beit Hadassah settlement buildings. On the right, a narrow stone staircase leads up to a hillside path which leads to Qurtuba School. By this time the three internationals and the Palestinian child had been removed from the area by the police and army.

I stayed on Shuhada Street and began walking with the Palestinians to the end of the street, waiting at the bottom of the stone staircase until they had reached the apparent safety of the hillside path. On one occasion during the next hour four settler children followed me back along Shuhada Street, throwing stones at me. I was also spat at and shoved in the chest by two 18 year old settler males. I was told by the soldiers who were standing on the street that the Israeli Army were unable to ensure my safety.

At 2.30pm I walked with three Palestinian women to the bottom of the staircase, waiting until they had reached the top before I left. Seconds after I turned to leave, I heard several loud crashes and screams from the top of the staircase. I turned to see at least two teenage settler girls who had jumped up from behind a wall next to the path the Palestinian women were now on, throwing bottles and stones at them. The women retreated several metres to the top of the staircase, but were now effectively stranded there as four or five settler men (one of whom was brandishing a power drill) had now approached the bottom of the staircase.

I shouted to the soldiers to do something and went to join the women who were still trapped at the top of the stairs, but out of range of the missiles which continued to fly in their direction. The soldiers remained standing on the street with the settler men.

Five Palestinian kids had now arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and were being prevented from passing by the soldiers and settlers there. As I made my way back down the stairs to join the kids, the settler with the power drill began waving it in the air, shouting. He then charged at the kids, chasing them away. The soldiers continued to stand on the street.

Two police officers then arrived who despite requests to assist the stranded women continued to do nothing for 10 minutes until the settler girls who were throwing the rocks and bottles had left. They then went up to the women to escort them along the path. The soldiers continued to stand on the street.

Bil’in Prisoner Solidarity Demonstration Report

based on a report by IMEMC

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber coated bullets at a non-violent protest against the Separation Wall in Bil’in village, near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday.

The protest started midday Friday after dozens of residents, peace activists and representatives of Physicians without Borders, marched towards a construction site of the Separation Wall while wearing mock handcuffs in a creative protest that symbolized the captivity of the Bil’in residents who have been arrested in recent military invasions of the village.

Abdullah Abu Rahme, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, told the IMEMC that this protest was carried out to express the rejection of residents and international peace activists to the recent attacks and invasions carried out by the army against the village, and to protest against the construction of the Separation Wall.

The Popular Committee in Bil’in reported that the main aim of the demonstration this week was to protest the Israeli invasions of the village. It also aimed to draw attention to the arrests which aim to scare the residents and the activists from taking action against the Wall.

Abu Rahme also said that soldiers carried lists which included names of dozens of residents from the village. Soldiers claim that those residents are wanted by Israeli security for their activities in the protests against the Wall.

The protestors carried banners which read “we are all wanted, from 1 – 2600”, the number of 2600 symbolizes the number of residents living in Bil’in.

The protestors also carried banners in Arabic, Hebrew and English, reading: “Date 20-2-2005, penalty; uprooting thee trees, arrest and injuring the residents, night invasions, curfew and siege”. The date refers to the date when Israel started bulldozing the residents’ orchards in order to construct the Separation Wall.

One Israeli peace activist was detained by the soldiers on Friday; two Israeli protestors and one Palestinian were injured after the army fired rubber-coated bullets. Dozens of residents and activists suffered the effects of inhaling tear-gas fired by the army.

Abu Rahme reported that soldiers and under-cover units of the Israeli army have recently been invading the village on an almost daily basis, and breaking into dozens of homes in an attempt to intimidate the residents.

Dozens of residents were arrested in the village since it started conducting its peaceful protests against the Wall. Last Wednesday, Israeli soldiers invaded the village after midnight and forced dozens of families out of their homes after breaking into them.

“Today’s protest was also in support of the detainees who were arrested in the village during the military raids”, Abu Rahme said.

Earlier on Friday, Israeli soldiers barred reporters and students of Bier Zeit University from entering the village to participate in the protest.

The residents aided several journalists in crossing into the village after the army closed all of its entrances; the journalists were escorted through the orchards and hills.

Also, protestors carried the names of the eleven residents who were arrested last week in the village, and demanded that the army release them.

Soldiers closed the three entrances of the village and installed military roadblocks early in the morning,. The three entrances link the village with Kharbatah Bani Hareth village, Saffa village, and the village if Kafer Ni’ma.

Israeli Soldiers, Police and Settlers Block Olive Harvest In Yanoun, Nablus Region

by two ISM activists in Nablus

Our experience of the harvest started in Yanoun village, Nablus region at 7am on the 26th of October. We accompanied two old Palestinian women in a field just down the hill from the Itamar settlement.

Half an hour after we started, a settler came and tried to get rid of us. He was very aggressive and called the army as well as a settler friend.

When the soldiers came they told us to go away too. During the discussion, a second settler came and shouted at us. He also tried to steal a bag of the Palestinian’s olives.

At this point, a lot more people arrived: more soldiers, policemen, border police, some kind of civil co-ordinators and two more settlers armed with an M16 rifle and a camera.

The heated discussions went back and forth – no one was quite sure who was allowed to be in which places. The Israeli group Rabbis For Human Rights arrived and joined in the debate. A small group of Palestinians quietly returned to picking olives while the soldiers and police were distracted.

Permission from the DCO did not arrive and we decided with the two Palestinian women to try again the next day.

The next day, we returned to the same field to make sure that the Palestinians there were not picking alone. Again, we found the police, the army and the Border Police. In the same place, a settler was also stealing olives, picking them for himself. The police stopped him and said to us that we could not be here today and that they would arrest anyone that tried to harvest for the whole day. They left together with the settler, perhaps to drink coffee together in the settlement.

We continued the harvest in other Yanoun fields.

Four More Arrests in Bil’in; Further Arrests Resisted by Villagers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Israeli soldiers invaded Bil’in last night for the fourth time in six days. A group of about 20 Border Police arrived in jeeps and arrested four non-violent Palestinian activists who they accused of damaging the fence, including an expectant father, two brothers and a 16 year old boy. Afterwards, a group of regular military came in mostly on foot. The soldiers said they had pictures of further Palestinians who they wanted to arrest, but a group of at least 30 villagers came out on the streets singing and chanting, in reaction to which the soldiers left. For the second night in three days, non-violent resistance was successfully used to oppose an Israeli military invasion of Bil’in.

The names of the new arrestees are:

Basem Ahmed Issa Yaseen, 28 (an expectant father, with two children)
Khalid Shokat alKatib, 20
Baasil Shokat alKatib, 21 (brothers)
Mohammend Abdel Fateh Burnat, 16

These four arrests are in addition to the previous arrests of eleven Palestinian non-violent activists, including a sixteen year old child and three brothers from one family. Only one of them, who had been arrested by the soldiers in order to pressure his brother to turn himself in, has been released so far.

On the 21st of October, in an act of non violent resistance villagers from Bil’in began to implement the decision of the International Court of Justice that Israel’s illegal wall should be dismantled and removed metal posts meant to serve as foundation for the wall on Bil’in land. The Israeli military reacted to this act with arrests and distribution of a text in Arabic warning people not to take part in direct action against the wall. In the Arabic text the army claimed that “every Friday for the last six months, the IDF has allowed the people of the village to conduct non-violent protests against the construction of the wall on their lands”, despite regularly firing on non-violent demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets. The text concluded with the threat that “the acts of the people violating the law will disturb your daily lives”.

For the last ten months, Bil’in has launched an ongoing non-violent campaign against the annexation barrier supported by hundreds of Israeli and International activists, and met by violence from the Israeli army. Israel designed the current route of the barrier to annex 60% of Bil’in’s agricultural land, and expand the settlement of Modi’in Elite. Plans for Modi’in Elite’s expansion have yet to be approved by the Israeli government.
For more Information:
Abdullah AbuRahme, Coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements: 0547258210
ISM media office 02-2971824

“Demolish all the illegally built homes in the West Bank” – Israeli Chief of Staff General Dan Halutz

PRESS RELEASE
by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)

ICAHD notices with concern the statement by Chief of Staff, Gen. Dan Halutz, as reported in Ma’ariv (October 26, 2005), in which he is quoted as saying that in response to the recent suicide attack in Hadera Market he would implement various responses. Amongst responses he proposes is “to demolish all the illegally built homes in the West Bank, as those houses are used as shelter by terrorists.”

In the West Bank there are thousands of illegally built homes, as a result of the deliberate policies of the Israeli government’s “Civil Administration” (the Army), which prevents Palestinians from receiving building permits, and even demolishes in Area B.

Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is well known as a man without conscience, an extremist hardliner, whom we remember as having given an order to use a one-ton bomb on a house in a densely populated area, to kill a militant leader. His remarks after the operation even shocked judges in Israel’s Supreme Court: that he “sleeps well at night” even though 14 civilians were killed during that notorious operation, including many innocent women and children.

Even though we understand that the Chief of Staff will be unable to demolish literally “thousands of homes,” we are certain that he will make sure to demolish many homes in revenge for attacks, whether now or in future.

We call on the international community to demand that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stop these diabolical projects and that Israel be forced to abide by international law which forbids an occupying power to demolish the homes of innocent civilians.

For further details:

Meir Margalit, Co-ordinator: 0544-345 503