Human Rights Abuses & Looting in Nablus

David Watson

Two ISM activists from the USA heard horrifying reports from residents regarding human rights abuses in Nablus as Israeli Occupying Forces continued their offensive on the old city.

The house of Mr. Ayman Badia Abdul Hadi received a visit from the military at 4.00 am Monday morning. He and his family were reportedly made to stand in the street without any food, water or access to a toilet for the next sixteen hours. No exception was made for any of the family’s children, the youngest of whom has a baby which was held by Mr. Abdul Hadi and his wife throughout the ordeal. The soldiers gave no reason for the family’s harassment merely asking, “Where are the terrorists?”

When the family was unable to give a response the soldiers proceeded to ransack the family house.

The two ISM activists had come to pay a visit to the family in the morning but had been sent away by the military presence.

In a separate incident a deaf man’s house in Qarayoun Square was visited by Israeli soldiers on Monday morning. Mr Auni Mansour has six children, three of whom are also deaf. After making a search of the house the soldiers focused their attention on a locked cabinet holding family valuables. They blew the lock off the door and stole the money and gold possessions lying inside.

However they wanted to leave the family with a reminder of their visit. In a final act of petty spite they found four hearing aids belonging to Mr. Mansour and his three deaf children and laughed while they stamped them into pieces.

Ministry of the Interior appeals Susan Barclay’s release

by Michael, ISM Media Office

Today Susan Barclay telephoned the ISM Media Office from Mikhal Detention Center where she has been held by the Israeli authorities since her arrest at Howarra Checkpoint last Thursday. She informed me that the Israeli Ministry of the Interior had appealed against her release so she was not going to be free any time soon.

Despite her ordeal she said she was OK but would appreciate some books, phone cards and cigarettes (which the ISM has had delivered to her by an Israeli volunteer).

I told her of all the messages I’d received enquiring as to how people could help her and asked her what she wanted her supporters do regarding legal representation, publicity and lobbying for her release and she said she intended to fight her deportation every step of the way. She wanted to return to work in Nablus if at all possible and wanted those who expressed their support for her to raise as big a storm as possible not for her sake but for the sake of the Free Palestine for which she was being imprisoned.

Bethlehem nabbing

by Kristin Ess

Yesterday Israeli soldiers were standing in the middle of baba skak (the main intersection in Bethlehem) pointing guns at school children and screaming at them to go home. All the little kids here wear uniforms to school, and all the kids are just so short in these little dresses and sweaters. A foreigner who lives in Hebron told me he asked Israeli soldiers why they were pointing guns at school girls the other day, preventing them from going to their elementary school. They answered him, “because they’re terrorists.”

A young women named Neda wrote “Midnight Victim” after talking to her friend just now, the girl in Beit Sahour who just got out of Israeli jail. Israeli soldiers abducted 3 young women from Bethlehem – one from Deheisha Camp, one from Beit Jala, and one from Beit Sahour – two nights ago.

Midnight Victim

by Neda, Beit Sahour

It could happen very simply to any girl of us, and without any consideration to any international law or any humanitarian sense, one girl of my classmates was arrested while she was drowning in her innocent dreams, and has not any single political relation, in the middle of the night a tremendous number of Israeli soldiers, tanks and all kinds of weapons swept over Fida’s house.

Fida, whose mother died many years ago and lives with her old father, was arrested in justification that she is planning to a suicide bombing. They searched the house and turned it upside down while there is nothing to find accept some canned food which they kept for war [in case of curfews]. Fida and her old father were blindfolded in a very windy night and it was raining very hard. They didn’t allow her to take any jacket or blanket; they didn’t take care about anything and treated her like animals. She couldn’t hold on to all the awful things that were happening to her and her old father.

After they put her in jail with other two girls with same reasons they brought her one female soldier to deal and investigate, but it didn’t work and they couldn’t communicate despite there is many soldiers that speak Arabic – they intended to bother them as much as they could. Fida was already sick with the flu and sick physically besides the nightmare they brought to her and after one day they let them go and told them that they mixed up with other Fida…they think.

And this could happen to any Palestinian girl, and we are supposed to take it easy.

Experiences in Violence vs. Kindness

by Megan

Ok… here is what happened in Bethlehem.

I went to Jerusalem, to the Damascus Gate, and took a cab to a side route into Bethlehem because the town was under curfew so no one could enter or leave. I hiked up a small rocky hill and to the other side where the cabs waited to take the people who were sneaking back in to their homes. I was met by the trainers of the group I am working for and not long after went to the house where I was staying. We had made signs at the office announcing that international presence was at the house in hopes that if the military came back they would attempt to evacuate the house before destroying it.

The military had broken into the house at midnight the evening before and tore it apart, broke all the windows and told the family they would be back to demolish it as an extra punishment for one of the sons who had lived there who was now in prison. The family spent the night moving their belongings into neighboring houses and distributing the women and children to other houses in the refugee camp. At this point I would like to point out that it is illegal to punish the families and friends of prisoners and suicide bombers and to come in and destroy their homes to punish someone who has already been punished. I stayed in the home with another observer listening for tanks. The military never showed back up. They often don’t. They come into houses and scare the families and cause them to evacuate and then wait for months to take any action. For the most part when they really intend to tear houses down they just arrive and shoot into the house and give the family a few minutes to leave before they tear it down on the spot. What they did the other night to this family was just for the sake of terrorizing them.

I spent a lot of time with the women and their children. I can’t help but think what it must be like for a child to grow up with this. In a discussion with one of the men of the camp I apologized for my horrible – and I mean horrible – Arabic and he said “they don’t teach Arabic in your schools, they teach English in ours so we should be able to talk to you but half the time our towns were under curfew and we couldn’t go to school and that’s why our English is so bad.” This man was in his late thirties… This has been going on for years. Will the children here ever be able to go to school regularly? I spent a lot of time with the school kids in the house helping them study their English, going through their school books with them.. I wish I had been there long enough to have really helped. I left Bethlehem after two days with the family. They asked me to return before the end of my trip but I doubt I will have time.

I am now in Tulkarem, also in the West Bank. The trip here took a few hours. They had raised curfew in Bethlehem from 10am to 4pm. This is not for the sake of being kind to the people who live there but to give the people they are looking for a chance to return to their homes so when curfew begins again they will have a better chance of catching them.

On the bus ride to Tulkarem we were stopped and all the men had to evacuate the bus and wait in the rain for the military to check their id’s. After they had done that a soldier entered the bus and checked out all the seats and the women. He pointed his gun at all of us as he checked our seats then he left. The path into town was covered in mud, horses and mules splashed mud on everyone in their attempts to get up the hill. One woman fell in a large puddle but as is the custom here everyone stopped and helped her and held her hand the rest of the way.

I will write more about my experiences here in Tulkarem later, but would like to take a second to point out the immense kindness of everyone I have met here. Everyone knows who we are and why we are here and are thankful for it. The economy here is in a horrible state of affairs because people cannot go to work outside of town and often with curfew people cannot open their businesses yet when I go to the market to buy fruit and vegetables they don’t want to accept my money. Anytime I have looked even close to being lost, which has been a lot, yet not as much as I expected, people are rushing to help, to walk me or drive me to where I need to go and oddly enough for what they have to deal with here on a daily basis they are always smiling and laughing.

The mother of the house I stayed at in Bethlehem gave me a pillow covering she embroidered and apologized for not having time to make one personally for me but having to give me one she made months ago. Her daughter embroidered my initial in it and hers as well. I tried to say no but it is rude here to not take what is offered to you. I am unfortunately unable to express the immense effect this kindness has had on me, I am just amazed at the love these people have for anyone not attacking them after generations of violence and abuse.