International Solidarity Movement - Page 317 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Firms active in the settlements are facilitating abuses of human rights – UN report says

24th January 2014 | European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine | Brussels, Belgium

The UN report is the result of a mission investigating Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Information gathered by the mission shows that private firms have enabled, facilitated and profited, directly and indirectly, from the construction and growth of the settlements. It identified a number of business activities that raise particular concerns about abuses of human rights. They include:

• The supply of equipment and materials facilitating the construction of settlements and Israel’s wall in the West Bank;

•The supply of surveillance and identification equipment for settlements, the wall and military checkpoints;

• The supply of equipment for the demolition of housing and property, including the destruction of farms, greenhouses, olives groves and crops,;

• The supply of security services, equipment and materials to businesses operating in settlements;

• The provision of transport and other services to support the maintenance of settlements;

• Banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and business development;

• The use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes;

• Pollution, dumping and transfer of waste to Palestinian villages;

• The way Palestinian financial and economic markets are held captive by Israel, as well as practices that disadvantage Palestinian businesses, including through restrictions on movement, and administrative and legal constraints.

According to the report, companies active in the settlements are fully aware that they are abusing international law and contributing to violations of human rights.

It also states that Israel labels all its export products as originating from Israel, including those wholly or partially produced in settlements. Some companies operating in settlements have been accused of hiding the original place of production of their products.

The mission also notes that some businesses have pulled out of settlements because it harms their image and might entail legal consequences.

The mission urges private companies to cease operating in the settlements and calls upon all Member States to comply with their obligations under international law and to assume their responsibilities in their relationship to a State breaching peremptory norms of international law – specifically not to recognise an unlawful situation resulting from Israel’s violations.

The report also notes that private companies must assess the human rights impact of their activities and take all necessary steps – including by terminating their business interests in the settlements – to ensure they are not adversely impacting the human rights of the Palestinian People. The Mission calls upon all Member States to take appropriate measures to ensure that business enterprises domiciled in their territory and/or under their jurisdiction, including those owned or controlled by them, that conduct activities in or related to the settlements respect human rights throughout their operations.

You can read the full report here

Israeli warplanes kill member of Palestinian armed group and his cousin in Beit Hanoun, Gaza

23rd January 2014 | Palestinian Centre for Human Rights | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

In an extra-judicial execution attempt, on Wednesday 22 January 2014, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a civilian car in Beith Hanoun, Northern Gaza. As a result, both passengers, a member of a Palestinian armed group and his cousin, were killed immediately.

According to investigations conducted by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), at approximately12:05 p.m., an Israeli drone fired a missile at a civilian Citroen car. Ahmed Mohammed Jom’aah Khalil al-Za’anin (21), member of an armed group, and his cousin Mohammed Yousif Ahmed al-Za’anin (22), both from the al-Sekah area in Beit Hanoun were inside the car which was parked in front of the house of Ahmed’s father. As a result, the car was completely destroyed, and the bodies were maimed completely. The house of Mohammed Jom’aah al-Za’anin, the victim’s late father, was severely damaged with windows being smashed, a number of doors being broken and the walls being cracked.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that Ahmed al-Za’anin was targeted and killed. He added that Al-Za’anin had been responsible for launching rockets over the past few days at the Israeli towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip and was also responsible for planning to carry out military operations against military and civilian Israeli targets.

This attack is the second of its kind in 2014. On Sunday 19 January 2014, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a motorbike that was being driven by an activist of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) in the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalya. The activist was seriously wounded, while a passing child was injured.

Israeli forces have used drones in attacks against targets in the Gaza Strip previously. According to PCHR’s documentation, since 2004, 640 Palestinians, including 395 civilians (including 184 children and 14 women), have been killed and 440 others, including 402 civilians (including 365 children and 4 women) have been wounded in attacks carried out by Israeli drones.

PCHR is deeply concerned over the latest Israeli escalation, and:

1. Strongly condemns such Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), which reflects Israel’s disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians;

2. Reiterates condemnation for extra-judicial executions committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian activists, which serve to escalate tension in the region and threaten the lives of Palestinian civilians; and

3. Calls upon the international community to immediately act to stop these crimes, and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in the oPt.

Palestinians gather next to a destroyed car after it was hit by an Israeli air strike in Beit Hanoun. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images — Palestinians gather next to a destroyed car after it was hit by an Israeli air strike in Beit Hanoun (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

Photos and video: Israeli forces’ gunfire blocks Palestinian farmland in Gaza

22nd January 2014 | Resistenza Quotidiana, Sil | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sV8WwE0-SY

Since the Zionist occupation forces’ bulldozers had destroyed part of Khaled Qudaih’s field in Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, he and his family went out to sow it again. The military responded with about half an hour of gunfire, threatening to strike Qudaih directly if he had not moved away.

Qudaih had sown wheat a little less than a month ago. It was growing, it was green and in May would be ripe. On 19th January, he went to his lands with his family to spray fertilizer. Samiha, his twelve year old daughter, wanted to get closer to the separation barrier, but she knew that it was forbidden : mamnua in Arabic.

She came as close as she could, until she reached foreign activists with yellow jackets. She approached and, with the voice of a twelve-year-old child, with the slightly clumsy behavior of those approaching foreigners for the first time, explained that the land is forbidden to her .

“I am forbidden to approach the barrier more than this,” she said. “Over there, there are the Israelis and they shoot. That land is prohibited (mamnua). It is my family’s land and is prohibited. Sometimes the Israelis shoot even when we are away from the barrier, but today it is quiet. Will you come back when we will harvest? For the harvesting, the whole family will come. There will also be my grandfather, uncles … a few days ago the bulldozers came and destroyed this plot of land that we had sown. Now it is destroyed.”

It gives a certain feeling to hear that horrible word mamnua from a young girl referring to her family’s land, “prohibited.”

In any case, on the 19th, fertilizer was sprayed fertilizer and there was no Zionist aggression.

Qudaih, however, was not entirely satisfied.

There was the land he had planted at the edge of the field, beside the barrier, which had been destroyed by occupation bulldozers. Even that was his land. The Zionists had no right to prevent him from cultivating it, to prevent him from reaping its benefits. He would be back the next day to reclaim it. That land could not be mamnua, “forbidden,” because it was his land, because he had also sown there, because the grain was used to make bread for his family, because the stems and bran are used to feed the sheep in his backyard , and they produce milk to drink and wool for warmth. No, not even the extreme limit of his land, 50 meters from the barrier, could be mamnua land.

So Qudaih promised that the next day he would return. He would come back with hoes to clear the ground , and with the donkey and plow for after sowing. If it was not under Zionist threat he would do it all with the tractor. But not here. This area is too close to the separation barrier. The Zionists would not let him use a tractor.

Qudaih’s case is not an isolated one. Indeed, one can almost say that he is lucky, because usually, it is impossible to approach the less than 300 meters from the separation barrier. This is not only to attack the freedom of movement of Palestinians in their own land, but also their right to work, and , even worse, their food self-sufficiency. The Gaza Strip’s population density is among the highest in the world and, with its demographic explosion in progress, the enclave is becoming increasingly dependent on external aid, unable to meet its own needs.

Qudaih reaches his land with his wife, his wife’s sister, and three of his sons. Wael, no older than ten years, is also among them. Some foreign activists accompany them. A donkey cart carries the seeds, hoes and plow; Qudaih leaves the cart at the edge of the field, farthest from the barrier, and carries everything by hand. The Zionists cannot claim they could not see what was on the cart, and nothing, neither the donkey nor the material it brought could pose a threat to Israel’s security or the safety of the soldiers of the occupation forces.

Qudaih and his sons aggressively work the ground with hoes. After about ten minutes a Jeep arrives. A few seconds after it stops, the Zionists shoot a few rounds of gunfire, without any warning, without any provocation toward them. Qudaih and his sons, including Wael, are not intimidated and continue to work. Their land cannot be mamnua just because a racist and unjust occupation force has decided so. Who is stronger, the occupation forces with all their weapons and armor, or these farmers armed with hoes? The older children continue to pave the way. Khaled holds the plow in the right position while Wael drives the donkey. It takes a long time to plow the land with the donkey, because it cannot pull a heavy plow, only a small plow, which must go back and forth several times.

While the farmers continue to work, several Jeeps pass on the other side of the barrier. They continue to shoot every now and then, just to remind that they are not gone, and that the land is mamnua. But Qudaih and his family do not move away until a soldier exits a Jeep. He remains a few minutes hidden behind a mound of earth, created to hide the occupation forces,, and then comes out shouting, in Arabic with a strong Hebrew accent, that they have to leave otherwise he will have shoot to hit them.

While it is nice to think that the presence of internationals helped ensure the soldier got the first shot in the air, and that it has discouraged them from directly targeting Qudaih, on the other hand, it is frustrating to realize that if this happens it is only because the world is fundamentally racist , and a witness from the West is more inconvenient than a Palestinian witness.

Meanwhile, the soldier continues to shoot. Not only single shots, but also bursts of gunfire. At first Qudaih continues to plow the land. Then he must desist: He has a family, he can not afford to get hurt, he needs be able to continue working. Then, half an hour after the first rounds of gunfire, all of us return to where the donkey had been left, with the cart, in safer territory.A few grains of wheat remain on a spot that Qudaih has not been able to plow, in a Palestinian land where a violent occupying force said mamnua.

Six arrests in three days in South Hebron Hills

January 20th, 2014 | Operation Dove | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Between January 18-20, four Palestinians and two Operation Dove (OD) volunteers were arrested by the Israeli police and army while Palestinian shepherds were grazing their flocks.

On January 18 at 1:04 p.m. seven settlers came out from the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), entered the Humra valley while two of them crossed the Palestinian-owned fields, trespassing in an area to which entry is prohibited for Israeli citizens. In the meanwhile two Palestinian shepherds, accompanied by three OD volunteers, were grazing their sheep in this area. At 1:14 p.m. the shepherds left for their homes and encountered another group of five settlers. After one minute Israeli soldiers arrived, telling the settlers to move away and declaring the area a closed military zone. Subsequently arriving to the area were an additional nine settlers, several Palestinians and Israeli activists, the Israeli police, Border Police and officials from the District Coordination Office (DCO). Once the Israeli forces start to push the people away from the area the shepherd, Mfaddi Ahmed Rabai, refused to leave the area, claiming his right to remain on his own land. While a policeman and a group of soldiers tried to arrest him, he collapsed on the ground. At 1:43 p.m. the Israeli army forced everyone to leave the area. Palestinians, Israeli activists and OD volunteers slowly came back to At Tuwani. The Israeli police arrested Mfaddi Ahmed Rabai and brought him to the Kiryat Arba police station before the ambulance arrived to check his health. Rabai was released after some five hours of detention.

On January 19 five Palestinian shepherds from Umm Al Kheer and Tuba villages were grazing their flocks in the Umm Zeitouna valley, accompanied by two OD volunteers. At 10:58 a.m. an army jeep arrived and three soldiers chased the shepherds along the valley. After several minutes the soldiers were situated very close to a Palestinian child, so an OD volunteer placed himself between them. The soldier then forcibly took the passport of the OD volunteer. Afterwards the same soldier caught a Palestinian man and asked the other OD volunteer to give him his passport, but he refused. The soldier threaten the OD volunteers with arrest and ordered the other soldiers to bring him to the jeep. The soldiers, the OD volunteers and the Palestinian walked toward a gravel road inside Ma’on. Once there they encountered three settlers, including the settlement’s security chief, and two policemen. The police officers collected every detail about what happened and declared that the OD volunteers and the Palestinian were under military arrest. At 12:40 p.m. the army brought them to the Kiryat Arba police station by jeep. Those arrested waited several hours inside the police station without knowing the charges against them. At around 5:45 p.m. the Palestinian shepherd was released after the policeman took his fingerprints. The OD volunteers were released at around 8 p.m. after been interrogated for 45 minutes total.

On January 20 at around 8:20 a.m. two Palestinian children from Umm Al Kheer were chased by Israeli soldiers while leading their flocks to the grazing areas in the nearby valleys. Meanwhile another Palestinian went up the hill facing the village to tape this chase. To that hill arrived two settlers, three soldiers, seven women from the Palestinian village and at 8:44 a.m. the Israeli police also arrived. The security chief of Karmel settlement told the police that two women on the hill tried to stone him. After half an hour the police arrested the Palestinian women and brought them to the Kiryat Arba police station. They were released at 3:35 p.m. without any charge.

The villages of At Tuwani and Umm Al Kheer are situated in the South Hebron Hills, defined as area C. According to the Oslo accords, area C is part of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and security control. As like many of the Palestinian villages located in area C, At Tuwani and Umm Al Kheer suffer from settlers and military intimidation and violence. As a result, the Palestinian residents encounter great difficulties in accessing their own lands for their everyday farming activities.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the incident: click here

For further information:
Operation Dove, 054 99 25 773

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

Photo by Operation Dove

Peaceful protest ends in deportation and imprisonment

20th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine

On Saturday 18^th January during a peaceful protest in the Jordan Valley, 19-year-old Ahmad Walid Atatreh, a Palestinian activist and 24-year-old Sven W, a German activist who lives in Switzerland, were arrested and beaten after a march held in Jiftlik Adam Junction. Ahmad is a law student, studying at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem.

The march in Jiftlik was organized in protest against a legislation bill recently approved in the Knesset to annex the Jordan Valley to the current state of Israel. While the Israeli government declares that the move is purely for security reasons, the large number of illegal agricultural settlements and theft of Palestinian water rights demonstrate that the motives are largely economic.

Almost 95% of the Jordan Valley lies in Area C, under full Israeli civil and military control. Palestinian Bedouin herders suffer repeated demolitions of their homes and animal shelters, and water tanks are frequently confiscated. A large section of the area is reserved as a firing zone and residents are often forcibly removed from their homes to make way for military exercises.

Approximately 60 people gathered in the Jordan Valley and began a protest holding banners and chanting against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. As the march ended, Israeli forces invaded the area and began to arrest Palestinian demonstrators. Sven W and a British volunteer succeeded in stopping the detention of a Palestinian youth and in the process were both arrested by the Israeli army.

The two international activists were violently pushed to the ground by an Israeli soldier and handcuffed. The British activist managed to escape detention, whilst Sven was blindfolded and forced to kneel on the ground.

One Israeli soldier purposefully pushed Sven’s face in dirty water before taking him behind a military jeep and repeatedly kicking him in the ribs. Ahmad was also beaten after his arrest and received injuries to his knee. The British activist received a similar assault before escaping detention.

During the arrests, Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition into the air, and on several occasions pointed their rifles at protesters’ faces.

Sven and Ahmad were blindfolded for 3 hours and were driven to an Israeli military base. While they were blindfolded, Israeli forces attempted to intimidate and frighten the activists by pointing guns in their faces.

At the military base Sven was told he was a “terrorist” and was arrested because he “threw stones”.

Sven is committed to non-violent resistance and during this particular demonstration, no stones were thrown.

Both activists were taken to a ‘medical’ room in the military base where their blindfolds were briefly removed, although their handcuffs remained. Sven told the Israeli soldiers that he had a headache after being unable to see for such a long period of time, and also that his ribs were sore due to the beating he received after his arrest. According to Sven this information was noted down although Israeli forces did nothing to assist with his pain. During this time in the medical room, many Israeli soldiers entered and took pictures of both Sven and Ahmad using their mobile phones.

Ahmad and Sven were then blindfolded again and driven to a police station in the illegal settlement of Ariel, neither activist was given any information with regard to where they were being taken or allowed to contact legal representation. During this drive Israeli forces stopped the car, tightened Ahmad’s blindfold and stole a camera from Sven’s bag, using it to take pictures of the two blindfolded men.

When they arrived at Ariel, Sven was finally informed of the three charges against him, assaulting an Israeli soldier, attempting to steal a rifle from a soldier and blocking a highway and therefore ‘”endangering” lives (however at no moment was anyone blocking the main highway, activists were gathered at the side of the road). The same charges were also given to Ahmad and are completely fabricated for both activists.

Sven and Ahmad spent the night in Ariel police station along with five other Palestinian prisoners. The light was kept on all night with Israeli forces constantly entering the cell, ensuring that none of the prisoners were able to sleep. At one point Sven was woken by a police officer and told he would have court in the morning.

Under Israeli law internationals must be taken before a judge within 24 hours.

In the morning of the 19^th, Sven repeatedly asked when he would be transferred for his court hearing and he was ignored by Israeli police. At this point neither Sven nor Ahmad were allowed to contact legal representation. Ahmad also requested to speak to his lawyer and was told that unless he gave information about the demonstration he would not be allowed to contact anyone.

At 5pm, Sven was transferred from Ariel police station to a terminal at Ben Gurion airport. He was never taken before a judge and was instead asked to sign a piece of paper saying he agreed to be deported to Germany, although he has been living in Switzerland for the last 4 years.

Sven refused to sign unless he was allowed to speak to legal representation. Finally he was allowed to make a phone call, though was unable to get through to his lawyer and therefore unwilling to sign the document.

Sven was transferred to a prison in Ramle, near Tel Aviv, which is where he currently resides. He is expected to be deported on Thursday. When Sven left the illegal settlement of Ariel, Ahmad was still imprisoned. He has now been transferred to Hadarim prison in Netanya and should attend Salem court within the next few days. However he has still not been allowed to contact his lawyer, the first time Ahmad will speak to him will be when he is taken before a judge.

When Sven is deported this week, he will be the third international activist in less than two weeks to be arrested and deported by Israeli forces. Vincent Mainville and Fabio Theodule were arrested on the 8^th January and deported a week later. Their arrest was ruled illegal by an Israeli court in Jerusalem, although this did not stop their transfer to the immigration center.