On Friday, October 13th 2023, a settler from the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Ma’on entered the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani, in the region of Masafer Yatta, armed with an assault rifle and shot a Palestinian man in the stomach at point blank range.
The video, which was made public by B’Tselem, shows the armed settler walking towards a group of Palestinians as he invaded the village. After hitting a Palestinian man with the gun, the settler pointed his weapon on the same man and shot him in the stomach, before falling back while keeping his weapon pointed on the unarmed group of Palestinians, who at this point were approaching the wounded man to rescue him. This happened as the armed settler was accompanied and protected by an Israeli army soldier.
The Palestinian man was rushed to the hospital and is now reportedly in stable conditions.
This episode comes amidst a peak of settler violence in the South Hebron Hills. On Thursday, October 12th, armed settlers dressed in Israeli army uniforms invaded the village of At-Tuwani from the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Ma’on, shot live ammunition in the direction of Palestinians and internationalists, raided a house, wounded a Palestinian man, vandalised cultivated land and planted Israeli flags.
On the night of Saturday, October 14th, Israeli settlers entered the Palestinian village of Isfey at night and damaged the water tanks and electric grid of the village with knives.
Palestinians in Masafer Yatta are reporting frequent patrols of armed settlers on Palestinian lands and villages.
These attacks are increasing drastically in the occupied West Bank, with settlers taking advantage of the current situation of violence in Gaza, relying on all forms of violence either going unnoticed or being excused by the international community.
Gazans being held by Israeli police. Photo from one of the workers.
15 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | al-Khalil
EXPLOITATION AND OCCUPATION
Hundreds of Gazan workers are being given refuge in Palestine, after having been dumped in the West Bank by Israel.
45 of them are in al-Khalil and the ISM spoke to many of them this evening.
These labourers were working in Israeli settlements. When Hamas broke out of Gaza they were rounded up, detained, and at least one of them was beaten and hospitalised. They spent four hours in prison, their phones confiscated and without contact with the outside world. One man says 6500NIS was stolen from him by the police.
Apartments have been provided by charitable individuals and groups are giving them food and bringing them brand-new clothing to replace the belongings they were not allowed to bring from Israel.
SO WHAT WERE THESE GUYS DOING IN ISRAEL?
After 16 years of blockade, Gaza’s economy has collapsed. Gazans buy Israeli work permits so as to get jobs as labourers in construction or hospitality. These permits, valid for one month, are purchased from specialised companies and cost 3,000 NIS. Gazan workers earn 6000 NIS monthly for 45 hour weeks. Israelis would be paid around 20,000 shekels for doing an equivalent job. These migrant workers have no health insurance or job security. They have to be married, too.
Women migrant workers find jobs in factories or in agriculture. Manual labour is the only option available to people from Gaza. One of the workers we spoke to has a degree in engineering, one qualified as a social worker and another was a teacher.
Visits to their wives and families are possible at weekends, and they try to return at least twice a month. Travel through the Eretz crossing involves a long wait of up to 12 hours, the crossing opens at 4am on a Sunday morning to let them through. Everything is checked, and they can’t take clothes through, so clothing has to be bought (at high expense) in Israel.
The guards at the border can deny entry at will to anyone, whether or not they have a permit. Israeli intelligence often interrogates and threatens the workers, hoping to add them to the network of informers in Gaza.
THE LUCKY ONES
We were told that around 1,500 migrant workers are still detained or missing in Israel. Their families in Gaza were asking for information about them.
We heard that, when Israel declared war, one of the employers of Gazan workers informed the police that the people working for him were terrorists. We saw a video of corpses after the police intervention. The people shot were colleagues of one of the men we spoke to. Here are their names:
Hashim Barawi (killed)
Suliman Al Atar (killed)
Hary Al Masry (location unknown)
Sahel AL Masry
Nabil Al Barrawi (injured)
Talal Warshasha (injured)
The workers intend to use every legal means possible to obtain justice.
NOT WAR BUT EXTERMINATION
The situation these men are in is difficult, but they are distraught about the situation in Gaza and worried about their families. “My son works with the emergency services, Israel bombed his ambulance, the driver was killed and my son is injured.” “My building was bombed, and my wife and kids are now living in a tent.” “I keep phoning my wife, but there is no answer.”
They denounce the lies and hypocrisy of the international community in its support for Israel. Western countries talk about law and democracy, but they respect neither. How can they support this massacre, this lack of humanity?
One of the men sums it up: This is not war, it is extermination.
Despite the atrocious, immoral position of the countries whose passports we hold, only one man didn’t greet us warmly. Hearing we were from European countries, he said he didn’t want to be in the same room as us.
I was totally sincere when I replied that I understood his feelings, that we are in Palestine because of our countries’ responsibility in the destruction of Palestine, because we don’t agree with Europe’s policies and that we would like to do what we can to tell people about what is happening here. If you’ve read this far, please help us in getting the word out and stopping this genocide.
Wadi Siq school has been regularly attacked by settlers from new outposts set up near the Bedouin village, east of Ramallah
15 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Wadi Siq
Armed settlers attacked Palestinians and international volunteers in the Bedouin village of Wadi Siq, east of Ramallah, on Thursday (October 12) hospitalising two people.
Villagers were also beaten after the illegal settlers returned for a second attack later that day, ISMers were told.
ISMers and Israeli activists in partnership with the Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) have been based in the village several nights a week at the request of residents due to increasing intimidation and violence by settlers following the setting up of outposts nearby in recent months.
The villagers have experienced harassment, intimidation, assault and damage to, and theft of, their property on a regular basis. This usually happens at night, increasing the trauma inflicted on villagers.
Wadi Siq, which consists of individual family encampments widely dispersed over rocky, hilly terrain, is served by the Al-Tahidi School. Providing education for 60 Bedouin children from the age of five to 14 years, the school is also on the receiving end of attacks by settlers.
The headteacher reported that settlers have rammed the school bus with children onboard and teachers’ cars as they leave work. Thefts of school property are common with the building’s generator being stolen last week. The head is also very worried about the impact of the attacks on the physical and mental wellbeing of the children.
Last week, Israeli activist Rabbi Arik Asherman was detained after he reported to the police that the entrance to the village had been blocked by the settlers. He was then arrested and, at the time of writing, is still being held.
Following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza last Saturday, settlers have ramped up their attacks even further.
On Thursday at around 11am a group of armed settlers set upon volunteers based at the site. Two of the CRWC personnel (Abu Hassan and Mohamad Nada) were badly beaten, requiring hospitalisation.
Settlers also circled the village in SUV to intimidate residents while a group of volunteers were threatened with guns when they approached two settlers who were standing on the track close to one of the encampments.
After sunrise settlers broke into a large metal storage container and stole valuable items including a solar power unit and batteries and vandalised the other items being stored. This represented a serious loss for the family concerned.
14 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Tulkarm
By Diana Khwaelid
The martyr Qassim Hakam Qassim, 24, was one of the young people who answered the call to participate in a mass demonstration in solidarity with Gaza in the city of Tulkarm, in the West Bank.
The martyr Qassim, who grew up in the Tulkarm refugee camp and who has 6 siblings, did not neglect the blood of the martyrs who were killed for Palestine and came out to express solidarity with the people of Gaza, holding the flag of Palestine.
Since the beginning of the demonstration, which took place on Friday 13th of October 2023, Qassim tried to place the flag of Palestine close to the Sanaoz Israeli checkpoint, near the apartheid wall, to affirm the existence of the Palestinian people and their right to reclaim the lands occupied and controlled by the Israeli occupation.
Qassim did not survive the bullet of an Israeli sniper who was watching him from the very beginning. He was hit directly in the head area and died instantly.
An atmosphere of anger and sadness prevailed in the Tulkarm refugee camp, for the funeral of the body of the young man. His family and friends took one last look at him.
He was prayed for at the Al-Salam mosque in the camp, as Palestinians chanted angrily, condemning the continuing murders committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza.
Qassim’s message is not gone: other young Palestinians will follow his path. The message and the voice of liberation do not die when the body dies.
14 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | Tulkarm
By Diana Khwaelid
Four Palestinian protesters were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in Tulkarm, northern West Bank, on Friday, October 13.
Soldiers shot live rounds into crowds who had marched from the city to the apartheid wall to condemn Israel’s crimes in Gaza on the seventh day of its deadly bombing campaign of the besieged strip.
Medical crews and ambulances were also subjected to direct fire by occupation forces.
The protesters were unarmed and had come out onto the street in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Four died from their wounds. They were the martyr Islam Abu Zant, 23, Sameh Abu Tabikh, 25, Bakr Jamin, 39, and Qasem Hakam Qasem, 23, from Tulkarm refugee camp. Qasim did nothing but hold the flag of Palestine.
Paramedics were fired on as they tried to reach the injured: a crime in broad daylight.
Another Palestinian was shot by an Israeli sniper while riding his bicycle after crossing the checkpoint. The man had not been part of the protest but was simply travelling home from work.
The march started on Friday morning from the Gamal Abdel Nasser roundabout after Friday prayers before moving on through the city towards the Tasnawuz checkpoint near the Apartheid Wall. Protesters raised the Palestinian flag and phrases were repeated condemning the Israeli occupation for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people and in Gaza.
The protest was part of the ‘Friday of Anger’, which also saw demonstrations take place worldwide and in the occupied West Bank in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Earlier on the same day, the Israeli occupation forces targeted a civilian car crossing the Sanaoz checkpoint near the apartheid wall with live fire, injuring people inside.
The injured were transferred to Thabet Thabet government hospital in the city. Later the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the martyrdom of one of them, Raafat Mehanna, 20, from the suburb of Shuwaika, raising the death toll in Tulkarm on Friday to 5 martyrs in less than 8 hours.
A general strike and mourning were declared in the city of Tulkarm on Saturday in honour and respect for the souls of the martyrs.
Fifty Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the week since the start of the war on Gaza last Saturday.
