12th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Urif, Occupied Palestine
At around 9:00am on Sunday 12th January 2014, students at the boys’ school in Urif, in Nablus district, were assaulted by Israeli soldiers firing tear gas grenades within the school grounds.
Eleven soldiers from the nearby illegal settlement of Yizhar entered the grounds firing tear gas near the entrance to the school. Several boys resisted the attack by throwing stones.
Four of the soldiers then tried to enter a classroom but were prevented from doing so by a teacher.
Several hours after the attack, the soldiers remain stationed on a hillside just 200m from the school.
This is the second time in two weeks that the village of Urif has been attacked. The last attack, however, which took place on 6th January, involved six settlers from the illegal settlement Yizhar trying to damage an electricity box attached to the town’s water reservoir. The incursion led to clashes in which Palestinian boys threw stones to repel the settlers.
12th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Kifl Hares, Occupied Palestine
On Friday, 10th January 2014, at approximately 4 o’clock in the morning a group of twenty settlers from nearby illegal settlements entered the Palestinian village of Kifl Hares. Some of them arrived in cars, others on foot. The settlers made noise and broke windows of parked cars. Palestinians on their way to the mosque for the first prayers were harassed and settlers in cars tried to run them over. Children were frightened and the villagers were afraid to leave their homes.
Previously, on Tuesday 7th January, the Israeli army closed the gate at the main entrance to the village, which leads to the main road. When villagers asked the reason for this, the soldiers stationed in a watchtower nearby answered that the gate would be closed indefinitely for security reasons.
On Thursday, 9th January, an emergency occurred, when an ambulance attempted to take an elderly lady living near the entrance to a hospital in Nablus. The residents requested that the Israeli soldiers open the gate for just five minutes so that the ambulance could reach the main road. The Israeli forces refused and the paramedic had to carry the lady by hand on a stretcher from her house to the other side of the gate. This delayed her arrival at hospital.
The gate has been opened only once in the past few days. This happened on Friday, when the settlers entered the village, implying that the Israeli forces knew of the settler attack.
Illegal settlers and Jewish tourists have entered Kifl Hares on many occasions. The village is located in the northern West Bank in the Salfit district and close to Ariel, the largest of the illegal settlements. The pretext for the incursions into Kifl Hares is a pilgrimage to three disputed tombs. The centuries-old tombs belonging to the village are also important for Muslims. Large numbers of settlers arrive on visits organized by the DCO and with Israeli army protection. Settlers and Jewish tourists from all over the world arrive by bus, frequently during the night. During the incursions, Israeli forces declare the village a closed military zone and Palestinians are required to stay in their homes until the settlers have left. This event occurs around twenty times a year. Nevertheless settlers also come weekly without army protection to pray in the tombs and often to harass or attack villagers. Several years ago Palestinian youth would resist these incursions by throwing stones at the illegal settlers and Israeli forces. This resistance was invariably responded to with night raids and arrests that resulted in imprisonment for up to five years. Since then villagers have been afraid to resist these settler attacks.
12th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
On Friday 10th January, a Palestinian demonstrator was injured after being shot in his leg with live ammunition by Israeli forces while attending the weekly Friday demonstration.
The incident happened in Ni’lin where Israeli military shot live ammunition against approximately thirty demonstrators who gathered around the annexation wall. An ambulance parked in the area drove the 40-year-old man to a hospital in Ramallah straight after being injured.
Israeli soldiers and Palestinians from Ni’lin clashed for more than two hours before the demonstrator was shot, Palestinian youth threw stones towards the military and Israeli soldiers responded with tear gas canisters, stun grenades and live ammunition.
Every Friday residents of Ni’lin gather to march towards the annexation wall in order to protest the loss of their stolen land.
11th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On Wednesday, 8th January 2014, 27-year-old Palestinian fisherman Mohammed Sultan Al Khader had was arrested by the Israeli navy in Gaza waters. He had been fishing with his two brothers, Ahmad and Hamdi, on a small fishing boat, called a hasaka. Al Khader was released in the evening.
“We went fishing at about 6:oo am,” he said at his home in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. “Around 8.40 am, two Israeli speedboats approached our boat and the Israeli soldiers started shooting into the water.” The three brothers were less than one nautical mile off the coast of Soudanya in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli soldiers shouted for them stop the engine and approached the front of their boat. “Stop the engine, approach us, raise your hands,” they shouted to the fishermen.
“Then they asked us to jump into the water,” Al Khader said. “I told them that my brother was too young and could not swim. I took off my dresses and jumped into the water. Some soldiers pulled me on board the Israeli speedboat. One of them asked me about the two other fishermen. I told him that the young one could not swim and the other one was sick and would have died. ‘I will let your brothers go home and I will take you’, he told me.”
The soldiers gave Al Khader some clothes. Then they forced him to again jump into the water and swim until he reached a large Israeli gunboat about 90 meters away. On board the gunboat, the soldiers blindfolded him, dressed him and cuffed his hands and feet. “Then I did not see what else was going on,” he said. “I could not see anything.” In the Israeli port of Ashdod the soldiers uncuffed his feet and removed the blindfold from his eyes. Then he was interrogated. During the investigation, the soldiers again cuffed his hands and his feet. He said there were two persons, one speaking Arabic and the other Hebrew. Investigators asked him about his name, age and phone number, personal details about his brothers and family, and other personal information. Then they hooded him and left him alone in a room for about an hour and a half. “Then five soldiers came, including one speaking Arabic,” he said. “He said, ‘I will show you some pictures and you will tell me what you see.'” He asked me on which part of the beach I used to work. He showed me pictures of it. They had pictures of each area. ‘Select one of the pictures’, he told me. I chose a picture of the beach area in which I work. The investigators told me to show a governmental site close to the beach and asked how many people work there. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anyone one working there.’ I said. He asked me how it was possible that I did not know anyone if I need to go there to get my permit to work as fishermen. I told him I only know two persons who came on the beach outside the governmental site. Then the investigator asked me about another governmental site of the civil defense. He asked me if the police there had guns. I told him that I did not know, that some of them did and others didn’t.”
“Finally, the soldier told me ‘Thank you for your help,’” Al Khader said with a hint of irony. “Then I was forced to talk to someone on the phone who asked me my name again, personal information, the number of my identity card. They left me alone for two hours. Then the soldiers came back with a paper which was written in Hebrew. They made me wear nice clothes, asked me to hold the paper and took a picture of me.” He didn’t know what was written on the paper. Another fisherman said it was likely tobe a medical report about his health condition that the Israelis could use in proceedings against them in court.
“They covered my face again, they handcuffed me and made me undress,” Al Khader said. “Then a soldier asked me to get up and sit down three times. Then they again made me wear the clothes. I was handcuffed, hooded and taken by car to the Erez crossing, at about 6:10 pm.”
Al Khader is married with a two-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. He lives in a small, two-room, house, waiting to move into a new house under construction. “Due to the siege, there is lack of building materials,” a relative said.
Fishing is the only source of livelihood for his family, like hundreds of others.
These attacks by Israeli military forces are increasingly restricting the fishing area allowed to the Palestinian fishermen preventing them from accessing waters north of Gaza Strip. The practical limit imposed by Israel on waters north of Gaza is not six nautical miles, but one to two.
Moreover, it seems clear that through these detentions, the Israeli authorities are trying to obtain information about people and places in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip affects Palestinians’ economic and social conditions. More than 75,000 people depend on the fishing industry as the main source of their livelihood.
Background
Israel has progressively imposed restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical miles established under the Jericho agreements, between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1994, were reduced to 12 miles in the Bertini Agreement of 2002. In 2006, the area Israel allowed for fishing was reduced to six nautical miles from the coast. After its military offensive “Operation Cast Lead” (December 2008 – January 2009) Israel imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast, preventing Palestinians from accessing 85% of the water to which they are entitled under the Jericho agreements of 1994.
Under the ceasefire agreement reached by Israel and the Palestinian resistance after the Israeli military offensive “Operation Pillar of Defense” (November 2012), Israel agreed that Palestinian fishermen could again sail six nautical miles from the coast. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy has not stopped its attacks on fishermen, even within this limit. In March 2013, Israel once again imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast. On 22 May, Israeli military authorities announced a decision to extend the limit to six nautical miles again.
07th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
Updated 10th January:
Sireen Khudairi was released at 17:15 on the 8th of January.
Sireen was brought inside Salem Court at 10:30am after being made to stand outside for an hour with her hands and feet shackled and without a jacket.
Once brought into the courtroom Sireen endured relentless questioning until 17:00. During this time her feet remained shackled.
Sireen was brought to Salem at 08:00am after being kept at Huwwara military camp until 12pm on the day of her arrest. At Huwwara military camp she was made to stand outside in the freezing cold with no jacket, blindfolded, shackled (hands and feet) and with no shoes for several hours. She was then taken to another camp, the location she was uncertain of, but it was 15 minutes from Huwwara. Before being returned to Huwwara and then transferred to Hasharon prison overnight.
Sireen also stated that outside her home when she was kidnapped, she was told by Israeli forces that they would not handcuff her if she came quietly. This was in the presence of a British citizen. As soon as she was outside and out of sight of her international friend she was handcuffed, shackled and blindfolded.
All information above is from an activist working with the Solidarity Movement for Free Palestine (SFP).
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Updated 8th January:
Sireen was released today from Salem Court. More details to follow.
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Updated 7th January:
Sireen is still being held by Israeli forces, she will be taken to Salem Court near Jenin tomorrow. More updates to follow.
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At 2:30am on Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers and secret service agents entered a house in the city of Nablus and arrested Sireen Khudairi, a 24-year-old schoolteacher and activist. No arrest warrant was given, although Sireen was threatened with physical violence if she did not accompany the soldiers.
This is the second time in a year that Sireen has been arrested without a warrant. On May 14th 2013 she was arrested and held for two months on the charge of having written a Facebook page that “compromised the security of the state of Israel”. Her detention included 22 days of solitary confinement and no access to a lawyer or her family. She was eventually released from prison but placed under house arrest, having paid bail of NIS 7000 and on the condition that she refrain from using the internet.
On 16th September, the Israeli military court found Sireen not guilty but ordered her to refrain from activism for five years.
Sireen’s family home has been raided various times since then, as it appears that she is wanted to testify against other activists. This is yet another event in the ongoing campaign of intimidation against non-violent Palestinian activists, and the criminalization of protest by the Israeli state.
For more information on Sireen’s case and how to act, please visit:
