International Solidarity Movement - Page 34 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Gaza Under Attack: ISM statement and call to action

In these days, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing “mighty vengeance” following Saturday’s offensive by the Palestinian resistance, European governments are releasing statements essentially greenlighting Israel’s bombing campaign, which has already killed more than 400 Palestinians in Gaza and that might soon be followed by a ferocious ground invasion. For its part, the United States government has pledged a swift additional package of military aid to Israel. Once again deciding to directly participate in the crimes of the Israeli government.

Colonial violence is rising in the West Bank, as Israeli soldiers and settlers seek reprisals against Palestinian communities. The Israeli government now feels it has additional clearance from the West to escalate its project of ethnic cleansing.

The International Solidarity Movement maintains its presence on the ground in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to stand in solidarity with Palestinians, provide protective presence and report on human rights abuses.

Given the dire situation, more volunteers are needed. We are calling for all those who stand in solidarity with Palestine to join ISM’s efforts on the ground in the West Bank.

https://palsolidarity.org/join/

The ISM also calls on everyone in solidarity with Palestine to act immediately to stop Israeli massacres by organising demonstrations, and pickets and direct actions, organising boycott campaigns in line with the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid. We also call for people to contact their representatives, and lobby them to condemn the colonial policies of the Israeli state.

Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation, settler colonialism and racist military dictatorship for decades. In particular, for 16 years Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to an inhuman military blockade, under which the Israeli government calculatedly deprives two million Palestinians of the most basic necessities, such as access to essential goods, medical treatment, electricity and water. Recurrent bombing campaigns by the Israeli military killed more than 6400 Palestinians between 2008 and 2022, and deliberately targeted critical civilian infrastructures such as schools, hospitals and water plants.

Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem face killings, torture, beatings, night raids, settler pogroms, tear-gas, house and school demolitions, collective punishments, ethnic cleansing, expulsions, land seizure, arbitrary arrests, humiliations at check-points, and systematic racial discrimination on a daily basis.

No Palestinian is a stranger to the war that Israel has been waging on them for decades, a war that has only escalated under the current Israeli government, the most far-right the country has ever seen.

On Saturday Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel was at war. What this really means is that for the first time in decades, Palestinians are not the only ones facing the consequences of Israel’s colonial apartheid state.

The International Solidarity Movement joins Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists and organisations all around the world in restating that the root cause of the current violence is Israeli occupation and settler colonialism. Until the oppression of Palestinians comes to an end, Israel is responsible for the death and misery of Palestinians and Israelis. Governments and companies that directly support Israeli apartheid and military occupation, and the international community that fails to react to constrain Israeli terror, also share responsibility for the continuing violence.

ISM activists will maintain their presence on the ground in the West Bank and continue their efforts outside of Palestine to stand in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli oppression, until freedom, justice and equality is achieved. We invite you to contact your local ISM support group and join us in Palestine.

Please email at ISMtraining@riseup.net.

Weekly demonstration in Der Istya – 6th October

On Fridays 6th, people in Deir Istya protested against a new outpost that was built three months ago close to the village.

After the prayer almost 70 protesters, among them members of the local Popular Resistance Committee, residents from the surrounding villages, ISM internationals and Israeli activists went down from the hill and, waving their flags, tried, peacefully, to reach the outpost.

Blocked by the army, there was a long confrontation between protesters, soldiers and Border Police.

The protesters were making clear their reasons for demonstrating while the soldiers were trying – shouting and pushing violently – to repel them.

Finally the Border Police started to launch a lot of sound bombs and gas canisters. 10 people suffered for the gas and one needed assistance from the Red Crescent volunteer. The soldiers arrested a journalist and the Minister of the Commission of Resistance to the Wall and Colonies: handcuffed and blindfolded them and violently pushed them into their military jeep.

A sniper held a group of boys in his sight, preventing them from continuing the protest.

Flags, voices and the absolute awareness of being right against sound bombs and gas canisters of one of the strongest army in the world… this is Palestine.

Endless Israeli military campaigns in Tulkarem

By. Diana Khwaelid

Tulkarm – 5-10-2023

A rapid military operation carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in Tulkarem camp at dawn today, around 5 a.m. Dozens of Israeli military vehicles stormed Tulkarem camp in the centre of the city, in the northern West Bank.

Strong confrontations and clashes broke out between Palestinian militants who tried to confront the occupation forces and defend the camp. Between the Israeli occupying forces, it lasted almost two hours.

At the same time, the occupation forces stormed the city of Nablus, in particular the Balata camp, to secure the way for settlers to reach the Tomb of the Prophet Joseph near the camp, to perform Talmudic prayer ahead of the occasion of Jewish Throne Day. Three youths were injured by live bullets, another was injured while trying to escape. Dozens of youths suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Eyewitnesses from the camp said that they noticed the presence of Israeli special forces from the Al-Yamam battalion, so alarm sirens were activated in the camp later and armed confrontations broke out between the two parties. It lasted about 15 minutes, during which explosive bombs were thrown, and one of the occupation soldiers was shot in the head, according to eyewitnesses.

The Israeli occupation forces stormed the family home of the hunted young man (Amir Balawneh) and arrested his father (Saad Mahmoud Balawneh), 45 years old. As a means of pressure for his son to surrender to the Israeli occupation forces. On the morning of 5th September the Israeli occupation forces arrested the freed prisoner Ahmed Abu Khadra (35) from Tulkarem while he was passing through one of the military checkpoints.

Israeli media sources confirmed that the Tulkarm Battalion mounted a rapid response in the camp, and emphasized the continuous resistance to the occupation in defence of the camp. The continued resistance pays tribute to its martyrs, who were killed in an assassination carried out by the occupation forces near the village of Shufa southeast of the city.

There were injuries and deaths in the ranks of the Israeli army during its storming of the Tulkarm camp at dawn on the 5th October.

Weaponry recovered from Occupation forces in Tulkarem

Approximately at 7: 15 a.m. today – after the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the camp, with heavy material and human losses – local and Israeli media broadcast news about the assassination of two young
Palestinians by the Israeli occupation forces, near the Shufa checkpoint, in Tulkarm. Hebrew language Israeli sources claimed that Palestinian youths had carried out an attack by shooting at an Israeli settler on the 20th August of this year near the illegal settlement of Avni Hefetz.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Liaison Directorate confirmed the martyrdom of the two young men – Huthayfa Adnan Fares, (27), and Abdul Rahman Fares Atta (23).

5th September was a sad day of mourning in the city of Tulkarm, its villages and camps, the National Action factions in the city declared public mourning and a strike in honour of the spirit of the martyrs

Ten people from the city of Tulkarem have been martyred by occupying forces since the beginning of the year.

Screenshots have been taken from Quds News Network

Resisting the expulsions in Wadi Siq

Wadi Siq is a Bedouin community East of Ramallah, under threat of forced displacement.

Some families have already been chased away. The combined pressure from the Occupation authorities and the fanatical settlers has been increasing dramatically in recent months. Four nearby communities – Ein Samiya, Al-Qabun, Ras al-Tin and a community close to Taybeh Junction – have been forced to evacuate since 2019. Settler violence is on the increase, and the communities off Wadi Siq and Ein Rashash are facing an existential threat.

Even where families are still in their living spaces, there are ruined buildings that the frequency of settler attacks has discouraged people from rebuilding. The small primary school is now bearing the brunt of the attacks. It is under threat of demolition and it is unlikely that the plaques proclaiming the EU’s pious policy of opposition to forced transfer will offer much protection. When we spoke to the Headmistress, her fear of demolition was far less than her terror of settler violence. An outpost has been set up opposite the school gate, only a couple of hundred meters away. The young hooligans who live there use their vehicles to harass children and teachers on a daily basis, blocking the road and provoking minor collisions whenever the children’s school bus or the teachers minibus enter or exit the school.

The constant feeling of insecurity has forced many children to abandon their education. Numbers have declined from 120 students to 65, since the erection of the settlers tents last year.

A day before we were there, a settler had pointed his gun through the window of a classroom, terrifying children and teachers. They break and steal when possible: the school is equipped with impressive solar panels, but the batteries have been stolen, meaning that the classrooms have no digital technology any more, and the lack of air conditioning makes it difficult to work and study under the tin roofs.

Currently, different activists and organisations are working together to set up a protective presence and to raise awareness in the hope of preventing another episode of ethnic cleansing.

Watch: Israeli soldiers harass Palestinian teenager and try to intimidate internationalists in Masafer Yatta

On August 10th, three israeli soldiers harassed Abud Huraini, a palestinian teenager from the village At-Tuwani, in the region of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, while he was brining out his flock of goats to graze.

The three soldiers arrived by jeep from the illegal israeli settlement of Ma’on, which is located just few houndred meters away from At-Tuwani, and tormented Abud, asking him to leave the road from which he was tending to his flock. However, the three soldiers were confronted by a large group of Palestinian men and women accompanied by internationalist activists, including three ISMers, who filmed the soldiers and interposed themselves between them and Abud.

Just a few hours earlier Hamoudi, Abud’s older brother and an activist of the palestinian group Youth of Sumud, had been arrested arbitrarily by israeli soldiers as he was driving his car to return home in At-Tuwani. Hamoudi would be released a midnight without charges from the police station of Qiryat Arbaa’, after being blindfolded and physically abused by the soldiers who kidnapped him.

The three israeli soldiers, who had gotten nervous due to the determination of the group, asked for orders on the radio and thus tried to intimidate the internationalist activists present by filming them with phones and by trying to take pictures of their IDs. The soldiers also lied by insisting that the internationals were legally obligated to hand over their passports and allow them to take pictures.

Having this last intimidation tactic failed, the soldiers had no choice but to wait for Abud to finish herding the flock.

A palestinian told us that the three soldiers were likely new in Masafer Yatta: “They have rotations. These ones [the three soldiers] clearly don’t know the area, they don’t know what’s happening here. They probably just received a call from a settler who told them to go and bother [Abud]”.

Last year, on the very same place where Abud was harassed by the soldiers, Abud’s father Hafez, a human rights defender, was brutally attacked by five settlers. That time, the settlers broke both of Hafez’s arms with metal pipes. When Hafez’s family rushed to the scene, one of the settlers began shooting into the air with an assault rifle. Sami, Hafez’s oldest son and an activist, recounted that when soldiers arrived, they started pushing the Palestinians away from Hafez, who was lying on the ground.

“The settlers were giving orders to the soldiers. They told them that my father had attacked them and ordered the soldiers to arrest him” said Sami

When an ambulance of the Red Crescent arrived to the scene, the soldiers blocked the entrance of the vehicle to prevent medics from transporting Hafez to the hospital, while a settler pierced the tyres of the ambulance with a knife.

Eventually, Hafez was arrested and charged with attacking the settlers.

Palestinians accused of a crime are not tried in civilian courts, but rather in military courts, which according to Amnesty lnternational “systematically fail to meet international standards of fair trial, and where the vast majority of cases end in conviction”. Hafez would probably have spent the rest of his life in prison, had it not been for the videos recorded by Palestinian and internationalist activists on the scene, which clearly showed that he had been the victim of the attack. The charges were dropped, and after recovering Hafez was able to go home to his family.