9 November 2010 | International Solidarity Movement
Night-raid in Bil'in
Today at about 3 in the morning the Israeli army entered the village of Bil’in. About 50 soldiers came in by jeep and by foot. As they arrived to the two targeted houses, they ran and took positions outside, while a number of them entered the house of two brothers.
Soldiers hammered on the door of one house, demanding to see 30 year Ashraf al-Khatib. It turned out they were at the wrong house. They then went to another house by forcing one of Ahsraf’s brothers to show them the way to where Ashraf lives. Soldiers entered that house and his brother’s family’s house, and with the same procedure woke up the family, again asking for Ashraf al-Khatib. His brother, Haytham al-Khatib, is a journalist from the human right’s group B’tselem and was one of the people roused by the army. Though they had again entered a house where their target did not live, they remained inside for about one and a half hours, searching all the rooms.
Haytham al-Khatib tells about his 6 year old son’s reaction when he woke up and saw tens of soldiers in his house. “He asked me to close the door, because he didn’t want to see them.” Haytham himself was held back when he wanted to record the raid in his family’s houses -– the soldiers simply locked him in a room for more than an hour, away from his children and wife. The children in the houses are aged from 1 1/2 to 8 years, and this is not the first time they have seen their homes raided in the night.
Soldier during night-raid
However, after 1 1/2 hours of searching for the target in three houses, two of them in which he does not reside, Ashraf al-Khatib was not found. Five weeks ago Ashraf was shot in his leg with live ammunition by an Israeli soldier in a demonstration in Bil’in. The bullet went through his leg, breaking the bone. Even though he was heavily injured and in major pain, the soldiers tried to arrest him. Luckily he was brought to safety by fellow protesters and then to the hospital for surgery. Tonight the army decided to come and take him in front of his wife and 1 1/2 year old daughter instead.
The soldiers retreated from the targeted houses by foot, walking toward the military road that follows the illegal segregation fence in Bil’in, about 4:30 AM. The village of Bil’in has suffered from frequent night raids over the last few years, and a number of villagers have been taken for interrogation and imprisoned for their non-violent resistance to the occupation and segregation wall on Bil’in’s land.
On Monday the 8th of November, after a two hour charade in the Supreme Court of Israel, the decision over the path of the wall in Al-Walaja (near Bethlehem), was adjourned for another 45 days. Their indecisiveness was mainly with respect to the fact that the path on which the wall is already being built is entirely private property belonging to Palestinian villagers. The court needs to wait for the Palestinian’s land to be officially confiscated before they can make a decision, but for now has ruled that bulldozers can continue excavating along their preferred path for the wall while construction is temporarily frozen.
This impermanent decision was made after judges referred to the ‘professional’ agricultural opinion of a representative from the Israeli Army any effects on the land of continuing excavation for the wall. They asked him if he thought the wall could be easily moved somewhere else and the land rehabilitated if the final decision is to build the wall somewhere else. He said, of course, that there would be no problem. There was present an expert from an environmental organization who was far more knowledgeable on the matter, but judges decided not to question her as she had already stated the best option for the agriculture is to only put a fence there.
The villagers left the court room obviously shocked that the bulldozers will continue devastating their land. One woman from Al-Walaja was arrested just for addressing a member of the army, saying she hoped he would sleep well since he obviously doesn’t have any idea about what it’s like to live in ghetto. She was later released with no charges after three hours.
We witnessed the supreme court purportedly taking evidence from both sides regarding the building of the wall around the illegal settlements Har Gilo and Gilo adjacent to Al-Walaja. The only issue discussed was the proximity of the wall in relation to the Palestinian village. The Israeli barrister’s argument presented the settlers as having carefully researched the position, height and necessity for the wall, as well as having carefully examined a number of alternatives both by themselves and by skilled outsiders.A portion of the wall that has already been built in Al-Walaja, seen from the settlers' perspective
The land is being used illegally by Israeli settlers, and the Israeli barrister justified this illegal appropriation by quoting a law that says that in an emergency land can be taken immediately and the legality discussed later. The issue of land confiscation — or the theft of Palestinian land — goes to the heart of the issue for the Palestinians, but the focus of this hearing was only on the proximity of the wall.
As internationals observing this hearing we saw the court proceedings as a screen veiling Israel’s maltreatment of the Palestinians through the continual erosion of their land and rights. Palestinians deserve the rights to security, dignity and respect, and acknowledgment of not only their property but their existence as a people who belong to the land of Palestine. The wall is not only an affront to human dignity, but a symbol of Zionist apartheid isolating Palestinians into Bantustans. Such a trial focusing only on the proximity of the wall deflects attention away from the real issue of land theft.
Today, workers from the Jerusalem municipality and Israeli forces removed the Memorial of Samer Sarhan, this morning. They also removed the water supply donated on the soul of Samer Sarhan and the olive tree planted in the place, although the tree was present prior to the monument. The operation took place under the monitoring of an Israeli helicopter in the area. Vehicles of municipal workers and Israeli forces emerged after the enforcement of the task in less than ten minutes. One eyewitness and a resident of the region said, “members of the Israeli police came earlier to take pictures of the site of the memorial. They must have have studied how to implement the process in a very short time and leave before a large number of residents noticed them.” He adds, “police were not alone for the removal of a martyr’s memorial, but were accompanied by the head of settlers’ guards in Silwan.”
Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli Knesset for the Likud party, and former spokesperson for the Israeli Army, was sent to the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, yesterday, demanding that he remove the memorial of Silwan resident Samer Sarhan, 32, who died on the twenty-second of September after being shot by a settler guard.
In recent weeks, the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan has become a flashpoint of settler and Palestinian confrontation. Over 33 young Palestinian men between the ages of 8 and 16 were arrested in October alone, mostly for being accused of throwing stones.
Violent clashes between armed Israeli forces, settlers, and Palestinian youth are now an almost daily occurrence in the area. This recent pattern of unrest comes directly in response to the shooting death of Samer Sarhan, killed by one of the many private settler guards who act with impunity in East Jerusalem.
As news of Samer’s martyrdom reached the Palestinian population, spontaneous protests broke out throughout the city, peaking during Samer’s funeral when over one thousand mourners confronted the armed Israeli occupation forces present at the cemetery.
According to testimonies from the ground, Sarhan was walking towards his home at 4.00 a.m. in his neighborhood of al-Bustan, when he was shot by an armed Israeli security guard patrolling the area.
The Israeli security guard who shot Sarhan was called by Israeli police for interrogation on the same day, but was immediately released under the pretext that the murder of Sarhan was in self-defense. According to him, Sarhan intended to ambush the settlers and security guards in order to kidnap them. These accusations are soundly denied by Sarhan’s family and al-Bustan’s Popular Committee.
During the protests, the Israeli occupation forces employed tear-gas bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets, which led to many physical injuries, as well as suffocation inside peoples’ homes.
On September 24th, a 14-month old toddler-martyr in Issawiya named Muhammed abu-Sneneh was murdered in his house after having suffocated gas that was fired at residents and their houses. The Israeli occupation forces attacked a peaceful demonstration of residents who held a symbolic funeral for the baby. A total number of 16 Palestinians are reported to have been arrested on the 25th by the occupation forces and large amount of armed policemen and Special Forces were present in all major Arab neighborhoods of the city.
On October 8th, a settler named David Be’eri ran over two boys as they threw rocks at his car, and was caught on video with his license plate in the act. The boys were rushed to the hospital with some broken bones. The settler was questioned about the incident but suffered no consequences. These Palestinian boys were later arrested, and on October 17th, a Jerusalem court accused them of throwing stones and ordered to be placed on two weeks of house arrest. All three were questioned by police and found to be “involved in disturbances and riots” in the neighborhood of Silwan, said Mickey Rosenfeld, spokesman for the Israeli national police.
4 November 2010 | International Solidarity Movement
As Israeli army snipers in the control tower at the Erez crossing looked on, Saber Al Za’anin, the General Coordinator of the Local Initiative group spoke passionately about Palestinian resistance on the anniversary of the November 3rd 1917 Balfour Declaration.
“We carry forward the fight of our great grandfathers to dismiss the disgraceful and unjust promise that the UK Foreign Secretary offered to the Zionists to create a state in the middle of Palestine 93 years ago. Here we are, the present-day Palestinian generation standing strong again to uphold the principle of our forefathers and the struggle that has been passed down for us to continue today.”
It was the 93rd anniversary of the Balfour promise, and local volunteers from the Local Initiative group from Beit Hanoun and activists from the International Solidarity Movement demonstrated next to the Israeli border in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza. The crowd marched up to 100 metres from the Israeli wall, where previous non-violent demonstrations had been fired upon with live ammunition. The protesters were bringing attention to the horrific injustices that have befallen them since the promise by British occupiers to create a Jewish homeland over an area that was over 90% Palestinian Arab.
The demonstration took place near the Erez border , near the Israeli imposed ‘buffer zone’ – an area of land 300 metres from the fence stretching along the entire border fence. A United Nations investigation found that farmers, rubble collectors, civilians and protesters have been shot up 1500 metres of the fence, which makes 35% of Gaza’s most agricultural land a high risk area to access, causing severe loss of food production and livelihoods.
The demonstrators approached the Israeli wall, stopping at a barbed wire fence and ditch created by a bulldozer during an Israeli incursion over a month before in which 3 farm workers we killed. Planting one Palestinian flag at the fence, they chanted and waved flags before people spoke of the horrific legacy of the Balfour Declaration.
Local farmer Abzel Al Baseony spoke about the current plight he faces; he stands to lose more land near the border. He has been farming since 1984, taking after his father. He explained how the Israeli army bulldozed much of his land that used to be covered in trees and how afraid people are to farm there now. Like most Palestinians, he was also well aware of Britain’s historical role in facilitating the creation of Israel on Palestinian land.
“It was the British who created this problem allowing the Israeli state to be built on the ruins of our refugees and you’ve seen what they have done to us ever since. During the British mandate before 1947 their attacks on us killed many civilians, and now they, like the American and European Governments, continue to support Israel when it takes our land and bombs our families. But we will keep farming for another 93 years if that’s what it takes to get justice for our people.”
Like over 80% of Gazans, most of the demonstrators were refugees from different Palestinian towns and villages such as Faluja, Min Dimra, Askelaan or Majdel, arab villages located in what is now Israel. In total, 531 villages were wiped out and demolished in 1948 by the Israeli army after their Palestinian inhabitants were violently forced to leave. Ever since they have been refused their right of return.
British International Solidarity Movement activist Adie Mormech believes that people from his country have a duty to right the wrongs of the British involvement in Palestine, which continues today with political, commercial and military support.
“The British Government’s role in the middle east is a sad one, like much of the British empire was for the inhabitants of the countries they were colonizing. Britain contributed similarly the Apartheid system in South Africa. Fortunately many British citizens opposed the apartheid regime, boycotting the South African government until their racist policies had to end. Today in Britain and throughout the world, boycotts, divestment and sanctions of Israel are growing while the international community continues to allow with impunity Israel’s medieval siege of Gaza, it’s military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem and its continuing discrimination and ethnic cleansing. As was the case for South Africa, it is up to people of conscience around the world to join the movement until Israel adheres to international law and allow Palestinians the same human rights as any other people.”
The demonstration ended without incident, although there was no mistaking the memories and sense of injustice stirred by the anniversary of Balfour, emphasized by the resolution of organiser Saber Al Za’anin:
“We are out from under the rubble of Israeli oppression to prove again to the whole world that the Palestinian people will never accept the ethnic cleansing and murder against us. We will remain steadfast for our rights, our freedom and our land.”
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary William Hague reiterated the government’s commitment to urgently resolve the “unacceptable situation” with regard to universal jurisdiction during his visit to Israel.
The coalition government want to change the current legislation to give the Director of Public Prosecutions power over issuing arrest warrants against alleged international criminals who visit the UK
The change will make it easier for war criminals to escape justice – please take two minutes to email your MP and ask them to sign EDM 108 and make public their opposition to any change in the law. (If your MP has a ministerial position, please write to them anyway, asking them to write to the Foreign Office).
Currently, for a magistrate to issue an arrest warrants, serious evidence must be presented against the person concerned. The proposed change adds a political dimension to a legal decision and introduces a source of delay when urgent action may be required to stop a suspect escaping justice.
Britain has a duty to seek out and prosecute those responsible for war crimes.
Now more than ever, we need you to join the Palestine lobby of Parliament in three weeks and lobby your MP on the illegal siege of Gaza and universal jurisdiction. Email your MP and arrange a meeting for November 24th (2-6pm at the House of Commons).
Let’s make sure Britain doesn’t become a safe-haven for war criminals.
In solidarity,
Sarah Colborne
Director of Campaigns and Operations
p.s. Join us for the rally after the Palestine lobby on November 24th at 6.30pm with speakers including Gerald Kaufman MP, Andy Slaughter MP, David Ward MP and Baroness Jenny Tonge.
