Kfar Qaddum demo marking 100 years since Balfour suppressed by Israeli military

3rd November 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Occupied Palestine

The weekly demonstration had around 30 participants, with three of them being international women. As usual, the demonstration takes place to protest the closing of the road leading to Nablus. This measure was explained to satisfy “the need of security” for the Kedumin settlers that illegally have occupied the hill in front of the village. The road, which previously took ten minutes to Nablus now takes up to 40 minutes.

The march started with children and adults showing signs denouncing the Balfour agreement, which recently reached its 100 year anniversary. Following this anniversary, protests has been taking place all over the West Bank and Gaza.

As the protestors got closer to the gate built by the settlers, a jeep with six armed soldiers arrived. The leader of the nonviolent movement in the village, Murad held a short speech. This was followed by the soldiers arriving with their rifles. They shot rubber coated steel bullets and launched sound bombs.

Fortunately no one was injured. Nor when the soldiers, after a drone had hovered over the demonstration for a long time, made two ambushes trying to capture and arrest the protestors by encircling them and running behind them trough the olive groves. The soldiers didn’t manage to reach the protesters.

Before the ambushing Murad invited three soldiers up on the top of a hill to throw away their uniform and live in peace without guns, as they are told lies by their government and above all he spoke to the Afro-Israeli soldier pointing how Israelis coming from Africa are the most neglected and isolated in the Israelian social classes. An ISMer at the demo said: “The three soldiers listened a lot. But we know how many of the soldiers are indroctinated since they are children. But we will never stop spreading the words of freedom.”

Israeli armed forces and settlers harassing farmers in As Sawiya

31st October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine

On Sunday the 29th of October 2017 – near the Palestinian village As Sawiya – Palestinians and Internationals harvesting olives were met by the Israeli army. Three ISM’ers joined two Palestinian women harvesting in their family land. The family has been facing major problems in the area because of an illegal Israeli outpost close to the village, which is a part of the illegal settlement Eli.

The group of Palestinans and Internationals walked for half an hour to reach the olive trees since the road next to the olive trees is for settlers and the Israeli army only. After picking for around an hour a group of five boarder police officers, three soldiers from the Israeli army accompanied by settlers from the nearby outpost stormed up to the group demanding to see their ID’s. “They were very threatening and did not give any reason for taking our passports. We were just five women picking olives,“ an ISM’er says.

The Israeli border police demanded that the Internationals would leave the land immediately, showed the passports to the settlers and scanned them. “The settler stood on the olives and smiled at us, he even asked us if we were afraid of him,“ another ISM’er says. The Palestinians had been prevented from pruning the trees earlier this year which made the olive picking more difficult since it is an important part of the olive groves.

 

After a while the army agreed that the Palestinians were allowed to harvest their olives until three o clock the same day and that internationals were not allowed in the area the following day. The armed forces stayed close to the group harvesting for the rest of the day, and kept watching them and sometimes circled trees.

The day before a group of Palestinians and Internationals had also been prevented from picking olives in the area that is owned by the Palestinians.

Israeli army arrest son during night raid in Fasayel family house

21st October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement | Nablus Team | Jordan Valley Solidarity | Occupied Palestine

The night between Wednesday and Thursday the house of Abu Jamil got raided by the Israeli military. At one AM four military jeeps arrived to upper Fasayel and about 20 Israeli armed soldiers entered Abu Jamils house, forcing the family of 9 outside and started searching the three rooms. The soldiers showed no documents of a search warrant.

After one and a half hour the military had destroyed food in the kitchen, stolen two kilos of farming chemicals (value of 200 NIS) and stolen the six mobile phones (value of 4000 NIS) that the family had. They then kidnapped the 22-year old son Jamil who is still in Salem military base awaiting a court hearing. Together with another young man from the village, the 25-year old Ishteyan, he is accused of having broken into the illegal settlement of Tomar stealing farming chemicals.

Recently another young man have been arrested and accused for the same break in. He was released after several days since he was falsely accused. The family of Abu Jamil does not have enough money to afford a lawyer for their son. Jordan Valley Solidarity and International Solidarity Movement will work for supporting the court process.

In total, 95% of the land in the Jordan Valley is off-limits to Palestinians: 50% is controlled by Israel’s illegal settlements, and the other 45% is military bases, ‘closed military zones’ and ‘nature reserves’ (areas controlled by the occupation, that Palestinians are refused access to). This matrix of oppression suffocates Palestinian life in the Valley and stifles traditional forms of subsistence farming and grazing undertaken by the Bedouin throughout history.

Israeli Forces closed media production companies in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus last Wednesday night.

Foto: Dunia

18th October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine

The army raided the Pal Media and Trans Media headquarters in Ramallah and seized their equipment and video material. Also other companies and branches of the two companies in Nablus, Bethlehem and Hebron were raided the same night.  Soldiers closed the entrances of the Pal Media and the Trans Media offices with iron plates and left a poster which warns journalists and other workers not to work for both companies in the next six months.

This means a shut down of the work from thesr two major Palestinian media companies and also saboutages the other media and news sources within Palestine. Pal Media and Trans Media work together with news agency’s like the BBC, RT and Al Jazeera from outside Palestine to share information about the occupation.  It’s not the first time that the Israeli army targeted media companies to silence the Palestinian cause and also to interrupt Palestinians in their daily life of consuming television and radio shows.

Foto: Dunia

During the raids in the occupied city’s, three of them declared  Area A zones under full Palestinian control according to the Oslo agreement, the youth gathered around the army and tried to prevent the Israeli forces from maintaining the illegal closures of the media outlets and from accessing their cities. In the following clashes several Palestinians were shot with rubber coated steel bullets in all cities or injured by stun grenades and two journalists in the city of Hebron were arrested by the Israeli forces. With these new acts of violence against the freedom of speech from Palestinian journalists and media companies and the several night raids all over the West Bank, Israel shows yet another ugly face of it’s occupation politics to silence and interrupt Palestinians on a daily basis.

Israeli Armed Forces use Live Ammunition in Al-Khalil and Detain Two Boys

06th October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On Friday the 06th of October, around 30 Israeli soldiers entered the H1 area of Al-Khalil with three armoured military vehicles.

The Israeli armed forces entered the area at around 2.00pm, using sound grenades and tear gas around the central hub of the city leading up to the Manara roundabout. The vehicles drove back and forth between two roundabouts firing tear gas and sound grenades randomly.
Bystanders and street vendors were affected by tear gas. Live ammunition was also used.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon and into the evening soldiers were stationed around the city which many interpreted as a provocation.
In the evening at around 6.00pm, two boys aged 17 and 16 were detained by the soldiers and taken to the nearby police station by Israeli police despite attempts by family members to have them freed. They were accused of throwing stones at soldiers and were detained without providing any evidence to their accusations.

This is one of several occasions the Israeli armed forces have entered the H1 area of Al-Khalil, using weapons and vehicles to counter small protests on Fridays.