On Wednesday the 11th of March, a number of Hebron Israeli settlers pelted Palestinian children (aged 4 to 8 years) and two international activists with stones.
The incident took place during a settler-organized dancing event close to Avraham Avinu Settlement, presumably as part of Purim festivities. The settlers became aware of the Palestinian children and internationals, who were watching from a near-by roof, and proceeded to hurl stones from the car-parking lot below, despite calls of “Stop”.
The Israeli soldiers on guard at a military post within 30 meters surveyed the disturbance but provided no assistance.
11th March 2009, Beit Ommar village, Hebron region: 27 youth arrested during ongoing closure of Beit Ommar village
27 residents of Beit Ommar village in the Hebron District of the southern West Bank, have been arrested by Israeli forces while the village remains under curfew with a large-scale military operation taking place.
At approximately 12am on the morning of 11 March 2009, over ten army vehicles, including personnel carriers, invaded the village, with an army bulldozer closing the most of the roads leading out of Beit Ommar.
Dozens of soldiers then began entering houses at random and arbitrarily arrested young men. One of the arrested includes an independent journalist and volunteer for B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization.
This recent military invasions comes at great cost for the villagers of Beit Ommar. Today, no one can go to work or school. I have seen the smashed up homes where soldiers have destroyed property and urinated. Twenty-seven boys have now been arrested, seemingly at random, and taken to an unknown location. The military harassment of Beit Ommar has become a regular occurance. – Bekah Wolf, American activist living in Beit Ommar – Palestine Solidarity Project
A curfew has been imposed since 4am, with residents prevented from leaving their homes. Several houses entered by Israeli forces have been damaged. Soldiers have been seen breaking windows and cabinets, and they have urinated in the room of at least one residence.
The army has also passed around a letter telling residents that any youth who threw stones at the army would be arrested.
This most recent invasion comes after a week of almost nightly raids on Beit Ommar. On the night of 4 March, 15-year-old Mehdi Said Abu Ayyash was shot in the head with live ammunition and he remains in a coma in serious condition.
Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq Unable to Collect Human Rights Prize
The Israeli High Court’s decision on March 10 to block travel outside the West Bank of the human rights defender Shawan Jabarin violates his rights to a fair hearing and freedom of movement, Human Rights Watch said today.
Based on secret evidence that neither Jabarin nor his lawyer were allowed to see, the court refused to lift a travel ban imposed on Jabarin by military order in 2006, shortly after he became the director of Al-Haq, a leading human rights organization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Jabarin had petitioned to have the ban lifted in order to travel to the Netherlands this week, where he was to receive the prestigious 2009 Geuzen Medal, awarded by the Stichting Geuzenverzet Foundation, on behalf of Al-Haq. The Israel-based human rights group B’Tselem was the co-winner of this year’s award.
On March 5, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, asking him “to intervene with [his] counterparts in Tel Aviv, so that they may understand the significance of the Geuzen Medal, and the counter-productive decision to block a human rights defender from conducting his work.”
In May 2008, Human Rights Watch wrote to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, asking him to lift Jabarin’s travel ban.
“The travel ban on Shawan Jabarin does nothing to keep Israel safe, and instead keeps a human rights defender from doing his work,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Jabarin is a strong advocate for the rule of law who routinely criticizes both Israeli and Palestinian authorities for violating human rights.”
An elderly man saw me walking the other morning. “Bless you, bless you,” he said, holding out his palm as I gave him 20 shekels.
What has rendered a man in his late years impoverished and begging, in a manner Palestinians are not accustomed to?
I followed him home yesterday. It took some doing, as the name he had told me, while correct, didn’t seem to register with his wife when my friend Mohammed called. Establishing that he was the same man I’d met on the street took some time two days ago. Then locating his home in a swirl of alleys after the Sahaa market area took more doing.
But we finally reached it and I saw the same beaming older man, greeting us with the same enthusiasm and gratitude of two weeks ago.
Mohammad Ahmad Kahawish lives in the Tuffahh area, a neighbourhood in Gaza city’s older area. His family is unusually small for a Palestinian family, with only 3 children. His house is also small, and now is quite damaged from the intense shelling during Israel’s 3 weeks of attacks on Gaza.
“The house jumped from side to side with every missile,” his wife explained.
He’s fortunate that none of the missile hit his home, but suffers nonetheless from a combination of debilitating factors, including at least a natural one: age. He is nearly 70, born in 1940 in Jaffa, in the former Palestine.
Mohammad, wife (right) and daughter inside leaky bedroom with broken walls
humble house needing repairs
Mohammad’s medical report and referral for surgery outside of Gaza
Until Mohammad fell off of his bicycle 6 months ago, injuring his lower left leg, he had worked as a cleaner, on the street, in homes, wherever he could get work. Post-accident, his doctor strongly advised him not to walk excessively, though out of necessity he’s had to ignore this. When I met him, he was walking in the other end of town, by the marina, collecting sellable bits of rubbish and imploring passersby for some token shekels.
Out of work, injured, and also blind in one eye -[he has a cataract in the left eye (Left traumatic vitreous hemorrhage) which he cannot get treatment for in Gaza. Despite having a referral for surgery in Israel he has yet been denied an exit permit by Israeli authorities]-Mohammad has his family to provide for, and now a house to try to repair.
The reverberations for the bombing around his home caused cracks all along where walls meet ceiling. Some of the cracks are a couple of inches deep, wall torn from roof. Cold air and rainwater stream in. The entire ceiling leaks, there isn’t a dry corner in the tiny 2.5 room and a kitchen home. One room, where his daughters sleep, has no actual roof: the ceiling, a layer of overlapping planks of plywood, is all that shelters from the elements.
Mohammad’s son is 34 but doesn’t contribute to the family income. “He’s got psychosis,” the parents explain. “And at night he cannot see at all.” In 1987, during the 1st Intifada, Israeli soldiers had come to the house and beat the boy, around 12 or 13 at the time.
My original query, how did this dignified elderly man end up so, begging and grateful for the smallest scrap, was answered yesterday.
Six homes in the village of A’qraba have received eviction orders. 14 homes in the area received similar orders in 2008.
Among those houses slated for demolition is an electricity station, a mosque, a well and two houses for animals.
The villagers in the area believe that this is an attempt by the Israeli government to remove all Palestinians who are now living in ‘Area C’ (close to the Jordan River) to ‘Area B’, to make room for settlement expansion.
Israel plans to demolish six homes and a mosque in the villages of A’qraba and Kherbet At-Taweel, both south of the West Bank city of Nablus, residents said on Sunday.
Officials representing the Israeli military handed over demolition orders to the residents in question, they added, announcing their intentions in the West Bank villages.
According to Yaser Suleiman, the coordinator for the Nablus-area Agricultural Committee, “the occupation is working to force residents out of the village.”
“Repeated attacks on homes, demolition warnings, and settler attacks have killed four Palestinians over the past few years,” he added, noting that the Palestinians killed by settlers were first abducted before their alleged murders.
Musa Derieyah, an official with the Agricultural Action Committee, said that A’qrabas is surrounded by four illegal settlements, Gatit, Ma’leh AFraim, Itamar and Majdulim, where “90 percent of the lands were confiscated.”
He added that “repeated settler attacks have become unbearable,” as planted explosive charges have killed one Palestinians and injured another child.
Settlers have attacked the residents of the village while they graze sheep near the illegal settlements, while other areas are totally isolated, and Palestinians are not permitted to enter, Deriyeah added.
