17 June 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
A woman is carried after being shot in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet - click to see more photos
Tear-gas, skunk water, and rubber-coated bullets were fired against demonstrators in Nabi Saleh on Friday, June 15, injuring over 15 individuals.
In the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh some 150 persons gathered following the Friday prayer to demonstrate against the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish, the settlers’ theft of spring Ein al-Qaws that used to provide water to the whole village, and the Israeli occupation at large.
A woman shows her bandaged arm after being shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet - click to see more photos
Among the protesters were people of all ages and genders, Palestinians, Israelis, and international activists. The march began in the village and proceeded down the road towards the illegal settlement. The Israeli Occupation Forces immediately targeted the crowd with rubber-coated bullets, after which they began using skunk water trucks, sound bombs, and tear-gas grenades.
Over 15 men, women, and children were injured by the steel-cored bullets. Several others suffered tear gas inhalation and required treatment.
When the demonstration proceeded towards the occupied water spring, the IOF shot excessive teargas from several directions at the unarmed young demonstrators. The protest lasted at least 8 hours.
Mia and Rosa are volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
28 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Last Friday, April 27, around 100 Palestinians and their supporters gathered in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh to protest the nearby illegal Israeli settlement and the unjust conditions of life under occupation. The protest comes just a day after Israeli ‘independence day’ celebrations. This week’s demonstration painted a stark picture of the harsh reality still faced by Palestinians 64 years after what they know as the Catastrophe, or Nakba.
Following the midday prayer on Friday, demonstrators assembled in the center of the small village of Nabi Saleh and marched down the main road towards the neighbouring Israeli settlement of Halamish. The non-violent procession of residents, solidarity activists, volunteer medics, and journalists were only halfway down the hillside when they were met by the waiting Israeli army, who had blocked the road at the village’s entrance.
Upon sight of the chanting marchers, the military deployed the infamous “skunk truck.” Protesters were sent in a panicked sprint back in the direction they had come to avoid being drenched by the long-reaching streams of foul-smelling skunk water. After finding safety behind makeshift roadblocks of rocks strewn across the road, the Palestinian youth, or shabab, equipped only with homemade slings, countered with stones and paint balloons.
The crowd let out a cheer when a boy landed one such balloon on the skunk truck, splattering white paint across the windshield. Celebration of the small victory was cut short when soldiers responded by unleashing a barrage of tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets that sent the unarmed demonstrators running for cover.
From this point on, the young Palestinian stone throwers and Israel’s modern army engaged in a familiar call and response that lasted for hours.
The march for an independent and free Palestine - Click here for more photos
During a moment of relative calm, one Israeli activist narrowly avoided being struck by a surprise tear gas canister, but did not escape the terrible effects of the noxious fumes that billowed around her. Other canisters started small fires in the dry grass of the hillside, and some were hurled back in the direction of the army.
Friday’s demonstration comes one week after the release of Bassem Tamimi, a prominent community organizer and resident of Nabi Saleh who spent a year in prison on charges of “incitement” of such protests. Despite the fact that Israel’s settlements in occupied Palestine are a violation of international law, and resisting the occupation is widely considered to be a moral and legal right of the occupied, Palestinians who exercise these rights face constant arrests, house raids, and violence at the hands of the Israeli forces. Tamimi, who Amnesty International has named a prisoner of conscience, was unable to attend the day’s demonstration as he remains under house arrest in Ramallah until further notice.
The weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh began in 2009 when the encroaching Israeli settlement of Halamish illegally annexed additional Palestinian land, including the village’s fresh water springs. Since then, the Israeli army has regularly denied the town its right to demonstrate and suppressed the protests with excessive force. In December, protester Mustafa Tamimi was killed at a demonstration when he was shot in the head with a tear gas canister at short range.
Despite the real dangers that come with resisting the occupation, the residents of Nabi Saleh show no sign of giving up. The growing Halamish settlement is a daily sight and reminder of what has been taken from them. So while the settlers hoist the Star of David in celebration of the independence of the “Jewish State,” the residents of Nabi Saleh continue to struggle because for them, the creation of Israel has been nothing short of a castastrophe.
Sam is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
19 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The march for justice in Nabi Saleh – For more photos click here
A nonviolent demonstration in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh last Friday, April 13th was met with Israeli army aggression, resulting in at least six injuries, including a sixteen-year old boy shot above the eye with a tear gas canister.
Following the Friday prayer the village’s residents, and several Israeli and international activists in solidarity, marched down their main road chanting slogans. Children lead the way at first, but ran back to their homes when the Israeli army came into view, anticipating the oncoming violence.
For at least five hours, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fired ample rounds of rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, and sound bombs at peaceful demonstrators, as well as between houses and at village residents not participating in the protest. They also employed the use of the ‘skunk truck’, which propels torrents of a sewage-like liquid, again not only on protesters, but on the village’s olive groves and homes.
Six people were injured due to rubber-coated bullets and tear gas fire. Sixteen year old Osama Tamimi was hit above the eye with a tear gas canister. The IOF delayed his ambulance for half an hour before letting it continue to hospital.
The village of Nabi Saleh has been holding weekly nonviolent protests demanding an end to Israeli colonialism and occupation. More specifically, the demonstrations are about the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish. Halamish was built on Palestinian owned land and continues to expand. Halamish and the 250 other Israeli colonies and outposts in the Palestinian West Bank, are considered illegal under international law as they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the illegality has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the United Nations Security Council.
The weekly protests began after Halamish annexed Nabi Saleh’s fresh water springs in December 2009. Israel has since protected this theft with the use of military force.
Since Nabi Saleh began regular nonviolent demonstrations, Israel has brutally sought to repress them. The village faces collective punishments such as night raids and mass arrests. Israel has thus arrested more than 13% of the village, almost half of them under the age of 18 years. All but three were tried for participating in the protests.
Last December in Nabi Saleh, Mustafa Tamimi was shot and killed during the weekly protests. Despite these great risks, the village continues to zealously fight for their rights.
Rana Hamadeh is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
15 year-old Ez Tamimi minutes after being shot in the face. Picture credit: ActiveStills
The bullet shot from a short distance hit the boy in the face penetrating his right cheek and piercing it.
Israeli Border Police officers shot a rubber-coated bullet at 15 year-old Ezz Tamimi’s face from a distance of about 20 meters, during the weekly demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh today. The bullet, which hit the boy’s cheek, went through it, gouging a large hole in it. The Israeli army’s own open-fire regulations forbid the use of rubber-coated bullets against minors.
The incident took place at the center of the village ,hundreds of meters away from where a demonstration was taking place, when Border Police officers invaded the village.
For the first time in months, protesters managed to reach the vicinity of the contested water spring, which sparked village demonstrations over two years ago when taken over by settlers. The protesters, mainly women from the village, managed to confound the soldiers by advancing towards the spring from an unexpected direction. The protesters who were held back by the soldiers meters away from the fountain proceeded to block the road leading to the adjacent Jewish-only settlement of Halamish for some 20 minutes.
The previous night, the Israeli army staged another nighttime raid on the village, an what has become an almost nightly practice in the past three weeks.
A female Israeli soldier stands next to a man-made pool containing water from a spring located near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, and the Jewish settlement of Halamish, near Ramallah March 19, 2012. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
(Reuters) – Jewish settlers have seized dozens of natural springs in the occupied West Bank, barring Palestinians or limiting their access to scarce water sources, a United Nations report said on Monday.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had surveyed 530 springs in the West Bank and found that 30, mostly in areas where Israel retains military control, were taken over by the settlers.
It added that Palestinians currently had limited access to 26 other springs where settlers had moved in and threatened to take control. The report said settlers had not encroached on 474 remaining springs surveyed.
“Springs have remained the single largest water source for irrigation and a significant source for watering livestock,” the report said, adding that some also provided water for domestic consumption in areas not connected to pipelines.
“The loss of access to springs and adjacent land reduced the income of affected farmers, who either stop cultivating the land or face a reduction in the productivity of their crops,” the report said.
It added that settlers had turned dozens of springs into tourist sites and some were used for swimming.
“Settlers have developed 40 springs as tourist sites, deployed picnic tables and benches and given them Hebrew names … It is generating employment and revenue for the settlements and it is a way of promoting or advertising settlements as a fun place,” OCHA researcher Yehezkel Lein said.
David Ha’ivri, a settler leader, said settlers were using the springs “for purposes of recreation and for the people who live here, more so than for tourism purposes.”
In 2009 a spring named Ein el Qaws, located near the village of Nabi Saleh, was taken over by settlers from Halamish, forcing villagers to obtain their irrigation water from other sources, the report and residents said.
“The spring was used to irrigate hundreds of olive and fruit trees in the village and the children used to swim in it, now if we try to go to the spring, the settlers and soldiers come and kick us out,” said villager Nariman Tamimi.
A spokesman for Israel’s military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank said there was free access to the Ein el Qaws spring for everyone, except on Fridays when Palestinians usually mount protests against the spring’s takeover and soldiers keep people away.
He said Israel had curbed illegal building at one spring and had started legal proceedings against work at another site.
About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Palestinians seek the territory for an independent state along with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Palestinians say settlements, considered illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest U.N. legal body for disputes, would deny them a viable state.
Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank and says the status of settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.
