Shortly after 3am, Bil’in was invaded again. 4 Jeeps and a military truck entered the village with over 50 soldiers. The Israeli occupation forces raided three homes simultaneously and arrested Abed Baset Mohammed Abu Rahme (age 19). In the second house, they tried to arrest Yaseen Mohammed Ali Yaseen (21), but he was not at home. They left a military order for him to turn himself in by 9am the next day. In the third house, they wanted to arrest Mohammed Ahmed Yaseen (age 21), but did not find him at his home either.
The soldiers acted very swiftly. As they encountered many international activists who stood in their way filming and challenging their action as well as following the movement of the jeeps, the soldiers threw tear gas and sound bombs to disperse them and clear the way. They also used a laser beam on some of the activists as a means of intimidation.
At around 4am, all the military vehicles left the village exiting toward the Apartheid Wall.
A Military Police investigation into a soldier’s killing of a Palestinian near Hebron in January has been going on for seven and a half months, and there is still no end in sight. Yet the sector commander has been giving briefings for the past few months based on his own inquiry into the incident, which he describes as “a serious failure in moral and professional terms.”
On January 13, 2009, at the height of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, Yassir Tamizi, a resident of the village of Idna, was stopped by a patrol of reservists in the Hebron area and brought to an Israel Defense Forces post near Tarkumiya. The soldier guarding the entrance to the post was frightened by Tamizi, who was fighting his arrest because he was worried about his son, who had been left behind when he was taken away. The frightened soldier then shot Tamizi, who died a few hours later from his wounds.
The IDF opened a Military Police investigation, on its own initiative.
But seven and a half months later, no decision has been made over whether to charge the soldiers and officers involved.
At the same time, despite widely varying accounts of what happened, the sector commander, Hebron Brigade Commander Col. Udi Ben Moha, has already drawn his own conclusions based on inquiries he conducted into the event. Ben Moha presents these conclusions to all units operating in his sector.
Ben Moha said that at the beginning of Cast Lead, a reserve battalion was called up to replace the regular soldiers serving in the area. The patrol stopped Tamizi while he was working in a field near the separation fence. Since he did not have his identity card wit him, the soldiers decided to arrest him, even though his 7-year-old son was with him at the time. They put him in the jeep and left his son behind in the field.
The patrol then took Tamizi to the Tarkumiya post and left him – handcuffed and blindfolded – with the guard at the entrance to the post. They did not report the arrest to brigade or battalion headquarters.
Tamizi, who was worried about his son, tried to free himself from the handcuffs. He made a move toward the guard, who became alarmed and shot him three times. One bullet hit Tamizi in the chest, causing his death.
But soldiers from the company involved dispute Ben Moha’s version. They claim Tamizi violently resisted arrest in the field, refused to give them his identity number so they could check on him by radio, and went wild while still in the jeep. At the entrance to the post, they said, Tamizi managed to free his hands and tried to steal the guard’s weapon.
“There was no one to deal with the prisoner and no one to tell us what to do with him,” said one of the soldiers. “They are turning the guard into a scapegoat.”
The guard himself was questioned twice by the Military Police, the second time several months ago. He refused to speak with Haaretz.
The Military Police also questioned Palestinian witnesses, and the investigation has apparently been completed. However, no decision has yet been made on indictments.
The IDF Spokesman confirmed that the investigation is finished and said the case is now awaiting the military prosecution’s decision.
As for Ben Moha’s briefings, the spokesman said, it is normal for a sector commander to brief units new to the sector on recent events. However, at no point did he assign criminal responsibility to the soldier in question.
On Tuesday, 25 August 2009, at around 2:00 in the morning, a hundred Israeli soldiers with 8 jeeps invaded the Palestinian village of Ni’lin. They went directly to two family houses.
The Israeli army came to the house of Abdallah As’ad Amira (19 years old), located at the main street of the village. At around 3:00 am, 6 soldiers came into his house and forced the rest of the family (5 sisters and his mother) to go into one room. Three soldiers stayed in the room with them, while other three went directly to the room of Abdallah and picked him up. They handcuffed, blind-folded him and put him into a military jeep. Outside of their home, another 10 soldiers surrounded the house. “Everything happened very fast, the soldiers seemed to know perfectly where Abdallah’s room was. We tried to give him water but the soldiers didn’t allow us”, remember one of his sisters. Abdallah was taken to an unknown location. As’ad Amereh family has lost all of their land (30 dunums with hundred-year-old olive trees) due to the construction of a checkpoint on the settler road 446 and the Hashmonaim settlement. This is the second time that soldiers came to his family home looking for Abdallah. The first time, on November 2008, the army took Abdallah’s brother by mistake, and released him few days after.
At the same time, another group of soldiers invaded the house of Mohammed Attalah Amira (19 years old). His 4 sisters, mother and 2 nephews were at home when 8 soldiers came. Four soldiers forced the family to stay in one room, while the rest came to the terrace of the house. There were around 30 soldiers surrounding the home simultaneously. The harassment from the army lasted 20 minutes, after which the soldiers exited leaving two papers, one for Mohammed and another for Hassan Awad Amereh, Mohammed’s brother-in-law. These papers demanded that both show up at the Israeli Ofer prison the next day at 10:00 am, for interrogation. Hassan, 27 years old, went to Offer this morning and was released after an interrogation about the demonstrations in the village. He and his family have suffered harassment for several months with night invasions and phone calls from “Captain Foad.” The Attalah Amira family lost all their land because of the illegal construction of settlements around the village. In 1997 during a protest against the illegal expropriation of Palestinian land from people of Ni’lin, Mohammed’s father was killed by an Israeli soldier.
As the soldiers were leaving the village at around 3:30 am, they broke the back glass of a car that was parked in front of Mohammed’s house. The owner of the car is Hassan, a teacher in the Ni’lin girl’s school.
The Israeli arrest and intimidation campaigns on West Bank villages that demonstrate against the Wall, have led to the arrests of over 76 Palestinians in Ni’lin alone as of June 2009.
UPDATE: Mohammad Abu Rahma has been released from Israeli prison on a 5,000 NIS bail.
Abdallah Abu Rahme, coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee, stated, “The ongoing arrests are meant to create pressure for us to stop our non-violent resistance. The Israeli authorities are putting conditions on our leaders and forcing us to pay thousands of sheckels. But we cannot and will not stop protesting against the theft of our land.”
For Immediate Release
Abu Nizar at a demonstration in Canada
20 August 2009:Once again the night in Bil’in was disrupted by a raid ending with the arrest of one the members of the Village’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. This occurred the night after the childrens demonstration where the children had chanted slogans like “We want to sleep,” “Stop the night raids”.
The house of Bil’in Popular Committee member and vice president of the Bil’in village council, Mohammad Abu Rahma, (age 50), known by his friends as Abu Nizar, was raided shortly before 2am on Thursday morning. About 25 soldiers with their faces painted in black had come to the village on foot.
The soldiers broke into Abu Nizar’s home and forcefully took him from his bed where he and his wife were sleeping. They then beat and dragged him to the Annexation Wall where jeeps were waiting to pick them up. During the arrest, the soldiers where confronted by international solidarity activists who live in the village and Haitham Khatib the village’s camera man. As Haithem was filming the arrest, one soldier hit him, broke his camera and hit two of the activists.
Abu Nizar’s son Nashmi Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Rahma (age 14) had been arrested 5 days ago. To date, Israeli forces have arrested 28 people (most of which are under 18). Nineteen residents of Bil’in remain in Israeli detention. Through Israel’s interrogation and intimidation tactics, some of arrested youth have ‘confessed’ that the Bil’in Popular Committee urges the demonstrators to throw stones. With such ‘confessions’, Israeli forces then proceed to arrest leaders of the non violent struggle in the community.
Magda abu Rahme , 17 , sister to Nashmi and daughter to Mohammad who are both currently in Israeli military prison stated; “These crimes, these armed invasions, breaking into homes where women sleep, these will only make us stronger and more steadfast. We remain samideen – steadfast – and will not back down. The strategy is to fragment our families and community and create distrust, and this will fail, we remain strong and we are immovable.”
What you can do?
Attempts to criminalize the leadership of non-violent protests where curbed in the past with the help of an outpouring of support from people committed to justice from all over the world.
1. The Popular committee of Bil’in is in desperate need for legal funds in order to pay legal fees and Bail. Please donate to the Bil’in legal fund by paypal click http://tinyurl.com/lcr6rg . If you would like to make a tax deductible donation in the US or Canada contact: bilinlegal@gmail.com.
2. Please Protest by contacting your political representatives, as well as you consuls and ambassadors to Israel to demand that Israel stops targeting non violent popular resistance and release Mohammad Abu Rahme (Abu Nizar,) Adib Abu Rahme and all Bil’in prisoners.
The Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements
Background
The Palestinian village of Bil’in has become an international symbol of the Palestinian popular struggle. For almost 5 years, its residents have been continuously struggling against the de facto annexation of more than 50% of their farmlands via the construction of the Apartheid Wall.
In a celebrated decision, the Israeli Supreme court ruled on the 4 September 2007 that the current route of the wall in Bil’in was illegal and needs to be dismantled; the ruling however has not been implemented. The struggle of the village to liberate its lands and stop the illegal settlements has been internationally recognized and has earned the popular committee in Bil’in the Carl von Ossietzky Meda. http://tinyurl.com/nfmsvm
Another leading Bil’in non-violent activist, Adeeb Abu Rahme, remains in detention since his arrest during a non-violent demonstration on July 10th (see report & video: https://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7652).
Adib Abu Rahme as well as Bil’in’s popular committee Member Mohammad Khatib have been charged with “incitement to damage the security of the area.” , was recently released on bail after his lawyer proved that a picture the military prosecution claimed was of him throwing stones that was accompanied by a confession form one of the arrested youth recognizing Mohammad, was taken while Mohammad was out of the country.
For Immediate Release:
Monday, 24 August 2009 at 9am: A mass demonstration will be held outside Ofer prison in the West Bank.
Palestinians, alongside Israeli and international solidarity activists will gather in front of Ofer (on the Palestinian side) to protest against Israeli arrest and intimidation campaigns of Palestinians.
Israeli forces have conducted arrest and intimidation campaigns on villages that resist Israeli apartheid infrastructure. According to a joint report from Addameer and Stop the Wall, Israeli forces have arrested 176 Palestinians from 5 villages alone in their resistance against construction of the Wall.
The family of Na’el Barghouthi will be in attendance to demand for his release. Barghouthi was taken by Israeli forces on 4 April 1978 and has been behind bars for 31 years.
An estimated 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners are currently being held in Israeli jails.
