Tag: Arrests

UPDATED: Murad Eshtewi, and four Palestinian youths from Kafr Qaddum, still under custody after court hearing

12th May 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine

Second Update Tuesday 13th May:

Murad Eshtwei’s next court day is Sunday 18th May at Ofer prison. Ream Harham, Mustafa Eshtewi, and Ahmad Hassan Eshtewi have a court date tomorrow in Ofer court at 14:30. Reslan Joma will have his court date next week.

Update Tuesday 13th of May:

On Monday 12th of May there was a court hearing for Murad, Reslan, Ream, Mustafa and Ahmad. Murad is still in remand (pre-trial detention) until the next court hearing. Murad’s attorney will appeal the decision, but if rejected the next court hearing should be on the 9th of June.

The remaining four residents of Kafr Qaddum have been technically released on bail. The court demanded a bail of 10,000NIS for each one (over 2,000 euros). However, the Israeli state has appealed this decision and therefore they are still under custody. Their attorney will appeal against the bail.

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On the night of the 28th to 29th of April 2014, the Israeli army raided the village of Kafr Qaddum to arrest five people, among them Murad Eshtewi, the media coordinator of the weekly Friday demonstration in Kafr Qaddum. The four other young man who where arrested are Reslan Joma, Ream Harham, Mustafa Eshtewi and Ahmad Hassan Eshtewi.

At this time, all five are still imprisoned by Israeli forces in Meggido prison. This prison is located north of the West Bank and thereby contradicting Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein”.

Murad is being charged with stone throwing and organizing the demonstration, while the remaining four youths are also charged with stone throwing.

Witnesses from the village state that the Israeli army, numbering approximately 100 soldiers, raided the different houses at approximately 02.30AM. Murad was arrested at his house, however the Israeli army used unconventional methods to arrest him. The soldiers climbed into Murad’s bedroom window using ladders, and took him out of the window. Although no tear gas or stun grenades were used during the arrests, the other four houses that were raided in Kafr Qaddum suffered serious property damage.

According to Murad’s attorney, two youths from Kafr Qaddum were arrested 12 weeks ago. They were held in custody and interrogated for a month and forced to give out names of people participating in the weekly Friday demonstration in their village. The lawyer suspects that Murad Eshtewi and the four youths arrested during the night raid were on the list.

Murad Eshtewi was ambushed and arrested by Israeli forces on December 2013, but he was released on bail four days later. His attorney at the time stated that: “Contrary to the fundamental principles of due process we have not been presented with the accusations against Murad nor has he been interrogated since his arrest.”

Currently, Murad and the other villagers from Kafr Qaddum have been in custody for 12 days. During this period, they have had two court hearings in which their sentences were postponed, allegedly to collect more evidence.

The weekly Friday demonstrations in Kafr Qaddum started in 2011 to reopen the road to Nablus and against the illegal Israeli settlement of Qedumim. The Israeli army responded with systematic arrests. In some cases, the detainees would be under custody for one or two days and then released on bail. According to the former mayor of Kafr Qaddum, this has had an important economic impact: approximately 250,000 shekels (almost 52,000 euros) have been paid by local villagers to release their detainees. As of today, there are 155 villagers from Kafr Qaddum detained in Israeli prisons out of a total population of approximately 4,500.

From a Friday demonstration in Kafr Qaddum (photo by ISM).
From a Friday demonstration in Kafr Qaddum (photo by ISM).

Asira Attacked 4 Nights in a Row

7th May 2014 | International Women’s Peace Service | Asira al-Qibliya, Occupied Palestine

Israeli army raided the village of Asira al-Qibliya (south of Nablus) at 1 am on 5 May, arresting a 21-year-old, brutally assaulting his uncle, and terrorising the family’s children with attack dogs.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded Asira by foot, sneaking in from the backside of the village. Asira al-Qibliya has now been raided for four nights in a row, with Israeli soldiers breaking into villagers’ houses and blocking off roads to prevent anyone entering or leaving the area.

The attack of 5 May was implemented according to a slightly different tactic from the previous ones: soldiers arrived quietly on foot from the backsides of the houses, using ladder to get through olive trees without being heard. They also took away mobile phones from the family members in the houses they raided, so that they could not tell their neighbours that an attack was in place and call for help. Some residents of Asira only found out about the attack the following morning.

Three Israeli soldiers attacked 48-year-old Abu Suleiman, resident of Asira who was on his way back to his house. They beat him, kicked him, and hit him on the head with the back of their rifles. The assault lasted for an hour; soldiers then handcuffed the beaten man, blindfolded him, and sealed his mouth with duck tape. They then brought him under a fig tree in the back of his garden and tried to strangle him. Shortly after, they finally checked his ID and discovered that he was not the one they were looking for. At this point they also stole NIS 500 (£85, US $145) that was hidden in the man’s ID holder.

When Abu Suleiman’s family found him, the Israeli army prevented them from calling an ambulance; the man was bleeding heavily from his head. Even after one of his relatives managed to reach an ambulance by phone, soldiers did not allow it to pass through for half an hour so that Abu Suleiman could get the treatment he was in desperate need of. Only later, having kept the man in pain for several hours, did the army finally stop obstructing the ambulance.

Today Abu Suleiman is painfully recovering in his home.

At around the same time of the attack on Abu Suleiman, some 25 Israeli soldiers surrounded the house of his brother’s family, demanding the whereabouts of one of his sons; eight soldiers entered the house accompanied by two attack dogs which threatened the family’s young children. Soldiers refused to open the window to let some fresh air inside the locked room even after the mother’s appeals to do it for her son who was suffering from an asthma attack. When the 21-year-old they were looking for was not to be found, the soldiers instead brought his father and brother to their jeep parked near the village mosque. The army demanded the 21-year-old son in return of the two. When he arrived, soldiers arrested him. The young man has been arrested once before, two months ago, and severely beaten.

As these last few days Israelis are celebrating their Independence day and have days off, the family has not yet heard anything about what happened to their son.

Photo by IWPS
Photo by IWPS

Update on Hunger Strikes: Administrative Detainees put in Solitary Confinement, Denied Salt Supplements

7th May 2014 | Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association | Ramallah, Occupied Palestine

 

(Image by the Global End Administrative Detention Campaign)
(Image by the Global End Administrative Detention Campaign)

The latest wave of mass hunger strikes continue for the 14th day as Palestinian prisoners demand the end of the policy of administrative detention. Administrative detention is a procedure in which Palestinians are arbitrarily arrested and detained without charge or trial based on a secret file. There are currently 183 Palestinians under administrative detention, 9 of them members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
 
On 24 April 2014, the administrative detainees announced a mass hunger strike to demand their freedom. Detainees will periodically continue to join the hunger strike if the demands are not met. There are currently 95 detainees on hunger strike in Ofer, Megiddo and Naqab prisons. It should be noted that Ofer and Megiddo prisons are provided services by the British-Danish company G4S, which installed cameras and surveillance equipment used to control the Palestinian prisoners.
 
According to one hunger striker who spoke with Addameer lawyer Mahmoud Hassan, the detainees in the Naqab Prison have all been transferred to an isolated section, separate from the other prisoners. The cells are covered in sand. They have been ill-treated; suffering from daily searches of their cells and being permitted to change their undergarments only twice since the beginning of the strike. They are bound and handcuffed in their cells for ten hours a day.
 
Three of the hunger strikers in Naqab prison, Fadi Hammad, Fadi Omar and Soufian Bahar, are now in solitary confinement and one detainee, Ahmad Abu Ras, was transferred to an undisclosed location.
 
Furthermore, the IPS has been denying the hunger strikers salt for the last two weeks. Prisoners who engage in hunger strikes still take liquids and salt, as they are essential for survival.
 
Denial of salt is a continuation of the punishments against hunger strikers, and despite the grave danger  it imposes on the lives of the detainees, has been institutionalized by the Israeli Supreme Court. In 2004, the Israeli Supreme Court denied a petition by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and several other Palestinian and Israeli NGOs that demanded the IPS provide salt on a daily basis to hunger-striking prisoners as its denial breaches the constitutional rights of the prisoner.
 
The hunger strikers can potentially face harsher punishments if the IPS’s most recent proposed bill to legalize force-feeding is approved in the Knesset. The memorandum is currently up for public critique.
 
In addition, 42 hunger strikers have been transferred to Ayalon / Ramleh Prison, including Abd Al Rizziq Farraj and Salem Dardasawi. On 4 May 2014, their cells were raided and the hunger strikers beaten. Mohammad Maher Badr’s finger was broken during the attack and Mohammad Jamal Al-Natsheh had to be hospitalized for the injuries sustained from the attack. The prisoners are in overcrowded isolation cells, with seven hunger strikers in each. They are in their cells at all times and denied recreational hours in the yard.
 
Addameer maintains that the Occupation’s authorities are solely responsible for the lives of the hunger strikes. Addameer also demands that all contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention pressure Israel to immediately release all administrative detainees and cease the use of administrative detention.

Israeli army target children in Azzun

7th May 2014 | International Women’s Peace Service | Azzun, Occupied Palestine

If the people of ‘Azzun seem nervous, they have a right to be. The town (population approximately 10,000) sits on crossroads – Qalqiliya is to the west, Nablus to the east, Salfit to the south and Tulkarem to the north. This is a junction that is vulnerable to road closures and flying checkpoints. On either side, the illegal settler colonies of Ma’ale Shomeron and Alfe Menashe loom large. Six Israeli surveillance cameras surround ‘Azzun, meaning that the population is being watched all day, every day.

Because of its precarious geographical position, occupation forces have been particularly brutal in ‘Azzun. Currently, 230 Palestinian children are imprisoned in Israel jails. 68 of those children come from ‘Azzun. There are an additional 112 adult prisoners from here, victims of regular night raids. In 2013, the Israeli military conducted 300 operations inside the town, and soldiers have entered the town on foot every night for the last week.

Those who are not imprisoned face other difficulties. Most of the population are professional farmers; however most of the town’s land has been stolen by the surrounding settlements. This has left ‘Azzun with a 46% unemployment rate. Many of the employed work across the Green Line, facing regular harassment at the checkpoints. During the Second Intifada, checkpoint gates were installed at the entrances of the town, enabling the Israeli military to create flying checkpoints, which happens multiple times per week.

Such was the case yesterday, when 8 jeeps arrived at 1 pm to close the gate leading to road 55 which runs from Qalqilya towards Nablus. After the soldiers arrived, several of them entered the village and grabbed Osama, a nine year old boy, seemingly at random. The soldiers told the surrounding villagers that they arrested Osama because he had been seen throwing rocks immediately prior to their arrival. Eyewitnesses from ‘Azzun refuted this claim, saying that they had seen the boy playing with his friends in the town square at the time when the rocks were allegedly thrown. Regardless, the soldiers detained Osama in the back of one jeep, and did not allow any Palestinians to sit with the boy, even though he was crying and visibly distressed. The boy’s father arrived quickly, but since he did not have his Hawiyya ID card on him, he was forced to go home and retrieve it before he was allowed to see his son. Osama was alone with the soldiers in the jeep for over one hour, and remained in detention for another hour and a half after his father returned, before being released. Throughout this time, people from the town surrounded the military jeeps, in an effort to support the child. The incident was captured by Palestine TV, and can be seen below. The offending soldiers released Osama to his home that night, but claimed that he had officially confessed to throwing stones.

Often, ‘Azzunee children who are arrested or detained are offered release if they sign a confession, often written in Hebrew, a language they don’t read or write. These children are usually alone with soldiers, with neither their parents nor lawyers present (which is in direct contravention of Israel’s own laws), and are under great physical and mental duress. These confessions are designed to implicate other children – often by having other names written in. Since the children do not know what they are signing, they are tricked into implicating their friends in falsified crimes.

In some instances, children who are accused of throwing stones at settlers have also been ordered to pay ‘compensation’ for ‘causing distress’ to the settlers (who cannot even prove they had stones thrown at them), sometimes up to 30,000 shekels. This is a further burden for economically unstable ‘Azzun. Those who cannot pay the compensations in the allotted time are forced to spend double the time of their original sentence in jail.

While the town is definitely happy that Osama has returned home, the story is not yet over. Since the Israeli soldiers have a forced confession to stone throwing, they may return again to raid Osama’s house, or potentially use this ‘confession’ as evidence to arrest other children from the village.

Daily Harassment in the Qeitun area

6th May 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Residents of Qeitun area of Al-Khalil, near Shuhada St. are presented with a very different kind of daily routine than other areas of the occupied West Bank. Israel occupation forces not only raid houses and harass people on a daily basis, but also use the local population as part of their military training.

On Tuesday, the 29th of April, the Israeli army was training for the erecting and working of a flying checkpoint, pulling over cars on the main road of the area which leads to the military base, also called Qeitun. During this training the commander was instructing the soldiers how to stop and search drivers and their cars.

Photo by ISM
Photo by ISM

Two days later, on Thursday 1st of May at 11:30pm, ISM activists were called out to witness the Israeli army performing a massive operation of night raids, with approximately 100 soldiers. When the activist got to the area, the army had detained an 18-year old. The youth was released 30 minutes after the arrival of the activists. Many of the local people, still in their nightdresses, were out in the streets while the soldiers were inside their houses.

At around 1:00am the soldiers left the area and had what seemed like a quick evaluation of the whole operation, making it difficult to know whether it was an actual military operation or just some sort of training, similar to the flying checkpoint training that took place two days earlier. For the people of Qeitun there’s no actual difference between “training” and a live military operation of the occupation forces.

In an ISM visit with a family of the Qeitun area, they report that the soldiers have been starting the raids as early as 9pm and had raided a total of 50 houses. They also reported that during one of the raids the soldiers had broken into a house with such violence that an elderly woman with a heart condition, had gone into coma and had to be rushed to the hospital.

The family reported that the area experiences night raids at least two or three times a week. Israeli soldiers enter and harass the locals on a daily basis and the army has arrested two minors during the last month.

During the second intifada almost all families living in the houses located near Shuhada St. were forced out by the Israeli army, allegedly for security reasons, making this part of the area a ghost town.