2nd July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Kafr Qalil, Occupied Palestine
On the 26th of June, at 1:30am, dozens of soldiers on foot and in military jeeps invaded the village of Kfar Qalil, southeast of Nablus, raided three shops, ransacked a house and arrested three men.
Window broken by Israeli soldiers (Photo by ISM)
Last Tuesday night, soldiers broke into one store, an automobile parts shop and a pharmacy located on the main road to Nablus. They forced the doors of the three establishments and, according to workers, soldiers then stole three car parts and cash from the pharmacy. Several cars in the car park nearby were also damaged by soldiers.
A house located in the upper part of the village was also raided and ransacked. Israeli military jeeps and foot soldiers arrived when Thabet Mansour, a neighbour, was parking his car at the entrance of his house. They violently arrested him without giving any reason. His family, who were asleep, woke up because of the noise and saw the soldiers beating Thabeb with the butts of their guns. Soon after that, some of the soldiers invaded the house and arrested two other family members.
Zahi, father of four and a worker at the automobile repair shop was next to be arrested. Then, his brother, Nihad, a policeman and father of seven, was also taken from the same house in his sleeping clothes. He wasn’t allowed to change his clothes and when he said to his wife “take care of the children” the soldiers grabbed him around the neck and forcibly covered his mouth. His wife, Iman, told how his children were crying and shouting “I want my dad”.
The soldiers searched and ransacked the house taking nine mobile phones, the keys of two cars that the family can no longer use and official papers of land and house ownership. None of the men arrested or family members were given any reason for the arrests and house search.
All three men were arrested for the first time and have been transferred to different prisons in Israel. Nihad in Beer Sheva, Zahi in Ashkelon and Thabet in Hadarim. Nihad and Zahi’s sister, who lives in Israel, tried to visit them in the prisons but was not allowed by Israeli authorities. Their court was dated for Wednesday, the day after they were arrested but has been postponed. None of their family members will be allowed to attend.
Israeli soldiers broke several window cars and took the keys (Photo by: ISM)
Israeli forces repeatedly invade Kafr Qalil at night, raiding houses and arresting people. In the past two month, three other people have been arrested and are still in prison. Last Wednesday, a day after the invasion, Israeli authorities handed out a land confiscation order which will take 370 dunums from farmers to give it to Tel a-Ras military outpost next to Bracha illegal settlement.
28th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
In the early hours of the morning on the 27th June hundreds of Israeli army and police of the occupation forces invaded Nablus where they arrested people, destroyed homes and shot teargas and sound bombs all through the night.
The army remained in Nablus terrorising the population from 1.30am till 6.00am, when they eventually withdrew, forcibly taking three people whose families were left to repair their homes after they had been sacked by the army.
Father of three, Alam Hafif Qarim (40 years old) lives in a block of flats with his family in the North Mountain area of Nablus. Around 150 occupation soldiers and police in more than 20 military vehicles surrounded the building at 1.30am. The people in the building attempted to phone each other and outside for help and to find out what was happening, but the landlines had been cut and the mobile phone signal blocked. The army fired teargas canisters and sound bombs around the building, in the middle of the night. Fearing for the health of their children, residents closed their windows.
Israeli soldiers broke the children’s bed (Photo by ISM)
At 2.30am around 25 soldiers with attack dogs entered the building, and attempted to force the door; when that did not work, they hammered noisily on the door shouting in Arabic that they were the army. Alam quickly unlocked the door and the 25 soldiers moved into the house. They had a bag of tools – hammers and the like – with them. Alam’s wife was told to wake the children, two girls (7 years old and 3 months old) and their 10-year-old son, where they were forced with Alam, who was handcuffed, to sit in one room as the army began to use the tools to make holes in the walls, smash windows and overturn and tear up furniture in the recently redecorated house. “They came ready,” Alam’s family member later told ISM. The family repeatedly asked the soldiers what they were looking for and what they wanted, to which the army did not reply. “They came to destroy our house and our lives, under the pretext of looking for something.”
All belongings including food and clothes were thrown into the bathroom as the destruction continued. One soldier who was careless in the destruction of the bathroom, injured himself with the tool he brought, and so the army called an ambulance to help him while Alam’s wife had to later clean up his blood in her bathroom he smashed.
A female soldier then initiated a body search of Alam’s wife and 7-year-old daughter. Alam’s 3-month-old other daughter was also not immune from suspicion when a soldier began to attack her pushchair. Alam’s wife intervened and patted it down to show that it could have nothing hidden in it and shouted at him that he “had no heart.” Later it was found that the children’s mattresses had been ripped apart in their room decorated with Mickey Mouse.
The army eventually left after 4am, taking Alam with them. Alam works in a shop that sells parts of BMWs and had been granted a visa to visit Germany to pick up parts. He was due to pick up his visa in 2-3 days.
Not far from Alam’s shop, which showed his pride in his work and in providing for his family, to live a normal life in spite of the difficulties unleashed by the occupation, is the home of 34-year-old Mazin and his parents. At 2am more than 50 soldiers burst into Mazin’s home and started to methodically destroy his family’s belongings as they interrogated him for four hours. Mazin and his parents suffer from ill health, his mother suffering from cancer and Mazin from a heart condition since he was 20, when the army shot him with 10 bullets for which he spent 6 months in hospital before being placed in prison, the same number of years as bullets, before he even had the chance to fully recover.
Mazen’s bedroon, ransacked by Israeli soldiers (Photo by ISM)
Mazin asked the soldiers for water for himself and his mother during the interrogation. The army refused. The soldiers demanded that Mazin hand over automatic weapons, of which he said he had none.
The army then sadistically smashed the home; destroyed all furnishing; threw food from the fridge over the floor; overturned the washing machine, the oven, and even hauled out water pipes. “They’re animals,” Mazin’s father said. Soldiers threw eggs at walls and broke them on chairs. They smashed the toilet bowl and attacked the walls of every room with their tools. See video here.
At one point a soldier approached Mazin; he put his hand on Mazin’s shoulder and told him: “I don’t want to arrest you. I want to kill you. I promise you, I will kill you.” Mazin’s parents were standing beside him when their son was being threatened with murder. The family noticed three stars on the soldier’s uniform, which meant he’s a battalion commander, a high rank in the occupation army.
Destroyed kitchen (Photo by ISM)
The army left the home in ruin; they took his laptop but found no illegal weapons. Later, Mazin, a FIFA-certified football coach in Nablus, found that his football had been skewered with a knife. In spite of condemnation from human rights supporters, Israel was recently chosen to host the 2013 UEFA under-21 championship.
Mazin and his parents chose to leave the house the way it was after the destruction; they hope that ‘“The world will see what life is like for Palestinians under Israeli occupation.”
Alam’s distraught family could not do this, when the army left they immediately started to clean and repair. “We didn’t sleep,” Alam’s sister said. She joined the family to help, as did many neighbours who came to support the family, as Alam is a popular man, but also through sense of duty and community.
The day after this attack on Nablus (Israel’s fourth in this last week alone), residents wondered what else the occupation army would do to their city the following night.Nablus is in Area A (according to the Oslo Accords), which means, in theory, that Israel does not have any military or civilian control over it.
23rd June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
This Saturday, June 29 marks the 9th anniversary of the Israeli assassination of Naif Abu-Sharah, former resident of Nablus and leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade until his death. But even though his death has long passed, Israeli authorities haven’t ceased collectively punishing the family he left behind.
During the early morning of Monday, June 23, the Israeli military surrounded the Hosh al-Hitan neighborhood of the Old City of Nablus and arrested Fadi Abu-Sharah, the 25-year-old son of Naif, in the same building in which they assassinated his father nine years ago. He is currently believed to be held at Huwwara Interrogation Center, south of Nablus.
This is not the first instance of punishment by the Israeli military against the Abu-Sharah family. Fadi has been arrested and imprisoned for extended periods in a number of previous instances, and his older brother, Fathi, was kept in an Israeli prison for nine years before being released a year ago. According to his family, Fathi was also given an order from Israeli authorities to appear at Huwwara Interrogation Center for questioning this week. About five years ago, Naif’s brother Ghassan was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in his home. Neither Fathi, Fadi, nor Ghassan have ever been involved in military activities. The Abu-Sharah family hopes to hear news of their son within a week.
Collective punishment is a tactic long used by the Israeli authorities against the families and communities of those who have been active in resisting the Israeli occupation. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, collective punishment is deemed a war crime. Further to this, under the Oslo accords Nablus city is Area A and is thus under full Palestinian civil and security control, meaning that the Israeli authorities have once again demonstrated their complete disregard for treaties that they have signed.
On Friday, June 21, the residents of Kafr Qaddum gathered for the weekly demonstration following the Friday prayer. Many residents were prevented from attending the prayer, as 60 soldiers entered the village before the demonstration even began.
Protesters having much more fun than the Army (Photo by IWPS)
At approximately 11:30, people in the village noticed soldiers entering from the main road closest to Qedumim settlement. They quickly gathered to keep the soldiers away, building defensive stone barricades along the main road. As they faced-off with the army, Israeli soldiers repeatedly pointed their guns at the crowd in order to scare people back to the center of the village.
Nearly one hour later, the soldiers descended down the main road, firing many tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the fleeing crowd. Many people suffered from tear gas inhalation and the surrounding shops and houses also filled up with toxic gas.
At 13:40, the army entered the village again, led by a bulldozer, which cleared away some of the barricades and provided cover for the approaching soldiers, who continued to shoot tear gas at the demonstrators.
At 14:00, one protestor was shot in the back with a plastic-coated steel bullet and was carried away to receive medical attention. Ten minutes later, a camera man and a correspondent for Palestine TV were violently beaten and arrested by the army, showing the Israeli military’s clear disregard for freedom of the press and a journalist’s right to report the news. All of their equipment was confiscated and throw into a nearby field.
Car window shot out by Israeli soldiers (Photo by IWPS)
Demonstrators shouted for the men’s’ release to no avail. Twenty minutes later, two more young men were shot with plastic coated steel bullets, one in the chest and another in the arm and the stomach.
Approaching 15:00, yet another young man was shot in the hand with a plastic-coated steel bullet, severely cutting his fingers. Following his injury, the army raided the village for the last time of the day when nearly 30 foot soldiers chased protesters back to the center of the village, firing tear gas and sound bombs.
The Israeli army presence continued into the early evening and at 16:00, the group of fifty protestors celebrated their daily acts of resistance by eating ice cream, dancing and singing in front of the 30 remaining soldiers and border police.
15th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Urif, Occupied Palestine
On Tuesday, 11th June, Israeli forces invaded the village of Urif and arrested nine youths between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven. This incident is believed by the villagers to be related to the ‘price-tag’ settler attacks that the village suffered on 30th April.
At around 1am, forty foot soldiers and four jeeps coming from the nearby Yizhar settlement raided Urif and arrested the nine youths. Without giving any information, the soldiers left in the early hours of the morning, leaving the village at roughly 4am.
Israeli soldier pointing at residents of Urif with a M16 rifle charged with rubber coated steel bullets during a settler attack last January (Photo by ISM)
The town’s mayor says the incident is part of an ongoing assault on the villagers who rightfully resist settler attacks. He stated, “nobody complains when Israel violates the law like this anymore, they are too afraid of being arrested themselves”. He also believes there is a clear pattern of targeting all the young men in the area in order to create circumstances where the only people left to defend their land are older and other vulnerable people.
The incident, as mentioned earlier, is directly linked to the confrontations that erupted between Palestinian youths and settlers and Israeli armed forces after settlers from Yizhar settlement attacked the villages of Urif, Burin and Asira. These ‘price-tag’ attacks on Palestinian villagers were followed by the killing of a settler by a Palestinian at the Za’tara checkpoint on April 30th.
Urif, located southwest of the city of Nablus, is one of several villages in proximity to the extremely hostile settlement of Yizhar and as such subject to constant harassment and violence from settlers and Israeli forces.
Settlers from Yizhar, including the head rabbi, have distributed Islamphobic literature, describing Palestinians as a “Cancer that needs to be cleansed from the land of Israel” and created pamphlets expressing support for Israeli mass murderers, most notably Baruch Goldstein, who carried out the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
These settlers are also known for being the ideologists of the ‘price-tag’ practice, where any kind of action taken against settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories by the Israeli government is met with harsh, violent and aggressive attacks on Palestinian communities.
