Tag: Azzun

Village of Azzun suffers from continuous, targeted attacks by Israeli army

31st July 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Azzun, Occupied Palestine

On Tuesday, July 28, at 2:40 pm, the Israeli army arrived to the village of Azzun, located in the district of Qalqilya, to block 3 of the 4 existing entrance gates. Since the 4th gate (east side), which leads to an illegal settlement, has been permanently closed since 1992, this situation left all the inhabitants trapped in their village.

Both northern gates, leading to Nablus and Tulkarem, were blocked allowing no cars to pass, only people by foot, until 8:00 in the morning of the following day. In addition, three new checkpoints were created in these two north gates as well as the western gate leading to Qalqilya.

This event should be seen in the larger context of violence, control and surveillance to which the village of Azzun has been subjected to. The main road 55 that connects the village to Nablus, is fenced through 40 kilometers and includes three watchtowers, making villagers feel constantly threatened and controlled. Moreover, the nearby illegal settlement of Maale Shomeron has a large number of watchtowers that constantly surveil the villagers’ movements within Azzun.

In the course of the previous year, the village suffered from 385 attacks from the army, totaling more than one attack per day. These raids would sometimes be performed as training for the soldiers, at other times to directly arrest people, and overall to intimidate and cause fear among the villagers.

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On Wednesday, July 29, at 2:30 am, the Israeli army raided 10 houses in the village of Azzun, arresting two 19 year old boys, Samir Shbeitah and Mohammed Salim.

Samir’s brother, Sannad, informed ISM that the soldiers violently exploded the entrance door of the house in order to wake up and shock the whole family. As the family had not been completely woken up, the soldiers, all wearing black masks, ran upstairs to the terrace where the brothers had been sleeping, to begin frightening the family by creating loud noise and trashing the house. They would hit their guns against the tin roof of the terrace and point laser beam lights into the brothers’ eyes.

azzun12 — Damage to the house when the military broke in.

Samir, Sannad, and their younger brother Samer, were separated form their mother in different rooms. Samir was taken back to the terrace with 15 soldiers, leaving Sannad and Samer with 4 soldiers. After approximately one hour, an officer came with 8 jeeps and more soldiers, asked Samir for his ID and arrested him, taking with him only the clothes he was wearing.

An Israeli authority called Samir’s father to inform him that his son is in a prison in Huwara. His father asked why his son had been arrested; the officer gave no answer. Samir’s father is thinking whether he can pay the 4.000 shekel fine the Israeli authority demands in order to free his son, or get a lawyer, but the family is very poor.

This is the third attack this family has suffered in three years. In very similar conditions, Samir was arrested for the first time in 2012 when he was 15 years old, imprisoned for a period of 2 and a half years, with no charges.

During the second attack to his house, there was no arrest, but the family suffered similar violence, including breaking all the doors of their home and writing graffiti on their walls in English and Hebrew, which they could not understand.

These kind of raids in the village are very common, and mostly occur during the night, violently waking up the families in the middle of their sleep, and many times making them wait outside their homes, even during the winter.

Azzun is a village that also suffers from the Israeli army’s tactic called ‘practical punishment’. When someone within a family is arrested, the rest of his brothers and sons would be forbidden to continue working in Israel, by taking away their work permits within 24 hours. This has impacted the village’s high rate of unemployment, raising it to 39%, the highest unemployment rate in the West Bank.

Azzun suffers from an average of 175 arrests per year, where 65% of the detainees are under the age of 18, making this the highest number of child arrests in the West Bank.

In 2012, 150 children were arrested in Azzun. Child arrests, who are normally imprisoned for a week or short periods of time, is a clear tactic of the Israeli army to cause fear and trauma, generating high levels of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Palestinian family’s home invaded, two youths arrested by Israeli soldiers in Azzun village

11th December 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Azzun, Occupied Palestine

At 3 am, on the 8th of December in Azzun whilst the Radwan family slept, dozens of Israeli soldiers surrounded their house and broke in. They damaged the door as they entered, sweeping through the house and also breaking the doors of the kitchen cupboards. They ushered the nine family members into one room and forced them all sit on one sofa at gunpoint. The mother, speaking to ISM volunteers the day after her home was invaded and her sons arrested, recalled that there were too many soldiers to count that night. They were everywhere, all over the inside and outside of the house.

The soldiers took everyone’s mobile phones and the hard drive from their computer. They asked for seventeen-year-old Abdallah first, ordering another brother to get clothes and shoes for him. No one was told what was happening or why. The army then told the mother to say goodbye to her seventeen-year-old son, but he was surrounded by soldiers so she could not reach him or see him. She was was only able to cry out “ma’a salama!” – goodbye.

The soldiers then asked where 20 year old Mohammed was. They ordered his clothes and shoes to be brought as well. Again his mother was told to say goodbye, but again she could not because there were so many soldiers in the way.

Neither the family nor the boys were told why they were being arrested or where they were being taken. The ordeal lasted two hours. By 5 am, the army left and the family watched soldiers jumping from their roof and leaving from all sides of the house they had been surrounding.

The Radwan family lives in Azzun, a Palestinian village of about 12,000 people near the city of Qalqilya. Several illegal Israeli settlements surround the village, including Ma’ale Shomron, Ginot Shomeron and Alfei Menashe. The settlements encroach on Palestinian land, taking more and more each year. The Radwan family’s home is at the far end of the town, the closest house to the Ma’ale Shomron settlement. It is constantly targeted by the Israeli military and settlers. CCTV cameras watch the house constantly, even as settlers and Israeli military attack the area with impunity.

One of the highest levels of detainees per capita of anywhere in the West Bank, coupled with 47% unemployment, has a severe impact on Azzun’s youth, a local municipality worker reported. Young prisoners are often unable to finish university degrees after their imprisonment, having lost the
motivation to go back to school. Released prisoners and their family members are also unable to obtain permits to work in Israel, making employment opportunities even more rare.

Every year about a hundred and seventy Palestinians are arrested in Azzun. Around seventy of the arrestees are under the age of sixteen. Some are imprisoned for ten months, others for one to five years. Prisoners have reported suffering torture, including isolation for weeks at a time.

Since Abdallah and Mohammed were arrested, their mother found out that her sons are being detained in Al Jalama prison, Haifa. Israeli forces have given no reason for their detention, nor set a date for their trial.

Photo shows the illegal settlement of Ma'ale Shomron, this is the view from the house where the boys were arrested. — Photo shows the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Shomron, this is the view from the house where the boys were arrested (photo by ISM).

Israeli forces invade Azzun and use Palestinian civilians as human shields

24th July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Azzun, Occupied Palestine

On Monday, July 21st, Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields in the village of Azzun, a village west of the city of Nablus.

On most evenings several Israeli jeeps are stationed just outside the Azzun’s north gate. At 10 o’clock in the evening on the night in question, approximately 15 soldiers entered the main square of the village.

Witnesses report that a few young men responded to this invasion by throwing stones at the jeeps from a distance of approximately 200 meters. The soldiers spent the next few minutes stopping cars on the road and began forcing the drivers to arrange their cars in a circle. The soldiers then forced these residents of Azzun to surrender their keys. The occupants of the cars included women and children. They were very frightened and the soldiers did not allow them to leave. The Israeli forces positioned themselves inside the circle formed by the cars, began to fire tear gas at the youths, and knelt behind the civilian occupants of the cars as to protect themselves.

The use of civilian human shields is prohibited by Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel ratified this convention in 1951.

Israeli forces have a long history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. From the years 2000 to 2005, they admitted to using human shields more than 1,200 times. This practice was banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2005, but human rights groups have accused the Israeli army of continuing to use it. During the Gaza massacre of 2008-2009 Israeli occupation forces were accused by Amnesty International, as well as former Israeli soldiers, of using Palestinian children as human shields.

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.

Demonstration against Israeli forces as invasions and arrests increase in Azzoun

28th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Azzoun, Occupied Palestine

Yesterday afternoon in Azzoun village, there was a demonstration attended by more than 250 people. This protest was against the Israeli forces’ continuing night invasions, arrests, and their treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

The demonstration began in the center of Azzoun at noon, hundreds of people marched to the outskirts of the village, several speeches were given and a reception was held after the protest ended. The population of Azzoun has been subject to an increase in night raids; there have been 32 arrests so far this month. The average number of people arrested in the village since 2007 is 170 Palestinians per year.

In 2007 a young Palestinian, Jihad Abu Haniya, was arrested and sentenced to 16 years in prison for being a suspected member of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade. His parents are allowed to visit him once a year, and at their most recent visit they were extremely concerned for his physical wellbeing. After the demonstration, arranged by Azzoun Municipality and Prisoner’s Club, villagers visited Jihad’s family to show their solidarity and support.

The village of Azzoun has suffered considerably due to the occupation, after 1948 the villagers lost 24,000 dunums of land and today they have access to less than half of their land due to settlements established in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The illegal settlements of Qarne Shomron and Malalae Shomron now occupy approximately half of the land with infrastructure separating Azzoun into smaller areas. Agriculture constitutes the majority of the villagers’ income, and the loss of land is a huge burden to many families. Furthermore, due to road blockades surrounding Azzoun, trading is complicated with rest of the West Bank, and 47% of the inhabitants are unemployed. Many citizens have been forced to find jobs in Israel, but every time a member of a family is arrested, all family members lose their work permits.