Tag: Border Police - Page 4 - International Solidarity Movement

CPT: Masked Israeli settlers chase schoolchildren, give directions to Border Police

8 February 2011 | Operation Dove & Christian Peacemaker Team

On the afternoon of 7 February 2011, three Israeli settlers from Havat Ma’on outpost chased a group of 12 Palestinian schoolchildren who were walking home from school. The Israeli military had failed to arrive to escort the schoolchildren, forcing the children to take a longer path without the army’s escort.

Shortly after the schoolchildren and Christian Peacemaker Teams(CPT) volunteers set out on the path towards Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed villages, Israeli settlers, two of whom were masked, emerged from the grouping of trees which encompasses Havat Ma’on and began moving towards the children. Upon seeing the settlers, the children turned and sprinted to distance themselves from the settlers. Several children began crying and screaming in fear as they ran away from the settlers, one young girl began shaking uncontrollably as soon as she stopped running from the settlers.

The Israeli Border Police, who were located on an adjacent hill for the duration of the incident, arrived at the scene after the Palestinian children had safely distanced themselves from the settlers. The Border Police stopped and spoke with the settlers, two of whom remained masked during the entire conversation with the authorities.

The Border Police then approached the edge of At-Tuwani village where the children, CPT volunteers, and Palestinian adults had gathered. Border Police officers spoke with a CPT volunteer and an At-Tuwani resident, seeking to understand what had happened. After hearing their accounts but refusing to hear the role the settlers had played, the officers suggested that the Palestinian children, internationals, and At-Tuwani villagers were the ones causing problems, rather than the settlers.

Before the children had set out on the longer path without the military escort, CPT volunteers had called the Israeli military four times inquiring as to the whereabouts of the escort. During CPT’s final call to the military – more than 30 minutes after their initial call – the military dispatch office said that they hadn’t yet called the soldiers, who were to provide the escort, because they were too busy and had more important duties to perform.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.

Settler guard murders Palestinian in East Jerusalem; police fire gas at his funeral

23 September 2010 | ISM Media

On the morning of Tuesday 22 September a privately-hired Israeli settler security guard shot and killed a Palestinian man in the neighbourhood of Silwan in Palestinian East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). The killed man, Samer Sarhan, was aged 32 and had five children.

Eyewitnesses say the shooting followed a verbal disagreement between Sarhan and the security guard.

Palestinian outrage at the murder precipitated a general strike in the Silwan neighbour, with hundreds of people gathering in the street, chanting and shouting “Allahu Akbar”. Hundreds of Israeli police, border police and soldiers occupied the area in anticipation of the funeral. Silwan residents created makeshift roadblocks trying to slow down forces entering the area. Some youths threw stones towards the occupying soldiers, exasperated by the impunity with which settlers are allowed to shoot at Palestinians. They set fire to one Police vehicle.

The funeral procession left the Al-Aqsa Mosque and soon came under fire from Israeli settlers living in their outposts around East Jerusalem. Mourners at Sarhan’s burial found themselves confined inside the Bab al-Rahma cemetery, the exits blocked by the Israeli authorities. The border police then proceeded to open fire with tear gas canisters at the trapped people, the gas inducing severe breathing difficulties in some cases.

The private security guard was released on bail the day after the killing. Silwan resident Abu Nasser said: “We are sure that the murderer will not be punished and perhaps even be given a medal for his crime.”

Israeli and international activists joined the Palestinians in solidarity, documenting the police’s and soldiers’ activities throughout the day, hoping to discourage human rights abuses with their presence. Some activists volunteered at the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, helping produce Hebrew and English-language media updates.

One international activist commented: “the brutal occupation and illegal demolition of houses in Silwan was inevitably going to lead to this kind of situation with the settlers, who are heavily armed. It’s unbelievable: they’re kicking people out of their homes to build car parks. Classrooms and roads have collapsed into the ground because of subterranean excavation. It’s archaeological terrorism.”

Silwan is a neighbourhood of around 45,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. A small number of Israeli settlers have moved there, occupying Palestinian houses or living in the illegal Beit Yonatan settlement building. There are currently twenty-two houses with outstanding demolition orders – prohibited by international law. An archaeological theme park has begun excavating beneath a large area of Silwan; this has already caused land to collapse.

News on Silwan can be followed at the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre.

CPT: Israeli Border Police Demolish Water Infrastructure in Al Baqa’a Valley

Christian Peacemaker Team – Hebron

For the third time in 12 days, Israeli Border Police carried out demolitions in Al Baqa’a valley, a fertile farming area northeast of Hebron, along route 60. On July 19, the Israeli Border Police, with the assistance of hired laborers using heavy machinery, destroyed a cistern and removed irrigation pipes from 1.5 acres (6 dunams) of vegetable fields.

Israeli Border Police and hired laborers first demolished a rainwater cistern. Border Police and the workers then moved to vegetable fields and removed all of the irrigation pipes. Israeli Border Police used sound grenades to disperse the Palestinian land owners and residents who were gathered around the site of the demolitions. Medical personnel came to give examinations to two women who were suffering adverse affects from the sound grenades, one woman was taken away by ambulance.

Israeli officials continue to dismantle Palestinian water infrastructure in the Beqaa Valley.

See photos at the CPT website.

Youth break through the Wall in Jayyous

Stop the Wall

13 April 2009

Soldiers fire on youth during a Friday demonstration. Villagers have refused to accept the new path of the Wall, resulting in weekly demonstrations and increasing army repression.

Last night youth from the village of Jayyous broke through the Wall in the village. A small group then proceeded to the site where the new path is being constructed, destroying and setting fire to building materials. Occupation forces responded by raiding the village, where they remained into the early hours of the morning.

At around six in the evening, a small group of youth from the village broke through a section of fencing near the south gate. Through the hole, they snuck across the village’s isolated lands to the site where the new path of the Wall is being constructed. There, they destroyed and burned materials before escaping back into the village.

Soldiers in the area responded by mounting a raid on the village. A total of 15 jeeps, 9 from the regular army and 6 from the Border Police, drove into the village. Youth threw stones at the invading jeeps, and soldiers fired back. Jayyous was placed under curfew from seven until midnight, and soldiers remained in the village until two in the morning, firing sound bombs and using vehicle loudspeakers to prevent people from sleeping.

Kiryat Arba settlers throw party on privately owned Palestinian land

At 1:40pm a group of international human rights workers received a call from a Palestinian man, Anan Jabouri, who lives on land he owns directly next to Kiryat Arba settlement. Jabouri told a local Palestinian resident, and member of ISM, that a large group of Israeli settlers had set up a tent on his land and were gathering underneath it. He requested that internationals come to his home in order to ensure the settlers would not become violent, and also to potentially make them leave his land since they had no permission to be there.

In fact the Israeli settlers surrounding the Jabouri home have caused many problems for this family in the past, including constructing a tent which they claim to be a “synagogue” despite the Israeli army and Israeli courts having declared the tent illegal multiple times. This tent is located on the Jabouri family’s land and has caused frequent tension between the settlers and the Palestinian land owners.

It was next to this area that the settlers had set up a tarp/awning for multiple people to stand under.

When the human rights workers arrived at the area, at about 2:15pm, they approached a gathering of Israeli settlers around a band playing music, which was taking place on the Jabouri land, and blocking them from working there. A group of Israeli soldiers and Border Police were also present, and any attempt to walk across the land, or in the vicinity of the gathering, resulted in them blocking passage.

The human rights workers attempted, with members of the Jabouri family, to approach the gathering and pressure the soldiers to remove the settlers from the land. The soldiers told Anan Jabouri that the settlers would be finished in about half an hour and would then be forced to leave.

However, the Israeli settler gathering continued for over an hour longer, despite the Jabouri family’s, and human rights workers’, attempt to encourage the soldiers to make the settlers leave the area. In fact when the group of internationals and Jabouri family members, joined by three members of CPT, tried to work on the land, the army kept telling them to stop.

Finally when the settlers decided to leave the area there were many tense moments. The settlers approached Anan Jabouri and tried to make him leave, and also attempted to pressure the soldiers to make him leave the area. Despite this, the majority of the settlers did leave the land, which allowed the human rights workers and the Palestinian family to start working it.

However, the efforts to work all of the land were thwarted by continued presence of about ten settlers which consisted of seven young girls and three adults. This is because the army and police blocked the area around where the settlers were present. This meant in reality a quarter of the land was out of bounds for working.

After this the family managed to bring out sheep and horses to graze the land. This continued peacefully until the son of Anan Jabouri rode the horse outside of the land onto the road. When he returned to the land leading the horse he was met by an army commander who attempted to stop the horse from being led back up onto the grazing point. The son of Anan Jabouri argued with the army commander for a while until the horse eventually broke free from its reigns and ran up the hill. The army commander at this point wanted to arrest Jabouri’s son attempting to put him in the back of the army jeep. This was met by intervention by the human rights workers, who stood in front of the jeep, trying to stop an arrest which seemed to have no reason. The result was that the Israeli police intervened and gave everyone an ultimatum stating that every Palestinian and international must leave the land or the son of Anan Jabouri would be arrested. Anan Jabouri in fear of his son being arrested agreed to leave his land, and his son was released.