Tag: Checkpoint - Page 6 - International Solidarity Movement

Continuous restrictions of the freedom of religion in Hebron

21st June 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today, 21^st June 2016, Israeli forces delayed and stopped several Palestinians on their way to noon-prayer at Ibrahimi mosque in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).

During the last few days, Israeli forces have been stopping, checking and delaying Palestinians at several checkpoints in the vicinity of Ibrahimi mosque in the old city of al-Khalil. At the Ibrahimi mosque checkpoint that leads from the Palestinian market to the Ibrahimi mosque area, Israeli forces delayed worshippers trying to get to the mosque for prayers, stalling the process making everything go extremely slow. Thus, long queues formed and people were forced to wait for a long time. In less than one hour, Israeli forces stopped 7 women to thoroughly inspect their bags and 3 men to check their IDs, sending one of them to the checkpoint at the mosque-entrance for further checks, forcing him to wait even longer. All of these checks are purely arbitrary, and Palestinians crossing checkpoints thus never know whether they will be stopped, questioned, detained or for how long they might be delayed.

Additionally, Israeli forces stopped four boys, three of whom were carrying containers with soup, that is handed out in the soup-kitchen connected to the Ibrahimi mosque. Israeli forces stopped them asking to examine the soup-containers they were carrying. The same happened to 3 girls crossing a checkpoint further down the street from there. They, as well, were ordered to stop by Israeli forces asking to ‘check’ the containers of fresh hot soup. How and in which way these children carrying soup that is donated to families in need, are posing any kind of threat to the Israeli forces or why they have to be stopped, remains unclear.

The majority of Palestinians attending prayers at Ibrahimi mosque, are forced to cross at least two checkpoints on their way to prayer. Any possible way to reach the mosque, two checkpoints is the least number of checkpoints any Palestinian has to pass to practice their freedom of religion. Most Palestinians though, have to cross more than this minimum number of two checkpoints though, as coming from another direction they have to cross at least 4 checkpoints. In the recent days, large numbers of Palestinians have been stopped and checked at one of these checkpoints, where they’ve already had to pass two checkpoints before to even get to this checkpoint.

Given this arbitrariness and the impossibility to know what to expect when simply trying to go to prayer, is only one form of Israeli forces’ inhumane treatment inflicted only on the Palestinian residents, and thus an apartheid strategy.

Israeli forces return to dehumanizing number system in wake of Hebron killings

26th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, West Bank, occupied Palestine

After completely closing Shuhada checkpoint to Palestinians in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on Thursday, 24^th March 2016, Israeli forces have now returned to the practice of ‘numbering’ Palestinian residents in order to restrict access to the adjacent neighborhoods. Soldiers are now barring all Palestinians without numbers, and sometimes even those already registered as residents, from entry into the closed military zone.

The neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida and the tiny strip of Shuhada Street that remains accessible for Palestinians after the closure of the rest of the street following the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre have been declared a closed military zone since November 1^st, 2015. Palestinian residents – in contrast to the Zionist extremist settlers living in the illegal settlements nearby – were forced to register with the Israeli forces as residents, and each given a number used to identify them. The closed military zone was designed deliberately to include the Palestinian neighbourhoods while excluding illegal settlements, thus facilitating settler movement on roads that connect the settlements inside the city center of al-Khalil with the Kiryat Arba illegal settlement on the outskirts of the city, roads that only settlers and Israeli forces are allowed to drive on.

Israeli forces completely closed the checkpoint on March 24th, barring any Palestinian from entering, after soldiers gunned down and killed Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif and Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, both 21 years old, summarily executing al-Sharif with a shot to the head after he was already lying incapacitated (warning: graphic footage including execution in video captured by Palestinian B’Tselem volunteer). Throughout the day, Palestinians trying to go back to their homes were denied passage through the checkpoint and Israeli forces at times forced people to wait for more than twenty minutes only to tell them that they would not be allowed in – even though they were officially registered, numbered residents. An elderly woman was repeatedly told by Israeli forces to ‘wait’ when trying to walk to her home through the checkpoint; only after waiting for more than twenty minutes was she finally told that no-one would be allowed to pass that day. She had to turn around and leave after standing outside the checkpoint for close to half an hour. Watch this video taken by the local activist group Youth Against Settlements of the old lady denied access.

As of Saturday, 25^th March, Israeli forces entirely returned to the practice of ‘numbering’ Palestinians, checking the numbers of anyone attempting to cross the checkpoint against a list of numbers of residents that have previously been registered. Many Palestinians were forced to wait for hours outside the checkpoint, only to be denied to go to their homes – even though they had registered and thus did appear as a number on the soldiers’ lists. The soldiers were extremely aggressive, yelling at Palestinians in the closed-off ‘room’ inside the checkpoint loudly enough to be clearly audible to anyone waiting outside. When Palestinians tried to seek shelter from the pouring rain in the vicinity of the checkpoint, soldiers exited the checkpoint, yelling and screaming at them to move back. All of the soldiers had removed the orange pin that acts as a safety on their Israeli-government-issued assault rifles – a practice that seems to have become common policy throughout occupied al-Khalil.

When a woman and her four children tried to pass Shuhada checkpoint, the three smallest children were initially allowed through. When Israeli soldiers delayed the mother and older daughter inside the checkpoint, continuously yelling at them, the young girl on the other side of the checkpoint started crying as she was waiting in the rain for her mother to be allowed to go home with them. After an ordeal of more than ten minutes, soldiers arbitrarily decided that the mother would not be allowed to pass – even though she is registered and numbered – and yelled at her till she finally left. Her children that had been allowed to pass earlier came back to be with their mother, the girl still crying. With many extremist settlers gathering and walking freely on Shuhada Street, the children were too terrified to go home without their mother.

ID with # circled red — The number 230 on the outside of this Palestinian ID has faded with age. It denotes that Israeli forces should theoretically allow its holder to pass into the Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street neighborhoods, but provides no protection against harassment, threats, abuse and being arbitrarily denied passage through Shuhada checkpoint

This practice of assigning numbers to Palestinians clearly demonstrates the intent to dehumanize them, to make them solely into ‘numbers’ as if they were not human beings. For the Israeli forces – and thus the government supporting and commanding them – this is precisely the case: Palestinians are not considered as human beings, but rather solely as ‘terrorists’ and potential threats. How this influences the behaviour of the Israeli forces was clearly demonstrated when on March 24th soldiers gunned down two Palestinian youths in Tel Rumeida and then executed one of them with a shot to the head at point blank range. A shot in the head of an unarmed man, struggling for his life and being denied any medical assistance, did not cause so much as a twitch from the soldiers looking on.

This practice of ‘numbering’ Palestinians in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada street, and of dehumanizing the entire Palestinian population, is a government policy that intends to force Palestinians out of the area declared a ‘closed military zone’ in particular and ultimately the whole of the occupied West Bank. These policies pave the way for the brutal actions must recently exemplified by the killings in Tel Rumeida, practices falling under the internationally recognized definition of ethnic cleansing which the Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 780 defines as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

Checkpoint harassment – everyday ‘normality’?

17th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) is a city of far too many checkpoints. Operated by heavily armed Israeli forces, they create obstacles that all Palestinians must cross in order to go about their daily lives in al-Khalil: to go to school or work, to visit friends or even just to go grocery-shopping. These checkpoints become a ‘normal’ feature of everyday life—as does being delayed, stopped, searched and questioned, even denied passage by Israeli forces when attempting to traverse these checkpoints. It is a normality that should not exist.

As many are forced to pass through these checkpoints regularly, some of the soldiers and border police begin to recognize faces, to get to know and target people. Some will close the metal turnstile just after opening it for someone to pass, making them get stuck; some will ask someone who already passed through the metal detector without setting it off to take off some of their clothing, to go back and forth again repeatedly, pointlessly through the metal detector. It often seems, to those passing through and watching as the soldiers harass those attempting to cross, that the Israeli forces are enjoying the power they have over the people forced to endure their humiliation. At times they act childishly, soldiers manning a checkpoint cracking up laughing as they manage to stop the turnstile halfway through, at just the right time to make people crash into it as they try to walk through. Sitting in their small walled-off guard posts with assault rifles slung over their shoulders, these Israeli soldiers are given total power to decide the fates of Palestinian civilians—children, adults, women, elderly people—an unjust, unreasonable power to determine what will happen to anyone passing through the checkpoints.

Many Palestinians try to avoid checkpoints at night, when it’s dark. As a foreigner in Palestine, I enjoy certain privileges in contrast to Palestinians, privileges that make passing checkpoints much easier for me. For example, a tourist or international will rarely be asked to remove metal items and walk back through the metal detector repeatedly until it no longer beeps, nor will they have their bags emptied and thoroughly checked, be arbitrarily detained, or invasively searched. I am sometimes permitted to cross checkpoints or enter areas most Palestinians are barred from. I am also far less likely to be physically assaulted, beaten or killed by Israeli forces. The life of a foreigner, it seems, is worth more to outsiders and media than that of a Palestinian; there might at least be a media outcry if soldiers did something to a light-skinned European. But a few days ago, passing a checkpoint in the vicinity of Ibrahimi Mosque at night, things changed…

As I attempted to pass I recognized the two soldiers at the checkpoint as the ones that tend to make passing a long-drawn-out process, harassing anyone trying to pass as much as possible. This did not surprise me when I was repeatedly ordered—In Hebrew, a language I, as well as many Palestinians, do not understand— to go back through the metal detector even though it did not beep. One of the soldiers came out of the small walled-off room they use to control the checkpoint to stand on the other side of the high gates, ordering me to take off my jacket, which I refused. After some discussion, they allowed me to pass to the other side, past the metal detector and turnstile to the far side of the soldiers’ control post, he then ordered me to hand over my bag to the soldiers.

It was a gloomy night, in an area with no real lights, deserted except for the soldiers. I was alone with the them, as the person I had been walking with was trapped on the far side of the checkpoint, behind the locked turnstiles, waiting to pass and unable to see what was happening.

After putting my bag on a cement roadblock, one of the soldiers started searching for something in his trouser pockets while the other kept a close eye on me, watching my every movement. As the soldier kept going through his pockets searching for something specific, I started wondering what he was looking for.

After many Palestinians were gunned down at checkpoints in recent months, not only in al-Khalil but throughout the West Bank, knives suddenly ‘appeared’ next to them. Many Palestinian women have told me of how they are scared that soldiers would plant a knife in their bag when ‘searching’ it at checkpoints. Standing in the dark at this checkpoint, these thoughts crossing my mind, I started worrying that this might happen to me as well. Would the soldiers put a knife in my bag? And would they arrest me when ‘finding’ the knife, or would they shoot me? Would anyone believe that a knife was planted in my bag? Would anyone believe me more than any Palestinian this has happened to? Having already lived in al-Khalil for a long time, repeatedly crossing checkpoints, knowing that these soldiers always try to harass and intimidate me, I started wondering how much they must dislike me. I started doubting my privileges—international media would likely believe the soldiers’ story in any case, as they have so many times before when Palestinians were killed. Would this be the last time I passed this checkpoint? There was no-one around witnessing what was happening – no-one but me and the soldiers. Fortunately, after harrowing moments that dragged on for what felt like about five minutes, the soldier took a flashlight from his pocket, starting to comment on whatever he saw in my bag.

For a few minutes, I had experienced that fear, that terror which soldiers operating with impunity would turn harassment at a checkpoint into something worse. For Palestinians living under the illegal Israeli military occupation, this fear is part of everyday life. This fear, that something might happen when passing a checkpoint – for Palestinians living under the illegal Israeli military occupation, is part of everyday life.

As international media and governments turn a blind eye to the daily, ongoing human rights violations by Israeli forces, Palestinians are denied the basic rights that European and US politicians tend to speak so highly of, criticizing every small infringement – except those against Palestinians. This ridiculous ‘double standard’ has continued for far too long; it is about time to stop turning a blind eye to the situation of the Palestinians under illegal Israeli military occupation. Global forces looked the other way and ignored repeated UN resolutions as Israeli forces trampled human rights for generations of illegal occupation. The international community has stood idly by for sixty-seven years too long already.

As humiliation and intimidation are routine parts of passing checkpoints and going about life under military occupation, people have learned to adapt, to come to expect and learn to arrange their lives around something that is not supposed to be part of anyone’s life. As humiliation and intimidation often is part of the experience passing checkpoints and living under military occupation in general, one learns to ‘accept’ or ‘arrange’ with something that is not supposed to be part of anyone’s life. This is not only about human rights and basic freedoms, about being able to pass a checkpoint without fear, but it is also about dignity – about being treated like a human being.

CALL TO ACTION! Join Twitterstorm to #EndHebronMilitaryZone

Three months ago, in the wake of two extrajudicial executions committed by Israeli forces in Tel Rumeida, Israeli military authorities forced Palestinians living in the neighborhood to register and receive numbers in order to be allowed to reach their homes. Everyone else, including family members, media and Palestinian and international human rights defenders are barred from the area even as Zionist settlers from the adjacent illegal settlements continue to travel unrestricted.

We are calling on everyone to participate in the Twitterstorm on February 1st, 3 pm Palestine time to demand an end to the closed military zone; three months is far too long under an illegal, unjust program of collective punishment!

Starting at 3:00 pm Palestinian time (8:00 am EST, 2:00pm for most of Europe) on February 1st, tweet with the hashtag #EndHebronMilitaryZone using our sample tweets. Please spread the word (whether or not you have a personal twitter account), and call on friends, family, and anyone you know who believes in Palestinian rights to participate. You can share this Facebook post, and also follow @ISMPalestine for any further updates leading up to the Twitterstorm. Remember to NOT use the hashtag before the date and time of the Twitterstorm.

The document contains sample tweets to use along with some accounts to target, and this folder contains visuals that you can use in your tweets We encourage you to address some of your tweets to your representatives, politicians, ambassadors/embassies to Israel and UN members; though we may continue to update the list on the google doc also feel free to tag accounts not including if you think they are relevant. Also link to the Action Alert – the call by Palestinian and international organizations to open Tel Rumeida and respect Palestinian human rights, out thunderclap campaign page, and our Call for Action listing more concrete steps people can take.

Please participate and bring awareness to the situation in Tel Rumeida, to help build public pressure on Israeli authorities to end the closed military zone. As Palestinian resident of Tel Rumeida Abed Salaymeh explains,“soldiers and settlers are making life for the Palestinians intolerable to force them to leave their houses voluntarily. This is a crime under international law. They are targeting activists to silence the truth and stop the truth from reaching the whole world.” We are reaching out to you to ask that you please help spread the truth of what is happening to the world.

Thank you for you support!

Farmers protest closure of gate blocking them from accessing their land

18th of December, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Tulkarm team | Deir al Ghsoon, occupied Palestine

Hundreds of farmers protested on the morning of the 18th of December against the closure of an agricultural gate, which led Israeli commanders to agree to reopen the way. In 2002, 3200 dunumns of farmland got cut of from the rest of the two Palestinian villages of Deir Al Ghsoon and Al Jarosheyyah by building of the Israeli apartheid wall. Ever since, farmers have to cross one, out of two, agricultural checkpoints in order to get to their lands. The process of getting through the checkpoint takes a lot of time and not all farmers manage to get a permission to cross.

Farmer Abdullah Ghaner arrives at 6 o’clock to the checkpoint every morning in order to be among the first half of the farmers to cross the checkpoint. The soldiers are supposed to open the gate at 7 o’clock, but farmers often complain that opening hours are unreliable.

“When, and even if, we get through is depending on the mood of the soldiers”, says Abdullah.

He and his family own 16 dunnams of land on the other side of the Apartheid wall. The farm has been property of the family for three generation, and Abdullah is hoping to pass it on to his daughter. “We are born farmers. By enclosing our land they are trying to demolish her heritage !”, he says.

This part of the wall doesn’t in-circuit any settlement or military base. The only thing between the wall and the green line is Palestinian farmland. “This piece of land has not been surrounded by the wall for security reason, they surrounded it in order to steal our land”, Abdullah explains.

Yesterday, soldiers told the farmers that they would close checkpoint 623, one of the agricultural checkpoint leading to the farmland. Closing the checkpoint would be devastating for Abdullah and the 300 farmers that are dependent on this checkpoint for making a living. “What can we do ? he asks. We are farmers, we can only shout. They are soldiers, they can shoot”.

It it is not even certain that the farmers affected by the closure will get permission to enter the other checkpoint. Even if they do, the lack of roads on the other side of the apartheid wall will force them to walk for hours in order to reach their lands. It would take Abdullah 1,5 hour of walking from the other checkpoint to reach his land. That means he would only be able to work for a few hours on his land before having to return back to the checkpoint, in order to get there before the soldiers close it.

Yesterday morning farmers and Palestinian activists together with politicians gathered to protest Thursday’s announcement to close the checkpoint. After demanding the checkpoint to remain open, and threatening to take this decision to court, Israeli commanders agreed to leave the checkpoint open. For the farmers, this is a small but important victory. But the future of the checkpoint is still uncertain and farmers will not be satisfied until the apartheid wall has been removed, and the farmers guaranteed unlimited access to their land.