Tag: Demonstration - Page 100 - International Solidarity Movement

Israelis and Palestinians march together against demolitons

3 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Friday, hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians marched together in the Issawiya neighborhood of East Jerusalem against recent brutality toward the village by the Israeli government: house demolitions by Israeli authorities, a siege on entrances to the neighborhood, and police misconduct with local residents. This is the first joint protest to be held in Issawiya, a neighborhood that has experienced much turmoil in recent years.

Like most Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, Issawiya is neglected by the municipality. Portions of its land have been annexed at different times to build up Jewish neighborhoods, roads, and parks, and the villagers suffer from continuous harassment by the police. Within the last month Israeli authorities have significantly increased the number of house demolitions, set up barricades and roadblocks, and repeatedly entered the area to patrol and issue fines for minor vehicular defects.

There is only one main entrance now open to traffic going in and out of the village; the rest having been sealed off by the authorities with concrete barricades. Israelis joined the residents in solidarity and walked through the neighborhood, ending the procession at its other end where a narrow opening in the concrete barricades is wide enough to allow only one or two people to pass at a time.

Despite that the protest was non violent, after it had ended and Israeli and International activists had left, Israeli border police entered the neighborhood and fired tear gas grenades. Once again, Occupation forces brutally punished any form of resistance by the residents.

Gazans demonstrate on anniversary of Balfour Declaration

4 November 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

As Israeli army snipers in the control tower at the Erez crossing looked on, Saber Al Za’anin, the General Coordinator of the Local Initiative group spoke passionately about Palestinian resistance on the anniversary of the November 3rd 1917 Balfour Declaration.

“We carry forward the fight of our great grandfathers to dismiss the disgraceful and unjust promise that the UK Foreign Secretary offered to the Zionists to create a state in the middle of Palestine 93 years ago. Here we are, the present-day Palestinian generation standing strong again to uphold the principle of our forefathers and the struggle that has been passed down for us to continue today.”

It was the 93rd anniversary of the Balfour promise, and local volunteers from the Local Initiative group from Beit Hanoun and activists from the International Solidarity Movement demonstrated next to the Israeli border in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza. The crowd marched up to 100 metres from the Israeli wall, where previous non-violent demonstrations had been fired upon with live ammunition. The protesters were bringing attention to the horrific injustices that have befallen them since the promise by British occupiers to create a Jewish homeland over an area that was over 90% Palestinian Arab.

The demonstration took place near the Erez border , near the Israeli imposed ‘buffer zone’ – an area of land 300 metres from the fence stretching along the entire border fence. A United Nations investigation found that farmers, rubble collectors, civilians and protesters have been shot up 1500 metres of the fence, which makes 35% of Gaza’s most agricultural land a high risk area to access, causing severe loss of food production and livelihoods.

The demonstrators approached the Israeli wall, stopping at a barbed wire fence and ditch created by a bulldozer during an Israeli incursion over a month before in which 3 farm workers we killed. Planting one Palestinian flag at the fence, they chanted and waved flags before people spoke of the horrific legacy of the Balfour Declaration.

Local farmer Abzel Al Baseony spoke about the current plight he faces; he stands to lose more land near the border. He has been farming since 1984, taking after his father. He explained how the Israeli army bulldozed much of his land that used to be covered in trees and how afraid people are to farm there now. Like most Palestinians, he was also well aware of Britain’s historical role in facilitating the creation of Israel on Palestinian land.

“It was the British who created this problem allowing the Israeli state to be built on the ruins of our refugees and you’ve seen what they have done to us ever since. During the British mandate before 1947 their attacks on us killed many civilians, and now they, like the American and European Governments, continue to support Israel when it takes our land and bombs our families. But we will keep farming for another 93 years if that’s what it takes to get justice for our people.”

Like over 80% of Gazans, most of the demonstrators were refugees from different Palestinian towns and villages such as Faluja, Min Dimra, Askelaan or Majdel, arab villages located in what is now Israel. In total, 531 villages were wiped out and demolished in 1948 by the Israeli army after their Palestinian inhabitants were violently forced to leave. Ever since they have been refused their right of return.

British International Solidarity Movement activist Adie Mormech believes that people from his country have a duty to right the wrongs of the British involvement in Palestine, which continues today with political, commercial and military support.

“The British Government’s role in the middle east is a sad one, like much of the British empire was for the inhabitants of the countries they were colonizing. Britain contributed similarly the Apartheid system in South Africa. Fortunately many British citizens opposed the apartheid regime, boycotting the South African government until their racist policies had to end. Today in Britain and throughout the world, boycotts, divestment and sanctions of Israel are growing while the international community continues to allow with impunity Israel’s medieval siege of Gaza, it’s military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem and its continuing discrimination and ethnic cleansing. As was the case for South Africa, it is up to people of conscience around the world to join the movement until Israel adheres to international law and allow Palestinians the same human rights as any other people.”

The demonstration ended without incident, although there was no mistaking the memories and sense of injustice stirred by the anniversary of Balfour, emphasized by the resolution of organiser Saber Al Za’anin:

“We are out from under the rubble of Israeli oppression to prove again to the whole world that the Palestinian people will never accept the ethnic cleansing and murder against us. We will remain steadfast for our rights, our freedom and our land.”

Civil resistance to bring down the Walls

1 November 2010 | Ayed Morrar, Huffington Post

Budrus, a documentary film now debuting across the US, tells the story of a successful protest campaign by unarmed Palestinian civilians against Israel’s military occupation in my small West Bank village. Our struggle’s success and the consequent expansion of civil resistance to other West Bank communities may provide hope to viewers desperate for positive news from the Middle East, but today an Israeli crackdown on unarmed Palestinian protesters is threatening this growing movement. For our movement to thrive and serve as a true alternative to violence, we need Americans’ to demand that Israel, a close US ally, end this repression.

Budrus depicts our ten month campaign of protest marches in 2003-2004, which included participation by men, women and children, and by representatives from all Palestinian political factions, along with Israeli and international activists, to resist the construction of Israel’s Separation Barrier on our lands. Young women, led by my 15-year-old daughter Iltezam, ran past armed Israeli soldiers and jumped In front of the bulldozers that were uprooting our ancient olive trees. The soldiers regularly met us with clubs, rubber-coated bullets, curfews, arrests and even live ammunition. But we won in the end. The Israeli military rerouted the barrier in Budrus, allowing us access to almost all of our land.

The film ends with Palestinian and Israeli activists heading to the neighboring village of Ni’ilin where the struggle to save Palestinian land continues today. But following Budrus’s success and faced by a growing numbers of civilians protesting the confiscation of their lands, Israel has responded with military might, attempting to quell this new movement. Twenty Palestinians have since been killed during unarmed demonstrations against the construction of the Separation Barrier.

In Ni’ilin, in the dark of night, Israeli soldiers have staged hundreds of military raids and arrests of civilians from the village; hundreds more were injured — forty by live ammunition, and five, including a ten year old, were shot dead. Today, a horrid 25 foot concrete wall stands in Ni’ilin, behind which lie 620 acres of village lands taken for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

Through a five-year protest campaign, another nearby village, Bil’in, has become an international symbol of nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation, with world leaders from Jimmy Carter to Desmond Tutu visiting to show support. On October 11th, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, one of Bil’in’s most prominent protest organizers, was sentenced by an Israeli military court to twelve months in jail. His crime — leading demonstrations in his village that were very similar to those I led in Budrus.

During Abdallah’s trial, Israel’s military prosecution repeatedly demanded that an ‘example’ be made of him to deter others who might organize civil resistance. The EU, Britain, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have all condemned Abdallah’s incarceration, yet he remains in prison.

Palestinians’ wishes are simple — we want what is ours, our land, with true sovereignty. We want freedom, equality and civil rights — what Martin Luther King, Jr. called in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail “our constitutional and God-given rights.”

But Israel is sending a clear message — even unarmed resistance by ordinary civilians demanding basic rights will be crushed. It is little known that the second intifada began not with guns and suicide bombings against civilians, but rather with protest marches to Israeli military checkpoints inside the occupied West Bank, and with civil disobedience in the tradition of the US civil rights movement. Israel responded by firing over 1.3 million live bullets in one month into crowds of protesters. When ordinary people could no longer afford to risk protesting, small groups turned, in anger and despair, to armed resistance.

Budrus’s struggle showed that civil resistance can bring down walls, both literal and those of the heart, and set an example for a bright future for Israelis and Palestinians in this biblical land. Today Palestinian and Israeli protesters are together confronting Israel’s military occupation in other villages. But this hopeful possibility is now threatened again by Israeli bullets and arrests.

For this future to materialize, those who are outraged by the violence deployed against protesters must demand an end to the injustice. If Americans want to see the example of Budrus continue to spread, individuals, civil society groups and the US government must act to pressure Israel to end its brutal crackdown on civilian protesters.

IDF prosecutors chided for using testimony of mentally disabled Palestinian witness

25 October 2010 | Amira Hass, Haaretz

A military judge has criticized the military prosecutor’s office for relying on the testimony of a mentally challenged young man who referred to events that never took place. In doing so, the witness put a resident of the Palestinian West Bank village of Na’alin behind bars for nine months for a crime he did not commit.

The judge, Maj. Amir Dahan, acquitted Ahmed Nafa, a 29-year-old high school teacher, of all charges against him. The indictment accused Nafa of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails and rolling an Israeli car into a canal late last year. He was also indicted for being one of a group that later threw rocks, Molotov cocktails and gas canisters at an Israel Defense Forces jeep.

The indictment also said Nafa took part in an incident in which Molotov cocktails and gas canisters were thrown at an Israeli infantry unit “in or around July 2009.”

The prosecution, however, failed to give evidence that these high-profile events took place. The prosecution and police investigators did not provide the court with any independent evidence other than the testimony of a mentally disabled young man, Mustafa Amira. Amira testified to the Shin Bet security service and police after several days speaking with an informer.

Amira contradicted himself during questioning several times and later said he had admitted to acts he did not commit to bring his interrogation to an end.

28 arrested

Nafa was one of 28 Na’alin residents whom the IDF arrested in January, based on Amira’s testimony, in an effort to halt demonstrations in the area against the construction of the separation barrier.

Most of the detainees struck a plea agreement in the belief that their detention before trial would exceed any jail time they might receive.

Nafa, however, demanded an evidentiary hearing. In his opinion acquitting Nafa, Judge Dahan said he was surprised that despite the precision of the accusation, “the investigators did not make any effort to identify the victims or soldiers” to gather additional information.

In the cases of Nafa and three defendants accused of membership in a local village committee, the prosecution called another witness, Hamed Sarur, but Dahan discounted his testimony after finding that Sarur was promised release from detention if he “came to a mutual agreement with” his interrogators.

Dahan said such improper methods cast a shadow over the investigation. In acquitting Nafa, Dahan wrote: “It is not possible that this court would fail to employ the same minimum standards of proof of harm to persons or property that is customary in Israel even in civil cases.”

Two military judges had decided to leave Nafa in custody until the end of proceedings. Nafa’s lawyer, Nery Ramati, said Dahan’s criticism of the prosecution and police that resulted in Nafa’s acquittal was also relevant to the cases of the other defendants implicated by Amira.

Israeli forces attack weekly West Bank demonstrations

22 October 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Today in the village of An-Nabi Salah, the weekly non-violent demonstration took place against the illegal settlement Hamish. Unlike other villages taking part in non-violent resistance, many women, young girls and children participate in the protest. Today, there was a child demonstration. A commemoration also took place in order to remember the massacre during the second Intifada in a village where the children went to school.

The soldiers and border police started out by shooting teargas into the village to prevent people from going to the demonstration. They also entered the village and shot at the child demonstration.

Every Thursday the soldiers walk around the village in preparation for the Friday demonstration. Yesterday they looked for one house which they occupied today, because it’s a good location for watching what’s going on in the village and shoot easily. The people asked the soldiers not to enter the house, and eventually they agreed not to enter. However, a teargas canister was shot into another house, starting a fire. Thankfully, nobody was in the house.

They also shot some gas into a houses in the middle of the village. One woman was made to vomit and could only move her arms and legs in a strange way, . Afterwards, people resumed the demonstration and started singing and shouting slogans against the Israeli occupation. When the demonstrators went back into the village, teenage boys started to throw stones . Teenage boys started a riot and the army proceeded to throw an excessive amount of tear gas. Some people were injured by the gas and had problems with breathing. Three Palestinians were arrested for some hours but then released.

Al Ma’asara

The demonstration held today in Al Ma’asara marked four years of weekly protests as part of the popular struggle against the Israeli occupation, the confiscation of land through construction of settlements and the Apartheid wall. Hundreds of participants from France, Italy, Spain, England and other countries stood alongside Palestinians peacefully protesting Israel’s failure to comply with international law. Also present were Israeli activists from Anarchists Against the Wall, Active Stills and Ta’ayush as well as Luisa Morgantini, former vice President of European Parliament.

The Israeli forces stopped the demonstration long before reaching its destination and immediately made use of sound bombs and tear gas in an attempt to disperse the activists, despite the peaceful nature of the demonstration. An older French activist was injured when a high velocity tear gas canister shot into the air by the Israeli forces struck him in the head.

Two Israeli activists were detained after crossing the line formed by the soldiers. The demonstrators held fast and refused to leave for another hour until the two activists were released.

The residents of Al Ma’asara together with international supporters declared their intentions to continue the struggle to defend their rights.

Bil’in

Three protesters were injured from tear gas inhalation today at the weekly Bil’in demonstration against the Apartheid wall. The march, called for by the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in, included dozens of Palestinian villagers, alongside Israeli and international solidarity activists.

The participants in the march waved Palestinian flags, and held pictures of prisoners of the popular resistance, whilst chanting slogans condemning the Israeli policies of occupation, settlement and the repression of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The demonstrators also chanted in condemnation of Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing Palestinians from Jerusalem, as can be seen in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, as well as calling for the siege on Gaza to be lifted.

The Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in also denounced the persecution of its activists, led by Abdullah Abo Rahma and Adeeb Abo Rahma. It considers the trials against them biased as they are defenders of their land which was illegally annexed by the Apartheid wall. The Popular Committee considers the struggle against the wall a legitimate and legal one and calls upon the international community and international human rights organizations to stand next to the leaders and activists of the Popular resistance.

The march headed towards the wall, where the Israeli Occupation Forces were waiting. When protesters attempted to cross to the land behind the wall, which belongs to the villagers of Bi’lin, the Israeli army fired sound bombs, tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at the crowd. This led to the wounding of three marchers, including 8-year old Lama Abdullah Abo Rahma who suffered from severe difficulty in breathing. Mohammed Shawkat Al-Khateeb,17, and Ahmed Abdel Fattah Bernat ,17, were among the worst affected of dozens of others suffering from tear gas inhalation.

Before the march delegations from Spain, France and Britain met with the members of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and settlement at the headquarters of the International Solidarity Movement in Bil’in. The delegations listened to a detailed explanation by the Popular Committee about the experience in Bil’in of non-violent popular resistance in the past five and a half years and the role of international solidarity in the popular resistance in Bil’in.