22nd September 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Ezaryah, Occupied Palestine
Today at 10:00, approximately 40 Palestinians and internationals marched together on a demonstration in the Ezaryah area east of Jerusalem. The demonstration was called to protest the forceful eviction of Palestinian Bedouin families in the Ras al-Baba area, close to Jerusalem.
Photo by ISM
The civil administration is planning to build a village for the Bedouin community on top of a rubbish site, this plan includes completely clearing the outskirts of Jerusalem, which would mean forcibly removing around 12,500 Bedouins from many areas for illegal settlement expansion.
Israeli border police were pushing the demonstrators and at one point nearly arrested a Palestinian man holding a sign as he attempted to place the Palestinian flag on an Israeli military jeep.
Photo by ISM
The Palestinian activists vowed to return to the area for more non-violent resistance over the coming days. The demonstration lasted around one hour; the civil administration, contractors and Israeli border police were left with no choice but to leave the area whilst demonstrators cheered.
19th September 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine
Every week, several villages across the West Bank demonstrate against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This week, ISM activists attended protests in the villages of Bil’in, Ni’lin, and Nabi Saleh.
During the demonstration in Bil’in, Israeli soldiers shot mass amounts of tear gas at peaceful protesters. Many Palestinians and internationals suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation. An Israeli activist, and a Labour Party Councillor traveling withChi Onwurah, the British Member of Parliament for Newcastle, were arrested.
In Ni’lin, north of Ramallah, the Israeli military shot tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters. The army began shooting unprovoked at Palestinians and internationals as soon as the Friday prayer had finished and people and children as young as five year olds were walking in the area. Several Palestinians were still praying when the military attacked.
The Israeli military shot approximately ten tear gas canisters at a time and also fired rubber coated steel bullets and stun grenades. No one was injured in the demonstration today. For the past weeks the military has moved closer to the residential area of the village, locals have raised concerns that the army will soon enter the village during a demonstration.
During the Nabi Saleh demonstration protesters attempted to reach the gate at the entrance to the village which Israeli forces use to close the village off from the rest of the West Bank. Israeli forces fired many rubber-coated steel bullets at demonstrators and used excessive amounts of tear gas. Several people were injured by rubber coated steel bullets. Many protesters also suffered from the effects of the tear gas, which resulted in a Palestinian women being taken to hospital for tear gas inhalation, she was later released.
7th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Kufr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine
Since 2011, villagers from Kufr Qaddum demonstrate each Friday against the Israeli military. The village of Kufr Qaddum has had much land stolen by the nearby illegal settlement of Qedumim and in 2003 the main road connecting Kufr Qaddum to city of Nablus was closed to Palestinians. It is this road that villagers attempt to march down every Friday, regularly facing extreme violence from Israeli soldiers and border police offices.
During the protest on Friday, 5th September, a Palestinian youth was shot in the leg and rushed to a hospital in a Red Crescent ambulance.
Dozens of protesters and solidarity activists suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation, which soldiers fired in large quantities. Later on in the protest, multiple tear gas canisters were repeatedly fired from a military vehicle.
Many of the tear gas canisters were fired directly at demonstrators, both highly dangerous and in contravention to Israeli military procedure, which is shooting them up into an arch to lower the impacted velocity.
Throughout the protest villagers burned car tires, the thick black smoke enveloping the illegal Qedumim settlement as well as Israeli army vehicles positioned at the closed road, which included a bulldozer and a ‘skunk’ (chemical) water vehicle.
At the start of the protest, dozens of soldiers took to the hill above the village, splitting into smaller groups, some moving through the olive grovess towards the edge of the village and then retreating back under the stones thrown by the village youth. This lasted till after 15:00 when the occupying soldiers left the hill.
The villagers continued to protest at the top of the blocked road and this is when the army bulldozer, followed by the skunk water vehicle, moved in towards the village to clear the lines of rocks blocking the road and douse protesters in the foul smelling liquid. The villagers responded by throwing paint and more stones at the advancing vehicles.
5th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday, 300 orphans staged a protest following the demolition of Al-Rayyan Dairy Factory, north of Hebron, which occurred in the early hours of 1st September 2014.
Photo by ISM
The future of the children remains unclear as the two orphanages they live in, the Hebron Charity House for Girls and The Hebron Charity House for Boys, are dependent on the profits made by the dairy factory. Both the orphanages and the dairy factory are owned by the Islamic Charitable Society.
The dairy factory, which housed 150 cows and produced six tones of milk products, such as yogurt and cheese, had run for 24 years, ever since the Islamic Charitable Society received funding from the Kuwait government in 1991 to set up the factory. The purpose was for the Society’s orphanages and schools to have their own source of regular income, rather than relying on donations. The dairy products were distributed to Hebron and the surrounding villages.
The Israeli government, since 2002, has targeted the dairy factory. The first demolition order was based on concerns about environmental regulations, saying that the waste produced by cows was not dealt with suitably. Despite solving this problem, the dairy farm continuously fell under threat by the Israeli military, especially since it was located in Area C, the area of the West Bank completely under Israeli military control. Claims were also made by the Israeli Council for Planning that parts of the farm were illegally built; however, Abed Al-kareen Farrah, one of the lawyers working with the Islamic Charitable Society, confirmed that the farm received approval from the Israel Antiquities Authority for a license to build. He said, “The farm has been under fire for years with a lot of administrative issues, and Israel constantly put pressure on it to close.”
In June 2014, the dairy farm received a second demolition order, accusing the Islamic Charitable Society of having affiliation with Hamas because one of the dairy farm’s workers had been an administrative detainee for the past twenty months. The Chair of the Islamic Charitable Society’s Board of Directors, Hatim al-Bakri, stated that the society is not funding Gaza. On the 3rd of July 2014, Israeli forces confiscated all of the farm’s machinery before demolishing the entire farm a few days ago.
Photo by ISM
Hatim al-Bakri added that the farm would be impossible to rebuild, not only because it would cost two million dollars to do so, but also because of the heavy resistance they would face from the Israeli forces. Anything built on that plot of land would risk being demolished again and again.
“The future is dark for the orphans in Hebron,” he says. “I don’t know how we will be able to continue to fund the orphanages, or the seven schools the Islamic Charitable Society runs in and around Hebron. This question should be asked to the occupation.”
The demolition of the dairy farm is yet another example of how collective punishment affects hundreds of Palestinian people every day. Not only does the entire workforce of the farm have to lose their jobs because of one administrative detainee working there, but children, far removed from the workings of the farm, will also suffer the consequences.
A hundred or more Kufr Qaddum villagers, accompanied by international and Israeli solidarity activists, participated in a regular protest after the prayer this Friday.
Several hours before the demo started, the village youth blockaded part of the main village road and monitored the movement of the Israeli army, who frequently positions themselves, amongst the village houses and on the surrounding hills, prior to the start of the protest
Their aim is to snatch the protesters. They fire rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas at them from close range and take pictures of the demonstrators, to use them as evidence in the occupying military courts.
When we arrived, just before the noon, there were lines of rocks placed by the villagers on the road just before where the road closure starts. The Israeli Army was in full force on the other side, with the bulldozer and Army vehicles visible from where we were.
Demonstrators in Kufr Qaddum (photo by ISM)
What usually happens is that the Army showers the protestors with the tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets and then the bulldozer moves in, removing the lines of rocks, followed by the vehicle blasting a foul smelling ‘skunk water’ at the demonstrators and the surrounding houses.
This time the routine changed, as the army bulldozer broke down and the Israeli Army could not make an incursion into the village. Instead, they showered the protesters with wave after wave of tear gas, while the village youth threw stones at them and at their vehicles while burning tires.
Kufr Qaddum demonstration (photo by ISM)
The main village road was closed in 2002 to facilitate the needs of the illegal Kedumim settlement, which has been built around the road connecting Kufr Qaddum to the nearest West Bank city of Nablus, located 9 kilometres to the east.
The closure is one of the many examples of the disruption of Palestinian daily life to accommodate the needs of the illegal settler colonizers and the occupying army. It separates the villagers from their land and made Nablus reachable only via a massive detour, which increased a travel time from 15 minutes to up to 40 minutes, tripling the price of travel.
Kufr Qaddum Friday protests which started in 2011, have become known for extreme brutality of the Israeli army response, with scores of people being injured in recent times by the rubber coated steel bullets and the tear gas canisters fired at the bodies of demonstrators. We witnessed this ourselves on Friday, inspite of this practice contravening the guidelines of the occupying Army itself.
Army fires tear gas at protesters(photo by ISM)
In addition in recent months, dozens of Kufr Qaddum villagers have been arrested for participating in the protests, including children as young as 10.
As we travelled back to Nablus form the demo, we had to go through two Israeli checkpoints, which were not there when we travelled to Kufr Qaddum. Long lines of Palestinian cars were made to wait, inching slowly in the afternoon heat towards where the Army blocked the road, to have their ID checked. On the second checkpoint, three soldiers were checking the IDs referring to a sheet of paper one of them held, likely with the names of the persons they were looking for. The fourth soldier was standing on the top of the nearby hill with his machine gun pointed at the line of cars and his finger uncomfortably near to the trigger.
