20th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Dozens of Palestinians joined a rally organized by the Popular Campaign to Save the Life of the Captive Patient Ibrahim Bitar outside the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Gaza office this morning.
(Photo by Joe Catron)
The gathering followed a weekly sit-in by families and supporters of Palestinian detainees that has been held in the ICRC courtyard every Monday morning since 1995.
Ibrahim Bitar’s mother sits between two young supporters. (Photo by Joe Catron)(Photo by Joe Catron)(Photo by Joe Catron)(Photo by Joe Catron)(Photo by Joe Catron)(Photo by Joe Catron)(Photo by Joe Catron)
18th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Jordan Valley, Occupied Palestine
A Palestinian activist and an international were arrested today whilst peacefully protesting in the Jordan Valley. The international activist is falsely charged by Israeli forces with endangering people’s lives on the road, assaulting a soldier and trying to grab his rifle.
The march held in Jiflleck Adam Junction saw around 60 people gathered to protest against the ongoing demolition of Palestinian houses in the area. The protesters started their demonstration by chanting against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and in opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu.
When the march was almost over and protesters were walking back to the buses, a group of 15 Israeli soldiers standing nearby followed the crowd and initiated clashes.
Two international activists attending the march were pushed to the ground and handcuffed by Israeli forces while successfully preventing the arrest of a Palestinian youth. One of the activists managed to escape from detention, but the other one was blindfolded and forced to kneel for over an hour on the ground.
Before scattering the protest, the military arrested the Palestinian youth, 20-year-old Ahmad Walid, whose arrest had been previously thwarted; he and the international activist were taken in a jeep to Male Akon Military Base and later transferred to Shomron Police Station in the illegal settlement of Ariel where they are currently being held.
Overall, around 40 Israeli soldiers, police and border police were present during the non-violent demonstration in which 60 people demonstrated peacefully.
They are young, and they are fearless. In Gaza, a growing nonviolent movement, led predominantly by youth, is challenging Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands in the so-called “buffer zone” — a unilaterally demarcated and militarily patrolled area that, according to Harvard researcher Sara Roy, now absorb[s] nearly 14 percent of Gaza’s total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land.” The zone officially extends 300 meters into Gaza’s territory, but attacks against civilians take place anywhere up to approximately 1.5 kilometers inside the border fence,” according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. (That’s about a mile into a strip of land that is seven miles at its girth.) In this video, some 300 protesters are shown under fire from Israeli guns, too far to see but no less lethal for it. The protestors’ crime? They were planting citrus trees to replace those destroyed by Israel’s ongoing occupation, which daily deprives Gaza’s more than 1.7 million Palestinians of access to their farmland, to the sea that borders them, to the airspace above them — and, crucially, to their fellow Palestinians. With more than 10 percent of the worldwide Palestinian population living in Gaza, no serious discussion of the conflict or its resolution can exclude them.
15th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Marco Varasio | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Children rally for Palestinian detainees in Gaza. (Photo by Joe Catron)
Like every Monday morning, people gathered at International Committee of the Red Cross’ Gaza office to demonstrate in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention facilities.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
This week’s rally started with the chanting of slogans against the illegal detention of Palestinians and people offering sweets to pay homage to Rami Barbakh, a prisoner freed in the latest release who attended the rally.
Banners in honor of Ibrahim Bitar, a Palestinian patient prisoner from Khan Younis detained in the prison of Nafha, whose family has been recently banned from visiting him, were held by Palestinian youth movements.
(Photo by Joe Catron)
Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine also distributed flyers urging all Palestinian factions to join together to pressure the Palestinian Authority to act against the illegal detention of Palestinian and against solitary confinement in Israeli jails.
Outside the IRCC, last week a rally organized by the Fatah Youth Movement saw Mahmoud Salman, Rami Barbakh and Ibrahim Abu Ali awarded pictures and scarves to celebrate their release on 30th December 2013, after more than 20 years of detention. This week, Palestinian Islamic Jihad organized a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Siria, and with Palestinian prisoners.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
“We have more than 5,000 prisoners in the Israeli jails,” Ahmad Abu Soud, an ex-detainee who spent 26 years in occupation jails, said from the stage. “Our priority is the sick prisoners. We want Abu Mazen to increase efforts to set them all free.”
While the Israeli detention of Palestinians continues, G4S, the company which provides Israel with surveillance equipment at its checkpoint and in its detention facilities, is under major investigation by international authorities for its activities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
(Photo by Joe Catron)
In the last four months, G4S lost contracts in the United Kingdon, Norway, South Africa and the Netherlands due to its involvement in Israeli violations of the international law, and to the pressure generated by the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
12th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
On Friday 10th January, a Palestinian demonstrator was injured after being shot in his leg with live ammunition by Israeli forces while attending the weekly Friday demonstration.
The incident happened in Ni’lin where Israeli military shot live ammunition against approximately thirty demonstrators who gathered around the annexation wall. An ambulance parked in the area drove the 40-year-old man to a hospital in Ramallah straight after being injured.
Israeli soldiers and Palestinians from Ni’lin clashed for more than two hours before the demonstrator was shot, Palestinian youth threw stones towards the military and Israeli soldiers responded with tear gas canisters, stun grenades and live ammunition.
Every Friday residents of Ni’lin gather to march towards the annexation wall in order to protest the loss of their stolen land.
