23rd April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Qaryut, Occupied Palestine
By Team Nablus
Over the past 5 months 15 people from Qaryut, mainly youngsters, have been arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities. The charges include `attending illegal demonstrations` and being in `closed military zones`. All detainees will face trial on the first of May.
Demonstration in Qaryut (Photo by PSCC)
Among them are two brothers, Mohammad Laboom, 19, and Nedal Laboom, 32. Israeli forces raided and ransacked their homes in the middle of the night on the 17 December 2012 and 3 February 2013 . Mohammad is in his first year of college and was in Nablus when Israeli soldiers arrived at his house asking for him. They forced his family to call him and say ‘Captain Gilad says come’. His mother told us that ‘they said they would take all of us if he didn’t come to them.’ He was told to turn himself in to Huwwara compound that night, despite having an exam the next day which he requested to take before handing himself over.
His brother Nedal is a teacher and is married with young children. When they came to take him at 2am they accused him of participating in demonstrations and asked if he was with Hamas. He denied this and said that he had done nothing wrong. He told them that he just goes to his school and comes back home again. His mother said that with his small children, he works day and night, between home and work. She reported that they put her sons out in the cold before putting most of the family in one room before unnecessarily raiding the house. She said Nedal’s children clung on to the adults clothes in terror, not understanding what was going on.
Nedal and Mohammad’s mothers have visited them twice, a special privilege for those over sixty years old. They are being held in Magiddo prison and will be tried along with 13 others detainees from their village on the same charge: being activists in Qaryut and attending peaceful demonstrations. Mohammad and Nedal’s mothers said, ‘I can’t sleep at night thinking about them’.
Peaceful demonstrations occur regularly in Qaryut to protest the closing of a main road leading to both the two large cities of Nablus and Ramallah. The villagers say the repression from the military and nearby colonial-settlers have increased since demonstrations began. They have stopped, fearing more arrests in their small village and an escalation in settler violence. Settlers regularly cut down or burn the villagers’ trees. A representative from Qaryut told us that at this rate ‘there wont be anyone left in Qaryut`.
A painting in honour of the fifteen detainees in Qaryut (Photo by ISM)
23rd April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Bethlehem , Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
Palestinians and International activists held a brief demonstration outside the gates of an Israeli military base near Herodium mountain, east of Bethlehem. The activists stood outside the gates with Palestinian flags and shouted to the soldiers inside that the base was built illegally on Palestinian land. The demonstration also intended to highlight the illegal Israeli settlements nearby. Stun grenades are thrown at demonstrators outside an Israeli military base
Soldiers threw stun grenades at the peaceful demonstrators and used tear gas to disperse the journalists who had gathered to document the demonstration. Demonstrators also hung Palestinian flags from a nearby military outpost.
This demonstration was part of a series of actions targeting the infrastructure of the Israeli occupation including checkpoints, military bases and watchtowers which are all obstacles to peace in the occupied territories.
A Palestinian flag is hung from an Israeli outpost
12th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
Photo Essay : The demonstrations at Hagai roadblock have been taking place for just over two months. The road has been blocked off since 2008, adding 12km to the journey from Hebron to villages and towns in the South Hebron Hills.
Tear gas was fired excessively at the small group of unarmed demonstrators roughly one minute after they started marchingOne demonstrator was taken away in an ambulance after excessive exposure to tear gasA demonstrator suffers from tear gas inhalationA demonstrator kicks away a tear gas cannisterAirborne tear gas canistersAn Israeli flag is burned and placards of hunger strike Samer Issawi are held by demonstratorsA skunk water truck sprays foul smelling liquid into residential homes
8th of April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine
By Team Khalil
UPDATE 8th April 2013: ISM activists visited Ameen today at his home in Al Fawwar. He still suffers from intense migraines, struggles to speak, regularly experiences dizziness and a has bloodshot eye. His X-ray shows considerable damage to his jaw, cheekbones, chin and teeth. He relies on heavy medication and is still unable to work. On top of the physical suffering, Ameen is having to pay hefty medical bills to cover the cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics he needs to take on a daily basis.
Demonstrator Ameen Bayed after having been hit in the face with a tear gas canister.
The weekly Friday demonstration at the Hagai roadblock was attacked by the Israeli military less than one minute after participants started walking down the road. A soldier shot a metal teargas canister directly into the demonstration and hit Ameen Bayed in his face, breaking his right cheekbone and damaging his teeth. He required surgery in a hospital in Hebron city. The video below shows the moment at which he was hit (At 0.42).
49 year old Bayed, from Al Fawar camp, was participating in the weekly action calling for freedom of movement and for the opening of the main road connecting Hebron with its southern villages and towns. The closure of this road 12 years ago makes the Palestinian residents of these villages travel an additional 12km to reach their destinations in the city.
5th of April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine
By ISM
Young protesters walking towards the Israeli military
On Palestinian Children’s Day, the kids of Nabi Saleh played a leading role in their village demonstration, holding banners and balloons, claiming their rights to a childhood free of oppresion and occupation. However, Israeli forces, as they regularly do, quickly suppressed the demonstration.
As the crowd of protesters were marching along the road with the intention of going to their stolen water spring down the hill, Israeli border police accompanied by a skunk water truck started to shoot the malodorous water and tear gas canisters at the protesters.
Border police officers, located on the main road and on the two hilltops beside it, continued shooting tear gas canisters for approximately an hour, after which they further invaded the village, chasing Palestinian youths down the hills on the other side of Nabi Saleh. A local journalist was severely pushed, pepper sprayed and had stun grenades thrown at him by Israeli border police officers whilst covering the protest.
Nabi Saleh boy watching Israeli soldiers invading his village
The demonstration finished at around 3pm when Israeli forces retreated from the village. Then, the children of Nabi Saleh, took over their streets to celebrate their day, claiming their right to a childhood without Israeli occupation.
The village of Nabi Saleh has been demonstrating against the theft of the natural spring and the occupation since December 2009. Israeli forces violently suppress the weekly Friday protests by shooting tear gas canisters, skunk water, sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets and even live ammunition at protesters. Two people have been killed, Mustafa and Rushdi Tamimi, and many others severly injured. Bassem Tamimi, from Nabi Saleh, has spent 16 months in Israeli jails for the only reason of being a prominent activist at the protests. After more than three year and despite the repression, Nabi Saleh continues to fight against the injustices of a brutal military Israeli occupation.
