Tag: Demonstration - Page 84 - International Solidarity Movement

I was Mustafa Tamimi

by Refaat Alareer

12 December 2011 | In Gaza, My Gaza!

Fifteen years ago I was Mustafa Tamimi. Two months before that it was a relative who had his skull smashed by an explosive bullet from an Israeli sniper. Later that same week another neighbor lost his eye. Before and since then, the same situation has been repeating itself again and again: an armored jeep, a soldier armed to teeth, a tiny figure of mere flesh and bones, and a stone smeared with blood on the side of the road. That’s the saga of Palestine. That’s our tale, full of injustice and oppression, whose hero struts and frets and whoever gets in his way is doomed. But we get in his way anyway.

The pain the two rubber-coated bullets caused I can’t feel now. They do not hurt. But the grinning face of the Rambo-like Israeli soldier still does. I was mature enough then to realize that those were enemies, our enemies who are messing up everything in our lives. (I did not need anyone to teach me that by the way because I have eyes that see and ears that hear). Never had I thought then that those soldiers were sometimes doing the occupation thing for “merry sport”. Despite the glaring gazes, the frowns that left their faces wrinkled and the beatings some of my friends and I had for just being there, I had the impression that the Israeli soldiers who hit a Palestinian boy spent their nights mooning about what they did. They apparently did not. And that grin was the proof. And Mustafa Tamimi’s the most recent walking (had not he been put down) evidence.

Yet, I blame Mustafa.

Yes, he is to blame. He is to blame for believing deep in his heart that those trigger-happy soldiers may not shoot directly at him and if they do they might not shoot to kill. He is to blame for not armoring his body with shields of steel. He is to blame for fighting for his rights. 10 thousand dead Palestinians in the past ten years or so prove without doubt that when Israeli soldiers shoot they shoot to kill and when they aim, they aim to hit. And yet again, not once have we heard of a Palestinian quitting his struggle for independence and human rights for that reason. Instead, anger, protests, resistance, and determination would grow day by day and hour by hour. In doing so, Israel seems to be pushing the Palestinians yet again towards a corner whose options are very limited and whose consequences might be devastatingly harmful for both sides.

No peaceful protests. So?

Israel’s aggression against the peaceful protesters in the West Bank (particularly in Nilin, Bilin, and Nabi Saleh) that culminated in the brutally premeditated killing of Mustafa Tamimi is but a powerful expression of Israel’s policy: even peaceful demos are not welcome and are to be met with force and fire. That obviously leaves the doors wide open for Palestinians to think of other possible ways to inflict pain as a reaction to the barbarity of an army that insists on turning a deaf ear to the pleas of the people whose lands, and fields, and properties and houses are being destroyed and/or seized and confiscated forever. That rings a bell?

That reminds us of the projectile of the first and the second intifada.

The Palestinian Intifadas did not start out of the blue, and the next day Palestinian resistance groups were throwing homemade rockets at settlements and Israeli towns. Ten years ago not one single Palestinian (not even those with the wildest imagination) could have foreseen that certain kinds of rockets will be used in the struggle. But Israel made it possible. By crushing stone throwers, Israel was, albeit not directly, saying to the Palestinians, “you better think of other weapons”. And Palestinians did.

Therefore, the two intifadas developed not according to the laws of necessity and inevitability or in regards to a certain theory of evolution: a stone, a Molotov cocktail, a gun and then homemade rockets. Israel developed it. As we were throwing stones, thinking that that would deter and curb the ills and evils of the occupation, Israel was growing fiercer and fiercer: evolving from shooting to injure, to Rabin’s bone-smashing policy, to shooting to kill, to collective destruction, to mass killings.

A third Intifada is looming in the horizon, I believe. We can see it in the sparks coming out of the barrels of Israeli automatic guns. We can see it in the lifeless, yet full of life, body of Mustafa Tamimi. We can see it in the grins of the soldiers, who while shooting at Palestinians, intend to kill. It is Israel that is making the third intifada inevitable.

Refaat Alareer is a young academic and writer from Gaza who blogs at www.thisisgaza.wordpress.com. You may follow him on twitter at @ThisisGazaVoice

Qalandia: White sky of tear gas looms over apartheid wall construction

by Rana H.

9 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Peaceful protesters came face to face with Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in Qalandia on Friday before soldiers began to fire tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at the civilian group including children, women, and elders. Qalandia village is protesting the construction of the apartheid wall that will cut through their land.

Following the Friday prayer, a procession marched down a dirt path flattened by Israeli bulldozers to a fenced in area where the bulldozers were parked. Two jeeps full of soldiers were quick to arrive and met the march at the fence.

Qalandia refuses the desecration of Palestinian land - Click here for more images

“We resist with peace, as we learned from Bil’in!” chanted the demonstration, among other slogans that criticized results of Israel’s occupation such as the wall. “We are here to resist against the settlements and the wall that steal our land and divide us,” said one of the protest leaders. The procession was joined by activists from Israel, France, America, Canada, and Switzerland.

Although protesters were peacefully chanting, and not advancing, the Israeli military began showing aggressive movements such as pointing guns directly at protesters and pulling out tear gas and sound bombs, hinting at the assault to come. Some soldiers also began to snap photographs of protesters’ faces, despite that they had not committed any crime.

A protester hung the Palestinian flag onto the fence surrounding the bulldozers and the flag easily stuck onto the barbed wire. At this point, a couple IOF soldiers became enraged and began to push and strike protesters, including at least three women. Chaos broke out as the IOF unleashed sound bombs, causing demonstrators to try to distance themselves from soldiers. Before people could get away, tear gas began to fly through the air. Soldiers continued to shoot tear gas at the people: a procession including many women, children, and elders who were visibly unarmed and had not committed any crime.

The cloudy white sky made the high-velocity tear gas canisters almost impossible to see until they landed among the crowd – an incredibly dangerous situation to fire in, which could have ended lethally as was the case in An Nabi Saleh when Mustafa Tamimi was killed after being shot in the head.

Soon after, soldiers began to fire rubber-coated steel bullets as well.

Despite the obvious danger of facing these weapons, protesters continued to attempt to re-gather themselves and continue chanting for almost one hour. Young boys stood unabashedly in the front lines, dodging rubber-coated bullets and gas.

Eventually, protest leaders called the group back to the village and the demonstration ended.

Rana H. is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

No miracle yesterday in Nabi Saleh: Mustafa Tamimi murdered

by Linah Alsaafin

10 December 2011 | The Electronic Intifada

“Ambulance! Ambulance!”

So far, there were three people who had suffocated from the tear gas, and three people injured by rubber bullets. I saw gas, and so assumed that it was another case of suffocation. But the cries got louder, urgent, desperate — quite unlike the previous calls. Along with those around me, we began running to where the injured person lay, 50 meters away.

Screams. “Mustafa! Mustafa!”

I ran faster. I stopped. The youth I was so used to, the same ones who were always teasing and joking and smoking, were crying. One turned to me and groaned, “His head. His head is split into two!”

My stomach plummeted and I forgot to breathe. Exaggeration, I thought. Impossible. Not here. More screams of “Mustafa!”

I saw the man lying on the ground. I saw the medic with one knee on the ground, his face a mask of shock. I saw his bloodied gloved hands.

Mustafa’s sister was screaming his name. I saw Mustafa. I saw the blood, the big pool of dark red blood. I saw the blood dripping from his head to the ground as they carried him and put him in a taxi, since the ambulance was nowhere to be found. I saw other the tear-streaked faces of other activists, and all I felt was numbness.

Mustafa’s sister Ola was still screaming, so I put my arms around her as she buried her head in my chest. I was babbling, “It’s ok, he’s gonna be fine, it’s ok” but she kept on screaming. Her screams and the disturbing reactions of those around me made my legs numb. Ola then left to go to the watchtower where the taxi with her brother was, and my state of shock crumbled as I gasped out my tears in the arms of my friend.

The first protester death in Nabi Saleh

Friday, 9 December marked the second year since the tiny village began its weekly demonstrations protesting the expropriation of their land for the neighboring illegal settlement of Halamish, and the confiscation of the village’s main water supply, the Kaws Spring. It also marked the 24th anniversary of the first intifada. Fittingly, it seemed only natural the Israeli army would react with more violence than usual. But never did we expect someone to be killed. It’s too awful to think about. Nabi Saleh has a population of around 500 people. Everyone knows everyone in this tight-knit community, so when one gets killed, a big part of us dies also.

Mustafa, 28 years old, was critically injured after Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister at his face, and died at a hospital after his treatment was delayed by the occupation forces who had invaded the village to repress the weekly demonstration.

One difference that distinguishes Nabi Saleh from other villages with popular resistance committees, like Nilin, Bilin, Biddu and Budrus is that no one has been killed, or martyred in the protests. Beaten up, yes. Arrested, ditto. But never a death. Until yesterday.

My humanity is only human

Just before Mustafa went into the operating room, some good news came through. He had not suffered any cognitive damages to his brain, although he suffered a brain hemorrhage. There was a chance his eye might be saved. Relief washed over us. We tweeted, “please #Pray4Mustafa.”

I had pictured myself going to Nabi Saleh the next day, not the following Friday. I had imagined sitting in a room with weeping women, after passing by the somber men sitting outside. I had envisioned a funeral and an inconsolable Ola with her mother. Thank God there was a reassuring chance he would be ok. We’d make fun of his bandaged face, just like we did to Abu Hussam when a rubber bullet hit him under the eye a few weeks ago.

Then I got the call that Mustafa had succumbed to his wounds.

My humanity is only human. I hate my enemy. A deep vigorous hatred that courses through my veins whenever I come into contact with them or any form of their system. My humanity is limited. I cannot write a book titled I Shall Not Hate especially if my three daughters and one niece were murdered by my enemy. My humanity is faulty. I dream of my enemy choking on tear gas fired through the windows of their houses, of having their fathers arrested on trumped-up charges, of them wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets, of them being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged away for interrogations that are spliced with bouts of torture.

The soldiers laughed. They smiled. They took pictures of us, zooming in on each of our faces, and they smirked. I screamed at them: “Nazis, terrorists, vermin, programmed killing machines.”

They laughed at us as we screamed at them to let us through to where he was, unconscious in a taxi near the watchtower. They threatened us if we didn’t go back. We waved the flag with his blood on it in front of them. One of them had the audacity to bat it away. We shouted, “His blood is on your hands!” They replied, “So?”

I thought of Mustafa’s younger brother, imprisoned all these eight months. I thought of that brother’s broken jaw and his subsequent stay in the prison hospital. I thought of Juju (Jihad Tamimi), he of the elfin face who arrested a few days ago with no rights to see a lawyer after being wanted by the army for more than a year. I shuddered to think of the reactions of these imprisoned men from the village — Uday, Bassem, Naji, Jihad, Saeed – once they received the news.

I got the call just after 11pm Friday night. I was sworn to secrecy, since his family didn’t want to make it public yet. Anger, bitterness and sorrow overwhelmed me. I cried at my kitchen table.

The author (left) with Ola Tamimi (center) after Mustafa Tamimi was shot at close range by the Israeli military in Nabi Saleh village (Photo: Anne Paq / ActiveStills )

I hate my enemy. I can’t go to sleep. The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. They yells, the wailing, the groans, the sobbing all fill my ears like water gushing inside a submarine, dragging me further into a cold dark abyss.

I sought out religion as a source of comfort, yet it didn’t alleviate the anguish. His life was written in al-Lawh al-Mahfooz (The Preserved Tablet) since before he was born. His destiny was to become a martyr. How sweet that will be in the afterlife! But here on this earth, his sister is beside herself. His mother is hurting enormously. Her firstborn gone, no longer to drink the tea she makes or to make her laugh with his jokes.

The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. A bloody pulp on one side of his face. The pool of blood rapidly increasing. (Mama, there was so much blood.) His mouth slightly open, lying supine on the cold road. His sister screaming, her face twisted in grief. The young men weeping, looking like little boys again.

I hate them for making us suffer

I loathe my enemy. I will never forgive, I will never forget. People who say such hatred transforms a person into a bitter cruel shell know nothing of the Israeli army. This hatred will not cripple me. What does that mean anyway? Do I not continue to write? Do I not continue to protest? Do I not continue to resist? Hating them sustains me, as opposed to normalizing with them. Their hatred of me makes reinforces the truth of their being murderous machines. My hatred of them makes me human.

I can’t sleep. The shock flows in and then dissipates, before flooding back in again. I see no justification is implementing such violence on a civilian population, no sense in the point-blank murder of a man whose rights are compromised, and whose land is colonized and occupied.

Sure as hell, you will not be forgotten. You will become an icon, a symbol, and the added impetus for persisting and continuing your village’s struggle which reflects the plight of the average Palestinian for its basic rights, equality, and justice.

I hate them for making us suffer. Hating them will give me more strength to shatter their barbaric supremacist ideology, and to bring them under the heavy heel of justice. We’ve suffered so much. I hate them for not giving credit to our sumoud (steadfastness), and so continue to kill and dispossess and imprison and humiliate us.

They killed you, Mustafa. My insides crumple. You, in front of me. My tears are drawn from the depth of my wounded soul. You were engaged to be married. You were wanted by the army because of who you are: a Palestinian who resists the occupation he directly suffers from. I think of your father being denied a permit to be with you, of your mother who had to be granted permission by them to see you in the hospital. I think of your quiet, sardonic expression.

Your screaming sister. Your blood. Your murderers’ smiles.

Linah Alsaafin is a recent graduate of Birzeit University in the West Bank. She was born in Cardiff, Wales and was raised in England, the United States and Palestine. Her website is http://lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com/.

Critically injured Mustafa Tamimi of Nabi Saleh dies of his wounds

9 December 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Mustafa Tamimi, who was fatally injured yesterday during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh passed away earlier today. Tamimi was hit in the face by a tear–gas projectile shot directly at him, from only a few feet away.

Mustafa Tamimi, a 28 year old resident of Nabi Saleh, was shot in the face yesterday, during the weekly protest in the village of Nabi Saleh. He sustained a critical head injury, under his right eye, and was evacuated to the Belinson hospital in Petah Tikwa. The severe trauma to Tamimi’s brain, caused by the shooting, left the doctors with little to do to save his life, and he eventually passed away at 09:21 AM today.

Tamimi’s funeral will take place tomorrow, leaving Ramallah at 10:00 AM towards Nabi Saleh, where it is expected to reach at around 11:00 AM.

Mustafa Tamimi (left) a moment before his injury. Circled in red are the barrel of the gun and the projectile that hit him. Picture credit: Haim Scwarczenberg

A photo of the incident shows Tamimi at a distance of less than 10 meters behind the semi-open door of an armored military jeep with the gun aimed directly at him. Clearly visible in the photo is also the tear-gas projectile flying in his direction.

The incident took place in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh today, when dozens gathered for the weekly demonstration in the village, protesting the theft of village lands by the adjacent Jewish-only settlement of Nabi Saleh. After the army dispersed the peaceful march, minor clashes erupted followed by a severe response from the Israeli forces. Several people were hit with rubber-coated bullets and directly shot tear-gas projectiles. Three were evacuated to the Ramallah hospital for further treatment, including a 14 year-old. One protester was arrested.

In complete disregard to the army’s own open fire regulations, soldiers often shoot tear-gas projectiles directly at groups of protesters or individuals. Rubber-coated bullets are indiscriminately shot at protesters from short distances on a regular basis. The Israeli army also resumed the use of high velocity tear-gas projectiles in Nabi Saleh, despite the fact that they have been declared banned for use, after causing the death of Bassem Abu Rahmah in the neighboring village of Bil’in, in April 2009, and the critical injury of American protester Tristan Anderson in Ni’ilin in March of the same year.

The demonstrations, which have been held regularly for the past two years have seen hundreds of injuries to protesters by Israeli forces, as well as dozens of arrests carried out by Israel with the aim of suppressing dissent.

Background

Late in 2009, settlers began gradually taking over Ein al-Qaws (the Bow Spring), which rests on lands belonging to Bashir Tamimi, the head of the Nabi Saleh village council. The settlers, abetted by the army, erected a shed over the spring, renamed it Maayan Meir, after a late settler, and began driving away Palestinians who came to use the spring by force – at times throwing stones or even pointing guns at them, threatening to shoot.

While residents of Nabi Saleh have already endured decades of continuous land grab and expulsion to allow for the ever continuing expansion of the Halamish settlement, the takeover of the spring served as the last straw that lead to the beginning of the village’s grassroots protest campaign of weekly demonstrations in demand for the return of their lands.

Protest in the tiny village enjoys the regular support of Palestinians from surrounding areas, as well as that of Israeli and international activists. Demonstrations in Nabi Saleh are also unique in the level of women participation in them, and the role they hold in all their aspects, including organizing. Such participation, which often also includes the participation of children reflects the village’s commitment to a truly popular grassroots mobilization, encompassing all segments of the community.

The response of the Israeli military to the protests has been especially brutal and includes regularly laying complete siege on village every Friday, accompanied by the declaration of the entire village, including the built up area, as a closed military zone. Prior and during the demonstrations themselves, the army often completely occupies the village, in effect enforcing an undeclared curfew. Military nighttime raids and arrest operations are also a common tactic in the army’s strategy of intimidation, often targeting minors.

In order to prevent the villagers and their supporters from exercising their fundamental right to demonstrate and march to their lands, soldiers regularly use disproportional force against the unarmed protesters. The means utilized by the army to hinder demonstrations include, but are not limited to, the use of tear-gas projectiles, banned high-velocity tear-gas projectiles, rubber-coated bullets and, at times, even live ammunition.

The use of such practices have already caused countless injuries, several of them serious, including those of children – the most serious of which is that of 14 year-old Ehab Barghouthi, who was shot in the head with a rubber-coated bullet from short range on March 5th, 2010 and laid comatose in the hospital for three weeks.

Tear-gas, as well as a foul liquid called “The Skunk”, which is shot from a water cannon, is often used inside the built up area of the village, or even directly pointed into houses, in a way that allows no refuge for the uninvolved residents of the village, including children and the elderly. The interior of at least one house caught fire and was severely damaged after soldiers shot a tear-gas projectile through its windows.

Since December 2009, when protest in the village was sparked, hundreds of demonstration-related injuries caused by disproportionate military violence have been recorded in Nabi Saleh.

Between January 2010 and June 2011, the Israeli Army has carried 76 arrests of people detained for 24 hours or more on suspicions related to protest in the village of Nabi Saleh, including those of women and of children as young as 11 years old. Of the 76, 18 were minors. Dozens more were detained for shorter periods.

Military teargases Kufr Qaddoum following nightly raids and arrests

by Alistair George

9 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The Israeli military fired tear gas canisters directly at demonstrators in Kufr Qaddoum today in an aggressive response to the weekly protest against the closure of the main road linking the village with Nablus. Many people suffered from severe gas inhalation.

After midday prayers, over 200 people marched to the edge of Kufr Qaddoum where several people made speeches calling for the road to be re-opened to the village, including officials from the Palestinian Authority and the Chief of the Palestinian District Coordinators Office. The route to the road was blocked by around 10 Israeli soldiers, supported by armoured vehicles and soldiers on the hill overlooking the village.

Teargassing Kufr Qaddoum – Click here for more images.

Many people returned to Kufr Qaddoum after the speeches, however some Palestinian youths threw stones at the Israeli military, who responded by mounting an aggressive incursion inside the village, firing tear gas canisters directly at protesters and into houses and gardens lining the village’s main street.

Although it is permissible to fire tear gas canisters in an arc to disperse demonstrations, it is forbidden to use them as weapons by firing them directly at protesters. Firing tear gas canisters directly at protesters and at close range turns the canisters into a missile that can maim and endanger life. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, “Firing of this kind has already resulted in injuries, some grave, to dozens of Palestinians and Israeli and foreign citizens”. A Palestinian man was seriously injured at the weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh today, after reportedly being hit in the face by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli military forces at close range.

The main road linking Kufr Qaddoum to Nablus passes by Qadumim, an illegal Israeli settlement, and was closed to the village by the Israeli military in 2003. The closure of the road has doubled the length of time that it takes villagers to travel to Nablus. A report published in September by the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy estimated that restrictions on movement imposed by Israeli forces costs the Palestinian economy $184m a year.

After their appeal to re-open the road failed in the Israeli courts, the village began weekly protests on 1 July 2011. Since then the response from the Israeli military has grown increasingly violent, mounting incursions deep into the village. Abu Musub, President of Kufr Qaddoum’s community centre, said that “Every week they fire more gas – they want to stop the demonstrations but we will continue until the open the road.”

According to Abu Musub, the Israeli military enters Kufr Qaddoum every night, often detonating loud sound bombs in the village’s streets. They have also arrested many of the village’s men in connection with the protests. Four men were arrested by the Israeli military on 29 November 2011 – Osama Bram, 22, Abdallah Jumu, 23, Refit Bram, 21, and Abdel Juma, 23. The arrests were probably made in connection with the demonstrations, however they have been denied contact with their families or a lawyer so no information is available at present. Abu Musub claims that the Israeli military caused severe damage to the Abdel Juma’s house during his arrest; damaging carpets, smashing furniture and ripping open bags containing food.

Abu Musub claimed that there are 20-21 people from the village in Israeli custody – eight of whom have been arrested in connection with the weekly protest.

Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).