Tag: Ethnic Cleansing - Page 38 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli forces stole 21 boats and sank two more just in the last 3 months

5th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Just in the last 3 months Gaza’s fishermen had 21 boats stolen and 2 sunken by the Israeli occupation forces.

Each small boat sustains at least 20 people on average and each one of the big ones at least 100 people. That means that just in the last 3 months around 550 people lost their source of income and were left in a situation of severe food insecurity.

All of these attacks took place within the fishing limit imposed by the occupation, as one of the fishermen interviewed by ISM pointed out: “they always know who they are taking, it’s not by chance or because we cross any of the limits they impose on us. They come for us. They kidnapped me and my cousin while we were less than a mile from the coast, and on that day the limit they gave us was for 6 miles”.

It is known that one of the main reasons to kidnap the fishermen is in order to try to buy them or blackmail them into becoming collaborators.

Fishermen kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces

One fisherman that insisted on remaining anonymous, given the sensitivity of this matter, explained to ISM what happened to him while he and his cousins were in Ashdod port: “they sat us in a room and we had in front of us a table with two trays, one with money and another one with gold. They told us that if we work with them all of it would be for us. Then they started asking us about our neighbours, relatives and anyone they thought we could know something about”.

Most of the fishermen kidnapped are tortured during the interrogation in Ashdod port and suffer from several kinds of physical and verbal abuse. They are beaten, their heads get rubbed on the floor or with a dirty mop and the soldiers step on their faces with their military boots. Those are just some common examples from most testimonies.

But humiliations already start in the sea, where most of the fishermen are told to strip off their clothes and swim naked towards the warship of the occupation forces. In many cases by that moment they have been already injured by rubber coated steel bullets, buckshot-filled sacks or even live ammunition.

Palestinian man beaten up by Israeli forces near Ibrahimi Mosque

5th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Israeli forces on 3rd July beat up a Palestinian man at Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), leaving him with a bleeding nose.

A border police-men grabbed the man by the neck, after he was trying to leave the area. He then, with his hand firmly gripped on the man’s neck, walked him towards the mosque entrance, deliberately pushing him into a police-barrier, that immediately fell, almost causing the man to stumble and trip over the barrier, which was only stopped by the firm grip of the border police men on his neck. He was deliberately taken out of sight into a room where just two days before, 27-year old Sarah Tarayra was gunned down by Israeli forces while, according to eye-witness statements, she kept affirming that the only thing she has is her mobile.

These kind of rooms, where any observer is prevented from seeing and documenting the events exist at each checkpoint in al-Khalil, and with recent ‘upgrades’ and ‘renovations’ of checkpoints, most checkpoints are now constructed in a way, where anyone being ‘checked’ is inside a box with only the soldiers and no observers. This way, Israeli forces try to further hide and stop any documentation of their crimes.

The Palestinian man was then hit hard in the face by the soldier, immediately causing his nose to start bleeding. Despite trying to hide this unprovoked violence, the man went into the room fine, and clearly came out shaken up and with a bleeding nose. When trying to leave after this vicious attack, he was called back by another border police men that then detained him for an ID-check and photographed his ID. The man had to go to hospital the same night, but luckily his nose was not broken. Still, even the next day, it was swollen, bruised and showed signs of the attack.

Border police with firm grip on Palestinian man's neck — Border police with firm grip on Palestinian man’s neck

As Palestinians in occupied Palestine are subjected to the Israeli military law, they lack any way of addressing attacks on them by the Israeli forces. With the attack being carried out by a border police commander, the highly militarized police of the Israeli forces, any complaint to the civil police would most likely be futile – and instead put any Palestinian at risk of instead being arrested for an accusation by the attacker. A Palestinian’s word or statement, in an Israeli police station, against any member of the Israeli army or police counts for nothing. In the past, the Israeli police at times has even refused to take any complaints by Palestinians against settlers. Israeli forces, as well as settlers, thus have complete impunity in their actions, and as this vicious attack illustrates, even enjoy the support or at least tacit consent of their colleagues.

10-year old girl arrested on settler children accusation

5th July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Israeli forces on Monday 4th July arrested a 10-year old Palestinian girl near the Ibrahimi mosque in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), as a group of settler children arbitrarily accused her of throwing an enormous rock at them.

A large group of settler children were playing near the Ibrahimi mosque, again and again harassing a family living next to a checkpoint manned by heavily-armed Israeli forces. When a boy accused one of the Palestinian children of throwing a rock at them, all the settler children and large numbers of Israeli forces gathered at the house. A group of soldiers then entered the house with the settler boy, and eventually came out with the 10-year old girl, crying.

They then walked her off to the police station, despite her young age. Even under Israeli military law, that applies on all Palestinians in the West Bank, the arrest of Palestinian children is prohibited under the age of 12. Under the Israeli civil law which applies even on settlers living in illegal settlements, in contrast, arrests of children are legal only from the age of 14. Despite the girl being only 10-years old – a fact that was repeatedly told to the soldiers – the girl was taken to the police station. The girls mother was prevented by the Israeli forces to reach the police station, which is located on part of a street where Palestinians are not even allowed to walk. Luckily, the girl was accompanied by her aunt, but denied the presence of her mother.

The settlers in the meantime kept harassing the Palestinian family, throwing small stones at the family, sitting on the stairs outside their house, waiting and hoping for the release of the girl. As the house is located directly opposite one of the many checkpoints, this happened in plain view of the Israeli forces, who in the beginning entirely ignored the events and intervened only when realizing that people started filming and taking photos.

After about half an hour, she was released, and Israeli forces explained to her family, that they were just being ‘nice’ as they were sure she threw the rock. The rock the settler boy accused her of throwing at them is so big, that the 10-year old girl would not even been able to lift it up.

Watch the video below:

This illustrates how Israeli settlers, even small children, have complete impunity for their actions, and Israeli forces act upon their every word and wish – even if acting illegally under the Israeli law.

This comes at a time where Israeli forces are enacting severe restrictions on Palestinians in the area around the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Hebron under selective and racist siege

2nd July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

The southern West Bank city of occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) has been put under siege by Israeli forces – exclusively for Palestinians.

Israeli forces declared a complete closure of the city as a ‘security measure’, closing all entries and exits into the city itself and the surrounding villages belonging to the Hebron governorate indefinitely. An exception to the rule is military and humanitarian cases.

Closures enforced on Palestinian villages by Israeli forces Photo credit: PNN English — Closures enforced on Palestinian villages by Israeli forces
Photo credit: PNN English

The official Israeli statement, though, does feature already, that this siege is only implemented on the Palestinian residents – deliberately excluding any settler living in one of the illegal Israeli settlements from these draconian measures. Punishing the entire Palestinian population with a siege like this, additionally, is a form of collective punishment prohibited by Art. 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that a person can not be “[…] punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited”.

Enforcing a siege on the entire Palestinian population in this area, furthermore illustrates the racism and apartheid-measures of the Israeli government, openly admitting to impose a siege specifically and exclusively on a certain group, the Palestinians, while deliberately excluding the illegal settler population from the same measure.

Closure on exit of Hebron used by Palestinians Photo credit: PNN English — Closure on exit of Hebron used by Palestinians
Photo credit: PNN English

Whereas measures like these are not new, they definitely illustrate how bluntly the Israeli authorities publicly state their racism, breaches of international law and human rights, and how they don’t even fear illustrating their apartheid-measures. The question that remains is, is the international community going to take notice – and especially action?

Curfew on Hebron neighborhoods imposed by Israeli forces

2nd July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Israeli forces, on 30th June 2016 enforced a complete curfew on several neighborhoods in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). Deliberately, this curfew was designed to be imposed only on the Palestinian population, with the expressive goal of allowing settlers to move around these neighborhoods without even so much as seeing Palestinians on the street.

After a 13-year old girl was stabbed, allegedly by a Palestinian youth, in the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of al-Khalil, her funeral was scheduled to take place in the evening. With the procession scheduled to leave at 6pm from the illegal settlement, many neighborhoods along the way towards the Jewish cemetery in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood were closed down long before this time. Palestinians attempting to return home were aggressively denied access by the occupying Israeli forces.

In the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, the curfew was imposed long before 6pm and only lifted after about 4 hours. Residents of this neighborhood were thus trapped either inside their houses with doors well bolted in fear of common settler-attacks – or left without any possibility to reach their homes, as the curfew was not announced. This also left people trying to reach home for Iftar, the meal after fasting from sunrise to sunset during the holy month of Ramadan, stuck at a checkpoint where they were ‘not allowed’.

This curfew clearly constitutes a collective punishment imposed on the entire Palestinian population in these neighborhoods – which are deliberately punished merely on the basis for them being Palestinian. Furthermore, Israeli forces are enacting acts of collective punishment by sealing the home-town of the alleged Palestinian attacker, slating his families’ home for demolition and revoking their work-permits.