This morning the Israeli army demolished homes, wells and trees in the village of Susiya, South Hebron Hills. Two families were made homeless.
A total of five tents, two wells and a number of olive trees were demolished. Tens of troops and two bulldozers were used.
Neighbours were prevented from reaching the families, and teachers on their way to school in Susiya were stopped, and their IDs confiscated, until the demolition was completed.
The families had received their third notice of demolition in January 2011 but were not informed of the date of demolition.
Three Palestinians were arrested and two international visitors were threatened with arrest when soldiers and police arrived in the evening declaring the area a closed military zone.
The families were evicted from a nearby cave which they were using as temporary housing until the new housing could be rebuilt. They formerly lived in the cave, but later moved into tents and were forced to move to the current location because of harassment from illegal settlers and the Israeli army.
Susiya is a small farming community in the hills south of Hebron. Being close to illegal settlements, it is often the target of harassment from settlers or the army. Being in Area C under the Oslo Accords, the Israeli military has full control. Building permits are almost impossible to obtain for Palestinians, so they live in makeshift tents, most of which are constantly under threat of demolition.
Internationals assist by living in the community and by accompanying shepherds as they graze their sheep. The constant threat of home demolitions is very stressful for the Palestinian residents of the area.
A leading civil-rights group has accused Israeli police of systematic discrimination against the Arab residents of East Jerusalem as growing numbers of hardline religious Jews take up residence in Palestinian areas.
A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acri) found that violent confrontations between Jewish residents and their Palestinian neighbours had risen rapidly, but that Israeli police have largely ignored Palestinian complaints.
Israeli authorities “practise selective law enforcement and fail to provide even the most minimal protection to Palestinian locals,” Acri claimed. “Law-enforcement authorities have become complicit in violating Palestinian rights; in many cases, they do not enforce the law or do so only in a discriminatory manner.” Palestinians claim that they are often arrested as suspects when they make complaints against Israelis, that their children are arrested in circumstances that flout Israeli law on the treatment of minors, and that widespread surveillance cameras violate their privacy.
The Israeli police rejected the allegations. A spokesman claimed that many of the incidents contained in the report were blown “out of proportion.” Most disturbances, he said, are initiated by Palestinians throwing stones at Jewish residents.
Large numbers of religious Jews, ideologically committed to an undivided Jerusalem, have moved into Arab-dominated East Jerusalem in recent months, provoking clashes with local residents. Palestinians fear that Israel is seeking to prevent East Jerusalem – illegally annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967 – from becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. Stoking the tensions, according to Acri, are the armed private security contractors employed to protect the Jewish residents in East Jerusalem.
Even Palestinian chilldren attacked by settlers are often arrested as supects
Ahmad Qarae’en, a Palestinian resident of Silwan, described how he was shot in the thigh during an argument with an off duty soldier visiting Jewish settlers. Mr Qarae’en was questioned as a suspect and the man who shot him was released after 24 hours without charge.
In a second case, Jamalat Mughrabi, who was evicted from her home by Jewish settlers, claims she was punched repeatedly by a Jewish man. When she arrived at the police station, she found that she was the suspect, and was taken into custody. At a hearing the following day, investigators allegedly refused to show video footage proving her innocence, and she was charged and fined.
Ronit Sela, a spokesman for Acri, said it had yet to receive an official police response. She said: “We’re just calling on the police to do their job.” Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday a new and creative approach was required to reach a peace deal.
“We will have to learn the lessons of 17 years of experience from negotiations and to think creatively,” he said Mr Netanyahu. “We’ll have to think of new solutions to old problems.”
Bedouin village of Al Araqib demolished for the third time
10 August 2010
Al Araqib, NEGEV
The Bedouin village of Al Araqib in Southern Israel was destroyed for the third time in two weeks this morning, Tuesday August 10th, by Israeli civil administration forces.
At approximately 5.45 this morning around 50 Israeli police and 15 border police arrived in jeeps to guard 3 caterpillar bulldozers who razed the Palestinian Bedouin village near Beersheva, Negev to the ground in just over one hour.
Six or seven makeshift houses which had been rebuilt by the families (following the two previous demolitions on July 27th and August 4th) were bulldozed, leaving the families, including women and children, homeless again on the eve of Ramadan.
Two ISM activists and about 20 Israeli activists witnessed the demolitions, having arrived at 3 in the morning. Villagers had called for support, after they began to suspect the impending return of the bulldozers, following the arrival of Israeli officials the day before who surveyed the rebuilt structures and seemed to be taking count.
One man, helped by Israeli and international activists, can be seen in the video below trying to dismantle his own house before the bulldozers got to it – in order to save the materials from destruction – but was prevented from doing so by Israeli police.
Police were aggressive and violent to both the Bedouin and the demonstrators. They arrested one Israeli activist, Gadi Algazi, for participating in nonviolent resistance to the demolitions. They also stole the water tank, which – combined with the fact that fasting will take place during Ramadan, will make re-establishing the village even harder.
Despite this, the families, helped by activists, began to rebuild shelters for themselves with what materials they could salvage, as soon as Israeli forces departed. The state of Israel calls the village ‘unrecognized’ and says the houses were illegal.
Contact:
ISM Media office: 054-618-0056
Aida, ISM activist witness: 059-738-2292
PHOTOS: International Solidarity Movement
Arab, Jewish left-wing activists mark first anniversary of protests against evacuation of Palestinian families from east Jerusalem neighborhood in favor of Jews. Rallies held in Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Haifa as well
More than 1,000 people across Israel on Friday took part in activities marking one year since Jewish residents entered the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Every week for the past year, Arab and Jewish left-wing protestors have been holding a protest in the neighborhood, calling for the return of three Palestinian families to their homes.
Hundreds of participants, including intellectuals and politicians, began marching in Tel Aviv from the Habima Theater to Allenby Street in the afternoon hours, before getting on buses and heading to Jerusalem. Rallies were held in additional places in Israel, including Haifa and Nazareth.
“We’ll be here next year as well, inshallah (‘God willing’ in Arabic),” said one of the protst’s organizers, Sara Benninga. She spoke of the achievements of the group of young people who started the protest, which is defined by many as “the core of the new Left.”
“The problem is not just Sheikh Jarrah,” she said. “It repeats itself in other places across the country and stems from discrimination, inequality and racism, which are the foundation of these moves. I feel that compared to last year, we have made a great leap in the awareness of the injustice taking place here, and we have a lot of PR work to do in order to reach people. It’s a feeling of a beginning of something wonderful and brave.”
Some 600 protestors arrived in Sheikh Jarrah carrying signs reading, “Democracy stops in Sheikh Jarrah.”
Solidarity protest for Sheikh Jarrah - Photo: Sheikh Jarrah
One of the protestors, author David Grossman, told Ynet, “I like it better here than at home.” He said he viewed the expansion of the struggle as a positive phenomenon. “I hoped this would happen and I hope it’s only the beginning,” he said.
Grossman added, however, that the people were not responding to the struggle. “The people, assuming there is such a thing, are apathetic and looking for an excuse not to do something. In the face of this complete indifference, it’s refreshing and encouraging to see the amount of people willing to come here every Friday afternoon to protest, whether in the heat or in the rain.”
He criticized the Israeli society, saying it was “stuck in a situation it created on its own, and is the victim of anxieties and lack of faith in change. It’s insulting to see how little we are capable of doing to help ourselves,” he told Ynet.
Knesset Member Dov Khenin (Hadash) said that “struggle is intensifying, because people understand we are fighting here not just against the injustice suffered by the Palestinians in the neighborhood, but also for ourselves, for our future in this country. Because with a settlement in the heart of Arab east Jerusalem, we won’t be able to reach an arrangement of two states for two people. It’s a critical battle and more and more people are realizing that.”
He directed his criticism at representatives of the Labor Party, who have avoided taking part in the protests. “They must think that being more similar to the Right will make them more popular, but they don’t understand that in such a case there will be no reason to favor them over the Right.”
Dozens marched to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in Jerusalem on Monday, August 2nd, to mark the first anniversary of the eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Holding UNRWA to account
Representatives of the al-Ghawi and Hanoun families, whose homes have been occupied by Israeli settlers since August 2nd 2009, were joined by Palestinian, Israeli and international supporters, who gathered at ten in the morning outside the houses in question, held a short prayer, and then marched to the UNRWA compound.
The group of around sixty people, including members of the media, asked to be admitted for an audience with UN representatives. Family members demanded of officials why, after one year, nothing had been done, and Palestinians from the same neighbourhood who are facing eviction asked why they had been show so little support.
Some ISM activists accompanied representatives from the Hanoun and Al-Ghawi family, as well as from the Al-Kurd family – who currently remain in Sheikh Jarrah but must endure daily harassment and humiliation from settlers who have occupied the front room of their property – inside the UNRWA building to speak with officials.
Demanding long overdue support
Nasser Al-Ghawi with Fillipo Grandi
The families made three principal demands of the UN: firstly that they provide the full financial assistance to which the families are entitled, and which they need to pay the rent for the apartments they have lived in since being dispossessed; secondly, that the UN help them establish and maintain a presence in Sheikh Jarrah as a symbol of resistance to the injustice of the situation; and finally that they provide UN flags to families in Sheikh Jarrah still under threat of eviction – as a sign of support and in recognition that international law views such evictions as illegal.
Eventually Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General of UNRWA, spoke, saying that the UN is working in Sheikh Jarrah and similar places such as Silwan, and is maintaining a strong presence as well as pressuring Israel to hear an appeal on behalf of the families and monitoring the cases of other families threatened with eviction. However, some ISM activists and family members felt that the UN’s response was unsatisfactory.
One member of the Al-Ghawi family – who have documents proving that they own the house from which they were evicted – commented: “It’s always the same, excuses, words but almost no action. Why can’t the UN at least show they are supporting us with something as small as a flag?”
Legally unjustifiable
The eviction on August 2nd 2009 was justified on the basis of the ruling by an Israeli court which recognized the settlers claim to own the properties, based on a document dating from the Ottoman era, riddled with inconsistencies. However, the American and British consulates as well as the United Nations, condemned the eviction. The court had refused to recognize the documents the Palestinian families had provided proving their ownership, granted to them by the Jordanian government and UN. Regardless of ownership their status as refugees also grants the families protection.
Under international law Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem violate UN Security Council resolutions 465, 242, 446, 452. All measures taken by Israeli to change the character and demographic character of Jerusalem lack legal validity and its policies and practices towards this end constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the protection of civilians in conflict situation
Despite this clear position, just last week another Palestinian family were evicted from their home under similar circumstances, showing that Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing is continuing. The attempted Judaisationof Jerusalem – spoken of explicitly by several settler groups – and its corollary, the expulsion of Palestinians, is a slow and insidious but ongoing phenomenon, which has been condemned by Israeli human rights groups ICAHD and B’Tselem as well as the United Nations Commission for Human Rights.
Solidarity gathering
Later that evening the families hosted their usual Monday night community dinner and a drumming lesson taught by an Israeli samba band and attended by around 80 people followed.
Settlers could be observed filming people from the occupied houses. They also called Israeli police and complained to them that the road was being blocked. Police loitered on the scene for a long time but did nothing.
A talk was given by a Jewish Israeli professor from Tel Aviv University, in Hebrew and Arabic, analyzing the similarities – and difference – between the Holocaust and Palestinian situation. There was also a screening of the acclaimed film Bili’in Habibti.
Just before the projection of the film a settler threw a stone into the garden but no-one was hurt.
One ISM activist said: “It’s sad that on an anniversary like this, it’s clearer than ever that Israeli policy is not changing – a new eviction in the Old City happened just last week. These evictions are illegal, and create a massive obstacle to justice and peace, as well as on an individual level making families including young children homeless in a very traumatic way.”
11 September 2010 | 
