When I arrived in Bir el-Eid on 15 November 2009, it was obvious that international accompaniment was needed. There was daily harassment from soldiers and settlers. The villagers were not allowed to use the road. They were officially restricted by the army (DCO) to 20 dunums of land around the village.
With support from internationals living in the village (usually two), and daily visits by Israeli activists, plus legal support from Rabbis for Human Rights, and larger groups of Israeli activists coming to the village on Saturdays (and sometimes other days as well), the villagers engaged in nonviolent resistance by not accepting the restrictions the Israeli military had put upon them.
The villagers grazed their sheep far from the village. They continued to use the road in spite of continual harassment from soldiers and settlers. They installed water tanks where they were forbidden. Gradually the military backed down and eventually agreed to villagers using the road. The military agreed to grazing far from the village (there needs to be more pushing of these boundaries). Recent settler harassment has been token, like stopping village tractors for 15 minutes. We can celebrate the victories the villagers have won.
Slogan saying 'Price Tag' spray-painted on a car belonging to Palestinian family by settlers
”The settlers yelled: Come out, this is our house”
Nadine Sabbagh 15-years-old, attacked in her home by settlers.
Just before midnight, on Christmas Day, 25 December 2009, the Sabbagh family was attacked by around 30 settlers. The settlers knocked at their door and told the family that they should come out of the house because it belongs to the settlers. They then broke in and injured 7 family members. Two were cut with a knife, two had their arm stretched and a pregnant woman was kicked in her stomach. She was taken to hospital where she remained at the time of writing this report. Another family member was hit in the face and had a gun pointed at her. She was threatened with being killed by the attackers.
The settlers continued their campaign of violence and intimidation on 26 December, when they attacked Palestinians from the neighbourhood with stones. Three children and one adult Palestinian were injured as result, and a French man who took pictures of the episode was attacked by a settler.
Palestinian resident of Sheikh Jarrah who was injured during a settler attack
Both attacks happened only days after settlers sprayed a car belonging to a Palestinian family from the neighbourhood with a slogan associated with the ‘Price Tag’ campaign.
Nadine Sabbagh told us the day after her and her family’s home got attacked by settlers that the attack started at around midnight and continued for around three hours. After the settlers broke into her house they kicked her pregnant aunt in her stomach and cut her brother in the neck with a knife. The attack continued as the settlers cut Nadine’s cousin in his arm with a knife while they were violently pushing her mother and another aunt. Her aunt told us that she stretched her shoulder in the attack and it will take at least two weeks for it to fully recover.
One settler brought a gun and used it to threaten Nadine: “He told me; if you will not stop talking I will kill you.” At that point Nadine attempted to push the gun out of the settlers hand, but he avoided her and hit her in the face.
This is the first time the Sabbagh family home has been directly attacked by settlers.
The wave of settler violence continued throughout the day, when a group of 20 young settlers attacked a group of Palestinians in front of the occupied Gawi family home with stones. At first, the Palestinians managed to push the attackers out of the neighbourhood, only for them to return shortly after, in even bigger numbers, attacking again, this time more intensively. Four Palestinians, three of them children, were hit by stones thrown by settlers and a French man was attacked by a settler beating him in the head. When an Israeli ambulance arrived to the neighbourhood, the medics refused to treat the injured children and transport them to the hospital. An ambulance from the Red Crescent had to be called in order for the injured to receive necessary treatment.
Israeli and Red Crescent ambulances that arrived at Sheikh Jarrah after Palestinians were injured during a settler attack
Four settlers were taken by the police for questioning in connection with the two attacks.
According to the UN, settlers use the ‘Price Tag’ campaign to exercise systematic violence against Palestinian civilians where there have been attempts to evacuate settlement outposts. However, it seems that recently it is also being used as intimidation strategy in response to the Israeli government’s announcement of a partial freeze of settlement construction.
The strategy emerged due to the decreasing support of unauthorized outposts and is launched by radical settler groups in order for the Palestinians all over the Occupied Territories to pay the price in form of attacks every time the settlers feel they are being mistreated by the Israeli authorities. The strategic attacks have contributed to the displacement of entire Palestinian neighbourhoods, both temporary and permanent.
I’m banned from Sheikh Jarrah and occupied East Jerusalem so I spent the last two days in Hebron and recently arrived in Nablus.
Hebron is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and the place where Isaac and Ishmael buried their father, Abraham, signaling a reconciliating between the two feuding brothers. Unfortunately there is no such reconciliation in Hebron today.
Hebron is unlike any place I’ve ever seen before. The old city reminds me of the old city in Jerusalem, except not as crowded. But there are military check-points and Israeli Occupation Forces everywhere, including in watch-towers all across the city. When we were walking through the city, settlers openly carried automatic weapons and assault rifles.
I asked one of them if I could take their picture.
“No,” he said. “It’s forbidden on the Sabbath.”
“It’s forbidden to get your picture taken on the Sabbath, but it’s okay to walk around with an automatic weapon?” I asked him. He snorted and turned around, ignoring me.
Hebron is also the only city I’ve visited so far where beggars are openly walking the streets, asking for money. Street hustlers are also much more aggressive here than in Jerusalem. A few hundred Israeli Jewish settlers live amongst thousands of Palestinians in Hebron, and the tension is palpable. A thick layer of netting seperates the Israeli apartments from the Arab markets below them because the settlers throw stones and trash at the Palestinians from their windows.
Later on, we met up with our contact, a woman named Leila who runs a Women’s Collective that sells homemade tapestries, kufiyyas, purses, coin wallets, and other items. She invited us into her our home and told us a little bit about the situation in Hebron over a delicious Arab dinner.
“The situation in Hebron is very bad, very dangerous,” she said. “There is no work, and the settlers and the Army threaten us and attack us everyday.”
On Saturdays, a settler “tour” goes into the old city through a military checkpoint to visit the holy sites important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. They are guarded by a phalanx of soldiers and private security, but sometimes the overzealous ones use the day as an opportunity to take potshots at the Palestinian merchants, overturning their stands, stealing from their stores, insulting them, spitting on them, and sometimes worse.
We spent most of the day and night patrolling the streets of the old city, but it was quiet. We talked with the young men on the streets, drank tea inside their houses with their families, and generally just had a relaxing time.
Some 500 demonstrators gathered at the top of the street that Jewish settlers are taking over in Sheikh Jarakh in East Jerusalem. The demonstrators, who came part by bus from Tel Aviv, part in cars from the Bil’in and Ma’asara demonstrations and part in an organized march from West Jerusalem, sang songs and beat their drums in solidarity with the Palestinians kicked out of their homes by the settlers.
sraeli border policemen stand guard during a demonstration against Jewish settlements and in solidarity with Palestinian families who were evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem December 25, 2009. Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org
The good policemen of Jerusalem, who have probably not read the editorial in this morning’s Ha’aretz, decided that a demonstration with no arrests would be unworthy of its name, even though the march and demonstration were coordinated with it ahead of time. Police started arresting people who were already arrested in the past, claiming that they were in violation of their parole. To their great shame a member of the Jerusalem municipality was present with a copy of the appeals’ court ruling, canceling the activists’ ban from the area, and so most detainees were later released.
An Israeli policeman arrests a protester, dressed in army uniform painted in white, during a demonstration against Jewish settlements and in solidarity with Palestinian families who were evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem December 25, 2009. Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org
The massive demonstration went on with great energy for two hours, and enjoyed the presence of the media. It is believed that these demonstrations will keep growing in the coming future.
Is it illegal to go to school? That question has been asked many times in occupied Palestine.
On 20 December 2009, the Israeli military confiscated a Palestinian vehicle used to transport children to and from school in al-Fakheit in the southern tip of the West Bank, as they were returning from school. Israeli soldiers stopped the vehicle, forced the children to walk home, and took the vehicle to a nearby military base across the Green Line in Israel.
It is not new for the Israeli military to harass Palestinian children going to school. The policy of the Israeli government has been to remove the Palestinian people from the South Hebron Hills, and they say, turn the area into a military firing zone. Not only have the Palestinians resisted leaving the area, they are returning to their village homes.
The Israeli military has banned schools in the area, forcing childen who live in the area to live with realitives in nearby cities.
The Israeli military claims there were problems with the registration papers for the vehicle. Local Palestinians claim the Israeli military is trying to ban all Palestinian vehicles from near the Green Line.
The next day, the Palestinians took the children to school with a tractor. The struggle continues.
