28th November 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Israeli forces violently detained and arrested twenty-year-old Palestinian activist Imad Altrash at approximately two o’clock yesterday in al-Khalil (Hebron).
Photo by Human Rights Defenders Palestine (http://tinyurl.com/psgc7yd).
Soldiers accused him of insulting and yelling at them at Shuhada checkpoint. No soldiers claimed that Imad threatened them or behaved violently.
Photo by Human Rights Defenders Palestine (http://tinyurl.com/psgc7yd).
On the way to the checkpoint, ISM activists ran through cold and rain as sheets of water poured down the street. Imad stood exposed, standing just behind a cement barricade on the side of the road leading up the checkpoint. One of the first things he said was, “I’ve been standing here for two hours.”
Shuhada checkpoint has been closed for the past seven days as part of a policy of collective punishment directed at the Palestinians in surrounding neighbourhoods after the checkpoint was burnt during clashes last Friday. The checkpoint connects Bab a-Zawiya, a neighbourhood in H1 (supposedly under full Palestinian authority) to Tel Rumeida, an H2 residential area under full Israeli military and civil control. Israeli soldiers have been for the past several days denying passage through the checkpoint to Palestinians including children, elderly people and teachers from nearby schools who should have special permission to pass.
Video footage from Human Rights Defenders Palestine shows soldiers violently dragging Imad up the stairs of the checkpoint and holding him in a headlock as they push him around.
After about two hours of detention at the checkpoint, Israeli police took Imad to a nearby police station where he was held for approximately an hour before being released to the Palestinian DCO [District Coordination Office].
03rd January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
At approximately 11.30am yesterday morning, Israeli forces detained a 13-year-old boy at Bab Al-Baladiyye in Khalil (Hebron). After a short period of time the young boy was released and a group of Israeli soldiers invaded the old city of Hebron, harassing residents and demanding identification from a number of Palestinians.
The group of Israeli soldiers started to walk down New Al-Shallalah street detaining a 14-year-old Palestinian for an unknown period of time before releasing him shortly after international activists arrived. Israeli forces continued to harass people in the area before heading towards Bab Al-Zawiye, the city center, where residents had started to gather after the anniversary party for Fatah’s founding ended.
The Palestinian youth present reacted to these series of events by throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers. The stone throwing and military presence began a clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian youth, with Israeli soldiers and border police throwing stun grenades and tear gas grenades from the street and from a rooftop as they backed down on to New Al-Shallalah street. During the clashes the Israeli forces repeatedly invaded the old city of Hebron, apparently searching shops for male Palestinian youth.
The clashes continued for many hours and became more violent as Israeli soldiers and border police positioned themselves at checkpoint 56 [an entrance to H2] and on nearby rooftops. Israeli forces fired a large amount of stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas grenades and canisters. Many shops and businesses where forced to close because of the tear gas and the violent interruption in the city.
One Palestinian was shot with unknown ammunition as Israeli soldiers were sniping demonstrators from various points in the city. Once shot, the young man lost consciousness, he was carried away from the clash and taken to a nearby hospital.
The clashes continued until late in the evening.
Today, Friday 3rd January, clashes began at approximately 2pm when five Israeli soldiers invaded a house in the H1 area of Hebron and positioned themselves on the roof. Palestinian youth began to gather between the house and Bab Al-Zawiye before eventually throwing stones at the invading soldiers.
During the clash, Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters and a large amount of rubber-coated steel bullets. One Palestinian youth was shot in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet but did not require hospital treatment. Another youth was evacuated by ambulance to a local hospital after losing consciousness due to tear gas inhalation.
6th August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Amena in her home in 2011
On the 2nd of August, Amena Abed AlFatah Abed Rabo passed away in Hebron. She was 71 years old and suffered a stroke. However, Amena might still have been with us, had the Israeli military let the ambulance through the many checkpoints. The journey to the hospital that should have taken three minutes was prolonged by more than one and a half hours due to restrictions and harassment by Israeli occupation forces. Amena died in the ambulance before reaching proper care. This incident was merely the last of many injustices that marked Amena’s life from the age of seven.
Amena Abed AlFatah Abed Rabo was originally from the Khema neighbourhood of Ramle in current Israel. She was seven years old when the war broke out in 1948. Her family was forcibly driven from their home following the creation of the state of Israel. In the chaos that followed, Amena was parted from her family. At the time she was blind in one eye, causing her to be easily disoriented. In her distress she fell and also lost sight in her good eye, leaving her completely blind. Amena spent a month on her own, before a friend of the family recognized her on the street and reunited her with her mother, father and three siblings.
Reunited, the family fled to the West Bank city of Hebron in an attempt to start a new life. The family was never offered any compensation for the home they were expelled from, nor the land taken from them and upon reaching Hebron they spent three years living under a tree. Amena was one of many unrecognized refugees within Palestine.
In 1951 Amena’s brother had managed to save enough money to buy the family a house, in which she lived the rest of her life. For a period Amena’s life was relatively calm in Hebron, but this changed following the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987. At this time, the Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank constructed roadblocks throughout the city of Hebron and made it impossible for Palestinians to drive within the city. To Amena this meant she could no longer leave her house. Due to her invalidity she needed a car get around and this was no longer permitted to Palestinians.
These roadblocks are still intact today and are part of the reason Amena did not make it to the hospital in time. During the last years of her life Amena lived with her nephew’s family of ten, in what is now the Israeli controlled H2 area of Hebron. Five days prior to her death, her nephew took her to the hospital where she spent three days. As she got a little better the doctors allowed her to go home. But the following day Amena suffered a stroke. The family immediately called for an ambulance.
As it had not arrived after thirty minutes, the family called once again. They were told that the ambulance had left on time but had been held back at the checkpoint. The soldiers guarding the checkpoint would not let them through without a written permit, even though Red Crescent ambulances should be able to pass freely without question. After another thirty minutes the ambulance personnel did manage to persuade Israeli soldiers to let them through but only until the next roadblock. This meant that the family had to carry Amena from their house to the roadblock. This path is rocky and hilly and it took the family another thirty minutes to get there. Finally in the ambulance they were once again stopped at the very same checkpoint that had withheld the ambulance earlier, this time for fifteen minutes. All in all, the trip to the hospital was delayed by approximately an hour and forty five minutes. This trip, from the family home to the nearby hospital of Al Khalil, would have taken three minutes if protocol had been respected.
Upon arriving to the hospital doctors quickly realised that Amena’s condition was now so critical that she had to be taken to a hospital with more expertise. This hospital, Al Ahlil, is only seven minutes away, but Amena died on the way.
During the last couple of days, Amena’s family has held her funeral, but the grief is still with them. Her nephew, Rami Abed AlFatah Hamdan, is a human rights student and is considering filing a complaint in the hope that this will not happen to another family in the future. As he says, having unrestricted access to ambulances is a human right, a right that needs to be enforced in Hebron. He feels he has nothing left to lose, and this incident has only confirmed his resolution to work with human rights. When asked if the soldiers have expressed any guilt, he simply smiles sadly and says: “If they felt guilt, they would never have stopped the ambulance”.
Unfortunately this is not an incident that stands alone. Ambulances in the Hebron area are often withheld and harassed when trying to reach patients. Hence, in 2008 a woman gave birth at a checkpoint and the same year a man died without receiving medical care. Nor is Amena Abed AlFatah Abed Rabo’s story as a refugee within Palestine unusual. Despite peace talks in Ramallah, Israel continues its plan to demolish 30,000-40,000 Bedouin homes as described in the Prawer Plan and has just approved a 1,000 new settlements in the West Bank.
Stories like Amena’s are a symptom of the Israeli occupation forces systematic attempt to drive Palestinians from their homes and make their lives as difficult as possible. This is part of a policy of ethnic cleansing aiming to expel all remaining Palestinians and Arab Bedouins from Palestine. The internationally recognised researcher and author Ilan Pappe describes this in his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” and in interview with the ISM:
But then I checked the American State Department website about ethnic cleansing and the description of what ethnic cleansing is and it fitted so well with what was and is going on in Palestine. This description does not only describe an act of expulsion but also its’ legal implications, which is in this specific case, is a crime against humanity. It also says very clearly that the only way to compensate an ethnic cleansing is to ask the people who were expelled whether they want to return or not.
3rd August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Saturday August 3rd was not a peaceful Saturday for the Palestinians in Hebron. At approximately 16.30 two settlers invaded the roof of the Abu Shamsiya family in Tel Rumeida, whilst three soldiers attacked a twelve year old boy in the street nearby.
When the settlers on the roof were approached by internationals and told that they were on private property and therefore had to leave, they refused and said they came there every week. The fact that they had entered a private home without consent of the family did not concern them, on the contrary they expressed that they felt it was their right. When asked to leave the settlers behaved aggressively by yelling and continuously refusing to do so. After having argued with internationals one of the settlers threatened to lie to the soldiers and say that they had been hit by the internationals. He argued that even though it was not true, the soldiers would believe him over the international activists.
As seen in the video below, in the meantime three Israeli soldiers assaulted three young boys just down the street. The soldiers started by harshly pushing one boy, afterwards they grabbed a second boy, Islam by the hair and kicked him. Thereafter a third boy ran to his house chased by the soldiers. When internationals asked why the military was chasing the boy, they lied and said the boys had been throwing stones. The boy said that he had simply ran because he was scared after having seen his twelve-year-old friend, Islam being brutally attacked by soldiers for no apparent reason.
These are not unusual events. The Abu Shamsiya family is often victim of settler and military harassment, the family’s roof is on street level and settlers often go there to throw stones, harass the family and break their property. Saturdays are particularly violent in Hebron, only last week both Abu Shamsiya and his son Muhammed were attacked by settlers whilst the military was watching, with Abu Shamsiya then being arrested on false charges while the settlers were freed without charges.
Hebron has large settlements in the middle of the city housing approximately 500 settlers some of whom are extremely aggressive and violent. Additionally there are 2500 Israeli occupation soldiers stationed in the city.
26th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Last night at 10 pm, a live ammunition bullet was fired at the headquarters of the human rights organisation Youth Against Settlements (YAS) in Hebron.
Live bullet shot at YAS house (Photo by activists)
The spokesperson for YAS, Damer Atash, explains that a group of activists were sitting in front of the house headquarters when the bullet was fired. The bullet was shot from the nearby olive groves making it impossible to see the shooter, although two voices were heard. Luckily, the group of activists were not hurt, instead, the bullet bounced off the window right behind them. “At first we thought it was a stone but instead we found a bullet”, said one of the activists.
At 22:15 pm, the group called the Israeli police, who arrived some 40 minutes later at approximately 11 pm, after the police arrived the military joined them and stayed for about 20 minutes. However, none of them searched the premises for the bullet canister.
The shooter was not seen, but it is likely that it was an attack from one of the neighbouring settlers, as the bullet was bigger than those used by the army. Even though this is the first incident of shooting against YAS, this would not be the first time the house has been attacked by settlers. They have previously tried to burn the house, set the kitchen of the headquarters on fire and uprooted trees. In these incidents the Israeli army or police have not taken any action against the settlers.
Israeli army and police also participate in the harassment of YAS and its human rights organizers. On Wednesday alone, the army invaded the house three times during the evening and night for what it is believed to be a training exercise for the army.
The despair and fear this causes is not uncommon for the 35,000 Palestinians living under complete control of 1500 Israeli soldiers and police officers, and the constant harassment and violence from the 500 settlers illegally living in the Israeli controlled H2 area of Hebron.
