Tag: Hebron

Degrading treatment of an arrested 16 year old boy in Hebron

14 July 2009

On Monday the 13th of July around 4:30 pm Jamil (age 16) was stopped by four soldiers of the Israeli Occupation Forces approximately 150 meter from his house. The soldiers commanded him to show his identity papers and confirmed that everything was in order, but still refused to let him go. Jamil believes that his detention was the result of his family’s activities with B’tselem. After 15 minutes, Jamil’s mother and cousin came to see what was happening to him. When he explained his mistreatment, one of the soldiers told him, that he should ‘shut up’ or they would ‘fuck him’. In the same degrading manner, they prevented the mother from asking for the reason of her son’s detention.

After some time the soldiers took Jamil away without explaining where he was being taken. His intuition led him to the conclusion that it was into the direction of the military camp of Tel Rumeida. In order to further degrade him, they took through the settlement of Ramaryashai, even though they could have chosen the direct route around it. The soldiers pushed and kicked Jamil while forcing him to walk really slow through the settlement. Meanwhile, the settlers threw stones, tomatoes and eggs at him. Several also attacked him from behind. Jamil remembers a big group of settlers – kids, men and women – attacking him while the soldiers didn’t even try to stop them.

By this time,the mother had informed the whole family and some neighbors came to film the situation. The soldiers reacted by placing themselves between the two groups of people and making it difficult to see and to tape what happened to Jamil. Then some soldiers who just had come down from the military camp began blindfolding Jamil and placed him in handcuffs. Though he was bound and blindfolded, the soldiers continued to kick and beat him with a hard object that Jamil believed to be a rifle butt.

After some time the captain of the Tel Rumeida military outpost came down and ordered the soldiers to pull back so that the people with cameras were able to film him while he scolded the soldiers about what they had been doing. He then announced, that Jamil didn’t do anything wrong and his ID was in order; so there has been no reason to punish him.

Next, the commander turned around to Jamil and said really low that he better not tell about this incident or he would kill him. After his warning, he allowed his relatives to help Jamil walk back to his house, as he could not do so on his own. Jamil finally arrived home around 6:45 pm.

Back home the father was calling the police, but only one police man showed up to tell them, that they have to come to the police station to make a formal complaint. They decided first to go to the hospital to take care of Jamil’s injuries. Around 10 pm they arrived at the Kiryat Arba police station and there they were told that there was not enough police present to deal with the complain and that they should come again the next day at 9 am.

When they returned the next day they had to wait outside the police station for three hours. When a police man was available he barely assisted other than taking down the story. He didn’t even bother to ask if Jamil could identify the soldiers or settlers who attacked him. The police received the full hospital report and the video tapes.

After members of the ISM met with Jamil he told them that he is now afraid to leave his housebe cause of the threat from the captain of the IOF. He is in a lot of pain and can barely walk because of the injuries. He also said that he doesn’t believe that this incident will bring any consequences for the soldiers or the settlers. Lastly he said this is only one instance of hardship at the expense of the soldiers who had detained him 3 times in the two days before the incident.

Israeli forces kidnap 3 Tarqumia youths

9 July 2009

In the early morning of July 8th, Israeli soldiers raided three houses in the city of Tarqumia to arrest three boys. All three are currently in their last year of school. It is very likely that the Israeli army will accuse them of having thrown stones, used Molotov cocktails and built so called weapons (which means small plastic tubes being able to shoot smallest pieces of anything up to three meters). Till now only one of them, 16 years old Raef, had his first day of trial. Because of that and because there hasn’t been any contact neither from a lawyer nor from the families with the other two boys their accusations are not confirmed, yet.

When the army came to arrest them, they smashed the door of Raef family’s house with a big stone coming from a construction site after they had surrounded the house and “secured” the area. At that time only Raef’s father and 15 years old brother, Amir, were in the house. Amir had to come out and sit on the ground surrounded by ten soldiers aiming their guns at him. Twenty more soldiers entered the house without explanation and forced Raef’s father to support their search. After two hours they told him that they were searching for Raef, took the father’s cell phone number and gave him an order which advised him to come the next day at 11:30 with Raef to the military base of Eziom.

The next day Raef came back to Tarqumia with his mother after having visited her family. Because they didn’t expect him to be imprisoned his father and Raef went to Eziom awaiting any kind of interrogation connected to leave the place afterwards. The father was prohibited to follow his son into the camp and so he had to wait for about three hours before a soldier came back give give him his ID. He was then told to leave without any further information about the wherabouts of his son.

After two days Raef called his family in order to organize a lawyer for himself. Any other content of the conversation was ended by a soldier immediately. The family and lawyer only found out by chance at the military court on the July 15th that Raef accepted the accusation of having thrown stones, but refused the other two. Depending on what exactly they will accuse Raef, he might face three to five months of jail time. What will happen to the other two boys, Alaa and Yazan, is uncertain. Raef’s family is afraid that the soldiers might try to torture a confession from him about the other two charges. His next court case will be on the 21st of July.

Likely all three of them won’t be able to finish their last year of school in time, a tactic often used to punish young boys.

Farmers harassed in Khiriat Salama

30 June 2009

On Monday the 30th of June some farmers of the Khiriat Salama, a village about 15 km south west of Hebron, were prevented from working their land. They were forced to leave their olive groves by Israeli soldiers and got delivered a paper with a decision of an Israeli court that stated that from this day on they need a license to work their land. 25 families have their olive groves near the settlement of Nahal Negohot in a ‘C’ declared area (the small village of Salama with its 400 inhabitants is subdivided into A, B and C zones). Since this settlement has been established, the inhabitants of Salama village had to defend their land against its enlargement. For example in 2003, around 600 olive trees were burnt down and on some parts of the burned groves are now being cultivated by settlers.

In addition there are 11 families in area B and C who are threatened with eviction and demolition of their houses due to the lack of licenses to live there. Quit obviously they never will get one; people requested for these permits two years ago without any response, even through today.

Furthermore one family was prevented to move into their newly built house and was told by the IDF about an already existing demolition order.

The families of Khiriat Salama are now waiting the decision of DCO (District Coordination Office which is negotiating the interests of Israelis and Palestinians within the West Bank). In the case they should receive an unfavorable decision from the DCO they will try to make an appeal for a final judgment of an Israeli high court.

A typical case of daily live in the occupied territories: In the name of the security of Israeli settlers, life of Palestinian families is just getting impossible. This is just one of the impacts of colonialism.

Seven arrested as dozens support farmers picking grape leaves in Saffa

Palestine Solidarity Project

20 June 2009

Despite understanding that they would only be able to harvest for one hour at most, that they would be met with settler aggression, grape leaves need to be picked and so, for another Saturday, a group of approximately 30 International and Israeli activists joined Hamad and Jabber Soleiby and their families as they tended their land in Saffa, near the Bat ’Ain settlement. For yet another Saturday, the group was greeted to the land by a crowd of masked right-wing Israeli settlers.

The group of farmers and activists slowly headed down the hill and toward the orchards as the settlers hurled stones from slingshots. A group of settler girls could be heard repeatedly screaming “Mohammad is a pig!” from a higher location on the hillside. This continued for approximately ten minutes before the first army jeep arrived, which sent most of the settlers running up the hill. The first car of soldiers came in short physical contact with two of the settlers, who had not immediately moved from their positions, but no arrests or detentions were made. At that point, a group of Israeli activists and journalists crossed the valley and approached the soldiers to ask why they had not arrested the settlers for illegally attacking the farmers. This gave the farmers and the rest of the activists some time to simultaneously pick grape leaves and document evidence of trees that had been destroyed, either by being lit on fire or by being chopped down, in settler attacks that had happened the day before. A verbal argument ensued between the Israeli activists and the Israeli soldiers on the hillside as the grape leaves were picked, until 6 Israeli activists were grabbed and arrested; forced into the police jeeps. After the arrests were made, removing the rest of the group from the land became the army’s focus.

At first, the group was yelled at from the loudspeakers on the army jeeps to leave because they were breaking the law by being in a “closed military zone”, though the activists had copies of the Israeli Supreme Court decision forbidding the continuous designation of an agricultural area off limits to Palestinian farmers.. Then the soldiers came in a group on foot and began yelling, pushing, and forcefully herding the group away from the grape vines and towards the path that led back up the hillside. At one point, with no apparent motivation, the soldiers threw a sound bomb at the group.

Although moving, the group was often forced to pause behind a tractor that was also making its way out of the area. When the tractor would hesitate momentarily, though this was obviously not a deliberate act made by the farmers, the soldiers would charge towards the group, pushing and hitting with their batons and tugging people by their clothing at random. At one point, an Israeli soldier grabbed another Israeli activist by the arm and threw her to the ground before detaining her as well.

All 7 Israeli activists were held for a short period of time, before being driven to a major checkpoint and being released without charge.

Like many families in Saffa, the Soleiby family relies solely on their land to make their income. As settler violence continues to rise and Israeli army persists to declare the designated land as being a “closed military zone”, it has become nearly impossible for many farmers to be able to make a living.

Palestinian harvest in Hebron disrupted by settlers and Israeli forces

19 June 2009

On a piece of land located between two Jewish settlements (Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha’Avot) in an area north-east of Hebron, Palestinian farmers attempted to harvest their land. Accompanied by international from ISM and Israeli activists from Tayyoush, Palestinians hoped to participate in an agricultural activity on the al Jabari family land. The group’s objective was to harvest barley and olive tree branches to feed the family livestock.

The land is also the site of a large tent erected by settlers. The tent has been repeatedly demolished by the Israeli army but has been rapidly re-built following each demolition.

After ten minutes of harvesting, two settler women walked into the general vicinity and made calls on their cell-phones. They remained in the area for several minutes before leaving, after which a truck carrying three Israeli soldiers arrived. The soldiers told the group to stop and leave the land in Hebrew. The Palestinian, Israeli and international activists refused and continued to work the land. Another group of soldiers arrived by truck, along with a settler who began filming the group and asking them questions.  About 15 minutes later, another truck of soldiers, settlers and Israeli police arrived (totaling to 10 soldiers, 5 police and 7 settlers). The settlers attempted to provoke the activists with verbal abuse and their cameras.

The settlers and soldiers continued to harass the Palestinians. One settler kicked an international solidarity activist in the leg. Several members of the group continued to try to work. Eventually, the Palestinian farmers chose to leave the area with the crops they had successfully collected.