Tag: Hebron

Another daughter of Palestine killed in cold blood

26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Yesterday afternoon, Dania Arsheid, 17, was gunned down in cold blood and killed by Israeli forces in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).

Dania was still wearing her school-uniform and school-bag, coming from school in the afternoon. Just twenty minutes before the incident, at a checkpoint leading to the Ibrahimi mosque, a female soldier was heard on the army-radio by passers-by announcing that she wanted “to kill a Palestinian person that day’.
Dania passed through the checkpoint leading from the Palestinian market to the Ibrahimi mosque, and a few meters further to the next checkpoint. She passed through the metal detector and gave her bag to the soldiers at the checkpoint. An eyewitness explains: “I saw with my own eyes, there was no knife – nothing.” According to eye-witnesses, soldiers then shot at her feet – at which point she immediately stepped back and raised her hands. That is when soldiers started shot her, according to witnesses, seven to eight times. While she lay on the ground bleeding from her neck, no first aid was given, not even the Israeli ambulance that arrived after about twenty minutes gave any medical help. A Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance was denied entry to the scene and ordered by soldiers to leave.

Palestinian ambulance denied access to critically injured Dania
Palestinian ambulance denied access to critically injured Dania

While the Israeli army claims that Dania had a knife and was thus a threat to the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint, all eye-witness accounts refute this. Regardless of that claim, shooting a child numerous times into the upper body and neck, while she is moving back with her hands in the air, clearly scared and not a threat, will never be justifiable under any circumstances. Denying first aid and access of medical personnel to critically injured persons can not be excused.

Sadly, episodes where Palestinian youth are extra-judicially executed by Israeli forces and then denied medical aid are not an exception anymore. Dania is already the third girl killed by Israeli soldiers in al-Khalil within a month. It is hard to imagine the pain of the parents and the family of these victims learning about the pointless, tragic death of their loved ones. A witness to already more than one of the heinous murders states: “What can we do? They are not human!”

Israeli settlers trespass & attempt to enter the home of international human rights workers

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26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On October 25th, around 2am, strange noises could be heard through the window of an apartment in Tel Rumeida where nine international human rights activists are currently living. Upon further inspection, four adult male settlers were identified, trespassing on the property. In full view of the soldiers who are constantly posted on the street directly in front of the house, two of the settlers ascended the staircase and attempted for several minutes to open the locked, latched door. They stopped and went back down the stairs, screaming “f*** you!” and making obscene gestures when the two at the bottom realized the scene was being filmed, and warned the others.

When the three soldiers at the bottom of the stairs were immediately approached by the internationals about the incident, their reactions were flippant and vaguely threatening, including laughter, repeating that “everything is fine”, and the flat out denial that any of them had seen any of the settlers, with the caveat that “though [they] didnt see any settlers, [they] told them to get down”. Soldiers reiterated to the shaken internationals that “Palestinians want to kill us all”, and referenced the ‘arab threat’ posed by all the alleged perpetrators of stabbing attacks, almost none of whom have been convicted though almost all have been executed. Soldiers reiterated that the settlers were gone and that internationals would be protected, despite repeated questions about why these heavily armed soldiers didn’t manage to detain or even address or perhaps even see the trespassing illegal settlers. When the soldiers were asked to produce their commander, one of the soldiers named himself, Yonaton Zair. He wore no standard markings of an officer, and when asked the number of their battalion, he simply said Tzahar. Neither he nor any other soldier would produce any other information.

Unfortunately, this is fairly standard operating procedure in Hebron, where soldiers effectively work at the command of the settlers.

 

 

Increasing harassment and direct threats of Palestinians and internationals in al-Khalil

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22nd October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today in the morning, Israeli forces harassed international human rights observers monitoring a checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on settlers orders.

Two internationals were monitoring the stairs leading up to two schools from segregated Shuhada street. Palestinians are forced to take the stairs as the small stretch of Shuhada Street where they are allowed to walk, before Shuhada Street – once the major Palestinian market – continues on as a ghost stretch, completely emptied off any Palestinians, who are not allowed to even walk there. Checkpoint 55, which marks the line from where Palestinian freedom of movement is completely denied is often the scene of ID-checks, body-searches, detentions and arrests of Palestinians.

During the last few weeks, this has also been the choice venue for large groups of settlers from the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah and many of the other illegal al-Khalil settlements for staging protests, such as executing a Palestinian and celebrating his death with trays of sweets. The Palestinian residents in this neighbourhood are constantly harassed by the soldiers and settlers, who in turn enjoy the unconditional protection of the Israeli forces – even to the extent that a knife can be planted on a dead Palestinian by Israeli police, as seen in this video filmed by the activist group Youth Against Settlement.

With the recent escalation of soldiers’ and settlers’ violence against Palestinians and the extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, not only in al-Khalil, but beyond that throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza, teachers and parents are worried about school-children’s safety on the way to school. International human rights observers are monitoring most of the innumerable checkpoints children are forced to pass through on their way to school.

On Thursday morning, two internationals were standing at checkpoint 55, monitoring Palestinian school-children on their way up the stairs to Qurtuba school when a settler from the Beit Hadassah settlement spotted the internationals, immediately walked up to the soldiers seeming upset, pointing towards the internationals and down the road. Just a few seconds later, soldiers came up to the human rights observers asking for their passports and visas and ordering them to move further away down the road, out of sight of the staircase leading to the school. When questioned about reasons for this, soldiers admitted that ‘someone’ did not feel safe and wanted them to leave the area. A few minutes later, more soldiers arrived at the checkpoints and requested the two internationals to be body-searched. The female human rights observer refused as there were no female soldiers, but the male  was human rights observer was forced to lift up his shirt and trousers and have a soldier body-search him. The reason soldiers gave to internationals was ‘security’, though soldiers almost never bother to check the internationals’ bags. This comes just as illegal settlers in al-Khalil put up posters asking for soldiers and settlers to ‘take action’ against these ‘hostile anarchists trying to harm Israelis for anti-semitic reasons’, openly inciting violence toward these third party observers.

This kind of harassment, for Palestinians, is a daily occurrence, completely leaving their lives at the soldiers’ every whim.

ISM mourns the death of longtime supporter and friend, Hashem Azzeh

21st October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine

Hashem Azzeh, 54
Hashem Azzeh, 54

Long term supporter and friend of ISM, Hashem Azzeh, has tragically passed away today aged 54, following health complications exacerbated by the conditions in Al-Khalil (Hebron). Hashem, who had a long-term cardiac condition, called for an ambulance on feeling discomfort in his chest earlier this afternoon. As Palestinian vehicles are banned within his H2 neighborhood of Tel Rumeida, Hashem had to be assisted to walk the 700 meters from his house to the Shuhada street checkpoint in increasing pain. He passed the soldiers who harass him and his family on a daily basis and was accompanied into an awaiting ambulance. He passed away not long afterwards.

Only yesterday, Tuesday 20th October, Hashem picked olives together with international support from the ISM Al-Khalil team. After just 20 minutes of picking, they were interrupted by illegal settlers, armed with machine guns, who made it impossible to continue the harvest for the day. (See more here)

Within his life time, Hashem was subject to an extreme amount of harassment and abuse. Living in the infamous neighborhood of Tel Rumeida in Al-Khalil (Hebron), illegal settlers not uncommonly threw trash, stones and even human feces at his house and family within. As he described in an interview with ISM in December 2013: ”In general the daily life is really horrible. Our children get harassed on their way to and back from school. We get controlled and searched at the checkpoint every day.” Him and his wife Nisreen also tragically lost two children due to settler violence.

The inability to easily access medical assistance within Tel Rumeida was just one example he gave of the stranglehold effect of Israeli forces and illegal settlers on this neighborhood. “I used to climb a six meter wall to access my home. When my wife was pregnant I had to carry her all the way, when she was about to give birth. It took us three hours to get to the hospital.”

Hashem was an admired friend to many internationals and his house was always open for a cup of tea on the occasions that soldiers allowed passage through the street. He strongly resisted the occupation and undoubtedly inspired many people with his stoic commitment to both his family and his city.

An ISM Al-Khalil team member stated tonight, “it is hard to find the words to respond to these senseless attacks on innocent families at the best of times. As this tragic and avoidable death follows weeks of escalating violence in Al-Khalil, and years of constant harassment of the Azzeh family, we are looking back on Hashem’s words from the past…’the army and the settlers have done a lot to me here. They want me to move but I will never give up, we are still fighting until we get our freedom…‘” Our thoughts go out the family of Hashem who lost a father and husband today, and we continue to stand in solidarity to that end.

 

An autopsy will occur overnight to determine the exact cause of Hashem’s death and the degree to which the Israeli-delayed medical assistance contributed to his untimely passing. There will be a funeral tomorrow, October 22 at 12pm in Al-Khalil.

He will be sorely missed in Tel Rumeida and around the world.