25th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On the 24th of February in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces opened fire on dancing Palestinian youth, firing tear gas and throwing stun grenades at group of young children performing a traditional Palestinian dance as a form of protest in front of Shuhada checkpoint.
Palestinian children dancing dabke in Bab Al-Zawiye, before the military assault began
The fifteen young dancers, Palestinian girls and boys between the ages of six and twelve, gathered to perform dabke, a traditional Palestinian dance, in an event organized by local Palestinian activist group Youth Against Settlements. They staged their dance on the open street in Bab Al-Zawiye (in the H1 – officially Palestinian Authority-controlled – part of Hebron) near Shuhada checkpoint, as part of a week of actions planned by Palestinian organizers around the annual Open Shuhada Street campaign. The children began performing under heavy military surveillance, as at least thirteen soldiers occupied roofs surrounding the entrance to the checkpoint.
The young dancers posed for a photo-op on top of the roadblocks in the street leading to Shuhada checkpoint. Israeli soldiers are just visible on a roof to the right of the street.
Even before the demonstration had begun, Israeli forces closed Shuhada checkpoint to Palestinian men, only allowing a few women through. Shuhada checkpoint controls the main access between Bab Al-Zawiye and the the H2 (fully Israeli-controlled) neighborhood of Tel Rumeida. On the H2 side, the checkpoint faces Shuhada street, and soldiers restrict Palestinian access onto the short portion of Shuhada street where they are still allowed to walk.
“As soon as the dancing kids moved closer to the checkpoint, soldiers immediately attacked with two tear gas grenades and two stun grenades,” reported an ISM volunteer who witnessed the incident. “Israeli soldiers fired tear gas even though the children were not throwing stones.”
Soldiers, rifles loaded with tear gas grenades, preparing to fire at young children outside Shuhada checkpointTear gas filling the air as demonstrators scatter in front of the checkpoint
After first fleeing the assault, the Palestinian children managed to continue dancing even as around twenty soldiers and eight border police advanced from the checkpoint into Bab Al-Zawiye. Israeli forces threw a dozen stun grenades after a few youth began throwing stones at the checkpoint.
Clashes continued for about an hour and a half, as Israeli soldiers and border police fired even more rounds of tear gas, several additional stun grenades, and eventually rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian youth. Advancing further and further into the commercial center of Bab Al-Zawiye, they ended up shooting into the crowded streets of the city’s market area. Local activists reported that two Palestinians suffered injuries from rubber-coated steel bullets.
Israeli forces invading Bab Al-Zawiye. Two were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets
February 25 marks the 21-year anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre; in 1994 US-born extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinian worshipers inside the Al-Khalil mosque and injured dozens more. In the time following the attack, Israeli authorities initiated a crackdown, not on those occupying the city’s illegal settlements, but on Palestinians. Israel put in place policies, including the closure of Shuhada street, which would eventually lead to Al-Khalil becoming the divided city it is today.
Children in H2, which includes Al-Khalil’s historic Old City and once-thriving market, constantly endure the violence and daily humiliations of Israeli military occupation. Children living in the neighborhoods of H2 are routinely tear gassed on their way to school and face arrest, attack and daily harassment at checkpoints. The Open Shuhada Street actions are a yearly expression of resistance to Israel’s Apartheid system, as Palestinians young and old demand and end to the occupation.
24th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
During the night of the February 22nd, Israeli occupation forces raided two homes belonging to the Edies family, in the Al-Khalil (Hebron) neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida. At least thirty soldiers invaded the homes of Yahya Edies and Saleh Edies at around 2:30 am on Sunday morning. Mhammad Edies, one of Yahya’s sons, reported to ISM volunteers that soldiers threatened his family, telling them “if you don’t open the door in 5 minutes, we will blow it up”
ISM volunteers watching from the window of their house in Tel Rumeida counted at least 30 soldiers exiting the houses after the raid
Israeli soldiers ordered the family of twelve, including five children between 5 months and 12 years old, to gather in one room. One of the family’s sons was unable to follow the soldiers’ orders, since he is disabled and cannot move by himself; only after some discussion was he finally allowed to stay in the room he was in. The family was forced to stay inside that room for about an hour as the soldiers ransacked the house, upending furniture, strewing things all over the floor destroying the family’s belongings.
The Edies family’s home, the morning after the night raid – photo by Mhammad EdiesThe kitchen after Israeli soldiers ransacked it – photo by Mhammad EdiesThe soldiers upended furniture and destroyed belongings while the Palestinian family was trapped in one room – photo by Mhammad Edies
Israeli forces prevented ISM volunteers from documenting what was happening, pointing their guns and aiming lasers at them, yelling at and detaining those who attempted to leave their house to photograph the raid.
The following morning, a local a human rights activist reported that Israeli occupation forces had raided around 20 houses in Al-Khalil on that same night of the 21st to the 22nd of February alone.
22nd February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On the afternoon of the 21st of February Saleh Abu Shamsiya, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, was attacked by settler youth in the Al-Khalil (Hebron) neighborhood of Tel Rumeida. Saleh’s father and activist with the group Human Rights Defenders Imad Abu Shamsiya reported that the settlers, who looked around 18-19 years old, surrounded his son while he was playing in the snow and stabbed him in the arm with a sharp metal object about 15 cm long.
Saleh’s wound, which required 2 stitches at the hospital. Photo by Human Rights Defenders http://tinyurl.com/m5razs8
The soldiers stationed at Gilbert checkpoint, directly beside where the attack took place, did nothing try to prevent the settlers from assaulting Saleh.
Sales after the attack – photo by Imad Abu Shamsiya
The boy was then taken to the hospital where the wound required two stitches. The night after the attack, Saleh could not sleep from the pain.
Saleh in Hebron Public Hospital – photo by Human Rights Defenders
The following day, at 2:40pm, Saleh was again playing in the snow on the hills of Tel Rumeida when he was kidnapped by soldiers and brought to the military base in the Tel Rumeida’s illegal settlement. The 10-year-old boy was kept for about 20 minutes before Israeli police took him to the DCO (District Coordinator Office). After that the boy was handed over to the Palestinian police who informed his father about his whereabouts.
Saleh is just visible beside the military jeep – photo by Human Rights Defenders
Saleh’s family lives very near the illegal Israeli settlement in Tel Rumeida, occupied by some of Palestine’s most violent Zionist settlers. Israeli occupation forces and settlers have repeatedly targeted the Abu Shamsiya family. Saleh’s brothers Awne and Mohammed have both been beaten by settlers, who used to routinely occupy the family’s roof. The nearby illegal settlements, along with the Israeli military occupation, continue to deny some of this family’s most basic human needs such as freedom of movement and the right of their children to play.
21th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On February 20, Israel forces threw at least thirty stun grenades and ten tear gas grenades at a peaceful Palestinian protest.
Residents of occupied Hebron (Al-Khalil) were demonstrating against the closure of Shuhada Street, a former economic centre in Al-Khalil. The street, running through the middle of a once-thriving neighbourhood near Al-Khalil’s Old City, was once an important market. The shops on the street were first closed in 1994, following the Ibrahimi mosque massacre, when an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinians at prayer. The street was fully closed to all Palestinian pedestrian and vehicular access in 2000. The protest held was organized as a preview of the annual “Open Shuhada Street” event, postponed to the 27th because of the weather conditions.
The protest began in Bab Al-Zawiye at 11.30 am, in a city covered by a thick layer of snow. Around one hundred and fifty Palestinians took the street through the old city’s souq (market) towards the Ibrahimi Mosque. Arriving in front of the Israeli military base in the illegal Beit Romano settlement, protesters sang and waved flags even as Israeli forces assaulted them with stun grenades.
Israeli forces advanced outside the base and threw several rounds of stun grenades and tear gas grenades. The protesters did not abandon the street, and faced the army with a determination still unwavering even after two individuals suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation.
After singing an arabic version of “Bella Ciao,” demonstrators returned to Bab Al-Zawiye, outside of Shuhada checkpoint. As tensions rose some youth threw stones towards the checkpoint, and Israeli forces again shot tear gas grenades at the protest.
Later, Israeli forces arrested a Palestinian youth in Tel Rumeida, on the suspicion of participating in the protest. He was released a short time later.
9th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine
Update 10th February 2015:
Today, 10th February, Kayla Mueller’s family confirmed she has been killed.
Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the popular committee in the village of Bil’in where Kayla joined the protests, told ISM: “Kayla came to Palestine to stand in solidarity with us. She marched with us and faced the military that occupies our land side by side with us. For this, Kayla will always live in our hearts. We send all our support to her family and will continue, like Kayla, to work against injustice wherever it is.”
Photo by ISM volunteer
*****
Kayla Mueller volunteered with the International Solidarity Movement from August to September of 2010.
Kayla, sitting under a poster of Ashraf Abu Rahma from Bil’in.
On 4 August 2013 Kayla, 26, originally from Prescott, Arizona, was working with Syrian refugees when she was kidnapped after leaving a Spanish Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo. Since that time she has been held in captivity by Da’esh (ISIS). This information was not previously released publicly out of concerns for her safety. On February 6th, Da’esh announced that she had been killed by Jordanian airstrikes in Raqqa, northern Syria. The validity of their announcement has not been confirmed.
Our hearts are with Kayla, her family, friends, and all those who have lost liberty, lives and loved ones in the global struggle for freedom and human rights.
With the ISM, Kayla worked with Palestinians nonviolently resisting the confiscation and demolitions of their homes and lands. In the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Occupied East Jerusalem, she stayed with the Al Kurd family to try and prevent the takeover of their home by Israeli settlers.
Kayla sitting in a protest tent in Sheikh Jarrah.
Kayla accompanied Palestinian children to school in the neighborhood of Tel Ruimeda in Al-Khalil (Hebron) where the children face frequent attacks by the Israeli settlers and military. She stayed with villagers in Izbat Al Tabib in a protest tent to try to prevent the demolition of homes in the village. She joined weekly Friday protests in Palestinian villages against the confiscation of their lands due to Israel’s illegal annexation wall and settlements.
Kayla, standing beside two other ISM activists in Bil’in.
Kayla published writing online about her work in Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement in August and September 2010. “How can I ignore the blessing of freedom of speech when I know that people I deeply care for can be shot dead for it?” she wrote.
Below are excerpts from two of Kayla’s posts.
October 29, 2010:
“I could tell a few stories about running desperately from what you pray are rubber-coated steel bullets launched from the gun tip of a reckless and frightened 18-year old.”
“I could tell a few stories about sleeping in front of half demolished buildings waiting for the one night when the bulldozers come to finish them off; fearing sleep because you don’t know what could wake you. . . . I could tell a few stories about walking children home from school because settlers next door are keen to throw stones, threaten and curse at them. Seeing the honest fear in young boys eyes when heavily armed settlers arise from the outpost; pure fear, frozen from further steps, lip trembling.”
“The smell and taste of tear gas has lodged itself in the pores of my throat and the skin around my nose, mouth and eyes. It still burns when I close them. It still hangs in the air like invisible fire burning the oxygen I breathe. When I cry tears for this land, my eyes still sting. This land that is beautiful as the poetry of the mystics. This land with the people who’s hearts are more expansive than any wall that any man could ever build. Yes, the wall will fall. The nature of impermanence is our greatest ally and soon the rules will change, the tide will turn and just as the moon waxes and wanes over this land so too the cycles of life here will continue. One day the cycle will once again return to freedom.”
“Oppression greets us from all angles. Oppression wails from the soldiers radio and floats through tear gas clouds in the air. Oppression explodes with every sound bomb and sinks deeper into the heart of the mother who has lost her son. But resistance is nestled in the cracks in the wall, resistance flows from the minaret 5 times a day and resistance sits quietly in jail knowing its time will come again. Resistance lives in the grieving mother’s wails and resistance lives in the anger at the lies broadcasted across the globe. Though it is sometimes hard to see and even harder sometimes to harbor, resistance lives. Do not be fooled, resistance lives.”
On New Year’s Day of 2011, Kayla received news that Jawaher Abu Rahma, from the village of Bil’in where Kayla had demonstrated in solidarity with her and her family, had been killed by tear gas asphyxiation. On the first of January 2011, Kayla wrote:
“I felt compelled to blog on this today. The first day of 2011, the actual day that she died, just a few hours ago in a village called, Bil’in.”
“Every Friday in Bil’in villagers and international/Israel activists march to the barbed wire fence where an enormous and expanding illegal settlement is visible to protest the theft of their land and their livelihoods. The Palestinians are armed with rocks, the other activists with cameras and collectively they are armed with their bones. Each Friday the demonstration is met with violence; rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and sounds bombs are the usual choice of artillery. Lives are taken as a result of the violence and Jawaher Abu Rahmah’s life was taken today.
I have been to this village,
I demonstrated in this village,
I demonstrated arm in arm with her brothers,
and I knew her.”
……………
“My first demonstration in Palestine was in Bil’in and that is when I met Ashraf, Jawaher’s brother. Despite his broken English he always made a point to make sure we were ok when we were at the demonstration in his village, to help us cough up the tear gas and walk off the anxiety. He showed us his village and we played with the kids. Ashraf would bring us water or tea and help us find rides out of the village back to the cities. In the summer of 2008, Ashraf was participating in the demonstration and was detained by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). After he was blind-folded and his hands bound, an IDF soldier shot him in the foot from a distance of about 2 meters shattering his toes and leaving him in trauma as one could imagine.”
(As with all of these video clips, the content may be too graphic for some, please use discretion).
“Just the next year in 2009 Ashraf’s brother, Bassem Abu Rahma, was participating in the demonstration and was attempting to communicate with the IDF soldiers telling them to stop shooting the steel-coated rubber bullets as an Israeli activist had been shot in the leg and needed medical attention. Not soon after an Israeli soldier illegally used a tear gas canister as a bullet hitting Bassem in the chest, stopping his heart and killing him instantly.”
And now just today, the daughter of the Rahmah family, Jawaher, has been asphyxiated from tear gas inhalation. Jawaher was not even participating in the weekly demonstration but was in her home approximately 500 meters away from where the tear gas canisters were being fired (by wind the tear gas reaches the village and even the nearby illegal settlement often). There is currently little information as to how she suffocated but the doctor that attended her said a mixture of the tear gas from the IDF soldiers and phosphorus poisoned her lungs causing asphyxiation, the stopping of the heart and death this afternoon after fighting for her life last night in the hospital. The following is a clip from today showing hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis and international activist carrying her body to her families home where they said their final goodbyes.
“This family has a tragic story, but it is the story of life in Palestine.”
“Thank you for reading. Ask me questions and ask yourself questions but most importantly, question the answers.
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