Tag: House raid - Page 2 - International Solidarity Movement

The arrest of Burin activist Ghassan Najjar

10th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Burin, Occupied Palestine

The prominent activist from the West Bank village of Burin, and member of Solidarity Movement for Free Palestine, Ghassan Najjar, was taken by the Israeli army from his home in the early hours of the morning on the 27th August. He was transferred to the notorious interrogation facility, Petah Tikva.

The before he was arrested, Ghassan, alongside a group of a villagers from Burin, tried to prevent Israeli soldiers from entering the girls’ classroom of the local school.

Staff from the Israeli Human Rights organisation BT’selem, who was filming the attempted school incursion, was also detained, but released shortly after.

Ghassan was arrested for allegedly throwing stones and hitting a soldier.

On 31th August he appeared briefly before a secret court and a Military Judge agreed to his detention for a further seven days. The second court hearing, which took place on 7th September, was also brief because the soldier witness did not turn up and Ghassan’s detention was extended for eight more days.

Ghassan’s friends and family showed ISM, during a recent visit to Burin, a video of the army attack on the school and saw no evidence that Ghassan did anything other than peacefully protest with the others against the school raid.

When asked if the video would be useful for Ghassan’s defense, a friend of Ghassan said, “It would be in a democratic country, but all the Israelis care about is their security.”

Another of Ghassan’s friends told ISM he had received many threats at different checkpoints, preceding his recent arrest. “Once a soldier told Ghassan that they did not want to arrest him directly at the checkpoint, because they wanted to come to his house, destroy everything and make his mother suffer.”

When the occupying army came to arrest Ghassan, the unit captain instructed the soldiers to “destroy everything,” a soldier turned to Ghassan’s mother and stated, “we will wreck your house.”

They did as promised. Everything that could be broken was broken and slashed. They even broke pots with houseplants, and cut bottoms from the armchairs. The vandalism lasted from 2am to 4.30am.

Ghassan was taken away, handcuffed and blindfolded. Only after the soldiers left, did his mother allow herself to cry.

“Our resistance is peaceful. Ghassan never did anything violent, but we worry because we know Israeli military justice. To give you an example, to this day both Ghassan’s lawyer and the International Committee of Red Cross have been denied access to him,” A friend of the family stated.

For a number of years, the Palestinian West Bank village of Burin, located seven kilometers south of Nablus, has been under constant attack by both the Israeli occupying army, and the zionist settlers from some of the most extreme illegal settlement colonies, such as Yitzhar and Bracha, covering the hilltops around it.

A villager told ISM that the army invades the village almost nightly. Soldiers enter houses and the whole families with children and older people are forced to stay outside in the middle of the night, for long periods of time.

Frequently the army erects checkpoints at the entrance and in the center of the village, near to the boys’ school and the Mosque.

“Things are going to get even worse,” Another villager stated, “The olive harvest is around the corner and that is when settler attacks intensify. Olive harvest used to be a festival, a time of joy, and now it is a nightmare.”

Since the start of the Israeli occupation in 1967, much of Burin’s land and water has been taken away and handed over to the Zionist settlers or to the occupying Israeli army, for military bases.

“About 25 to 30 dunums (one dunum is 1000m²) of land belong to our village and we have free access only to seven dunums and even that is limited to some parts of the year,” said a local man.

Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, reports that in 2013, Burin lost more olive trees due to settler vandalism than any other West Bank village. In the first months of the last year alone, 7714 Palestinian owned trees were damaged.

Army incursions into Madama

9th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Madama, Occupied Palestine

We arrived in Madama yesterday, 8th September; in the early afternoon after we were told that during the night Israeli army invaded this village, and the nearby villages of Burin and Asira Al Qibliya.

Our contact told us that the main road leading to Nablus was blocked during the night and that a car coming from Asira was prevented from reaching the hospital. Furthermore, a checkpoint was erected at the main entrance of the village; cars and pedestrians were searched until it was removed around 11am.

When we reached Madama, we saw a group of seven soldiers standing on the road beside the Mosque, blocking it with two military jeeps and one personnel carrier. More soldiers were inside the vehicles while those outside positioned themselves facing in different directions and keeping an eye on the surrounding streets, shops and houses.

The school had just finished and groups of children were filling the street and hanging around looking at the unwanted ‘guests’.

We decided to stay and see what was going on and take some pictures. We did this for about 10 minutes, before we attracted soldiers’ attention. Several of them came towards us asking what we were doing in the village, demanding that we hand over our camera. We argued that we had a right to take pictures and that they did not have a right to take our camera, but they insisted that we could not take pictures of individual soldiers and in particular, the close-ups of their faces.

We used this opportunity to pose a question, “If what you are doing is right, why do you hide your faces?”

They refused to answer and instead, they gave us an ultimatum that we delete the pictures or they would take us to the police station to be arrested. They also promised us trouble by the immigration authorities when leaving the country. Eventually we decided to delete some of our photos.

Later we met a group of villagers and spoke about the situation in Madama.

“Every night we have problems with the Israeli army and every family here has been at the receiving end. Only during the attack on Gaza they left us alone, probably because they had less soldiers available here,” one of them said.

He continued to state that the army regularly enters houses in the middle of the night to search them. They do it after throwing the residents out and making them wait for hours, before they can return. In one such raid the soldiers stole 180,000 shekels from a house, claiming they did it because the money was going to Hamas. In fact that was the lifesavings of the man who worked for 20 years and received a payout after finishing his job.

The soldiers usually block Madama by closing the entrance at the main road connecting it to Burin and Asira Al Qibliya, and also closing the settler road located up the hill at the top of the village, connecting illegal settlements of Qedumim and Ytzhar with the main road leading to Nablus and the South.

“When you try to pass through, the soldiers often shout at you, ‘Go away!’ But who should go away? This is my village, my land!’” Said another Madama resident.

When we asked for the reasons why soldiers target the village, he replied, “They usually say that someone had thrown stones at them previously and I don’t really know if that is true. This morning after removing the checkpoint around 11 o’clock, they came inside the village and started taking pictures of the old houses. This makes no sense to us, we have no idea why they are doing this, and we are very worried.”

Israeli soldiers come very often to the village when the school finishes to provoke the children. “Soon this is going to be even a bigger problem. In November maintenance work starts in the boys’ school, and for about three months, boys will attend the girls’ school between 2pm and 7pm, which is very near the settlers’ road. The army is always present, we are really worried for our boys…”

Eleven houses raided in Hares as collective punishment continues

23rd June 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Hares, Occupied Palestine

During the early hours of Saturday 21^st June, before dawn, the Israeli army invaded the town of Hares and raided 11 houses. The house raids were generally violent and property was damaged.

During the raid, Jamil Ali Jaber (60-years-old) – whose house wasn’t raided according to a local witness – suffered a heart attack while arguing with the soldiers during the invasion and died soon after. Unlike other villagers, he was allowed to receive medical attention by Palestinian paramedics, although their ambulances are not equipped to deal with heart attacks and could not save him. No arrests were reported that night.

A local source stated that he heard a helicopter nearby which could have transported the soldiers by air. The Israeli army deployed approximately 150 soldiers loaded into 3 buses. Then at 01:30 the house raids began, starting at Dawood’s family house. At first he thought that the noises outside could have been wild animals but then the Israeli soldiers knocked on Mr. Dawood’s door and he opened up on their command. The rest of the family was detained outside the house while he was in one of the rooms. The search began, furniture was being turned upside down, crockery was broken, and a door lock was broken. The soldiers demanded silence while they searched the house, they did not state why they were raiding his house. Mr. Dawood stated that they used pepper spray in the room where he was held, exacerbating his delicate health condition as he has recently had surgery before and suffers from low blood pressure. He required medical attention but the Israeli army did not allow the Red Crescent ambulance to enter into Hares. Mr. Dawood only received medical attention, and was taken to the nearby town of Biddya, once the soldiers left, there he learned about Jamil’s death.

Jawad Muhammad Dawood, the brother that lives next door, went outside to see what was happening. He counted 30 soldiers approximately – many of them covering their faces – raiding his brother’s house and tried to support him, but him and a younger member of the family were pushed back by the soldiers. Jawad’s wife has heart problems and the situation worsened her condition. At that point Jawad, who is receiving psychiatric treatment, lost his temper and physically confronted the soldiers. They kicked and then hit him with the rifle butt on his hand which was still swollen when he was interviewed, but it wasn’t broken as some media outlets suggested. Jawad’s son called for an ambulance but again they were denied entry into the town of Hares. Fortunately, Jawad’s wife fully recovered from the episode.

Afterwards, at 02:00 a building nearby hosting five families was raided. The soldiers knocked on the door and went into the house quickly when they realized the door wasn’t locked. All the family members were detained in a room, sitting on the floor for the duration of the search which lasted over two hours and there were no witnesses while the soldiers searched the various floors. The families asked if the 13 kids could carry on sleeping but the Israeli soldiers insisted in waking them up and keeping them with the rest of the family. Their mobile phones were temporarily confiscated so they couldn’t contact anyone.

Shops nearby were also searched and the soldiers noticed that in one of the shops, they were recording the surroundings of the residential building. “They demanded the cameras to be turned off or else they would break them” said Bilal, one of the residents in the building. His brother quickly turned off the cameras and deleted the footage from the hard drive to avoid further problems with the soldiers.

As in other houses, while their homes were being searched the soldiers used excessive and unnecessary force. Again the soldiers turned the furniture upside down, using knives to cut into the sofas in the living room and also broke one wardrobe. Bilal speaks Hebrew fluently, but the soldiers refused to answer any questions and simply demanded him to translate their commands to the rest of the family members.

One of the last houses to be raided was that of Talal Hosni Dawood. The Israeli soldiers knocked loudly on the door at around 03:30. One of the family members opened the door soon after after seeing that that soldiers were about to break into the house. The eleven family members were held in their the living room, again sitting on the floor until 05:00 when the soldiers left.

Israeli forces, with their faces covered or painted in black, searched the house without any witnesses to oversee them. In this house, many items and valuables were broken. Among the items or furniture broken are: a door, a sink and a couple of sofas that were cut open, two windows were cracked, one smartphone, and one laptop valued at around 4,000 NIS (850 euros). In fact Israeli soldiers turned on the computer and they saw a Palestinian flag as the desktop image, they turned to Talal and questioned him as to why he had that photograph on his laptop. He said it is the flag of his government, to which the soldier replied: “if you want you can go to Ramallah and show it [Palestinian flag] to Abu Massen [Mahmoud Abbas]” and then smashed the laptop on the floor. The laptop was taken to a repair shop in Salfit, hoping it can be repaired.

Talal’s eldest son was taken apart from the rest of the family into another room and the commander asked him “where is it?” He didn’t know what the Israeli soldiers were talking about nor did they specify, so they continued ransacking their home.

Under the pretext of an Israeli military operation in search of the three missing settlers – initiated 10 days ago – episodes of collective punishment are erupting all over the West Bank. This is just another example.

VIDEO: Israeli soldiers invade more Palestinian homes in Hebron

18th June 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Yesterday the Israeli army invaded a family house in the H1 area, supposedly under full Palestinian Authority civil and security control, of al-Khalil (Hebron). The father of the family is very ill with heart disease; the family was forced in to one room and was not allowed to leave. The eight Israeli soldiers used the house as an unofficial army post, both to rest and to view the area. The soldiers stayed there overnight, terrifying the family, as they had no idea when the soldiers would leave. At approximately 11:00 am, the soldiers left the house, however they informed the family that they would return.

The soldiers then entered the next house, relatives of the same family, with four young children. First they searched the house, and then occupied the children’s room on the second floor. They moved the children’s beds to get more space and placed a black blanket to cover the doorway.

The soldiers took shifts, sitting in front of the room watching the family, while the rest were sleeping, eating, and viewing the area. The family told the ISMers present that the soldiers also took showers. The soldiers seemed very uncomfortable with the ISM volunteers in the house, and behaved very aggressively towards them, and the family members who were taking photos.

The family offered the soldiers to use the roof instead of the children’s room, but they refused.

The military presence in the house caused a lot of fear for the family, they were unable to carry out their daily routines, and the children were very upset that they could not enter their room; they were afraid the soldiers would take their belongings and break their toys.

After five hours the family convinced the military to leave, as they left, it was witnessed them joining with a much larger group of soldiers.

Since last Friday, there has been a large increase in home invasions all over the West Bank. This is part of the collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian population, since the disappearance of three Israeli settler youth on Thursday.

House raids in Hebron

15th June 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

At approximately 3AM this morning, approximately 70 Israeli soldiers broke into a home inhabited by two Palestinian families. The home is located in the H1 region of Hebron, an area officially under full Palestinian authority, civil and security control.

The two families, composing of 10 people, were then asked to ‘choose’ a room in which they would all have to stay for several hours; the family decided upon a small bedroom next to the bathroom. However, they were not allowed to use it until a few hours after the Israeli military broke into the house.

The family was then told by the Israeli military that they would be occupying the house for two to three days, however the army eventually left at 1PM.

The mother of the home is very ill, suffering from diabetes, and failing kidneys. She was scheduled for a dialysis treatment for her kidneys at a nearby hospital at 8AM, and was forced to miss this appointment, as the soldiers refused to allow her to leave her home.

When asked why they denied the mother her treatment, the soldiers claimed that she refused to go to the hospital. In addition, two other members of the family suffer from hypertension. All being denied access to medication, and medical assistance, for several hours.

Food and water were also prohibited for several hours, when friends and family attempted to bring food to those inside, they were denied until 12:30PM, 30 minutes before the soldiers left.

The purpose of these house raids seems to be due to three Israeli settler youth, missing since last thursday.

In addition, the families’ cell phones were confiscated, preventing them from interacting with those outside.

Nothing in the home was broken, however, food waste and dirt dragged in by the soldiers, remained upon their departure.

The neighbouring home also was forcibly broken into, the rightful owners of that household are currently traveling; the soldiers left the gate and front door wide open as they left.

Another home inhabited by a family of seven, further up the same road, was subsequently broken into.

Al-Khalil (Hebron), and the surrounding districts, are currently under very constricted military security, with dozens of homes in the area being broken into; and with dozens more expected to receive the same fate in the days to come.