12th January 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On January 12th, 2017, Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) stayed closed for over half an hour, while–as it appears–soldiers were sleeping. In the meantime, long queues of Palestinians trying to reach their homes formed outside the closed checkpoint.
The Shuhada checkpoint connects the H1-area, supposedly under full Palestinian control, with the H2-area, under full Israeli military control. It leads straight onto the tiny strip of Shuhada Street that has not (yet) been ethnically cleansed of Palestinian presence. For the majority of Palestinian families living in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, this checkpoint is the only way to reach their homes. On Thursday morning however, the checkpoint remained closed. The soldiers ignored all requests to open the gates, and the two available bells at the checkpoint were switched off. Palestinians leaving the area through a turnstile at the checkpoint repeatedly confirmed that there were no soldiers to be seen inside the checkpoint.
In the meantime, many Palestinians gathered outside the locked checkpoint-gate, waiting to reach their homes. Amongst them were many school-children that had just received their certificates for the end of the school-year.
Civilians gather as the checkpoint-gate remains closed
After more than 30 minutes, soldiers finally unlocked the turnstile allowing the people waiting to enter one by one. When passing through the checkpoint, behind the bullet-prof-glass, one soldier could clearly be seen lying on the ground with his backpack as a pillow, fast asleep. The other soldier, with his eyes barely open, waved people through.
9th Januari 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
At Sunday December 8 at noon, when fourteen female teachers of the Qurtuba high-school were leaving the school compound on their way home, the Israeli forces at checkpoint 55 on the Shuhada street blocked their way and kept them waiting on the stairs for more then 45 minutes.
Reason for this harassment was the personal decision of the commander to implement a new rule:
All the women should wait together high up the stairs,
behind the newly installed iron gate-door,
waiting for a soldier command to be allowed to proceed,
have their ID checked and
pass the checkpoint one by one.
The female teachers did not accept this arbitrary new rule, and stayed where they were, waiting to get through. Finally after 45 minutes they were allowed to pass the military checkpoint as a group.
[VIDEO] Commander: [0’10”] “I take to three .. when I take to three …, all the women behind it” “Because I decided … Because I decided to…I decided … I … yes .. because you obey … everyone obey” [0’30”] “because I decided to … because I deny you to do what you want now … and this is what I decided … I’m not talking anymore … I say just briefly … If you want to go this way from here you must go after the gate” [1’33”] You don’t tell me what to do .. no you shut up and I do what I want to .. now you, if you want to leave .. now you wait .. after I tell you … all the woman … I check you, then I let you… “ [2’29”] (pointing at the settler boy) He’s your commander .. He’s the commander of this day [3’15”] I will touch you … I will touch you … now, go away … now you go back … do you hear me? … go back now”
The brave women of the school have a good reason to protest this arbitrary procedure. There are many Apartheid regulations for the Shuhada street and the entrance to their school, and more of those inhuman rules are expected to come in the future.
[Archive] Children of the Qurtuba school waiting on the stairs, to pass the checkpointIf they wouldn’t protest it, the 6-10 y.o. schoolboys and 6-20 y.o. schoolgirls might be the next harassed with new implemented Apartheid rules.
For some children in occupied Hebron it can be a traumatic experience to pass these military checkpoints and heavily armed occupation forces all alone.
They go in groups, from their home to the school compound and back, passing at least two manned checkpoints.
Their teachers offered 45 minutes of their free time, after a busy school day, trying to prevent threatening new Apartheid rules, in which Palestinian children are not allowed to pass group-wise.
Shuhada Street and Qurtuba School. (the colors indicate Apartheid regulations) Children have to pass at least two checkpoints on their way to school
More restrictions in Hebron since september 2015, allegedly because of ‘terror attacks’
After the military violence, responsible for the death of nearly 60 young residents of Hebron between September 2015 and March 2016, the occupation forces installed new concrete walls, metal gates and doors, extreme inhuman checkpoints, barbed wire blockades and Arabic text boards with new security instructions.
The occupier gave this violent period the name “Knife Intifada”.
Mainstream media copied this or labeled it the “Third Intifada”
The UN, Amnesty International, some countries Foreign Ministeries, and many other individuals and organizations asked for proper investigation, without success.
The alleged knife attacks for which the occupation forces produced no evidence, no video footage of their security cameras, no statements by the executed suspects and no legal investigation, are clearly used as a reason for these additional Apartheid measures, i.e. less freedom of movement for Palestinians only, in their own statehood.
Most Palestinian families succeed in adapting to these inhuman situation and peacefully undergo all harassment. As long as their children have a chance to grow up undamaged, without fear or traumas, they can stay, peacefully resisting the ethnic cleansing of their statehood.
Israel is abusing International Law, and should be sanctioned by all other states
The international powers united in the NATO are liable supporters of this Israeli occupation. They are obviously abusing the international law which they agreed on and together signed, because it commits them to sanction those states who violate the regulations in it.
27th December 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Gaza, occupied Palestine
On 26th December, Israel occupation kills the patient, Abd al-Kareem Nahid Abu Halloub, a 32 year old, from Gaza after preventing him to get his treatment in a hospital in the West Bank.
The paitent Abd al-Kareem in the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza
The patient, Abd al-Kareem, had been suffering for about 90 days without having the right to get his treatment in the West Bank. He had a heart attack on 6/10/2016 and was in a coma for more than 60 days and his doctors stated and he had to get his treatment in the West Bank. Abd al-Kareem’s family tried to contact several organizations after being denied access through Erez crossing twice by the Israeli occupation authority.
The family took their son to different hospitals in Gaza, but the hospitals have limited medical equipment that the medical device needed for treating the paitent Abu Halloub, is not found in Gaza. The paitent needs to get his treatme
The paitent Abd al-Kareem Abu Halloub while in the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza After 90 days sufferingnt
It’s worth mentioning that the Israeli seige of the Gaza Strip that began in mid 2007 has serious repercussion on the Palestinian health sector, resulting in an aggravation of the humanitarian situation facing Gaza’s 2 million people.
According to the International Hummaitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, Israel is obliged to protect civilian people, the wounded and sick in times of armed conflicts. It must prevent the deterioration of the humanitarian situation and allow the free passage of all consignment of medical stores with a decent medical care. However, the Israeli occupation continues to violate these rights. Consequently, the request for permits to recieve treatment outside the Gaza Strip increased.
5th December 2016 | International Solidarity Movement | Huwwara team, occupied Palestine
Members of the Circus School in Palestine, representatives of the embassies
of Italy, Spain and Switzerland, Amnesty International and ISM were in the
Israeli Supreme Court today to witness the hearing of the appeal for the release
of the Palestinian circus trainer Mohammad Abu Sakha. Abu Sakha has been on administrative detention for almost a year. Administrative detention means that Israeli military can detain him for an indefinite period, without indictment and the right to a trial.
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Mohammad Abu Sakha lost his freedom on 14 December 2015, when he was first arrested and detained at Zaatara military checkpoint, south of Nablus, as he was going to work at the Circus School in BirZeit. On 25 December of that year, he received a 6-month administrative detention, which was renewed on 13th of June 2016.
The hearing session at the Supreme Court went fast. First, Mohammad’s lawyer read the appeal and once he finished few men from the Shabak, (Israeli Security Agency also known as Shin Bet) stood up and passed a file to the judges in the room. After taking few minutes to read the file, the judges promptly decided to dismiss Abu Sakha’ appeal and ended the court session.
Besides Shabak and the three judges, no one knows what is the content of this file, including the prosecutor, Mohammad’s lawyer and Mohammad himself. After one year in Israeli prison Abu Sakha still doesn’t know what he is accused of. The Shabak file, which is classified, might be the only thing that keeps him in prison.
The Ketziot prison located in the Negev/Naqab region, outside the West Bank, is a violation of the Geneva Convention which states that Detainees from the population of an occupied territory must be detained within that territory. During his time in prison he has only been allowed to three visits, all from his mother. On 12 December this year his detention should have ended. His lawyers and supporters believed that he would finally be free but on the same day he was given, again, another 6-month administrative detention period, exactly as it had happen in the past.
Today, no one knows what will happen to Mohammad. Palestinians live under a contempt military occupation. With his work as a circus trainer, Mohammad Abu Sakha fills a much-needed role to bring happiness and light to those around him.
End Administrative Detention.
Free Mohammad Abu Sakha !
8th December 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On 7th December 2016, Israeli forces at Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) detained a group of teachers from nearby Qurtuba school, and then in collective punishment closed the checkpoint to everyone. Just after the teachers were finally allowed to reach their school, the Israeli occupying forces detained a father with his young son who were trying to reach a hospital for medical treatment, and in the end denied them to pass.
Teachers from the Qurtuba school are forced to go through the Shuhada checkpoint every day in order to reach their job. On this particular day, the soldiers who are permanently stationed there, refused eight teachers to get to their students, holding them for more than 1.5 hours. Qurtuba school, thus, had to start their day with the majority of the teachers absent. Not only are teachers and students at the whim of the occupying army as to when and how they commute, they also have restricted access to the staircase connecting Shuhada Street with the school during school hours. The actual staircase leading to the school has been closed by Israeli forces as part of their attempts to ethnically cleanse Shuhada Street.
The teachers refused to leave and give up. Instead, they waited outside the checkpoint demanding to be allowed to reach their school. Israeli forces in an act of collective punishment closed the checkpoint, denying anyone else to pass. Thus, residents were stuck outside the checkpoint as well, adding to the number of people attempting to reach their homes or school. A man asking the soldiers to allow him to pass was told by the soldiers, that he could only pass if the teachers leave. Finally, after more than 1.5 hours, the teachers were allowed to pass, except for one female teacher, whom they kept inside the checkpoint box, claiming that she was not a teacher. The director of the school countered that she was recently updated to the list, and that the soldiers clearly missed adding her, and in the end, all the teachers were allowed to pass. This kind of arbitrary detainment of teachers, and at times also school-students, is not new to the Qurtuba school.
Israeli forces discussing with teachers, seen from the other side of the checkpoint
One man trying to pass during that time kept telling the soldiers that he just needed to bring several kilos of rice home. Soldiers told him that he’ll have to wait till the situation with the teachers is resolved, and that “you have a good day, you have a bad day”. When he was finally allowed to pass once the teachers were gone, one of the soldiers, (first making sure that the Palestinian would not understand), insulted him in Hebrew calling him a ‘son of a bitch’. When the man complained to another soldier, he was told to leave.
After that, Israeli forces detained a father with his son, as they were trying to reach a nearby hospital. The man lives in this area, and passes this checkpoint daily without any problems. On this day though, Israeli forces decided that his name is not on their list of ‘registered Palestinian residents’ – meaning that he was not given a number, which would allow him to pass. Therefore Israeli forces kept him waiting with his son, locked up in the exit of the checkpoint, with the turnstile locked, even after the man explained to them that he was taking his son to see a doctor. In the beginning, soldiers said that ‘there’s no hospital’ in this area and they don’t know a hospital there. Even when the man showed them a paper of the hospital, they would still not allow him to pass. When approached by internationals, the occupying forces insisted that they were ‘doing everything they can to let him pass’, while keeping the turnstile, that would allow him to pass, firmly locked. Israeli forces furthermore were adamant that they were not denying the boy medical treatment, as he would get it – eventually. Instead of asking whether his treatment was urgent or not, the soldiers deemed themselves qualified to decide this. They firmly insisted, that they can’t let him pass ‘yet’.
In the end, the boy and his father were denied from reaching the hospital, as one of the soldiers blamed the father, stating that it’s the father’s fault for even bringing his son to the checkpoint, rather than going another way. This other route, that he was speaking of, was the longer and more expensive way around adding about 20 minutes to his trip. This is a ridiculous attempt to move the attention from their lack of consideration for even allowing children to reach a hospital. This is a place where an occupying army can put the fault on the civilian (who thus far had no problems ever passing this checkpoint) bringing his sick son on the quickest way possible to treatment. This then leaves the occupied population in the hands of a force that can determine their needs and lives. In a city where every Palestinian is at the pure mercy of the occupying forces, expecting even the tiniest bit of humanity to be extended to them – futile.
