8th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On 8th February 2016, Israeli forces threatened to attack a peaceful demonstration in front of Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).
Israeli forces forcing demonstrators back
Protesters gathered at noon to protest the continued closure of the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood, that on the 1st of November 2015 was declared a ‘closed military zone’ by Israeli forces. Palestinian residents were forced to register with the Israeli army in order to be allowed to live in their family homes and be permitted into the closed zone. At the same time, settlers from the illegal settlements located directly adjacent to Palestinian houses are free to roam the streets with assault rifles slung over their shoulders like an accessories, as the closed military zone was deliberately designed to exclude the settlements while including Palestinian neighbourhoods. Friends and family of the Palestinian residents are barred from access, as are doctors and repair workers; human rights defenders were forcefully arrested and kicked out of their apartments and offices.
Demonstrators gathered in front of Shuhada checkpoint
The demonstration, organised by the Hebron Defense Committee, walked up to Shuhada checkpoint (checkpoint 56) chanting against the illegal collective punishment exerted on all the Palestinian residents resulting from the closed military zone. Israeli forces immediately gathered at Shuhada checkpoint, the checkpoint just recently ‘renovated’ into a cage-like monstrosity that makes reaching their homes and schools even more humiliating, intimidating and dangerous for Palestinians. Throughout the demonstration Palestinian school children on their way home were denied passage through the checkpoint.
School-children forced to wait at Shuhada checkpoint
Israeli forces had previously ordered demonstrators already gathered at the protest tent in front of the checkpoint, which has been organized by Youth Against Settlements for over a month in protest of the closed military zone, to leave the area.
Israeli forces ordering protest tent to leave the area
As soon as Palestinians started gathering in front of the checkpoint, Israeli forces advanced towards the peaceful demonstration dressed in heavy “riot control” gear and with their machine guns cocked. They immediately forced the Palestinians to move back, threatening them to shoot tear gas at the demonstrators peacefully exercising their right to protest. Even after complying with the order and moving further away from the checkpoint, Israeli forces stood outside the checkpoint aiming their guns at the gathering – even though they were in the supposedly Palestinian-controlled H1 area of al-Khalil. A group of soldiers entered a house in the H1 area, using the roof as a vantage point to surveil the demonstration.
Israeli forces threatening the use of force against peaceful demonstration
February 8th marks 100 days since the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood was first declared a closed military zone. With the renewal of the order till the 1st of March, Palestinian residents face yet another month of arbitrary threats, humiliation, violence and denial of their most basic human rights by Israeli forces. The area covered by the closed military zone order includes the tiny strip of Shuhada Street where Palestinians are still allowed to live after the 1994 Hebron Mosque Massacre that was taken as an ‘excuse’ by Israeli forces for the closure of the main Palestinian market in Shuhada Street. This closure of the majority of Shuhada Street for Palestinians is protested yearly in the Open Shuhada Street Campaign.
8th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Quds team | Jerusalem, occupied Palestine
Israeli authorities on 2nd February 2016 issued a demolition order for the fence and gate surrounding the Amro family’s home in Wadi al-Joz in occupied East Jerusalem. The family was given 48 hours to remove the fence and gate before an imminent demolition.
The house is home to Nureddin and Sharif Amro, two blind brothers living with their elderly mother, their wives and their seven children, all of whom have lived in this house for their whole lives. A part of the home was demolished on March 31, 2015 when Jerusalem municipal authorities and police surrounded the house at 5:30 am, locked the Amros in one room, and demolished part of the house around them and much of the yard, trees and the wall that protected them from the busy street. During this demolition, Israeli forces attacked Nureddin’s brother as well as his children and wife, and buried their belongings in the demolished rooms under rubble. This demolition was completely illegal even under Israeli law, as the family never received a demolition order.
All the Palestinian homes in the neighbourhood adjacent to the old city in Wadi al-Joz are under threat of demolition by Israeli authorities as the land has been zoned by the municipality as a national park. Israeli authorities have long used this strategy of land zoning and confiscation across occupied East Jerusalem in their campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, while continuing to promote settlement building, which is illegal in the occupied territory including East Jerusalem under article 49 of the 4th Geneva convention.
This demolition order comes at a time when Israeli forces are stepping up demolitions of Palestinian homes, leaving many families homeless. The Amro family’s only hope now is that the Israeli courts will actually consider their appeal against the demolition of the fence.
7th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, occupied Palestine
February 8th marks one hundred days since Israeli forces declared the Tel Rumeida neighborhood and the adjacent portion of Shuhada Street a “closed military zone,” requiring residents to register with the Israeli military and be assigned numbers in order to be allowed to access their homes while all other Palestinians and international human rights defenders are barred from entering the area. On February 5th the Israeli military issued an order officially extending the closed military zone until the 1st of March, with the possibility for further renewal.
Throughout this period Palestinian residents have faced increased, arbitrary restrictions of movement and harassment which have no basis in Israel’s purported security concerns. While residents contend with continual threats at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers from the illegal Israeli settlements situated directly adjacent to their neighborhood, Palestinian and international human rights defenders face targeted exclusion from the area. Israeli human rights organization B’tselem reported that Palestinian resident are clearly being subjected to collective punishment. They “are suspected of no wrongdoing and are forced to suffer serious disruptions in their daily lives simply because they had the misfortune of living or working in neighborhoods the military has decided to close.” International and Palestinian organizations have called on the international community to pressure Israel to lift the closed military zone in Hebron, as it constitutes an unlawful violation of the right of Palestinian residents to freedom from collective punishment under the Geneva Conventions.
Palestinian boys wait at Shuhada checkpoint to see if Israeli soldiers will allow them to walk into their neighborhood
Israeli authorities declared the closed military zone on November 1st. The announcement came in the wake of the extrajudicial killings of Palestinian 23-year-olds Homam Adnan Sa’id on October 27th and Islam Rafiq ‘Ebeido on the 28th. Witnesses at both incidents reported the youths posed no threat to the soldiers when they were shot “in cold blood” and subsequently denied medical treatment. Amnesty International’s director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme had stated in late October that “Israeli forces appear to have ripped up the rulebook and resorted to extreme and unlawful measures.”
23-year-old Islam Rafiq Obeido. An eyewitness reported that he was “100% sure he was unarmed.”
Since the beginning of October, over 170 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces; the city of Hebron suffered more deaths than anywhere other than occupied East Jerusalem. 551 Palestinians were arrested in January alone, 120 of them in Hebron, and more than 7000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons.
On October 30th, Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street (the short portion where some Palestinians are still permitted to live) were required to line up to register their ID numbers and names with Israeli military forces. Families were then given numbers, which Israeli forces would force them to present in order to enter their heavily militarized neighborhood. Palestinian women, children and men can be barred from entering their homes merely for lack of an ID or identifying number Israeli soldiers find acceptable.
Palestinian residents line up with their IDs as the Israeli military commander notes them down in preparation for the harsh restrictions
Inside the closed military zone, as in all neighborhoods in the completely Israeli-military-controlled H2 area of Hebron, Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements inside the city are allowed to walk unimpeded, carry rifles and handguns and are not subject to any checkpoints or restrictions. Israeli forces do not permit Palestinians who are not registered in the closed military zone to visit their friends and family living inside. Journalists cannot enter to report on incidents. Not even emergency medical personnel would be allowed inside, nor can repair workers enter the area to fix Palestinian homes.
Tel Rumeida resident Abed Salaymeh was quoted in the Action Alert issued by the International Solidarity Movement and signed by over forty Palestinian and international organizations calling for an end to the closed military zone and for Israel to abide by international law in Hebron. “Soldiers and settlers are making life for the Palestinians intolerable to force them to leave their houses voluntarily,” he explained. “This is a crime under international law. They are targeting activists to silence the truth and stop the truth from reaching the whole world.”
Routine invasive body search of young Palestinian man by Israeli forces in Tel Rumeida
Israeli forces targeted human rights defenders from the inception of the closed military zone, with both the International Solidarity Movement apartment and the center for Palestinian activist group Youth Against Settlements included in the designated zone. Palestinian and international activists face exclusion from the neighborhood where their presence has long been vital in responding to and documenting Israeli human rights abuses. “It is obvious that by violently forcing human rights observers out of the area, the Israeli forces are disappearing eyewitnesses to their countless human rights violations”, explains Jenny, an international human rights defender in al-Khalil, “while Palestinian residents are collectively put under these draconian measures, settlers from the adjacent illegal settlements freely walk the streets with complete impunity for whatever they do.”
Following a United Nations delegation in December to areas in Hebron including Tel Rumeida, UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities Robert Piper stated that “Human rights defenders play a vital role in promoting human rights. Protective presence organizations are on the front line of this work in the occupied Palestinian territory.” Palestinian and international human rights defenders have been subject to a succession of violent threats and arbitrary arrests after the closed military zone was declared.
On November 7th Israeli forces made life even more difficult for Palestinian Residents of Tel Rumeida by completely closing down Shuhada checkpoint (Checkpoint 56), the main travel point between the heavily restricted neighborhood and the nominally Palestinian Authority-controlled H1 area where residents must travel to work, shop and study. Even those officially permitted to enter the neighborhood were forced to take obstacle-ridden dirt paths through people’s yards or travel a long circuitous route involving paying a taxi to drop them off at a distance behind the neighborhood (Israeli forces barred Palestinians fro driving in Tel Rumeida even before imposing the closed military zone). The ability to circumvent the checkpoint, albeit via arduous and treacherous routes, underlines the disparity between the claim that the checkpoints and restrictions are put in place for Israeli security and the reality of punitive measures that disproportionately affect schoolchildren, elderly residents and those struggling nonviolently for their fundamental rights.
In late December Israeli forces reopened a newly renovated Shuhada checkpoint to registered residents. The recently expanded checkpoint often causes long waiting times for Palestinian residents as Israeli forces interrogate, check and search people inside a closed room between the turnstiles and metal detectors. Locals report the checkpoint is even worse than its predecessors, and many Palestinians have experienced harassment and intimidation by Israeli forces acting with impunity out of the view of any media or human rights observers.
Palestinians prepare to attempt to cross into Tel Rumeida via the recently expanded checkpoint
Since the closed military zone was declared, Palestinians and international human rights defenders have been resisting its unjust imposition. The International Solidarity Movement in conjunction with multiple Palestinian organizations first released the Action Alert demanding an end to the closed military zone on December 13th, which over 40 organizations have now signed. Initially as a response to the arbitrary arrest and detention of Tel Rumeida resident Wafa Sharabati, Palestinian activists and families staged a sit-in on the H1 side of Shuhada checkpoint calling for an end to the closed military zone. Activists erected the protest tent daily, in a nonviolent demonstration against the unlawful restrictions on their freedom of movement. “We refuse to be registered as numbers and have our human rights violated just because we are Palestinian,” declared Issa Amro, coordinator of Youth Against Settlements.
The struggle against the closed military zone also comes as Palestinian organizations escalate the yearly campaign to Open Shuhada Street. Actions are planned in Hebron and around the world against Israel’s apartheid policy of completely closing the rest of Shuhada street, which extends past the closed military zone and was once the main thoroughfare through Hebron’s H2 area, to all Palestinians.
Activists and families gather outside Shuhada checkpoint in protest against the closed military zone – photo by Youth Against Settlements
So far demands have gone unheeded as Israeli authorities once again renewed the closed military zone order on Friday, February 5th. The International Solidarity Movement calls on international governing bodies, nations, and people around the world to pressure Israeli authorities to end the closed military zone in Hebron and to respect Palestinians’ fundamental rights to live their lives with freedom and dignity.
Resources – reports, press releases and news coverage on the closed military zone
Arranged in a timeline in chronological order since before the declaration of the zone in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada street
Amnesty International report on unlawful killings perpetrated by Israeli forces in Palestine, including multiple incidents in Hebron (27 October)
Report on 27 October unlawful killing of Hoummam Said by Israeli forces in Tel Rumeida
Report on 28 October extrajudicial execution of Islam Rafiq Obeido by Israeli forces in Tel Rumeida
Palestinians in Tel Rumeida required to register with Israeli forces in preparation for severe new restrictions under the closed military zone (October 30)
Schoolchildren and international activists were among first victims of the Israeli strategy of using closed military zone to harass and intimidate (Reports on 1stand 2nd November)
Report – As Israeli forces increased restrictions on Palestinians, they also forced international human rights defenders to leave their apartment in Tel Rumeida and arrested one German and one US national on November 3
B’tselem report on how the closed military zone disrupts lives, constitutes collective punishment of Palestinian residents
Report on violent home raids and takeovers in the wake of closed military zone declaration, attack on Youth Against Settlements center, activists targeted as Israeli settlers celebrate violence (November 7)
Report on the November 7 closure of Checkpoint 56 for ‘renovations.
November 8 ISM issues first urgent call for international action on the closed military zone in Hebron
Article detailing harassment and evictions faced by international human rights defenders in Hebron (November 11)
Report on the second violent eviction of international human rights defenders from the ISM apartment in Hebron on November 11
Report on Israeli forces’ continual renewal of closed military zone orders and the third eviction of International Solidarity Movement volunteers from Tel Rumeida on November 21
Report on the November 22 arrests of two international human rights defenders by Israeli forces for entering closed military zone
Significant UN resolution calling for protection of human rights defenders across the world (November 25)
On 8 December a United Nations delegation visited the H2 area of Hebron, including Tel Rumeida
UN statement notes importance of work undertaken by human rights defenders in Hebron and states their targeting in “alarming” (10 December, International Human Rights Day)
Article recounting the experiences of families on Shuhada street living under closed military zone (December 16)
Press release by the UN calling for an end to unacceptable harassment of human rights defenders in Palestine, notes the targeting of the Youth Against Settlements center under the closed military zone (December 18)
Report and photo story on Shuhada checkpoint (Checkpoint 56), reopened at the end of December, rebuilt to be an even greater obstacle to Palestinian residents attempting travel to and from their homes in Tel Rumeida
Article on the extension of the closed military zone for the third month (January 3)
Press release by Youth Against Settlements on the extension of the closed military zone until January 31 (January 5)
Press release on January 7th by Youth Against Settlements on the sit-in protest against the closed military zone staged in front of Shuhada checkpoint (Checkpoint 56)
Article on the situation in the closed military zone as it was extended until January 31 (January 9)
Article on the sit-in protest for the opening of the closed military zone in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street (January 9)
Report after the 12th day of the nonviolent sit-in protest against the closed military zone, which was visited by multiple international delegations (18 January)
6th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Since the 1st of November 2015 the Tel Rumeida area and Shuhada Street in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron) have been declared a ‘closed military zone’. The first declaration of the closure was for one month, but since then the order has been extended several times.
The newest order from the 1st of February declares the area as closed till the 1st of March with the chance of extension.
Shuhada Checkpoint (Checkpoint 56)
The closure effects the residents of the area every single day. Every family living in the area has been given a number and was forced to register with the Israeli forces. When entering the area, through checkpoints, the residents have to show ID, give their number and often also answer questions and get bag and body searched. Friends and family of the residents are unable to visit them inside the area; even doctors or craftsmen are completely barred from entering the area.
Furthermore, the closed military zone has let to the eviction of two human rights organisations based in Tel Rumeida. These are now banned from living in their houses and working from their offices and since they are banned from the whole area are not able to observe and document the rampant Israeli human rights violations. The closed military zone is clearly intended to force out Palestinian residents in order to allow for an expansion of the illegal Israeli settlements, and to evict human rights defenders to silence the truth of the Israeli forces’ harassment, attacks and human rights violations.
3rd February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On February 3rd 2016, Israeli occupation forces violently opened the door of houses in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi mosque by cutting the door locks with a disk grinder, and then entered these houses.
The houses are located in al-Sahla Street near the Ibrahimi mosque, settlers illegally invaded and occupied them two weeks ago, but were then evicted by the police and army the next morning.
After the Israeli army removed the door-locks of the two houses, Israeli construction workers took the external an internal dimensions of both Palestinian properties as if they are already owned by Israeli settlers. The settlers were protected during their illegal activities by big groups of soldiers.
Palestinian residents who walked trough the checkpoint in front of these houses were body-checked and harassed by the soldiers. The video below illustrates how inhumane and degrading these body-searches and ID-checks are, with soldiers ordering Palestinians to take off clothing regardless of weather and treating them without even a slight bit of dignity.
