Tag: International law - Page 59 - International Solidarity Movement

URGENT Update: Help Hamzeh start 2016 with his family!

30th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine

Hamzeh’s family has managed to raise 1880 shekels! This is over half of the amount needed so that Hamzeh can come home in seven days! We still need 564.5 dollars to pay his fine to release him.

Hamzeh was taken from his home in Amari refugee camp by Israeli forces on February 5th, 2015. He was forced to accept a plea bargain despite denying the charges leveled against him by Israeli military court. Now his family must pay the fine or he will remain in prison for another four months.

‘This fine goes beyond the financial means of my circle of family and friends,’ Hamze explains. ‘My financial situation is very difficult, and has worsened by the fact that I have been unemployed for the past 2 years. I was forced to leave school at grade 9 to begin working and help my family. My family still depends on me for financial support, and my imprisonment has exerted an enormous burden on them. I ask all people who understand me to support me and my family.’

If 50 people give 11.29 $ each, or if 100 people give 5.65 $, or 200 people give 2.83 $, Hamzeh will go free. If you’re broke, you can be creative: Pass your hat around friends and family, make a soup kitchen tonight and invite everyone to donate a little!

Please donate here!: https://palsolidarity.org/donate/

Also, please send us an email to palreports@gmail.com with “Free Hamzeh” in the subject line to let us know your donation is for Hamzeh, or if you want information about other ways to donate.

Any donation is greatly appreciated; If we all put our efforts together we can fulfill Hamzeh’s desire and right to freedom!
Please share his story with your friends and family, in your social media and with all the people who care.

Photo story: daily harassment by Israeli Forces on the way to school

December 18th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil team | al Khalil, occupied Palestine

On Thursday, 17th December 2015, Israeli forces yet again body-searched every male adult – and also youth – passing Ziad Jaber school in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). Most female adults were also searched by male soldiers, a clear violation of their privacy. Various female students were also searched or had their bag searched.

These body-searches by Israeli forces are humiliating and often conducted aggressively with soldiers kicking the legs of the Palestinians and pushing them in the kneepit almost making them fall.

Not even children and youth – especially protected by UN-Conventions and international law, are exempted from these rigorous, frightening and humiliating searches. All of this hapens regularly both on the way to and from school thus also infringing on the children’s basic right to education.

Israeli soldier checking trash-bins before allowing the care-taker to dispose of the trash just five meters past the military gate

School-children walk past soldiers and infamous settler Ofer on their way to school

A school-boy looks on as his teacher is body-searched by Israeli forces right outside the school

Israeli forces body-searching elderly man at gunpoint

Israeli forces body-searching teenage boy

Israeli forces aggressively body-searching teenage boy

Teenage boy empties his pockets before body-search by Israeli forces

Teenage boy aggressively body-searched by Israeli forces

A group of school-children looks on as Israeli forces body-search a teenage boy

Palestinian youth body-searched at gunpoint by Israeli forces

Two boys watch Israeli forces body-searching their father

“ We need our children ”

December 17th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil team | al Khalil, occupied Palestine

On Thursday, December the 17^th, hundreds of Palestinians in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron) gathered to protest against Israel’s policy of withholding the bodies of Palestinian martyrs killed since the beginning of October.

The peaceful demonstration started at Haras Mosque and continued towards Ibn Rushd roundabout with many martyr posters, signs, Palestinian flags and chanting. Many friends and relatives of the martyrs were present, mourning the loss of the more than thirty martyrs from Al-Khalil and more than 123 martyrs from all around the occupied Palestinian territory killed since the beginning of October this year.

The demonstration was organized by the movement “We need our children” (Bidna awladna). This movement was created recently on the initiative of the families of the martyrs in Al-Khalil to demand the release of Palestinian bodies, still being kept in Israel. This unlawful policy not only violates international law but also denies the families the right to mourn the loss of their husbands, sons, mothers and daughters. “Some of the mothers haven’t realized that their sons are dead. Some times the fathers try to call their sons on the mobile”, a brother of a martyr explains.

For the past two weeks a solidarity tent has been established near the Haras mosque in order to create a space for the families to mourn, share the pain and support each other. Not only the relatives waiting for the return of the martyr’s bodies are present in the tent, but also the relatives, who already received the bodies of their loved ones, attend the tent in solidarity, as the father of Dania (17 years) and Udey Irsheid (24 years) who both were killed by Israeli forces in the last two months.

Solidarity tent for the martyr's families — *Solidarity tent for the martyr’s families*

The policy of withholding the bodies of killed Palestinians constitutes another measurement in the collective punishment against the Palestinian people, which is illegal according to international law.

UN delegation visits H2-area of Hebron

December 12th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil team | al Khalil, occupied Palestine

On Tuesday, 8^th December 2015, a delegation from the United Nations visited the H2 area of occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), ahead of the international Human Rights Day on 10th December.

The UN-delegation visited the H2 area, under full Israeli control, to understand the situation and get first-hand accounts of the life under Israeli occupation and the daily fight of Palestinian residents and human rights defenders. During their visit, they talked to various local and international human rights defenders and visited flashpoint areas in al-Khalil, such as the ‘closed military zone‘ in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood. The delegation also went to two areas where school-children have to struggle each day to get to school past checkpoints, the Israeli army shooting tear gas, illegal settlers attacking them; trying to take their right to education.

International Human Rights Day is celebrated every year on the 10^th of December, commemorating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was passed on this day in 1948. The Declaration declared fundamental human rights that enjoy universal protection. But still, to this day, these fundamental human rights need to be fought for.

After the visit, the UN-delegation came up with a statement stressing the importance and praising the work of human rights defenders that are non-violently struggling to achieve the universal human rights for Palestinians, particularly in the environment of Israeli occupation. They are voicing their great concern about the Israeli forces crackdown on human rights defenders work and their attempts to silence them completely.

Read the full UN-statement.

UN delegation in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood of Hebron

More humiliating body-searches in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron)

9th December 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Al-Khalil, occupied Palestine

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 8^th and 9^th December 2015, Israeli forces bag- and body-searched virtually every male and female adult walking through or past a checkpoint in the Jaber mountain neighbourhood in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).

In the afternoon on Tuesday, Israeli forces stopped every teacher on their way home from school, forcing them to lift up their shirts and trouser-pants before being allowed to slowly approach the checkpoint where they had to endure a body-search by the soldiers. The school-children from the elementary boys school nearby were watching this humiliating process, as no-one was allowed to pass the checkpoint until all the teachers’ were patted down by the soldiers.

Not only the teachers and the director of the school, but also any other male adult going past the military gate or even past anywhere on the road in the view of the soldiers, were body-searched. As this systematic humiliation of any male adult, and some male youth, kept going on for hours, several people decided to not go past the gate in order to spare themselves this humiliation. Several people, simply going to a shop in order to buy something, passed the soldiers twice within ten minutes and were thus forced to be body-searched twice. Israeli forces forced various adults to even take off their shoes before being allowed to approach them to be body-searched.

Israeli forces body-searching Palestinian man

Female adults were stopped and had to throw their IDs on the street, put their bags down, and step back a few meters, before soldiers would check their IDs and go through the bags.