3rd August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Saturday August 3rd was not a peaceful Saturday for the Palestinians in Hebron. At approximately 16.30 two settlers invaded the roof of the Abu Shamsiya family in Tel Rumeida, whilst three soldiers attacked a twelve year old boy in the street nearby.
When the settlers on the roof were approached by internationals and told that they were on private property and therefore had to leave, they refused and said they came there every week. The fact that they had entered a private home without consent of the family did not concern them, on the contrary they expressed that they felt it was their right. When asked to leave the settlers behaved aggressively by yelling and continuously refusing to do so. After having argued with internationals one of the settlers threatened to lie to the soldiers and say that they had been hit by the internationals. He argued that even though it was not true, the soldiers would believe him over the international activists.
As seen in the video below, in the meantime three Israeli soldiers assaulted three young boys just down the street. The soldiers started by harshly pushing one boy, afterwards they grabbed a second boy, Islam by the hair and kicked him. Thereafter a third boy ran to his house chased by the soldiers. When internationals asked why the military was chasing the boy, they lied and said the boys had been throwing stones. The boy said that he had simply ran because he was scared after having seen his twelve-year-old friend, Islam being brutally attacked by soldiers for no apparent reason.
These are not unusual events. The Abu Shamsiya family is often victim of settler and military harassment, the family’s roof is on street level and settlers often go there to throw stones, harass the family and break their property. Saturdays are particularly violent in Hebron, only last week both Abu Shamsiya and his son Muhammed were attacked by settlers whilst the military was watching, with Abu Shamsiya then being arrested on false charges while the settlers were freed without charges.
Hebron has large settlements in the middle of the city housing approximately 500 settlers some of whom are extremely aggressive and violent. Additionally there are 2500 Israeli occupation soldiers stationed in the city.
Dozens of Palestinian, international and Israeli activists participated at today’s demonstration against the apartheid wall and land annexation organised by the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bil’in. The demonstration was dedicated to the Palestinian Bedouins in Al Nakab and to the international day of Jerusalem.
The march began after Friday midday prayers from the center of the village towards the apartheid wall.
The participants raised Palestinian flags and chanted slogans calling for the end of the occupation, the demolition of the apartheid wall and freedom for all Palestinian political prisoners.
Upon arrival to the area of the wall, Israeli soldiers, located behind the wall, fired rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters and sound grenades at the demonstrators.
Many suffered from tear gas inhalation and were treated on the spot.
2nd August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
Israeli army represses demonstration in Ni’lin as it marks the five year anniversary of the murder of ten-year-old Ahmed Mousa and seventeen-year-old Youssef Amirah. Demonstrators remain defiant after five years of stolen land, illegal settlements and brutal killings of five members of the village and countless injuries.
On a hot Friday the 2nd of August during Ramadan, around 40 Palestinian demonstrators accompanied by internationals and Israeli activists gathered for the afternoon prayer in the olive field. At around 1.30pm The demonstration started as people marched towards the illegal annexation wall that steals 2500 dunams of land. The demonstration started in 2008 against the wall’s construction, but have continued unrelentingly after the construction was finished. The demonstrators chanted in Arabic as they approached the wall.
Israeli occupation soldiers hid behind the wall carrying riot shields and weapons as they looked over, ready to fire on the peaceful demonstrators.
Journalists and demonstrators who approached the wall had sound bombs dropped on them, before the army fired barrages of tear gas canisters. Some of the tear gas canisters started fires in the olive field including one tree where the canister got stuck in the branches. Later in the demonstration the amount of tear gas canisters that were fired stopped demonstrators from coming closer to the wall. Rubber and plastic coated steel bullets were also routinely fired.The demonstration finished around 3.00pm when demonstrators decided to withdraw.
This Friday marks the week of the end of July that is the five year anniversary of the murder of Ahmed Mousa and Youssef Amirah. Ahmed was shot in the head with live ammunition on the 29th of July 2008, Youssef was killed the day after when at Ahmed’s funeral he was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the head by Israeli occupation forces. Omri Abu, an Israeli border police officer, was put on trial in a rare case when Palestinians are murdered by the army. He was later acquitted by an Israeli court for ‘causing death by negligence’ on the grounds that there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that his bullets were the ones that hit Ahmed in spite of acknowledging that he tried to cover up the evidence by ejecting the cartridges from his rifle and claiming that he did not fire at all.
The complete lack of justice in the trial was expected by the people of Ni’lin who have suffered much pain with the deaths of their five shaheeds and countless injuries, but continue to resist.
2nd August 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Palestine
Update 2nd August:The Palestinian activist arrested at the protest near Hizma checkpoint has been released after paying 3000NIS. All arrestees at the demonstration in Wadi Ara have also been released but will have to be under house arrest for three days.
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On August 1st, ‘day of rage’, thousands of people took to the streets to denounce the ethnic cleansing of a conservative estimate of 40000 Bedouins from the Naqab; the so called Prawer Plan.
The demonstration organized in the Naqab itself took place in the South Rahat Junction “Lehavim”. The start of the protest, which was scheduled for 4pm was delayed, after police blocked several roads leading to the demonstration and alternative routes had to be found. In the end over 1500 people from all over historic Palestine and international activists managed to assemble and voice their anger against the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of over 35 villages in the Naqab region. Strong slogans asking for a stop to the ethnic cleansing, a change to the Prawer Plan and freedom for the Naqab and Palestine were chanted.
Protest chanting at the demonstration in the Naqab (Photo by ISM)
The protest was heavily policed, with over 200 police officers, several of them on horseback. Even though the protest was conducted peacefully, two minors, Hisham A’mor and Khaled Nasasra, were arrested and released this morning.
In Wadi A’ra, Haifa District, the demonstration took place at the A’ra-A’ra’ra intersection with around 1500 participants. Israeli forces beat protesters and used teargas against them. Eleven people were arrested and will probably have the court hearing today in Haifa.
The ‘day of rage’ not only spread throughout historic Palestine. Solidarity actions with the Palestinian Bedouins crossed the Green line as dozens of people protested near Hizma Checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.
At around 3pm, several buses departed from Ramallah towards the Naqab to join the protests against the Prawer Plan. As expected, Israeli forces stopped the buses from continuing their way near Hizma checkpoint.
Demonstrators went off the buses and protested on the road leading to Hizma checkpoint. Over twenty special unit police officers and several soldiers threw several sound bombs, violently pushed protesters and beat several people with batons. One female protester was kicked by a police officer in the back and another activist was arrested. Standing on the sidewalk of the road and chanting slogans against the ethnic cleansing of the Naqab, demonstrators were surrounded from all sides by Israeli forces until the buses arrived and everyone left. It is worth mentioning that the bus drivers were fined by Israeli police with 750NIS fine each.
Protester being arrested by Police special unit at Hizma demonstration (Photo by ISM)
Late at 9:30pm, more than 300 people gathered at Damascus gate in East Jerusalem. Protesters chanted slogans in solidarity with the Bedouins communities in the Naqab and marched into East Jerusalem towards Sheik Jarrah. The demonstration turned back towards the Damascus gate again, after it was blocked by a large number of mounted police. Israeli police repeatedly charged the demonstration and threw sound bombs at people. They also deliberately threw sound bombs into the crowded area outside the gate, and into restaurants and market stalls. This caused a huge stampede of people running away from the police, and caused one middle aged woman to feint from shock.
These protests come after July 15th first ‘day of rage’ in which a general strike in historic Palestine was called and numerous demonstrations against the Prawer Plan organised.
The Prawer Plan making its way through the Israeli Knesset aims to destroy 35 villages that it does not recognise. The destruction of these ‘unrecognised’ villages will forcibly displace a conservative estimate of 40 000 indigenous Palestinian Bedouin for already pre approved Jewish only settlements in the Naqab (Negev).
Historic Palestine’s Bedouin population are the indigenous population of the Naqab. Their cultural and historical link to the land is clear, given that since settling in the Naqab in the seventh century, they have been the only inhabitants of the desert up until the mid twentieth century. Before the creation of Israel in 1948 over 100000 Bedouin lived in the Naqab and made up over 99% of the inhabitants. The establishment of Israel as a state with a Jewish majority needed the ‘Nakba,’ or catastrophe that meant the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians including 90000 Bedouin in the Naqab, who were forced to leave their historic land to become refugees in the West Bank, Gaza strip and other countries in the world. After the Nakba the 10 000 Bedouin who managed to survive the ethnic cleansing were put under the authority of an oppresive military regime that forcibly removed the remaining Bedouin into an area of land called the ‘syaj’ or (fenced) in a triangle marked by the towns of Beersheba, Arad and Dimona.
Demonstration in the Naqab (Photo by ISM)
In 1965 Israeli authorities passed the ‘Planning and Building Law.’ One aspect of that law was to map out all the existing communities that fell under the state and although many of the villages had existed before the creation of Israel, or had been created by the Israeli army as part of the population transfer to the Syaj zone, they were left of the map and so became ‘unrecognised’ villages and illegal by law.
Over 40 000 Bedouin currently stay in these ‘unrecognised’ villages, that because of the nature of their illegality under Israeli law, have no access to infrastructure like roads, water, sewage, electricity, education and healthcare although they became citizens of Israel. The other 105 000 Bedouins live in urban townships, or concentration townships that have some of the highest poverty and crime rates in the country, created in 1969 to encourage the Bedouins to relinquish their land rights. The Bedouin who accepted were internally displaced refugees who were not allowed to return to their ancestral lands outside the Syaj zone.
Israel uses a manipulation of an old Ottoman law that declares non cultivated land as dead land and so transfers land to the ownership of the state. The land outside the Syaj area became dead land due to people unable to return and so passed to control of the Israeli state without consultation with the Bedouins. In the 1970s the public were allowed to file ownership claims over the land and so the Bedouin filed 3221 claims for a total of 242 750 acres. The process was then frozen and never offered again. Those lands claimed are subject to be lost under the Prawer plan but only those that were allowed to be registered for a short time in the 1970s are able to be compensated though the Prawer Plan. This compensation however is only to the maximum of 50% of worth that reasonable estimates believe will only amount to 16% in real terms. This is on the condition that they relinquish all rights of their ancestral land and move to the townships or the 10 ‘recognised’ villages.
The current situation of the Prawer Plan represents the largest single ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the Nakba and highlights the plight of the indigenous peoples of Historic Palestine who remained in the 1948 borders with the creation of Israel. The situation of the Bedouin in the Naqab have long been subject to hardships in spite of formally existing as Israeli citizens, but have still lived in similar circumstances to their kin in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2011, 1000 houses were demolished and since the 1970s the Bedouin have been harassed and attacked by ‘Green Patrols’, a miltary unit set up by Ariel Sharon as part of the Agricultural ministry to specifically target Bedouin, and in recent times these duties have been taken over by by settlers from Kibutzes in the Naqab who often attack and intimidate the population. The Prawer Plan and the discriminatory laws and tactics used against non-Jewish citizens of Israel highlight the concerns of Israel’s demand to be recognised as a Jewish State in the ‘peace’ talks. Non-Jewish citizens are already being internally displaced through pogroms and discriminatory laws. Recognising Israel as a Jewish State will confirm that they are unequal and do not belong, regardless of their indigenous status and history of the land.
26th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Last night at 10 pm, a live ammunition bullet was fired at the headquarters of the human rights organisation Youth Against Settlements (YAS) in Hebron.
Live bullet shot at YAS house (Photo by activists)
The spokesperson for YAS, Damer Atash, explains that a group of activists were sitting in front of the house headquarters when the bullet was fired. The bullet was shot from the nearby olive groves making it impossible to see the shooter, although two voices were heard. Luckily, the group of activists were not hurt, instead, the bullet bounced off the window right behind them. “At first we thought it was a stone but instead we found a bullet”, said one of the activists.
At 22:15 pm, the group called the Israeli police, who arrived some 40 minutes later at approximately 11 pm, after the police arrived the military joined them and stayed for about 20 minutes. However, none of them searched the premises for the bullet canister.
The shooter was not seen, but it is likely that it was an attack from one of the neighbouring settlers, as the bullet was bigger than those used by the army. Even though this is the first incident of shooting against YAS, this would not be the first time the house has been attacked by settlers. They have previously tried to burn the house, set the kitchen of the headquarters on fire and uprooted trees. In these incidents the Israeli army or police have not taken any action against the settlers.
Israeli army and police also participate in the harassment of YAS and its human rights organizers. On Wednesday alone, the army invaded the house three times during the evening and night for what it is believed to be a training exercise for the army.
The despair and fear this causes is not uncommon for the 35,000 Palestinians living under complete control of 1500 Israeli soldiers and police officers, and the constant harassment and violence from the 500 settlers illegally living in the Israeli controlled H2 area of Hebron.
