5th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Jinba, Occupied Palestine
Stun grenade thrown into a home (Photo by ISM)
On Wednesday night, the Israeli army carried out a lengthy and violent invasion of the village of Jinba, in Masafer Yatta, south of the West Bank. The army was reported to have been led by two Israeli settlers from the illegal outpost of Mizpe Yair.
The army raided and ransacked twenty houses in Jinba, beating several young men in the process. People were woken up by stun grenades, which in one case the occupation forces threw directly into a house. Another stun grenade was thrown directly at a person, who was sleeping outdoors.
The Israeli army proceeded to break doors and raid Palestinian homes. During these raids, five people were beaten by soldiers, including a 4 year-old, named Ibrahim Jabarin. Ibrahim was hit by the soldiers in the face as he walked in front of them when they entered his home. The others were Thaar Khaled Jabarin, 16, Ahseen Nabil Jabarin, 12, Odi Jabarin, 21 and Sophian Raba’e, 15. Odi Jabarin was woken up by the soldiers beating him with their guns. He suffered several blows across his body, and severe injuries on his left leg.
Three men were then arbitrarily arrested during this raid and released hours later. Mahmoud Isha Ibrahim Raba’e was woken up by the army breaking into his house at 1 a.m., as they smashed his belongings, and he was then arrested and handcuffed. He was released at 9 a.m.
Home ransacked by the Israeli forces (Photo by ISM)
The raid was carried out over settler claim for a sheep
The two settlers accompanying the soldiers in Jinba yesterday claimed that the Palestinians had stolen one of their sheep. In fact they tried, with the cover of the army, to steal away one of the rams belonging to a Palestinian farmer; however they were stopped by the villagers. The ram in question purportedly worth 1600 dollars and is used for breeding purposes. This would have been a significant loss of property for the farmer, given that people in Jinba depend on animal husbandry for survival.
Mahmoud Raba’e posing with his ram, that settlers tried to steal (Photo by ISM)
Jinba is one of the villages in Masafer Yatta that lies in the area that Israel has designated as “firing zone 918”. This area is the land of 12 Palestinian villages that are threatened with mass demolitions, which is illegal under international law[1]. This would mean the forced displacement of all of their residents. Recently, violence by the Israeli army has escalated over the region in the time leading up to a major court decision concerning the fate of the South Hebron Hills.
[1] See Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, U.S.T.S. 539 (entered into force January 26, 1910) and Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 75 U.N.T.S. 287 (entered into force Oct. 21, 1950).
1st July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | ‘Anata, Jerusalem
The Bedouin community of ‘Anata suffers daily from the consequences of living just underneath the Apartheid Wall of East Jerusalem; the community is considered unwanted by the Israelis, and is therefore a victim of attacks and harassment. In addition, their unique location between two major settlements, Almon and Ma’ale Adumim and the Palestinian village of ‘Anata means that the Bedouin people living there are caught in the middle of the weekly clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli occupation forces.
Homes of the Bedouin community of ‘Anata (Photo by ISM)
Yesterday, Sunday 30th June, four internationals guided by a journalist visited the Bedouin community in ‘Anata, located just 4 kilometers northeast of Jerusalem. We saw the poor living conditions of the villagers, who live in shacks or tents. Many of them suffer from asthma, and aren’t allowed access to the hospitals of Jerusalem – instead, they have to drive all the way around the illegal settlements to Ramallah. They told us about the insecurity of living close to the wall, which became apparent by the sight of Israeli rubber bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters lying everywhere in the village. These violations are especially critical because three quarters of the Bedouin villagers are children, who don’t have places to hide, because of the fragile housing conditions. In addition, the animals held by the villagers are suffering from the same conditions as a result of the numerous tear gas attacks. The Israeli occupation forces often enter the village to arrest Bedouins for apparently made up accusations. For example, they have accused the villagers of stealing horses, even though it was obvious that no one in the village held horses. The Bedouin parents expressed concerns about their children getting accused for the actions of the Palestinian shabab (protesting youth).
Especially on Fridays, violent clashes between the Palestinian shabab and the Israeli forces take place in the Bedouin villages, even though the villagers explicitly has declared that they don’t want to take part. Therefore, the items thrown by both parties often hit the villagers: stones from the shabab and tear gas, rubber bullets, etc from the Israeli army.
Apartheid Wall visible behind the community of ‘Anata (Photo by ISM)
The Israeli intimidation attacks seek to evict the Bedouins completely from their land and serve the higher purpose of creating a physical link between the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem. This is known as the ‘E1 Plan’, and the Bedouins are, from an inhumane Israeli perspective, currently in the way of letting this happen. The Israelis are currently working on the so-called Nuweimeh Plan, which seeks to solve the ‘Bedouin problem’ by relocating the approximately 2300 Bedouins of the E1-zone to a town named Nuweimeh near Jericho. The lands of Nuweimeh, however is unsuitable for the animals to graze, and in addition there is no job opportunities, which is why the Bedouins who already are settled there live almost solely on UN food parcels.
The Bedouin community has therefore received demolition orders and orders to halt construction from the Jerusalem Governorate, even though they pay the Palestinian National Authority NIS 1000 a year to live there. The Israeli attempt to forcefully evict the Bedouins is violating international humanitarian law. In spite of the threats by the Israelis, the Bedouin community refuses to move from their lands.
1st July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On Sunday, 30th June, the Israeli forces in Khalil fired tear gas canisters in a residential area near the Ibrahimi Mosque. The soldiers claimed that this followed an incident of young Palestinian boys throwing rocks towards the checkpoint.
The teargas canisters landed amidst houses, causing problems to the residents. A 98 year old woman, Rashida Abed Al-salam Alkaraky, was severely affected by the inhalation of the gases that filled her room through her open window, and fainted. Her family couldn’t get to her immediately because of the density of the teargas in the air. Eventually they managed to transport her next door and an ambulance arrived to give her medical treatment. She slowly recovered from the effects after one and a half hours.
98 year old Rashida Abed Al-salam Alkaraky unconscious, receiving help from her family (Photo by ISM)
Following that, two squads of armed soldiers, accompanied by border police, started patrolling the area. They were pointing guns at windows and passers by and disturbing people in the area. During their hour long patrol, they invaded a Palestinian house and occupied the rooftop for some time.
Israeli soldiers climbing a Palestinian house to invade the roof (Photo by: ISM)
29th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Azzun, Occupied Palestine
On June 18, settlers hung up a banner in the town of Azzun, threatening to take over the town. Later that day, the town was attacked by settlers, supported by the Israeli army. Local residents successfully fended off the attack through massive mobilizations.
The town of Azzun is the home of about 10.000 Palestinians. It is located in the northern West Bank district of Qalquiliya, close to several settlements. On Tuesday 18th of June, settlers secretly entered the town and proceeded to hang up a banner at the town entrance stating that “On Tuesday, the village will become ours.” The unconcealed threat was signed by “The Women of Samaria”. The banner was quickly removed but the threat of a violent take-over was still present, as would become evident some hours later
Banner hung up by settlers (Photo by Ma’an News Agency)
During the late afternoon of the day that the ominous banner was put up, settlers gathered outside the eastern town-entrance for what appeared to be an attempt at fulfilling the prophecy. Luckily, the day before, attentive villagers had intercepted online information that settlers were mobilizing for a lunge against the city on this date and so they were prepared.
About three months earlier, the town had been attacked by around fifty young settlers who entered the town through the eastern-most checkpoint. After this, they proceeded to enter nearby Palestinian houses, throwing stones and empty bottles while shouting that “this is our land”. In spite of being barraged with tear gas and sound bombs by the occupying military forces, which came to the assistance of the attacking settlers, the residents of Azzun managed to fend off the assault. As a result of this experience three months ago, the locals now knew how to react to what looked like a new attempt at a violent assault on the town.
As soon as settlers started gathering outside the eastern-most checkpoint of the town, residents rushed to the site, effectively blocking the entrance to the town for both settlers and the collaborating soldiers that were accompanying them. For about six hours the residents were attacked with tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets by the occupation forces. These attempts by the occupying forces to help the settlers enter the town left several wounded. In the end, the perseverance of the residents of Azzun caused the attacking settlers to retreat without having entered the town. The soldiers, however, returned the following night to continue harassing the inhabitants of the town.
These evident attempts at forcefully taking over the city are not the only abuses the residents of Azzun face every day. Because of the status of the town as a major traffic hub for the surrounding villages and towns, Azzun is routinely submitted to checkpoint shut-downs. In accordance with this, the main checkpoint of the town was completely shut down between the 15th and the 20th of June.
The checkpoint-shut-downs have the purpose of severely prolonging the transport time for anyone hoping to access one of the cities of the region, with the direct consequences for those in urgent need of medical attention of a kind not accessible in the immediate area.
Apart from these shut-downs, the military has a practice of arresting young boys on various arbitrary charges. While in custody, the boys are pressured into signing forms in Hebrew being informed that this is a prerequisite for being released. What the boys don’t know is that the forms are in fact made-up testimonies, denouncing other boys of taking part in illegal activities. This practice is adopted by military as a sort of divide-and-rule strategy where released boys and their families are under constant suspicion of being collaborator and informants, thereby playing residents out against each other. The local boys’ school can also confirm a correlation between the time of the year and the amount of arrested teenage boys. There seems to be a surge in the amount of arrest as soon as the exam-period gets closer meaning that a lot of these young men are prevented from taking their mandatory 12th grade exams.
The ISM will continue to monitor the situation in the town that is also being closely followed by another group of internationals, EAPPI.
28th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
In the early hours of the morning on the 27th June hundreds of Israeli army and police of the occupation forces invaded Nablus where they arrested people, destroyed homes and shot teargas and sound bombs all through the night.
The army remained in Nablus terrorising the population from 1.30am till 6.00am, when they eventually withdrew, forcibly taking three people whose families were left to repair their homes after they had been sacked by the army.
Father of three, Alam Hafif Qarim (40 years old) lives in a block of flats with his family in the North Mountain area of Nablus. Around 150 occupation soldiers and police in more than 20 military vehicles surrounded the building at 1.30am. The people in the building attempted to phone each other and outside for help and to find out what was happening, but the landlines had been cut and the mobile phone signal blocked. The army fired teargas canisters and sound bombs around the building, in the middle of the night. Fearing for the health of their children, residents closed their windows.
Israeli soldiers broke the children’s bed (Photo by ISM)
At 2.30am around 25 soldiers with attack dogs entered the building, and attempted to force the door; when that did not work, they hammered noisily on the door shouting in Arabic that they were the army. Alam quickly unlocked the door and the 25 soldiers moved into the house. They had a bag of tools – hammers and the like – with them. Alam’s wife was told to wake the children, two girls (7 years old and 3 months old) and their 10-year-old son, where they were forced with Alam, who was handcuffed, to sit in one room as the army began to use the tools to make holes in the walls, smash windows and overturn and tear up furniture in the recently redecorated house. “They came ready,” Alam’s family member later told ISM. The family repeatedly asked the soldiers what they were looking for and what they wanted, to which the army did not reply. “They came to destroy our house and our lives, under the pretext of looking for something.”
All belongings including food and clothes were thrown into the bathroom as the destruction continued. One soldier who was careless in the destruction of the bathroom, injured himself with the tool he brought, and so the army called an ambulance to help him while Alam’s wife had to later clean up his blood in her bathroom he smashed.
A female soldier then initiated a body search of Alam’s wife and 7-year-old daughter. Alam’s 3-month-old other daughter was also not immune from suspicion when a soldier began to attack her pushchair. Alam’s wife intervened and patted it down to show that it could have nothing hidden in it and shouted at him that he “had no heart.” Later it was found that the children’s mattresses had been ripped apart in their room decorated with Mickey Mouse.
The army eventually left after 4am, taking Alam with them. Alam works in a shop that sells parts of BMWs and had been granted a visa to visit Germany to pick up parts. He was due to pick up his visa in 2-3 days.
Not far from Alam’s shop, which showed his pride in his work and in providing for his family, to live a normal life in spite of the difficulties unleashed by the occupation, is the home of 34-year-old Mazin and his parents. At 2am more than 50 soldiers burst into Mazin’s home and started to methodically destroy his family’s belongings as they interrogated him for four hours. Mazin and his parents suffer from ill health, his mother suffering from cancer and Mazin from a heart condition since he was 20, when the army shot him with 10 bullets for which he spent 6 months in hospital before being placed in prison, the same number of years as bullets, before he even had the chance to fully recover.
Mazen’s bedroon, ransacked by Israeli soldiers (Photo by ISM)
Mazin asked the soldiers for water for himself and his mother during the interrogation. The army refused. The soldiers demanded that Mazin hand over automatic weapons, of which he said he had none.
The army then sadistically smashed the home; destroyed all furnishing; threw food from the fridge over the floor; overturned the washing machine, the oven, and even hauled out water pipes. “They’re animals,” Mazin’s father said. Soldiers threw eggs at walls and broke them on chairs. They smashed the toilet bowl and attacked the walls of every room with their tools. See video here.
At one point a soldier approached Mazin; he put his hand on Mazin’s shoulder and told him: “I don’t want to arrest you. I want to kill you. I promise you, I will kill you.” Mazin’s parents were standing beside him when their son was being threatened with murder. The family noticed three stars on the soldier’s uniform, which meant he’s a battalion commander, a high rank in the occupation army.
Destroyed kitchen (Photo by ISM)
The army left the home in ruin; they took his laptop but found no illegal weapons. Later, Mazin, a FIFA-certified football coach in Nablus, found that his football had been skewered with a knife. In spite of condemnation from human rights supporters, Israel was recently chosen to host the 2013 UEFA under-21 championship.
Mazin and his parents chose to leave the house the way it was after the destruction; they hope that ‘“The world will see what life is like for Palestinians under Israeli occupation.”
Alam’s distraught family could not do this, when the army left they immediately started to clean and repair. “We didn’t sleep,” Alam’s sister said. She joined the family to help, as did many neighbours who came to support the family, as Alam is a popular man, but also through sense of duty and community.
The day after this attack on Nablus (Israel’s fourth in this last week alone), residents wondered what else the occupation army would do to their city the following night.Nablus is in Area A (according to the Oslo Accords), which means, in theory, that Israel does not have any military or civilian control over it.
