13 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement
Occupation forces have issued a 24-hour deadline for 1.1 million civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate to the southern parts of the besieged enclave. The demand for a harrowing evacuation of terrified civilians includes an order to clear out all UN workers from the area. This is obvious preparation for a disastrous and brutal ground invasion.
Over 1,500 civilians have been killed, including hundreds of children and more than 6,000 people have been injured. A ground invasion will greatly exacerbate the loss of civilian life and the suffering and misery of the people of Gaza.
Contact your representatives NOW and demand that they put an end to the Israeli government’s blatant violations of international humanitarian law and end the oncoming ground invasion. Light up their phones and email inboxes. Circulate this alert widely!
Script:
Hello, my name is _______.
I am calling because I am horrified at the violence being inflicted on the civilians of Gaza. A ground invasion will greatly exacerbate the loss of civilian life. Urge restraint NOW!
-NO GROUND INVASION must be allowed to occur.
White House
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Vice-President
Vice President: Kamala Harris
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Phone: 202-224-3121
U.S. Senate:
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Find your representative’s contact information in the house of Congress by ZIP code
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On August 10th, three israeli soldiers harassed Abud Huraini, a palestinian teenager from the village At-Tuwani, in the region of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, while he was brining out his flock of goats to graze.
The three soldiers arrived by jeep from the illegal israeli settlement of Ma’on, which is located just few houndred meters away from At-Tuwani, and tormented Abud, asking him to leave the road from which he was tending to his flock. However, the three soldiers were confronted by a large group of Palestinian men and women accompanied by internationalist activists, including three ISMers, who filmed the soldiers and interposed themselves between them and Abud.
Just a few hours earlier Hamoudi, Abud’s older brother and an activist of the palestinian group Youth of Sumud, had been arrested arbitrarily by israeli soldiers as he was driving his car to return home in At-Tuwani. Hamoudi would be released a midnight without charges from the police station of Qiryat Arbaa’, after being blindfolded and physically abused by the soldiers who kidnapped him.
The three israeli soldiers, who had gotten nervous due to the determination of the group, asked for orders on the radio and thus tried to intimidate the internationalist activists present by filming them with phones and by trying to take pictures of their IDs. The soldiers also lied by insisting that the internationals were legally obligated to hand over their passports and allow them to take pictures.
Having this last intimidation tactic failed, the soldiers had no choice but to wait for Abud to finish herding the flock.
A palestinian told us that the three soldiers were likely new in Masafer Yatta: “They have rotations. These ones [the three soldiers] clearly don’t know the area, they don’t know what’s happening here. They probably just received a call from a settler who told them to go and bother [Abud]”.
Last year, on the very same place where Abud was harassed by the soldiers, Abud’s father Hafez, a human rights defender, was brutally attacked by five settlers. That time, the settlers broke both of Hafez’s arms with metal pipes. When Hafez’s family rushed to the scene, one of the settlers began shooting into the air with an assault rifle. Sami, Hafez’s oldest son and an activist, recounted that when soldiers arrived, they started pushing the Palestinians away from Hafez, who was lying on the ground.
“The settlers were giving orders to the soldiers. They told them that my father had attacked them and ordered the soldiers to arrest him” said Sami
When an ambulance of the Red Crescent arrived to the scene, the soldiers blocked the entrance of the vehicle to prevent medics from transporting Hafez to the hospital, while a settler pierced the tyres of the ambulance with a knife.
Eventually, Hafez was arrested and charged with attacking the settlers.
Palestinians accused of a crime are not tried in civilian courts, but rather in military courts, which according to Amnesty lnternational “systematically fail to meet international standards of fair trial, and where the vast majority of cases end in conviction”. Hafez would probably have spent the rest of his life in prison, had it not been for the videos recorded by Palestinian and internationalist activists on the scene, which clearly showed that he had been the victim of the attack. The charges were dropped, and after recovering Hafez was able to go home to his family.
When I arrived in Jenin, on Tuesday July 4th, the city was a battlefield, the streets were destroyed and burnt, tear gas canisters and bullets lay on the ground, the air was filled with smoke, the sound of live bullets, the screams of young men. The residents were in a state of high alert.
The day before, Monday the 3rd of July, residents were awakened by the sound of the explosion aerial bombardment by drones and Energa anti-tank rifle grenades. More than 2,000 soldiers and about 450 military vehicles invaded the city.
Ashraf Al-Saadi, a resident of the camp told me: “We are civilians. We did not go to the Israeli military sites. The occupation came to us. What did we do!? How do we deserve this?”
Jenin Refugee Camp was destroyed once before in 2002. In 2023 alone, there have been three massacres: In the first the occupation forces killed 12 martyrs, in the second the occupation forces killed 8 martyrs, and in the last most recent massacre the occupation forces killed another 12 martyrs, including 3 high school students.
As I watched the occupation forces turn the streets of Jenin upside down and transform them into a burning battlefield dominated by smoke and blackness, I asked myself: “Will Jenin be able to rebuild and light up again?”.
Ashraf Al-Saadi, told me that since the first hours of the operation, while ambulance teams struggled to reach the besieged houses and the injured inside the camp’s lanes Israeli snipers were deployed heavily on tall buildings on the outskirts of the camp, including in his own home. As we entered Ashraf’s house he explained: “The occupation forces broke into my house, which is part of a building consisting of four floors. We are four families, one living on each floor. The occupation forces detained us all, four families in one room, and seized the rest of the house and used it to monitor the movements inside the camp and to deploy snipers in the house. They damaged the house, broke and vandalized furniture, and stole some money.”
On the second day of the incursion, the Israeli occupation forces closed the entrances to the city, especially the main road of the camp, with jeeps and armored vehicles. This left the camp residents without water or electricity for more than 30 hours. Many families were forced to leave the camp. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the UN 3,500 people were internally displaced during the operation.
A mother cat tries to protect her kittens in the ruins of Jenin camp. Photos by D.N.
I went to Jenin government hospital. In my mind I can still hear the heavy sound of bullets fired by the Israeli occupation forces at unarmed civilians in the vicinity of the hospital, which is only 70 meters away from the camp. Everyone was a target, including the medical teams who were trying to reach the injured and the press teams that were documenting the events the occupation forces were targeting everyone, they did not differentiate.
The destruction caused by the occupation to the houses and infrastructure in the camp includes: 4 buildings completely destroyed, 25 residential buildings partially damaged, and roughly 250 damaged residential units. The number of commercial and service buildings damaged reached around 150 and a mosque was partially destroyed. The Israeli occupation forces completely destroyed the infrastructure, roads, and streets: electricity and water were cut off, and sewage pipes were destroyed.
Women walking by the damaged mousqe in Jenin camp. Photo by D.N,
Turkmen, another camp resident, lives with his family on the ground floor of a building, his brother’s family live on the second floor. In the early hours of the military aggression on Jenin camp his home and his brother’s home were bombed from the air. Both homes were completely burnt. In the burning house, new furniture bought by Turkmen’s eldest son, who was preparing for his wedding next Friday, was charred. ”I was preparing to take my son’s furniture to his new home, but the invasion surprised us and we couldn’t move anything, even our clothes were completely burned.”
UNRWA, The International Relief Agency for Palestine refugees, provided food parcels and medicines to help the camp’s residents.
The camp residents told me that despite being afraid, hungry, thirsty and unsafe they will not surrender to the aggression of the occupation.
But we are left asking: who will condemn the Israeli occupation for its crimes against the Palestinian people in general, and against the Jenin camp in particular?
Beginning with invasive night raids multiple villages, and ending with 7 structures demolished, 4 families made homeless, 2 Palestinians arrested, 1 beaten and hospitalized, 1 car confiscated, and 1 major access road severely damaged, Israeli Occupation Forces continue their ongoing assault on local communities in Masafer Yatta.
Masafer Yatta is a collection of over 20 villages near Hebron, deep in the south of the West Bank. Most of the Palestinians who live here raise livestock for a living; some are Bedouins, who once traveled with their camels and flocks across the dry and rugged hills, before Israel invaded in 1967 and occupied the area. Despite archeological excavations showing villages have been there since the early Roman and Byzantine era, the Israeli army declared the area a live firing zone in the 1970s and announced plans to demolish most of the villages. While Palestinians in Firing Zone 918 are forbidden from driving cars or possessing any kind of construction material, Israeli settlers in the settlements of Maon, Avigal, and Susya, illegal under international law, continue to build new houses and farms, and are free to travel in and out of the area.
On September 11th 2019, from 0:00 to 4:00 AM, Israeli soldiers raided multiple villages, breaking into homes, forcing sleeping children and parents outside of their houses and searching rooms, cupboards and fridges, as well as cars and wells, damaging villager’s belongings and terrorizing local residents. The soldiers refused to show residents a warrant or give a reason for the indiscriminate searches; residents say their villages are often used as a training ground for new recruits.
Israeli soldiers raided multiple villages from midnight to early morning, awaking residents and searching houses without giving a reason or warrant.
At 9:00 AM, 4 bulldozers and excavators, from JCB, Hyundai, and Volvo, and a Scania loading truck, together with dozens of IDF soldiers, Border Police, and Civil Administration agents arrived in the village of Mufakara, a tiny hamlet of approximately 50 inhabitants from the Hamamda clan. 4 structures were demolished and 2 families displaced, including a widow, her 6 daughters and one son. Residents of Mufakara said it was the 5th demolition in their village alone this year; one family had their home, demolished 3 times in 9 months. Civil administration agents also cut and confiscated a water pipe bringing water from At-Tuwani to Mufakara. This is not the first time Israeli Civil Administration has deprived villagers in Mufakara of access to water, a basic human right; Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports that after having running water for just 6 months, Israeli forces destroyed and confiscated 6 kilometers of piping in February this year. The IOF also confiscated a car owned by the Massafer Yatta Village Council.
Israeli forces demolish a Palestinian home in Mufakara:
Israeli soldiers at the scene of home demolitions in Mufakara.
The IOF also demolished the bathroom of a family living inside a cave passed down for generations, .
Israeli forces demolish a family’s bathroom.
In the nearby village of Khallet Ad-Dabe’a, Israeli forces and Civil Administration demolished the houses of a family with 6 children and their uncle’s house. A relative of the family that lost their home was violently assaulted by Israeli soldiers after running past them towards the house, and was hospitalized with multiple injuries. Two Palestinians, head of the At-Tuwani Village Council, Mohammad Rib’ey, and Bakr Fadel Rib’ey, were assaulted, then arrested by the IOF. They were released without charge later in the day.
Relative of the family that lost their home, with his son, after being attacked by Israeli soldiers. He was later hospitalized for multiple injuries.
At the same time as the home demolitions, the Israeli army used excavators to dig holes and pile boulders and rubble onto a key road, cutting off 15 villages from the regional hub of Yatta. For some of these villages, alternative routes to Yatta will turn a 30 minutes trip into one that takes 4-5 hours, much of it through unpaved dirt roads.
Many of the houses demolished on Wednesday were, in fact, built with funding from the EU and international NGOs, as well as the road, which locals say was repaired with EU funding after it was previously damaged by Israeli forces. Regavim, an extremist far right settler group which lobbies for demolitions and against EU development projects in Palestine, is highly active in and around the illegal Israeli settlements in Masafer Yatta. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, humanitarian organizations currently providing assistance to communities in Masafer Yatta are impeded by demolition orders “against the items provided”, as well as confiscation of organisations’ vehicles and equipment, and restriction of access to the area.
The Israeli government defends such demolitions by arguing that the houses were built without the legally required permits. A quick look at the numbers, however, show the virtual impossibility of obtaining a housing permit under Israel’s apartheid system. In a 2014 report by the World Bank, only 1.6% of Palestinian housing permit applications were approved; Israeli Civil Administration confirms that from 2008 to 2016, 66 Palestinian applications for construction were approved, while 12,763 Israeli settlement construction applications were approved.
To put that into numbers, an Israeli settler is 193 times more likely to have his application approved than a Palestinian.
Wednesday’s demolitions marked the first demolitions in 1 month and 8 days. The fact that such an extensive round of demolitions occurred just 6 days before Israelis vote in legislative elections did not go unnoticed, as Netanyahu, facing corruption charges and failure to form a government, tries to secure the settler and pro-Occupation vote. With both major Israeli parties declaring their intention to continue illegal settlement growth, and demolition orders pending on 26 of the 28 villages and hamlets in Masafer Yatta, the Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta looks set to continue.
11 year old Ali asks Israeli soldiers why they came to this land, after being forced out his home and having to watch bulldozers destroy his family’s house:
August 25| International Solidarity Movement | Beit Kahel, Occupied Palestine
As part of a targeted collective punishment towards the village of Beit Kahel following the death of an Israeli settler in Gush Etzion, ten individuals from the village have been arrested by Israeli Occupation Forces.
Seven of the detainees are all part of the Asfara family, and include brothers Ikriah and Naseer Asfara (28 and 23 years old), their brother, their cousin Qassam Asfara (30 years old), his two brothers, and his wife Dnas Nabeel Asfara (27 years old). Qassam – who has a permit to work in Israel which requires a background check for security clearance – and Dnas have two very young children, of just 3 and 5 years old. The children have now been without their parents since they were arrested during preparations for Eid Al-Adha, on Saturday 10th August 2019.
The Israeli military have announced that Ikriah, a journalist, is not under suspicion in relation to the death, but they have not released him. Relatives of the detainees have heard nothing since the arrests, except that they have been taken to an Israeli prison north of Gaza. Their lawyers have been unable to have any dialogue with Israeli authorities about the individuals or the case; the only news that family members have had has come from Israeli media about the incident. The Asfara family are very concerned for the arrested individuals, as Israeli prisons are well known to employ torture methods in an attempt to coax ‘admissions’ from accused parties. All of these torture methods are made legal under the title of “Moderate physical pressure,” and include: solitary confinement in high temperatures; being forced to stay awake for days or weeks on end; starvation; and enduring incredibly loud sounds and music 24 hours a day.
Prior to the arrest, members of the Asfara family, and other residents of the village of Beit Kahel had been subject to daily harassment by the Israeli military, and when they came on the Saturday 10th before Eid Al-Adha at 2am, 30 soldiers broke into and terrorised two buildings they raided as they carried out the arrests.
Forced window in Naseer and Ikriah’s home.
Mr. Asafra, the uncle of those arrested, described:
“We were sleeping peacefully in our homes, they (IOF) broke in and started beating everybody up. It was the Saturday before Eid at 2am while everyone was asleep. They stayed until 8am. 6 continuous hours of beating people up in the house. They horrified everyone and beat two men and arrested 4 people. They horrified everyone. They took every family member into one room and then searched the house.”
The brothers, Naseer and Ikriah, were sleeping on the roof of the other home raided, and they were woken up by security dogs. Israeli military broke in and raided both houses.
The rooftop of Naseer and Ikriah’s home.
“It was terrifying for the children sleeping inside,” said Mr. Asfara, “They and the women were screaming.”
The three men arrested, along with other family members, were beaten badly in front of the rest of the family. Dnas was not beaten, but roughly handcuffed and taken by the soldiers, who did not let her get dressed or put her head scarf on. She quickly grabbed her praying overcoat to protect her modesty as she was dragged out of her home.
Mr. Asfara states: “I never expected a country with an organised “democratic” structure would behave this way towards civilians.”
Mr. Asfara, the uncle of the detainees.
The IOF returned the next day on Sunday 11th, during Eid Al-Adha celebrations, at around the same time of 2am. Again, they entered the village with incredible violence, raided both homes, confiscated Qassam’s car, and horrified the residents. They searched both buildings for 2.5 hours before taking photographs and sketches of the properties, measuring them up for demolition, despite having no demolition order from the court.
When the IOF came to the Beit Kahel for a third time, on Thursday 15th August, residents of Beit Kahel had organised a sit in of Naseer and Ikriah’s home. As 200 people were gathered inside and on the roof of the property, the Israeli military barricaded the village and fired tear gas into the building and then surrounded it, blocking any Palestinian from leaving as the house filled with the gas. Many were affected very badly by the tear gas; considered a chemical weapon when used in War, but somehow legal in civilian cases despite the high mortality rate of Palestinians due to tear gas related casualties.
The family has not received any demolition order at all, so the village hope to resist the actions of the Israeli military until they get confirmation from the high court that the houses will be demolished for certain.
Naseer and Ikriah’s home home after the raid.Qassam and Dnas’ home after the raid.
Naseer and Ikriah Asfara reside in only 2 of the 4 apartments in the building, yet the Israeli military took measurements, sketches and photographs of all 4 apartments, as well as a separate building where Qassam lives with his wife Dnas. The residents of Beit Kahel are appealing the demolition in court, hopefully to freeze it, but even if they win the appeal not to demolish all 4 apartments in the building, the military could block the 2 houses of the accused, or fill them with cement.
Housing demolitions, most often without a court ruling, are a common collective punitive measure by Israel, under the 1945 British Mandate emergency law. This policy has its origins after end of the First World War and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, when Great Britain seized much of the Middle East, and gave wide authority for local military commanders to confiscate and destroy “any house, structure or land… the inhabitants of which he is satisfied have committed… any offence against these Regulations involving violence.” Despite the outdated and irrelevant nature of this policy, it was renewed by Israel in 2014, granting the occupying forces legality to demolish the homes of Palestinians under any accusation, founded or not.
Naseer and Ikriah’s home home after the raid.Qassam and Dnas’ home after the raid.
As a further punitive measure, 9 members of the family have had their Israeli work permits blocked, so in addition to their being unable to earn a living, they are also unable to pass through checkpoints. Qassam’s 57 year old father Aref has also been returned from checkpoints, unable to pass through the country. This renders the entire Asfara family without their livelihood, trapped in Beit Kahel, soon to be made homeless.
Since these initial arrests, the IOF have returned to Beit Kahel and arrested 6 more residents of the small village. Two of Qassam’s brothers, a brother of Ikriah and Naseer, and three others were arrested in a night raid on Monday August 19th.
Following these events, Israeli Occupation Forces have had an almost constant presence in the village, threatening: “We will come at any time we want, don’t think this is over.”
“Welcome Everyone” in Arabic on the connected apartment to the residence of the accused brothers.
