1 November 2023 | Jenin | International Solidarity Movement
By Diana Khwaelid
On Sunday, October 29, a huge column of military vehicles stormed the city of Jenin in an overnight raid, killing four Palestinians, and destroying a monument for Jenin’s martyrs.
Israeli soldiers invaded the city’s Jenin camp at 12.30am, accompanied by an armed Caterpiller bulldozer (D), as part of the occupation army’s ongoing campaign of arrests of young Palestinians in the camp.
After failing to make arrests, the occupation forces destroyed and demolished the memorial monument of the camp, bearing photos and names of Palestinian martyrs killed by Israeli soldiers in Jenin.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, four Palestinians were killed during the invasion of the camp, and five other young people were injured. Two are in serious and unstable conditions.
We report the name of three of the martyrs: Amir Shabrawi, 25, Nourse Bejawi, 27, Musa Jabarna, 23.
During the raid, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) also bulldozed and destroyed all the main roads leading to the camp.
The floor of a residential building was blown to pieces and set on fire. The Grand Mosque in Jenin camp was also invaded and vandalised.
Eyewitnesses said that the occupation forces, especially Israeli snipers, were firing indiscriminately at civilian cars in the camp and at buildings, residential houses, and the mosque.
Mahmoud Abu Issam – one of the camp residents – said that the destruction witnessed by the residents of the Jenin camp is only a fraction of that experienced by Palestinians in Gaza. “No matter what happens, we will remain strong and steadfast and we will not give up,” he said.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been burying the bodies of the four Palestinian martyrs since Sunday morning.
The death toll of martyrs in the West Bank keeps rising, and it has now reached more than 120 since the start of the war on Gaza.
On October 25th, 2023, Israeli settlers and soldiers invaded the land belonging to a Palestinian family in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and used a bulldozer to uproot trees and destroy the family’s garden.
The colonial attack occured in the Palestinian village of Tuwani and targeted the Hourani family. The settlers and soldiers came from the illegal Israeli settlement of Havat Ma’on, located a few hundred meters away fom Tuwani.
ISM activists and Israeli activists filmed the scene. After one hour, once the settlers and soldiers had left, the activists approached the scene to assess the damage caused by the bulldozer. One settler, noticing that the activists were walking towards the land that had just been destroyed, ran back, screaming and pointing his assault rifle towards the activists. Israeli soldiers rushed to the scene and shot half a dozen warning shots towards the activists, making it clear that they would shoot them if they didn’t back off.
“They followed us right to the back of the Hourani property, shouting, taking photos of us close up, demanding to see passports but we refused to hand them over” an ISM activist recounted.
Since the start of the war on Gaza, colonial crimes in Masafer Yatta have escalated, with settler militias committing pogroms against Palestinian villages and families, and Israeli soldiers at checkpoints shooting at civilian cars without warnings.
On October 13th, an Israeli settler invaded Tuwani and shot a Palestinian man in the stomach at point blank range, while being protected by an Israeli soldier. The day before, Israeli settlers dressed in Israeli army uniforms had invaded Palestinian agricultural land, planted Israeli flags and started shooting towards Palestinians and solidarity activists. ISM activists have also reported that they have been threatened them and robbed them of their phones by Israeli soldiers.
In the past days, settlers have also stormed the Palestinians villages of Isfay, Tuba, and Maghayr Al-Abeed, physically assaulting people and damaging the water tanks and electric grids.
Palestinians from the group Youth of Sumud, together with internationalist and Israeli activists, have been documenting and non-violently resisting the colonialist attacks.
More than 103 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war on Gaza, with thousands more wounded or kidnapped by the Israeli army.
December 1st | International Solidarity Movement | Al Khalil, occupied Palestine
Last Saturday, November 23rd, was ‘Sarah’s day’, a festivity for the Jewish community that gathers Israeli settlers from all around the occupied Palestinian Territories and Jews travelling from abroad, in the Palestinian city of Al Khalil (also known as Hebron). This year in particular, there has been a special effort by the Hebron Fund to bring as many devotees as possible, who converged in the ‘H2’ zone of Al Khalil, including the old city area and all the surrounding illegal Israeli settlements.
A sign on Shuhada Street, Hebron,
In their daily life, Palestinians’ right of movement in this zone is severely restricted, and at times forbidden. The incoming celebrations worsened, if possible, the situation. In response to the huge influx of settlers and people coming from abroad, military involvement was significantly increased.
The outcome of these three different factors -massive presence of zionists, increased military presence and effective closing down of the area for the Palestinian residents – was a situation in which the incoming crowds were legitimated to do any type of action inside a de-facto ‘amusement-park’, with the complicity of the army, whose effective duty is to control and suppress local people and activists. The situation resembled the conditions under which the first settlement in Hebron was created. In 1968, a group of Israeli zionists reserved hotel rooms in the old city during a Jewish holiday. Their stay evolved into a permanent occupation, protected by Israeli soldiers and endorsed by the Israeli government.
Banner put by zionists during Sarah’s day.
What it was possible to witness from the participants in the Sarah’s day celebrations, seemed to be all the frustration and the rage cumulated during the year, crystallized, materialising into the basest actions, and enabled by an unlimited sense of power. These feelings were exemplified by banners such as “Palestine never existed… and never will” [source: Hebron Fund]. They transformed into overt hostility and aggression against the international activists observing the events. They emerged as physically violent attacks with pepper spray against unarmed Palestinian civilians, including children. This culminated with the stoning of a two-years old sleeping child.
A 2 years old kid stoned by the settlers in Tel Rumeida.
This gathering of zionists seems to flush out all the frustration due to the incompleteness of the apartheid process: the Palestinians in Al Khalil are guilty of not being fully subjugated by the racist policies of the state of Israel, and such a gathering is a good opportunity to remind them of the hierarchy that is supposed to be in place.
In view of all this, several questions are raised.
First of all, of course, why? Why such a rage and such a violent spirit? Does Israel not have enough? Illegally occupying a vast majority of Palestinian land seems not to be sufficient. The real occupation and the true oppression is carried out through the routine and persistent humiliation of Palestinians, and the feeling of impotence with which local people are left after every attack. However, it does not take much time for the Palestinians to resume their usual spirit of resistance. Their resilience is stronger than the fascist soul of a bunch of extremist settlers.
Secondly, what is the role of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) present there? On
Friday afternoon, a group of almost 150 settlers attacked a barber shop on the way to the Kyriat Arba illegal settlement, assaulting the five people inside with pepper spray, wood and furniture. All around, a huge presence of IOF soldiers; did they stop this fascist aggression?
A couple of hours later, a 12 years old child was attacked by a group of settlers, spraying him with pepper spray and kicking him whilst on the ground. Nearby soldiers were stationed at an observation tower 50 meters away; did the soldiers intervene?
A 12 years old Palestinian kid gased and then kicked by the settlers.
In both cases the soldiers did not stop the violence. They observed, and they waited. They waited and watched while the illegal settlers vented their hatred against the Palestinians. At what expense?
A further, even more extreme example, took place on Saturday afternoon. The family of a Palestinian activist living in the Tel Rumeida neighbour (within the ‘H2’ zone) was gathered together in their home, when a group of settlers climbed on the roof and entered their garden. After shouting verbal abuse, the settlers began to throw stones at the house, the family came outside trying, in vain, to convince them to go away. One of the stones passed, not by chance, through a window and hit the two year old nephew of the activist, who was sleeping inside. The soldiers were on the rooftop, “containing” (i.e. observing) the settlers. A Palestinian ambulance could not reach Tel Rumeida: Palestinians are forbidden to drive inside ‘H2’. The only way for the family of the injured child to get him to safety and medical treatment, was to hold him and run, through the throngs of yelling settlers, towards the closest checkpoint. Then they could only hope for the medics to be able to pass the control and take the child. There are at least two past examples this not being possible. In one case, the victim died waiting at the checkpoint. On this occasion, mercifully the child could reach the ambulance, and the medical staff were able to take him to the waiting ambulance.
Palestinian medical staff trying to pass the check point 56 in order to enter Shuada street.
Hence it seems clear that the role of the IOF is not to prevent clashes. Not even to defend the Israelis. Their role is to indulge the settlers, whatever the price to pay for the others. In their amusement-park there is no place for disrupters, such as activists, adult and child Palestinians, who are systematically and brutally repressed.
IOF during Sarah’s day.
In the end, what should Palestinians do in order not just to be spectators of their own everlasting humiliation? The answer is more complicated than ever. As time passes by, the imbalance of power shifts further away from them, as the recent US declaration highlights. Active resistance is undermined by both the continued oppression of the Israeli police and the internal conflicts within the Palestinians factions. The presence of international activists helps in documenting the constant violations of basic rights, but is certainly not enough to change the inertia of the dynamics. While hope for change by pure political means weakens, space is created for more radical, and sometimes more appealing, answers based on the juxtaposition of Islamist ideas to the zionist arguments. The international powers, focused on the pure capitalistic interest of maintaining good relationships with Israel as an ally, are responsible for this radicalisation. They, and all those who turn a blind eye to the injustices happening here lose the right to judge the Palestinian means of resistance, in the face of an oppression in which they are accomplices.
26th July 2018 | Steve Dhiman, International Solidarity Movement | Khan al-Ahmar, occupied Palestine
An ISM volunteer describes his experience of being arrested and almost deported by Israeli forces
On Wednesday, the 4th of July, I began training with the International Solidarity Movement, an organization where Palestinians and Israelis, Jewish people and Muslims work together in non-violent and peaceful resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. There are supposed to be two full days of training, but at the end of the first day, there was an urgent situation we had to respond to. Therefore, any new recruits were invited to join, provided they felt up to it, and I volunteered myself.
We travelled to the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar outside of Ramallah late in the evening. The Israeli court had ruled that the village should be destroyed and the children’s school there along with it. They were bringing in a digger to make a path for the bulldozer to come through.
They had started the day before, and online I had seen terrible scenes of violence inflicted by the Israeli soldiers upon defenceless Palestinian women and children that were protesting the destruction of their home. We knew it would be more of the same, so we had to go there. I stayed awake all night and was on look-out, because they had arrived at 5 A.M. the day before. I smoked cigarettes and contemplated how horrific the situation was until the sun came up.
They arrived around 7.30 A.M. Me and ten other activists, one of them Israeli, made a human chain with actual chains. Our arms were linked and our hands were chained together as we saw the soldiers around us approaching, along with a huge digger. A senior soldier came over and smiled while slow clapping at us, and then went away to decide what to do about us.
We went directly in front of the massive tyres on this big machine and sat down in front of it in an attempt to stop it in its tracks — which luckily worked. It’s was a very scary moment.
I was at the end of the human chain, so the soldiers started with me. Three of them jumped on me, one of them stamping on my arm, almost breaking it. Another soldier came at me with a huge pair of bolt cutters and jammed it into a gap in the chain to cut it, almost cutting my thumb off in the process.
In the chaos, while they were focusing on me, a brave fellow young 20-year-old American activist named Liam Wheeler actually jumped up onto the digger and chained himself to it. At this, the Israeli soldiers went crazy and jumped all over him, yanking him away with everything they had while he was chained. Again, they could have broken both his arms but luckily, he only got a sprain on the inside of his elbow while mine is just bruised and tender with the skin still healing.
They dragged us over to their vans and trucks. I’d heard another one of our young activists screaming so I knew they had done something to her. It turned out she had been arrested as well. This was the 21-year-old Canadian Michaela Wheeler.
Up against the truck, one of the soldiers tried to snap my thumb back. Once arrested, we were calm and peaceful, so this was just to put me through pain. My thumb went back as far as it could without snapping and was held like that for about a minute while I just stood there in pain.
An older, senior soldier came over to me and started shouting. I told him were peaceful people and that this was a non-violent and peaceful protest against the demolishing of these people’s and their children’s homes. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “YOU’RE PEACE, I’M WAR”.
They then humiliated us. The soldier who arrested us proceeded to drag us one by one, bruised and shaken, our hands bound with cable ties which my wrists were bleeding from. Meanwhile, all his friends got in a circle around us, took out their smartphones and commenced to photograph us while laughing. It was like an animal trophy hunting shot. I could take it, but seeing it done to these 20 and 21 year olds cut me pretty deeply.
They then forced us into the back of a van. Not in the back seats, but down on the floor with virtually no spare room, so we were basically in the fetus position. They kept us like that for an hour.
At this point my nerves started to go a bit. I looked to the left of me and the saw these brave young people taking it in their stride and remaining dignified. I drew inspiration and strength from them. I then saw the digger go straight through into the village, before they took us to a police station in the nearby illegal settlement.
They then cut the cable ties, which had been fastened as tight as they could so they cut our wrists and had slowly began cutting off my blood circulation. Quite remarkable given the fact that we hadn’t been difficult with them, just calm and still. However, we still got thrown around.
They then sat us in a room with them all around showing each other the videos of everything that had happened, they were just laughing and loving it.
After a few hours of the same of thing they put us in a cell, me and Liam together and Michaela in the next one. The cells, as disgusting as they were, weren’t as bad as the treatment we received. They starved us of water throughout the whole day. Internationals in this heat need around 2-3 litres of water a day, but they would give us one tiny plastic cup, nowhere near enough to quench our thirst, and then we would have to beg for an hour or two before we would get another tiny plastic cup. I probably had just five of those from about 9 A.M. up until 9 P.M.
Throughout this time our interrogators were always trying to make us sign things, sometimes in Hebrew, which we didn’t understand. I later learned they would have used this to expedite the deportation orders of us back to our homes. Israel doesn’t want internationals here who are even sympathetic to what is happening to the Palestinians, let alone people who stand by their side.
As it approached 8 A.M. and getting dark outside our cell window, we got worried about where our lawyer was. We reasoned with ourselves and held firm, trusting that our case was being worked on.
Around an hour later there was a bang on the cell door. This time they said that our lawyer was here and took Liam out of the cell. 10 minutes later, they switched us and there was an amazing Jewish Israeli Human Rights lawyer waiting for me. She explained that she had been on the case for us all day and was planning to meet us in court the next morning, telling us that they were planning to deport us. This was our biggest fear. She said my consulate was putting pressure on Israel to allow them to visit me, using that to complicate things for them and delay them moving us to the Russian compound. In the nick of time, another Israeli supporter of Palestine signed something for us in Tel Aviv and with that we were being released. I couldn’t believe it, relieved that now we could stay and do more work. If they had decided to deport me, it might have taken a day or two and I could have ended up missing England’s World Cup Quarter Final game against Sweden!
They took me back to the cell and I shouted to Michaela that were out of here. We were all really relieved, but as international activists, we must be prepared to stand alongside the Palestinians when Israel are committing these crimes, and yes, that means we must be prepared to be arrested when necessary. For us internationals, we can be sure that we will appear in front of an Israeli court judge within 24 hours, and the worst thing that can happen is that we get deported. However, when a Palestinian gets arrested for the same thing: protesting against the destruction of his house, his water supply, his land or lack of free movement, whatever it might be, that’s it — he’s gone. It could be a year, or it could be five. We must stand firmly in solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinians. We must pressure our governments to stop selling arms to Israel and to recognise Palestine as a full UN member state.
I wish Israel would say “OK, we have enough land now”. But they keep expanding the settlements, it never stops. It’s time to take a stand.
Upon going back to Jerusalem with my fellow activists and then on to Bethlehem not far from the beautiful Church of Nativity, I found out we had won a temporary injunction from the Israeli High Court against the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar village. I was elated, as this will hopefully allow for more international activists and media to gather and bring attention to the case.
The day after my arrest, my Norwegian friend was arrested in a separate location near Hebron. It’s not even occupied yet; some settlers have just decided they live there now and have started ploughing the ground that belongs to the Palestinian community there. I would say it’s unbelievable but it’s not, it’s entirely typical
These are just small examples of what Israel is doing and how they’ve occupied almost the entire country of Palestine with systematic repression and brutal force. It’s important to remember that one side has all the power, all the money and all the guns and artillery, and that the other side is near defenceless.
I appeal to international activists to join the Palestinian cause now, to come over and get involved. If activism isn’t for you, then take a non-activist and perfectly safe trip to Palestine, both to learn, and because it’s a beautiful place with some of the most kind, helpful and caring people I have ever met — and I’ve been to many places.
International Solidarity Movement, Khan Al Ahmar, Palestine Friday 6th June
Peaceful protest against the demolition of Khan al Ahmar
This week, Israeli forces began preparing for the demolition of the Bedouin village Al-Khan Al-Ahmar, in between Jerusalem and Jericho in the West Bank of Palestine. They met village residents and protesters with extreme violence on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to clear the area and proceed with the destruction of the entire village. Palestinian and international solidarity activists have been staying in the village school, which serves over 150 children from the surrounding area, for several weeks in order to prevent the demolition. Israeli forces arrived on Wednesday with construction vehicles to start preparing a temporary road to the village from the main road to allow bulldozers to come through. Residents and activists stood in the path of the construction vehicles peacefully protest the demolition, and Israeli forces responded with extreme violence, arresting 13 people and injuring 35, 4 of whom went to hospital. A human rights activist from Israeli organisation B’tselem was amongst those detained. Israeli forces dragged one woman to the ground, removing her hijab and attacked other women. Watch a video of Israeli forces’ violence here.
A group of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists chai themselves together in front of bulldozer to protest destruction of Khan al Ahmar
Canadian activist arrested in peaceful protest of Khan Al Ahmar demolition
On Thursday morning, Israeli forces arrived to Khan Al Ahmar at around 7.30, to continue with the preparations for demolition. A group of eleven Palestinian, Israeli and international activists chained themselves together in front of the bulldozer, and one activist succeeded in chaining himself to the bulldozer. Israeli riot police forcefully removed three of the activists with wire cutters and violently arrested them. The activists who were arrested were from the UK, Canada and the US. They have since been released. At this point a large group of local residents, Palestinians and international activists were gathered to protest the Israeli destruction of the village. Over the next few hours they were forced back by Israeli forces, and placed in the school as the bulldozer proceeded to flatten the ground in front of the villager’s dwellings so that the demolition can take place in the next few days. Israeli forces filmed activists throughout the morning, and also prevented local journalists and human rights observers from entering the village from the main road, giving out traffic fines to those arriving.
Boys from Khan Al Ahmar look on as Israeli forces move protesters back and begin preparing for demolition of the village.Israeli forces preparing for demolition of Khan Al Ahmar
As this statement from the village of Khan Al Ahmar reiterates, the demolition of the village marks part of the ongoing Nakba, or forcible removal of Palestinians from their homes. The community was displaced from their homes in the Naqab desert in 1950 by Zionist militias, and settled in their current homes in the hills between Jerusalem and Jericho. The area is inhabited by similar small communities of Jahalin bedouins who were also ethnically cleansed from the Naqab during the Nakba. Israel has been attempting to remove these small communities for several years as part of its plan to link two nearby illegal settlements, Kfar Adumim and Maale Adumim with Jerusalem, effectively annexing a huge area of the West Bank from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, and cutting off occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. The residents of Al Khan al Ahmar have been protesting the demolition of their village for years, filing appeals in the Israeli High Court of Justice. Human rights groups in Palestine have pointed out that the destruction of Khan Al Ahmar constitutes the forcible removal of a population, which is a war crime according to international law. The court denied the latest appeal in May this year, and ordered that Israeli government had found a solution for the residents in their transfer to Al-Jabil, near Abu Dis. The residents have refused this transfer, pointing out that the proposed site is cramped and next to the municipality garbage dump. Despite the protestations of residents and human rights groups in Palestine, Israel has been proceeding with the E1 plan since 2015, destroying 35 structures in Khan Al Ahmar and 57 in the wider E1 area. However, the Israeli High Court ruling in May this year gave the Israeli government the green light to demolish the entire village.
Girl from Khan Al Ahmar waves Palestinian flag at Israeli forces preparing for the destruction of her home and the entire village.
The international community has spoken out against the destruction of Khan Al Ahmar, with some British MPs visiting the village in previous weeks, and holding an emergency session in Parliament on Wednesday. The EU expressed concern about the demolition yesterday, reiterating that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal according to international law. PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi pointed out, however, that “words of warning to Israel are not enough. If there is no serious intervention from the international community towards the Israeli government and its belligerent military occupation, other villages will be next, and more Palestinian men, women and children will be displaced for another 70 years to come.” There has been no condemnation of Israel’s attempts to destroy Khan Al Ahmar from the US government.
‘We are here and we will never leave.’ The residents of Khan Al Ahmar say they will not leave their homes.
Late on Thursday night the Israeli High Court put a temporary suspension on the demolition, but activists on the ground today in Khan Al Ahmar have reported that Israeli forces are continuing in their preparations.
Read this official statement from the village of Khan Al Ahmar here. The village is calling for further action from the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop the illegal demolition.
