Tag: Jerusalem - Page 34 - International Solidarity Movement

Twenty seven activists arrested at protest against settler expansion in Sheikh Jarrah

18 December 2009

For immediate release:

A peaceful demonstration of around 300 people, held in solidarity with the evicted Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, was violently dispersed by the Israeli police.

Following a violent dispersal of a similar demonstration last week, the police was blocking the roads in Sheikh Jarrah from the early afternoon, in an attempt to prevent protesters from reaching the Palestinian neighbourhood. They set up barriers at the entrance to the area and, before the demonstration even started, arrested an American activist, who was sitting in the back yard of the al-Kurd house, talking to the family.

Later on, twenty six Israeli protesters were arrested, three of them wearing clown costumes. Similarly to last week, the police used a section of the al-Kurd house, currently occupied by settlers, to detain the arrested demonstrators.

Demonstrators reported harsh violence committed by the police during the arrests. Assaf Sharon, one of the protesters, said: “This event represents a legitimate and non-violent protest of Palestinian, international and Israeli activists, against the ongoing campaign of evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, only for these to be taken over by extremist settlers. The police has been brutally dispersing these peaceful protests for the second week, while the Palestinian families live in constant fear of violent settler attacks.”

Last week, the police arrested 24 demonstrators, including 3 international activists. The arrestees reported ill-treatment by the police, who subjected them to several strip-searches, denied them food and water for prolonged periods of time and held them outside of the police station until late at night, with insufficient protection against the cold conditions. Israeli activists received a condition not allowing them to enter Sheikh Jarrah for 30 days from the judge, while the 3 foreign nationals were released only to be illegally arrested again and taken straight from the courtroom to a deportation facility. They were released early in the morning on Sunday, more than 40 hours after their initial arrest.

The actions of the police, followed by the court decisions, preventing activists from returning to the Palestinian neighbourhood for 30 days, shows their determination to discourage the growing protests against settler take-overs of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem.

Palestinian men praying outside of the al-Kurd house, occupied by settlers

The Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah have been suffering from violent attacks on the part of settlers who invaded their houses in recent months. Four Palestinian houses have been taken over since November 2008, displacing around 60 persons.

Background

Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.

So far, settlers took over houses of four Palestinian families, displacing around 60 residents, including 20 children. At present, settlers occupy all these houses and the whole area is patrolled by armed private security 24 hours a day. The evicted Palestinian families, some of whom have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular violent attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.

The Gawi family, for example, had their only shelter, a small tent built near their house, destroyed by the police and all their belongings stolen five times. In addition, the al-Kurd family has been forced to live in an extremely difficult situation, sharing the entrance gate and the backyard of their house with extremist settlers, who occupied a part of the al-Kurd home in December 2009. The settlers subject the Palestinian family to regular violent attacks and harassment, making their life a living hell.

The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to evict all Palestinians from the area and turn it into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.

Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.

Legal background

The eviction orders, issued by Israeli courts, are a result of claims made in 1967 by the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesseth Yisrael Association (who since sold their claim to the area to Nahalat Shimon) – settler organizations whose aim is to take over the whole area using falsified deeds for the land dating back to 1875. In 1972, these two settler organizations applied to have the land registered in their names with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA). Their claim to ownership was noted in the Land Registry; however, it was never made into an official registry of title. The first Palestinian property in the area was taken over at this time.

The case continued in the courts for another 37 years. Amongst other developments, the first lawyer of the Palestinian residents reached an agreement with the settler organizations in 1982 (without the knowledge or consent of the Palestinian families) in which he recognized the settlers’ ownership in return for granting the families the legal status of protected tenants. This affected 23 families and served as a basis for future court and eviction orders (including the al-Kurd family house take-over in December 2009), despite the immediate appeal filed by the families’ new lawyer. Furthermore, a Palestinian landowner, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, has legally challenged the settlers’ claims. In 1994 he presented documents certifying his ownership of the land to the courts, including tax receipts from 1927. In addition, the new lawyer of the Palestinian residents located a document, proving the land in Sheikh Jarrah had never been under Jewish ownership. The Israeli courts rejected these documents.

The first eviction orders were issued in 1999 based on the (still disputed) agreement from 1982 and, as a result, two Palestinian families (Hannoun and Gawi) were evicted in February 2002. After the 2006 Israeli Supreme Court finding that the settler committees’ ownership of the lands was uncertain, and the Lands Settlement officer of the court requesting that the ILA remove their names from the Lands Registrar, the Palestinian families returned back to their homes. The courts, however, failed to recognize new evidence presented to them and continued to issue eviction orders based on decisions from 1982 and 1999 respectively. Further evictions followed in November 2008 (Kamel al-Kurd family) and August 2009 (Hannoun and Gawi families for the second time). An uninhabited section of a house belonging to the al-Kurd family was taken over by settlers on 1 December 2009.

Israeli repression of Palestinian celebrations in the heart of Jerusalem

17 December 2009

A spectacular and proud celebration of Palestinian and Arab culture in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday, December 17, 2009, was brutally repressed by Israeli military and police.

A rare celebration of Palestinian and Arab culture in Jerusalem’s Old City started around 10:30am on Thursday, December 17, 2009, with a group of musicians leading a march from Damascus Gate to the very center of the Old City, attracting marchers and cheers from merchants and shoppers along the route. Thursday’s celebrations served not only as a reassertion of Palestinian identity in occupied Jerusalem, but also as a local closing event for Jerusalem as Capital of Arab Culture for 2009. The official closing ceremony, however, was held in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, that afternoon, since the Israeli government has prohibited such expressions of Palestinian identity and culture in the areas under its immediate military control, which include Jerusalem.

Out of eight buses transporting Palestinian who were planning to contribute to the festivities in the Old City, six were intercepted by Israeli forces before reaching their destinations.

At about 11:30am, the group of musicians was joined by a group of mostly young men and women simulating a traditional Palestinian wedding, and they together made their way toward the celebration’s planned end-point, Damascus Gate. Chanting wedding songs and throwing candy in the air along the way, the considerable crowd arrived at Damascus Gate at 12:15pm.

Only a few minutes before the activities would have ended and attendees dispersed, the celebrating Palestinians were cut off by a large group of Israeli police and Border Police, who had blocked their entry into the plaza in front of Damascus Gate. Half-way through chants, angry voices and voices in despair broke through, as parts of the crowd suddenly started pushing to move back, others to move forward, thus putting a bitter end to the amazing celebration.

The crowds would soon be allowed to pour through the gate, filling the square before it, in the midst of massive military and police presence. What ensued was marked by Israeli forces’ apparent desire to disperse the Palestinians, despite their wholly non-agressive stance. Flash arrests using exaggerated force were presumably meant to scare and humiliate the rest of the crowd from persisting in the plaza.

The first such violent arrest occured at 12:24pm, of a young Palestinian man. Just after, a British citizen was brutally apprehended, with large numbers of Palestinian women and men trying to prevent the police from taking him away, only to spur violent backlashes from the Israeli forces. The Palestinians’ attempts at nonviolently blocking the Israeli forces’ path, clinging on to the arrestee, or launching into verbal attempts at persuasion continued for the next hour, during which seven more Palestinian men would be arrested. The sudden and intense Israeli police aggression included the participation of a large number of undercover police who had infiltrated the preceding celebrations. Omar Ash-Shabi, secretary-general of Fatah in Jerusalem, was among those arrested.

So extreme was police brutality that several enraged officers had to be restrained by their own colleagues, in their blatant assaults on Palestinians. The formerly celebrating Palestinians, meanwhile, displayed utmost restraint through their nonviolent responses, including attempts at dearrest, to Thursday’s aggression by Israeli forces in the heart of Jerusalem.

In other places in the city, the French Cultural Centre and British consulate in Jerusalem were barricaded by Israeli forces, as they had each issued invitations for receptions marking the close of Jerusalem as 2009 Capital of Arab Culture. Meanwhile, several schools and a kindergarten in the area, planning to participate in the celebrations, are said to have been shut down, while several organizers and participants in the celebration later in the day reported that they had been stopped for questioning by Israeli forces when returning to their homes or workplaces.

Both Palestinians and experienced international solidarity activists expressed astonishment at the level of brutal and arbitrary nature of the Israeli police agression. The sweeping suppression of the events by Israeli forces far exceeded that of the Capital of Arab Culture in March, when three Palestinians were detained.

While a large show of foreign, Israeli and Palestinian press gave coverage to the Israeli police-military repression and Palestinian cultural resistance, very few had covered the preceding celebrations. Jerusalems’ status as the 2009 capital has suffered since the opening festival, when the event and all future celebrations were banned by the Israeli government, which refuses to recognize Jerusalem as a capital for all its citizens. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem encompasses not only the thousands of house evictions and demolitions in the city, but also Israel’s ongoing campaign to overwrite Jerusalem’s Palestinian history and culture with solely that of the Jewish people.

27 arrested, 3 wounded during Sheikh Jarrah protest

18 December 2009

Twenty-six Israeli protesters and one international solidarity activist were arrested and three Palestinian children wounded during a nonviolent demonstration against the Israeli settlement project in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah this Friday.

Over 300 people, Palestinians, internationals and Israelis, attended the weekly vigil. Last week 24 people were arrested during a similar protest that was also violently dispersed by Israeli Occupation Forces.

The apartheid state security forces blocked the roads leading into Sheikh Jarrah in an attempt to prevent protesters from entering the Palestinian neighborhood, but the demonstrators managed to reach the occupied al-Kurd house by splitting into smaller marches and descending on Sheikh Jarrah from the side streets, back alleyways, and rugged landscape behind the neighborhood.

When the march reformed, the demonstrators stood face-to-face against the police. The protesters sat-down, linked arms, and sang anti-occupation chants in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Police then moved in and began arresting the linked activists one by one. Most of the protesters suffered minor bumps and bruises while being dislodged from the human chain by the police snatch-squads.

One of the activists who joined the demonstration stated: “We are here today and every Friday to demand an end to the occupation of Sheikh Jarrah by the Israeli government and Jewish settlers. We call on the Israeli government to dismantle all settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. We are not using any violence. The only violence here today is the violence the police are using on us.”

Towards the end of the protest a group of nearly 100 settlers arrived to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and began throwing rocks at the house of a nearby Palestinian family. One 12 year old Palestinian boy was also chased into the street and beaten by settlers. Three Palestinian children were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Jerusalem culture event shut down by Israeli forces

Ma’an News

17 December 2009

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israeli forces arrested several and scuffled with Palestinians while shutting down a cultural festival meant to proclaim attachment to Jerusalem on Thursday.

Organizers, including Prisoners’ Club President Nasser Kaws, were hustled out of the Damascus Gate area of the Old City of Jerusalem and detained by Israeli border police, prompting scuffles at the main entrance into the ancient streets.

Also among those arrested was the secretary-general of Jerusalem’s Fatah movement Omar Ash-Shabi.

Crowds gathered at the site and groups sang traditional wedding songs, gathering in clusters around television cameras stationed on the stairs leading to the gate.

One participant in the event, meant to mark Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture 2009 which comes to an end at the close of this month, told reporters, “Israel used to say they detain everyone who threatens it with weapons, but look, are these people threatening it? They are just celebrating.”

A performer at the Jerusalem event noted, “Israel is an occupation so it is its job to marginalize Palestinian culture, but we will resist with our willpower. No one can suppress the Palestinian people.”

Intended to be a yearlong event sponsored by the Arab League, Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture was officially banned by Israel. The festival was marred by arrests and police raids.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem along with the West Bank in 1967 in a move not accepted by the international community.

Israeli forces also broke up a march planned by Palestinian scout troops and closed schools where cultural events were taking place.

Soldiers also surrounded the French Cultural Center and the British Council, where two simultaneous events were planned as the finale of Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture.

The two events were headed by Rafiq Al-Husseni the head of the Palestinian president’s office and the other by the Ahmad Ar-Ruwedi, the head of the Jerusalem unit in the president’s office.

Israeli officers handed out a written order from the Israeli minister of internal security stating that the cultural activities were prohibited.

Ar-Ruwedi listed the schools that were shut down by Israel: St. George’s School, Freres, At-Tefl Al-Arabi, Az-Zuhour Kindergarten, Dar Al-Awlad, and the Refugees Girls School.

In Nablus, thousands also attended a celebration of Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture, apparently organized by the local branch of Fatah. President Mahmoud Abbas gave opening remarks at the celebration in the northern West Bank city.

Abbas told the demonstration that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine. “Jerusalem is ours and it will remain ours,” he added.

Also attending the event in Nablus was Sheikh Abdallah Bin Zayid Al-Nahyan, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, and a number of Palestinian Authority officials.

Ethnic cleansing in Occupied East Jerusalem

From Pork to Palestine Blog

15 December 2009

I’ve spent the last few days on night duty in an occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah, accompanying two Palestinian families who have erected protest tents outside of their homes after they were forcibly evicted from them by the Israeli government and right-wing Jewish settlers.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house 28 Palestinian refugee families from the 1948 war. But after the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, some Israeli settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was built on as their own.

“On December 1, 60 soldiers came to my house and smashed all of my furniture,” said Nabeel Al-Kurd, one of 28 families in the neighborhood who have either been evicted or are threatened with it.

“They pushed my mother and beat her. My mother is 85 years old. She was taken to the hospital. From then until now, everyday, everyday there is trouble – fighting and shouting.”

Nabeel Al-Kurd has set up a protest tent on the paved entrance that divides the front section of the house from the back section. Every night, he uses the furniture that was smashed by the Israeli police during his eviction to fuel a fire to keep his family and international accompaniers warm during the cold winter nights.

“We sit in this stand, right inside the gate, because we are afraid if we leave they will take more ground and we will lose the rest of our house,” he said.

The International Solidarity Movement maintains a 24 hour a day, seven day a week presence in the neighborhood because the families living there face daily harrassment and threats by the Israeli settlers. Israeli police and military forces also maintain a permanent vigil on the street.

The Al-Kurd family is only one of several families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that have been forcibly evicted from their homes to allow Israeli settlers to gain a foothold in the pre-dominantly Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem.

On August 2, the Israeli Occupation Forces evicted two other Palestinian families, the Al-Gawi and Hannoun families, from their houses after they demolished the gates of the houses and forced the families to get out at gunpoint. Several of the family members were seriously wounded during the encounter.

Nasser Al-Gawi has also constructed a protest tent outside of his old house and maintains a permanent vigil across the street. Clashes between the Israeli Jewish settlers and Palestinian Muslims in the neighborhood are frequent and on-going. In the three days I have been in the neighborhood, I have witnessed almost constant harassment at all times of the day and night. The settlers hang Israeli flags from the Palestinian houses, swarm the neighborhood with dozens of young men, many of whom are armed, walk the streets with large, unmuzzled dogs, shout obscenities at the residents of the protest tents, and other deliberately provocative actions. Sometimes, the clashes turn violent. This morning, Israeli occupation forces tore down Nasser Al-Gawi’s protest tent (he later put up a new one and is still there as I write this).

Nasser, who has testified in front of the U.S. Congress about the situation in Sheikh Jarrah, calls Israeli policy in occupied East Jerusalem “the Judeazation of Al-Quds” (Arabic for Jerusalem).

“The name of the game is ethnic cleansing,” he told me while we sat in front of his campfire and shared tea around 1am yesterday morning.

“Israel wants the Palestinians out of East Jerusalem so they can claim the capital as their own.”

According to several International Solidarity Movement activists who have spent months providing protective accompaniment to the residents of Sheikh Jarrah, the aim of both the Israeli government and the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City from the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. Constructing new settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank is illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Late last night a young Palestinian man wearing a red and white kaffiyah, baggy pants, and a sideways New York Yankees hat stopped by to supplement the vigil during the late night evening hours.

“My name is Abraham,” he said smiling. “You know the prophet Abraham? Well I am not him.” He laughed.

Over the next few hours, Abraham told me that he had lived in Sheikh Jarrah for seven years, and was now a cook at a nearby restaurant. He dreams of becoming a successful rap superstar.

“I want to have a good life, a good job, and a beautiful wife,” he said. “But all around me are walls. Everytime I climb on top of one and jump over, there is another wall in front of me.”