Tag: Kafr Qaddum - Page 6 - International Solidarity Movement

9-year-old girl shot with live ammunition during Friday demonstrations in Kafr Qaddum

24th January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Tulkarm team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine

On the 22nd of January, when villagers of Kafr Qaddum carried out their weekly demonstration against the surrounding settlement of Kedumim, Israeli forces attacked them with the use of tear gas and live ammunition. Two men got shot in their legs and 9-year old Ayat Zahi Ali was shot in her arm, all of them with live bullets. Earlier that morning in the same village a farmer was ambushed and beaten when he was going out to work his land.

Since 2011 the people of Kafr Qaddum have protested the theft of their land and the Israeli closure of the village main road with weakly demonstrations. The villagers stated that they had a strange feeling on the night between Thursday and Friday, suspecting that Israeli forces may have entered the village in the cover of the dark to prepare for an ambush during Friday demonstration. Their worries were verified in the morning when a farmer that was walking onto his land got ambushed and beaten by soldiers that were hiding in the bushes.

In fear of more soldiers hiding in the village the route for the demonstration was changed and people were extra cautious. One hour after the protest started Israeli soldiers showed up and immediately started shooting live ammunition towards the crowd. Two men, Hamza Abu Khaled, 21 and Abd Allah Anwar, 40, were shot in their legs. According to villagers one of the bullets shattered the bone.

Ayat Zahi Ali, 9 years old, was shot in her left upper arm with live ammunition while she was inside her father’s house. Her uncle and family members carried her to a red crescent ambulance. Israeli forces entered the village with a military bulldozer armed with snipers and continued to fire tear gas and live ammunition at the protesters and nearby the houses.

qaddumwm1 — Ayat Zahi Ali is being carried after being shot by Israeli forces. Photo credit: ISM

qaddumwm2 — A bullet fired at villagers. Photo credit: ISM

qaddumwm3 — Military bulldozer entering the village, with a sniper in the right window. Photo credit: ISM

Ayat is not the first young girl that has been injured by Israeli live bullets in Kafr Qaddum in recent times. In September 2015, Israeli soldiers shot the 3 year old Maram Abed al-Latif al-Qaddumiwaa in her head while she was standing on her balcony. When her father rushed to help her he was also shot in the head.

The main road that leads to Kafr Qaddum is cut off by a permanent roadblock, making the journey to the main road three times longer than necessary. This again is illegal according to an Israeli court decision from 2010, but the road is still kept closed.

Israeli forces rebuild roadblock in Kafr Qaddum

16th January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Tulkarem team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine

On the 16th of January, Israeli forces shot a young protester with live ammunition while the villagers of Kafr Qaddum were protesting the theft of their land. The Israeli military also rebuilt a roadblock, restricting the movement of the villagers even further.

Israeli military buldozer enters the village. Kedumim settlement in the background. Photocredtit:ISM — Israeli military buldozer enters the village. Kedumim settlement in the background. Photo credit: ISM

Kafr Qaddum neighbours the illegal Israeli settlement of Kedumin that was established in 1976. The illegal settlement now occupies five hilltops next to Kafr Qaddum, and houses more than 3000 illegal Israeli settlers.

More than half of the village’s land is located in Area C, which makes it a part of the approximately 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control. This means that many villagers need to get a special permission from the Israeli authorities to access their own land. Getting this permission is almost impossible, and a lot of villagers that do receive a permission complain that Israel only allows them to enter their land for a few days per year, thus not giving them enough time to cultivate their land.

In 2003 the Israeli military closed the entrance of the village by constructing a permanent roadblock. The residents are now forced to drive a 13km long detour in order to reach the main road into the village. In 2010, after waiting five years for a court decision, an Israeli court ruled that the closure of the road is illegal, but also stated, inaccurately, that the road is too dangerous to travel, and the Israeli army has used that as an excuse to keep the road closed ever since.

In addition to the permanent roadblock placed next to the entrance of the Kedumim settlement, Israeli forces have periodically put an extra dirt mound as a roadblock on the same road approximately 1 kilometer before the permament roadblock. One Ppalestinian family-home is closed of and isolated from the rest of the village by this dirt mound, and both cars and ambulances are prevented from driving to this particular home. This roadblock also limits the residents’ acces to their farmlands even further. To reach their land in this part of the village, they now have to go by foot, and are forced to carry their harvest and all the tools that are necessary for the work by hand.

The reconstructed roadblock, in the village of Kufr qaddum. Photocredit:ISM — The reconstructed roadblock, in the village of Kafr Qaddum. Photo credit: ISM

Every Friday and Saturday the residents of Kafr Quddum protest the road-closure and the theft of their lands. During last weeks Friday demonstration, Israeli soldiers together with an Israeli military bulldozer entered the village. One Israeli sniper hid on the bulldozer and shot a young protester in his leg as soon as the Israeli military entered the village. When protesters drew back to seek cover the bulldozer and the Israeli Forces started rebuilding the roadblock, that was removed only a few weeks ago.

Since July 2014, the Israeli Occupation Forces have been using live ammunition more frequently. To this day, more than 70 protesters have been injured with live ammunition. Protesters have also sustained serious injuries after being hit by ‘less-lethal ammunition’. One protester is blind on one eye after being hit by a rubber coated metal bullet, and protesters have sustained serious brain damage after being hit by this kind of bullet or tear gas canisters in their head.

During the Saturday protest on the 9th of January, a 60-year old villager was hit in his leg with live ammunition when he was walking back home from a visit at his neighbours house. An Israeli sniper hid behind a parked car, and international observers state that live ammunition was frequently used during the non-violent protest, even though the demonstrators posed no threat to the soldiers at all.

4 protesters shot in Kafr Qaddum demonstration

December 11th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Tulkarm team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine

Friday, December 11th, in Kafr Qaddum, the Israeli occupation forces shot three young men in the legs with tutu, and a fourth youth was injured with a rubber coated steel bullet at a demonstration protesting the road closure. Two illegal Israeli settlements located between Kafr Qaddum and Jit have blocked the Palestinian road and the Israeli occupation forces have been shooting protesters that just want to travel from one village to the other. The protest has been happening every Friday at 12:30 pm and will also be every Saturday at 2:30 pm.

Standing at the end of the road, protesters started a fire. The Israeli occupation forces moved towards the protesters. Without using tear gas to disperse the crowd, as was done the week earlier, the Israeli soldiers simply began to shoot rubber coated steel bullets at the unarmed Palestinian boys. The crowd began to run away from the seven soldiers. Several boys carried the injured to the ambulance. The Meta Peace Team, press and ISM were there to witness the event.

There was one Israeli man standing against the Israeli soldiers and yelling in Hebrew “you are criminals using live ammunition against unarmed people” and “your commanding officer is sending you to hell.” Road closures near illegal Israeli settlements are just one example of how the Israeli settlers control the military and governmental policy to some extent. According to the mayor of Kafr Qaddum, over 70 Palestinians have been shot so far by Israeli occupation forces at demonstrations there.

4 protesters were injured during the protest

Israeli forces attacks demonstration in Kafr Qaddum

10th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine

In the afternoon of October 9th 2015 in Kafr Qaddum, Israeli forces preempted a peaceful demonstration with an ovewhelming display of military power by shooting an unarmed man with live ammunition in the thigh and abdomen. This man is Moayad Shtaiwi, 61, and when he was shot just after midday. He was dressed in professional clothing, face uncovered, standing three hundred metres from the Israeli bulldozer, waving the Palestinian flag in one hand and making a peace sign with the other. He was carried to medical assistance by several others on the scene, during which he lost enough blood to necessitate a transfusion and emergency surgery. The shrapnel created by the bullet lacerated his themoral artery and colon, and put him in critical condition.

Moayyad Shtaiwi carried off to an ambulance after being shot

Though a peaceful demonstration was planned for later that day, at the time that forces began to advance just a few people were loosely gathered and nothing had begun. Before the sniper shot Mr Shtaiwi, Israeli forces were moving down the residential street toward the demonstrators with a bulldozer, a jeep, a truck-mounted cannon used for spraying skunk water, and around thirty soldiers, while at least two rubber-coasted steel bullets had been fired at Palestinian children. Soldiers attacked the children and private Palestinian homes on the street and hillside with noxious skunk water chemicals, and continued to shoot live rounds into the crowd. Children scattered into the surrounding hillside where the Israeli forces circled around them and mounted several snipers atop the hill from which they shot endless rounds of both live and rubber-coated steel bullets and rained down several blasts of tear gas. What was left of the peaceful demonstrators began to disperse shortly after 3pm.

Moayad Shtaiwi waving the Palestinian flag

Moayad Shtaiwi was shot and critically injured by Israeli forces

Father and 3-year old daughter shot in the head by Israeli forces in Kafr Qaddum

25th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine

Palestinians in the village Kafr Qaddum in the occupied West Bank endured an hours-long siege by Israeli forces earlier while demonstrating against occupation, ending in a 3 year old Palestinian girl and daughter of Nablus police chief, Colonel Abd al-Latif al-Qaddumi being shot in the face with a rubber coated steel bullet as she stood on the balcony of her family home.

3-year old girl shot with rubber-coated steel bullet by Israeli forces

Both the girl, Maram Abed al-Latif al-Qaddumi, and her father who was subsequently also shot in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet as he rushed to aid his heavily bleeding daughter, were treated at Rafidia Hospital and released.
For three hours, Israeli forces and Israeli border police had Palestinians, journalists and international human rights monitors trapped along a village road in several houses along with a local Mosque, as every time a Palestinian stepped into the road, rapid fire rubber coated steel bullets, foam bullet projectiles, live ammunition, sound bombs and teargas canisters fired from venom trucks were showered into the street.

Palestinians marching against occupation

Three times the Israeli military skunk truck entered the village road spraying organic waste water at homes where Palestinians were taking cover from the violent assault. For several hours after the dousing of the foul smelling composition in the village, Palestinian families were seen scrubbing the streets in front of their homes to remove the smell that lasts for up to ten days.

Instances of extreme violence against Palestinians have circulated throughout the West Bank this week after Israeli forces murdere 18 year old unarmed female Palestinian student, Hadeel al-Hashlamon, at an al-Khalil checkpoint near segregated Shuhada Street and Ahmad Izzat Khatatbeh, 26, died from his wounds after being shot three times in the shoulder, chest and abdomen at the Beit Furik checkpoint last Friday. These murders accompany a sharp rise in house raids, street harassment and settlers attacks including on a Palestinian shop in al-Khalil and settler machine gun fire on Palestinian homes in the Qeitun neighborhood.