Tag: Live Ammunition - Page 22 - International Solidarity Movement

The fog of war: remembering Muhammad al-Durrah

30th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Chaos in the streets of Gaza. Israeli forces showered the strip with gunfire while Palestinian medics ran frantically to evacuate those crumpled on the ground with blood rushing from holes in their bodies before racing for cover themselves. Running from the violent, precision Israeli military assault, some were felled in the act as lethal and non lethal projectiles met with their skin. …And behind a waist-high concrete cylinder a Palestinian father and his 12 year old son Muhammad took cover.

It is the second day of the second intifada and it was fifteen years ago today.

The spark of the furious uprising was lit by then Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, after visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Violence saturated Jerusalem, soon racing through the West Bank and Gaza. A second mass uprising, an intensified Palestinian resistance to Israel’s criminal subjugation of them. Four and a half years of shaking off.

Photo of Mohammed hiding behind his father Photo credit: France 2 — Photo of Mohammed hiding behind his father
Photo credit: France 2

If any image were to encapsulate the tragedies of what was termed in the report following the incident, where Israel issued an apology for the boy’s murder, describing it as a ‘fog of war,’ it would be a young Palestinian boy and his father kneeling on the ground, eyes wide in terror just seconds before the unthinkable happened. Filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian cameraman freelancing for France 2, Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son Muhammad are seen, backs pressed against the wall, Jamal’s arm shielding his young son whose mouth is oval with what must have been a paralyzing fear. And then the shots.

When the cloud of dust cleared, the boy is on his side, draped over his father’s lap.

Throughout an enduing four and a half year widespread Palestinian resistance, with all of its gut wrenching failures, and with the solace and strengths of solidarity en masse coming from both the history before the second intifada and the aftermath in its’s wake, the slaughter of Muhammad al-Durrah continues to be a defining moment. A young boy viewed guilty through the eyes of the Israeli military due only to the origin of his birth.

In the investigation to follow, an Israeli-initiated tug of war of blame across the grave of and over Muhammad’s murder ensued. Where initially the Israeli government took blame and expressed public relational regret with an apology, that space soon became occupied with denials, accusations and disturbing tales of Palestinian’s faking the boy’s death. If only Palestinians weren’t so busy mourning the actual mass murders of their children in order to be able to spontaneously arrange for the staged murder of one, a second intifada might not have been necessary, nor a third or a fourth for that matter.

Without politicizing the end of a human life, in a 67 year crime drenched in politics; fifteen years ago today a terrified little boy was shot to death while he hid beside his father. And the world should remember his name.

Warning graphic content! Raw footage of Mohammed ad-Durrah’s final moments of his life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arRgkXDLwlM&w=420&h=315

Senseless violence against Palestinian demonstrators in al-Khalil (Hebron)

29th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestin

Today in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces ruthlessly attacked a peaceful demonstration.
The demonstration was organised against the Israeli forces deadly shooting of 18 year old martyr Hadeel Hashlamoun at a Tel Rumeida checkpoint yawning into segregated Shuhada Street.
Israeli forces started shooting endless rounds of stun-grenades at the protestors. An ISMer present there explains: “The sound of stun grenades kept echoing throughout most of the day.” Many of the stun grenades were also directly targeted at Palesinian family homes’ roofes as well as fruit stands in the neighbourhood around the checkpoint.

Israeli soldier shooting rubber-coated steel bullet from a Palesitnian house

In the evening, rubber coated steel bullets were shot by Israeli forces at the youth. At least two persons were injured, one in the arm, and another one in the leg.

Israeli forces targeting demonstrators with rubber-coated steel bullets

Unproportional use of force against Palestinian demonstrators is widespread throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Watch a video of Israeli forces shooting rubber-coated steel bullets at the demonstrators:

Hadil Salah Hashlamoun honoured by thousands in Al-Khalil

23rd September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today, 23rd September 2015, thousands of mourners gathered for the funeral of murdered teenager Hadil Salah Hashlamoun. The teenager was brutally gunned down in cold blood by an Israeli soldier at a military check point.

Tensions were high as Hadil’s body was taken from Al Hussein Mosque, through the streets of al-Khalil. Thousands paid their respects to the fallen martyr, and joined her final journey as she was taken to her final resting place.

The promising student who had been passing peacefully through a checkpoint early on Tuesday morning is believed to have been shot several times. Eye witnesses state that an Israeli soldier approached her and began shouting at her in Hebrew, which she was unable to understand, it is at this point that she was shot dead.

The teenagers funeral passed off peacefully, as per the wishes of her devastated family. After the funeral, a demonstration was organised later in the day at Bab iz-Zawwiya and attacked by occupying Israeli military firing hundreds of stun-grenades, tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets into the crowd. Several injuries were reported.

Israeli Forces Murder Female Student at Shuhada Street Checkpoint: “They could have arrested her so easily but they didn´t.”

22nd September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

A Witness Recounts the Final Moments of 18-year-old Hadil Salah Hashlamoun’s Life.

This morning in the Tel Rumeida section of al-Khalil (Hebron) the sound of multiple rounds of live ammunition screamed out from the Shuhada Street checkpoint 56.

Standing at the checkpoint around 7:40 this morning, 34 year old Fawaz abu Aisheh ushered a few children from the scene where Israeli forces screamed in Hebrew at the terrified Hadil who was on her way to school. “They were screaming at her, ´Move back! Move Back!´ I knew she couldn´t understand so I intervened in Arabic and she listened to me immediately and I took her from the entrance to the exit of the checkpoint.”

In the photo, Hadil, in burqa, stands with Fawaz just off the foreground. “I tried to talk with her, she was terrified. She knew nothing.” Fawaz pleaded with the soldiers, who were multiplying quickly, to allow him to take her away from the checkpoint, to explain to her what was happening, to de-escalate the situation. “She listened to me immediately when first I spoke with her, but they moved me away and continued to scream at her in Hebrew which she obviously didn´t understand.”

18-year old Palestinian student moments before being shot to death by Israeli forces Photo credit: Youth Against Settlement — 18-year old Palestinian student moments before being shot to death by Israeli forces
Photo credit: Youth Against Settlement

The scene, plainly described by Fawaz, seemingly had any number of alternatives to close-range, rapid fire, kill shots into a Palestinian female teenager´s body. After the fact, Israeli forces claimed the woman had a knife on her person. Fawaz challenges this contention. “She was covered completely, there was no knife showing at any time. Even if she did have a knife he could have arrested her so easily. I was there… I could have talked to her, she cooperated with me in that very first moment. I asked her to move and she moved but after that I begged him to let me talk to her but they took me away from her and started pointing their weapons at me. After they shot her more and more soldiers arrived. There were still 3 or 4 kids a few meters from the checkpoint so I moved the kids away. ”

As if the incident weren´t wholly disturbing in itself, beyond the shooting, Israeli soldiers were seen laughing, smiling and talking casually with one another as Hadil clung to life while rapidly losing blood to the concrete. Israeli settlers similarly stood in circles photographing Hadil. Fawaz noted that the Palestinian ambulance had arrived within five minutes to rush the dying girl to the hospital, yet Israeli forces blocked them from getting to her, choosing rather to let her bleed openly for forty minutes in the street until an Israeli ambulance arrived. In that agonizing period of time, an Israeli soldier was seen dragging the dying young woman by her feet.

18-year-old Hadil Salah Hashlamoun died of her wounds only after arriving at a hospital in Jerusalem. The question of whether she would have lived had she been permitted the right to be treated immediately by the quickly arriving Palestinian ambulance rather than left to bleed out for an eternity of forty minutes may never be answered.

If humanity, in any measure, exists within the occupying entity, it was shockingly absent today at the Shuhada Street checkpoint.

Israeli forces violently attack demontrants in Kafr Qaddum

18th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine

Today in Kafr Qaddum, a village close to Nablus, Israeli forces injured almost 100 people.
Israeli forces attacked the village at around 11 am and invaded a family home. Upon breaking into the house Israeli forces attacked the whole family with pepper-spray. The 2 year old Bisan, 6 year old Moemen, 8 year old Nour and a 55-year old woman were all pepper-sprayed. The Israeli Forces then prevented any medical aid from assisting the family after this aggression.
Three people were injured with live ammunition by Israeli forces, a 13-year old boy and a 46-year old man in the leg and another man was ambushed and shot with live ammunition by Israeli forces while he was in his brothers house. They are being treated in a hospital in Nablus. 75 people had to be treated for exhessive tear gas inhalation.

kq1 — Israeli bulldozer at the demonstration

An 8-year old girl was shot in the head with a sponge bullet by Israeli forces, and a 55-year old man with a sponge bullet in the arm.
The Israeli army also sprayed family homes with foul-smelling skunk water, inflicting collective punishment on the whole village. Weekly Friday demonstrations in Kafr Qaddum protest against the closure of the main road leading to the city of Nablus because of the illegal settlement of Qedumim. This weeks demonstration was also in protest of Israeli aggressions against and inside al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.