8th February 2015 | Operation Dove | South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine
On the morning of February 6, Israeli soldiers arrested two Palestinian shepherds, one of them aged sixteen. The soldiers tried to arrest another Palestinian shepherd but villagers prevented the arrest by popular nonviolent action.
The two young Palestinian shepherds arrested by the Israeli military – Photo by Operation Dove
At about 10:40 a.m. four Palestinian shepherds were grazing their flocks on Khelly valley, in the South Hebron Hills area village of At-Tuwani, when the security chief of the Ma’on settlement arrived and called the Israeli army to prevent the shepherds from using land that is the object of settlement expansion. At 10:55 a.m. an Israeli Army jeep arrived in Khelly area and the soldiers started to run after the shepherds.
Soldiers pursuing the shepherd boys over the hills of At Tuwani – Photo by Operation Dove
The shepherds, who are all young boys, were scared and began to run away. The soldiers caught one Palestinian shepherd and immobilized him on the ground.
The soldiers grabbed a young shepherd in a chokehold, dragging him to the ground – Photo by Operation Dove
Meanwhile Palestinians from At-Tuwani reached the soldiers and, by a nonviolent popular action, freed the shepherds. The soldiers then drove after three of the shepherds as they moved their sheep back to their village. One shepherd was able to run away while the others two were prevented from leaving by the soldiers. At around 11:30 a.m. the soldiers put them inside the army jeep and drove away. At about 8 p.m. the Palestinians were released.
The two young shepherds being put into the army jeep – Photo by Operation Dove
This is the fifth time since the beginning of this year that Palestinian shepherds have been harassed in the Khelly area. The Israeli administration declared Khelly valley a “closed military area” in September 2013, and it is the site of frequent threats and violence by Israeli settlers and Israeli armed forces. This valley is Palestinian property where the Palestinians continue to resist with their daily work, despite of all the restrictions.
23rd November 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday evening Israeli forces beat and detained young Palestinians on Tel Rumeida hill in al-Khalil (Hebron).
Photo by Youth Against Settlements (https://www.facebook.com/media.yas)
A twenty-two-year-old man was taken from the scene by an ambulance. Four others between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four were handcuffed and detained in a military compound, where they were held for about half an hour and questioned by police.
When ISM activists arrived, Israeli soldiers were already swarming the scene, surrounding the injured man and taking the four detained Palestinians into the closed compound. At least thirty heavily armed soldiers stood guarding the compound and occupying the street.
Photo by Youth Against Settlements (https://www.facebook.com/media.yas)
Soldiers’ stories were contradictory, some said the youths had thrown a Molotov cocktail, others claimed they had been throwing stones. Though they purported to have evidence, the Israeli forces could produce none.
The father of one of the young men the soldiers had detained attempted to see his son, but was denied by the soldiers. A Palestinian contact at the scene explained that the man’s other son, the brother of the man arrested, had been shot in the head at age eighteen by Israeli soldiers and suffered brain damage as a result. The father hurled vitriol at the soldiers standing around the compound, cursing them and the Israeli occupation vividly in Arabic. “You shot my other son, now you want to kill him [the son who was detained]!”
The youth’s mother arrived later, accompanied by her son, the same brother who had been shot in the same neighborhood three years earlier. They were both also denied entry into the military compound where the four Palestinians were held.
Observers from ISM and a local Palestinian organization watched from a nearby roof, as the Palestinians stood handcuffed among soldiers and police. Though no more violence occurred in the compound, later in the night a few Palestinian youths ran out from a nearby side street and one threw a Molotov cocktail toward the parked military vehicles, causing no injuries or damage. Over eighteen Israeli soldiers ran up the road in a fruitless attempt to pursue the boys.
Further up the street, soldiers attempted to set up a roadblock using Palestinian cars. They ordered the drivers to park across the road, taking their keys and placing them on top of the vehicles. Israeli forces made no attempt, however, to enforce their order; the Palestinian drivers took an opportunity to drive away once the soldiers moved back down the road.
An ISM activist present stated, “I’ve never seen soldiers do something like this before, and it was clear the men in the cars were very confused and frightened. The soldiers then moved down another road, and detained a young man and stopped several cars. They were very hostile; pointing their guns aggressively at everyone, there seemed to be little point to their behaviour beyond intimidation and harassment.”
It was only one incident in a night of strange occurrences, among weeks of tension, violence and frustration for the people of Tel Rumeida. Palestinians at the scene spoke of incidents on other nights, in other places, at other times, as occupation soldiers indiscriminately harassed the local population. All five of the young Palestinians were from the neighbourhood, and the four arrested were driven away as their neighbours and families looked on. The complete lack of evidence did, however, apparently sway the police; a local Palestinian source reported that all the Palestinians who had been detained were released at a nearby checkpoint.
