Tag: Nablus

by ISM Nablus, October 19, 2006

The Nablus region, with its three refugee camps, many villages, Old City and sprawling city center has been a scene of consistent Israeli violence. Such violence has accelerated since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada in September 2000. Nablus has become synonymous with nightly invasions, targeted assassinations, home demolitions and other acts of violence by the occupation forces.

This report combines the reporting of eight Palestinian and Israeli news sources to document the violence perpetuated by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) in the Nablus region. The various news sources were used to generate an accurate and complete report, and the factual differences in reporting were taken into account and investigated. Sometimes it was not possible to locate arrestees names, or places of birth, though this information was recorded whenever available.

The invasions of villages of the Nablus region were noted, though the invasions of the refugee camps and city were not because of the regularity. Nablus Old City, Balata Refugee Camp, Askar Refugee Camp and Ein Beit el Ma Refugee Camp (known simply as Ein) are invaded nearly every night. The Old City as well as Askar and Balata Refugee Camps have rarely gone 24 hours without the presence of IOF soldiers firing at citizens. Because of the regularity of these invasions, and the presumption that they are occurring each and every day, invasions are only noted when they involve significant property destruction, arrests, injuries or deaths.

In thirty days in the Nablus region:

• 6 Palestinians were killed by Israeli military personal.
• At least 18 Palestinians were injured by IOF attacks.
• At least 63 Palestinians were arrested.

Below you will find a day by day account of incidents of arrests, injuries, killings, village invasions and other such incidents of occupation violence. See also the previous ISM Nablus report “Three days in Nablus: Four Killed, Six Injured, Eight Arrested“.

September

Tuesday 19th

IOF stormed Askar refugee camp, invaded houses in Nablus city, and invaded homes in Osarin village, southeast of Nablus city. In total, seven people were arrested:

• Rashad Yassein, 16, from Askar camp
• Fadi Abu Koshik, 18, from Askar camp
• Bara’a Abu Ja’far, 21, from Nablus city
• Amin Qdili, 20, from Osarin village
• Turki Adili, 20, from Osarin village
• Salim Azimah, 19, from Osarin village
• Haitham Adili, 20, from Osarin village

Wednesday 20th

IOF invaded Beit Furik village, east of Nablus city, and arrested Firas Mlitat, 26. Later that day, another unnamed Palestinian male was arrested at Jit checkpoint.

Thursday 21st

During an incursion into Nablus city nine Palestinians were arrested:

• Ferass Militat, 30
• Nafeth Ahmad Al Faqeeh, 23, from the Hebron region
• Mohammed Ahmad Al Faqeeh, 21, from the Hebron region
• Yousef Ahmad Ayed Al Faqeeh, 20, from the Hebron region
• Nassem Al Khzari, 32
• One unnamed woman from Balata Refugee Camp
• Two unnamed resistance fighters, from Nablus city

Sunday 24th

IOF fired at a Palestinians taxi approaching Nablus from Ramallah, injuring four people:

• Ali Mohammed Al-Aqra, from Qabalan village, suffered a head injury
• Maged Snuber, 33, from Qabalan village, was shot in the left hand
• Jamil Abdur-Rahman, from Qabalan village, was wounded in the hand and back
• Mohammed Al-Aqra, from Qabalan village, shot in the back and suffered hand injuries

Tuesday 26th

IOF invaded Nablus Old City and shot Amjad Anabtawi, 22, from Nablus Old City. Anabtawi was shot in the chest and critically injured.

Wednesday 27th

IOF invaded Balata Refugee Camp, and injured three unnamed Palestinian males. Soldiers attacked the Qattaui building, arresting three people:

• Ala’ Shary’ah, 21
• Jihad Yusef Shamah Dukan, 17
• Abdullah Khaled Mahmod Qatari, 17

Three unnamed Palestinian males from Nablus Old City were also arrested that night.

Thursday 28th

IOF invaded Rujeib village, south of Nablus, and Assira Al-Shamalila village, north of Nablus. Homes were invaded and searched and private property was destroyed.

IOF invaded Balata refugee camp, and destroyed a number of shops with an armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozer. Two Palestinians were arrested:

• Du’a Hussin, 20 (female)
• One unnamed Palestinian male.

Friday 29th

IOF invaded Ein and Balata Refugee Camps, as well as Nablus Old City, searching shops and destroying private property.

October

Sunday 1st

IOF closed the line for senior citizens at Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus city center. Palestinian demonstrators threw stones in protest, and were shot with tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets.

Wednesday 4th

Nablus city and Balata Refugee Camp were invaded in the night and two Palestinian males were arrested:

• Muhammad Abu Halimah, 17, from Nablus city
• Ammar Hassanain, 26, from Nablus city.
• Nasir Hasan Mansur, 40, from Kafr Qallil village, south of Nablus, was shot in his foot by IOF soldiers stationed at Beit Ur checkpoint, while he was sitting in front of his house.

Thursday 5th

One unnamed Palestinian male arrested in southern Nablus city.

Friday 6th

Six unnamed Palestinian males arrested in Nablus city.

Saturday 7th

IOF invaded Askar Refugee Camp. Two unnamed Palestinian males arrested:

• One unnamed man arrested south of Nablus city center.
• One unnamed man arrested in Salim village, east of Nablus.

IOF, stationed near the Apartheid wall, shot Farid Tu’amah in his abdomen, and left him bleeding for 20 minutes while the ambulance was banned from reaching the scene of the shooting.

Sunday 8th

IOF invaded Balata Refugee Camp and killed one Palestinian male:

• Usama Saleh, 23, known locally as “Skipper,” shot twice in the chest.
• Four additional unnamed Palestinian males were injured during the invasion.

Mohammed El-Haj Tirawi, 23, from Balata Camp shot dead while attempting to pass Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus city center, via a bypass road. The checkpoint was closed because of the Jewish holiday. During the attack by IOF soldiers, Ahmed Hazzaa Ramadan, 21, from Til village was shot in the shoulder and injured.

IOF arrested three unnamed Palestinian males from Nablus city.

Monday 9th

IOF invaded Nablus city, targeting a number of houses in Jabal Al- Shamali, and Wad Al-Toffah areas. Three unnamed Palestinian males were arrested.

Wednesday 11th

IOF raided Nablus Old City, as well as Ein, Balata and Askar Refugee Camps. Armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers destroyed water pumps and pipes, and also causing damage to the central market in Askar Camp.

During the invasion into Ein Camp, one man was shot and killed: Abdullah Mansour, 29, from Jericho city, was shot and killed while looking out the window of a relative’s house.

Five Palestinian males were arrested in Nablus Old City and Balata Refugee Camp:

• Fadi Ziad Galiz, 18, from Nablus Old City
• Mohammad Ziad Galiz, 25, from Nablus Old City
• Azmi Tawfiq Al Serafi, 20, from Balata Refugee Camp
• Abu Rish, 20, from Balata Refugee Camp
• Hussam, 20, from Balata Refugee Camp

Two unnamed Palestinian males were arrested near Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus city center, during the night.

IOF established additional closure barriers at Yitzhar checkpoint, south of Nablus, forcing Palestinians to use bypass roads.

Thursday 12th

IOF at Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus city center, shot and killed Mohammed Waleed Mustafa Sa’ada, 20, from Til village, as he approached soldiers searching a taxi.

Two unnamed Palestinian males were arrested, one from Nablus city and one from Ein Refugee Camp.

Friday 13th

IOF raided Beit Furik village, east of Nablus. Military vehicles entered the village, imposing curfew.

All men under the age of 45 were denied passage through Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus city center. One unnamed Palestinian male was beaten and thereafter arrested.

Sunday 15th

A number of Palestinians were arrested under suspicion of possessing a pistol or knife in their car.

Mohamed Rabai’a, 28, from Nablus city was arrested under unclear circumstances, while his brother was detained for over one hour.

Monday 16th

IOF invaded Nablus city and Balata Refugee Camp and arrested three Palestinian males:

• Motaz Affouri, 23, from Nablus city
• Iyad Tirawi, 22, from Balata Refugee Camp.
• An unnamed Palestinian male from Nablus city.

Tuesday 17th

Two Palestinian brothers killed in Ein Refugee Camp, west of Nablus, by IOF Special Forces:

• Adel Abu Al-Rish, 24, shot with ten bullets in chest and head.
• Firas Al-Rish, 22

Several people were also injured. Soon after the assassination IOF reinforcements carried out a full invasion of the camp.

Wednesday 18th

IOF invaded Beit Iba village, north of Nablus, and Nablus Old City arresting five Palestinian males:

• Khalid Ismael Ramadan, from Beit Iba village (brother of Mohammed)
• Mohammed Ismael Ramadan, from Beit Iba village (brother of Khalid)
• Fuad Safwan, 25, from Nablus city
• Ihaab Mahmad As’ad Karhash, 22, from Taluza village
• Ahassan Ali Hussein Vah, 25, from Nablus city

Sources

• Ma’an News Agency (Palestinian news source, online)
• WAFA News Agency (Palestinian news source, online)
• Independent Middle East Media Center (Palestinian-Israeli news source, online)
• Al-Jazeera News (Arab news network, online)
• Ha’aretz (Israeli newspaper, online)
• Jerusalem Post (Israeli newspaper, online)
• Ynet News (Israeli newspaper, online)
• Israeli Defense Force (military press statements, online)

by ISM Nablus, 18th October

Qusin is a small picturesque village located in the green rolling hills just west of Nablus city and adjacent to the Israeli colony of Qedumim. Since the height of the Al-Aqsa intifada, the village has been spared overtly violent military incursions, but there are many other problems that prevent the villagers from going about their daily lives as normal.

About three months ago, a several kilometer long coil of razor-wire was put up by the Israeli military in order to prevent university students and workers from the village from reaching Nablus without being forced to suffer an arduous wait at Beit Iba checkpoint. Many of these people, especially the young men, are subjected to daily internment in a special holding-pen at the checkpoint. Claiming to be “checking” their IDs, Israeli soldiers hold them prisoner there for hours every day, sometimes confiscating their mobile phones and refusing them access to water and bathroom facilities. The same people are made to wait day after day even though the soldiers manning the checkpoint know their names and faces very well by now. If they attempt to go around the checkpoint, their taxi drivers are invariably stopped and made to wait for at least two hours as a punishment. In some cases, the military even confiscate or vandalise the cars.

The village council has requested that international solidarity workers accompany farmers to their land during the olive harvest, due to harassment from Israeli military forces. Two days ago, a couple of families with land on the far side of an Israeli bypass road and about 200 meters from Qedumim colony started harvesting their olives. As the electronic school bell rang out from the Israeli colony and the usually unmistakably positive but now so unsettling sound of children playing subsided, landowner Abu Ramsi explained the problems facing the village: “We are not afraid of the settlers. They are good people. But the soldiers always come to chase us off and prevent us from picking our olives.” Soldiers also prevent Palestinians from crossing the Israeli bypass road with their tractors, essential for transporting equipment and the harvested fruit.

The past two days have passed without incident. Military vehicles circled the area and at times stopped to watch the work from afar but did not interfere. Today, Israeli border police were driving back and forth on the settler-military only road for a while, before deciding to stop and assess the situation. One of them swung the jeep door open and looked ready to step out, when he caught sight of international solidarity workers armed with cameras and legal papers. Accompanied by peals of laughter from women of the village, he thought better of it mid-step, closed the door and drove away.

Every last olive on the far side of the bypass road has now been picked and the families continue picking on the near side to the village, where the risks are not so great. Inspired by last weekend’s generous downpour of rain, the slopes of Qusin are dotted with harvesters in colourful dresses and kerchiefs. Olives, chubby and sleek, fall onto tarpaulins and into buckets and pockets – a bumper harvest representing the coming year’s livelihood for thousands of Palestinian farmers all over the West Bank.

This year’s harvest will be far larger than last year’s, in accordance with how olive growth normally fluctuates (every two years there is a large harvest). In dire times like these, with the European boycott strangling what was left of the Palestinian economy, a full harvest is especially important. The importance of the olive harvest this year explains why farmers are expecting unusually high levels of violence, theft and other forms of sabotage from Israeli settlers and soldiers. In light of these circumstances, it is vital that as many international solidarity workers as possible make their way to Palestine to accompany farmers to their land, bear witness to the oppression facing them and make sure that every last olive is picked.

Remember, harvesting is resisting!

by ISM Nablus, October 11th

The funeral of Abdullah Mansour, murdered by Israeli soldiers. Photo credit: AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh

The Nablus region is constantly under siege by soldiers from the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). In the past three days in Nablus alone, IOF soldiers have killed four Palestinians, injured more than six, and seized at least eight.

Around 2am this morning, IOF soldiers carried out four separate military invasions in the Nablus area. IOF soldiers invaded Al-Ain Refugee Camp, Balata Refuge Camp, Askar Refuge Camp as well as the Old City of Nablus. During the incursion into Al-Ain Camp, an IOF sniper shot and killed Abdullah Mansour 29, of Jericho. Mansour was visiting the home of a relative, and was shot in the head while observing the actions of the IOF from a balcony window. Mansour was not immediately killed by the sniper’s bullet and his life might have been saved if he had been given timely medical care, but as often occurs, his ambulance was prevented from reaching the area by IOF soldiers attempting to impose a closure on the area during their operations.

Some Israeli media sources reported that Mansour was a resistance fighter, shot while attempting to plant a bomb, but this account is contradicted by eyewitness reports from neighbors, a nearby photojournalist, as well as medical personnel. Monsour was a civilian, not a fighter, and he was shot from within a relative’s home, not on the street planting a bomb.

On the same night Mansour was murdered, IOF solders invaded the Nablus Al-Qaryoun neighborhood in the Old City, as well as Balata and Askar refugee camps. In the course of the four incursions, five Palestinian males were taken prisoner by IOF soldiers. In Nablus’ Old City, IOF soldiers broke into numerous homes and seized two brothers, Fadi Ziad Galiz 18, and Mohammad Ziad Galiz, 25. During the attack, which lasted from 2am until 4am, IOF soldiers occupied the Afuri building just outside of the Al-Qaryoun square and used the building as on observation position.

The same night, IOF soldiers invaded Balata Refuge Camp and Askar Refuge Camp. In Balata, IOF soldiers seized three men, Azmi Tawfiq Al Serafi, 20, Abu Rish, 20 and another 20 year old man known only as Hussam. The invasion into Askar Refugee camp utilized an armored, American-made Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in addition to the standard armored army jeeps. The Caterpillar trudged through the camp’s narrow streets and alleys destroying water pumps and pipes, as well as causing extensive damage to camp’s the central market.

In total, during the three hours of invasions into four areas, five men were seized and one killed.

This most recent upsurge of violence began early Sunday morning when IOF soldiers shot and killed a man in Balata Refugee camp. In approximately seventy-two hours, IOF soldiers would kill four Palestinian men, injure more than six and arrest many others. On Sunday morning, in a pre-dawn incursion to Balata Camp, IOF soldiers shot and killed Osama Saleh, 22, known locally as Skipper. Skipper was a resistance fighter with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (who are linked to the Abu Mazan’s Fatah movement), and was shot twice in the chest as he attempted to prevent IOF soldiers from entering the camp by engaging them in an armed clash. During these clashes, IOF soldiers killed Skipper and injured at least four additional persons.

Approximately twelve hours after the invasion into Balata, IOF soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian civilian at Huwarra checkpoint, the main barrier for Nablus residents seeking to travel south, and for those traveling from the south into Nablus. At 3:20pm on Sunday, Amjad Mohammed El-Haj Tirawi, 23, also from Balata Refugee Camp, was attempting to travel south despite the IOF’s total closure of Huwarra checkpoint because of the Jewish holiday. With the checkpoint closed, and Tirawi left with no other way to reach his home, he traveled in a car on a bypass road. IOF soldiers in an army jeep who happened to be stationed on the bypass road at that time spotted Tirawi’s car when it reached the Al-Sateh area, one kilometer from the village of Til. Rather then arresting the passengers of the car, the soldiers opened fire. Tirawi was shot several times in the head, chest and legs and killed. During the shooting, Ahmed Hazzaa Ramadan, 21, from Til village was also shot in the shoulder and injured. The media response by the IOF to this murder was to deny it had even happened, saying they were “unaware of any shooting incident in the area”. That night IOF soldiers arrested another three men from Nablus.

Twenty four hours after the killing of Tirawi, IOF soldiers at Huwarra checkpoint murdered yet another Palestinian man. According to reports from local media, medical volunteers and eyewitnesses, Mohammed Waleed Mustafa Sa’ada, 20, also from Til village was shot and killed without provocation. Sa’ada had approached the checkpoint, heading towards a taxi that was being searched by IOF soldiers. When he was approximately ten meters from the taxi, without warning, Sa’ada was shot once and wounded, forcing him to fall to the ground. While kneeling on the ground, a second IOF soldier opened fired on Sa’ada, hitting him three times. Palestinian bystanders were prevented from aiding Sa’ada after he was shot. An ambulance with the Palestinian Red Crescent arrived soon after, and once again, bystanders were prevented from aiding the medics in their attempts to transport the wounded man to the ambulance stretcher. Sa’ada later died from his wounds.

Official IOF accounts of the incident diverge strongly from the numerous eyewitness testimonies. An IOF spokesperson said that Sa’ada was shot while “attempting to assault a solider with a knife” though no knife was recovered, and all accounts indicate that Sa’ada was nearly ten meters from the closest soldier when he was shot four times.

The following day, Huwarra checkpoint was closed to all Palestinian males under 45 years old. Soldiers at the checkpoint also beat an unnamed youth from the village of Almasharik. After the assault, the young man was taken into detention.

The last three days in Nablus have shown a dangerous upsurge in the use of deadly force by IOF soldiers. With two shot dead at a checkpoint and at least eight shot in the refugee camps, the Nablus region is under siege. There are daily incursions into the Nablus refugee camps and city center, and on an average day, soldiers invade and occupy homes, fire at buildings and arrest unarmed citizens. The recent killings have alarmed the local residents, though the regularity of violence in the area is not new. Residents of Nablus, like Azzem Hroub, 42, call on the international community to speak out against the use of violence against civilians and the frequent closures of the city. Hroub, a local shop keeper in Nablus’ Old City commented on the events of the last three days and said, “They just keep killing as every day. They could use arrests but they just kill and kill. When they close checkpoints for their [Jewish] special days, what are we to do? We must try to move around, and if we do this, we are killed. What are we to do? What can the US or the UN do for us in this time? Our situation is very difficult.”

In total during this the time discussed, occupation forces have arrested at least forty-two Palestinian males in military raids throughout the West Bank.

Sources:

BBC (English news source, online)

CNN (American news source, online)

Associated Press (American news source, online)

Ma’an News Agency (Palestinian news source, online)

WAFA News Agency (Palestinian news source, online)

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) (Palestinian Human Right group based in Gaza)

Ha’aretz (Israeli newspaper, online)

Ynet (Israeli newspaper, online)

Israeli Defense Force [sic] (press statements, online)