27th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team| Hebron, occupied Palestine
We, the undersigned Palestinian political forces and organizations, appeal to local and international institutions, human rights organisations and democratic forces for immediate and decisive action concerning the execution of Palestinian children by Israeli occupation forces and settlers. To date, 18 Palestinian children have been killed and executed in cold blood at the checkpoints and on the streets since the beginning of the current Palestinian uprising. Dozens of Palestinian children have been injured, arrested and brutally interrogated by Israeli forces.
These practices carried out by Israeli occupation forces and settlers rise to the level of war crimes and require confrontation and a response to halt this murder of Palestinian children.
We therefore request from human rights and humanitarian groups, as well as social movements, trade unions, democratic parties and concerned individuals throughout the world, to take responsibility and work to halt these crimes, which represent a flagrant violation of international conventions and treaties.
Signed (in alphabetical order):
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hebron
Hebron Defense Committee
International Solidarity Movement
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hebron
22th november 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwwara team | Osarin, occupied Palestine
In the night of the 21st of november the village of Osarin was raided by Israeli forces. Approximately 60 Israeli soldiers entered the small village of only 2000 inhabitants at 1 AM and gathered in the central part of the village where they immediately confiscated one of the homes.
The soldiers split up in 5 groups of 12 soldiers. Each group went to a separate home to arrest a boy. The young boys (ages ranging 15 to 20) were handcuffed and taken with their fathers to the confiscated house in the center of the village for interrogation.
The boys were informed by the soldier they were arrested for throwing stones at the Israeli forces a few days earlier and for shining with laser lights. The boys were than interrogated by the soldiers. One boy explained how he was forced to strip naked in front of the soldiers so they could make sure he didn’t carry any weapon on him. All the boys were told to stand on one leg with their heads against the wall for over a hour.
All of the boys were released after 2 hours of interrogation. One of the boys’ fathers who works in Israel was told by the soldiers that he would loose his job if his son ‘made trouble’ again. The next day one of the village officials went to meet with the Israeli forces. They told him straight forward that no boys in the village could ‘make trouble’ again. In his response he explained that he could only speak for his own child, not the others.
The night raid on Osarin came after the army set up 2 road blocks around Osarin (both alongside the route 505 highway) which were ment to prohibit the movement of local Palestinians and close off the small village from surrounding areas.
This wasn’t the first time soldiers raided Osarin, local residents explained that the village was raided 2 times before the road blocks. Each time a group of 20 soldiers would enter the village in the middle of night when everyone was asleep. They would set off sound bombs and shoot in the air just to deprive people of their sleep. The local residents of Osarin said that these raids had no purpose and were just pure intimidation of the village and its inhabitants.
1st November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwarra Team | Burin, occupied Palestine
Yesterday, the 31st of October, close to the end of this year’s annual olive harvest, another family of farmers in the village of Burin, near Nablus in the northern West Bank, were again prevented from picking their olives by the Israeli army and illegal Israeli settlers.
Israeli army arrives to farmers’ land to stop their harvest. Photo credit ISM
Israeli soldiers and guard from illegal settlement of Yitzhar. Photo credit ISM
At approximately 9:30 am, 4 soldiers and 1 guard from the illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzhar arrived to the field while the Palestinian family was picking olives and announced that they had no permission to work that day (but stated they were allowed to do so the next day and the day after). On the contrary, the farmers, who also own the land, explained to the soldiers that they did have a permit which was issued by the city council but the soldiers ignored them. Two volunteers from ISM who were present in that moment asked the soldiers to show a document that stated the farmers were not allowed to work. The soldiers told the volunteers to go with them, but they refused. Instead, the volunteers and the family continued picking olives with one soldier standing watching them while the other 3 soldiers went to look for the document that supported their claims.
Soldier stands watching creating tension in farmers’ work
Farmer stops working in presence of the army. Photo credit ISM
15 minutes later, the soldiers returned with a document written in Hebrew and showed it to them. The Palestinian family decided to leave. They picked up all their bags with olives and equipment and put everything into their tractor. A few minutes later, approximately 5 illegal Israeli settlers wearing masks arrived to the field, scaring the farmers and causing them to flee. The two ISM volunteers walked closer to the settlers to show their presence, but the soldiers demanded that they stand back. The ISM volunteers did not want to leave, but the settlers began throwing stones at them, forcing them to move back while trying to document. Once they left the field, the volunteers approached the soldiers and asked, “Why didn’t you do something about this?” The soldiers got into their car and closed the windows without saying anything. Everyone left the field.
Illegal settlers, oftentimes extremely violent, this time managed to terrify the family away from their farm. Photo credit ISM
Earlier in the morning of the same day, a bus full of volunteers who intended to support picking olives in another farm were prevented to do so by the Israeli army, despite the fact that this group had coordinated with the Palestinian village council which in turn coordinates with the corresponding Israeli office and therefore had permission to carry out this action. Read more about it here http://maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=768578
A large group of volunteers arriving to another farm to support olive harvest is confronted by the Israeli army. Photo credit ISM
The army finally forces volunteers to get back into their bus and leave. Photo credit ISM
22nd October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | West Bank, occupied Palestine
At 8pm on Thursday, October 22, an armed illegal settler and a group of Israeli soldiers searched a garage in Huwwarah and assaulted the owner and other Palestinians present, causing visible injuries. They were searching for a youth who allegedly threw a molotov cocktail at a settler car passing by on the main street toward Nablus. The suspect was not found and they all left.
Afterwards a new group of soldiers arrived in seven jeeps and started searching the area. They asked the owner of the garage what had happened earlier with the settler and soldiers and then carried out a superficial investigation, with questions such as, “What did the soldier who attacked you look like? Was he tall or short? Did he have a beard?”. They then advised the Palestinians to report the assault to the police for further investigation.
According to the Palestinians, this kind of ‘investigation’ is a sham. Similar incidents regularly occur without any real action taken by the Israeli authorities. Afterwards the soldiers went to nearby shops to search for cameras that might have captured the youth throwing the molotov cocktail.
Sellter family in Huwarrah as the soldiers invaded.
Other illegal settlers passing by the garage stopped to offer coke and sweets as gifts to the soldiers. Reportedly, this incident lead to the closure of the Huwwarah check point, causing heavy traffic congestion on the road between Ramallah and Nablus for over 2 hours.
On October 4, at 4:00 in the morning, 8 Palestinian men were arrested under extremely violent conditions by Israeli forces in the city of Nablus, North West Bank. The men have been accused of participating in the killing of two illegal Israeli settlers driving a car on the Beit Furik road on October 1st. According to a spokesperson for the families of the accused men, no evidence has been presented to uphold the accusations.
Arrest Operations
Karam Al Masri, 23 years old, was violently arrested in the Nablus hospital. According to the spokesperson, Al Masri was lying in recovery from an operation on his left shoulder, which had been injured in a work accident in a Nablus iron factory.
Approximately 20 men from the Israeli security forces stormed at 4:00 in the morning with guns into the hospital to kidnap the patient who was sleeping in room 302. When leaving the hospital, they broke the cameras in order not to leave evidence, but you can watch the video when they entered searching for Karam al Masri here.
At the same time, the three cousins, Samir al Kusa, 23 years old, Zahi al Kusa, 32 years old, and Abdullah al Kusa,19 years old, were arrested while sleeping in their homes in Nablus and Askar refugee camp, were Samir was visiting his parents in law.
Samir’s 25 year old wife and 50 year old mother were both beaten up by the Israeli forces. Samir was first beaten brutally, then forced to walk down the hill while bleeding heavily, then put to the ground where soldiers began beating him again, kicking him with guns, to the point that even one soldier urinated on him. Nearly 300 soldiers participated in this operation.
In the case of Zahi and Abdullah al Kusa, who were staying in the same home, they had their house raided, furniture destroyed, and their families terrified with gun shots. Both were forced to step out the house, strip off their clothes, beaten up, forced to walk naked in the street, sworn and cursed at and humiliated. When another cousin of the men tried to take a picture, a soldier shot into his leg at such close range that the bullet entered the leg and came out, and managed to enter and come out the second leg, too. This man spent 4 days in the hospital. He is 21 years old.
Meanwhile, Rasem Khatab, a 37 year old nurse, was working in a night shift in the hospital at the time he was arrested. Israeli forces took him to his home, raided the house, broke the furniture, beat him in front of his wife, 2 daughters and parents. This operation included approximately 40 soldiers.
Even more shockingly, Ragheb Elawi, a 35 year old man who had recently undergone 2 heart surgeries and remained in his house in state of recovery was also violently arrested. Israeli soldiers stormed his home at 4:00 am terrifying, once again, his whole family, to arrest him. Despite the fact that this man is evidently in a delicate state of health, he was also beaten in front of his family.
In addition, Zeid Ziad Amer, 23 years old, and Yahya Hajj-Hamad, 24 years old, were also arrested at the same early hours in the morning in similar conditions of violence, raiding their homes, waking up their families and beating them up.
In all these cases, the soldiers blocked the neighborhoods, surrounded the houses, guarding them outside, after having closed the entrances of the city.
To this day, only Zahi al Kosa’s parents have information about their son, who will be imprisoned for two months with the highly likely possibility that the imprisonment will be extended indefinitely after the next military court hearing takes place. He is being held in the Megiddo military prison.
Samir and Abdullah are jailed in the Petah Tikva prison, without any other information available. The whereabouts of all other 5 prisoners are unknown until know. Neither their families, lawyers nor the Red Crescent have any knowledge about them.
House Demolition Orders
In the morning of Thursday 15th, 11 days after the 8 men were arrested, three of the men’s families received home demolition orders from the Israeli forces. The Al-Kusa family’s home is located at the top of the South mountain in Nablus, in the Al Dahiyya neighborhood, right below an Israeli military base. This house has already been evacuated by the family, and since it is on the first floor of a three story building, the army plans to fill it with concrete.
The Al-Kusa family home on the first floor of the building is now abandoned, waiting to be filled up with concrete by the Israeli army.
The homes of Karam al Masri and Yahya Hajj-Hamad have also been emptied by their families, who have moved to other family members’ homes, while they wait for their houses to be torn down.
These house demolition orders notified that they would be carried out within 48 hours, but even though the date has expired and the destruction hasn’t happened yet, it is common knowledge that the Israeli army can carry out these actions a long time after the orders have expired. In many cases, the houses can be torn down weeks, months or even years after demolition orders expire, representing a clear tactic used by Israel to create a psychological warfare and stress in the Palestinian population. Today, in the neighborhood of Al Dahiyya, all the neighbors living around these three homes are unable to sleep in the night because of fear that the army might come at any time.
What is even more concerning, is that the families of the imprisoned men are going through enormous distress from the uncertainty of their sons’, brothers’, husbands’ and fathers’ futures, in which they fear the very highly probability that their loved ones may be sentenced anything between 20 years to a lifetime in jail.
It is important to understand that these actions are part of a larger strategy that Israel conducts as a form of collective punishment and psychological torture towards Palestinians. The Israeli government has recently approved a new policy that states that, in case the government decides that a Palestinian is a ”terrorist” who wants to kill an Israeli civilian, settler, army or police, the government will take the right to kill him, not return the body to the family, later demolish the family’s home and subsequently forbid the family to build a new home in the same site of the demolished house. Given that Israel most of the time decides in an arbitrary manner and without any grounds that Palestinians are ”terrorists”, not only does it punish the people it claims to be dangerous, but also punishes their whole families, therefore proving to be extremely abusive and unjust in their law and actions. This form of collective punishment not only puts an enormous amount of psychological pressure on the Palestinians, to say the least, but also facilitates Israel’s ongoing plan of stealing their land and expanding its colonization project.
