Police on Tuesday detained 20 settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron after they hurled rocks, bricks and glass bottles at Israel Defense Forces soldiers and police. A policeman was lightly wounded in the riot.
The rioting took place next to a Palestinian house where the IDF was securing the construction of a wall to protect its inhabitants from settlers.
The Palestinian inhabitants, living in proximity with Jewish houses, were forced to leave their home due to unrelenting attacks by settlers. The IDF recently began securing the Palestinian house in order to allow the inhabitants to return to their home.
The settlers say that a Palestinian house in their neighborhood poses a threat to their personal security. The police said it will “exercise determination and zero tolerance against lawbreakers and anyone who harms police or soldiers.”
Later on Tuesday the High Court of Justice rejected a request by the Jewish community of Hebron to issue an injunction against the construction of a wall around the Palestinian house.
Farmers suspect settlers cut down olive trees
Palestinian farmers suspect that settlers are behind the vandalizing of some 45 olive trees in the Palestinian village of Salem near the West Bank city of Nablus.
A farmer working in a field adjacent to the groves on Saturday discovered that many trees in the grove had been cut down. The grove owner filed a complaint with Ariel police.
In recent months Israeli volunteers have been assisting Salem farmers in tilling their fields while suffering from ongoing sabotage by settlers. Buma Inbar who visited the vandalized grove said “the site was horrifying – it’s hard to see dozens of old trees broken down so brutally, this is sheer vandalism.”
The apartment belonging to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in Balata refugee camp, Nablus was broken into by the Israeli military last week, May 31st. In what is an apparent act of vandalism and harassment, the military forced their way into the empty apartment and destroyed many things.
A neighbor reported, “At 1am, the Israeli army bombed both doors in order to enter the house. When they entered, the started shooting all over the house. They broke the toilet, the dishes, everything. The house is a huge mess. They also bombed the walls between two rooms. Really loud, horrible sounds were heard. They left the house at 4am.”
The IOF regularly enters Balata refugee camp and conducts operations, arresting people, often children, and indiscriminately destroying property. They often occupy houses, herding the family into one room and setting up snipers in the house or on the roof. It is not clear why they entered the ISM apartment, but it is not uncommon treatment in Balata.
At 1:30pm tomorrow (Wednesday the 24th of May) the people of Asira, near Nablus, will be joined by Israeli and international supporters in holding a meeting in solidarity with the owners of land that the Israeli military is about to confiscate. The aim of the meeting is to ask for an official military order for the confiscation, which they will use in a lawsuit they intend to bring against the military. Legal representatives, human rights workers and other members of Palestinian civil society will attend the meeting.
On the 22nd of May, Israeli soldiers issued an order declaring their intention to confiscate 120 dunams of village land for expansion of the Sabatash checkpoint and military base. Three Palestinian families currently live on the land that will be confiscated. They will be facing potential displacement if the confiscation succeeds.
The land confiscated includes strategically important electricity power lines that come from Nablus over which all the electricity for village is supplied. The order also decreed that at least 70 additional dunams of the land of Asira will come under Israeli military control.
Asira municipality is intending to file a lawsuit against the military in Israeli courts. The Jerusalem Centre for Human Rights will be assisting in this case.
For more information call:
Kanan 0599 398 266
Zadie 054 590 2319
ISM Media office 02 297 1924
An update from ISM activists in Nablus on Mohammed Saqer (17), the boy shot in the head a week ago with a rubber-coated metal bullet by the Israeli army:
After being kept in a medically induced coma for 72 hours following emergency brain surgery Mohammed successfully regained consciousness and, amazingly, is able to talk. This is an extremely positive development given the original opinion of his doctor that he was likely to be seriously brain damaged, if able to regain consciousness at all.
His improvement has been so rapid he has been transfered to the “intermediate intensive care” unit.
His entire family are ecstatic, including his mother and aunt who kept a bedside vigil during his coma and was distraught at the seriousness of his condition. The family said that when he fully came out of coma he opened his eyes and immediately said “Marhaba” – arabic for hello!
This is the second time in two years Mohammed has been shot in the head by Israeli forces, and as his aunt said at the time “The first time was much better. Now, I think its worse. It’s bad”.
Certainly, even though he is alive, awake and able to talk he needs constant medical attention and his long term condition is not known. He cannot move the left side of his body and it is uncertain what mobility he will regain. But his delighted mother said his situation is improving everyday.
Extraordinarily he asked us how we were doing, even greeting us in English and asking our names. He talked of how he hopes he will be better soon and how we can visit him in his home in Askar Refugee camp saying “You are always welcome at my home”
As ISM activist Lauren says “It is really amazing that he is even alive. It was surreal to even talk to him. What a miracle that he will laugh and smile again.”
I visited Rafidia hospital this afternoon to check on the condition of the boy I last saw unconscious, being taken from my arms into the back of an ambulance. I notice small patches of his blood still visible on my jeans and shoes as we walked into the ICU.
Mohammed Saqer (17) is critically injured and on life support systems in Rafidia hospital. He is in a medically induced coma following emergency brain surgery by Dr Madher Darwazeh. The attempt to revive him will come some 72 hours after the operation and, as this is all his doctor would confirm, only then will his condition truly be known.
For now his heart beat is an artificially steady 80 per minute, his blood pressure 121/71 whilst other unknown measurements are an unchanging 100, 13 and 37.7
Mohammed, from Askar refugee camp, was shot in the head almost exactly 2 days ago by a rubber coated metal bullet fired from an Israeli military jeep at no more than 20 meters distance.
His Aunt – Am Baker – was at his bedside. Stricken with grief she told us of how this was the second time he had been shot in the head. She said “The first time was much better. He was OK after two days. Now, I think its worse. It’s bad. Yesterday he was better than today”.
In all honesty, I don’t know if this is a bad sign or a good one. Neither, I think, does she.
The aunt goes on to tell us that, if this horrific event wasn’t enough, the boy’s father is in jail at the moment (he’ll be released in 2 weeks) and his brother has cancer. It’s just too much ill fortune to take in.
I ask that Ahmad (our guide in Balata/ Nablus) explain how we – Bjarke, I and others – carried him into the ambulance. She smiles weakly and says, “You helped him. Thank you.”
Then she looks down at his prostrate body with tubes in his arms, mouth, wrist and asks: “How do you see the situation? What’s your opinion?”
Now this really hits home. How on earth can I, with no more than 30 atrociously pronounced words of Arabic to my name, even begin to answer such a question. Even in English I know I’d fail, and fail badly.
All I could reply to Ahmad was a lame “tell her that I hope with all my heart that he pulls through.”
At times like this if I were religious I could make statements about fervently praying to god, shit, I would be praying to god, any and all that I thought conceivably might listen. But I’m not, so I can’t. This is no time for taking refuge in mysticism; human action put him in this condition, and human intervention is his only hope of recovery. But of course I wouldn’t think to say this to his no doubt devout Muslim aunt.
I stay 10, perhaps 15, minutes. Take some photos. Look helplessly at his body and face, feel helpless. Know and accept I am helpless.
Bjarke is upset, what normal person wouldn’t be?
Yet I seem strangely able to deal with the situation. After all I don’t know him, and in Balata, in Palestine these shootings, and worse, are daily occurrences. I mean, the 8 yr kid in the internet cafe where I’m typing this has eagerly shown me 2 videos on his phone of other similarly hideous shootings.
But still in so many ways I wish I wasn’t able to ‘handle’ it. Am I really so cold, heartless? Is there something wrong with me? I don’t know. Am I mistaking some crass idea of being a “professional” with a touch of something of psychopathic?
Then I note that Ahmad seems totally fine, asking if there’s anything else we want or anyone we need to interview. He’s Balata born and bred, and for him death and human suffering is everyday life. In comparison I’m an emotional wreck. Better surely that Ahmad was in tears like Bjarke. Better we all were, if ‘we’ ever got to hear about it.
