Tag: Nablus

New House Occupations in Nablus

Pictures from yesterday’s house occupations

Today, the Israeli army has occupied three more buildings in Nablus that we are aware of. One of them is a brand new shopping mall which has not yet opened. The local youth are outside burning tyres in protest. This will have little effect on the soldiers who are at least 10 stories up. Despite this they are firing live ammunition. Yesterday’s woundings of two boys has not deterred them in the least.

The doors that the soldiers were using as shields

I need to stress this further: the soldiers are recklessly and randomly firing live ammunition down onto an area crowded with market traders, women, children and workers. This is madness – it utterly disgusts me. Some locals may have learned to live with these army invasions – what choice do they have after all?

Kitchen of about 15ft by 6ft in which a family of 6 was held for 12 hours

If they allow their ‘fight or flight’ buttons to be pressed every single time something happens they could not survive. But this is not normal, this is not OK and i can see the stress in people’s faces and an increaed urgency in their movements.

The party line: ‘Palestinians attack, Israelis respond’

By Asa

In an attempt to disguise the current Israeli military operations in Nablus as a response to the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the Israeli media are either directly lying that the military entered Nablus “in response to the terror attack” (Jerusalem Post) or strongly implying the same by saying the army is there “in [the] wake of [the] Tel Aviv blast” (Ha’aretz).

In actual fact, house occupations and shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers in Nablus were underway well before the bombing. Furthermore, the military have been in and out of Nablus almost constantly over the last week. The Ha’aretz news timeline today directly contradicts the claim by the Jerusalem Post and even the strong implication that it was a “response” in the headline of their own story. At 12:34, the timeline refers to an AP wire report covering the military operations in Nablus: “Palestinian youth shot by Israeli troops during W. Bank protest” (note that there is no mention of the Tel-Aviv bombing in this story). The bombing does not appear in the Ha’aretz site’s timeline until over an hour after the Nablus story was filed: 13:43.

Click on this link for an image of the timeline.

It is possible that the military operation intensified in Nablus after the Tel Aviv bombing. But the Israeli media were ignoring the story about Israeli jeeps rolling into Nablus before it became possible for them to re-cast the incursion as a ‘response to terrorism’. A response to what is often characterised as ‘irrational, unprovoked, fanatical terrorism’. All this despite the fact that the Israeli army has been shelling civilian areas in Gaza for the past 12 days killing at least eighteen people, including at least two children with many more injured. We in the general public might be niave enough to think that terrorism is the deliberate targeting of civilians, regardless of their natonality, but it would seem that the major media defines Israeli bombing of Palestinians as “counter-terrorism” almost by definition.

Before the bombing in Tel Aviv, the story about Nablus was all but ignored by the Israeli media. This currently remains the the policy of the western media, despite the fact that the army continues to occupy as many as five houses in Nablus using them as sniper posts, and have injured at least four Palestinian young people with live rounds and rubber-coated bullets.

We have been covering this story here in the ISM Media office since 10am this morning, and have watched the hypocrisy and subservience to establishment interests of the Israeli media explicitly illustrated before our own eyes. Apparently, Palestinian lives are only of use to the propaganda system. It could be argued, however, that this position is morally superior to the position of western media agencies such as the BBC on whose radar the attacks in Nablus do not even register.

Update on Occupied Home in Nablus

The Israeli army has withdrawn from one of the homes occupied earlier today in Nablus, although as many as five other houses remain occupied.

The twelve soldiers left the Mushara home at 3pm, after having occupied it since 3:30am Monday. The family, four children between the ages of six and twelve, their father, and their four months pregnant mother, were held in the kitchen for the entire time. The mother has now been evacuated to a hospital.

Bassam Mushara, the father of the home, reported that their cell phones were confiscated, and that they were told that if they made any noise the soldiers would kill them. When their neighbors knocked on the door this morning, to pick the children up for school as usual, the soldiers responded by firing shots at the ceiling.

The neighbors realized that the army must have occupied the house, now for the second time this week. Word of the house’s occupation spread, and soon a crowd of about 200 youth gathered outside the house, some of whom threw stones at soldiers through the windows.

In response soldiers fired live ammunition into the crowd, which included journalists and international human rights workers. A 13 year-old boy was hit in the neck while “standing next to the wall doing nothing,” according to Chilean activist Ana Maria who witnessed the shooting. ISM volunteers saw another four people in the crowd be injured, at least one by shrapnel.

When the soldiers left at 3pm, internationals went inside the house to survey the situation. They reported that the house was completely trashed. All of the windows were broken, shells from the soldiers firing were seen under every window, and pieces of the house, including a door, were torn apart to be used as shields in front of the window. The house was filled with rocks and rubble.

19 people were injured in Nablus today during the invasion, according to Palestinian news sources. Most of the injuries occurred in the center of town, where there were not any occupied houses. The army was seen driving through the center of Nablus for no apparent reason. When children threw stones at the army vehicles, soldiers responded with live ammunition.

Palestinian Youth Shot by Israeli Troops

From The Associated Press

NABLUS, West Bank – Israeli soldiers holed up in a home in this West Bank city on Monday opened fire on stone-throwing protesters outside the building, wounding two people, including a 13-year-old boy, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.

Associated Press photographers and cameramen witnessed the exchange.

“When he was wounded in the neck, he ran toward me before collapsing and the blood gushed from his neck,” said Ana Maria Espinoza, a pro-Palestinian volunteer from Chile. She said more than 100 protesting youths were gathered behind a wall about 100 yards from the house, which is located in a residential neighborhood near a school.

It was unclear what the army was doing in the area, though troops frequently conduct arrest raids in Nablus, a stronghold of Palestinian militants.

Journalists, medical volunteers and bystanders targeted, Palestinian bystander shot in the neck by Israeli sniper

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Israeli snipers shot live ammunition at journalists, international medical volunteers and unarmed Palestinians gathered outside of a house occupied by the army. A crowd of over a hundred was gathered in protest of this house occupation. Palestinian youth threw stones at wooden planks that the soldiers placed on the window of the house.

According to international medical volunteers from the United States, England, Germany, Chile, and Denmark, eighteen year old Islam Aktshot was shot with live ammunition in the neck while he was watching the events at 11:45 Monday morning. “He was standing next to the wall doing nothing when suddenly he put his hands to his neck. When he put his hand down large amounts of blood poured out,” said Danish volunteer Anamaria. “We, the medical volunteers and the journalists were standing together when the soldiers fired in our direction. A bullet whistled five centimeters away from me. ”

At 12:05pm Basam Balbali 15 years old with shot with live ammunition in the leg.

The house, which is situated on the eastern edge of the old city of Nablus, was occupied Sunday night. The Israeli military is currently occupying at least five homes in Nablus.

The practice of occupying a tactically important home and holding the occupants incommunicado is known in the Israeli Army as a “Straw Widow” operation. The army uses the occupied home as an observation post and sniper position. Such homes are often reoccupied several times.

For more information call:
In Nablus, Mohammad : 0522 223 374
Ism media office 02-2971824