Tag: Nablus

Beit Furik, Nablus: Family unable to attend funeral for son killed in recent Gaza air strikes

by Jonas Weber

13 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

“We called him Nassr, but I think his real name was Mahmoud,” says Ahmed while we were on the bus from the Beit Furik municipality building. Outside the bus window, the walls of the little town just outside of Nablus are plastered with freshly printed martyr posters. The picture shows a middle aged man photoshopped between the Dome of the Rock and the Palestinian flag.

Ali Hannini, the cousin of Mahmoud Hanin who was kiled by Israeli rocket fire.

It has just been a few days since Mahmoud Hanini was killed by an Israeli rocket while in a car in the Gaza Strip.

“He was suspected of being affiliated with a militant group in the West Bank in 2005 and was forced to flee to Jordan and then on to Egypt and Gaza where he worked with the resistance against the occupation,” Ahmed continues.

In the stairwell leading up to the Hanini residence, one of the landings is cluttered up with shoes and a somber song is playing from the apartment. The family is still in mourning. We are shown to the roof where Mahmoud’s cousin, Ali, serves us coffee and dates.

“Things are going to be hard for this family now,” he said.

Mahmoud only had one brother and eleven sisters. It will be economically difficult for them. Mahmoud also had three children in Beit Furik and two daughters in Gaza.

When Mahmoud was killed on Friday, he was in a car with Zuhair al-Qaissi, the leader of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committee, the group responsible for the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

The body of Mahmoud Hanini will remain in Gaza, and his family will have to face the pain of not being able to visit his grave.

“It would be extremely expensive and difficult for us,” says Ali.

In the midst of military escalation in Gaza and the grief at home, the Hanini family still carry some hope for the future.

“We want to say a message to the people of the outside world: that the only thing we long for is peace. We only resist to win our freedom. This is not an issue of a conflict between religions. The issue is that Israel is occupying our lands in violation of international laws.”

The murder of Mahmoud Hanini, Zuhair al-Qaissi, and their driver set ablaze the region as groups throughout the Gaza strip responded by firing nearly a hundred rockets into Israeli territory. Most of these were intercepted by Israeli air defence, but one Israeli was killed by the rockets. Israel in turn responded with attacks against Gaza that since Friday have taken the lives of dozens of Palestinians.

Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

After much injustice, Beit Dajan debuts its peaceful resistance

by Jonas Weber

9 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Several hundred villagers gathered today in Beit Dajan to the first ever demonstration against the roadblock that has been obstructing access to the village since the beginning of the second Intifada. The peaceful demonstration was met with a heavy tear gas from the Israeli military. Since 2000, the main road from Beit Dajan to Nablus has been blocked by the military.

2 martyrs of Beit Dajan

The village of about 4000 inhabitants is located only 9 kilometers from Nablus, but it wasn’t until a new road was built in 2005 that the villagers could access their closest city without taking a 60 kilometer detour. However, even with the new road, travelling to and from Nablus still takes twice the time it used to. It wasn’t until 2009 that anyone could go to Nablus after 5pm without coordination with the District Coordination Office, the link between the PA and the Israeli military.

Not even ambulances have been let through at the checkpoint which has led to a lot of complications with the health care in the village.

Education has also become a problem because of the logistical difficulties set by these Apartheid roads and checkpoints. And water supplies are cut because of the roadblock, forcing the village to now import expensive water from the Jordan Valley. And as if this is not enough, the village has suffered four deaths at the roadblock.

Demonstration by the roadblock in Beit Dajan March 9th 2012

The day before the demonstration the roadblock was enhanced with barbed wire further down the road. To protest the roadblock the village has decided to start arranging weekly demonstrations on Friday to show their discontent. Around noon on the 9th of March, 2012, activists from ISM, Anarchists Against the Wall, and Active Stills met with Palestinian organizers and activists in Beit Dajan’s municipality building to prepare for the first ever demonstration against the roadblock.

“It’s nice to see that it’s just Palestinian flags in this demonstration,” says one of the Israeli activists. “All these party flags are breaking up the popular resistance.”

After the noon prayer the villagers huddled up in cars and vans and drove to the roadblock just a few kilometers out of town. In an orderly manner the demonstration marched towards the roadblock.

When the people of Beit Dajan reached the intersection where the roadblock stands they were met with tear gas thrown towards them. There had been no provocation for this and several of the Israeli activists hurried across the roadblock to question the behavior of the soldiers. The protestors on the other side of the gate tried to stay as close to the roadblock as possible while dodging the tear gas and sound grenades thrown at them. Several tear gas grenades were successfully thrown back at the soldiers. The barbed  wire on the road block was pulled out of the way as the hundreds of demonstrators advanced towards the roadblock. After a while the military switched to firing tear gas from guns and jeeps. One of the Israeli activists said that he had seen the soldiers aiming towards people in the demonstration.

An Israeli protester argues with an Israeli soldier during clashes between locals and Israel military, at a protest against the closure and for the removal of a gate at the entrance of Beit Dajan village, that has been shut since 2011, near Nablus. | Photo courtesy of Alaa Badarneh / EPA

Some people suffered from different degrees of tear gas inhalation but fortunately no one was seriously injured. At 13.22, when the demonstration had been going on for about an hour, the soldiers crossed the roadblock and formed a line on the road, pushing
protesters back. Shortly after this the demonstration was dispersed by the organizers who reasoned that their message had come across clearly enough.

Not a single stone was thrown during the demonstration. Despite this the reaction of the military was just as violent callous as
always.

Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Bruqin: International Women’s Day Demonstration for Hana Shalabi

by Jeff
8 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
 
Yesterday, several hundred people traveled from around the West Bank to the village of Bruqin to mark the occasion of International Women’s Day and protest against Israel’s continued imprisonment and confinement of hunger striker Hana Shalabi.

Bruqin is Shalabi’s home village, and the demonstration centered around the Shalabi family home. The demonstration was organized by the Union of Palestinian Women Committees and representatives from the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and political parties ranging from Islamic Jihad to the DFLP were present.

Hana Shalabi was arrested February 16 and is currently imprisoned under the illegal Israeli practice of administrative detention. She has not been informed of a charge against her, given neither a trial no a sentence, nor has been allowed to see the evidence against her. Shalabi was released from a previous two year long administrative detention term last year as part of the Gilad Shalit deal.

She has refused food for the last 22 days, and has vowed to continue her hunger strike until her release.

Jeff is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Israeli flags hanged in Yanoun are a reminder of Itamar settler violence

by Ramon Garcia

7 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

 The illegal settlement of Itamar, constructed illegally on the land of Aqraba,  Awarta,  and Beit Furik, has taken a provocative step of incitement in the village of Yanoun, from which Zionists have also stolen land. On 7 March 2o12 illegal  settlers entered the village of Yanoun and rose the flag of Israel over the home of village elder Abu Muhmad al Ajoori, who resides in the lower part of the village. Another flag was suspended over a water reservoir in the upper part of the village. The settlers were then seen by locals, wandering off into the hills.

Yousef Deria, a local activist against the wall and settlements, said locals contacted him following the incident, avoiding any conflict with the settlers who tend to have violent tendencies against Palestinians through their declared “Price Tag Campaign” which violently targets Palestinian villagers.

Deria was accompanied by peace activists and locals as they removed these flags.

Residents of Yanoun have suffered many years of terrifying violence at the hands of Itamar settlers – the murder of villagers, slaughter of their livestock, desecration of crops, property destruction and daily invasions and intimidation by armed settlers. The increasing brutality climaxed in 2002, as settlers rampaged the village, cutting down over 1000 olive trees, killing dozens of sheep, beating Palestinians in their homes with rifle butts, and gouging out one man’s eye.  Unable to stand the fear – and indeed reality – of terrorism any longer, the entire village evacuated at the time, mostly families fleeing to the nearby village of Aqraba.

An international and Israeli activist campaign was launched immediately to allow the residents of Yanoun to return to their lands. A permanent international presence was established in the village by EAPPI which has assisted in encouraging people of Yanoun to return home, and has remained instrumental in what little peace of mind the people of Yanoun have salvaged since they were uprooted from their land. One by one, they boldly returned.

Over the 2002-06 period the entirety of the village’s families eventually came back to their homes and attempted to start their life  in the shadow of Itamar’s ever-increasing outposts that dot the hills surrounding the village.  Approximately 100 people remain in the village – 40 in “lower Yanoun” in the valley, and 60 in “upper Yanoun”, whose houses ascend the hill to where just a few hundred meters away lie dozens of settlement houses and agricultural complexes.

Although the entire village is located in Area C – under full Israeli civilian and military control – and stands at risk of being slated for demolition, residents believe that the settlement’s – and Israeli government’s – strategy is what may already be underway – a gradual exodus of families and individuals as they are confined to an ever-shrinking amount of land, engulfed by the expanding settlement and its violent inhabitants.

There are some who remain though, who are determined to stay – many families steadfastly refusing to relinquish the connection to the land that is rightfully theirs. The very existence of Yanoun today bespeaks its fighting spirit, one that will hopefully continue despite the collective punishment waged on the village.

Settler violence rages in Nablus area

by Jonas Weber

29 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Yesterday, violence erupted close to Joseph’s Tomb when settlers gathered near the site. Youths from Balata refuge camp came out to chase the settlers off but where kept at a distance by the soldiers that accompanied the illegal settlers as usual. This is the second time this month that violence occurred due to settlers visiting Joseph’s Tomb.

In the nearby village of Burin, dozens of settlers from the illegal settlement Yitzhar attacked the house of Umm Ayman Sufan by throwing rocks and bottles. The olive trees surrounding Sufan’s home on the southern edge of the village were also cut down.

Meanwhile, another attack on Burin from the illegal settlement of Bracha was reported by the Palestinian Authorities.

“Recently we have noticed that young settlers are hanging out with soldiers at the checkpoints, and we know that they receive training in handling fire arms from the age of 15 under the cloak of self defense,” says Ghassan Daghlas. “Why do they need to learn about fire arms for self defense when they have an entire occupational army protecting them?”

Yitzhar is considered to be home to some of the most militant Zionist settlers of the West Bank, and Palestinians from nearby villages claim that settlers from Yitzhar coordinate attacks against Palestinian villagers with other settlements. The illegal settlement Yeshiva has been suspected by the Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet to be teaching racist and violent ideologies to their students.

The Yeshiva leaders Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg and Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira have many times been at the center of controversies surrounding their statements about non Jewish people. Shapiras organization Od Yosef Hai, which includes various grades of educational institutions and publishing, up until recently received extensive funding from the Israeli Education Ministry. In November 2011 both Ginzburg’s and Shapira’s institutions were closed down by the Education Ministry due to information about the participation of students and teachers in attacks on Palestinians and Israeli military forces.

Since these institutions were closed the settler violence from Yitzhar has increased according to Ghassan Daghlas. After all, Yitzhar was the settlement to first take the so called “price tag” tactic into practice. The price tag tactic means to target Palestinian civilians or property in order to get revenge for actions from the Israeli military or government to curb settlement activity, perceived as unjust by the illegal settlers.

Generally the settler attacks increase during the summer when the weather is warmer according to Ghassan Douglas. They also change character with the weather

“In the summer everything is dry and they tend to burn crops and trees, when it’s colder and damper they move on to burn mosques and cars,” he says.

Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).