Tag: Nablus

Nablus residents rally on Prisoners’ Day

16 April 2009

Around 400 residents of Nablus held a demonstration in the city center to mark Prisoners’ Day in recognition of all former and current political prisoners held in Israeli jails.  Leaders of several political parties and prisoner associations gave speeches praising the steadfastness of the approximately 10,000 prisoners currently held in Israeli prisons and detention facilities.  Demonstrators also carried pictures of loved ones in prison and symbolically chained their hands to emphasize the large number of Palestinian detainees.

Demonstrations were held in several cities and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza commemorating Prisoner’s Day, which falls on the 17th of April.  There are currently nearly 3,500 prisoners from the Nablus area in Israeli prisons.  Hundreds of Nablus residents are being held as adminstrative detention cases, without charges or trial.  Many of these prisoners are held in inhuman conditions.  Dozens of cases of torture in Israeli prisons have been documented by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups.  Arrests in the Nablus region by Israeli forces are continuing on an almost daily basis.  On the 14th of April, eight youth were arbitrarily seized by the Israeli military in Madama village, southwest of Nablus.

Palestinian kidnapped by Israeli forces in Tell, Nablus

9 April 2009

Yassir Shteieh, 29, was kidnapped from his home in Tell, Nablus region by the Israeli army in the middle of the night. Property in his home was destroyed by soldiers and no explanation for his arrest was given.

After 3 years in Israeli jail, Yassir Abdullah Teef Hussein Shteieh was recently married and had spent 14 months out of jail. At 2 am on the 8th of April, his wife got woken up by someone knocking at the door. As normally when the Israeli occupation forces is raiding a house they used the company of a downstairs neighbor to enter the apartment, and so also this night.

The flat was raided for two hours and the soldiers, constantly shouting, said they were searching for weapons. Some property was destroyed, such as the family photo album and the Koran where pages were torn out. The couples’ cellphones were also confiscated. Yasser was separated from his wife and brought outside dressed only in his nightwear. Meanwhile the neighbors were questioned about Yasser’s personal and family’s life.
Later on another person with his or her face covered arrived to the flat. Friends of Yasser says this might be a strategy from the occupation forces to create a split between Palestinians by strengthening the impression that there are collaborators amongst them.

When asked about violence from the soldiers towards any person, Yassir’s wife says she didn’t witness anything but the soldiers were constantly shouting so loudly that she could hear them interrogating Yasser outside the building when she was still at the 3rd floor.

Yassir, who works in the Palestinian authority and as a chauffeur, was taken without explanation to undisclosed destination and has not been heard from since.

Israeli authorities confiscate land from Deir Sharaf to build new checkpoint

Israeli authorities have recently removed Beit Iba checkpoint, north of the city of Nablus, only to build a new checkpoint 2km away on the same road.  This new checkpoint is located west of the village of Deir Sharaf, closer to the illegal Israeli settlement of Shave Shomeron.  The new checkpoint is being built on at least 70 dunums of confiscated village land.  Most of this land consists of agricultural fields belonging to 23 families from Deir Sharaf.  Dozens of olive trees are to be cut down or confiscated when the new checkpoint is implemented.

In 2006, when the settlement of Shave Shomeron was built, around 700 dunums of land and more than 700 olive trees were taken from Deir Sharaf village.  The villagers have since been denied access to this land, apart from three days each year during the olive harvest.

A villager from Deir Sharaf speaks about this new confiscation of village lands:

“There has already been taken so much land taken from us because of the settlement, why do they need to move the checkpoint? When they confiscated our land and our trees three years ago, we where denied access to it the whole year except three days during the harvest. As every farmer knows, three days to do the harvest is impossible, it is a big joke. When the harvest began, the grass around the trees was a meter high and the trees were in terrible condition duevto the lack of careful treatment that the olive fields require. This is injustice, this land belongs to us. We will not accept more land being confiscated.”

Aqraba village to host festival on popular resistance to Israeli occupation

On Friday, the 27th of March at 1.30pm, Aqraba village, southeast of the city of Nablus, will hold a festival of popular resistance in response to recent house demolition orders issued by Israeli authorities.

The festival will take place in the Aqraba high school.

Aqraba village was given demolition orders last month for 15 structures, including homes, barns, a mosque and a water well. These structures are situated on the outskirts of the township, in an area known as Khirbit Al Taweel.

Israeli authorities want to displace the residents of Khirbit Al Taweel, which is located in Area C, under direct Israeli military control. The Israeli military has informed the owners of the 15 structures that they have until the 26th of March to evacuate their homes.

The festival, organized by the Aqraba municipality, the Agricultural Popular Committees, and the Local Council for Popular Resistance, will draw attention to the recent rise in home evictions and demolitions orders throughout Palestine.

A resident of Shiekh Jarrah, a neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem facing mass evictions, will speak about the shared struggle Palestinian communities face under Israeli occupation policies.

Five people in Tayaser village injured after being attacked by dogs

21 March 2009

Wajieh was bitten by dogs
Wajieh was bitten by dogs

About 20 dogs trained by the Israeli Army were sent from the Tayaser checkpoint in to Tayaser village in order to frighten and attack farmers and locals in the village. The dogs are still inside the village, and are acting aggressively and violently. The Palestinian Authority in Tayaser has already sent an application to the Israeli forces in order to get permission to kill these dogs, but the application was rejected without known reason.

Until now, five people have been attack by the dogs, among them 13 year-old Yazan Zahi Ahmad Abu Ali, who needed hospital care for seven days after the attack.

“I was attacked by seven dogs while I was outside in the fields close to my home and reading. I was bitten in five different places, and I needed to go to the hospital immediately to take the rabies vaccination and to get medical treatment for the wounds.” Yazan says.

Three days later, on the 24th of March, the farmer Wajieh Abdulla Dabak, was attacked by five of the dogs while he was working on his land. He was bitten three different places and needed to go to the hospital immediately to take the rabies vaccination, and to spend the whole day there in order to get medical treatment.

“I did not see the dogs before they attacked me, as they were hiding in the Fields. Suddenly five huge dogs attacked me, and I was very terrified”. Wajieh says.

One of Wajiehs Friends says that “These dogs are from the military, I speak Hebrew and they responded to me when I spoke to them in that language. They are very well trained, and very aggressive. I think they were released because thy were to aggressive and hence too difficult for the army to handle, so they released them in this village in order to terrify and frighten the farmers and the people in Tayaser.”

This is the third time in two years that the army has released dogs in the village. In Arab and Muslim cultures, dogs are associated with shame, and are considered to be highly dirty creatures.