12th January 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Occupied Palestine
Today in Kfar Qaddum the protesters, marching towards the road closed off due to the illegal settlement of Kadumim, were suppressed by Israeli military. Protesters were met with teargas and rubber coated steel bullets. Luckily there were no serious injuries. Three days ago though, hundreds of settlers from the illegal settlement of Havat Gilad attacked the neighboring village of Far’ata.
When ISMers spoke to the protesters in Kfar Qaddum, they expressed more relief than usual about there being no serious injuries today. “There is so much violence around the West Bank right now, so if something happened here we fear that it would go unnoticed.” says the main coordinator Murad Shtawi. He showed ISM the video taken by his friends in Far’ata where dozens of settlers forcibly enter the village.
Following the funeral of a recently killed settler from the illegal outpost of Havat Gilad, dozens of settlers attacked the nearby village of Far’ata. The settlers from the illegal outpost threw stones at seven Palestinian homes, breaking windows and causing other property damage. The attacking settlers also damaged trees belonging to Palestinian villagers.
Photos from the security cameras in the Far’ata families’ homes.
The illegal outpost of Havat Gilad, founded in 2002, has had numerous incidents of land theft, destruction, vandalism, and violence towards nearby Palestinian villages. The illegal outpost is scheduled for demolition under an international agreement, but Israel has yet to remove the illegal outpost. Outposts, like Havat Gilad, are illegal under Israeli and International law.
The villagers in Kfar Qaddum have been protesting the effects of the illegal settlement Kadumim since 2011. Apart from the land theft, which is still ongoing, in 2003 the villagers lost their main connection with Nablus increasing their commute to almost an hour instead of previous ten minutes.
photo by kbnews.eu (kbnews.eu/images/Yabad-vs-IOF.jpg)
December 25th 2017 International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Occupied Palestine | Yabad | North Palestine.
Around Yabad there are two big Israeli settlements. In the last few weeks the repressive action by the Israeli army on Yabbad’s Palestinian people has escalated. Several Teenagers have been arrested, they were taken out from their homes on night raides. Raiding his house, the Israeli army arrested 18-year-old Ahaned Abubakar at night on 13 December at 1 am. The father of Ahaned told us that fifteen Israeli soldiers were crowding around the house and
occupied the roofs of neighbouring houses. After breaking through the door with a crowbar, they got into
their house and sarched all the rooms in the first floor, waking up the wife and the five kids traumatically. They took away Ahaned without giving any explanations. Until today, the Ahaned family haven’t received any information about the reason for his arrest and the length of detention in Jalami prison. Ahaned’s father told us that in the last night
he woke up startled at 1 am, exactly a week later the Israili army’s raid. The whole family
is still in shock, the mother and Ahaned’s four younger siblings are living in pain with their brother’s absence. Abdele, the 4-year-old brother didn’t understand what was going on during the house raid. So his father told him that his brother Ahaned
went to visit relatives in Jordan, but since the night of the brother’s arrest Abdele wants to sleep in his parents bedroom.
Another two fathers of Yabad told us about the recent arrest of their 15-year-old kids, by
similar night raids of the Israeli army. Just like Ahaned’s family they don’t know about the reason for their kids arrest and the length of administrative detention in the jail, that could take up to six months.
The arrests of kids and teenagers are the latest strategy of the Israeli occupation force, focused to prevent whatever protest action and targeted to get information and control over life and houses of Palestinian people. Especially in Yabad where two settlements have been set up.
The kids and teenagers arrested without an official explanation or any opportunity to collect their personal belongings. They are normally being held incommunicado, in cramped and poorly lit cells. They are subject to continous interrogations by the Israeli Army which aims at getting as much informations about their families and the people of the villageas possible. Since it’s an administrative detention, subject to military law, they cannot have legal assistance and visits by their relatives. The innocent kids and teenagers arrested are subjected to traumatic experiences, carrying out a strong and preventive repressive action.
December 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
On Thursday the 30th of November, Mahmoud Ahmad Zaal Odeh, age 48, a Palestinian farmer from the village Qusra in the northern West bank was murdered by Israeli settlers from a nearby settlement. “Mahmoud was walking on his land when he noticed the settlers cutting down one of his trees. They were armed with guns,” a local Palestinian that spoke with Mahmoud only minutes before the attack says. “He ran towards them to stop them when they opened fire on him.“ Mahmoud died shortly after due to his immense wounds.
Soldiers from the Israeli forces run into the village in an attemt to arrest.
Later that same evening, soldiers from the Israeli military accompanied by settlers from nearby settlements entered the village. Clashes then escalated between the Israeli military forces and young Palestinian boys. The Israeli military fired tear gas at the entire village as a part of a larger collective punishment towards the village, injuring around 40 civilians.
Palestinian women looks for her son mids the group of soldiers from the Israeli military in Qusra
Among those injured was a 3 year old child, as well as the disabled and elderly, all of whom were unable to move quickly from the rounds of tear gas fired at some of the houses. Four Palestinians were also injured by live ammunition and 15 were shot with rubber coated steal bullets.
Teargas shot by the Israeli military affected the whole village.
The day after, soldiers from the Israeli military fired over 100 rounds of tear gas, set a field on fire and shot rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition inside Qusra during the Friday demonstration, which was held because of the murder of Mahmoud Odeh.
At noon on Friday, the 1st of December, around 300 Palestinians and a few internationals gathered in the olive groves where Odeh had been murdered only a day before. After a prayer the group walked towards Odeh’s fields.
Around 300 Palestinians prayed in the olive grove where Mahmoud had been murdered only a day before.
The soldiers shot a few rounds of tear gas and some rubber coated steel bullets while some young Palestinians threw stones. Around eight civilians were injured, including press, by the numerous rounds of tear gas fired at the group, waving Palestinian flags towards the hillside. “You could still see his blood on the ground. It’s so shameful that the Israeli military does nothing to investigate his death – it just shoots at the whole village,“ one ISM activist said.
Mahmoud’s blood was still on the ground after the attack only a day before.
Around 1:00 AM, clashes began at the entrance of the village, where the Israeli military with Border Police had situated themselves, armed with military trucks and weapons. The soldiers proceeded to fire rounds of tear gas at the crowd, and after a while ambushed the village with four military jeeps.
Soldiers from Israeli military fire teargas in the center of the village.
For the next four hours, the Israeli military forces fired rounds of teargas and rubber coated steel bullets at houses in the village, which resulted in over 20 people being injured by gas coming into their homes. On the 2nd of December, clashes continued in the village with the Israeli military forces firing around 15 rounds of teargas and shooting rubber coated steel bullets. When the army collectively punishes a village in such a way, it affects all of its residents.
Medics assist people injured by the massive amounts of teargas fired at everyone.
15th November 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Huwarra, Occupied Palestine
Israeli settlers of Yitzhar, set fires in two places in Palestinian olive fields around their illegal outposts, and attacked a group of farmers a day later, under the eyes of around 30 border police, present at the site.
On Sunday 5 November, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, ISM activists saw smoke coming from olive fields on both hillsides underneath an outpost of Yitzhar, the illegal settlement south of Nablus, built on the Hill between the Palestinian villages Huwarra and Burin.
It wasn’t the first time this has happened. Since the expropriation of the farmland of Huwarra, Burin and Madama, and the illegal creation and steady expansion of the Israeli settlement Yitzhar, violent settlers do anything they can to harm the Palestinian farmers and families without any risk of being punished for these crimes.
Attacked in 2016. No sign of life a year later.
A farmer from Burin, whose olive field was set on fire, explained to us that the settler group chased him and his two companions and that they managed to escape.
The Palestinian Fire-brigade of Burin waited for permission from the Israeli authority to extinguish the fire, which they apparently did not get.
Israel is authoritative for the security in Area-C, and should instead of blocking the Palestinian Fire brigade, fight any fire in Area-C themselves, which it has not done in the 25 year since this authority was agreed on in the Oslo accords.
Instead of this, we saw border police, settler security and the settlers side-by-side in the illegal Hilltop outpost, looking at the burning fields.
The next day, 6 November 2017 already at 8:30 AM, a group of nine settlers tried to attack farmers and workers who had official permission of the Israeli security authority, to harvest and cultivate the fields of the Owda family, which was partly burned down the previous day.
The large group of border police refused us entrance to the the area, which apparently was declared a closed military zone. The commander showed us the declaration on a paper, which didn’t show many details.
Instead of assisting the farmers, we could only be remotely present and filmed the situation from a distance. We again witnessed a close cooperation between the settlers, the settler-security and the border police. The threat of an instant attack was constantly felt that day.
Around 14:30, a group of around 20 settlers attacked the farmers, and most border-police did little to avoid it and arrested none of the settlers. Instead it commanded the farmers to stop their work and quickly leave their land.
Settlement outpost are illegal, even by Israeli law, although that law may change one day.
In February 2017, the Israeli Knesset passed a new law to legalize all 4000 illegal outposts. But, the High Court had concerns and postponed the implementation in August 2017.
However, if that law ever comes to reality, it would accept these 4000 outposts as new settlements ready to expand, and would give legality to the expropriation of more private Palestinian land, in a clear violation of the Oslo Agreements of 1993.
1st October 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Urif, Einabus & Huwara, occupied Palestine
It was a somber trip through the villages of Urif, Einabus, and Huwara yesterday. Their peripheries continue to be threatened by the illegal settlement of Yitzar, which sits strategically on a hill above them, allowing for fast and terrifying raids on the Palestinians’ homes and cash crops below.
The mayor of Urif shows ISM activists where settler attacks have come from
In Urif we met the mayor, who walked us by the village school and within view of the illegal settlement houses perched above a hillside rich with olives. Finally, he took us to see a man named Munir al-Nuri, the subject of a tragic story about an April day that would change his life forever. It surely began like any other – with the handful of chores that keep his house up and running. On this day however, heavily armed settlers – in the company of Israeli soldiers, no less – would march into his village, enter his home, beat him, break his legs, terrorize his family in the process, destroy the family car, and as a final measure, slice his foot open with a knife, robbing him of any hope of working his land for the next year, possibly longer. Needless to say, the soldiers did nothing to protect Munir, discourage the settler from carrying out more attacks like it in the future, or provide justice or reparations to Munir’s family. It was a gut punch for us listening, and frankly we didn’t know whether to cry or scream at the injustice of it all.
Munir al-Nuri keeps printed photos of the extremist settler who attacked him in his home.
In Einabus, we sat in the office of a local council member, who again walked us through the terrors of the same settlers in his village. He began with the chemical poisoning of the Palestinians’ olive trees – a break from the settlers’ more commonly used tactic of simply burning them. Finally, he came to the story of a shepherd who encountered an invading settler out in the fields. The settler, heavily armed and primed for violence, stripped him of his clothes and sent him naked back to his village – an obvious form of cultural and psychological warfare in a modest society, and even further, one that conjures up remembrances of Abu Ghraib. The man had a heart attack and died a week after the event.
As we sat in his office, I felt a similar thought passing through all of us: ”How could I possibly convey the gravity of what I was hearing to people – particularly Zionists – back home?”. With the hill perfectly framed by the window behind him, the stories carried a certain resonance.
Short of people sitting there with us, however, and looking at the hillside, where you’re actually able to picture the death squads walking down the hill into the villages, I remain unconvinced that it will translate. But perhaps a start, for those who don’t understand just what the illegal settlements mean for Palestinians, or who yet don’t care, would be to emphasize that the buildings themselves are not the source of such primal terror felt by the villagers. It’s the settlers – barbarically violent and insulated from recourse – that constitute the more immediate danger.
While the land itself is pregnant with meaning, as is the Palestinian memory it summons, the truth of these settlements is that no matter how inanimate they may seem, they’re ultimately tantamount to neatly paved, artfully constructed gore. When Netanyahu, Danny Danon, and the like talk about “strengthening the settlements”, what they’re really advocating for is bloodshed. Not hyperbolically, and not anything less. Brick by brick, Palestinians are attacked, they’re murdered, their farms and olive trees and their livelihoods set on fire. Next year their kids will grow weaker with hunger, life savings will be tapped into just to make ends meet, and the flame of bright futures will be extinguished in an instant. And all of this will happen because of mere buildings, for the settlers are the settlements – terrorizing, functionally above the law, and quite literally a threat to Palestinian survival.
Masked settlers in Urif the day Munir al-Nuri was attacked, with Israeli soldiers protecting them. Credit: Institute for Middle East Understanding
