Tag: Nablus

On Friday 18th April, 21 year old Hani Kabi, wanted by the Israeli army, was assassinated in a family home by Israeli army Special Forces in the refugee camp of Balata in Nablus. At 2am, over twenty Israeli jeeps entered the West Bank’s largest refugee camp, surrounded the neighbourhood of the old mosque in the centre of the camp, and invaded a number of homes nearby to where Hani was known to be located.

Hani was staying in the house of the Al ‘Arsi family, home to six families, where soldiers started shooting live ammunition through the bedroom windows while the family was asleep. The family were then forced out onto the street where soldiers threw sound bombs at the children, and repeatedly threatened to demolish their house. The entire family was then forced to strip naked, even the two and a half year old daughter, Malak, despite the cold. The soldiers were especially insistant the the elderly grandmother remove all of her clothes. Samer Abu Leil, aged 26 years, was arrested as was his 59 year old father, who was taken by the army. The family do not as yet know where the men are being held.

Soldiers then occupied the house for the duration of the assassination operation, which took three hours. When the assassination was completed, soldiers then proceeded to ransack the house, destroying one family’s bed; shooting all of the furniture and family’s clothes.

At the same time another nearby house was occupied, belonging to the Kassim family. Israeli soldiers broke the lock on the door and entered silently while the family was asleep. One male family member thought there were thieves in his house, and so went downstairs and began to attack the soldiers in the dark. He was quickly handcuffed and placed face-down in the ground, as were his brother and father as they came down in response to the noise. Soldiers told them all “if you say anything we will kill you.” Soldiers then proceeded to use the roof of the Kassim house to shoot at the Al ‘Arsi house where Hani was located. During the home invasion, the soldiers smashed the television and stereo, smashed windows and urinated all over the bathroom. When the residents asked why they were behaving like this, one soldier replied, “I can do anything I want.” This is not the first time the Kassim family have been subject to such an invasion, having gone through a similar experience just three months earlier.

This extra-judicial killing of Hani took place on the roof of the house, to which he willingly and peacefully went after knowing that the family were able to safely exit the home. According to the family, he apologised before he did so – “forgive me,” he said. “I’m sorry,” referring to the fact that his presence had brought Israeli soldiers to their house. He was killed with what residents refer to as an “inertia bomb”, a bomb fired from an M16 gun, and was then repeatedly shot as soldiers forced his friend Samer to watch. Family members have prevented Hani’s mother from seeing his body, as the damage to his face was too severe. Hani was in his final year of a French degree at An Najah university, and is survived by his parents, five brothers and four sisters. He was buried on Friday evening.

Balata refugee camp was invaded by Israeli soldiers every night in the preceding week, with nine people arrested throughout the week. Residents estimate that five to ten people are arrested from Balata each week – part of the forty arrested throughout the West Bank each week.

At 3pm on Wednesday, 16th April, the mutilated body of 15 year old Hammad Nidar Khadatbh was found in lands of the illegal Israeli settlement of Al-Hamra by his father, who was out searching for his missing son.

Hammad had left the house at 9am on Tuesday, 15th April to work on the family’s land, located near the stolen agricultural lands of the settlement. As the second eldest son, he was picking cucumbers for the family rather than going to school, to help with the income of his struggling family. At evening he failed to return home, and so his father and other family members immediately went searching for him. They found nothing. They set out again the next day, Wednesday, and found his body in a place they had searched the day before – clearly dumped overnight.

Hammad’s body was naked, bloated, and tortured. His neck was broken, and his face had been smashed in with rocks. One finger had been cut off and there were multiple holes in his torso, seemingly made by a sharp, round implement – something like a pen, his family explained. An Israeli police officer who arrived on the scene to investigate the incident confirmed that Hammad had been murdered, but made no comment as to by whom. Hammad’s body was immediately taken to the coroner in Jerusalem, but the report on the exact cause of his death will not be available for another week.

After speaking to many people in the area, it was established that Hammad had tried to return home via the Al-Hamra (Arabic for “red area”) checkpoint, but was refused passage through as being only 15 years old, he had no identification (IDs are only issued to Palestinians aged 16 years and over). It appears that Hammad was then forced to walk around the long way home, and was taken at this point on Tuesday night.

Given the location of the body – on settlement lands and near an Israeli-only apartheid road – the family are convinced that Hammad was killed by settlers from the Al-Hamra settlement. His father explained that his son was only a young boy, and had no enemies. Also, he explained, there are no Palestinians in that area, only settlers from the agricultural settlement.

The 11500 residents of the village of Beit Furiq, located near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, have regular problems with the illegal settlements near their village. Approximately three years ago a 78 year old man, Mohammad Abu Oday, was killed when settlers from Itamar settlement destroyed his head with large rocks. Another young man was also shot dead by settlers, and five others have been injured whilst attempting to pick their olives. Residents advise that these attacks happen when Palestinians go to lands that are anywhere near to settlements, occurring every couple of years.

Interestingly, these attacks elicit no repercussions on the settlers by the Israeli military such as are inflicted upon Palestinian villages in similar, or even lesser situations. The village of Beita, for example, was shut down for four days last week, with massive roadblocks installed on every road to the village, and residents arrested for attempting to leave after a shooting occurred near an Israeli-only road in which no one was injured.

Hammad was buried at 3pm on Thursday 17th April, and is survived by his parents and seven siblings.

On Thursday 17th April, 2008 approximately 800 protesters marched through the streets of Nablus as part the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners. Organised by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Socieity, demonstrators protested against the imprisonment of the 11500 Palestinians currently being held in Israeli prisons, demanding their release.

Since 1967 over 650,000 Palestinians have been illegally imprisoned by Israel, which forms 40 percent of Palestine’s male population. The current number of prisoners includes 360 children and 99 women. There are also 1200 in administrative detention, a process which allows for the arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinians for an unlimited period under the pretext of “security reasons”. Since 1967, 197 Palestinians have died in prison, among them 48 who died of medical negligence. The routine use of torture of prisoners by Israeli forces has also been reported by human rights organisations, including beatings, sleep deprivation, suffocation, humiliations and denial of food, water and bathroom use, and is legal under Israeli law.

Family members carried framed photos of their imprisoned relatives, as well as signs and banners that read “Freedom for all Prisoners”. The rally began in the city before marching to ad duwar, the centre of Nablus, where speeches took place.

This year marks the 4th International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners, with protests taking place across the world.

The village of Beita, 7 kilometres south-west of Nablus is currently closed to all traffic, after the Israeli army installed roadblocks on all of the roads leading into the village. The earth-mounds were installed three nights ago, in the early hours of Wednesday 9th April, during a large-scale invasion of the village, which coincided with the largest series of invasions and raids across the West Bank in months.

Invasions of the village have continued for the past three nights, with residents expecting another invasion tonight, 11th April. Six people have been arrested throughout the invasions, and approximately ten houses invaded and occupied by Israeli soldiers. Soldiers reportedly caused a great deal of damage to the houses they occupied, shooting water tanks, windows, breaking water pipes and other fixtures – much like the damage they inflicted during the invasion of 20th-21st February 2008. One house was occupied all day on Thursday 10th. Invasions have been marked by the shooting of live ammunition, tear gas and sound bombs, as well as the implementation of curfews at the entrance to the village.

Soldiers guarding one of the roadblocks advised that the village will be closed until Sunday 13th April, in response to alleged shooting at a settler bus that occurred on Thursday 10th April near Beita, during which no one was injured. This is a clear example of collective punishment, illegal under international law, but a common practice of the Israeli army. Whilst the occupation is often justified by Israeli government spokespeople as necessary due to the lack of security offered by Palestinian Authority police, it is clear that incidents such as these shootings only attract Israeli army response if they are executed by Palestinians. No such collective punishment was evident following the recent murder of a shepherd by an Israeli settler bus driver near the village of Salim earlier this week, despite it being clear that the driver escaped to the illegal Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh.

New Permanent Checkpoint:

Wednesday 9th April also marked the installation of a new permanent checkpoint in the Ar Ras area of Beita – along a main entrance to Beita and also in a strategically high position to enable easy monitoring of Beita by the Israeli army. The tent checkpoint was erected just weeks after Israel announced it would remove 50 of the 72 fixed checkpoints throughout the West Bank. This announcement was made in the spirit of supposedly facilitating greater freedom of movement for Palestinians, who are currently greatly restricted in this sense. The experience of residents of Beita, however, indicates the extent to which this announcement fails to translate into “facts on the ground.” As one resident expressed, “This is miserable.”