Tag: Nablus

Qusin Demo Video and Report

Saturday, September 15th, at 12pm, international and Israeli activists joined Palestinian activists and villagers in the village of Qusin to protest the system of control imposed upon them by the Israeli army. The region has seen a rise in demonstrations of this sort recently, with roadblock removal demonstrations happening also in the nearby town of Sarra.

There is a road that connects both of these towns, and others, to Nablus, and to the Nablus-Tulkarem road. This road has been deemed usable only by Israelis, it turns what is normally a five minute journey to Nablus into at least one hour. This constitutes daily harassment for people going to work, going to school, or even just visiting family.

People gathered together in the village of Qusin and marched towards the roadblock that prevents them from accessing this road, in Qusin it takes the form of a yellow gate chained shut. Villagers with international and Israeli support rallied at the gate, singing, chanting, and opened it for general use.

After some celebrations at the newly opened gate this non-violent demonstration decided to return to the village, but soldiers from an army base nearby spotted them and ran down the hill, preventing them from going back peaceably to their homes. Soldiers began to push the people gathered there, threatening them all alike. The press were threatened and assaulted as much as the demonstrators, with one journalist saying the commander told him “stop filming or I will break your camera!”. The soldiers did not want any evidence of what was going to happen next.

Tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets began to shoot off into the crowd, the demonstrators scattered, unable to reach their home and faced with extreme army violence. People ran down a hill into a field, trying to find an alternative way of reaching their village. The army stood on the road, firing more tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets at moving targets below. Some of the soldiers chased people into the fields, and were seen beating Palestinians. They were also caught pointing their guns at people at point-blank range and threatening to fire.

One international was shot in the hand at a distance of 10 meters by a rubber-coated steel bullet and required medical attention, with blood shooting from her hand “like a geyser” as one witness reported. Under Israel’s own military law, it is illegal to fire rubber coated steel bullets from a distance closer than 40 meters. The soldiers were therefore in direct violation of their own military law when undertaking these actions today. Another international and five Palestinians were also shot but did not need to go to the hospital. While most people had scattered, many international and Israeli observers were on the road asking the military to calm down and use less violence.

After it was clear the demonstration was over, these people were all arrested. In the end six Israeli activists, five international activists, and two Palestinians were arrested. The Palestinians were handcuffed and blindfolded and no information about their status has been confirmed. Three of the international activists and one Israeli are being charged with the false allegation of assaulting an officer while being arrested. Although these claims are entirely baseless lies, journalists were kept away from the scene of the arrest to prevent demonstrators from having proof of their innocence and it will be a case of one person’s word against the other.

***UPDATE*** As of September 19th, all the demonstrators have been released. Those injured and hospitalized have returned to their homes and are recovering. We are still trying to raise money for the Palestinian demonstrators, 8,000 shekels (around 2,000 dollars) are urgently needed to pay for the bail costs for both men. It is extremely important to support the villagers of Qusin who have only begun to wage nonviolent struggle against an illegal and brutal Israeli occupation.

Checks of any amount may be made out to “ISM-USA” and sent to:
ISM-USA
PO Box 5073
Berkeley, CA 94705

If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation, please make your checks of $50 or more payable to ISM-USA’s fiscal sponsor: A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, (with “ISM-USA” on the memo line of the check), and send to the same address above.

You may also use your credit or debit card and use our PayPal account
through www.palsolidarity.org/main/donations/
Donations sent through PayPal are not tax-deductible.

CALL TO ACTION! Villagers of Sarra and Qusin Refuse to be Kept in a Cage!

CALL TO ACTION!
Sarra, Nablus region

On Saturday, September 15th, the villagers of Sarra and Qusin, in the Nablus region, are planning in coordination with international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) to hold a demonstration in their region. They are blocked off from a road that leads directly to Nablus by roadblocks. These roadblocks turns a five minute trip to Nablus into nearly an hour. The road they used to use is now used only by soldiers and settlers. This becomes daily harassment, whether a person is going to school, or work, or visiting family, they must go through nearby towns rather than directly to Nablus. They plan to march from their respective towns to a military gate in the middle and hold a joint demonstration there.

This roadblock has been removed twice before, August 20th and 31st. After the first removal, the DCO said they would come the following Saturday to fully remove the roadblock. Not only did they put it back in place, but the army invaded the town, terrorizing villagers through shooting at shop fronts and water tanks, dragging people outside their houses for questioning, and stealing belongings from the people inside.

On August 31st The villagers, together with HRWs, blocked the army from advancing while others removed the roadblock again. It was a glorious day where a village that had spent five years in the cage that is made by roadblocks was finally able to flex its muscles. Later that day however, after the village had peaceably returned to their homes, HRWs witnessed an army bulldozer attempting to replace the roadblock. They climbed onto the one meter squared cement blocks to prevent this from happening, and were arrested. One of them spent a night in and Israeli jail located in an illegal settlement, the other three spent two nights.

This Saturday the village will meet again, with another village joining the struggle. They will not be deterred by Israeli army repression. They will not go quietly into their houses and accept the continued harassment by the Israeli military. They will demonstrate along the military road, and at the military gate, until the DCO removes the roadblock, and leaves the road open for freedom of movement in Occupied Palestine. They are asking for your support! Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists will meet at the mosque in Sarra by 10am.

For more information contact Smith at the ISM Media Office: 0599943157

Needless House Occupation During Daytime Incursion

Nablus, September 8th

On the Saturday the 8th of September the Israeli army invaded the home of the Abu Shhab family in Nablus. Twenty soldiers and four vehicles arrived at the house at 15:00 and threw all the inhabitants outside.

When humanitarian and medical workers arrived they were not allowed in the vicinity of the house. An army jeep repeatedly rammed the ambulance when it arrived on the scene. A soldier was heard to say; “do you want me to shoot you” as a humanitarian worker attempted to see what the situation of the family was.

The Israeli army left at 18:00 taking a taxi with them, and leaving the house they had occupied with six broken framed pictures and two broken doors, but without finding anything of significance.

Non-Violent Peace Activist Threatened with Assasination

On Wednesday the 5th Septmember:

At 2:30 in the morning, Israeli Occupation Forces invaded the Old City of Nablus close to the Al Masre school. In doing so they invaded the homes of a number of residents in particular targetting the family home of a local Palestinian human rights actvist. The residents of the activist’s home, as well as the residents of neighbouring houses were forced onto the streets and their homes heavily searched. Sound grenades were thrown and live ammunition was fired scaring the children and shattering the quiet of the streets.

When it became apparent that the Palestinian man was not present the IOF told his family that he must give himself up or that he will be assasinated.

The Palestinian actvist in question has dedicated himself to the non-violent struggle against the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state. He is a man that carries no weapons and supports other Palestinians and international activists in joining together to resist the occupation through non-violent. His crime essentially that he say’s No to what has been a brutal regime that denigrates and dehumanises the Palestinian people.

Through the Fourth Geneva Convention, Palestinians have the legitimate right to resist the occupation, it is evident therefore that it is Israel that is committing the crime yet it is the Palestinian who acts in accordance with international law that is punished. The Israeli state further commits war crimes through the collective punishment of the family, friends and neighbours of the aforementioned Palestinian through the raids upon their homes and harrasment they are forced to endure.

Reflections on our arrest….

You go through a strange range of emotions while incarcerated. Being shackled at the ankles forces you to shuffle painfully, ungainly, slowly. It reduces you to an infirm.

Our arrest was a strange experience..

It was an immense joy to see over two hundred Palestinians cheer at their removal of the massive concrete blocks which have obstructed their road, their lives, for years.

Their cheers before and during the removal were nothing compared to those which followed the heaving aside of the last intrusive Occupation block. The efforts of the Palestinians, with the help of some Israelis and internationals, bore fruit after about 40 minutes of coordinated heaving and pulling. It is the act of physically repelling the barriers, rather than simply using a tractor to push them aside, that makes the accomplishment so much sweeter.

So when, on our way to lunch after hours of activity in intense heat, we saw the military bulldozer readying to replace the immense blocks so laboriously pushed aside it was an instinctive and reflexive response to run to the site to try to prevent the roadblock replacement.

Being only 5 activists, with as many blocks to cover, we opted to try to individually prevent each block from being moved. Retrospection ever crystal clear, a more unified resistance would have been more effective.

The arrest came following the words: “this road is now a closed military zone,” referring to the Palestinian road upon which we sat. Papers in Hebrew were produced, but unable to verify their validity, and very aware of their spontaneous birth, we sat on. The papers were a sham, the kind the army drafts up on the spot and waves merrily when it wants to contravene established laws and boundaries. Yet, it is miraculous manifestations of military orders like these which do, in the end, serve the purpose: to bend the law and achieve a specific goal. In this case, the goal was the removal of the activists and the replacement of the roadblocks.

One by one we were carried or dragged away from the roadblocks’ site, relocated roadside between military jeeps, while the bulldozer did its work. Cement blocks were re-installed, and a new layer of blockage dug out from the earth walls surrounding the road, piled on top of the cement to create a two-tiered blockage.

One of the two males detained had his hands cuffed tightly behind his back, the soldier having first pulled his arms back and upwards at painful angles.

Legally, soldiers are allowed to detain internationals only for up to three hours, after which they must be released. Before the three hours’ detention had elapsed, long after the re-installation of the roadblocks, police arrived and began questioning us. We were taken to the Ariel settlement police station for further detention.

From the moment of being arrested until my release, the other female international and I were kept in handcuffs and/or ankle shackles, only temporarily removed for most, but not all, bathroom visits—on one occasion, we were indeed forced to use the toilet while shackled together at the ankles. Friday evening, the first evening of my arrest, was spent in handcuffs in a waiting room in the men’s prison. Saturday before, during, and following the trial I was shackled at the ankles. I was made to sleep thus Saturday evening.

Friday night, the other female arrested and myself were not provided with a jail cell, nor with beds or blankets. With the television on all night at a very loud volume, showing a movie that bordered on pornography and which the police would not turn off, and with the lights on for most of the night, no place to lie down, and the chill from the air conditioning, it was impossible to sleep. Despite repeated requests, the police officers made no attempt to improve the conditions, instead mocking and taunting us.

While the tendons at my ankles hurt, chaffed by hard-edged shackles, and I could only shuffle past accusing eyes, I refused to feel “guilty” or be relegated to sub-human, as their stares would imply. I was there only because of their flawed, racist system of oppression which ignores even its own High Court ruling.

The arrested males were given dingy cells and sparse food.

The conditions presented to us by the Israeli judge at Saturday’s trial were unacceptable: the judge chose to ban us from the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Nablus, and Bethlehem simply because those were cities in which we had mentioned we had friends. As we did not produce passport ID, we were taken back to jail for a second night. This night, despite the judge’s order to at least provide me with a cell, I was made to sleep in a room with a female police officer, still shackled at the ankles.

The next morning, I was awoken and made to sit for several hours, still shackled, before being taken for the 2nd trial. At this trial, our state-appointed lawyer did not communicate with us and it was only through the aid of an Israeli friend that we were told the conditions of our release, which remained the same as the previous day. Feeling our options were limited, our passports present, we signed and were released.

Having the passport of white skin and a young woman’s face, I was nonetheless treated with more sympathy and privilege than Palestinian counterparts are given.

Lest I dehumanize my jailers just as their system does the general population of Palestinians, I must recognize that they are cogs in a machine, humans filling a role they perceive to need, that of security enforcers, against a population they perceive as threatening.

It is over and again the System that is greatly racist and flawed, cunningly devised and enforced.

Overall, aside from three very sarcastic and provoking male police officers, the police were generally humane, though still blindly fulfilling their role in the Apartheid regime and not fulfilling their obligations to provide arrestees with a cell, to remain arrested but unshackled.

While some of the female police officers, young women, acted with more consideration, most of the male officers showed disdain and disrespect to all of us arrested.

In allowing ourselves to be arrested, we hoped to highlight the very serious issue of roadblocks and checkpoints in Occupied Palestine, as well as to send a message to the residents of Sarra and surrounding villages that we see their suffering and are committed to joining in their struggle. It is an honour to work with dedicated Israelis like the Israeli Anarchists who, for many years, have endeavored to fight the Occupation and its policies, also suffering arrest and abuse at the hands of the IOF.