On Monday, August 27th, at 2pm, a family of seven settlers, headed by the father, Moshe Zohar, came down from their illegally built house next to the Qadumim settlement, on to Palestinian land and set fire to around 300 olive trees.
The Zohar family live in a house illegally built three years ago on the land of the Tel Village, with a military watchtower standing next door built at the same time. A year and a half ago an Israeli high court decision stated that the settlers of Qadumim must stay off the land of the Tel village and the Zohar family must leave their home. Around a thousand settlers from Qadumim came and successfully resisted attempts by the military to evict the Zohar family, and they still live there today.
When international human rights workers visited the village today, wednesday the 29th, it was this family that villagers told us cause all their problems. They said that when the smoke was visible from the village, the local sheikh spoke over the megaphone of the mosque to tell people to go help put out the fire and prevent more settler aggression. Around 150 villagers came but the military watchtower saw them approaching and the army was there in force when they arrived. The soldiers did nothing to the settlers, nothing to help put out the fire, the settlers left when the villagers came and the soldiers watched as the people put out the fire themselves. The land burned belongs to around 20 different families.
The aggression did not stop there however. The Zohar family later found a Palestinian shephard, a man from the Hebron region who took his sheep up to the Nablus region to find more green land and readily accessible water. The family held knives to his wrists and told
him that if he continued to stay here, they would cut off his hands before killing him. They stole all of his sheep (there were around 20) before leaving him there.
On the 25th August, Israeli Occupation Forces entered the village of Sarra to close a roadblock that had been previously opened. The Monday before, (20th August) international activists joined Palestinian villagers in removing a road block that turned a 5 minute journey to Nablus into half an hour. There was to be another demonstration the Friday after, but it was canceled because the local mayor said the DCO had told him they would open the roadblock permanently on Saturday.
The activists that were ready to join the demonstration were dubious over the generosity of the military and saw it as a potential tactic to avert the demonstration, and it turned out it was. The soldiers came on Saturday, forcing a Palestinian villager to use his tractor to close the roadblock. After the soldiers left, the man re-opened the roadblock. Then the soldiers came again, however this time at night. From one in the morning to 2:30am they entered homes and interrogated the inhabitants, occupied houses and kicked out the families inside, confiscated knives and CDs from houses, pushed people around and shot live ammunition into the doorways of shops and homes, as well as into the water tanks above the homes.
International Human Rights Workers went the day after to take pictures of the damage and speak to the people living there. The people spoken to were convinced that trusting the Israelis was no longer an option. They had shown their goodwill by canceling a demonstration at the suggestion the roadblocks would be opened and had been penalized for their good faith. They Israelis had shown that they were interested in only one thing, the continued harassment of Palestinians in the open air prisons their towns are becoming.
Many people now are ready to demonstrate non-violently this Friday, August 31, at 1:00pm, after the prayer. They are calling on all people who are interested in joining their struggle against injustice to join them on this day. People are talking about bringing signs and Palestinian flags, and as we are organizing people from all around the area we are limited only by our creativity.
For more information please contact Rose 054 224 9179
Today at 8:30 in the morning, 16 ISM human rights workers joined over a hundred local Palestinian villagers and activists in an attempt to remove a roadblock. Normally a journey from Sarra to Nablus would take five minutes, but since five years ago a roadblock has been placed, effectively making it an Israeli only road for the military and settlers. This prevents villagers from using this road, extending the
journey to at least half an hour. There are also 500 dunums of villagers’ land that they are prevented from accessing due to the roadblock. Local villagers contacted members of ISM to join them in removing the roadblock.
The people marched down to the roadblock in high spirits. Once there, villagers used tractors and ropes to remove the cement blocks from the road. The strategy was not only this, however. In the past the roadblock had been removed, but afterwards the army entered the village, shot out the tires of the tractors, and arrested the tractor driver. The village was looking for an action in which
everyone took part, and in which everyone could share the responsibility for fighting against oppression. The idea was that with
such a large group of people, committed people, showing with their presence and their action that they would not ignore what was being done to them, they would be better able to negotiate with the local DCO.
The DCO then came, two men in a white jeep. The people from the village, including the mayor, talked to them about this roadblock. The DCO of course said they could take no action then and there but they would talk amongst themselves and see if another solution could be found. Afterwards the activists met in a local man’s house and decided the day’s action was a success. They had achieved what the villagers
had wanted, removed cement blocks from their road and helped them with their negotiations, all without violence. This did not prove to be the end of the day’s events.
Afterwards media came, and it was decided to remove another cement block still in the road to widen the path for cars. This time soldiers showed up in two vehicles and began provoking the people gathered there. An army jeep revved his engine and drove forward almost inside a group of people. Still there was no violence from the Palestinians, and people seemed more concerned with removing the block in spite of the provocations. Then the soldiers began throwing sound bombs. At this, the affront could not be contained by some, and local children began throwing stones. More soldiers came and began shooting tear gas into crowds, firing live ammunition into the air. Some
internationals went back with the fleeing villagers, while some stayed to document what was happening, and to witness in the event that the army tried to invade the village. The soldiers laughed into the cameras of the press after shooting live ammunition into the air.
The army kept coming, followed soon by the border police. The international activists went back to a local man’s house to find out what should be done next. Some then followed a group of Palestinians who returned to the roadblock, in the face of the violent aggression from the soldiers, in order to try to de-escalate the situation in a non-violent way. People held their hands up in the air, in order to show that they did not intend to throw rocks, and tried to speak to the border police who had arrived. They then spoke together, the local mayor telling how the rock throwing only began after the provocation from the soldiers. Bravely, after hearing live bullets shot into the air, the
villagers themselves brought the situation to an end. The army said they would back down if the villagers did, and the villagers said they didn’t want the violence in the first place.
Again the internationals met together, this time in a local boy’s school. It was a different meeting from before, with different things to speak about, but once again, due to the dedication of the Palestinians present, the day’s events were thought to be successful.
The villagers are waiting for a decision from the DCO about the fate of the roadblock preventing them from accessing their land and roads. But they do not trust the israeli army to work for their benefit. They believe there is a good chance that this roadblock will soon be replaced, and the DCO will decide it will be there to stay. They have called on international volunteers to come in this case, Friday, August 24th, around 1:00pm after the Friday prayer to protest the continuing presence of the roadblock, and they are ready to make weekly
demonstrations in the village until the roadblock is removed.
Four international ISM human rights workers joined Palestinian activists and the local popular committee yesterday in Deir Al Hattab concerning the ongoing situation there.
Deir Al Hattab is a village of 13,000 dunums that has been able to reach only 5,000 since 1986 due to the grabbing of land from the settlement Elon Moreh done in collusion with the Israeli occupying forces. Elon Moreh is situated on two hilltops and between these hilltops is around 2,000 dunums of land they have decided to annex. In 1993 the Israeli High Court ruled that the Palestinian villagers who own the land must be allowed to access it. In response the military has declared all of it a closed military zone and prevents villagers from working or visiting their land.
The human rights workers were led around the village to see the land that was stolen, and were told about the recent developments. A few days previously, an Israeli activist from Ta’ayesh crossed the Israeli only road that runs through this land, around the settlement, and saw that on a thousand dunums, separate from the 2,000 already claimed by the settlement, settlers had planted 5,000 olive trees. This is an attempt to establish lies on the ground to prove that the land belongs to the settlement. Members of the local Popular Committee then pointed out 6 dunums close to the settlement, also separate from the 2,000 already annexed, that had been set on fire the day before. IOF soldiers allowed the Palestinian owner and a few members of his family in to his land to try to put out the fire but the damage was visible from the village. This is another tactic settlers use to harass and drive out Palestinian people from their land, and clear it for their own use.
We witnessed all of this from afar. Settlers and nearby military camps won’t even allow Palestinians to see the damage closely, much less visit the land they own. Behind the settlement the local villagers pointed out a building on another hilltop, a 700 year old holy site of Sheikh Billal, used as a signal tower in case of an attack on Nablus, that was closed to Palestinians and had a military camp next to it. The popular committee stood there surrounded by their stolen land, which they were unable to access, and said they would like to organize a campaign against this injustice, with media and legal work, and demonstrations, not just one, but many, weekly, to protest the theft of their land, and the arrogant defiance by the IOF of their own High Court rulings.
They called on international activists and Israeli activists, people from all walks of life that wished to protest injustice to come and witness what was happening around them.
People are being organized with more definite details to come.
This morning at 7AM human rights workers rushed to the other side of Nablus in Ta’awun Street where 8 homes had been taken over by the Israeli army. They joined the medical assistance relief team that had already arrived at the scene. 10-15 military vehicles and a bulldozer were in the street. In this case the families were told to leave their homes at 2AM. People were roused from their beds, among them small children including a 2 1/2 month old baby, and were forced to leave their homes, which were then occupied. One of the occupied houses was used for interrogation purposes – people were taken from the surrounding homes and brought there for questioning. There were a lot of holes in the homes, shattered glass and destroyed rooms, crying women and children and many projectiles that were fired as well – 2 of them Israeli and one of them, the largest, referred to as an energy bomb, was made in the USA. Maher Awada, aged 19 and Omar Ma’alla, aged 20, who were arrested, are purported to be wanted by the Israeli army. Forcing families from their homes as the Israeli army did is a form of collective punishment and is illegal under international law. For some of the families, this has been the third and fourth time this year that the soldiers have invaded their homes and destroyed their personal belongings. One of the mothers has two sons in Israeli prison: Ihsan Awada, 25, who has been imprisoned for 5 months and Husam Awada for 1 year. She also related how one of the invasions took place right before her daughter was to be married – they shot holes in the clothes cupboards and then burned all their clothes, including the wedding dress and trousseau. Others described crawling on their hands and knees to keep from being hit from the soldiers’ gunfire.
The incursions, explosions and shootings are a nightly occurrence in Nablus.
