04 April 2011 | Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements
The Israeli army and police occupation forces stormed the village of Bil’in at 1:30 am on Monday 4th April, raiding the houses of Ali Ibrahim Bornat, and Khames Abo Rahma. They searched their houses and tampered with the contents under the pretext of search for solidarity foreigners.
They also prevented the local press from documenting the event. The operation continued for an hour.
19 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement
During the five day curfew in the village of Awarta, south of Nablus, the Israeli military raided homes and detained around 300 people, the youngest 14 years old. Some of the men were taken to the local boy school were they had to leave their finger prints and DNA and some were taken to the military base at Huwwra checkpoint. According to mayor, Qays Awwad, 55 men are still in Israeli custody. Some of the detainees reported that they had been abused by the soliders while they were detained and handcuffed. It has been reported that a 75 year old woman was handcuffed and had to sit on the ground while the soliders went through her home, and that an 80-year-old woman was beaten by soliders.
Three scandinavian ISM activists were in Awarta during the five day curfew, from saturday afternoon until wednesday noon. From the roofs of people’s houses they witnessed how the Israeli soliders went into homes, arrested men and made the familes wait outside while they raided their homes resulting in large scale damage to property. The ISM activists also visited homes that soldiers had searched to find broken windows, cut fuse-cables, smashed furniture, and polluted drinking water caused by Israeli soldiers.
Hundreds of soldiers entered the village in military vehicles early on the morning of the 12th of march, following the murder of five members of a settler family in the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar. According to the soliders, they were searching for the murderer and would continue until they found one. One soldier told ISM activists, ”we will search this village until we find someone.” In the process of ”searching” the houses the sodiers damaged framed pictures, funiture, Tv-sets, gasheaters, smashed holes in floors and walls, stole money and jewlery, and poured liquids over computers. The Israeli forces occupied around 30 houses to sleep in during the four nights they remained in Awarta. In some of the houses they evicted the families who had to seak shelter outdoors or in neighbours homes during the night; in others they forced the families to stay in one room as the soldiers occupied the rest of the house. In occupied houses the sodiers deficated in the rooms and used the famlies bed sheets as toilet paper.
Alot of the houses were ”searched” and wrecked up to three times over five days. The soldiers did not seem to follow any apperent pattern when choosing which house to search or who to arrest, ”It all looked very random ” one activist said. In at least one case, on monday the 14th of march, the soldiers still did not know the name of the man that they had previously arrested and had to ask his family for it. The man that they had arrested was village council member Salim Qawaric. Approxametely 25 soliders entered his house causing severe damage on the family’s property while the family had to wait in the backyard. The following day the soldiers came back and searched the home once again resulting in further damage to the family’s home and property.
The ISM activists were not allowed to take pictures, and when they did it anyway, they soldiers pointed their guns at them shouting: ”Do not take pictures!” One of the activists had her memory card stolen by a soldier who took her camera from her by force.
During the curfew many families ran short of gas, food, water and medicine.
There have been numerous reports of physical abuse. According to eyewitnesses, Mashmod Zaqah, 28, had his hands cuffed behind his back and was blindfolded before he was beaten by at least six soldiers during a period of two hours, periodicly he lost consciousness and couldnt feel his legs or fingers. His family managed to smuggle him to Rafidia hospital in Nablus. He suffers a dislocated shoulder, back injuries, and a badly twisted ankle.
Accourding to eyewitnesses, around 300 israeli settlers, of whom some were masked, entered the village on saturday the 12th of March and threw stones at windows, injuring two Awarta residents by breaking their arms. Villagers tried to protect homes while israeli soldiers responded by shooting teargas at the villagers.
It has been reported that children were bitten by the israeli military dogs that the soldiers had with them. A young physically disabled man was bitten by a dog which resulted in his hospitalisation. Loay Medjet Abdet is now scared to go inside his own home because he believes the dogs will attack him again.
For the activists, it was clear that the repression against Awarta was only a form of collective punishment. When one activist asked: ”Why do you have to punish all this people?” The solider responded with: ”We have to punish these people so they will understand.”
Even though this kind of systematic collective punishment is illegal according to International law, is it frequently used by the Israeli military all over the West Bank and in Gaza.
When medical vehicles tried to access the area they were stopped by Israeli forces. ISM activists went to the checkpoint near Awarta on March 15 and reported that ambulances were being held several hours before they could enter the village. As an occupying force, Israel is obligated under article 56 of the Geneva Conventions not to hinder the work of medical personnel in a conflict zone.
6 March 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
At around 1:30 AM last night, dozens of soldiers swarmed the village of Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah, arresting 47 year old Naji Tamimi. Tamimi, who was sleeping in his home at the time, was taken out blindfolded and handcuffed. Tamimi is one of the village’s leading figures in its struggle against the occupation and for the protection of village lands from a Halamish settler take over.
Simultaneously, another group of soldiers raided the home of Bassem Tamimi, another prominent activist with the village’s popular committee who was absent at the time. Tamimi’s wife, Nariman, was woken up by the violent pounding and opened the door holding a video camera and filming. The soldiers ordered her to stop filming, and when she refused, violently confiscated the camera. After conducting a meticulous, hour long search of the premises, the soldiers left the house.
Over the last five weeks the army has arrested sixteen of Nabi Saleh’s residents on suspicion of participation in protests in the village. Half of the arrestees were minors, the youngest of whom merely eleven. The arrests were conducted based on incriminations extracted from a fourteen year-old boy from the village, recently arrested and subjected to verbal and emotional pressure during his interrogation. Prevented from consulting an attorney, he was interrogated in absence of his parents, albeit obliged by law. The interrogators have also never bothered informing the boy of his right to remain silent.
Ever since the beginning of the village’s struggle against settler takeover of their lands, in December of 2009, the army has conducted 63 arrests related to protest in the village. As the entire village numbers just over 500 residents, the number constitutes a gross 10% of its population.
Tamimi’s arrest last night corresponds to the systematic arrest of protest leaders all around the West Bank, as in the case of the villages of Bil’in and Ni’ilin. Only recently the Military Court of Appeals has aggravated the sentence of Abdallah Abu Rahmah from the village of Bilin, sending him to 16 months imprisonment. The arrest and trial of Abu Rahmah has been widely condemned by the international community, most notably by Britain and EU foreign minister, Catherin Ashton. Harsh criticism of the arrest has also been offered by leading human rights organizations in Israel and around the world, among them B’tselem, ACRI, as well as Human Rights Watch, which declared Abu Rahmah’s trial unfair, and Amnesty International, which declared Abu Rahmah a prisoner of conscience.
13 January 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
From the hours of 12:00 until 03:00 last night, soldiers raided eighteen houses in the village of Nabi Saleh. Soldiers, in full combat equipment, raided the houses in order to photograph people, mostly young men, and check ID cards. No arrests were made. However, the intentions of the army are clear.
The pattern has been used many times in the past. The army raids a house in the middle of the night. Soldiers take a photograph of a 15 or 16 child and match the photograph with ID information. Then, some days later, during the weekly nonviolent demonstration, soldiers go from house to house with a picture book of people and arrest them. It does not matter if the suspected person is in the middle of the demonstration or inside the house watching television.
Once soldiers apprehend the suspect, they create a story that the person was throwing stones or ‘rioting”. This story is usually based on zero evidence and it does not have to be in order to be used in an Israeli military court. The only thing necessary is for a soldier to say that he saw the person throwing stones. No photographic or video evidence is needed. Not even another witness.
Last night’s raid was the second time this week for Nabi Saleh. Bassam Tamimi, one of the Popular Committee leaders of Nabi Saleh, said that the army has raided almost every house in the village this week. Every male between the ages of 12 and 22 have been photographed by the army and their ID numbers have been taken..
Nabi Saleh, a small village west of Ramallah, has engaged in an unarmed demonstration against the confiscation of their land by the neighboring Jewish settlement of Halamish for the past year There have been countless injuries, arrests and collective punishment against the village over the past year as the army has tried to crush the protest. This Friday afternoon, Nabi Saleh will once again march to its land and demand an end to the Israeli occupation.
23 December 2010 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Soldiers from the Karmei Tzur settlement/military base invaded a civilian house this afternoon in Beit Ummar using live ammunition and sound bombs. During the raid, woman and children were injured as the soldiers harassed one of the Popular Committee leaders of the village.
At 3 pm, soldiers came from the Karmei Tzur settlement to the house of Ibrahim Abu Maria in Beit Ummar. Soldiers attacked his wife by hitting her on head and also attacked some of his children in a similar manner. The soldiers rampaged the house, breaking items left and right. The only clear motivate of this attack was to intimate Abu Maria, who is active member of the village’s popular committee which is responsible for weekly non-violent demonstrations against the occupation. Abu Maria’s house is also subject to constant harassment by the army because it sits so close to the Karmei Tzur settlement.
As the attack on the house intensified this afternoon, members of the villages popular committee attempted to help the family. The army responded by firing ten rounds of live ammunition at the villagers and throwing sound bombs directly at woman and children. The woman and children involved in the attack are now receiving treatment for shock and their wounds in a local hospital. To add insult to injury, the army set up a floating checkpoint at the entrance to the village. This resulted in a delay in reaching the hospital.
Beit Ummar and the adjacent Saffa valley have recently witnessed a tide in repression by the Israeli army. On November 18th, thirteen Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists were arrested when accompanying farmers to their land in the Saffa valley, near the illegal settlement of Bat Ayn. In the past month, soldiers have raided the village at nights and made arrests up to three times a week. Thirty five people were arrested in October, and several have been arrested this month.
Karmei Tsur, an illegal settlement according to international law, is one of five built on land belonging to Beit Ummar villagers. The demonstration is held every Saturday and organized by the National Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, and the Palestine Solidarity Project.
