Tag: Night Raid - Page 4 - International Solidarity Movement

Open The Zone: Palestinians are people – not numbers

3rd May 2016 | Open The Zone Campaign: International Solidarity Movement & Youth Against Settlements | Hebron, occupied Palestine

*******UPDATE 20th May 2016*******

The closed military zone order has officially been ‘lifted’ – many restrictions and discrimination remain.

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3rd May is number 186 of the closed military zone in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street. Since November 1st, only Palestinian residents have been allowed to enter the area due to “security reasons,” as stated by the Israeli military. This violation of the freedom of movement means that no friends, family, or repairmen are allowed, and Palestinians have to pass through checkpoints to reach their homes. However, it is possible for people to access the neighbourhood by using alternative routes to avoid being detected by the army, rendering the so-called security useless.

Instead, the closure serves another purpose, namely to pressure people out of their homes by making their lives there impossible. So far, more than ten families have left the neighborhood. The closed military zone is not only collective punishment (illegal under international law,) but also a thinly-disguised attempt at forced displacement of the Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron. Furthermore, the army assigned numbers to each Palestinian inside the closed area and required people to state their number when entering through the main checkpoint. Today we are launching a campaign to end the closed military zone in Tel Rumeida. Palestinians are people, not numbers.

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All updates will be posted here:

personal accounts of live in the closed military zone

more information on the closed military zone and Hebron

press release on children’s play launching the campaign

visit of the delegation of Hebron municipality to the CMZ, 9th May

press conference and children’s event, 12th May

take action: join our twitter-storm and thunderclap campaign on 16th May!

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The campaign is organised jointly by the International Solidarity Movement and Youth Against Settlements.

Violent night raid in Ni’lin leaves 7-days old baby suffering from tear gas inhalation

3rd May 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Ni’lin, occupied Palestine

During nighttime on the 1st of May, Israeli Forces raided the village of Ni’lin in the West Bank in occupied Palestine without any reason.
First, with the arrival of one military jeep, villagers were already aguishly awaiting why the Israeli army is invading the village, fearing arrests. Later on, several armored military jeeps invaded the village and immediately started shooting tear gas towards the houses in an act of collective punishment, targeting civilians that were mainly still asleep. Additionally, the Israeli forces fired rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition towards the house. Ni’lin in the last weeks has repeatedly seen army attacks on civilians entirely uninvolved even in the weekly Friday demonstrations.

Photo from demonstration in Ni'lin. Photo credit: Palestine Solidarity Campaign — Photo from demonstration in Ni’lin. Photo credit: Palestine Solidarity Campaign

This night, a 17-year old young man was shot in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet, but luckily did not sustain any major injuries. Additionally, a newborn, only 7 days old baby, had to be taken to hospital for tear gas inhalation. This is a result of the Israeli forces tactic of deliberately targeting civilians and all the villagers in acts of collective punishment. In the recent weeks, several children and elderly had to be treated for excessive tear gas inhalation as Israeli Forces targeted a public park with a playground, showering it in tear gas; and shooting the potentially deadly long-range tear gas canisters straight into the village. As this long-range tear gas canister can not be heard and has an extremely hard metal tip, it is not only potenitally deadly – an international solidarity activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured with this kind of tear gas canister in the head in 2009 in Ni’lin and now requires 24-hour care – but it also easily breaks through windows and even walls. This is just another proof of how dangerous it is. Thus, tear gas can easily, and has already, trapped civilians inside their own homes, causing excessive tear gas inhalation.

During the last weekly Friday demonstration in Ni’lin against the illegal Israeli apartheid wall and the theft of the majority of the villages agricultural lands (the majority still located and theoretically accessible on the villages’ side of the wall has arbitrarily been declared a ‘closed military zone’ thus denying the villagers access), Israeli forces, surprisingly did not use the violence against the peaceful protestors, the villagers were forced to get used to.

The nightly raid on Monday, thus, appears to the villagers to be an even more twisted act of revenge by the Israeli forces.

See the video from the invasion here:

Intimidation through nightly ‘settler-tour’

31st January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On Saturday, 30^th January 2016, large groups of settlers, accompanied by heavily-armed soldiers, entered the Palestinian market at night and took it over for about an hour during night-time in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).

Israeli forces blocking the entrance to the Palestinian market

Around 9:30 pm, Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements throughout al-Khalil gathered at Bab al-Baladiyya, from where they walked into the Palestinian souq, the market, surrounded by heavily-armed Israeli forces. The group of more than 50 settlers started a ‘tour’ of the Palestinian market, with Israeli forces ‘guarding’ them throughout the Palestinian market. Palestinian residents were not allowed to pass and forced to wait at a distance, with soldiers repeatedly pointing the lasers from their guns at them to indicate they have to stop. The walk home at night took almost an hour for some Palestinians, instead of the usual 10 minutes.

Settler clocking up the Palestinian market — Settler clogging up the Palestinian market

This kind of ‘settler tour’ through the Palestinian market used to take place regularly on Saturday afternoons. During the ‘tour’ Palestinians are often denied to pass, stopped, ID-checked and detained. In the recent months, no ‘settler tours’ took place, but last week they started again with a nightly-tour at 11pm. For the Palestinian residents of the souq, these tours have become a regular form of intimidation and harassment in the past.

House raids and arrests: Queitun area violently invaded by Israeli Forces

17^th January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Yesterday, 16^th of January 2016, the area of Queitun in Al-Khalil (Hebron) in the occupied West Bank was invaded by more than 50 Israeli Forces and more than six military jeeps and two police cars. The Israeli Forces raided multiple houses in the area from 4 pm until 7 pm and arrested at least seven Palestinians from the area before finally leaving the families alone.

Israeli Forces entering house in Queitun

According to witnesses, the Israeli forces entered the area explaining that they heard shooting coming from an unidentified Palestinian home close to the Queitun Checkpoint that leads into the area. However, Palestinians in the neighborhood did not hear any such noises throughout the day.

After the Israeli Forces entered the checkpoint, they raided multiple family homes nearby. In some homes, the soldiers damaged the residents’ belongings and left the homes wrecked. They also beat some residents without any reason. A young man from one of these homes needed medical treatment in the hospital after soldiers violently attacked him.

Young man beaten by soldiers with there guns.

During the three hours that the Israeli Forces spend terrorizing the area and harassing the residents, they arrested at least 7 Palestinians. Three of the arrestees were taken around 4 pm and were all from the Karaki family. They were released after less than three hours.

12493542_1316630135029498_6541160703640448877_o-2 — Arrest in Queitun. Photo Credit: CPT Palestine

At the same time 40 soldiers entered the Abu Ramooz family home in Queitun to search before going to the neighbor’s house to arrest Hammad Said, 19. During that time, the 8-year-old sister of Hamad was struck in the head by a soldier after asking the Israeli Forces why they were attacking her brother and taking him away. The soldiers then went back to the Abu Ramooz family and arrested Wasam Abu Ramooz, 20, local shop owner Yunis Serbel, 32, and Shaudi Abu Hadid, 48, who was taken from his house where he was alone at the time. These four men had not been released at 8 pm and the families were still not being informed about where they were or what was happening to them.

More than 50 Israeli Forces took part in the mission in Queitun leaving many families in fear.

House raids and arrests like these are not uncommon in the area of Queitun that has been suffering from ongoing harassment and military presence. The Israeli Forces took over a whole floor of a Palestinian house more than a month ago and have been using it as a military outpost. The increasing amount of harassment in the area has left many families afraid of letting their children play in streets and opening their shops. This is a clear example of how the military occupation affects the everyday lives of Palestinian families.

Tanweer cultural centre in Nablus raided at night, equipment stolen and damaged

15th of December, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, occupied Palestine

On the night of the 10th of December, the Israeli forces raided the Palestinian cultural Centre Tanweer, near the old city of Nablus, and stole hardwares, wifi keys and a laptop after searching the whole centre. The organisation lost all of their data from the raid.

When the volunteers arrived at 11 am the next day, they found the door broken and everything spread on the floor. Volunteers from the centre have been working on getting the place back into shape since then, but much of the furniture and computer equipment have been severely damaged. The Rachel Corrie computer room, established in 2011, was as well raided and the computers are at the moment unusable. The team is thinking of launching a fundraising campaign to help replace the lost equipment.
The volunteers’ coordinator has been arrested around three weeks ago during a night raid, as well as about seven of the organisation’s volunteers. Tanweer is not involved in any political activism; it’s a cultural center working to educate the youth from the old city of Nablus and therefore the volunteers don’t understand the reason for this targeting of their work.

The coordinators, along with Palestinian volunteers, organise activities, support classes, computer courses and any cultural events. “You attack a cultural center, it means that you don’t want people to be enlightened”, said Mustafa Azizi, one of the volunteers.