9th December 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Nablus, Occupied Palestine
On December 8th in Nablus, the Israeli army broke into the homes of two families in Balata refugee camp and arrested two young Palestinians, 19-year-old Mujahed al Shekhalil and 17-year-old Yazan Hta.
In both cases, their homes were raised by the military in the middle of the night (3am and 3:30am) damaging doors and property inside the houses. At the time of the incursions, all family members were sleeping. The military forced all family members into one room whilst they arrested the teenagers. Both families state that between 15 and 20 soldiers broke into their homes, and they were given no reason for either the intrusions or the arrests.
In the village of Madama, on the same night, the Israeli army also entered the home of the Wajeihqut family and arrested 23-year-old Assad Allah. The army spent an hour inside the house between 2:20am and 3:20am, again forcing all family members inside one room. The family reported to ISM that the soldiers told Assad’s 9-year-old brother that if he did not stop speaking they would take him with his brother. Another brother was told that if he did not go into the room with the family then they would cut his head off.
The army confiscated every family members phone and stole the sim cards from them and the hard drive from the family computer. They also smashed the apartments heating system.
This was the fifth time Assad has been arrested and the family home has been raided by the army on numerous occasions.
In all cases, the families were not given a reason for the arrests or for the damage done to their homes, and do not have any information as to where their sons have been taken.
12th November 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Mughayir, Occupied Palestine
Photo by ISM
At 18:00 yesterday, the Israeli army closed the main entrance to Mughayir village until midnight. At midnight the army infiltrated the village and patrolled its empty streets for the next four hours.
Sometime between 2:30-3:30 am, villagers noticed that the mosque was on fire. Failing to put out the fire, the fire brigade was called, but by the time they had arrived from Ramallah, the fire had already spread along the ground floor of the mosque and the toilets.
Photo by ISMPhoto by ISM
While local media reported Zionist settlers as the culprits, witnesses in the village did not see who was responsible. Mughayir mayor, Faraj Na’asan stated, “Of course we know who did it. They’ve done it before in 2012. Everybody was in their houses because the soldiers were patrolling the streets. It was either the soldiers, or settlers under their protection.”
The Mughyir mosque is the second mosque to be burned by settlers this month. Meanwhile the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is infiltrated by Israeli forces almost daily. The limiting of 50 Muslim worshipers a day, and the allowing of settler tours has sparked an upheaval in East Jerusalem and across the West Bank.
Photo by ISMPhoto by ISM
“It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last time that the settlers attack a holy sight and especially after the attacks on al-Aqsa mosque in these past few days,” stated Sais Mughayir. “We are facing a hard time locally and internationally. So we have to be united to enhance the existence of people in their land.”
4th October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Qarawat Banea Hassan, Occupied Palestine
On the 30th of September, six young men from the village of Qarawat Banea Hassan, south of Nablus, were arrested by the Israeli military.
At 1am, five jeeps with around 20 solders surrounded the village looking for Jema Kanan (23-years old), Jema Rayan (22-years old), Yousef Rayan (19-years old), Khalil Assan (20-years old), Wahbi Rayan (17-years old), and Hazem Assi (18-years old).
The solders entered several houses looking for the men, breaking doors and terrifying the families.
A broken handle left over from the night raid (photo by ISM).
The solders arrested two brothers from the same family, the older brother has just got married and his wife is four moths pregnant with their first child.
She was alone in their house sleeping when the solders broke up two of their doors. The woman had to go to the hospital due to being afraid of miscarrying their child.
The solders threatened many of the families, including a 16-year-old brother who they threatened to beat if he did not give information about his brother.
Since July, 21 men have been arrested from the village. In July the villagers held a demonstration to protest the massacre in Gaza, and shortly after the arrests began.
Only five of the men have been given a date for their trial, the other 16 are still waiting in prison.
20th September 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Occupied Palestine
On the 17th of September, under heavy Israeli army protection, Israeli settlers from nearby illegal settlements entered Nablus with the aim of praying at Joseph’s tomb in Balata refugee camp.
Just after midnight, the Israeli army closed the district that surrounds the monument, blocking all the streets leading to the tomb and preventing anyone from passing nearby, either by foot or by car.
Around 1am, between eight and 10 buses full with hundreds of settlers invaded the area.
Clashes began in the area, particularly in the junction just in front of the entry to Balata refugee camp.
Youths threw stones for more then two hours against the army vehicles, that were moving up on the hill and back, seemingly in order to keep them busy and far from the large groups of Zionist settlers. Military trucks also tried several times to run over the Palestinian youths while they were throwing stones.
The Israeli army fired many stun grenades, and the road blockades were kept in place until the settlers left the area.
Clashes around Balata occur almost weekly, any time that the settlers decide to invade the area for praying. The settlers claim this monument belongs to the Biblical patriarch Joseph, while most of the Palestinians believe that the religious guide Sheikh Yusef Dweikat was buried there, according to Islamic tradition. Though Joseph is a sacred figure as well in Muslim, Christian and Samaritan religion, Muslims are not allowed to pray there.
Labeling their own actions as “security measures”, the army can easily shoot down a whole neighborhood and guarantee the Israeli settlers the freedom to move and pray wherever they wish, even in a site which is deeply inside Area A, which is supposed under Palestinian civil and security control. On the other side, most of the Palestinian living in the West Bank are not allowed to pray in their holy places, starting from this Joseph´s tomb to the biggest example of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem.
These evidently different treatments intensify the inequality in rights between Palestinians and illegal Israeli settlers and make the life under occupation more and more unbearable.
9th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Madama, Occupied Palestine
We arrived in Madama yesterday, 8th September; in the early afternoon after we were told that during the night Israeli army invaded this village, and the nearby villages of Burin and Asira Al Qibliya.
Our contact told us that the main road leading to Nablus was blocked during the night and that a car coming from Asira was prevented from reaching the hospital. Furthermore, a checkpoint was erected at the main entrance of the village; cars and pedestrians were searched until it was removed around 11am.
When we reached Madama, we saw a group of seven soldiers standing on the road beside the Mosque, blocking it with two military jeeps and one personnel carrier. More soldiers were inside the vehicles while those outside positioned themselves facing in different directions and keeping an eye on the surrounding streets, shops and houses.
The school had just finished and groups of children were filling the street and hanging around looking at the unwanted ‘guests’.
We decided to stay and see what was going on and take some pictures. We did this for about 10 minutes, before we attracted soldiers’ attention. Several of them came towards us asking what we were doing in the village, demanding that we hand over our camera. We argued that we had a right to take pictures and that they did not have a right to take our camera, but they insisted that we could not take pictures of individual soldiers and in particular, the close-ups of their faces.
We used this opportunity to pose a question, “If what you are doing is right, why do you hide your faces?”
They refused to answer and instead, they gave us an ultimatum that we delete the pictures or they would take us to the police station to be arrested. They also promised us trouble by the immigration authorities when leaving the country. Eventually we decided to delete some of our photos.
Later we met a group of villagers and spoke about the situation in Madama.
“Every night we have problems with the Israeli army and every family here has been at the receiving end. Only during the attack on Gaza they left us alone, probably because they had less soldiers available here,” one of them said.
He continued to state that the army regularly enters houses in the middle of the night to search them. They do it after throwing the residents out and making them wait for hours, before they can return. In one such raid the soldiers stole 180,000 shekels from a house, claiming they did it because the money was going to Hamas. In fact that was the lifesavings of the man who worked for 20 years and received a payout after finishing his job.
The soldiers usually block Madama by closing the entrance at the main road connecting it to Burin and Asira Al Qibliya, and also closing the settler road located up the hill at the top of the village, connecting illegal settlements of Qedumim and Ytzhar with the main road leading to Nablus and the South.
“When you try to pass through, the soldiers often shout at you, ‘Go away!’ But who should go away? This is my village, my land!’” Said another Madama resident.
When we asked for the reasons why soldiers target the village, he replied, “They usually say that someone had thrown stones at them previously and I don’t really know if that is true. This morning after removing the checkpoint around 11 o’clock, they came inside the village and started taking pictures of the old houses. This makes no sense to us, we have no idea why they are doing this, and we are very worried.”
Israeli soldiers come very often to the village when the school finishes to provoke the children. “Soon this is going to be even a bigger problem. In November maintenance work starts in the boys’ school, and for about three months, boys will attend the girls’ school between 2pm and 7pm, which is very near the settlers’ road. The army is always present, we are really worried for our boys…”
