4th March 2016| International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Bil’in, occupied Palestine
Today, groups of Palestinians, Israelis and other activists from around the world marched together in solidarity to oppose the zionist regimes annexation wall and illegal settlement of Modin Ilit. The settlement has been built on part of the once Palestinian land from the town of Bil’in. In 2007 after 9 months of daily protesting, the Israeli court ruled that the wall be re-routed. However after major delays only parts of the wall have been re-routed. 9 years later the locals are still peacefully protesting weekly for the return of the rest of their land from the Israeli government.
Piles of used tear gas and stun grenades from past demonstrations
The demonstration started around 1pm after prayer as it has been every Friday for the past 11 years. Palestinians, Israelis and fellow activists assembled in front of the mosque and began the march to unite against the annexation wall which provides shelter for the illegal settlement of Modin Ilit.
Heavy tear gas cloud
However the peaceful demonstration was unfortunately cut short as Israeli soldiers had already mobilised and made their way onto Palestinian territory in anticipation for the march. The demonstrators were met with a barrage of tear gas fired from a distance by the occupying Israeli forces, not allowing them to progress further. While the tear gas rained down around demonstrators it also landed in several of the local Palestinians yards and homes.
An Israeli activist runs from tear gas
While protesters re-assembled and tried to march on, more and more tear gas was fired causing them to end what was a peaceful march to oppose the barbarous acts of the Israeli government.
The occupying forces will continue to use excessive force in territories that do not belong to them just as the Palestinians will continue to protest peacefully until the world notices these heinous human rights violations being committed by the zionist government and the stolen land is returned to the Palestinians.
A Palestinian man and a Israeli man stand together in opposition to occupation
1st March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza-team | Deir El Balah, Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine
One month ago Mohamed Said El Saidi, 23 years old, and his brother went back to the sea around 5am in order to pick up the nets that they had previously left 2 miles offshore in Deir El Balah.
When they arrived they saw an Israeli warship waiting for them in the distance, once they had collected their nets the Israeli navy vessel approached and told them to stop. “We decided to try escape… we couldn’t afford loosing the boat and the nets”.
However they couldn’t go too far, as the Israeli soldiers immediately shot Mahmoud 11 times with a unique kind of projectile that consists of a cloth bag full of buckshots. They soldiers shot him 8 times in the leg and 3 times to the head. The damage from the shots left him unable to walk, as he couldn’t feel his leg, he was also left very dizzy and disoriented.
Mahmoud and his injuries
Immediately after that, the warship from the occupation rammed them, destroying their small boat and nailing a metal bar on Mahmoud’s neck. In the collision he also got his jaw and nose broken.
Mahmoud in hospital
The occupation forces then took Mahmoud to the hospital and kept his brother for one day before sending him back to Gaza. Mahmoud’s mother explains, “I received a call from the Israeli hospital telling me that my son might die at any moment, and when my other son came back he told me that Mahmoud was dead”.
Mahmoud and his mother in hospital
Mahmoud’s mother was then given a permission slip to leave Gaza in order to see him. He was unconscious for 6 days and couldn’t begin to speak again until 12 days after, as all his vocal cords had been cut by the metal bar. The doctors have told him not to eat anything solid, during the next year he is only able to drink juices and soups through a straw.
Medical examination reports
Medical examination reports
The situation of the family has become tragic, “we live in a rented house that we have been paying with the money that Mahmoud provides. Now we also should pay for his care and medicines, but we can’t… his cousin is taking care of his wounds as we can’t pay a nurse to do it”. “Please let the world know what they do to our children… they shoot them, steal their boats, kill them… they leave whole families without income… this is not life”. She continues, “I have another son who was kidnapped by the occupation a year ago… he has 3 children who have stopped going to school because we can’t pay for it”.
27th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On Wednesday evening, 24th February 2015, a commemoration for the victims of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), was interrupted by infamous settlers attacking the group of Palestinians and internationals peacefully remembering those killed and the implications of this massacre on basic Palestinians rights.
Infamous and violent settler, Anat Cohen
The residents of the Salaymeh neighbourhood which is located directly next to the Ibrahimi Mosque, have been gathering every day around a nightly bonfire for the last few months. Doing so as an act of defiance against settlers from the illegal settlements, foremost among them infamous settler Baruch Marzel, gathering at a settler-only bus-stop across the street. With their presence, the Palestinians are demonstrating that despite the lethal and non-lethal violence they have to face by settlers, they will not be intimidated by them.
Candles lit in memory of those lost in the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre of ’94
On Wednesday evening, Palestinians and international supporters gathered in an event organised by Youth Against Settlements as part of their Open Shuhada Street campaign. With the importance of this gathering being to stress the vital yet peacefully displayed acts of resistance and defiance against the settlers and Israeli forces’ continuous acts of intimidation, harassment and violence. For the families, the event can and will never be linked to any organisation or party, but will always stay an act of popular resistance any person is invited and welcome to join, as it’s not a one-time event that gives them a feeling of security and solidarity, but the everyday gathering around this symbolic bonfire that is called the ‘tanakeh’ (Arabic word for the barrel the bonfire is lit in).
Candles were lit in commemoration of the victims of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, in which extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 and injured more than 120 worshipers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in cold blood. In the aftermath of this heinous massacre, the Ibrahimi Mosque was divided and the main Palestinian market in Shuhada Street completely closed for Palestinians.
Israeli forces
While a documentary about this massacre was screened, Israeli forces at the nearby checkpoint detained three Palestinian men and a girl that were on their way to join the event. Two heavily armed Israeli settlers stopped their car next to the Palestinians that had been detained for already more than half an hour for no reason, and getting out of the car threatened Palestinians. Even though they left, another settler, infamous violent Anat Cohen, arrived and slowly and deliberately drove her car into a big group of Palestinians gathered at the side of the road while insulting them through her open car window. The Israeli forces refused to intervene and let her drive off. She immediately made a u-turn and came back, got out of the car and started threatening, intimidating and attacking Palestinians and internationals, hitting them and trying to slap cameras out of their hands.
More Israeli forces arrive to push back non violent Palestinians
The whole time, the soldiers at the checkpoint were merely watching and refused to intervene and stop the violent assaults. Instead, as more soldiers arrived, they started violently pushing back the Palestinians.
At the end of an event supposed to peacefully commemorate the heinous massacre committed 22 years ago – two Palestinians had to be brought to hospital as a direct result of Israeli forces’ violent assault on a group of people that were being attacked by an infamously violent settler – apparently the only person the Israeli forces were willing to protect as she was allowed to leave without any consequences for the disruption of the peaceful event, the harassment or the violent assaults.
An ambulance arrives to take away injured Palestinians
30th January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
More than four month ago, 24th September 2015, at the very start of the current escalation of violence, human rights group Amnesty International demanded a proper investigation in the execution of Hadeel al-Hashlamon at Shuhada checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on 22nd September 2015. Amnesty consideres it proven, that the 18 year old female student posed no threat to the soldiers who executed her and then let her bleed to death without medical help for more than half an hour.
More executions followed and they all seem to have the same pattern: Soldiers at the checkpoints gun down Palestinian men and women who just wanted to pass the checkpoints and gave them no medical care until they were dead. They put a knife next to the body and made a photograph of the body and the knife, for the ‘stabbing attack story’ in the official Israeli news.
While the international press blindly copied the official Israeli version of the events saying “Israel has the right to defend themselves against terrorists.” The Israeli government furthermore tries to criminalize any human rights organisation that actually did proper report on the incidents.
From then on, the Israeli Army killed Palestinian civilians every day. The number counts 167 killed Palestinians suspected of knife attacks, car attacks or trowing stones. Most of them in Hebron in the southern part of the West Bank
In the last week of October 2015, there were almost daily executions by the Israeli army in the city of Hebron:
On 22 October, Israeli forces in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood killed Islam Ebeido (23), from the same neighborhood, while passing by Gilbert checkpoint .
On 24 October, at approximately 14:50, Israeli forces killed Sa’d al-Atrash (20), from the south of Hebron, in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque. They shot him from a range of less than 2 meters. Israeli forces claimed that al-Atrash attempted to stab an Israeli soldier. It should be noted that the area were al-Atrash was killed can’t be entered without passing through a metal detector in a checkpoint.
On 25 October, Israeli Border Police stationed at the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque, south of Hebron’s Old City, killed Dania Jehad Ersheid (17), from al-Hawooz area. They opened fire at her when she stopped to have her school bag searched.
On 27 October, at approximately 22:30, Israeli special troops, temporarily replacing the soldiers at the Gilbert Checkpoint in Tel Rumeida neighbourhood of Hebron killed Homam Adnan Sa’id, 23, claiming ‘he had a knife’, but eyewitnesses report seeing soldiers throwing a knife next to his dead body.
On 28 October, Islam Rafiq Obeid, 23, was shot by Israeli troops in Tel Rumeida in Hebron. Witnesses say that soldiers arrived at around 14:30, cleared the spot, then waited for the first to come, which was Islam, and killed him with over 11 bullets. Soldiers also detained Palestinian medics and stopped them from providing Obeid medical help. According to witnesses, he was left to bleed to death by Israeli forces that surrounded the area and closed it.
On 29 October, soldiers at Qurtuba checkpoint, in Shuhada Street, killed Farouq Seder (19), from Izone neighbourhood east of Hebron, by opening fire at him from behind. Israeli forces claimed that he attempted to stab a soldier. However, photos posted by Israeli soldiers on social media clearly show that there was no knife in the crime scene.
On 29 October, Soldiers at the ibrahim Mosque Checkpoint killed Mahdi Muhammad al-Muhtaseb, 23. An eyewitness told Ma’an News that he saw an Israeli soldier shoot at the Palestinian, hitting him in the shoulder. “Then the Israeli soldier approached him and shot him in the head and dropped a knife near his body,” the eyewitness added.
Militairy bulldozer enters Tel Rumeida for building the new armybase, while residents get registration numbers
Since these assassinations, which in the Israeli press were dubbed ‘terror attacks’ perpetrated by Palestinians, families in Shuhada Street and the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood in Hebron were punished with severe restrictions. They had to register with the army, who build a new military camp in the old Jewish cemetery in Tel Rumeida, fortified the checkpoints and closed down all paths on the hill, forcing everyone to walk through the checkpoint, where other Palestinians had been killed.
Then the Israeli army declared the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood and Shuhada street a ‘closed military zone’, evicted all human right observers and closed the offices of ISM and YAS, two human rights defenders groups. Only registered residents have since then been able to enter the region but are subjected to daily harassment and threats. Illegal Israeli settlers can move freely in the area.
It’s collective punishment which is an abuse of international law. This closed military zone has now lasted for more than 3 months.
To the world, Israel is pretending to defend itself, but the assassinated men were not attacking the soldiers at all. There’s clear evidence that most of the killings were random executions.
Many residents and internationals saw the special troops arriving and checking the environment before waiting for the first Palestinian to come and kill him. They put knives next to the body to pretend they neutralized terrorists, made pictures of it, stole the dead bodies, cleaned the blood from the street and left the scene.
Families are afraid to complain or give testimony because they will surely be punished for it by the occupation forces. They know they can be killed for no reason, or have their children traumatized, injured or even killed, if they stay where they live in their neighborhood. Some families already temporarily left.
This is ethnic cleansing, a war crime, and brutal abuse of Human Rights and International Law.
Sit-in tent against the closed military zone in Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street.
That’s why the international politicians are slowly demanding a proper investigation into all those killings. Swedish foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom was brave enough to start demanding this, and is publicly supported by other foreign ministers.
The Israeli reaction is furious and devastating. As long as we’re waiting for more brave politicians to join this justified demand, it is necessary to support Margot Wallstrom, because she will be attacked inside and outside of Sweden.
A good start is to send a supportive message to the Swedish embassy in your country <http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/>, using the underneath text or writing your own. You may also consider writing a message to your own national and local politicians asking them to support Palestine and Walström and demand investigations of the assassinations. To the attention of Mrs. Margot Wallström, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Sweden
Dear Mrs. Wallström,
I have taken notice of your stance on the necessity to investigate Israel’s extrajudicial killings of Palestinians. I have also noted the shameful reactions of Israeli leaders and others. It’s the ferocity and disgrace of these reactions that urge me to speak out in support of your remarks and integrity.
I support your position that Israel should be held accountable for what are in fact proven extrajudicial killings. Amnesty International and other organisations have provided plenty of evidence, as in the case of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, the young Palestinian woman who was executed point blank by the Israeli army. Much of this evidence is available online, ranging from reports to video’s and testimonies. They make clear that these killings are no exception, but part and parcel of the structural Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians.
Its not that we don’t know about the Israeli atrocities. The problem is that we refuse to act on them. As a result the Palestinians pay the price and Israel goes unpunished – giving the country carte blanche to proceed, which is exactly what we are witnessing. This is why I applaud your principled stance. If no one acts, the remains of the Palestinian society will be destroyed before our eyes.
[If the FM of your country doesn’t support the demand:] I regret that the Foreign Minister of my own country has not acted, and has not expressed his support for Sweden. Please be informed that I will urge him to correct these failures.
30th November 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine
Hamzeh’s family has managed to raise 1880 shekels! This is over half of the amount needed so that Hamzeh can come home in seven days! We still need 564.5 dollars to pay his fine to release him.
Hamze Marwan Abdomousa
Hamzeh was taken from his home in Amari refugee camp by Israeli forces on February 5th, 2015. He was forced to accept a plea bargain despite denying the charges leveled against him by Israeli military court. Now his family must pay the fine or he will remain in prison for another four months.
‘This fine goes beyond the financial means of my circle of family and friends,’ Hamze explains. ‘My financial situation is very difficult, and has worsened by the fact that I have been unemployed for the past 2 years. I was forced to leave school at grade 9 to begin working and help my family. My family still depends on me for financial support, and my imprisonment has exerted an enormous burden on them. I ask all people who understand me to support me and my family.’
If 50 people give 11.29 $ each, or if 100 people give 5.65 $, or 200 people give 2.83 $, Hamzeh will go free. If you’re broke, you can be creative: Pass your hat around friends and family, make a soup kitchen tonight and invite everyone to donate a little!
Also, please send us an email to palreports@gmail.com with “Free Hamzeh” in the subject line to let us know your donation is for Hamzeh, or if you want information about other ways to donate.
Hamze Marwan Abdomousa
Any donation is greatly appreciated; If we all put our efforts together we can fulfill Hamzeh’s desire and right to freedom! Please share his story with your friends and family, in your social media and with all the people who care.
