15th October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Aqraba, Occupied Palestine
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, a group of Zionist settlers from the illegal settlements close to Aqraba near Nablus, set fire to a mosque in the outskirts of the village.
The investigation so far shows that the building was set on fire at approximately 02:00 when a molotov cocktail was thrown through a window on the ground floor, into the women’s prayer room. Hours later, neighbouring villagers observed the flames and managed to put the fire out. The fire caused severe damage inside the mosque.
The police arrived at approximately 06.30 AM and the collection of evidence began. However the policeman ISM spoke explained that the main responsibility for the investigation lies on the Israeli authority.
Gloria Nafiz Abu Saqer, Public Relation Officer of Aqraba Municipality explains the difficult situation, “The village of Aqraba is surrounded by no less than seven illegal settlements and the Palestinians living in Aqraba are under constant threat and facing settler harassment and violence daily.”
According to Ayman Banifadl, mayor of Aqraba, the perpetrators might be the same group of settlers who have committed several hate crimes previously in the area. The conclusion is based on the graffiti, written in Hebrew on the wall of the torched mosque, with the same signature as last time settlers burnt down a building near the village. The message refers to the so called ”price tag campaign” and is based on the notion that the Palestinians should pay for any actions that can be considered taken against the illegal settlements.
Banifadl stated, “The graffiti says pay the price but we don’t know what price that is. We are under occupation and we are already paying a price every day for something we don’t know what it is.”Word by word the graffiti says: Price tag / Tappuah / Kahane.
It might refer to the zionist extremist Meir Kahane (1932–1990) who lived in the illegal settlement Kfar Tappuah. Kahane and his son Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane (1966–2000) are known for their militant right-wing extremism and their political party, Kahane Chai (meaning Kahane Lives). Kahane Chai was banned in 1994 and is considered to be a terrorist organisation by the EU and US, Canadian and Israeli governments.
10th May 2013 | Operation Dove, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine
On May the 10th at about 6 a.m. some Palestinians from At-Tuwani and two Operation Dove volunteers found out that 62 olive trees had been cut during the night in a field next to the Bypass road 317.
Olive trees cut down (Photo by Operation Dove)
On a small wall nearby the olive field the sentence “price tag for those who steal” was found. The “price tag policy” (Hebrew: מדיניות תג מחיר) is, according to B’Tselem, the name given to “acts of random violence aimed at the Palestinian population and Israeli security forces” by radical Israeli settlers, who, according to the New York Times, “exact a price from local Palestinians or from the Israeli security forces for any action taken against their settlement enterprise”.
The olive trees grove belongs to the Amor Palestinian family and had been planted approximately 30 years ago. The members of the family which were present on the scene were particularly shocked for the loss.
The first jeep of soldiers arrived at about 7 a.m. followed by another army vehicle and a DCO (District Coordination Office) car. Around 7.30 a.m. a police car reached the area and an officer taped the incident’s scene with a camera. One member of the owner family spoke with the policeman giving him some information about the history of the olive trees. The Israeli police did not speak with the international volunteers and did not give any further details about the investigation. Around 8 a.m. Ma’on security chief arrived near the olive trees, spoke with the police and the soldiers and took some pictures. Some ten minutes later a DCO officer tried to detain a Palestinian shepherd from At-Tuwani accusing him of lacking respect to his authority. The Palestinian man denied and claimed that he did not say nothing bad to the officer.
Around 8.30 a.m. an Israeli soldier in charge of analyzing footprints started his investigation on the field. At the end of his research he declared that 6 people damaged the olive trees (5 men and 1 woman) while others were watching from distance.
In the afternoon, at about 2.30 p.m. a group of settlers set fire to a Palestinian wheat field close to the Palestinan village of Tuba. A Palestinian teenager saw them from distance while they were running away. The field belongs to the Aliawad family that has immediately called the Israeli police. When the police arrived the kid and his brother have been driven to the police station of Kiryat Arba for filing a complaint.
The olive trees and the wheat are an essential resource for the Palestinian community in South Hebron Hills area and their damaging causes a serious economic loss.
Nevertheless the Palestinian communities of the South Hebron Hills area are still strongly committed in the nonviolent popular resistance against Israeli occupation.
Operation Dove maintains a constant presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.
Palestinian woman expresses her devastation at the destruction of the olive trees (Photo by Operation Dove)Message from settlers: “price tag for those who steal” (Photo by Operation Dove)
22 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Marwan Borqan several days after he was attacked by an Israeli settler – Click here for more photos
Marwan Borqan always locks the main door to his house at night. Late at night, soldiers will often knock at his door, ‘checking,’ they say, although Marwan has never known what they are checking for.
That is why he did not find it unusual when he heard a loud banging at his front door at 10:30pm on Wednesday night. However, this time it was not the Israeli army but an Israeli settler from the nearby illegal settlement of Givat Ha’avot. As soon as Marwan opened the door he was violently punched and kicked by the settler, who then dragged him out the door.
Outside the beating continued, causing Marwan to fall down a flight of stairs as other settlers, the settlement security guard, and Marwan’s shocked children looked on.
Finally, two police cars arrived and with the help of Marwan’s brothers, detained the attacker.
At this point, Marwan’s father arrived to find that Marwan had lost consciousness. He called an ambulance and was forced to wait forty-five minutes as the ambulance was detained at the metal gate restricting Palestinian vehicular access to their own street.
Marwan’s father demanded that the Israeli army commander arrest the settler who had attacked his son, only to have soldiers threateningly point their guns at his head and tell him to ‘shut up’. At a point throughout the night, the army released the settler who was responsible for the attack. They later claimed they did not arrest him because they could not find him.
While awaiting the ambulance’s arrival, the Israeli army evacuated the entire building where Marwan lived. Forty-five people, including many children,were forced to wait on the street while the army searched the victim’s house.
An Israeli police jeep then arrived carrying a settler who claimed rocks were thrown at her by a Palestinian earlier that day. The girl scanned the families lined up on the street and admitted that none of them had thrown rocks at her.
After Marwan was taken to the hospital, settlers attempted to occupy his apartment but were later escorted from the building by the Israeli army.
Commonly, following an accusation by a settler, all Palestinians are perceived as guilty by both the illegal settler communities and the Israeli army. Revenge may have been the reason behind the Israeli army raiding a house or the savage beating of a Palestinian by an Israeli settler.
Nonetheless, raids and attacks also take place in lieu of any accusations. Above all, the violence is arbitrary and systematic. The reason is always the same: to make life for Palestinians so difficult that they will be forced to leave. Those who refuse will continue to pay the price.
For Marwan Borqan the price for him and his family has been very high. He suffers from a concussion, and many bodily injuries, and was forced to wait while Israeli soldiers detained the ambulance attempting to reach him.
Marwan explained that he was “shocked” by the beating. His family regularly suffers from settler and soldier harassment, but it was “the first time the settlers actually tried to enter the house.”
His children were up late watching a football match with him when the attacker arrived, and to their horror witnessed his brutal beating. Marwan’s eight year old daughter, Afnan, is still traumatized by what she saw. Marwan explains that she shakes and has difficulty eating. He intends to find psychological help for her.
The Borqan house lies near to the illegal Israeli settlements of Qiryat Arba and Givat Ha’avot in Western Hebron, an area which experiences repeated torment from extremist settlers. Qiryat Arba was one of the first settlements established in the West Bank by members of the far right Kach party and Givat Ha’vot began as a police station which was occupied by settlers in 1990. Both settlements are in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva convention, prohibiting the transfer of the occupying power’s civilians into the occupied territory. The illegality has been repeatedly confirmed by the International Court of Justice, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the United Nations Security Council.
Paige is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
9 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Israeli settlers attacked and chased a group of Palestinian farmers last Thursday, causing a tractor to flip over during the chase, causing the death of the Palestinian driver.
On Thursday, April 5th, armed settlers from the illegal Israeli colony of Itamar attacked a group of Palestinians en-masse. In haste and in fear for his life, twenty-eight year old Fadi Abu Zeitoun’s tractor tipped and crushed him as he fled from the pursuing settlers.
The villagers who own olive groves near Itamar rarely get “permission” from the Israeli District Coordination Office to access their own land. During the harvest season, they are permitted a few days, but in the spring when the land needs to be tended they have more difficulty acquiring permission. During this spring harvest, the villages of Hawarta, Yanoun, Aqraba, and Beita were told they had only four hours to access their land. The area to be tended is approximately 1000 dunums so the villagers collected forty tractors to work as much land as possible in the shortest possible time. Israeli activists from the movement Peace Now, and a group of international activists were present in solidarity. Prime Minister Salam Fayad joined them to make a statement re-affirming their right to utilize the stolen land that they were standing upon.
During the Prime-minister’s visit, Israeli authorities were positioned nearby and prevented the settlers from passing. However, shortly after Fayad left the area, Israeli soldiers permitted a mob of settlers to converge upon the Palestinian farmers tending to their land. They began by throwing stones, causing the group to separate and begin descending the hill. The settlers then proceeded to fire M-16 assault rifles in the direction of the unarmed farmers before releasing dogs. In the ensuing chaos, and as Fadi desperately attempted to escape, his tractor flipped over and fell on him, mortally wounding the young man.
Palestinians witnessing the incident ran back towards the scene to offer assistance. The settlers promptly dispersed as they rushed him down the hill to the road, unfortunately he was already dead.
Fadi is of the village of Beita . With a population of only 12,000, this death resonates among all the residents. As Fadi’s father-in-law, Isam Bani Shams says, “This is not our first martyr nor our last, we have been in this situation for sixty-four years. Our village has lost some seventy martyrs.”
On the same date, twenty-four years ago, two men from the village of Beita were also murdered by settlers from Itamar.
In the gathering following the funeral, Fadi’s father, Sleman Abu Zeitoun, sat with his head down. Beside him sat three other men who have had a son murdered by Israeli soldiers or settlers.
Fadi was newly married to nineteen year-old Fida’ Bani Shams who is left widowed and six months pregnant. Her brother was killed at the age of sixteen by Israeli soldiers during the second intifada, and as her father says, “She has lost a brother and a husband so what can I say of her emotions? She is in grief. She is exhausted.” Fida’ sat slouched in a corner of the room, her eyes closed and blankets covering her feet.
Fadi’s sister has had a nervous breakdown since the death of her brother. She does not recognize her husband or her daughters. Their mother, Mona Fihmeh says, “in terms of how I feel, I have patience, but my back has been broken from the burden.” Mona spent last night praying over her feverish body, and today she sent her daughter to the hospital. Her husband was on the way back from a funeral in Jordan when the accident occurred. He returned to Beita to find that his son had been killed.
Throughout the funeral, political talk arose about the various results of Israeli occupation and apartheid on Palestine. At first, the unemployment rate among Palestinians does not seem relevant to the death of Fadi Abu Zeitoun, but one soon realizes that Israel’s apartheid policies are to blame for both the impunity with which settlers are treated, and the numerous other negative consequences on livelihood.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory reported that over 90% of complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians to the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment. OCHA’s report on settler violence notes that “the root cause of the settler violence phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory. This activity has resulted in the progressive takeover of Palestinian land, resources and transportation routes and has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favouring Israeli citizens at the expense of the over 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Recent official efforts to retroactively legalize settler takeover of privately-owned Palestinian land actively promotes a culture of impunity that contributes to continued violence.”
Declared one of the men at the funeral, “every time Israel builds a colony, we will build another Palestinian town; every time they erect a building, we will build a new building.”
“Our steadfastness protects our land,” another proclaims.
Rana H. is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
2 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Yemams father did not have time to respond to his son before the bomb exploded. Ripping through three layers of clothes and even more layers of skin, his father had to watch the tragedy unfold before his eyes. Yemam Mohammad Fatah Azam is just eight years old. He was enjoying a Friday afternoon with his father in the olive groves.
Situated between the illegal Israeli settlements of Shilo, Eli, and Suvat Rachel, Qaryut is not new to military and settler violence. Yamam’s story however is the first incident of its kind and has shaken the community. As floods of school children come to visit Yamam in his home, it is clear that all the parents are aware that the bomb could have been in their loved one’s hands. The children show they are upset with a handshake and sit next to Yamam in silence.
Bashar, a member of the Popular Commitee explains that the planting of un-exploded ordinance (UXO) “..is an act to intimidate us from going to our land.”
Efforts by violent Zionist settlers have been well underway to intimidate farmers from visiting their land, and recently the village has joined the popular resistance with a Friday demonstration in protest of the closure of their road by Israeli military. The road runs through the land in which many farmers reside. One farmer explained, “It brings us much comfort to have cars passing through the road, we know if anything was to happen a car would stop and support us.”
As Yamam lays in bed, not able to move much due to the wound constantly re-opening, causing pain beyond comprehension, four more bombs lay on the land near by. This case has reached The United Nations group, OCHA, who has reported this in their “Protection of Civilians Weekly Report, 21-27 March 2012.” The Palestinian Authority is also addressing the issue as well. Both have been informed of the bombs which still reside on the land of the farmers, but have not been able to make the area safe. Due to the olive groves being in Area C, the Palestinian Authority has no permission to enter the land.
Lydia is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
