22nd April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Salih, occupied Palestine
Demonstrators walk through Nabi Salih, waving flags depicting prisoner Marwan Barghouti.
On Friday 21st April, a demonstration held in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike was violently supressed by Israeli forces at Nabi Salih, occupied West Bank. Teargas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live rounds were fired at demonstrators by Israeli forces who later surrounded and blockaded the village for several hours.
Following Friday prayers, Palestinians marched from the town centre towards the Israeli checkpoint at the entrance to Nabi Salih. Joined by Israeli and international comrades, demonstrators carried images of imprisoned hunger-striker Marwan Barghouti.
As the demonstration marched towards the checkpoint, stones were laid along the road to prevent an incursion by Israeli military vehicles. 100 yards before the checkpoint, Israeli forces began firing volleys of teargas grenades at the demonstrators. With the wind against them, demonstrators had nowhere to shelter, with small children worst affected by the gas.
Protesters build rock wall barrier to prevent Israeli forces from driving into the town.
Whilst some demonstrators remained near the checkpoint, others moved to the nearby hills to prevent Israeli forces entering the village from the main road. As clashes continued, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and live rounds at demonstrators. A 13 year old Palestinian boy was injured when he was shot in the chest with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
After the demonstration Israeli forces gathered at the surrounding checkpoints, controlling movement in and out of the village. Activists had to wait several hours before they could leave the village.
The demonstration at Nabi Salih was held on the 5th day of hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, and is just one of many actions of solidarity held across Palestine and throughout the world.
Over 1500 Palestinian political prisoners have been on hunger strike since Palestinian Prisoners day, April 17th. Lead by Marwan Barghouti, this mass hunger strike raises an international awareness of the numerous human rights violations by Israel and their widespread practice of arbitrarily arresting Palestinian people.
15th April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
ISM activists spoke to Badee Dwaik the day following his release from Ofer military court.
Last week, amidst a slew of arrests by Israeli forces and subsequent court hearings, ISM activists had the opportunity to meet with Badee Dwaik; one of the four men arrested during the Land Day demonstrations in occupied al-Khalil. Badee, a seasoned activist of many decades and committee member of the Dismantle the Ghetto campaign, believes his arrest was targeted and spoke of how conditions inside the jails were “worse than they’ve ever been before” during his four nights of detention.
Badee Dwaik being detained by Israeli soldiers during a peaceful demonstration for Land Day in al-Khalil.
The peaceful Land Day actions began with the planting of olive trees near Kiryat Arba – an illegal settlement of roughly 8,000 people in occupied al-Khalil. The decision to plant olive trees was made because, as Badee put it, “we fear this land will be confiscated in the near future.” Throughout the action, many settlers attempted to provoke the demonstrators with violence, but nobody gave in: “They try to break us or block us but we ignore it and the army does nothing,” Badee says. He’s only a day out of jail, but seems calm and eager to tell his story. Every so often he takes breaks from talking to put a hand on his ribs, where he says they beat him.
“After we planted the trees, we marched up to the hill where we continued to protest,” where one of the soldiers held a sheet of paper which – as revealed during military court hearing – declared the area a “closed military zone.” Out of nowhere, Israeli forces began pursuing individual demonstrators and Badee found himself on the ground beneath a group of soldiers who beat and arrested him. Those detained by Israeli soldiers were taken down the hill, where Israeli police and Border Police were waiting: “They took us to the police. I was surprised to see Annan there.” It had appeared that the soldiers knew exactly who they wanted to arrest, and picked them from the crowd. They arrested three active members of the Dismantle the Ghetto campaign in what Badee believes to be part of a wider effort by the Israeli occupiers to silence the campaign and put an end to their non-violent demonstrations.
An Israeli soldier films demonstrators whilst holding a piece of paper declaring the area a Closed Military Zone during the Land Day action in al-Khalil. This image was taken an hour after the arrests made that day.
During their time in jail, Badee spoke of how the Israeli guards sometimes would not give the detainees their meals and did not administer Badee’s diabetes medication. When he told the guards that he suffers from diabetes, they told him “it’s not our business to bring your medication to you.” Only after being moved to another prison later that week was he taken the the medical doctor who told him he was at serious risk and he was injected with insulin on the premises. Badee was then moved to a third jail, where he said he was subject to conditions he had never experienced before. “The conditions were bad. When we arrived to this jail they made us throw our belongings away.” Here, Israeli guards made the men remove their clothing and do humilating acts while naked. When Badee refused, he was punished for it later: “We had no mattresses. We slept on the metal. They didn’t feed us a few meals and only gave cigarettes to those who cooperated with him.”
Afte four nights of detention, Badee was sat before Ofer military court, near Ramallah, on spurious charges largely based on a “secret file.” “I’ve never seen this [secret file],” he said, and was alarmed at the allegations they presented. Badee is convinced that there’s an initiative to break their coalition. The judge claimed Badee and the others were “dangerous, holding an illegal demonstration” and that the Israeli state should be “harder on these men,” however his lawyer managed to negotiate their release late that night on the condition that they paid 3,500 shekels per person. When Badee and the others were finally freed, many of their belongings had been stolen.
Whilst Israeli settlers living in the West Bank are subject to Israeli civil law, the Palestinian population lives under Israeli military law. Under this law, Palestinians like Badee can be held indefinitely in ‘administrative detention‘: detained without trail and often based on secret information. There are currently 500 administrative detainees in occupied Palestine.
22nd February 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
As a second time ISMer I write a blog for friends and supporters back home (at salamfrombetty.tumblr.com if you would like to follow). I asked for questions from my readership and I got this from my friend Rachel:
How are you coping with living with this huge sense of injustice? How do the Palestinians manage it day in day out?
Weirdly I don’t find it hard coping with the injustice here. I don’t know why. The last time I came I was really scared beforehand that I would, but I don’t. I don’t really get angry much anywhere in my life, and I guess this cutting off is what might make a good nurse too.
I have no idea how Palestinians manage. Living under occupation comes at great psychological cost. Children in Tel Rumeida can’t sleep without the light on because they have been night raided so often by soldiers; they often wet the bed until their teens. Women are attacked by settlers and lose pregnancies. Families lose sons to prison and bullets. Everybody inside the ghetto which is H2 has to go through the daily humiliation of not having any control of how they will be treated at checkpoints, and of facing soldiers who attempted to humiliate them yesterday or last week.
Of course this is the old centre of Hebron that I am talking about. Most Hebronites from the city at large do not go there much. They live lives of occupation certainly, but not of this daily hardship. I taught a class of young and ambitious Hebronite students last week and they have studied in Jordan, Amman, Germany, travelled to China for business; they take driving lessons, they drink Italian coffee, and have dreams of running businesses, taking PhDs in physics, transforming the Hebron fire service. Great dreams. But they are still under occupation and they still know it. They are stunted in their hopes and opportunities and feel the injustice of Palestinian powerlessness. Many have not seen the sea only thirty miles away.
And then of course, many of the people I talk to in the old city have children who have ‘escaped’, who are engineers in Saudi, professors in Oxford, they have educations themselves and choose to stay. They are resisting by choice, not trapped by circumstance.
This is the front line: when the houses of Hebron are taken by settlers; when the villages in the Naqab (the Negev) are demolished and the Bedouin moved off; when the villagers of the fertile Jordan valley are put to work as labourers on their own land: then the Israeli occupying machinery will come and swallow up the next bit of Palestine and the next and the next…
My friend Talal thinks that it has taken all the years of occupation to bring Palestinians to this degree of strength and endurance: this sumud (steadfast perseverance). 69 years since the Naqba of 1948; 50 years since the occupation of 1967. That is a lot of time to develop endurance.
27 January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Bilin , occupied Palestine
Abdullah Abu Rahmah was released by an Israeli military judge on Tuesday night the 24th of January after being arrested when he attended a court hearing. He had been home for 24 hours when at 1AM Thursday the 26th, thirty masked, armed soldiers surrounded his house, pushed open his door, and raided his home.
Abdullah Abu Rahmah
Abdullah, his wife Magida, and their four children had their phones taken away and were forced into one room, where they were held, as soldiers went through their belongings and ransacked their home. An hour later the soldiers left with Abdullah’s laptop. Abdullah’s brother, Rateb Abu Rahmah’s, apartment in the same home was also raided.
Abdullah was arrested On Monday the 23d of January when he showed up for a hearing in Ofer military base to attend the trial of Ahmad Odah, Khaled Ektishat, Mohammed Khatib, Akram Khatib, Lama Nezih and Jameel Barghouti. These Palestinian activists had been arrested during a non-violent protest of Israeli plans to annex the Maale Adumim colonial settlement, which took place on Friday the 20th of January. They had all been released after being imprisoned for four days. The soldier, who was supposed to be translating the proceedings of the military trail, notified Abu Rahmeh that he was detained. Abdullah was handcuffed and leg shackled and taken to Maaleh Adumim colonial police station.
Ashraf Abu Rahmah
In 2010, Abdallah has been arrested 7 times and served 16 months in prison after being convicted on charges of “incitement” and “organizing and participating in an illegal demonstration”. Abdullah continued to advocate for nonviolent action and Human rights from prison. During Abdallah’s imprisonment Catherine Ashton recognized Abu Rahmah as a Human Rights Defender,
The computer of another nonviolent activist from the Bil’in, Ashraf Abu Rahmah, was confiscated on 21.9.2016 when soldiers raided his home and has since not been returned. His wife Rana Abu Rahmah was home alone, as Ashraf works during the night, when soldiers forced their way into her home. Ashraf, was shot on camera while he was blindfolded and handcuffed in 2008, the Israeli press reported last week that, Omri Borberg the commander who gave the order to shoot him has been promoted. Two of Ashraf’s siblings Basem and Jawaher were both killed in separate incidents nonviolently protesting the illegal wall constructed on their land. Ashraf himself has been wounded and arrested repeatedly including an arrest in 2011 when he was imprisoned for 8 months.
Bil’in is a symbol of creative popular resistance to the Israeli annexation wall and settlements. The village waged a successful campaign which resulted in their winning back half of their agricultural land that would have been separated from the village by Israel’s apartheid wall. “Israel is not a democracy. It is not ruled by laws. It is a criminal occupation that is ruled by force alone”, said Ashraf. Abdullah stated:, “In the last twelve years the occupation has used many methods including, killing and injuring, raiding our homes in order to stop us from exercising our right to protest and struggle against the occupation. But we will not stop struggling until the occupation is dismantled.”
5th December 2016 | International Solidarity Movement | Huwwara team, occupied Palestine
Members of the Circus School in Palestine, representatives of the embassies
of Italy, Spain and Switzerland, Amnesty International and ISM were in the
Israeli Supreme Court today to witness the hearing of the appeal for the release
of the Palestinian circus trainer Mohammad Abu Sakha. Abu Sakha has been on administrative detention for almost a year. Administrative detention means that Israeli military can detain him for an indefinite period, without indictment and the right to a trial.
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Mohammad Abu Sakha lost his freedom on 14 December 2015, when he was first arrested and detained at Zaatara military checkpoint, south of Nablus, as he was going to work at the Circus School in BirZeit. On 25 December of that year, he received a 6-month administrative detention, which was renewed on 13th of June 2016.
The hearing session at the Supreme Court went fast. First, Mohammad’s lawyer read the appeal and once he finished few men from the Shabak, (Israeli Security Agency also known as Shin Bet) stood up and passed a file to the judges in the room. After taking few minutes to read the file, the judges promptly decided to dismiss Abu Sakha’ appeal and ended the court session.
Besides Shabak and the three judges, no one knows what is the content of this file, including the prosecutor, Mohammad’s lawyer and Mohammad himself. After one year in Israeli prison Abu Sakha still doesn’t know what he is accused of. The Shabak file, which is classified, might be the only thing that keeps him in prison.
The Ketziot prison located in the Negev/Naqab region, outside the West Bank, is a violation of the Geneva Convention which states that Detainees from the population of an occupied territory must be detained within that territory. During his time in prison he has only been allowed to three visits, all from his mother. On 12 December this year his detention should have ended. His lawyers and supporters believed that he would finally be free but on the same day he was given, again, another 6-month administrative detention period, exactly as it had happen in the past.
Today, no one knows what will happen to Mohammad. Palestinians live under a contempt military occupation. With his work as a circus trainer, Mohammad Abu Sakha fills a much-needed role to bring happiness and light to those around him.
End Administrative Detention.
Free Mohammad Abu Sakha !
