Tag: Ramallah - Page 40 - International Solidarity Movement

Al-Amari Refugee Camp Mourns

by Sam Bahour

Last Wednesday, the victims were: Milad Abu-Aris, Jaafer Khaled, Aysar Kasam and Ra’ad Rabah.

As I write, I can hear heavy and loud gunfire coming from the Al-Amari Refugee Camp next to our home. It is the funeral for one of the 4 Palestinians that were murdered by the Israeli military yesterday. He lived in the camp. I can hear the wailing of the family as the body is brought home for the family to bid farewell to their fallen loved one. This is extremely difficult! Hundreds of demonstrators are chanting, “To the checkpoint, To the checkpoint,” which is exactly how the 2nd Intifada started: an accelerated deterioration of events, one funeral after the next. Ramallah/El-Bireh were closed today in protest of the rampant Israeli killings.

I’m off to bury our fallen, all in their 20’s… I’m hoping not to repeat today, tomorrow.

The caption for the attached photo is: “A man prays next to four dead Palestinians in the morgue of the hospital in the West Bank town of Ramallah, May 24, 2006. Israeli troops killed four Palestinians and wounded at least 50 others on Wednesday in clashes that erupted during a rare daylight raid on the occupied West Bank’s main city, witnesses and medics said.“

Clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians in Ramallah

by Sousan Hammad,

I’m sitting in the ISC office in Ramallah. I get a phone call from one of the workers of the organization. I really could not understand what he was saying. He was yelling, “Don’t go outside, they are closing off the streets and the Israeli army are coming, whatever you do, don’t go outside!”….well I went outside..

There were tanks, jeeps and hummers. A line of 20, each following one another. I couldn’t believe this was happening in front of me. The streets are chaotic, everyone running in between buildings to get away from the line of fire. There are more gun shots. I could not make out the other sounds..maybe bombs? I dont know. I ask all those around me what is going on. Everyone was on their cell phone. At this very moment, less than 100 feet ahead of me a van is lit on fire. A black cloud of smoke fills the streets. I hear more and more gunfire. This time it does not stop. I am hearing different stories from different people.

“Two Palestinians were kidnapped by undercover Israeli Special Forces..” No….”Two undercover Israeli Special Forces were kidnapped and are being held in that building over there” Ok Ok, so which when do I want to believe? Sadly, the first one turned out to be the story.

Damaged van (apparently belonging to the Israeli death squad)

The van that was on fire was the vehicle that the two undercover Israeli men came in with. I realized I didn’t have my camera, so I run back to the office to grab my camera. I go back, camera in hand, and get in the middle of the action. At this point, hundreds of young men were throwing rocks and shooting at the Israeli vehicles. The Israelis retaliated with more power, bullets and anger. Everytime the Israelis shot, everyone scattered back behind buildings, waited a few seconds, and then went back to throwing rocks and some were shooting back. The ambulances were in and out. More cars destroyed. More bullets and this battle seemed never-ending.

They finally left after arresting the one Palestinian whom the undercover officers came for in the first place. They came for two, killed one and took the other alive. As soon as the streets were clear everyone runs in, including medics, to pick up more of the wounded. I see blood on the hands of men who were helping pick up the bodies. Some shops were destroyed. What did the shopkeepers and innocent bystanders do to deserve this? What did the Palestinians do to deserve this?

Just when things began to settle down, the marching began. This part almost made me cry, everyone was yelling “Allahu-Akbar!” (God is Greatest) and marching in solidarity. After 35 were injured and 3 dead. They still had the strength to wave the Palestinian flag. I guess the ritual continues from here on.

To get on Sousan’s e-mail list, send a request to sousan@solidaritydesign.com

Israeli Army Invades Centre of Ramallah, Kill 4 Injure 34

Update: Palestinian ISM activist Mansour who had gone to the scene was injured by shrapnel when soldiers opened fire at bystanders. Luckily he wasn’t hit directly but he was hit by shrapnel in the head and required stitches. At the time of writing this update, 4 are confirmed dead, including 21-year old Issa Qasim from Jenin, and 34 injured.

Sunbula reports from the media office:

The Israeli Army have invaded al-Manara, close to the center of Ramallah in order to try and apprehended resistance fighters. They are rather uncomfortably close to the ISM apartment and we can see smoke rising in the distance and hear gunshots. I was about to go out with a friend but it’s not really a good idea right now.

Two of our Palestinian ISMers have gone to the scene of the action. We are now sitting in the ISM apartment watching al-Jazeera (that really is worth watching to find out what’s going on) and Neta’s daughter runs with her little baby footsteps toward the window every time there’s a gunshot to see what’s happened. She seems a lot less worried about things than the rest of us, she is rather more concerned with eating as many of the biscuits I bought a couple of hours ago as possible.

It’s really bizarre to see the place that I had wandered through the last time I was there and just a couple of days ago looking like a war zone on TV. Will update more on what’s happening as more developments come. The shebaab are trying to set up roadblocks and there are at least12 injured. The latest is that it would be preferable not for internationals to go to where there is an impromptu demonstration happening near al-Manara.
Just heard that two people were killed.

More to follow.

The Trip from Tulkarm to Ramallah: 3 road blocks, 5 check-points, 7 cars

How long does it take to travel from the north-east of the West Bank, to the centre? In such a small area of land, you might think not long. A Palestinian ISM co-ordinator gives an account of the realities of trying to get out of the prison that the Israeli military is turning the north into.

by Abdel-Karim Dalbah

An average journey

Drive distance: 90 km
Drive time: 90 min max – directly in one car.
Cost: 15 shekels by bus or 20 to 25 shekels by car (service)

On the 23rd of April 2006 and for more than five months

Drive distance: more than 300 km
Drive time + walking + waiting at checkpoints: 5 hrs, 30 min
Cost: 65 Shekels

WHY

Because of the Israeli policies of closure and checkpoints and the fact that I am a Palestinian from Tulkarm (in the north of the West Bank).

HOW

I left my home at 8:30 am and walked to the bus station. There were no buses, and no direct cars so I had to take the sevice to Innap checkpoint (15 km east). Before we reached it, we were stopped by a flying checkpoint after 5 km. We waited about 15 min in a long line of cars before our driver decided to go back and take another road, going around the checkpoint. This added another 15 min as we had to go 200m east around the check point and continue to Innap (the main checkpoint). We reached Innap and waited there about 15 min when the soldier came and told our driver that it was forbidden for anyone to pass today. So the he had to use another road to drive around . We reached a road-block just 1 km east of the checkpoint. The cost had increased from 5 to 10 shekels by then.

The end of the first part.

When we reached the road-block we had to walk about 200 m to cross it. We started waiting for a car to take us to Ramallah. When one arrived the driver was asking for 50 shekels each which is too much – it’s normally 20 or 30 maximum. After 10 minutes, I took a taxi with four others to a village called Funkuk, halfway to Ramallah. This cost 10 shekels each. From there, a taxi driver offered to take us to Borgeen road block for another 10 shekels. We agreed to this but after driving for about 20 minutes we were stopped by another flying checkpoint near Haris. The soldiers prevented us from passing, so the driver took us back to Funduk. He offered another choice – to try another long road through different villages. Along the way we had to get out of the car several times because the parallel road we were taking to avoid the road-blocks was so rough. After driving more than an hour we reached the Borgeen road block – it cost 20 shekels to get there.

The end of the second step.

After we passed the road blocks, we felt like we were about to reach Ramallah, taking one last service. However, the drivers said not it would not be that simple. The soldiers at Attara checkpoint near Bir Zeit were apparently not allowing people from the north of the West Bank to get into Ramallah.

However, at the road-block before Attara, we would be able to pass and then get another car to Ramallah. What should we do? We agreed to this plan and drove (10 shekels each) to Attara checkpoint which we reached after 45 minutes, passing through some villages that I’ve never been though before. Instead of a car waiting on the other side of the road block there was a Border Police jeep which stopped anyone from being near by. We stayed there about 30 minutes, trying to pass though the main checkpoint, at first with a taxi and then by trying to speak to the commander. We tried to point out to him that we were all over forty years of age. After a long time he said “sorry. You can go and try to get in through Qalandya”. When we asked about going that way we discovered that it would cost 20 shekels more.

The end of the third part.

Eventually, we decided not to go that way but also not to go back since by this point we were less than 4 km from Ber Zeit [which is just north of Ramallah]. Instead, we decided to get past by walking. This meant we had to go over the mountain – but we would have to pass away from the checkpoint so that the soldiers at the military tower couldn’t see us. So after we had walked about 3 km, we finally reached Ber Zeit town, from which we caught a car for only 4 shekels each.

We finally reached Ramallah at 2:30 pm, tired and hungry, but happy.

The end of the fourth step.

The ministry of education was closed, where I needed to go to sign a paper for my sister. I missed it for today. I also missed the training of new ISMers, so I decided to go to my nephew’s house to have a rest for a while, but because I was so tired I slept for about 2 hours.

The day is over.

I spent the next day doing some work till 6.00pm before I went back to the car station to leave for Tulkarm. After 15 minutes the car filled up and we drove directly to Tulkarm. On the way we passed through the roads that were forbidden for us to pass on the way to Ramallah. Not one check-point stopped us! One of the men in the car said “it is very easy to get into the prison”.

This situation has lasted for over five moths for Tulkarm and Jenin residents – it is a collective punishment. The Israeli government claims this is for security reasons.

Land Day Actions

Since 1976 Land Day is marked by Palestinians on the 30th of March to protest against the grabbing of Palestinian lands by Israel.

This year, thousands of Palestinians, along with Israeli and international activists held a series of large-scale peaceful protests against the ongoing occupation and continued theft of Palestinian land by Israel.

Demonstrations took place in the villages of Beit Sira (Ramallah area), Zabda (Jenin area), Rafat (Salfit area) and Tulkarm city (Tulkarm area) with marches alongside the annexation barrier where local residents attempted to plant olive trees.

In Beit Sira, about 400 or 500 demonstrators marched down to the village land where they were met by a large presence of Israeli soldiers blocking the path to the area where they wanted to plant olive trees. They were geared up with riot shields, clubs, rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas and live round. After roughly a 5 minute stand-off, the soldiers decided to attempt to drive the demonstration away with physical force – beatings and sound bombs. The Palestinians responded to this mostly by running away, though some threw stones. The soldiers then used the stone throwing as an opportunity to open up with rubber-coated bullets, which in turn provoked further stone throwing. By the end of the demonstration, the soldiers had used a lot of their tear gas and some live rounds were heard. An ambulance was directly hit with a tear gas canister. Several minor injuries were inflicted on Palestinians by the soldiers, including one boy who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet.

Thursday’s nonviolent demonstration in Rafat was quickly met by Israeli soldiers and border police jeeps which blocked the main agricultural road leading to the Annexation Wall. Israeli soldiers threw sound bombs to disperse the demonstration which was peacefully walking with Palestinian flags and signs and chanting “No to the Wall” in Arabic. Despite the sound bombs, the demonstrators pushed forward and more sound bombs and few tear gas canisters were thrown directly in the middle of the crowd.

The demonstrators then sat in front of the jeeps and the Palestinians demanded that they be allowed to go to their land. The Israeli military recently declared 300 of the remaining 500 dunam of village lands are in a closed military zone and have restricted access to pasture and olive groves on the east side of the Wall. After the noon prayer in the road, the Palestinians returned to the village.

Recently, Rafat and the adjacent village of Deir Ballut have been the site of demolitions and access restrictions. While the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the area has winded down, the Israeli military have issued demolition orders and restricted access to pasture and olive groves on the east side of the Wall. Bulldozers are flattening part of the hillside for unknown purposes.

In 2003 and 2004 the Salfit region, particularly the villages of Deir Ballut, Azzawiya, Rafat and Mas’ha, was the center of mass actions against the building of the Apartheid Wall. While not stopping the building of the Wall completely, the resistance of the villages resulted in the High Court ordering the re-routing of the wall in mid-2005. Still, Rafat lost all but 500 dunums of its land. Rafat is adjacent to the 27-settlement bloc of Ariel, the largest Israeli settlement network in the West Bank after Greater-Jerusalem. As he campaigned in Ariel last week, Kadima frontrunner Ehud Olmert pledged to supporters that “the Ariel bloc will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel under any situation.”