23th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
On the 20th of March, during Ni’lin’s weekly Friday demonstration, Israeli occupation forces attacked protestors with about 20 rounds of tear gas canisters shot with the ‘venom’ tear gas launcher mounted on a military jeep (which can launch up to thirty rounds of tear gas before needing to be reloaded), countless rubber-coated steel bullets and approximately one hundred rounds of live ammunition. One Israeli activist was shot in the ankle and one Palestinian boy was injured in the leg, both with rubber-coated steel bullets. Many protestors suffered from tear gas inhalation.
Even before the demonstration started, Israeli occupation forces shot several rounds of tear gas grenades boys in the fields close to the village’s school. An Israeli activist documenting this aggression was shot in the ankle with a rubber-coated steel bullet and was treated at the scene by paramedics.
After the noon prayer, the protestors started their peaceful march in the direction of the apartheid wall and the illegal settlement of Hashmon’im, but were violently stopped by Israeli forces – initially with four rounds of tear gas shot with the venom, each round simultaneously shooting 10 tear gas canisters. In order to stop protestors from regathering and continuing their march after the thick clouds of tear gas had disappeared, Israeli forces used more rounds of the venom alongside rubber-coated steel bullets, pushing the demonstration back towards the village. One round of the venom was fired in close proximity to the village’s residential area. Most of the protestors suffered from tear gas inhalation. A 15-year old boy was shot with a close-range rubber-coated steel bullet that penetrated his leg. He was evacuated to a hospital, treated and released the same evening. The Israeli military continued shooting tear gas grenades towards the village even after the protestors had left.
At the same time a group of Palestinian youth approached the fence that forms part of the Apartheid barrier separating Ni’lin from lands belonging to the village, close to the illegal Hashmon’im settlement built on Ni’lin’s lands. Without being noticed by the Israeli forces at first, the group cut a big hole into the fence, before they were attacked by countless rounds of live ammunition shot at them by the Israeli military. The shooting of tear gas grenades and live ammunition at the group of youngsters continued until they returned to the village.
16th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
During last week’s Friday demonstration in Ni’lin the inhabitants of the village commemorated the anniversary of US activist Tristan Anderson’s shooting during a protest in the village six years ago. At the demonstration Israeli forces fired several hundred tear gas grenades and canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, and two rounds of live ammunition at protesters.
Soldiers aimed tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition at demonstrators in Ni’lin
The demonstration began from the village mosque after noon prayers, as villagers accompanied by international and Israeli activists marched down a road leading towards the Apartheid Wall. Palestinians from Ni’lin carried posters calling for justice for Tristan Anderson.
Tristan, who was volunteering with ISM at the time, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas grenade by Israeli border police on March 13, 2009 after that week’s Friday demonstration in Ni’lin. The injury left him with permanent severe brain damage. He now suffers chronic pain, is blind on his right eye, paralyzed and requires 24-hour care. Tristan’s family is currently pursuing a civil lawsuit in court demanding that the Israeli government pay for the extensive care Tristan will need for the rest of his life.
As the protesters were walking towards the wall, which Israel illegally built on Ni’lin’s lands, Israeli forces fired several dozen rounds of tear gas to disperse the protestors. The Apartheid Wall annexed hundreds of dunums of Ni’lin’s land, which the village’s farmers can now no longer access.
After the initial military assault demonstrators spread out into the fields and Palestinian youth began throwing stones toward the army. The clashes went on for several hours, during which Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Toward the end of the demonstration, as Israeli forces retreated back behind the apartheid wall, they increased the amount of tear gas fired and threw several stun grenades. Finally as some of the youths followed the soldiers a hill overlooking the village, Israeli forces fired two rounds of live ammunition, though no one was hit or injured by the bullets. The protest ended when the Israeli occupation forces went back behind the Apartheid Wall and shot a few final rounds of tear gas.
Israeli forces blanketed Ni’lin’s olive groves with tear gas
28th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On February 27 in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces fired live ammunition towards nonviolent protesters participating in the annual Open Shuhada Street demonstration, injuring five including four Palestinian activists, one of them 17 years old, and one German citizen. More were also injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades as soldiers and Border Police blocked the roads leading towards Shuhada Street and attacked the protesters.
Israeli forces advancing towards the demonstrators
Close to a thousand Palestinians, accompanied by Israeli and international supporters, marched towards one of the closed entrances to Shuhada Street carrying flags and signs and chanting. They called for the opening of Shuhada Street, whose closure to Palestinians has become a symbol of Israel’s Apartheid system, and for an end to the occupation. The march was turned back by stun grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition fired by the Israeli military. Around twenty demonstrators were injured in total; Hebron Hospital reported that at least six were admitted and two required surgery. One Palestinian activist, Hijazi Ebedo, 25, was arrested at the demonstration; all he had been doing was chanting and holding a sign.
Palestinian children holding signs, posing before the march began
Issa Amro, coordinator and co-founder of Youth Against Settlements (YAS) stated: “The protest, which was joined by groups from all over Palestine, marked the twenty-first anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre. Israeli occupying forces shot live ammunition towards peaceful protesters, which is against international law. The Israeli military should be held accountable in international court for their actions.”
“Julia was standing and filming next to me when suddenly she fell to the ground,” stated Leigh, a Canadian activist who was standing next to Julia when she was shot.
Julia, the injured 22-year-old German activist from Berlin, was evacuated to Hebron Hospital where she is being treated for a live gunshot wound which entered and exited her leg. “The brutality of Israeli forces is unbelievable, it seems like they don’t have a limit,” she stated. “In Palestine I have seen Israeli forces shooting tear gas, stun grenades, rubber and live ammunition at any kind of demonstration that is against the occupation. It doesn’t matter for them if it is peaceful or if there are kids attending. Yesterday I saw the army attack children who had been dancing in the street. Two people were shot with live ammunition in Bil’in. They shot me as I was standing and filming. It seems the soldiers just shoot at any one.”
Israeli military sniper aiming up the road towards the Open Shuhada Street demonstrators
The Open Shuhada Street demonstration marks the anniversary of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, when right wing extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians while they worshipped in the mosque. Following the massacre, Israeli forces shut down Palestinian businesses on Shuhada Street–once a commercial center–and began to implement the policies which would lead to what is now a total closure of the vast majority of the street to Palestinians. Twenty one years after the massacre, settlers from illegal Israeli settlements use the street freely while Palestinians are assaulted, shot and arrested when they attempt to reach it en masse during the Open Shuhada Street demonstration every year.
Nonviolent demonstrators faced dozens of Israeli forces, who assaulted them repeatedly with stun grenades
25th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On the 24th of February in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces opened fire on dancing Palestinian youth, firing tear gas and throwing stun grenades at group of young children performing a traditional Palestinian dance as a form of protest in front of Shuhada checkpoint.
Palestinian children dancing dabke in Bab Al-Zawiye, before the military assault began
The fifteen young dancers, Palestinian girls and boys between the ages of six and twelve, gathered to perform dabke, a traditional Palestinian dance, in an event organized by local Palestinian activist group Youth Against Settlements. They staged their dance on the open street in Bab Al-Zawiye (in the H1 – officially Palestinian Authority-controlled – part of Hebron) near Shuhada checkpoint, as part of a week of actions planned by Palestinian organizers around the annual Open Shuhada Street campaign. The children began performing under heavy military surveillance, as at least thirteen soldiers occupied roofs surrounding the entrance to the checkpoint.
The young dancers posed for a photo-op on top of the roadblocks in the street leading to Shuhada checkpoint. Israeli soldiers are just visible on a roof to the right of the street.
Even before the demonstration had begun, Israeli forces closed Shuhada checkpoint to Palestinian men, only allowing a few women through. Shuhada checkpoint controls the main access between Bab Al-Zawiye and the the H2 (fully Israeli-controlled) neighborhood of Tel Rumeida. On the H2 side, the checkpoint faces Shuhada street, and soldiers restrict Palestinian access onto the short portion of Shuhada street where they are still allowed to walk.
“As soon as the dancing kids moved closer to the checkpoint, soldiers immediately attacked with two tear gas grenades and two stun grenades,” reported an ISM volunteer who witnessed the incident. “Israeli soldiers fired tear gas even though the children were not throwing stones.”
Soldiers, rifles loaded with tear gas grenades, preparing to fire at young children outside Shuhada checkpointTear gas filling the air as demonstrators scatter in front of the checkpoint
After first fleeing the assault, the Palestinian children managed to continue dancing even as around twenty soldiers and eight border police advanced from the checkpoint into Bab Al-Zawiye. Israeli forces threw a dozen stun grenades after a few youth began throwing stones at the checkpoint.
Clashes continued for about an hour and a half, as Israeli soldiers and border police fired even more rounds of tear gas, several additional stun grenades, and eventually rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian youth. Advancing further and further into the commercial center of Bab Al-Zawiye, they ended up shooting into the crowded streets of the city’s market area. Local activists reported that two Palestinians suffered injuries from rubber-coated steel bullets.
Israeli forces invading Bab Al-Zawiye. Two were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets
February 25 marks the 21-year anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre; in 1994 US-born extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinian worshipers inside the Al-Khalil mosque and injured dozens more. In the time following the attack, Israeli authorities initiated a crackdown, not on those occupying the city’s illegal settlements, but on Palestinians. Israel put in place policies, including the closure of Shuhada street, which would eventually lead to Al-Khalil becoming the divided city it is today.
Children in H2, which includes Al-Khalil’s historic Old City and once-thriving market, constantly endure the violence and daily humiliations of Israeli military occupation. Children living in the neighborhoods of H2 are routinely tear gassed on their way to school and face arrest, attack and daily harassment at checkpoints. The Open Shuhada Street actions are a yearly expression of resistance to Israel’s Apartheid system, as Palestinians young and old demand and end to the occupation.
19th January 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
The soldiers surrounding Ni’lin did not wait; they began firing tear gas as soon as the villagers walked down into their olive groves. Those who had braved the cold, rainy weather to attend Ni’lin’s weekly Friday demonstration were forced to retreat, running choking from the clouds of tear gas launched at them from the hillsides. From the road overlooking Ni’lin’s fields, the tear gas looked like a layer of fog blanketing the olive groves.
Photo by ISM
“They were either straight at us or at the ambulance,” said one ISM activist as the group moved away from a tear gas canister which had landed directly behind them, on the street bordering the olive groves behind and to the side of the protest. The soldiers fired indiscriminately, launching dozens of tear gas rounds at unarmed protesters and activists attempting to film the incident.
Photo by ISM
Ni’lin residents, from the Palestinian paramedics to young boys participating in the demonstration, have been forced to grow accustomed to running, to tear gas, to the violence of the Israeli zionist forces enforcing the occupation of their land. The Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists present agreed that last week’s protest was comparatively quiet. This one week, unlike many other weeks at Ni’lin, no one was shot, no one needed to go to the hospital, and no one was arrested. Over the last few weeks, however, the village has endured a campaign of violence and arrests by Israeli forces, who engage in night raids to terrorise the Palestinian families of Ni’lin.
Saeed Amireh, Ni’lin activist, and long-time spokesperson for the plight of his village, spoke with ISM volunteers about the recent situation. Ten people were arrested in Ni’lin in the last two weeks alone, he reported, in night raids occurring nearly every other day. Twenty-five have been arrested since November 4th.
Saeed explained that under interrogation by Israeli forces in Muskubiya (the Russian Compound) prison in Jerusalem, a prisoner from Ni’lin had signed a paper implicating thirty-six people in the village. Those names now comprise a list of people wanted by the Israeli authorities – people who, if they have not already been arrested, must live in constant fear of being taken from their homes and subjected to the harsh procedures of Israel’s apartheid justice system.
Saeed spoke of the conditions suffered by Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces and taken to Israeli prisons: months of solitary confinement inside tiny cells, torture, harsh treatment from other prisoners and entrapment by Israeli spies within the prisons. All are strategies employed by interrogators attempting to trap people into admitting to things they never did. In attempts to finally be released, prisoners will often sign lists of names of other villagers, who the Israeli military will then arrest and subject to the same treatment. Over forty people from the village are currently imprisoned.
One ISM volunteer asked what people did to be put on a list of those wanted by Israeli authorities. “They go and join in the protests” Saeed replied. Even if a Palestinian is doing nothing at all violent, he explained, “They accuse you of joining illegal protests.” In yet another absurdity of the occupation, The Israelis authorities order the village to take permits from them in order to be allowed to protest against the illegal confiscation of their land.
Photo by ISM
In the night arrest raids, Israeli forces not only surround and invade houses, leaving messes of Palestinians’ personal possessions and furniture behind; they have also begun to shoot inside the village. Saeed spoke of how “Last week, the soldiers came and shot live ammunition.” He explained that people sometimes run away from their houses, fleeing arrest when the soldiers come to surround them. Israeli forces fired live ammunition at one man as he ran away from his home at night.
“When people are asleep, they come at night and start shooting tear gas, and make people suffocate.” Saeed described how the Israeli military have been entering the village with a machine that dispenses large quantities of tear gas when mounted on a military vehicle. “I don’t know how many,” he said, “It makes like a cloud on the ground. They shoot it at all houses.”
Saeed’s family live on the far south-east side of the village, beside the olive groves. These homes are the first in the line of fire for Israeli military incursions. His uncle’s house was burned, and his neighbours also suffered from the tear gas inside their home. “The neighbor’s house, they have a young baby,” Saeed told the ISM volunteers, “A one year old baby, who was suffocating . . . and they were thinking he was going to die, because tear gas entered inside the house.”
The baby had to be taken to the hospital; Palestinians injured with rubber bullets in the last few demonstrations have also had to travel to the hospital to be treated. Medical care in the village is sadly insufficient for the amount of violence its people routinely face, Saeed reported. There is not enough medical equipment, which means not enough volunteers can work alongside the two paramedics employed in the ambulance station.
Nor have medical facilities been spared in previous army incursions.
A volunteer with the Red Crescent ambulances recalled the 2013 Israeli military attack which left a bullet hole in the ambulance station’s window and a scar in the ceiling of a fourth floor room above the street. The Israeli forces had aimed their fire at the building despite the fact that the people there were clearly medical professionals, and unarmed. “They don’t care,” the volunteer explained simply.
The bullet hole in the Red Crescent building (photo by ISM).
When someone is active in demonstrations, in expressing resistance, Israeli soldiers shoot to incapacitate them, explained one of the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics. He himself had to undergo a year of physical therapy after Israeli forces shot him in the leg. Resistance is a long and proud tradition in Ni’lin, which participated in both the first and second Intifadas, as well as playing a major role in the more recent Palestinian popular nonviolent resistance against the Israeli Apartheid wall. He said the latest Israeli military incursions are an attempt to demoralise and divide people in the village, to keep them from resisting.
The village has already endured a high toll from participating in nonviolent popular resistance against annexation of their land by the Apartheid wall and by the five Israeli Zionist settlements surrounding Ni’lin. Five people were killed between 2008 and 2009, and many more have been injured and permanently disabled by Israeli military violence. Though both the wall and the settlements are illegal under international law, it is the people of Ni’lin whose homes are assaulted and whose expressions of their legal right to protest are criminalized.
Saeed reported that the weekly demonstrations have recently been subjected to more brutality. In the last months he has seen little international and no media presence in Ni’lin, giving the army free reign to come closer to the village (often into the village itself) and use more violence against the nonviolent protesters. Israeli forces have spared no one in their campaign of repression. One Palestinian journalist, who endured both the rain and the tear gas in order to document last Friday’s action, spoke of his experience filming soldiers at a previous demonstration. A soldier had threatened him, he recalled, saying that if he did not stop filming, “I will break your hand, and I will break your camera.”
Saeed spoke of the occupation’s enormous social and economic toll. “You can’t plan anything,” he told the ISM activists, as they stood with him watching the Israeli soldiers shoot round after round of tear gas into Ni’lin’s olive trees. Studying, exams, work, family life – all are tremendously impacted by the occupation.
Saeed’s brother is engaged to be married, but his future, like that of all those attempting to continue with their lives in Ni’lin, is uncertain. Saeed’s brother is on the list of people currently targeted by Israeli authorities. “He is going to get married in two weeks, if he is not arrested.”
