Tag: Settlement - Page 40 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli forces increase harassment of Palestinian school-children in al-Khalil (Hebron)

1st Novemeber 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

This morning at Qurtuba school in al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli soldiers harassed school-children, teachers and adults trying to pass the nearby checkpoint.

The stairs leading to Qurtuba school, the scene of a heinous murder of a Palestinian youth by Israeli forces three days ago, are directly opposite a checkpoint dividing segregated Shuhada Street into a small strip where Palestinian residents are allowed to walk and the former main Palestinian market now completely closed for Palestinians and only allowed for settlers. The school has, due to its proximity to the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah been a flashpoint of settler attacks and violence against Palestinians and internationals.

As teachers, school-children and parents are equally scared with violence rising and 19 Palestinian youth shot to death in the last two weeks, all the school-children are now gathering in one place in order to walk to school together. Parents living there were watching out for the children, telling them to move away from the street as soon as they could hear a car in the distance, afraid settlers would run them over if the children didn’t move fast enough. This has happened in the past and settlers continously try to hit children with their car.

Soldiers at the checkpoint denied one Palestinian adult around 30 years old to walk down the stairs. The soldiers stopped him and didn’t even ask for his ID, but ordered him to go back up the stairs and walk around. A group of female teachers and girls were ordered to stop in front of the stairs and made to wait for about 5 minutes. Again, soldiers did not demand any ID or to check bags, and finally allowed the group to pass and go to school after about five minutes.

Group pf teachers and school-children forced to wait on their way to school

All of this comes at a time, where the whole neighbourhood has been declared a ‘closed military zone’ by the Israeli forces, further infringing on the already restricted movement of Palestinians – while settlers from the illegal settlements are allowed to roam the streets freely.

This illustrates the daily harassment Palestinian children and teachers have to face on their way to and from school – a clear infringement on the basic right to education. But this does not only ring true for school-time, harassment and intimidation by soldiers and settlers are increasingly becoming an integral part of day to day life for Palestinians.

Constant settler harassment for Palestinians in Shuhada Street

30th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Wednesday 28^th in the evening activists from the International Solidarity Movement once again received a call from local shop owner Ghassan telling that his shop was being surrounded by settlers from the illegal settlements in al-Khalil (Hebron).

The settlers were shouting curses at the Palestinians in the shop, harassing them and physically blocking the entrance to the shop. A group of about 6 adult settlers, most with machine guns, and a dozen of children were blocking the street in front of the shop and tried to prevent internationals access to the shop. The Israeli police did provide passage through the mob of settlers but then ordered the internationals to leave the area as soon as they realized ISMers were going into the shop.

The group of settlers kept shouting insults at the shop-owner and Palestinians as well as the internationals inside the shop. The settlers attempted getting into the shop, but luckily were prevented by the Israeli forces. When groups of settlers started attacking and insulting everyone inside the shop, the police banged one of the two remaining open door-jambs closed. A female settler, as can be seen in the following video, then insulted Palestinians, threatening them and calling for their death:

Instead of preventing this violent attack, Israeli forces slammed the door shop thus locking everyone on the inside in the shop without a possibility to leave or communicate. The settlers could still be heard banging on the doors and yelling. Only after the yelling and commotion calmed down after more than half an hour, the owner slowly opened the door to see if the settlers were gone. A few soldiers were still standing outside the shop, but no one informed the people on the inside of the shop that they would be able to open the door of the shop and thus get fresh air.

Short video of the police slamming the doors shut:

Ghassans shop is one of the last remaining Palestinian shops on Shuhada Street. Most Palestinian shops in the area, which used to contain Hebrons main fruit marked, have been closed by soldiers or the owners driven away by harassment and violence. Ghassan’s shop has, since it was opened in spite of violent settler-protests in the middle of this year, experienced countless incidents of settler violence and harassment.

Israeli forces erasing Palestinian lives as if they never existed – 23-year old gunned down in Hebron

28th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

At 10.30pm last night, Tuesday 27^th October 2015, a Palestinian man who has been identified as 23 year old Hoummam Said was shot in al-Kahlil (Hebron) at the Gilbert checkpoint, directly outside the ISM apartment. The man was in the H2 neighborhood of Tel Rumeida which was otherwise quiet at the time.

No commotion, shouting or running was heard prior to the six gun shots echoing suddenly through the streets and no other security risk could otherwise be perceived.

Immediately following the incident, Israeli forces, who are permanently posted at the checkpoint for 24 hours a day, surrounded the body of the fallen man. Within minutes settlers from the nearby illegal settlement arrived and were allowed to approach and photograph the scene. Further forces then arrived, including soldiers and several police vehicles. An Israeli ambulance arrived but no medical aid was delivered to Said, instead paramedics stood close to the bleeding man and watched passively as he died.

Said was then stripped of his clothes, revealing that the gunshot wounds were all on the back of his body. He was then placed in a bodybag and the street was cleaned. By midnight the scene was totally cleared of all evidence of the incident.

A short video shows Hammam after he was stripped of his clothes by Israeli forces:

Eyewitnesses reported that no knife was originally witnessed on the scene, though one appeared after the soldiers surrounded the body. “I cannot say for sure they put the knife there, but I know even 5 seconds after the shooting I looked, I really looked, and I could see nothing. I am 99% sure of it. But afterwards, it was there.” She added “if an attack was planned at this location it wouldn’t even make sense. He was still 20 meters from the soldiers or checkpoint, in the middle of the night. Why would he wave the knife around?”

The body of Hammam after Israeli forces stripped him of his clothes — The body of Hammam Said after Israeli forces stripped him of his clothes

Extrajudicial executions of this kind are illegal in international law and there is no evidence that warning or deescalating force was applied before the lethal shooting of Said. The checkpoint has a camera positioned above the street and the International Solidarity Movement is demanding that Israeli forces release the raw footage to prove an association between the man and the knife allegedly found at the scene.

An hour and a half after the incident, an eyewitness reported that “it is like nothing happened, there is no bloodstain, nothing but a dog sniffing the ground. The street is eerily quiet and there are just the normal number of soldiers at the checkpoint.” They added that “they cannot really feel like there is a security threat here right now.” An hour after that an illegal settler vehicle was parked by the location of the shooting, playing loud festive music.

Listen to audio of settlers playing party songs after Hammam Said’s blood was washed off the ground:

Said’s death marks four Palestinian deaths in Hebron within two days, and brings the total death toll within the Occupied Territories of Palestine to 64 since the start of October. Hebron has been a centre of the rising tension in the West Bank, and today witnessed extreme suppression of peaceful protests in Bab Al-Zawwiya, when innumerable rounds of teargas were shot directly at dense crowd of demonstrators who were demanding the release of Palestinian corpses killed by Israeli forces.

It is anticipated that with allegations that Said had a knife that no investigation will be launched, yet another Palestinian will be branded as a terrorist, and as a final injustice another family will be denied their rightful mourning rites.

Notorious violent criminal settler Anat Cohen assaults and terrorizes internationals again

27th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

During the last two days international human rights activists have repeatedly been attacked verbally and physically by infamous illegal settler Anat Cohen.

At 7:15 this morning, Anat Cohen emerged from Beit Hadassah illegal settlement in Tel Rumeida onto Qurtuba checkpoint, where two internationals were documenting the treatment of children and teachers as they passed through on their way to school, when she started screaming in Hebrew. When both internationals listened to her for a moment, then turned up the stairs where they were headed, she charged and punched one international in the back of the head. Six Israeli soldiers stood about five feet from them and did nothing to intervene at any time.

On deserted Shuhada street, a car rode up close to three internationals returning home from their monitoring of students safety at checkpoints near school clusters. After a short while a settler identified as Anat Cohen got out of the car and immediately started to harass the three human rights observers. Over the course of approximately six minutes, she physically assaulted all three, knocking one to the ground so that he was bleeding in multiple places, and attempting to destroy recording equipment, and striking them in the head.

Among other things in the constant stream of verbal assault and profanity, she said: “Go to Auschwitz. (…) Die in Hitler’s gas.” “Are there not enough European ladies in Europe? Do you have to come here to f*** Arab women? I know you are doing that!” After she noticed a male settler had arrived with his jeep, she became more physically aggressive while continuing to rant: ”What do you help the Palestinians with? Killing us?!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnedfaTDKw0&w=560&h=315

All activists strictly complied with non-violence, backed off from her or shielded themselves with a raised hand against her attacks. Israeli forces arrived on the scene and asked her what the activists had done; she replied they wanted to help the Palestinians. The human rights workers were allowed to go while she kept on complaining to the soldiers.

Watch a video of the attack on internationals:

The day before the settler had followed two activists in her car to their apartment. While they were walking up the hill towards Tel Rumeida, she trailed them in her car and then blocked the way when they attempted to cross the road. She then complained to soldiers at a checkpoint about the internationals.

While Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces on a daily basis and four inhabitants of Hebron were shot to death in and around Hebron in the last two days only, also the hostility and violence towards internationals is soaring high.

Settlers have shot close-up photos of internationals serving different organisations and put up posters of them warning soldiers and settlers of them. The headline of the individual posters read : “This is not a tourist- it’s a hostile anarchist! Watch out: The individuals in these pictures are here to harm Israelis for anti-semitic reasons. Act accordingly!”

Increasing harassment and direct threats of Palestinians and internationals in al-Khalil

22nd October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today in the morning, Israeli forces harassed international human rights observers monitoring a checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on settlers orders.

Two internationals were monitoring the stairs leading up to two schools from segregated Shuhada street. Palestinians are forced to take the stairs as the small stretch of Shuhada Street where they are allowed to walk, before Shuhada Street – once the major Palestinian market – continues on as a ghost stretch, completely emptied off any Palestinians, who are not allowed to even walk there. Checkpoint 55, which marks the line from where Palestinian freedom of movement is completely denied is often the scene of ID-checks, body-searches, detentions and arrests of Palestinians.

During the last few weeks, this has also been the choice venue for large groups of settlers from the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah and many of the other illegal al-Khalil settlements for staging protests, such as executing a Palestinian and celebrating his death with trays of sweets. The Palestinian residents in this neighbourhood are constantly harassed by the soldiers and settlers, who in turn enjoy the unconditional protection of the Israeli forces – even to the extent that a knife can be planted on a dead Palestinian by Israeli police, as seen in this video filmed by the activist group Youth Against Settlement.

With the recent escalation of soldiers’ and settlers’ violence against Palestinians and the extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, not only in al-Khalil, but beyond that throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza, teachers and parents are worried about school-children’s safety on the way to school. International human rights observers are monitoring most of the innumerable checkpoints children are forced to pass through on their way to school.

On Thursday morning, two internationals were standing at checkpoint 55, monitoring Palestinian school-children on their way up the stairs to Qurtuba school when a settler from the Beit Hadassah settlement spotted the internationals, immediately walked up to the soldiers seeming upset, pointing towards the internationals and down the road. Just a few seconds later, soldiers came up to the human rights observers asking for their passports and visas and ordering them to move further away down the road, out of sight of the staircase leading to the school. When questioned about reasons for this, soldiers admitted that ‘someone’ did not feel safe and wanted them to leave the area. A few minutes later, more soldiers arrived at the checkpoints and requested the two internationals to be body-searched. The female human rights observer refused as there were no female soldiers, but the male was human rights observer was forced to lift up his shirt and trousers and have a soldier body-search him. The reason soldiers gave to internationals was ‘security’, though soldiers almost never bother to check the internationals’ bags. This comes just as illegal settlers in al-Khalil put up posters asking for soldiers and settlers to ‘take action’ against these ‘hostile anarchists trying to harm Israelis for anti-semitic reasons’, openly inciting violence toward these third party observers.

This kind of harassment, for Palestinians, is a daily occurrence, completely leaving their lives at the soldiers’ every whim.