19th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine
Recently weakened by heart attack and subsequent surgery, Hashem made his way slowly down the hill from his home in the Tel Rumeida section of al-Khalil to meet with the group of internationals from whom he requested assistance in picking what was left of his harvest of olives after settler theft.
Though no such law exists, the internationals were disallowed to get through the simple stretch of two minutes walk to get to Hashem’s land. After taking a back way to the property, Hashem was seated, trying to catch his breath after pointlessly walking down the hill only to be yelled at smugly by the near dozen Israeli forces to leave.
Within twenty minutes of the harvest’s commencement for the two trees left bearing fruit after settlers picked the area clean in recent weeks, a settler armed with an m-16 machine gun descended into the olive groves from the settlement up against Hashem’s property and began approaching the family members and volunteers, taking close up photos of them. Two settler women shouted abuse at the harvesters from the yard and window of the settlement.
A settler woman laughs as she and two others harass Palestinian farmers and international monitors.
Israeli forces and Israeli police arrived on the scene and rather than interrogating the armed man who was visibly and audibly harassing the family and volunteers picking, they approached Hashem and ID checked him while one of the women continued to shout abuse unabated, “Why are you stealing our olives! Go back to Germany and pick olives!” An all-purpose attack against anyone questioning settler violence, harassment, theft and brutality is that you are, without question or reason, a Nazi and you should go back to Germany.
Israeli forces, rather than end the abuse and let Hashem’s family, already the constant recipient of vicious settler abuses, harvest in peace, the family and international monitors were asked to hurry up and finish the harvest so they could be on their way. This wasn’t a difficult request to grant as there were nearly no olives left to harvest after the theft.
Machine gun armed settler photographs a Palestinian woman as she tries to harvest on her land.
Hashem’s struggles with settler abuse during his harvest in just the latest in a string of torment against Palestinian farmers, many whose only income is wrought from the olive harvest. In Burin, masked settler terrorists set fires to Palestinian farmer’s trees and property, splitting open the head of a British foreign national monitoring the harvest from close range with a stone and smashing the windows of a Palestinian farmer’s car.
Israel, who is purportedly addressing security concerns, has done nothing to help the situation. They have managed to exacerbate the escalating situation by sending additional Israeli forces into al-Khalil and enacted bag and body search protocol for Palestinians passing by on Tel Rumeida streets on their way to school, work and home.
19th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine
Members of the Daana family sat up into the early morning hours behind their home as explosions, gunshots and the whine of teargas canisters being fired rang out throughout the evening. In front of the family home where 16 children live, including a 13 day old infant, broken glass and large stones are strewn about; evidence of the night of violence they endured after settlers from the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement vandalized the fence separating them from Palestinian homes and went on a rampage.
Internationals from the ISM Khalil (Hebron) team joined the family after a night of settler terror injured ten Palestinians in the neighborhood. 13 year old Abdullah Nasser Daana’s chest was bandaged after a settler-thrown molotov cocktail smashed into his body. When his cousin Basil Khaled Daana, 16 rushed to his aid, settlers threw large stones at him, striking him violently just above his ankle. Ambulances were prevented from getting to the injured who had called the Mosques for help during the attack, prompting the Mosque loudspeakers desperate late night calls for assistance for the besieged family.
16 year old Basil Daana’s injuries from settler-thrown stone while aiding his injured 13 year old cousin.
25 year old Emid Sayeed Daana, whose wrist is bandaged after being injured by a stone looks up sharply after the sound of settlers screaming over the fence begins; one of many times throughout the evening this would occur. “They are shouting dirty things at us.” His words exhibit the commonality of this type of harassment the family gets on a constant basis with explosions randomly punctuating the typical miseries of life under military, and settler, occupation, “This is normal for us. The teargas, the gunshots. Where is the life? Where is the freedom.”
13 year old Abdullah Daana was injured by settler-thrown molotov.
His family is constantly on edge, waiting for the next attack. “If there are 15 of us inside the house, 15 are also outside to keep an eye out, to look out for them.” Emid, who in a rare quiet moment, shows us his diploma for studies in media, went on to express, “We cannot all be inside the home, if we do, the settlers will come through the fence and enter our families home. And the teargas from the soldiers. You see we can barely breathe here, we have a 13 day old baby inside. Teargas could kill a baby that young.”
Throughout the evening, intermittently with the deafening blasts of stun grenades, teargas filled the air, sometimes almost unbearably so which caused several members of the family to cover their faces or rush inside to escape it. In the late night hours, a hurled bottle crashed on the ground in front of the home.
One family member slept outside with two internationals to be on watch for the next attack. The settlers did not breach the fence again this night, yet every hour that passes with a family living in fear, is an hour of violence being committed against them. In the escalated chaos of the past two and half weeks in the West Bank, another Palestinian family navigates the continued crisis of a human rights crushing occupation.
18th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine
Sunday 18 October
The Hebron (Al Khalil) neighbourhood of Wadi Alhussein is tonight, Sunday 18th October, under siege as armed settlers rampage through the streets with support of the Israeli forces. International human rights activists are currently standing in solidarity in the home of the Daana Family who have already suffered several physical attacks in the past few days.
As of 9.40pm, three people have been injured in the Daana house, including one young child, due to attack by fire bomb, and ambulances are being prevented from delivering aid. Tear gas has been fired extensively between Palestinian houses and many stun grenades have been used in the area. The situation is anticipated to escalate overnight as settlers from the adjacent illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba are continuing to gather around Palestinian family homes.
Hebron (Al Khalil) has been in a state of borderline lockdown by Israeli forces for over 24 hours now, following the murder of Palestinian 18 year old Fadel Al-Kawasmeh by illegal settlers on Shuhada street yesterday morning. Following this Bayan Ahmad Aseeleh, 16, was shot by Israeli forces outside the Ibrahimi Mosque on allegations that she attempted to stab a soldier. Settlers were then witnessed dancing on the site of a third shooting and lying in front of the ambulance carrying Tarek Al-Natsheh who died soon after.
Immediately following this, a group of approximately 200 settlers tore down the fence between the Kiryat Arba settlement and the H2 neighbourood of Wadi Alhussein, throwing stones and fire bombs at Palestinian houses. Ten Palestinians were injured in the attack, including 13 year old Abdullah Nasser Dana, who was hit in the chest with a molotov cocktail, and Basil Khaled Dana, 16, who was hit in the ankle with a stone while helping Abdullah. 25 year old Emid Sayeed Dana, who was hit with a stone on the wrist, said earlier today ‘I think they will come again tonight.’ An unidentified Palestinian was also shot with live ammunition by a settler.
Dezeray, an international activist from the US who has been living in Hebron, is currently in the Daana house. She stated: ‘this situation is an absolute violation of peoples’ basic rights. The Daana family are just one example of daily life for Palestinians and the escalating settler violence of the past few weeks.’
Italian human rights defender Orion added, ‘Israel must be held accountable for soldiers’ extrajudicial attacks on Palestinians, as well as their support of settlers’ arbetrary attacks on innocent Palestinian families.’
The Daana family have been victim to attacks by illegal Kiryat Arbar settlers in the past, including a 2008 fire bombing of the house. In 2003 they were detained in their home for a week, with food being delivered by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. They have also had 5 horses poisoned by settlers in the past 10 years.
Nine families are living in the house, with 50 people, the majority of which are women and children.
Photo Credit: Youth Against Settlements. Ambulance carrying dying Palestinian prevented from leaving Shuhada Street by settlers 17-10-15.
18th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
After a day of intensified violence in al-Khalil the midnight hour brought horrifying screams for help from local mosques, the screaming sirens of ambulances and clouds of teargas drifting through the streets from Bab al-Zawiya. Three young Palestinians in Khalil lay dead from multiple gunshot wounds; two killed by Israeli forces and the other felled by the machine gun blasts of several settlers who shouted, “Arab! Arab!” before unleashing a stream of bullets into his body. The toll of Palestinian deaths has climbed to 43 in just 18 days, along with over 1900 injured.
Earlier in the day, Palestinian youth Fadel al-Qawasmeh walked in the area on Shuhada Street not segregated for the benefit of Israeli settlers. Passing settlers as an Arab, was enough of a ‘crime’ for the point-blank, execution style shooting the 18 year old endured, only to be packaged and stamped as another Arab ‘terrorist’ when officials at the scene determined the boy had a knife.
(Video Credit: Youth Against Settlements)
Fadel’s case would have been the latest in a string of Israeli murders of Palestinians who supposedly had attempted knife attacks if it hadn’t happened just a few hours later just down the street from the site. Also if he actually had a knife, which eye witnesses verified he did not and which video released by the Palestinian organization Youth Against Settlements seemed to corroborate when video taken at the scene shows one Israeli soldier handing something to another soldier standing over the boy’s body and then the soldier placing the object near him.
In the immediate aftermath of the killing, when Israeli forces should have been utilizing photo and video evidence from witnesses at the scene as well as eyewitness testimony, rather, they went on the attack. Palestinians in a home directly near the site of the killing had their home raided, terrifying the families inside and had their phones and computers confiscated only for settlers who were allowed to wander freely on the scene to be given glimpse of the evidence against them.
And while a member of Youth Against Settlements who was filming was detained while his evidence was confiscated and evaluated, settlers were allowed to photograph the boy’s bleeding body who received no immediate first aid; a common obscenity between settlers and soldiers of humiliating Palestinians as they lay dying. Settlers served tea and snacks on the scene.
Just hours later, near the Ibrahimi Mosque, 16-year old Palestinian teenager Bayan Eiseleh was seen and photographed by a witness as she was being screamed at in Hebrew by Israeli soldiers. The photograph shows Bayan with her hands up, holding nothing. The witness reported that Bayan backed away in horror as the shouting continued. Minutes later, she was bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces fired multiple shots into the unarmed woman. And no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, Bayan joins the numerous others described in headlines across the world as another Palestinian who attempted a stabbing on an Israeli soldier; and as Netanyahu described their deaths, she committed suicide. These are the post death wounds inflicted by those who already inflicted wounds on them across a lifetime of occupation and subjugation.
Just after the sun went down, on Shuhada Street, Israeli forces shot and killed Tarek an-Natseh after he failed to follow their orders to stop. He jumped on one of the soldiers, unarmed according to an eyewitness at the scene, and was then shot, “again and again and again.” This brings up an issue that must be looked at in a very real way before the death toll climbs above the already staggering number of 43 where it currently sits. Excessive force. Are the countless ways to incapacitate someone you feel is a threat being completely abandoned? Seemingly yes.
Immediately after the shooting, settlers, who were celebrating in a frenzy on Shuhada Street, prevented the ambulance carrying Tarek’s body from leaving the scene. Some even laid on the ground to prevent the emergency vehicle from getting the critically injured and dying man to the hospital. Tarek would die soon after.
Photo Credit: Youth Against Settlements. Ambulance carrying dying Palestinian prevented from leaving Shuhada Street by frenzied settlers.
Into the late night hours, clashes raged in Bab al-Zawiya as the Tel Rumeida neighborhood went on lockdown. No one was allowed to leave their homes and several were threatened at gunpoint to stop looking out of their windows. Meanwhile gunshots blasted periodically outside.
Settlers cut the fence that separates the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arab from nearby Palestinian homes, and nearly two hundred settlers went on a violent rampage, attacking the Palestinian villages of Wad al-Huseen and Wad al-Nasara with firebombs and stones, prompting the mosques desperate yells for assistance for the Daana family, whose home was attacked by dozens of Israeli settlers who then injured at least three of her neighbors who have been identified as 40-year-old Imad and two minors, Abdullah, 13, and Muhammad, 17.
As morning approached, new ‘security measures’ have been enacted, including the deployment of numerous Israeli forces throughout Khalil, who are, alongside settlers, the main aggressors and instigators of violence against Palestinians. The security measures have not meant any change for settlers who are privy to wander like tourists across crime scenes where Palestinian bodies lay dying. Nor have they meant the body and bag searches that every single Palestinian passing through al-Khalil streets have been subjected to. Nor does it mean the humiliation of dropping your belongings on the ground before a group of sneering Israeli soldiers and backing away with your hands up while they search your personal items and then toss them smugly back at you.
These are the new ‘security measures’ that Netanyahu has called for in al-Khalil. They spell out the furtherance of violence, dehumanization and unbridled terror against an already occupied people.
Palestinian man being body searched this morning in Tel Rumeida as part of new ‘security measures’ in Khalil.
Video of a few of the body searches happening in just two hours in Tel Rumeida (accelerated speed and without audio):
As of the writing of this report, Israeli forces have been consistently firing teargas, stun grenades and rubber coated steel bullets for hours from the roofs of Palestinian homes.
17th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
*******
UPDATE 9pm:
No stop to violence, settlers are taking over the streets
The Tel Rumeida neighbourhood of al-Khalil is on lockdown for Palestinians. Palestinian residents and internationals are not allowed to be on the streets, on their own roofs or at the windows of their houses. Israeli forces on the street are yelling and pointing guns at them if they see anyone. Settlers on the other hand are allowed to freely roam the streets.
Hundreds of settlers came to the spot of the killing of 18-year old Fadel al-Qawasmeh, executed by settlers this morning, to celebrate his death. The settlers, armed with machine guns are intimidating Palestinians living nearby, blocking the streets. Soldiers are not able to protect anyone anymore, a small group of Palestinians wanting to go home from a visit had to run back and lock the door behind them in order not get harmed by the settlers. Two internationals were first stopped by soldiers and ordered not to move and then yelled at to leave as fast as possible as settlers were approaching.
An Israeli ambulance with the dying Palestinian youth shot at Shuhada checkpoint by Israeli forces for allegedly attacking a soldier with a knife, was blocked by the group of settlers. An elderly Palestinian, suffering breathing difficulties had to wait for over an hour to be allowed to be carried away towards an ambulance, as the ambulance was not allowed to pass on segregated Shuhada street.
*******
Today, 17th October, 2015, Israeli forces and Israeli settlers in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) murdered two Palestinian youth within three hours.
In the morning, Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements within al-Khalil, walked past the 18-year old Palestinian youth Fadel al-Qawasmeh in segregated Shuhada street, cursing him as an ‘Arab’ and then pulled a gun shooting him from point blank range. The settler fired four shots at the Palestinian youth from his pistol, one shot directly in the head. This execution was entirely unprovoked. Israeli soldiers rushed to the scene, but prevented a Palestinian ambulance from treating the critically injured Palestinian youth who was lying on the ground bleeding. Whereas the area around the execution was immediately closed for Palestinians and international observers by the Israeli forces, settlers at all times were allowed to freely stroll alongside the scene of the murder, with soldiers taking pictures with their private phones.
Israeli settlers standing right next to the scene of the execution
Later on, Israeli forces blocked all entrances to a Palestinian house nearby where activists where trying to document. In the meantime, settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah, watching from down on the street close by a checkpoint where enjoying tea and biscuits, brought from the settlement, with the soldiers and the police. After Israeli forces washed off the blood from the street, they broke into the house where Palestinians were filming before, with 11 children, the youngest only a year old, present. Heavily armed Israeli soldiers searched the house and confiscated all phones and cameras. Once they left the house, they were checking all the photos and videos taken after the execution of Fadel, and showed them to the settlers nearby.
Israeli settlers and soldiers sharing tea at the scene of the execution of Fadel al-Qawasmeh
Israeli soldiers having tea brought by settlers
Palestinians and international human rights observers trying to document this violent attack on a family home were repeatedly forced by Israeli forces to move away from the incident, whereas the settlers were allowed to freely walk around and curse and hurl insults at them, even threatening them that they will be the next to be killed. One Palestinian man was forced by Israeli soldiers to pass through a checkpoint even though soldiers were throwing stun grenades right outside the checkpoint. 23-year old Abed al-Salaymeh was detained in Tel Rumeida for one and a half hours, after soldiers prevented him from going back to his home in segregated Shuhada Street. Different soldiers repeatedly ordered him and internationals to either move up the hill from the checkpoint, or when further up to move back down, all the time prohibiting him from going back to his house. Once up the hill, he was detained for one and a half hours, with soldiers freely admitting that this is because he ‘annoyed’ them before. Settlers passing by were threatening him and internationals that ‘tomorrow they would be the ones to be killed’.
Israeli forces blocking the entrances to a Palestinian house
Only three hours later, Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year old Palestinian teenager Bayan Eiseleh at the Ibrahimi mosque. Her parents, rushing to the scene of her killing, were brutally attacked and beaten by Israeli forces. International human rights observers trying to document this senseless killing were detained by Israeli forces and then one of them was arrested for ‘taking pictures and posting them online’. She is still being held at the police station in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba.
