Mohammed Ibrahim Qaddous, 16, was shot dead with live ammunition when a Border Police force raided his village of Iraq Burin near Nablus to quash a demonstration this afternoon. Another 16 year old was shot in the head and critically injured.
Qaddous was shot at 3pm this afternoon in the aftermath of a demonstration in the village of Iraq Burin protesting restrictions on access to their lands beneath the Jewish-only settlement of Har Brakha. He was shot in the back, indicating he could not have been posing any threat to the soldiers who shot him. At the same time, Ussayed Jamal Abd elNasser, 16, was shot in the head with live ammunition and critically injured. They were both evacuated to a hospital in Nablus where Ussayed is currently being operated on.
The demonstrators set out towards the village’s lands after midday prayer, and were immediately confronted by soldiers who shot bursts of live ammunition in the air. They then continued to shoot tear-gas and rubber bullets towards the villagers in an attempt to prevent them from reaching their lands. Following the unprovoked attack on the villagers, who were accompanied by 15 international activists, intermittent clashes ensued.
After about two hours, the Army retreated towards the settlement and demonstrators went back to the village. Shortly after, armored Border Police jeeps invaded the village, arrested three people and raided houses. A few minutes later, live shots were fired at a small group of young men, some of which were throwing stones. The shots resulted in one fatality and one critical injury to the head.
UPDATE: Huwaida Arraf released on 20 March after being illegally under arrest for 31 hours. Eight of these hours were spent standing in the cold in the illegal Halamish settlement. During this time she witnessed the border police by whom she was detained abuse the two Palestinian men who were also illegally arrested, Omar, 23, and Amjad, 22. She was treated with vulgar verbal abuse. After refusing to stare at wall, the police became particular violent. They picked her up by her handcuffed arms and threw onto the pavement. She was brought to Ramle Prison and released without seeing a judge.
X-ray image of the large rubber bullet lodged into Ellen Stark's arm. 19 March 2010, An Nabi Saleh
Friday’s demonstration in An Nabi Saleh saw an increase in violence and collective punishment from the Israeli military, as twenty-five demonstrators were injured, windows of cars and homes were intentionally shattered, and three were arrested. ISM volunteer Ellen Stark was shot at point blank range (4 meters) with a rubber bullet as she stood with medics, Popular Committee members and other internationals. ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf was arrested while negotiating with the IOF to allow Ellen through the military line to get to the hospital. According to Ellen, “we were standing on Palestinian land, in support of the village who’s land has been confiscated but we weren’t even demonstrating yet. We were standing with medics who were also shot with tear gas.”
Ellen’s had to undergo surgery to remove the bullet, which was lodged between her ulna and radius of her right arm. Her wrist is broken as a result of the bullet impact. As of 12:00 pm Saturday, Palestine time, Huwaida has yet to be located in the Israeli prison system.
Over an hour before the demonstration began, soldiers took position on a hilltop near the house of an An Nabi Saleh Popular Committee member signaling to activists that the peaceful march would likely be cut short yet again by soldiers using crowd dispersal tactics such as tear gas and sound grenades. The demonstration was able to take it’s usual course, as IOF soldiers blocked the path of the activists, and began to surround them from multiple sides. Only ten minutes into the demonstration, the army began firing tear gas and rubber bullets at a small group of international, Israeli, and Palestinian activists only four meters away, injuring International Solidarity Movement volunteer, Ellen Stark. Omar Saleh Tamimi, Amjad Abed Alkhafeez Tamimi and International Solidarity Movement co-founder Huwaida Arraf were arrested as they asked Israeli military personnel to stop firing tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at Stark as she was helped to safety.
Israeli forces then entered the center of the village where they continued firing tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets for several hours. Over twenty five were injured, including an 84-year old woman who suffered from tear gas inhalation after tear gas canisters were fired into her house, and three others who were shot with rubber bullets, including an Israeli activist; four remain hospitalized.
Later in the demonstration, soldiers began shooting rubber bullets through the windows of residents’ houses, shops, and cars, shattering their homes and livelihoods, as they used collective punishment to attempt to suppress these weekly demonstrations.
These incidents comes as the Israeli government intensifies repression of the unarmed, popular resistance to the occupation of the West Bank, illegal land confiscation by settlements such as Halamish, and construction of the illegal apartheid wall. Two weeks ago in An Nabi Saleh, 14-year-old Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi’s skull was fractured as a rubber bullet shot by the Israeli military, leaving him in a coma for several days. He remains in a hospital in Ramallah where he is recovering; his condition is stable and improving.
Today and every Friday since January, around 100 un-armed demonstrators leave the village center in an attempt to reach a spring which boarders land confiscated by Jewish settlers. The District Coordination Office has confirmed the spring is on Palestinian land but nearly a kilometer before reaching the spring, the demonstration is routinely met with dozens of soldiers armed with M16 assault rifles, tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades.
The Halamish Settlement has confiscated nearly half of An Nabi Saleh’s orchard and farmland since it was founded in 1977. According to village residents the settlement confiscates more land each year without consent or compensation of the landowners.
The Israeli military today continued their attempts to repress the weekly demonstration in An Nabi Saleh. Following on from their near fatal shooting of a 14 year old boy a week ago, soldiers invaded the village within minutes of the demonstration starting, driving jeeps to within approximately 50 metres of the demonstrators and firing upon them with tear gas, percussion grenades, rubber bullets and rubber-coated steel bullets. nab
Despite the military resorting so rapidly to violence, the villagers, accompanied by Israeli and international activists, determinedly continued their attempts to reach the nearby springs that have been usurped by settlers from the illegal settlement of Hallamish. A number of demonstrators were able to get close to one of the springs before soldiers again fired upon them to force them to retreat. Demonstrators who remained within the village were fired upon from above by soldiers who had occupied the same house from which they shot the boy the previous week.
At least 12 Palestinians sustained injuries from Israeli weaponry, three of which are reported to be serious, including two head wounds. nab2
The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settlers’ attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Hallamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
A group of Israeli settlers today destroyed a spring by the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan in the Salfit district. The settlers poured sand and cement into the spring, guarded by five armed members of the Israeli military.
Palestinians from the village were forced to watch helplessly as events unfolded, prevented by the soldiers from moving close to the spring or from filming what was happening. International Solidarity Movement volunteers were able to secretly film for a short time before the soldiers noticed, and made both Palestinians and Internationals leave, saying that the area was now designated as a Closed Military Zone.
Last Friday, a group of Palestinians and internationals spent the day clearing the area around the spring to make it more accessible from the village. This followed previous attacks from settlers on nearby springs and farmland, during which a child suffered serious head wounds, from which he is still recovering in hospital, and an elderly man had his arm and leg broken.
Locals intend to continue their attempts to keep the spring open, and to turn the area around it into a park for the use of the village.
Under international law, the settlement next to Qarawat Bani Hassan is illegal, as are all other settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Demonstrators in An Nabi Salih were met with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs. The IOF also fired skunk, a putrid-smelling chemical spray. One international was hit with a metal tear gas canister in the arm. Four Palestinians were injured, including a young man Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi, 14, from Beit Rima, who was hit with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the head. He was taken to a hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. He is listed in critical but stable condition.
IOF Occupies Building
An expectant air hung over the village of An Nabi Salih. This feeling was heightened as IOF soldiers gathered on a hilltop near the edge of the village. Despite this sentiment, An Nabi Salih decided to celebrate International Women’s Day. The popular committee of An Nabi Salih invited the mothers, daughters and sisters of the surrounding villages to join their demonstration for unfettered access to their farmlands and spring.
The march began in its normal fashion, but today the men’s voices, which demanded justice, were punctuated by the unusual and melodic accompaniment of women. An Nabi Salih’s weekly demonstration was halted by Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) use of copious amounts of tear gas in the opening minutes. The demonstration was pushed in disarray shortly after it began by the violent actions of the IOF. This disarray was short-lived as the demonstrators collected themselves.
Ehab
The demonstrators quickly reconvened. Many women took the lead in defending the village from the IOF through non-violent tactics of organized community resistance. These efforts were successful for over an hour until IOF soldiers drove a large vehicle, which blasted skunk, through the demonstration. While shooting skunk, the IOF threw sound bombs and shot tear gas. The demonstrators were made to reassemble after this. In the interim, IOF soldiers took control of a building under construction and used its roof as a vantage point to take better aim the Palestinians who traipsed through their fields.
The IOF shot at the youth of the village from this building for nearly 40 min. Their targets were only 50 meters away from the soldier’s position. Yet, they still used rubber-coated steel bullets. The decision to use these weapons led to the critical injury of Ehab Fadel Beir Ghouthi of Beit Rima, a village close to An Nabi Salih.
He was shot just above his left eye. He maintained consciousness for only a few minutes. He was driven to Salfit Hospital and then transferred to Ramallah Main Hospital. Ehab underwent emergency surgery to remove either bone fragments from his brain or the rubber-coated steel bullet from his skull. It was unclear which, but the surgery was successful. Ehab was moved to an Intensive Care Unit and is listed in critical but stable condition.
The hilltop village of An Nabi Salih has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstration protested the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the January 9th 2010 uprooting of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located on highway 465, opposite An Nabi Salih. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settler’s attempt to re-annex An Nabi Salih land despite the December 2009 Israeli court case that ruled the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Salih residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Salih is located on the Hallamish side of highway 465 and is just unfortunately one of many expansions of the settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
