3rd May 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, OccupiedPalestine
The Jabari family owns land sandwiched in between the illegal settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha’vot. In 2001, settlers illegally took over part of the land to erect a synagogue-tent on the Jaabari-family land. All settlements are illegal under international law, unlike most settlements however, this synagogue has also been deemed illegal under Israeli law. In February 2015 an Israeli court finally ordered the demolition of the tent-synagogue. Even though the demolition was carried out in April, the debris until now still remains on the land and settlers keep on partly rebuilding under the protection of the Israeli forces.
Settlers rebuilding the Synagogue-Tent
When settlers from the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba first constructed the tent-synagogue on the Jabari family land , they also erected a path connecting Kiryat Arba with the illegal settlement of Givat Hav’ot. It took the family until 2003 to get a demolition order issued by the Israeli Civil Administration. Nothing happened afterwards until the synagogue-tent was destroyed by heavy snow in 2013, only to be rebuild again by settlers.
The demolished Synagogue-Tent on the Jabari land
Finally, on the 18th February 2015 an Israeli court issued a demolition order for the structure and the synagogue-tent was demolished early in the morning on 14th April 2014. Even though the tent was demolished, the Israeli military did not clean up the rubble, that until now is still on the family land. Since the demolition settlers have been partly rebuilding the synagogue-tent with the materials still on the land. “Price Tag” violence from the settlers, both adults and children, has rapidly increased since the demolition, with Palestinians walking past on the main road attacked by settlers, and the Jabari family has been attacked verbally and physically, with stones thrown by settlers. Israeli police and soldiers present at the sight- they watch but do not stop the settlers.
The Jaabari family asked for support with harvesting their fodder crops. As all of their land is either bordering the demolished synagogue-tent or the illegal settlement of Givat Ha’vot, Youth against Settlements (YAS) arranged to help with the harvest on 1st May 2015. Together with YAS, volunteers from a range of human rights organisations, both local and international, joined the family to harvest the area directly next to the demolished synagogue tent, the area most threatened by settlers. Israeli occupation forces are prohibiting the Jabaris and all volunteers from using any kind of harvesting tools under threat of arrest. Shortly after harvesting began, settlers, police and the army arrived. At first they only watched the harvest, but after two hours the Israeli forces declared the field a closed military zone and everyone was ordered to leave.
The Jabari family harvesting their land
On Saturday, another small field at the top of the Jabari’s land, close to the police station and the illegal settlement of Givat Ha’vot was harvested without interruption by settlers or Israeli forces. The majority of the Jabari family’s crops still remain to be brought in.
27th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Team Al Khalil | South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine
Located in the tip of the West Bank, the South Hebron Hills are dotted with farming and shepherd communities.
We are currently in the wheat harvest season and the children are spending their last few weeks at school before the holiday break.
But just like everywhere else in Palestine, the population is threatened by the Israeli occupation and the illegal settlements that overlook, menace and harm their daily lives.
“Existence is resistance”
At-Tuwani – village in the South Hebron Hills where an Italian organisation, Operation Dove, is located, helping provide international presence in the area.School children amusing themselves before taking the dangerous walk home.Israeli jeep accompanies the children on their walk to and from school. The path is squashed between a settlement and an outpost, which make the children at risk of settler attacks.Palestinians harvesting their land. They are at constant risk of being attacked by the illegal settler outpost overlooking them.Donkeys are a common way of getting around in the area.Nestled in the hills, about a 40 minute walk from At-Tuwani, lies the community of Tuba.Part of Tuba communityLike many other communities in the South Hebron Hills, people live inside caves.Inside one of the caves. Mattresses get spread around the floor in the evening to chat, share meals, watch tv and lay their heads.TV inside the cave. Electricity is powered by their wind turbine.The second to youngest of Tuba, posing in front of the pile of mattresses.Sheep running to their morning meal.Communal breakfast for the sheep of Tuba.The family’s breakfast – composed mainly of products that came from within a radius of 50 metres from their home. Bread from their wheat, eggs from their chickens, cheese and butter from their goats.Hiding away from the view of settlers and soldiers, men and women harvest their land.Bundles of wheat collected during the harvest season.Donkeys are used to carry the harvested crops.A goat is born.Sheep lined up reading for milking.
1st April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On March 31st around 40 Palestinian children and adults gathered in Hebron near Qurtuba school, a Palestinian school in the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida, to plant trees in commemoration of Palestine’s Land Day. Israeli extremist settlers from the illegal settlements in Al-Khalil (Hebron) attacked them as Israeli forces stood by, threatening to arrest the Palestinians and international volunteers while doing nothing to stop the settlers’ violence. Settlers pushed a 13-year-old girl down the stairs leading up to the school, and soldiers injured a 48-year-old man with a back condition; both were hospitalised. Israeli soldiers also arrested Jenny, a 24-year-old German solidarity activist, while she was filming the action.
Palestinians gathered to plant trees in Tel Rumeida in an event marking Land Day
Military harassment began even before activists had reached the planting site. Jenny, the German activist later arrested at the demonstration, recalled the difficulty of getting the trees to the site: “Half of the trees had already gone through the checkpoint when Israeli soldiers decided that, as one officer put it, ‘trees are sensitive items’ and that the children carrying them would not be allowed through.”
“It was a very peaceful action,” she recalled. “Small children were planting trees near the school in Tel Rumeida.Everything was calm until Anat Cohen (a notoriously violent extremist settler) turned up; she began taking down the Palestinian flags demonstrators had put up on the fence beside the tree planting site, then randomly attacking Palestinians and international volunteers.”
Young children planting trees beside Qurtuba primary school
Extremist settlers pushed a 13-year-old Palestinian girl down the stairs close to the tree planting site. She was taken to the hospital half an hour later. Israeli soldiers harassed her friends and told them they were not allowed to sit beside her. A 48-year-old Palestinian man who had just undergone surgery on his spine was pushed violently by Israeli forces, despite the fact that soldiers were told several times that the he suffered from severe damage to his back. When they continued to shove him against a wall, he collapsed and lost consciousness for several minutes, and was taken to a hospital via ambulance.
Soldiers and onlookers gathered around Palestinian man after he fell unconscious after being shoved by soldiersInjured Palestinian being taken via stretcher to the ambulance, as a settler in the foreground watches the scene
Settlers and soldiers continued harassing people; settlers accused many of being nazis, swearing at and insulting the demonstrators. Palestinians looking out from their houses were told to step away from their front door. When internationals tried to document the situation, they were met with yelling and pushing from Israeli soldiers as well as settlers.
Israeli soldiers at the tree planting demonstration in Hebron
Amanda, an ISM volunteer present at the scene, recalled what she experienced at the hands of settlers and soldiers. “I was being attacked from all sides. A soldier shouted at me, brandishing handcuffs at me and threatening to arrest me even as a settler woman physically assaulted me. She stepped on my feet, kicked at my legs and punched me in the stomach, calling me a nazi and a[n extremely vulgar word for prostitute].”
Jenny spoke of her arrest, based on spurious testimony by the settler woman. “At the police station I was accused of attacking Anat Cohen. While I was filming her and the soldiers earlier as soldiers forced back the Palestinian group, she grabbed my hand and attempted to take my camera. I told soldiers at the time that she attacked me, but they paid no attention. They grabbed me and violently pulled me away from where I was documenting the tree planting.” Israeli soldiers took her to the military base on Shuhada street before transferring her to the Israeli police, who interrogated her and held her at the police station before releasing her early that same evening, after about five hours in custody. She has been temporarily barred from the city of Hebron.
“As people were leaving I saw soldiers trampling all over the area,” an ISM volunteer recalled. “I doubt that the trees survived.” Tuesday’s action was the third time in the last few months that Palestinians gathered near the school to plant trees on their land in Tel Rumeida. Three weeks ago olive trees were planted in the same area, but zionist settlers uprooted and stole them.
Later in the afternoon a Palestinian funeral, in the nearby Muslim cemetery, was disrupted by settler children who taunted the mourners.
22nd February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On the afternoon of the 21st of February Saleh Abu Shamsiya, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, was attacked by settler youth in the Al-Khalil (Hebron) neighborhood of Tel Rumeida. Saleh’s father and activist with the group Human Rights Defenders Imad Abu Shamsiya reported that the settlers, who looked around 18-19 years old, surrounded his son while he was playing in the snow and stabbed him in the arm with a sharp metal object about 15 cm long.
Saleh’s wound, which required 2 stitches at the hospital. Photo by Human Rights Defenders http://tinyurl.com/m5razs8
The soldiers stationed at Gilbert checkpoint, directly beside where the attack took place, did nothing try to prevent the settlers from assaulting Saleh.
Sales after the attack – photo by Imad Abu Shamsiya
The boy was then taken to the hospital where the wound required two stitches. The night after the attack, Saleh could not sleep from the pain.
Saleh in Hebron Public Hospital – photo by Human Rights Defenders
The following day, at 2:40pm, Saleh was again playing in the snow on the hills of Tel Rumeida when he was kidnapped by soldiers and brought to the military base in the Tel Rumeida’s illegal settlement. The 10-year-old boy was kept for about 20 minutes before Israeli police took him to the DCO (District Coordinator Office). After that the boy was handed over to the Palestinian police who informed his father about his whereabouts.
Saleh is just visible beside the military jeep – photo by Human Rights Defenders
Saleh’s family lives very near the illegal Israeli settlement in Tel Rumeida, occupied by some of Palestine’s most violent Zionist settlers. Israeli occupation forces and settlers have repeatedly targeted the Abu Shamsiya family. Saleh’s brothers Awne and Mohammed have both been beaten by settlers, who used to routinely occupy the family’s roof. The nearby illegal settlements, along with the Israeli military occupation, continue to deny some of this family’s most basic human needs such as freedom of movement and the right of their children to play.
22nd February 2015 | Operation Dove | South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine
On the morning of February 20, Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills awoke to find that 36 olive trees had been cut or seriously damaged during the night, probably by Israeli settlers. The 25 year-old trees, owned by the Hushiy family from Yatta, were located near the village of Qawawis in the South Hebron Hills, between the Israeli illegal outpost of Mitzpe Yair and the Israeli settlement of Suseya, beside Bypass road 317.
The Hushiy family’s damaged olive trees – photo by Operation DoveOlive tree cut by Israeli settlers from illegal settlements in the South Hebron Hills – photo by Operation Dove
This is the third incident of Israeli settler ‘price tag’ vandalism against the Palestinian inhabitants of the South Hebron Hills in the last two months. On January 9, in the same area between the Bypass road 317 and Suseya settlement, Palestinians discovered nearly 200 olive trees cut on their property. On December 31, two settlers threw a molotov cocktail into a Palestinian house in Ad Deirat village.
Palestinian residents of the South Hebron hills have suffered from the presence of Israeli settlers since the 70s. By occupying Palestinian agricultural lands and destroying Palestinian olive trees, crops and property the settlers seek to deprive the Palestinians of their main livelihood. Ongoing settler violence deprives Palestinian families of security in daily life, and restricts their freedom of movement.
According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are also considered illegal also under Israeli law.
Despite attempts by settlers to force them from the area through violence and intimidation, the Palestinian communities of the South Hebron Hills remain strong in their commitment to nonviolent popular resistance against the Israeli occupation.
Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.
