Tag: Settlers - Page 100 - International Solidarity Movement

Settler guard murders Palestinian in East Jerusalem; police fire gas at his funeral

23 September 2010 | ISM Media

On the morning of Tuesday 22 September a privately-hired Israeli settler security guard shot and killed a Palestinian man in the neighbourhood of Silwan in Palestinian East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). The killed man, Samer Sarhan, was aged 32 and had five children.

Eyewitnesses say the shooting followed a verbal disagreement between Sarhan and the security guard.

Palestinian outrage at the murder precipitated a general strike in the Silwan neighbour, with hundreds of people gathering in the street, chanting and shouting “Allahu Akbar”. Hundreds of Israeli police, border police and soldiers occupied the area in anticipation of the funeral. Silwan residents created makeshift roadblocks trying to slow down forces entering the area. Some youths threw stones towards the occupying soldiers, exasperated by the impunity with which settlers are allowed to shoot at Palestinians. They set fire to one Police vehicle.

The funeral procession left the Al-Aqsa Mosque and soon came under fire from Israeli settlers living in their outposts around East Jerusalem. Mourners at Sarhan’s burial found themselves confined inside the Bab al-Rahma cemetery, the exits blocked by the Israeli authorities. The border police then proceeded to open fire with tear gas canisters at the trapped people, the gas inducing severe breathing difficulties in some cases.

The private security guard was released on bail the day after the killing. Silwan resident Abu Nasser said: “We are sure that the murderer will not be punished and perhaps even be given a medal for his crime.”

Israeli and international activists joined the Palestinians in solidarity, documenting the police’s and soldiers’ activities throughout the day, hoping to discourage human rights abuses with their presence. Some activists volunteered at the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, helping produce Hebrew and English-language media updates.

One international activist commented: “the brutal occupation and illegal demolition of houses in Silwan was inevitably going to lead to this kind of situation with the settlers, who are heavily armed. It’s unbelievable: they’re kicking people out of their homes to build car parks. Classrooms and roads have collapsed into the ground because of subterranean excavation. It’s archaeological terrorism.”

Silwan is a neighbourhood of around 45,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. A small number of Israeli settlers have moved there, occupying Palestinian houses or living in the illegal Beit Yonatan settlement building. There are currently twenty-two houses with outstanding demolition orders – prohibited by international law. An archaeological theme park has begun excavating beneath a large area of Silwan; this has already caused land to collapse.

News on Silwan can be followed at the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre.

Two Silwan residents shot dead by settlement guards

22 September 2010 | Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan

Update: only one man was killed in Silwan. More people were injured but not killed by gunshots.

Massive army presence as clashes continue in Baten el-Hawa, next to Beit Yonathan settlement.

Very early this morning in Silwan Village, a patrol of private armed guards stopped near a group of unarmed Palestinian men who were on the Wadi Hilweh Street. According to eyewitness reports, the guards spoke provocatively to the Palestinians, and an argument took place between them. It was during the verbal argument that eyewitnesses say the settlement guards opened fire on the Palestinian men. The two injured were brought to Ein Kerem hospital. One of the Palestinians, Samer Sarhan, who is a father of five young children, was pronounced dead immediately upon arrival to the hospital. The second man is now confirmed as having died.

After confirmation was received of the first Palestinian death from Silwan, clashes erupted in the village and are continuing. There are reports of numerous injuries, although the number of injured people is unknown. There is a massive force of police and army personnel in the village, and the entire street has been cordoned off by officials. Helicopters are monitoring the area from overhead.

SilwanIC will be posting updates on the story.

Israeli police accused of targeting Jerusalem’s Arab residents

11 September 2010 | The Independent

A leading civil-rights group has accused Israeli police of systematic discrimination against the Arab residents of East Jerusalem as growing numbers of hardline religious Jews take up residence in Palestinian areas.

A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acri) found that violent confrontations between Jewish residents and their Palestinian neighbours had risen rapidly, but that Israeli police have largely ignored Palestinian complaints.

Israeli authorities “practise selective law enforcement and fail to provide even the most minimal protection to Palestinian locals,” Acri claimed. “Law-enforcement authorities have become complicit in violating Palestinian rights; in many cases, they do not enforce the law or do so only in a discriminatory manner.” Palestinians claim that they are often arrested as suspects when they make complaints against Israelis, that their children are arrested in circumstances that flout Israeli law on the treatment of minors, and that widespread surveillance cameras violate their privacy.

The Israeli police rejected the allegations. A spokesman claimed that many of the incidents contained in the report were blown “out of proportion.” Most disturbances, he said, are initiated by Palestinians throwing stones at Jewish residents.

Large numbers of religious Jews, ideologically committed to an undivided Jerusalem, have moved into Arab-dominated East Jerusalem in recent months, provoking clashes with local residents. Palestinians fear that Israel is seeking to prevent East Jerusalem – illegally annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967 – from becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. Stoking the tensions, according to Acri, are the armed private security contractors employed to protect the Jewish residents in East Jerusalem.

Even Palestinian chilldren attacked by settlers are often arrested as supects

Ahmad Qarae’en, a Palestinian resident of Silwan, described how he was shot in the thigh during an argument with an off duty soldier visiting Jewish settlers. Mr Qarae’en was questioned as a suspect and the man who shot him was released after 24 hours without charge.

In a second case, Jamalat Mughrabi, who was evicted from her home by Jewish settlers, claims she was punched repeatedly by a Jewish man. When she arrived at the police station, she found that she was the suspect, and was taken into custody. At a hearing the following day, investigators allegedly refused to show video footage proving her innocence, and she was charged and fined.

Ronit Sela, a spokesman for Acri, said it had yet to receive an official police response. She said: “We’re just calling on the police to do their job.” Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday a new and creative approach was required to reach a peace deal.

“We will have to learn the lessons of 17 years of experience from negotiations and to think creatively,” he said Mr Netanyahu. “We’ll have to think of new solutions to old problems.”

Read ACRI’s full report “Unsafe Space: the Israeli authorities’ failure to protect human rights amid settlements in East Jerusalem” in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

A ghost town beckons? Old City in Hebron under threat

10 September 2010 | ISM Media

During the month of Ramadan the Israeli army used various tactics to repress protest and intimidate the population of the Old City in Hebron, which illegal Israeli settlers are seeking to ethnically cleanse

When, on August 10^th 2010, the Israeli Army invaded the Old City in Hebron and closed off three Palestinian owned shops located in Bab al-Balladyeh opposite the gate leading to Shuhada Street, the situation in Hebron took a turn for the worse. The shopkeepers received warning a few hours before and were told to empty their shops because they were going to be closed. The action itself involved of a high level of violence and the arrest of five people, four Palestinians and one English citizen, who tried to prevent the army from closing the shops.

The few surviving shops in the Old City receive few customers due to restrictions placed on movement by the Israeli authorities

After this incident the Israeli Army told the Palestinian Authorities that if the weekly demonstrations do not stop, all the shops in the Old City will be closed. This clearly is part of a strategy to split the shopkeepers from the demonstration by aiming to spread fear among the shopkeepers so that the weekly demonstrations – that have been going on since April 2010 – will be forced to end.

Over the last months Hebron has seen an increased level of army violence in response to the non-violent protests, which are calling for the opening of Shuhada Street. The process of closing off Shuhada Street for Palestinians started in 1994 after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Muslim worshippers. The street is used by Israel to connect the illegal settlement of Kyriat Arba to other illegal settlements inside Hebron. The street that used to be a bustling area of shops and markets now consists of sealed-up shops and army checkpoints preventing Palestinians from entering. The entire Old City is now threatened with the same fate.

The demonstrations are used as an excuse, rather than a reason, for closing off another part of Hebron so it can be given to Israeli settlers. It is important to note that every Saturday evening Israeli settler tourists are escorted in to the Old City, guarded by heavily armed soldiers, and participate in a Zionist walking tour which makes claims about the Old City’s Jewish character and exhorts Jews to ‘reoccupy’.

A shopkeeper who was forced out of the Old City

The shops that were closed on August 10^th were used by a salesman that used to be a street vendor before the PA conducted a campaign against salesmen on the street. At that time he was offered to use these shops in the Old City, and has been there for one and a half years. When the Israeli police turned up to close the shops, they referred to a closing order eighteen months ago, but no one has actually seen this document. It is also suspected that this closing is happening at a time when the army is desperate to end the non-violent demonstrations in Hebron; it is obvious that this is part of a collective punishment and an attempt to suppress freedom of speech.

In addition to the threat of closing shops in the Old City, the army is attempting to shut down the non-violent resistance in Hebron by means of financial pressure. Every time a Palestinian is arrested, either in the demonstration or in other non-violent actions against the occupation, they risk spending weeks and months in prison unless a bail is paid. The bail money varies from 1500 to 5000 NIS, and needless to say, this causes serious financial problems for the families involved.

The army has also taken severe actions against international activists who have been taking part in the demonstrations. Violent repression of peaceful protests has worsened in recent weeks – for example the unprovoked brutality of the Israeli army at the mid-August protest documented in the video below.

Arbitrary arrests of international activists have been followed by legal persecution. Court cases based on fabricated charges without any evidence whatsoever presented to the judge, except a soldier’s false accusation, have led to dire consequences for innocent peace activists including bans, big fines and even deportation.

Israel claims that the demonstrations in the Old City are illegal, citing the so-called Military Order 101 from 1967, which essentially puts activists at risk of being jailed for up to 9 years for arranging demonstrations and opposing Israel’s occupation. The justification given is, as always, “security reasons”.

Entrance to the Old City: sealed up shops visibe in the background

It is therefore legitimate to ask who is really living under threat in Hebron, and who has been responsible for violent actions in the years past? The demonstration and actions taken by the Palestinians are overwhelmingly nonviolent, while the army responds with brutal violence. Settlers attack Palestinians on a frequent basis, and the Israeli army does nothing to protect them. However the fact that Palestinians are daily terrorized by both soldiers and settlers is rarely reported in mainstream media, whereas the rare instances of Palestinian violence are grossly over-reported in comparison.

The weekly demonstrations during Ramadan have aimed at supporting the shopkeepers. They focused on working against Israeli army propaganda which tries to suggest to people that it is the demonstrations that are harming the shopkeepers – rather than the occupation itself.

Aqraba inhabitants facing confiscation of yet more farmland to serve the expansion of an illegal settlement

9 September 2010 | ISM Media

Aqraba, NABLUS

On Monday 6^th September, farmers in Aqraba were forbidden by the Israeli army to work on a 200 dunam area of land near the village.

The land is currently in the process of being converted, by a combination of local workers and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, from rocky terrain into usable farmland to increase the productivity of local agriculture.

The land in question was bought one year ago by a businessman from the area as a gift for many local farmers, and is located next to the main road between Nablus and the Jordan Valley (southwest of the village, towards Jurish). Three days ago, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees received a letter from the Israeli authorities saying that they must depart the area immediately. They claim that the land is in Area C, despite papers held by the owner showing otherwise. In one month, the land would have been ready to be used as farmland in the winter. The army threatened to confiscate bulldozers, and arrest workers and union members if work continued.

Ayssar, a member of the Aqraba Municipality, is convinced that the Israeli army have a different agenda. He said, “When they say it belongs to them, their aim is clear: they want to enlarge the settlement, they want to take our land. They threaten the workers, they take the machines, sometimes they burn the land. It is simple: they want to confiscate our land.”

The illegal settlement of Migdalim is located about 2 kilometres south of the land in question.

The municipality reports that many local farmers have been forced to sell their animals, as land grabs in the area have not left enough land to graze animals on. Despite threats from the army to confiscate machinery and arrest workers, local workers are still determined to clear the land, build, and plant trees by hand, and are requesting international accompaniment.

Background

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) is a Palestinian organisation that was set up in 1986 to support farmers in their struggle against the occupation policies of destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and confiscation of Palestinian resources. See more at http://www.uawc-pal.org.
Aqraba is a small village with a population of around 8000 in the village proper, situated 18 kilometres southeast of Nablus. According to the ARIJ GIS Database of 2009, 90.1% of Aqraba village land is classified as Area C; this area contains all the agricultural lands, and the open spaces in the village. 4.1% of the village’s land area is taken up by settlements (can be seen at http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/ITS_Map1.jpg). Of the farmlands, 62% are olive trees, 8% are for fruit and vegetables, 30% for animal grazing.