Settler harassment and land theft continues in Yanoun

27 November 2009

Israeli settlers have annexed a further 40 dunums of what remains of the endangered Palestinian village of Yanoun, east of Nablus. Settlers from the illegal settlement Itamar were witnessed ploughing the land in question yesterday, effectively laying claim to it and furthering their annexation of Yanoun’s land, already entirely encircled by outposts of Itamar.

Two settlers were sighted driving their plough on to land that had previously remained accessible to Yanoun farmers yesterday morning. Noticing the audience they had gained, one settler approached Rashid, mayor of Yanoun, and villagers and the activists assembled to inform them that he had legal claim to the land as it had not been worked by farmers from the village in over five years (despite the 40 dunums in question having been used by Yanoun farmers as recently as 2 years ago). Land that stands unused for this time period becomes property of the state by Israeli law, the means by which settlers have managed to claim much of Yanoun’s land, under the continued campaign of intimidation and harassment wrecked on farmers that stray too close to the settlement and its outposts. An argument ensued between the settler and villagers over who had rights to the land, which was effectively ended as a second settler arrived on the scene brandishing an M-16 rifle.

Activists were told of how just the day before, the same settler had led a tour group of 60 Israeli settlers through the village itself, frightening the villagers and forcing them to withdraw to a state of effective curfew inside their houses, an all-too-common event in Yanoun. Settlers proceeded to strip naked and bathe in two of Yanoun’s wells (few of which have not been taken by the settlement), contaminating their drinking water.

Residents of Yanoun have suffered many years of terrifying violence at the hands of Itamar settlements – the murder of villagers, slaughter of their livestock, desecration of crops, property destruction and daily invasions and intimidation by armed settlers. The increasing brutality climaxed in 2002, as settlers rampaged the village, cutting down over 1000 olive trees, killing dozens of sheep, beating Palestinians in their home with rifle butts and gouging out one man’s eye. The settlers left promising to return the following Saturday, with the threat to spare no witnesses next time. Unable to stand the fear – and indeed reality – of terrorism any longer, the entire village evacuated, most families fleeing to the nearby village of Aqraba.

An international and Israeli activist campaign was launched immediately to allow the residents of Yanoun to return to their lands. A permanent international presence was established in the village by EAPPI which has assisted in encouraging people of Yanoun to return home, and has remained instrumental in what little peace of mind Yanounis have salvaged since they were uprooted from their land and one by one, have boldly returned to.

Over the 2002-06 period the entirety of the village’s families eventually came back to their homes and attempted to start their life over in the shadow of Itamar’s ever-increasing outposts, that dot the hills surrounding the village. This number has once again begun to dwindle however, as the younger generations of Yanounis mature and seek a life of career, education, urbanisation – a life outside of daily harassment and torment at the hands of those who have stolen their land, and what, in a more peaceful Palestine, could be a means of livelihood for them. Approximately 100 people remain in the village – 40 in “lower Yanoun” in the valley, and 60 in “upper Yanoun”, whose houses ascend the hill to where just a few hundred meters away lie dozens of settlement houses and agricultural complexes.

Although the entire village is located in Area C – under full Israeli civilian and military control – and stands at risk of being slated for demolition, residents believe that the settlement’s – and Israeli government’s – strategy is what may already be underway – a gradual exodus of families and individuals as they are confined to an ever-shrinking amount of land, engulfed by the expanding settlement and its violent inhabitants.

There are some who remain though, who are determined to stay – many families steadfastly refusing to relinquish the connection to the land that is rightfully theirs. The very existence of Yanoun today bespeaks its fighting spirit, one that will hopefully continue despite the
collective punishment waged on the village.

Residents of Sheikh Jarrah hold Eid al-Adha prayers and demonstrations against ethnic cleansing and house evictions

27 November 2009

On Friday 27 November 2009, the Eid al-Adha celebration in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, was marked by prayers and demonstrations.

In the night unto Eid, the sleep in the neighbourhood was disturbed at 2am by loud music coming from a street party attended by Jewish settler youths, who gathered outside the Shimon HaTzadik Tomb, located just behind the Palestinian houses. This is the same location from which Jewish settlers threw stones at the Palestinian houses in the middle of the night on Friday 6 November. The disturbing music was played for 30 minutes until the police blue-lights drew near.

At 7am, the Palestinian families gathered in an open field in the neighbourhood to hold the traditional Eid Friday prayer. The prayer was led by Sheikh Raed Salah, an influential and well known imam, who in his speech talked about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, 1967, and until present. The speech emphasized the current evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, including the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and blasted the illegality and immorality of these actions that are forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and replacing them with Jewish settler population. The two-hour event was broadcasted live on Palestinian TV and ended with games, music, and sweets for the children.

Residents of Sheikh Jarrah hold an Eid Friday prayer against house evictions
Residents of Sheikh Jarrah hold an Eid Friday prayer against house evictions
Eid fun for children of Sheikh Jarrah
Eid fun for children of Sheikh Jarrah

At 3pm, the second demonstration and march against the evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem arrived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. The demonstration takes place every Friday, and gathers Israeli, Palestinian, and international activists at Zion Square in West Jerusalem at 1:30pm to subsequently march to the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. An Israeli samba drum band helps to make the demonstration vibrant and also fun for the Palestinian children who towards the end of the demonstration learn to play the drums together with the Israeli activists. In Sheikh Jarrah, the demonstrators were, as usual, filmed and observed by heavily armed Israeli occupation forces.

Israeli activists and Palestinian children observed by heavily armed Israeli occupation forces
Israeli activists and Palestinian children observed by heavily armed Israeli occupation forces

At 6pm, around 15 Jewish settlers gathered outside the Atiyeh family home in Sheikh Jarrah and conducted a provocative prayer directed towards the home; provocative because it manifests their desire to evict the Palestinian family and replace them with Jewish settlers. 28 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are threatened by eviction, including the Kamel Kurd, Hannoun, and Gawi families that were made homeless in the past year. This was the fourth provocative prayer in the past five weeks, directed twice at the Gawi family house (23 and 30 October) and twice at the Atiyeh family house (20 and 27 November). Each time, the provocation has been accompanied by heavily armed Israeli occupation police. This time a friend of the Sheikh Jarrah families protested against the provocation by standing close to the settler group and performing a muslim prayer towards the Atiyeh family house. Afterwards, the praying Palestinian was questioned by the police while the settlers were not. During the prayers, the police unnecessarily forced some Palestinian children to back well away from the street.

Background

The Gawi and Hannoun families, consisting of 53 members including 20 children, have been left homeless after they were forcibly evicted from their houses on 2 August 2009. The Israeli forces surrounded the homes of the two families at 5.30am and, breaking in through the windows, forcefully dragged all residents into the street. The police also demolished the neighbourhood’s protest tent, set up by Um Kamel, following the forced eviction of her family in November 2008.

At present, all three houses are occupied by settlers and the whole area is patrolled by armed private settler security 24 hours a day. Both Hannoun and Gawi families, who have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.

The Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah is home to 28 Palestinian families, all refugees from 1948, who received their houses from the UNRWA and Jordanian government in 1956. All face losing their homes in the manner of the Hannoun, Gawi and al-Kurd families.

The aim of the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.

Israel’s occupation, linked by rail

Seth Freedman | The Guardian

26 November 2009

The architects of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank are highly skilled at the art of needlework, deftly stitching up land inside Israel proper and disputed territory over the Green Line as though it was the most natural thing in the world. According to their logic, it should be possible to seamlessly suture together the two parts without raising eyebrows either at home or abroad, regardless of the contravention of both international law and basic morality that such actions entail.

All that is required is a healthy dose of chutzpah, combined with a drip-drip effect in which a steady stream of expropriating activities are undertaken at a slow but relentless pace, in the hope that insufficient feathers are ruffled to put a halt to the overarching campaign of annexation.

The Jerusalem light railway is a case in point: in isolation, few Israelis would be too perturbed by the idea of providing a rail link between the city centre and outlying towns and suburbs on the periphery of the capital. However, in doing so, the authorities are simultaneously declaring their view that settlements such as French Hill and Pisgat Ze’ev are integral parts of Jerusalem and banging yet another nail into the coffin of a viable Palestinian state.

Under the guise of a desire to ease traffic congestion on Jerusalem’s streets, the project bears all the hallmarks of previous efforts to stake a permanent and intractable claim to areas that once might have been considered as appropriate territory to concede as part of a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. As the Alternative Information Centre notes, “by providing direct access to [these locations], the main illegal settlements will finally be linked with the centre and western part of the City. The adverse effects of this will serve to diminish any chance of East Jerusalem becoming the future capital of a Palestinian state under a two-state solution”.

Palestinian officials this week issued a call for overseas assistance in preventing the completion of the rail link, having recognised that without such external pressure there is no hope of putting a halt to the illegal construction. Basing their opposition on statutes that deem such building work a violation of international law, the Palestinian Authority urged all Arab countries to end their links with companies associated with the light railway – including French conglomerates Veolia and Alstom – in the hope that such a stance would encourage the corporations involved to pull out of the project.

The Palestinians know full well that the rail link’s presence will further ingrain in Israelis’ minds the idea that every affected township over the Green Line is to be viewed simply as a benign part of Greater Jerusalem, rather than a malignant settlement that threatens the security of both Israelis and Palestinians in the long term. To confirm their fears, they need only look as far as Gilo or Har Homa, both areas built over the Green Line outside Jerusalem’s original city limits, but now treated as no more contentious than Rehavia or the German Colony when it comes to Israel’s continued construction there.

Last week’s international criticism of plans to build a further 900 homes in Gilo raised hackles among the Israeli public. Many Israelis have become so accustomed to the idea that Gilo is part of Israel proper that they cannot for the life of them understand why anyone should deny them the right to construct houses there at will. Such a mind-set did not develop overnight; rather, it took years of patient joining of the dots by successive Israeli governments – by way of transport links, forging social ties between Gilo and other parts of Jerusalem, and so on – to convince Israelis that Gilo had come in from the cold and was now Jerusalem through and through.

When my army unit was based in Har Gilo (a suburb of Gilo even deeper into West Bank territory), none of the residents living alongside our headquarters saw themselves as settlers. Those to whom we spoke thought of themselves as simply Jerusalemites with no more reason to feel guilty about the location of their homes than those dwelling in Tel Aviv or Haifa. The fact that their houses were a stone’s throw from Palestinian towns such as Bet-Jalla did little to change their minds: the Israeli government had thrown a comforting arm around their shoulders and told them all was well, and that was what mattered. But all is not well – whether in terms of Israel’s relationship with the outside world, the spectre looming of a third Palestinian intifada, or the fact that Israelis are unquestioningly becoming more and more used to their collective status as perpetual oppressors of another people – and time is not on the peace camp’s side.

The light railway and the construction plans for Gilo are not deal-breakers on their own, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when it comes to the annexation of the West Bank, and all interested parties should be doing their utmost to oppose anything that further cements an Israeli presence in the area. To sit back and do nothing is to be complicit with the insidious plans of those who seek never to accommodate Palestinian needs in terms of their statehood. Israelis, Palestinians and outsiders alike must continue to stand up to the occupation machine’s operators, before the rot sets in completely and for ever.

Palestinian woman suffers a stroke after settlers invade her family’s house in Sheikh Jarrah

26 November 2009

image1(2)
Settler who violently attacked Maysa and Munjad al-Kurd

On Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:00am, five settlers and settler security, who are currently occupying the Gawi family house in Sheikh Jarrah, attempted to take over a section of a house belonging to the Palestinian al-Kurd family.

The Israeli police were alerted immediately, however, before they managed to arrive, the settlers started attacking the Palestinians living in the house. One settler violently pushed a member of the al-Kurd family, Maysa, against a wall and thereafter grabbed her son, Munjad, by the lapel. After their arrival and a long discussion with the al-Kurd family concerning the legal status of the house, the Israeli police reluctantly escorted the settlers out.

As a result of the tumult, Refka Kurd, 85, suffered a stroke. She was taken to a hospital and is in stable condition.

This is the third settler incursion into the al-Kurd family house in
the last three weeks. Both the border police, equipped with automatic weapons, and the Israeli police who arrived at the scene, seemed to have been convinced about the settlers’ right to enter the house and determined to allow them to remain on the premises. After a long discussion with the family and the settlers, who claimed to have legal documents giving them the right to enter the house, the Israeli forces ordered the settlers to leave. These documents do not grant any explicit right to the settlers to enter and remain in the al-Kurd property.

As the Israeli police escorted the intruders back to the house of the Palestinian Gawi family, occupied by the settlers since the forceful take-over in August, the heated exchange that ensued agitated Refka Kurd who then suffered a stroke confirmed by a CT scan.

The recent escalation of violent settler incursions has created an unbearable and dangerous situation for the Palestinian family and, as result, forced the al-Kurd children to sleep at their grandmother’s house, outside of Sheikh Jarrah.

Following the incursion, the settler who assaulted the two family members filed a complaint at a local police station, claiming that it was the al-Kurds, who attacked him. In contrast, Maysa and Munjad were not allowed to file a complaint concerning the violence inflicted upon them. “The settler filed a complaint claiming that I attacked him. I went to the police station to file a complaint, but was unable to, because they would not allow my lawyer to accompany me,” said Munjad.

The al-Kurds have become the fourth Sheikh Jarrah family whose house (or part of it) has been occupied by settlers in the last year. So far, 60 people have been left homeless. In total, 28 families living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes.

In a strategic plan, settlers have been utilizing discriminatory laws to expand their presence in Occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinians, who face difficulties in acquiring building permits from the municipality, are often left with no legal recourse for extending their homes to accompany their growing families. The Israeli authorities exercise their abilities to demolish and evict Palestinian residents, while ignoring building violations from the Israeli population in East Jerusalem.

Israeli forces impose travel restrictions as settler youth attack Palestinians at Huwara checkpoint

26 November 2009

Israeli Occupation Forces closed Huwara checkpoint for over 2 hours last night and established a flying checkpoint nearby as settlers stormed the area. Israeli military and police made little effort to contain settlers as they amassed at the checkpoint, harassing Palestinian vehicles as families waited in vain to be allowed passage to visit relatives on eve of Eid al-Adha, the holy Muslim holiday. The attack occurs amidst an atmosphere of settler outrage at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement of a partial 10-month freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank, which can be expected to trigger more outbursts of violence in the area.

Huwara checkpoint, located on Road 60 between Huwara village and Nablus, was shut down entirely at approximately 6pm last night, as soldiers positioned a line of jeeps across the road to block oncoming traffic from Nablus. Narrow roads became congested as an influx of cars traveling north to south were forced to re-route through Awarta checkpoint, which had also tightened its restrictions, stopping many cars to search and question their passengers.

As cars backed up Road 60 a third checkpoint was established 500 metres south between Huwara checkpoint and the village itself, allowing a small amount of Palestinian vehicles to proceed only to be turned away later and forced to return the way they came, effectively blocking all Palestinian traffic.

International activists arrived at the scene to witness soldiers aggressively shouting at Palestinian drivers to return to their cars and leave the area, pointing their guns at those who argued with them and ignoring the full-scale traffic jam developing as confused and angry drivers tried to proceed or turn around. When asked why the checkpoint had been closed, soldiers replied that a demonstration was occurring and it was necessary to impede traffic until it had ended.

Managing to pass the first checkpoint activists proceeded further north to Huwara checkpoint where approximately 20 settler youth had gathered on the road, screaming at soldiers as they attempted to contain them. A skirmish occurred as young female settlers grew hysterical, attacking the few Palestinian cars that gained access to the checkpoint (then forced to turn around), and IDF soldiers tried half-heartedly to keep them at bay. Israeli Police arrived shortly thereafter but permitted the settler youths to remain as they continued to run amuck on the roads, kicking and spitting on Palestinian cars as they passed.

By 9pm the military dismantled the flying checkpoint and allowed the flow of traffic to pass Huwara. Several military jeeps and police cars departed as the settlers turned their attention on the activists present, at first verbally, then physically harassing them. Eventually the settler youth left – not under military or police instruction, but of their own volition – obtaining rides from passing cars from the nearby settlement of Bracha.

It was later alleged that the mob of settler youth had been attempting to gain access to Nablus to visit the religious site of Joseph’s Tomb, located south of the city-centre close to Balata Refugee Camp and believed by some Jews to be the final resting place of the biblical patriarch, and thus a holy site not only for Jews but Muslims, Christians and Samaritans alike. The issue has been distorted over the years as settler councils have called for renewed visitation rights, ostensibly on purely religious grounds but can hardly be seen as apolitical, considering the site’s history and location. Similar contention exists regarding Jacob’s Well, another holy site in Nablus where a priest was murdered by zionist extremists in 1979 during a campaign for the site, a Christian church since 384 AD, to be reconstructed as a synagogue. The settler organisation of Gar’in Shchem has recently re-launched its campaign for unregulated Jewish access to the tomb, erecting a protest tent outside the IDF Samaria Division headquarters and announced a demonstration march from outside Nablus for this coming Thursday, 3 December.

Another contributing factor may well be Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement this week of a 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction inside the West Bank. The declaration angered almost all parties across the Israeli political spectrum, most notably Yesha and municipal settlement councils across the West Bank, who have declared they will “continue to build, if necessary” – outside of government restrictions. Backlashes to what is viewed in settler communities as Netanyahu’s political ‘weakness’ frequently occur on the ground in the form of a ‘price tag campaign’ – a co-ordinated outbreak of settler aggression across the West Bank in response to the state’s feeble attempts to restrict settlement expansion and further annexation of Palestinian land.

The settlement ‘freeze’, whilst heralded by some international and Israeli media as a positive contribution to the peace process, can be expected to achieve no such thing on the ground. The freeze does not apply to public buildings – the construction of which a further 28 have just been given approval – or projects already under way. Nor does it apply to East Jerusalem, where over 1500 Palestinian homes have demolition orders, and the construction of a further 900 new apartments were announced this week in the settlement of Gilo. Construction in Palestinian villages in the West Bank has been effectively frozen since the implementation of the Oslo Accords zoning laws, wherein residents of Areas B and C (partial and full Israeli control, respectively) must apply for permits to build or extend homes or public buildings. Buildings in Area C, and even B, are frequently slated for demolition.