Tag: Settlers

Israeli settlers trespass & attempt to enter the home of international human rights workers

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26th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On October 25th, around 2am, strange noises could be heard through the window of an apartment in Tel Rumeida where nine international human rights activists are currently living. Upon further inspection, four adult male settlers were identified, trespassing on the property. In full view of the soldiers who are constantly posted on the street directly in front of the house, two of the settlers ascended the staircase and attempted for several minutes to open the locked, latched door. They stopped and went back down the stairs, screaming “f*** you!” and making obscene gestures when the two at the bottom realized the scene was being filmed, and warned the others.

When the three soldiers at the bottom of the stairs were immediately approached by the internationals about the incident, their reactions were flippant and vaguely threatening, including laughter, repeating that “everything is fine”, and the flat out denial that any of them had seen any of the settlers, with the caveat that “though [they] didnt see any settlers, [they] told them to get down”. Soldiers reiterated to the shaken internationals that “Palestinians want to kill us all”, and referenced the ‘arab threat’ posed by all the alleged perpetrators of stabbing attacks, almost none of whom have been convicted though almost all have been executed. Soldiers reiterated that the settlers were gone and that internationals would be protected, despite repeated questions about why these heavily armed soldiers didn’t manage to detain or even address or perhaps even see the trespassing illegal settlers. When the soldiers were asked to produce their commander, one of the soldiers named himself, Yonaton Zair. He wore no standard markings of an officer, and when asked the number of their battalion, he simply said Tzahar. Neither he nor any other soldier would produce any other information.

Unfortunately, this is fairly standard operating procedure in Hebron, where soldiers effectively work at the command of the settlers.

 

 

Increasing harassment and direct threats of Palestinians and internationals in al-Khalil

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22nd October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today in the morning, Israeli forces harassed international human rights observers monitoring a checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on settlers orders.

Two internationals were monitoring the stairs leading up to two schools from segregated Shuhada street. Palestinians are forced to take the stairs as the small stretch of Shuhada Street where they are allowed to walk, before Shuhada Street – once the major Palestinian market – continues on as a ghost stretch, completely emptied off any Palestinians, who are not allowed to even walk there. Checkpoint 55, which marks the line from where Palestinian freedom of movement is completely denied is often the scene of ID-checks, body-searches, detentions and arrests of Palestinians.

During the last few weeks, this has also been the choice venue for large groups of settlers from the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah and many of the other illegal al-Khalil settlements for staging protests, such as executing a Palestinian and celebrating his death with trays of sweets. The Palestinian residents in this neighbourhood are constantly harassed by the soldiers and settlers, who in turn enjoy the unconditional protection of the Israeli forces – even to the extent that a knife can be planted on a dead Palestinian by Israeli police, as seen in this video filmed by the activist group Youth Against Settlement.

With the recent escalation of soldiers’ and settlers’ violence against Palestinians and the extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, not only in al-Khalil, but beyond that throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza, teachers and parents are worried about school-children’s safety on the way to school. International human rights observers are monitoring most of the innumerable checkpoints children are forced to pass through on their way to school.

On Thursday morning, two internationals were standing at checkpoint 55, monitoring Palestinian school-children on their way up the stairs to Qurtuba school when a settler from the Beit Hadassah settlement spotted the internationals, immediately walked up to the soldiers seeming upset, pointing towards the internationals and down the road. Just a few seconds later, soldiers came up to the human rights observers asking for their passports and visas and ordering them to move further away down the road, out of sight of the staircase leading to the school. When questioned about reasons for this, soldiers admitted that ‘someone’ did not feel safe and wanted them to leave the area. A few minutes later, more soldiers arrived at the checkpoints and requested the two internationals to be body-searched. The female human rights observer refused as there were no female soldiers, but the male  was human rights observer was forced to lift up his shirt and trousers and have a soldier body-search him. The reason soldiers gave to internationals was ‘security’, though soldiers almost never bother to check the internationals’ bags. This comes just as illegal settlers in al-Khalil put up posters asking for soldiers and settlers to ‘take action’ against these ‘hostile anarchists trying to harm Israelis for anti-semitic reasons’, openly inciting violence toward these third party observers.

This kind of harassment, for Palestinians, is a daily occurrence, completely leaving their lives at the soldiers’ every whim.

Settlers call for attacks on International human rights defenders in al-Khalil (Hebron)

21st October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine

”These are not tourists. These are hostile anarchists. Soldiers and residents pay attention, the characters in these photos are here to harm Israelis for anti-semitic reasons. Act accordingly.”

This message, written in Hebrew, was posted by a machine gun-wielding illegal Israeli settler outside the apartment of international human rights defenders in Hebron (al-Khalil) today. The posters show pictures of the faces of members of the ISM Al-Khalil team, as well as other international organisations working in the town. Most of the photos were taken yesterday, October 20th, while they were picking olives with the family of Hashem Al Azzeh in Tel Rumeida.

Illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinians in al-Khalil on a daily basis with impunity. Settlers have also attacked international human rights defenders in the past.

In the last month settlers and the Israeli military have shot dead several Palestinians whom they claimed had knives.  Pictures and videos taken by Palestinian activists and international volunteers have challenged these claims.

A member of the International Solidarity Movement Al-Khalil team today stated that ”the intention of this threat is clearly to intimidate international human rights defenders and to prevent them from continuing to document the acts of violence, abuses and human rights crimes that illegal Israeli settlers carry out towards Palestinians every day in Hebron’.’

Despite the threat the international volunteers intend to stay in al-Khalil.

The posters in al-Khalil calls for violence against internationals
The posters in al-Khalil calls for violence against internationals

 

Machine gun armed settler taking the Pictures of the international volunteers
Illegal settler photographing the international volunteers assisting olive harvest, armed with machine gun. Tuesday, 2oth October 2015

Shoot First Don’t ask Questions Later

20th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | West Bank, occupied Palestine

A video posted on October 12th by Shehab news agency described as an attack on a Palestinian girl from Haifa in her twenties for allegedly trying to assault a taxi driver in Tel Aviv after an argument between them. The video shows a woman pinned to the ground by a man as passers-by argue about whether or not to beat and kill her. One woman claims she saw the woman had a knife and screams “Why are you playing around. They are coming to kill our children!” and demands her execution. Another bystander asks the man “Did she come at you with a knife?” and he replies “She put her hand in her pocket.” Yet Another kicks her in the head. Sharon Puwler from Haaretz Daily reported on 20th October 2015 that the woman did not carry any weapon.

While there undoubtedly are stabbings of Israelis taking place, there are also undoubtedly mistaken or false accusations and pressure from Israeli civilians to kill people they suspect of being terrorists. The latest example being the Eritrean asylum seeker Mulu Habtom Zerhom who was shot and beaten to death in the Beersheva central bus station after being mistaken for an Arab. Because Mulu was not Palestinian there will be an investigation committee looking into his murder.

Palestinians who are killed are assumed guilty by default. In the case of the Palestinian woman in the video taken in Tel Aviv, if some of the bystanders hadn’t intervened and the woman had been lynched it would have been reported as: “knife wielding terrorist neutralized”. This is how the Israeli media portrayed 23 year old Ahmed Sha’ban from Ras el-Amud in Occupied East Jerusalem. Al Quds Newspaper published a video showing an Israeli security guard shooting twice directly at Ahmed’s body after he is already on the ground. An Israeli eye witness is heard stating: “Central bus station in Jerusalem, just now, a terrorist was exterminated, bro, right in front of me! Right in front of me he shot him ten times! Ten bullets were shot at him now! It’s such a mess here! I don’t know, he didn’t touch anything… He didn’t have a knife in his hand. Everyone shouted ‘terrorist’. The security guard shot him. I am telling you the bullets are right in front of me. My head hurts.”

Israeli officials have been criticised by human rights organisations for calling on Israelis with  licensed guns to carry them  in public and to kill any suspect. They have made it clear that it is not necessary to determine if the suspect is holding a knife before shooting to kill. At a press conference on October 8th Israeli Minister of defence Moshe Yaalon stated “Right now it is required primarily to be vigilant, determined, to respond quickly to any local attack, to eliminate the terrorist stabber or the perpetrator, stone thrower and the like, immediately on the spot. This is the answer to this kind of terrorism.” Other Israeli officials rushed to echo the sentiment On  the 11th of October MK Yair Lapid Head of the Yesh Atid party said on a televised interview,” whoever takes out a knife or a screwdriver or whatever it may be, needs to be shot to kill”, adding “don’t hesitate. Even at the start of an attack, shooting to kill is correct.”

There have been many cases of alleged knife wielders shot in the last months since the killing of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun in Hebron that Amnesty international categorized as an extrajudicial execution. They all deserve an investigative committee. Whether a suspect is falsely accused or did actually carry out an attack, shooting and/or killing people  who do not constitute an immediate threat to anyone is war crime.