3rd October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Last night, a group of about two dozen Israeli settlers trespassed on private Palestinian land in al-Khalil (Hebron), protected by the Israeli police.
Firday evenening, a group of about two dozen settlers from the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba again came to private Palestinian land situated right opposite the entrance to the illegal settlement to pray.
Settlers trespass with protective police presence on Palestinian property/closed military zone
In the past, settlers have built a synagogue on this land that was demolished in April this year, after an Israeli court ruled that they had no right to build on this land owned by a Palestinian family. Since the demolition, settlers have repeatedly attacked the Palestinian families living in this neighbourhood.
Now, the piece of land has been declared a closed military zone, denying the family access to their own land, even though an Israeli court ruled that the land belongs to them. As the land is a closed military zone, settlers are forbidden from entering, yet Israeli police forces were present and protective of Israeli settlers trespassing on the land.
International human rights observers documenting the illegal use of this land were accosted and threatened by the group of settlers as they left the area.
Settlers accost and threaten ISM observers as they leave the area where they were trespassing
2nd October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the 28th – 30th September 2015 is the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. In the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron), while Israeli settlers from the many illegal settlements within al-Khalil celebrate their holiday, Israeli forces have escalated restrictions and violence against the Palestinian residents, further infringing on their most basic rights.
In preparation for the celebrations of Sukkot, already heavily restricted Palestinian freedom of movement has been almost entirely grinded to a halt by Israeli forces. Especially in the area around the Ibrahimi mosque, food-stalls and entertainment has sprung up for settlers not only from al-Khalil but also visiting from other West Bank illegal settlements. In order to completely barr Palestinians from this main venue of celebration for the settlers and Israeli forces, the mosque checkpoint leading to this area from the Palestinian market has been closed down for two days. Shopkeepers were handed notices by the Israeli army forcing them to again close their shops for the Jewish holiday, imposing more days of forced closures and lost income.
Palestinian schoolchildren forced to squeeze past armored Israeli jeep on their way to school
Families that for generations have lived in this neighbourhood directly next to the Ibrahimi mosque are also barred access. Even if not physically prevented from leaving their houses by closed checkpoints or soldiers randomly denying them entry into the area, large crowds of settlers and soldiers right outside their doorsteps pose an immediate threat for leaving the house. With settlers, at times ‘wearing’ machine guns or hand-guns just like an accessoire, known for their attacks on Palestinians, that seem to escalate especially during the Jewish holidays, Palestinian families are locked up in their houses as if under house arrest, caged inside their homes while right outside their doorsteps settlers and soldiers merrily celebrate their holiday together without even having to think about the local families hoping for the holiday to pass as uneventful as possible.
But in most of the cases, that was not the case, with huge groups of settlers flooding into al-Khalil, Israeli forces did everything possible to facilitate their movement. New checkpoints and road-blocks popped up randomly, leaving Palestinians with their cars parked on the wrong side of them without any possibility to access their cars, soldiers took over several Palestinian houses, using their roofs or even the whole house as a military base to ‘keep an eye’ on Palestinians’ every movement in the maze of obstacles, dead-ends and military checkpoints – almost impossible to navigate in every-day life in a militarily occupied city – further exacerbated by this holiday.
Israeli forces further restricting Palestinian freedom of movement with additional roadblocks
Even in the H1-area of al-Khalil, that is supposedly under full Palestinian control, Israeli forces evicted Palestinian civilians going about their everyday lives attacking them with stun-grenades and rubber coated steel bullets, to facilitate access exclusively for Israeli settlers. Sudden attacks like these didn’t allow even for a few minutes for shopkeepers and vendors to protect their produce from violent assaults by Israeli forces or for families and mothers to hurriedly whisk their small children to safety out of the range of indiscriminate fire. In the area around Bab al-Zawwiyya and Shuhada checkpoint, where Palestinian student Hadeel al-Hashlamoun was ruthlessly gunned down and killed by Israeli soldiers just last week, endless rounds of stun-grenades and rubber coated steel bullets fired at protectors have echoed throughout the days. Israeli forces’ fire has also been directly targeting Palestinian families, with tear gas and stun grenades continuously exploding on the roofs of their homes, leaving them scared and hurriedly closing windows to minimise tear gas slowly seeping into their homes.
Israeli soldier shooting rubber-coated steel bullet from a Palesitnian house
In this escalation of violence, harassment, attacks and restrictions, it doesn’t matter if you’re a small child, a grown up adult or an old person. The stepped up ‘security’ is only imposing further hassles and obstacles on Palestinians’ already severely restricted everyday life. Israeli settlers on the other hand, under the watch of the Israeli forces are free to attack Palestinian families and shops or keep them locked up in their home by blocking their front door. And age doesn’t matter in these cases either, while some of the settlers use their children to block international observers’ cameras, other parents encourage them to join the attacks and insults on Palestinian families. Soldiers idly standing by watching these incidents happen, just a few minutes afterwards, receive pizza delivered by the same settlers or giving them a hug on their way home after their shift is finished.
For Palestinians, every day life is children coming home from school crying, coughing and choking from tear gas shot at them by Israeli forces at one of the many checkpoints they have to cross, passing heavily armed military. Every day life is mothers and fathers anxiously waiting for the return of their children from school if they’re late, hoping and praying they were not randomly snatched by Israeli forces and arrested for ‘dirty hands’ that would indicate they were throwing stones – just because children would never play and get dirty hands. Every day life is families having to endure Israeli settlers attacking a son, brother or father with Israeli forces standing by not intervening and later on arresting the person attacked.
Every day life is a struggle against the illegal Israeli military occupation of every aspect of Palestinian life, a daily struggle against the denial of most basic human rights.
When celebrating a holiday makes this struggle through every day life even more miserable and seemingly impossible, where is humanity?
1st October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Today, October 1st 2015, a 14-year old boy was arrested by Israeli forces in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) after being accused of stone-throwing by a settler notorious for harassing Palestinians.
Mohammed Imad Abu Shamsiyye was taken by Israeli soldiers from right outside his home just after coming home from school. Even though he was taken from outside his family home and he is a minor, Israeli forces did not inform the parents. His father was only informed about the arrest of his son by neighbours. Mohammed was physically assaulted by one soldier while being detained at a checkpoint close to his house.
They then walked him to Shuhada checkpoint, were he was forced to sit with another teen that was arrested by Israeli forces after attempting to cross the checkpoint. Mohammed’s accuser, the extremist settler, Ofer, is infamous for his aggressive behaviour towards Palestinians and international observers. He immediately drove up to the checkpoint taking videos, ridiculing and insulting internationals and Palestinians.
Mohammed (right) and another Palestinian boy detained at Shuhada checkpoint
At the same time another 17-year old boy was forced to first sit outside in the baking sun and then in an army jeep for about twenty minutes before being taken to a police station. The young man, as well as Mohammed’s arrest were based on the allegations of this one settler, that was not even in the same location as any of the two boys for the time he accuses.
17-year old boy taken to the police station by Israeli forces
When Israeli forces walked Mohammed to the military base in segregated Shuhada Street, the two settlers went along ridiculing and berating the boy all the way up to the military base. The settlers, as well as soldiers at the base kept harassing and insulting internationals present outside the military base, until Mohammed was taken to the police station in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba about half an hour later. He was finally released from the police station after one and a half hours – in total an ordeal of over two hours of arrest for a minor child.
Settlers from the various illegal settlements in al-Khalil often posses an enormous amount of power over the Israeli army that will act upon their every whim and allegation. Palestinians on the other hand, when complaining about attacks by settlers are most often ignored or even arrested.
30th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On the second day of the Jewish Sukkot holiday, hundreds of settlers continued filing into al-Khalil (Hebron) creating mass restrictions and sharp escalations in violence against Palestinians living here. Over a period of two hours dozens of them continuously invaded the roof of the Palestinian Abu Shamsiyye family home where several small children live.
Israeli soldier stands idly by as settlers invade Palestinian roof, attack female monitor.
Laughing and trying to gain vantage point to view Israeli forces teargassing, stun grenading and firing rubber coated steel bullet projectiles into crowds of Palestinians in the Bab al-Zawiya area of H-1 Hebron, the settlers spit and cursed at the children, darted towards them to frighten them, called them “Arab terrorists” and one male settler charged at and punched a female ISM international human rights monitor as she filmed him trespassing on the roof. The settler was allowed to leave the scene without incident as Israeli forces stood present but did nothing.
Shortly thereafter, as a Palestinian man and his two young sons tried to exit the gate fronting their home, a crowd of a dozen settler boys sat and stood in front of the gate blocking his exit as he politely asked to be allowed to pass. For fifteen minutes the boys kept the man and his sons trapped until an Israeli soldier finally came and told them to move.
Through the sounds of stun grenading and the blasts of high powered rubber coated steel bullets being showered onto Palestinians by Israeli forces just past checkpoint 56, the settlers, of all ages, took turns standing in the Israeli military post where they posed for photos, shouted curses and racial abuses at Palestinians and international human rights monitors and cheered each time a blast rang out.
Settlers boys pose jovially for photos after spitting and cursing at human rights monitors and shouting racial slurs about Arabs.
This was the situation just outside the Abu Shamsiyye family home alone. But hundreds of Palestinian families have been literally under siege during the Jewish Sukkot holiday began yesterday as their roads have been closed, their businesses have been attacked, their children have been arrested and their streets have undergone hours of endless assault by heavily armed Israeli forces both on roofs as well as in the streets to allow for settlers to move freely through Palestinian governed areas it is illegal for them to be, in so they could pray in the streets.
The misery continues for Palestinians existing in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).
A Palestinian teenager shot by Israeli forces at a checkpoint in Hebron died from her injuries on Tuesday, Israeli medical sources said.
The teenager, identified as 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamon, was shot three times by Israeli soldiers after allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack, Israel’s army said.
A spokesperson for the Shaare Zedek Medical Center where she was taken for treatment said the teenager was “terribly injured, and underwent surgery upon her arrival.”
She later died from her injuries, the spokesperson confirmed.
No Israeli soldiers were injured during the incident, and the Israeli army did not release photographs of a knife, as they have done on several other recent occasions.
The army spokeswoman said that the attack had been “thwarted.”
Israeli soldier shooting 18-year old girl Photo credit: Youth Against Settlement
A local activist group Youth Against Settlements later released what it said were photos of the incident, appearing to show Israeli soldiers aiming their weapons at the woman, as first she faced them and afterward turned away from them.
Another photo appeared to show the woman slumped on the street, after she was shot and wounded.
Video footage from Palestinian news agency PalMedia showed al-Hashlamon left bleeding on the pavement, reportedly for up to 30 minutes before she received treatment.
The footage shows the woman being dragged out of camera frame, while soldiers and heavily armed settlers look on.
Al-Hashlamon’s death marks at least 25 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the start of 2015, according to UN documentation, not including Palestinian deaths caused by Israeli settlers.
