The protesters managed to halt traffic at the entrance to the settlement for about 20 minutes, before Israeli forces managed to remove them from the road and onto the pavement. Two of the Palestinian protesters were detained and taken to the adjacent police station.
The Ma’ale Adumim Jewish-only settlement is located 7 km east of Jerusalem, and is the third largest in the West Bank, with about 35,000 residents. The entrance that was blocked, leads to the Israeli police’s Judea and Samaria Central Unit’s interrogation center, one of the biggest in the West Bank.
Background
More than three weeks ago, some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have launched an open-ended hunger strike and their life is in danger. Their demands are simple and the strike’s slogan, echoing through the prison walls, is just as plain- freedom or death. The lives of all prisoners on strike are currently under danger, but among them is a smaller group, which has been striking for a longer period and whose lives are under immediate threat.
Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab have not eaten for more than 70 days – since the 29th of February. Israeli courts have rejected their appeals and refused to free them from administrative detention where they remain without charge or trial, subject to secret evidence and secret allegations. They are in critical condition.
Hassan Safadi has been refusing food since the 2nd of March, Omar Abu Shalal, 54, since the 4th of March, Mahmoud Sarsak, the only Gazan to have been incarcerated under Israel’s Illegal Combatants Law, since the 24th of March, Mohammed al-Taj, 40, also since the 24th of March and Ja’afar Ezzadeen, 41, since the 27th of march.
Ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation;
End to the use of administrative detentions;
The restoration of visitation rights to families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, a right that has been denied to all families for more than 6 years;
Canceling ‘Shalit’ law, which restricts prisoners’ access to educational materials as punitive measure. The law remains intact despite a prisoner swap deal last October.
Ending systematic humiliation, including arbitrary strip searches, nightly raids and collective punishment.
In response, Human Rights Watch issued a statement chiding Israel’s over its administrative detention policy; it said, “It shouldn’t take the self-starvation of Palestinian prisoners for Israel to realize it is violating their due process rights.” Amnesty International also issued a call for urgent action from individuals around the world to contact Israeli authorities about Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh.
5 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
A group of approximately 10 to 15 soldiers displayed their ineptitude in dealing with a group of rowdy settler children, roughly between the ages of 8 to 14, who were attemptng to enter Tel Rumeida.
It was an embarrassing episode for the Israeli occupation soldiers who paid more attention to ISM volunteers who were simply filming the situation. When a settler later confronted me, violently grabbing for my camera, the soldier’s attempts to restrain him were meek and pathetic. It was an emabrassing situation which showed signs of settlers being allowed to behave as they wish with impunity, behaviour which would not be tolerated if it came from the Palestinian side.
As I walked down Tel Rumeida with another ISM volunteer, we were approached by a Palestinian child who claimed to have been confronted by a group of settler children. As we walked to find out what was going on, we found a group of 20 settler children between the ages of 8 to 14, the majority being boys, acting in a rowdy fashion near the junction where H2 meets H1. Surrounding them were roughly a group of 10 to 12 Israeli soldiers.
As we approached the scene, I witnessed several of the children who could not have been more than 10 years old walking in the direction of the barrier separating H1 from H2. If the soldiers were attempting to stop these children, then their efforts were meek, as the children merely brushed aside the soldiers.
As we questioned the soldiers regarding the situation, they shunned us away by replying, “You dont need to know, go away.” As we continued to question them they continued to ignore us.
As the problem continued, the children became more boisterous, challenging the soldiers’ authority when ordered not to walk in the direction of the barrier. As the soldiers formed a line blocking their path, the children easily walked through the gaps.
As the soldiers were ineffective in blocking them off they reformed the line right in front of the barrier. Their tactics proved to be worthless as some of the children were seen getting really close to the yellow gate. The occupation forces had absolutely no control of a situation created by a group of misguided children.
While this was going on, Palestinians who were looking on from outside their homes, stared in disbelief as the soldiers showed no signs of being in control of the situation.
As we filmed the behaviour, the children came in our direction attempting to snatch our cameras and our keffiyahs, or traditional Palestinian scarves. As we looked to the soldiers expecting them to intervene, they turned a blind eye and instead they demanded that we switch off our cameras. When asked why they are incapable of dispersing the children, as usual they hesitated and chose the “I dont have to answer any question” stance.
Seconds later an elderly female settler arrived at the scene and marched towards the soldiers. As she approached them she began speaking to them in an extremely aggressive tone even at times pointing her finger in their faces. She directed her verbal onslaught at the soldiers for a full five minutes after she herself was prevented from entering H1. She continued her verbal barrage without being reprimanded for her behaviour.
As my colleague and I were filming the scenes, we were continuously told to switch off our cameras and move away. As we asked them why they were so keen to remove us and not the settlers, the soldiers began filming us and one soldier had pushed away my colleague.
We refused to move from our position.
As the female settler retreated she walked past me referring to me as “garbage” and telling me “to go back to your own country and help your own people.”
As the settlers dispersed from the location they headed towards Gilbert Checkpoint, we followed them to ensure no further troubles took place. As we caught up with them many of the kids were seen confronting a lone Palestinian woman. There were approximately 5 to six soldiers at the scene who chose to ignore the problem.
As the settlers made there way back into the illegal settlements, we stayed at the location. Three minutes later more settlers were seen walking down Tel Rumeida from a distance heading towards us. One of the settler men, as they came near, was seen confronting a Palestinian man. He had to be discouraged by an Israeli soldier. As I began filming, the settler ran towards me at full speed, violently shoving the camera out of the way. He then confronted me in order to intimidate me. As I began filming again, he continued to grab for my camera, becoming more and more aggressive at the same time. A soldier at this point had attempted to intervene, but he used less than minimal force in attempting to restrain the man as he continued to threaten me, and reach for my camera.
The soldier finally managed to convince the settler to calm down and walk away, while I, doing nothing wrong, was told to shut off my camera. As he walked away towards the illegal Zionist settlements, so did the others. The soldiers remained to ensure there was no further breach of peace.
Although it was all over. The occupation forces may have believed that they had successfully managed to control the problem. However this was not the case. Imagine the scenario if a group of Palestinian children had attempted to walk into the illegal settlement?
Despite the aggression of the settlers, what appears to be more worrying in this case is the younger settlers: the children. One of the local Palestinian families who have had their rooftop occupied by the Israeli occupation forces have been the victims of a number of attacks coming from young settler girls between the ages of 10 to 12. The children are taught from a very young age to be hateful towards the Palestinians. The hard right, fundamentalist, and Zionist principles passed on from generations clearly shine through these children when considering the events on Tel Rumeida.
Sunny is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
7 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
When Ali Awad visited his orchard on Friday morning before the midday prayer he noticed nothing out of the usual. But eight hours later, when he returned to his land in order to gather grape leaves to sell in the local market, he was shocked to find that his trees had been poisoned. The grape leaves, which Ali depends on substantially for income, had died and shriveled up, making them impossible to sell. Twelve peach trees belonging to Ali’s neighbor were also destroyed.
Ali’s three dunums of farm land, where 28 grape trees have been growing for over 30 years, are directly adjacent to the barbed wire fence which separates the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar from the illegal Zionist settlement of Karmei Tsur.
Horrified and dismayed, Ali called his brother, Muhammad, to come and take pictures of the destruction. Before Muhammad could take any pictures, Israeli Occupation Forces and two older settlers arrived and began to hassle the two brothers, threatening to confiscate Muhammad’s camera. The settlers, one of whom is the mayor of Karmei Tsur, told Ali that his plants were accidentally sprayed with pesticides when Karmei Tsur farmers attempted to destroy the weeds on their land earlier in the day. Ali’s grape trees are located at least ten meters away from the settler’s field, opposite a fence and settlement road.
Ali, whose wheat crop was burned during the night by settlers last year just before harvest time, does not believe that the destruction of his trees was an accident.
“Its not unintentional, like they say, they mean to do this,” he said. “They want me to leave my land. My presence is an obstacle to the expansion of the settlement.”
But Ali, whose family has already lost several dunums of their ancestral land to the illegal settlement, steadfastly refuses to leave.
“I have deeds going back to Turkish times, why should I leave? The land is for me, for my family, not for the settlers.”
According to the Israeli organization Peace Now, Karmei Tsur is built on 27% privately owned Palestinian land. The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids the construction of settlements in occupied territory.
Joseph is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
29 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Urif is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate of the northern occupied West Bank, located thirteen kilometres South of Nablus. The town has a population of just under 3000 inhabitants and is overlooked by the illegal Israeli colony of Yitzhar. Last week on Sunday, April 22, Urif’s boys school was attacked by mask-wearing settlers supported by four Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) soldiers who used tear-gas, sound bombs, and live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian children.
The training of armed, illegal settlers – Click here for more images (Photo courtesy of IMEMC)
The settlers were led by the head of security for the Yitzhar colony, a man suspected in the murder of a resident of Urif in 2004, a murder that nobody has yet been charged with. He continues to lead brutal assaults against the civilian population of six Palestinian towns in the lands surrounding Yitzhar: Burin, Huwara, Madma, Assria Al-Kalibya, Ein Nabous, and Urif.
The attack began when the Yitzhar head of security and a number of masked settlers approached the school from an overlooking hill. “The children were sitting their mock exams,” said Arif, a member of the local popular committee, “the settlers used foul language and began throwing stones at the windows of the school.”
The settlers were soon joined by four uniformed IOF soldiers who did nothing to stop the abuse and stones hurled towards the school.
“When the army came they were supposed to stop the settlers coming to the school, in fact the opposite happened, there was chaos,” said Arif. A number of Palestinian youth approached the armed Israeli settlers and soldiers on the hill, using stones to resist the attack. The IOF soldiers then threw tear gas canisters down towards them and the school. One canister landed on the roof where a member of the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, Adil Safadi, was filming the attack.
Following the attack teachers from the school collected sixty tear gas canisters, a number of sound grenades, and at least thirty rounds of live ammunition fired directly over their heads.
In the video of the incident wherein International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers are shown, the screams of the children and the loud report of an assault rifle being fired in fully automatic mode can clearly be heard. At one point an IOF soldier took aim with his M16 directly at a Palestinian youth out of camera shot. The sustained assault lasted for around an hour before the settlers decided to leave with their IOF minders in tow.
Whilst some children hid in their classrooms during the attack under the watchful eye of their teachers, many rushed to their homes and were exposed to large amounts of tear-gas and required medical attention. The children of Urif’s boys school, aged between 13 and 18, have been subjected to this kind of brutality on a regular basis since the founding of the school which sits on the outskirts of the village and is thus vulnerable to these kind of attacks. Many of the older kids that attend the school were in the process of studying for their year final examinations which take place in early May.
“You can’t imagine the loss we have suffered as a result of this settlement,” says Arif, “we would like to live in peace and prosperity, but that is something we cannot gain. The settlers are very aggressive, there is no word in the dictionary to describe them.”
This is not the first time the settlers, supported by the military, have attacked the school. Roughly one year ago they attempted and failed to burn it down. ISM was shown pictures depicting the charred remains of one classroom that was severely damaged during the attack.
Incursions from Yitzhar into Urif and Surrounding Villages
Arif and members of Urif municipality informed ISM of the following.
The illegal colony of Yitzhar was founded in 1984. It was not until the beginning of 2000 that it began to aggressively expand into the surrounding Palestinian lands. Yitzhar illegally annexed vast swaths of land and barred access to the Palestinian farmers, shepherds, and villagers that have lived and worked the land for countless generations.
The village of Urif is a mere 1500 meters away from the Israeli colony, and since 2000, over 2200 dunams have been stolen by the nearby settlement. In addition, four thousand olive trees cultivated by the village have been uprooted or burnt by settlers in the past four years.
The villagers of Urif have no access to running water, instead they rely on a small number of ancient wells. Two years ago, members of the village were dismayed to find tear gas canisters had been dropped into one of the wells by unknown settlers, poisoning the water supply.
Any attempt to expand infrastructure in the village is also met with settler attacks. ISM volunteers were shown the remains of a house that had been under construction before it was attacked and completely dismantled.
“Late at night they launch attacks on the residents in this area,” said Arif, pointing to the rubble strewn skeleton of the destroyed house. A tractor and a number of cars belonging to residents of the village had also been destroyed in a series of recent arson attacks.
Settlers have shot through the windows of a number of the homes. Graffiti reading ‘revenge’ in Hebrew was scrawled across one residents house. The widespread attacks of agricultural land has lead to a vast “wasteland” between the outskirts of Urif and Yitzhar. Hundreds of goats, sheep, and a few horses have been stolen.
This is not to mention the violence towards the villagers themselves. Arif reports that hundreds of villagers have been injured since 2000, with as many as 40 serious injuries (many of which were gunshot wounds) and one murder.
The combined effects of this systematic assault on Urif residents’ way of life, economy, and civil society is akin to a form of ethnic cleansing. One of the most stark indicators of the impact of the measures taken against the village of Urif by Yitzhar settlement is that unemployment is as high as 40%. Many people simply cannot survive under these conditions and are thus forced to abandon the village of their birth, leaving behind their friends, family, and identity.
Chris Beckett is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
1 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
House sit in – Click here for more photos
A Dutch woman and several Palestinians were violently arrested today during an attempt to reclaim a Palestinian house at the entrance of the old city in occupied Al Khalil (Hebron).
About 30 Palestinians and international ISM activists from Canada, Finland, United States and the Netherlands entered a Palestinian house that was taken over by Israeli army around eight years ago. The re-occupation of the house was an attempt to return the house its rightful owner and was a response to the takeover of a Palestinian house on Shuhada street by settlers under the protection of the Israeli army and border police.
The windows of the house had been broken and the house was filled with trashed furniture, reminders of the families who had lived there. Stars of David and other graffiti covered the walls, and the floor was littered with the casings of rubber coated steel bullets and a tear gas canister. From the front window the watchtower of the settlement Beit Romano is visible.
As activists started cleaning the house and preparing to spend the night there, the Israeli army prepared to invade the house with sound bombs, skunk water and soldiers in full riot gear. Over 50 soldiers and 5 border police blocked the road and cleared the surrounding area before entering the house that was being reoccupied, claiming that the house was now Jewish property.
The soldiers then entered the house and began to forcefully remove the non-violent protesters by punching, hitting with batons, kicking, pulling people from their hair and grabbing them from their throat before pulling them out of the house.
“I was dragged out down a flight of stairs by my ankle by a soldier” said an ISM activist from Canada. “The soldier had his boot on my face,” said an ISMer from Finland.
One Palestinian was beaten until he became unconscious. He was taken to hospital with an ambulance with another injured person. When internationals and Palestinians attempted to help the unconscious man, the Israeli army threw sound bombs by his head and then dragged him away by his feet.
The Israeli army threw sound bombs and sprayed skunk water at the crowd that had gathered to support the Palestinians and internationals.
The Dutch activist and Youth Against Settlements leader Issa Amro are still being held by police. The whereabouts of the Dutch activist are unknown currently, and an emergency hotline for the Dutch Embassy only suggested that an email be sent to detail the event.
The embassy employee commented that, “We can see to it that she is fed, bathed, and if she needs medicine.” When asked if he can attempt to locate her, he mumbled a comment about her attending a demonstration, and stated “Israel is a friend of the Netherlands, and we respect the law of the land.” He then suggested to call the Dutch Consulate during its working hours and to send information about the woman to its email address.
ISM is working vigorously to determine the whereabouts of its volunteer, yet is fearful that while the Israelis deny that she is held in one of their imprisonment facilities despite dozens seeing her physically taken away by Israelis, that they may be attempting to deport her without fair trial or an accusation as they did with a British volunteer in July 2011.
Update: Dutch activist was release from Israeli detention on Monday April 2nd. She was held for 24 hours in Israeli jail and released without trial. The Palestinian’s arrested in the action were released from Ofer Military Prison on Wednesday April 4th with 1,000NIS bail and will return for trial in October.
Satu and Paige are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
