Tag: Settlers

Activists demonstrate and work land, despite Israeli military harrasment

24 April 2011 | Palestine Solidarity Project

On Saturday, April 23, eight Israeli activists and 24 international volunteers joined residents of Beit Ommar for an action near Karmei Tsur organized by the Beit Ommar National Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. The international contingent included volunteers from the Palestine Solidarity Project and International Solidarity Movement, as well as the Belgian group Checkpoint Singers. The demonstrators gathered in the lands near Karmei Tsur, and marched towards the settlement carrying flags and signs and chanting against the occupation.

As the protest neared the settlement, soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces lined the path. The protest continued beside the military for several hundred feet, before the soldiers stepped out and blocked the road. The IDF refused to let the demonstration pass.

The Checkpoint Singers began to sing as protesters argued with the soldiers, asking to continue their peaceful demonstration on their land. The lieutenant in command showed papers labeling the area a closed military zone and told the assembled protesters that anyone still in the area in three minutes would be arrested. The demonstrators refused to go.

Three minutes passed, and the soldiers prepared to move in. Then, Ahmed Abu Hashem gestured to his land, a field next to the road. “We are here to work my land,” he said.

“Then where is your tractor? Come back with a tractor, and you can work on your land,” the lieutenant replied.

Abu Hashem explained that a tractor was not needed, as stones needed to be cleared from the field by hand first. The lieutenant said that such an action needed to be coordinated through them first.

“Coordination my ass,” shouted a Beit Ommar resident.

Abu Hashem turned away from the soldiers, looping around the military line and walking onto his land. The rest of the protesters followed, and the soldiers formed a perimeter to attempt to contain the movement. As the choir sang anti-opression songs, Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals began to pull stones from the earth and add them to the rock walls bordering the field. Whenever a they approached the soldiers, the military would retreat, and soon a handful of the faster workers had pushed the IDF three-quarters of the way across the field.

While the demonstrators cleared the field, soldiers called out to them and asked them to stop. Despite the closed military zone and threats of arrest, work went on and on one was detained. The action dispersed on its own terms, and only after a substantial number of stones had been removed.

Settlers attack villager in Burin

20 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Press attacked by settlers

On Tuesday 19 April in Burin a small village in the West Bank of Palestine, Aby Rusli-Eid, 36 year old Palestinian was savagely attacked by an armed gang of Israeli settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Arusi.

Aby Rusli-Eid is a policeman for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and was attacked at around 6 pm. His house is the closest in the village to the illegal settlement. Aby Rusli-Eid was sat in the living room with his wife and his five children when he heard loud shouting from outside the house, he went outside sure in the knowledge that there were armed settlers nearby but bravely choosing to keep the violence as far away from his home and his family as he could, he closed the door behind him to try and protect them.

There were around 20 heavily armed settlers outside, carrying both semi automatic rifles and handguns. Aby was shot twice almost immediately, once in the arm and once in the stomach. He is currently stable and recovering in hospital but whether he will regain the mobility of all of the fingers on his right hand is currently unsure.

Settlers descending on Burin

According to Aby Rusli-Eid this is not the first time; over the last two years his house has been attacked more than five times, both with bullets and with petrol bombs. Two other men were also shot but were in a much better condition and had already left the hospital when the interview was conducted. The other men were shot trying to get to Aby Rusli-Eid’s house to try and help his family. The settlers who attacked apparently wore no face masks and walked around brazenly within the village.

Settlers from the same illegal settlement apparently last attacked the village no more than two days ago, coming to the top of the hill overlooking the houses and shooting live rounds sporadically into the village, luckily no one was injured.

This time the Israeli army turned up an hour later, long after the settlers had returned to their illegal houses. Much too late to do anything other than fire tear gas at the Palestinians from the village who had gathered at the home which had been attacked to try and support the family living there. According to witnesses on the scene two men were also taken to hospital suffering from inhaling too much of the gas. When the ISM team got there at least two shots were fired by the soldiers in the direction of the village, but to what end it wasn’t clear.

Aby Rusli-Eid has had his family moved to a safer house so they will be protected for now, but when asked if he thought it likely the settlers would return his reply was unequivocal “yes they will return.”

Armed Settlers supported by Israeli army attack Palestinian village.

10 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

At 8.30am yesterday morning around fifty settlers, some masked and armed with guns, descended from Yitzhar settlement onto the Palestinian village of Assira Al Qibliya. International observers from the UK and Ireland witnessed the settlers threw rocks at homes and people on the outskirts of the village injuring one local, who is being treated in hospital.

Within thirty minutes an army jeep carrying Israeli soldiers arrived. They stood in front of the settlers on the hillside approximately one hundred metres from the Palestinian homes yet did nothing to prevent their attacks. The soldiers could be seen firing guns into the air and directly towards the Palestinians who had come out of their homes to witness and document this attack on their village.

During the attack four settlers broke away from the main group and made their way to a Palestinian quarry. Two armed with machine guns stood on a ledge while two descended onto the side of the road and set fire to a car used by the Palestinian workers.

The settlement of Yitzhar was originally established as a military outpost in 1983 but demilitarised and turned over to residential purposes a year later. Yitzhar is home to a Jewish orthodox community of over 100 who have in the past decade attacked the residents and properties of Assira Al Qibliya and neighbouring villages on numerous occasions using rocks, knives, guns and arson. These attacks often happen on Saturdays, the religious holiday of Shabbat.

Yitzhar is home to Rabbi Elitzur who published a book last November entitled “The Handbook for the Killing of Gentiles”, condoning the murder of non-Jewish babies, lest they grow to “be dangerous like their parents”. Rabbi Elitzur is vocal in his encouragement of “operations of reciprocal responsibility” such as the arson attack made on Yasuf mosque in December 2009

Despite West Banks settlements’ status as illegal under international law, Yitzhar was included in the Israeli governments’ 2009 “national priority map” as one of the settlements earmarked for financial support. Yitzhar also receives significant funding from American donations, tax-deductible under U.S. government tax breaks for ‘charitable’ institutions.

Israel okays 942 new settler homes in East Jerusalem

5th April 2011 | Ma’an News Agency

Illegal Israeli settlement - Gilo (Ma'an)
Jerusalem city council on Monday approved the construction of 942 new Jewish-only homes in Gilo settlement in occupied East Jersualem, a councillor told AFP.

Elisha Peleg, from the right-wing Likud party, confirmed that the new construction in Gilo, close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, had been approved during an afternoon session of the district planning council.

“Of course we approved it, it is only the first step,” he told AFP, saying it was approved by five in favor and one against.

The municipality said this project was in addition to an earlier tranche of more than 900 new homes in Gilo approved in November 2009, which brought sharp condemnation from Washington which expressed “dismay” over the move.

The latest decision came a day ahead of a top-level meeting at the White House between Israeli President Shimon Peres and US President Barack Obama.

Gilo lies in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.

Israel considers both halves of the Holy City its “eternal, indivisible” capital, and does not view construction in the east to be settlement activity.

The Palestinians, however, want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and fiercely contest any actions to extend Israel’s control over the sector.

The Palestinians condemned the move and said they would appeal to the international community to pressure Israel to respect international law.

“We strongly condemn the decision of the Jerusalem municipality to build 942 new homes in Gilo,” said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat. “This decision proves once again that Israel has chosen settlements over peace.”

Some 180,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem alongside nearly 270,000 Palestinians.

On Friday Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said that an Israeli landowner was seeking to sell plots for 30 homes in another mainly Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem, where 117 settler families already live.

The international community has repeatedly called on Israel to avoid new building projects in East Jerusalem.

US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Palestinians walked out of direct peace talks three weeks after they started last September when Israel refused to extend a 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.

They refuse to negotiate with Israel while it builds on land which would be a Palestinian state in a peace agreement.

In March 2010, the interior ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 Jewish-only homes in Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem.

The announcement, which came as US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, provoked fierce American opposition and soured relations with Washington for several months.

Hebron experiences more settler violence

1st April 2010 | International Solidarity Movement / Ma’an News Agency

According to Ma’an News Agency, in the past 48 hours the residents of Hebron have suffered a number of attacks by settlers. On Thursday a three year old girl was hospitalised in a hit-an-run attack by a settler car, outside the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque. Witnesses apparently report that the Israeli army was present at the time of the incident. This is the third time in March that Israeli settlers have hit Palestinians in their cars before fleeing the scene. Also on Thursday, settlers destroyed the contents of a store in the Jaber neighborhood and damaged a Palestinian home in Tel Rumeida in central Hebron. Today settlers also set fire to the front of a shop on Shalala Street.