Tag: Silwan - Page 5 - International Solidarity Movement

French human rights activist arrested at West Bank protest

26 September 2010 | ISM Media

Beit Ummar, West Bank

French activist Bruno de Ginestet-Puivert, 21, was arrested by Israeli authorities on Saturday 25 September demonstrating alongside Palestinians in the West Bank town of Beit Ummar, near Hebron. He is believed to be charged with assaulting an officer, though witnesses say this allegation is completely baseless.

The regular weekly demonstration protests against the Israeli occupation, and against the theft of Beit Ummar’s land by the illegal Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzur in particular. This Saturday the march also demonstrated against Rami Levy, an Israeli supermarket chain selling settlement produce, and commemorated the twenty-eighth anniversary of the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. Activists showed solidarity with the people of Silwan, the East Jerusalem neighbourhood where a man was shot dead by a settler security guard on Wednesday, and with Palestinian political prisoners – in particular 17-year-old Beit Ummar resident Yousef Abu Maria who has a serious medical condition.

The demonstration was attended by around 60 Palestinians accompanied by 15 international and Israeli activists. Setting off at 1 p.m., the march proceeded through the Palestinians’ land in the direction of the illegal settlement, where their path was blocked by Israeli soldiers who put a rope across the path and threatened to arrest anyone who crossed it. Some youths were not deterred and crossed the rope, at which point the soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades at all of the protesters. Several tear gas canisters were fired directly at the demonstrators, in defiance of the Israeli army’s own regulations.

The protesters burned cardboard boxes representing settlement produce in the path leading towards Karmei Tzur. The soldiers attempted to arrest one Palestinian campaigner but international activists managed successfully to shield him. He was beaten badly enough to lose consciousness. It was at this point that de Ginestet-Puivert was arrested. An Associated Press photographer was also detained but released before the demonstration ended.

De Ginestet-Puivert is currently in the custody of the Israeli authorities and is expected to be tried in a Jerusalem magistrates’ court on Sunday. Earlier in the summer a Swedish man and a British man were similarly accused by Israeli authorities of hitting soldiers at demonstrations; in both cases eyewitness reports contradicted the Israeli army’s allegations.

Settler guard murders Palestinian in East Jerusalem; police fire gas at his funeral

23 September 2010 | ISM Media

On the morning of Tuesday 22 September a privately-hired Israeli settler security guard shot and killed a Palestinian man in the neighbourhood of Silwan in Palestinian East Jerusalem (Al-Quds). The killed man, Samer Sarhan, was aged 32 and had five children.

Eyewitnesses say the shooting followed a verbal disagreement between Sarhan and the security guard.

Palestinian outrage at the murder precipitated a general strike in the Silwan neighbour, with hundreds of people gathering in the street, chanting and shouting “Allahu Akbar”. Hundreds of Israeli police, border police and soldiers occupied the area in anticipation of the funeral. Silwan residents created makeshift roadblocks trying to slow down forces entering the area. Some youths threw stones towards the occupying soldiers, exasperated by the impunity with which settlers are allowed to shoot at Palestinians. They set fire to one Police vehicle.

The funeral procession left the Al-Aqsa Mosque and soon came under fire from Israeli settlers living in their outposts around East Jerusalem. Mourners at Sarhan’s burial found themselves confined inside the Bab al-Rahma cemetery, the exits blocked by the Israeli authorities. The border police then proceeded to open fire with tear gas canisters at the trapped people, the gas inducing severe breathing difficulties in some cases.

The private security guard was released on bail the day after the killing. Silwan resident Abu Nasser said: “We are sure that the murderer will not be punished and perhaps even be given a medal for his crime.”

Israeli and international activists joined the Palestinians in solidarity, documenting the police’s and soldiers’ activities throughout the day, hoping to discourage human rights abuses with their presence. Some activists volunteered at the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, helping produce Hebrew and English-language media updates.

One international activist commented: “the brutal occupation and illegal demolition of houses in Silwan was inevitably going to lead to this kind of situation with the settlers, who are heavily armed. It’s unbelievable: they’re kicking people out of their homes to build car parks. Classrooms and roads have collapsed into the ground because of subterranean excavation. It’s archaeological terrorism.”

Silwan is a neighbourhood of around 45,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. A small number of Israeli settlers have moved there, occupying Palestinian houses or living in the illegal Beit Yonatan settlement building. There are currently twenty-two houses with outstanding demolition orders – prohibited by international law. An archaeological theme park has begun excavating beneath a large area of Silwan; this has already caused land to collapse.

News on Silwan can be followed at the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre.

Two Silwan residents shot dead by settlement guards

22 September 2010 | Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan

Update: only one man was killed in Silwan. More people were injured but not killed by gunshots.

Massive army presence as clashes continue in Baten el-Hawa, next to Beit Yonathan settlement.

Very early this morning in Silwan Village, a patrol of private armed guards stopped near a group of unarmed Palestinian men who were on the Wadi Hilweh Street. According to eyewitness reports, the guards spoke provocatively to the Palestinians, and an argument took place between them. It was during the verbal argument that eyewitnesses say the settlement guards opened fire on the Palestinian men. The two injured were brought to Ein Kerem hospital. One of the Palestinians, Samer Sarhan, who is a father of five young children, was pronounced dead immediately upon arrival to the hospital. The second man is now confirmed as having died.

After confirmation was received of the first Palestinian death from Silwan, clashes erupted in the village and are continuing. There are reports of numerous injuries, although the number of injured people is unknown. There is a massive force of police and army personnel in the village, and the entire street has been cordoned off by officials. Helicopters are monitoring the area from overhead.

SilwanIC will be posting updates on the story.

Israeli police accused of targeting Jerusalem’s Arab residents

11 September 2010 | The Independent

A leading civil-rights group has accused Israeli police of systematic discrimination against the Arab residents of East Jerusalem as growing numbers of hardline religious Jews take up residence in Palestinian areas.

A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acri) found that violent confrontations between Jewish residents and their Palestinian neighbours had risen rapidly, but that Israeli police have largely ignored Palestinian complaints.

Israeli authorities “practise selective law enforcement and fail to provide even the most minimal protection to Palestinian locals,” Acri claimed. “Law-enforcement authorities have become complicit in violating Palestinian rights; in many cases, they do not enforce the law or do so only in a discriminatory manner.” Palestinians claim that they are often arrested as suspects when they make complaints against Israelis, that their children are arrested in circumstances that flout Israeli law on the treatment of minors, and that widespread surveillance cameras violate their privacy.

The Israeli police rejected the allegations. A spokesman claimed that many of the incidents contained in the report were blown “out of proportion.” Most disturbances, he said, are initiated by Palestinians throwing stones at Jewish residents.

Large numbers of religious Jews, ideologically committed to an undivided Jerusalem, have moved into Arab-dominated East Jerusalem in recent months, provoking clashes with local residents. Palestinians fear that Israel is seeking to prevent East Jerusalem – illegally annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967 – from becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. Stoking the tensions, according to Acri, are the armed private security contractors employed to protect the Jewish residents in East Jerusalem.

Even Palestinian chilldren attacked by settlers are often arrested as supects

Ahmad Qarae’en, a Palestinian resident of Silwan, described how he was shot in the thigh during an argument with an off duty soldier visiting Jewish settlers. Mr Qarae’en was questioned as a suspect and the man who shot him was released after 24 hours without charge.

In a second case, Jamalat Mughrabi, who was evicted from her home by Jewish settlers, claims she was punched repeatedly by a Jewish man. When she arrived at the police station, she found that she was the suspect, and was taken into custody. At a hearing the following day, investigators allegedly refused to show video footage proving her innocence, and she was charged and fined.

Ronit Sela, a spokesman for Acri, said it had yet to receive an official police response. She said: “We’re just calling on the police to do their job.” Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday a new and creative approach was required to reach a peace deal.

“We will have to learn the lessons of 17 years of experience from negotiations and to think creatively,” he said Mr Netanyahu. “We’ll have to think of new solutions to old problems.”

Read ACRI’s full report “Unsafe Space: the Israeli authorities’ failure to protect human rights amid settlements in East Jerusalem” in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

Armed settler guards attack mosque in Wadi Hilweh, shots fired at Palestinian residents

26 August 2010 | Wadi Hilweh Information Center

Israeli forces invade Silwan during the clashes

Violence has swept through Wadi Hilweh again as Israeli settler security guards attempted to storm the neighborhood mosque last night, in what marks the third time such an attack has been launched on the local religious site. Settler guards fired live ammunition at Palestinian residents in the ensuing clashes that erupted.

Police claim that stones were thrown at the occupied home of Khader al-Qaq in Wadi Hilweh last night. Three hours later a group of armed Elad settler guards attempted to storm the Wadi Hilweh mosque, using a fire extinguisher to try and break through the door. As the mosque’s emergency call sounded out from the minarets, the guards attempted to flee the scene. Palestinians of Wadi Hilweh flocked to the site of the attack to defend their mosque, where skirmishes soon broke out between residents and settler guards. Shots were fired by armed settler guards at Palestinian residents during the clashes.

Wadi Hilweh resident Mohammad Qaraeen stated that when he tried to alert the police to the attack, the police officer on duty hung up on him. When he tried to call a second time, the police did not arrive until several hours afterwards.

The area was invaded soon after by a large force of Israeli military and Border Police, stationed in the nearby suburb of Baten el-Hawa. The invading forces immediately began firing rounds of tear gas projectiles at crowds of Palestinian residents, causing widespread suffocation as a result of gas inhalation. A fire was started by a group of angry youths at the entrance to Aid el-Hamra, an area under control of the Elad tourism-settlement project “City of David”, in response to the secondary invasion of their community. Residents and journalists were then prevented from accessing the area by Israeli forces, who began firing rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas projectiles and sound bombs at the crowd, only adding to the widespread panic and confusion of the night.

Eyewitnesses report that Israeli soldiers attempted to arrest a Palestinian child during the clashes. The entire area of Wadi Hilweh was then cordoned off by the Israeli military, blocking all entrances to the neighborhood.