2 July 2015, in honor of the first anniversary of the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, Palestinian activists with international supporters blocked a settlers-only road leading to the illegal Adam settlement. Demonstrators cited this road as the road that the murderers took in their search for a Palestinian victim. Journalists, Palestinian and international activists, suffered from pepper spray burns and several were hospitalized.
“This is the first in a week of demonstrations for Muhammad Abu Khdeir. One of the murderers, Yosef Haim Ben-David, is from the Adam settlement. This is why the demonstration was held at this settlers-only entrance,” said Abdullah Abu Rahmah, the coordinator of Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bil’in.
Demonstrators blocked the road to settler traffic in both directions until the Israeli Army and Border Police dispersed the non-violent demonstrators and journalists by pepper-spraying indiscriminately. Three Palestinian activists, four journalists, and two International ISM volunteers were pepper sprayed in the eyes and mouth by a masked Army officer. An ISM co-founder as well as journalists from Roya TV Channel, Reuters, and Palestine TV were severely pepper sprayed in the eyes requiring hospitalization.
The soldiers threw sound percussion grenades at demonstrators and chased people. In addition to the pepper spray, they shoved journalists and Palestinian activists to the ground.
After the soldiers and border police chased the demonstrators off the road and down a hill, they continued to throw percussion grenades even as the demonstrators stood at a distance waiting to find fellow demonstrators.
17nth April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwwara Team | Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine
This week’s Friday demonstration in Kafr Qaddum followed the same violent pattern as the previous ones during the past weeks. The Israeli occupation forces began their shooting before the demonstration even started. Soldiers and border police fired tear gas, stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammonition at the protestors. Hammam Khalid Aqil, age 19, was hit by two rubber-coated steel bullets, one in his leg and one in his head.
Israeli forces arresting an unconscious man
He was badly injured and while he was still unconscious the Israeli army arrested him and took him to a hospital in Israel where he is now under intensive care. His condition is extremely serious, even so it took several hours before his parents were allowed to come and see him at the hospital.
Palestinian Prisoners Day in Kafr Qaddum
The demonstration was slightly bigger than usual with between 150-200 villagers and activists participating. Because April 17th is Palestinian Prisoners Day many protestors were carrying pictures of family members and friends who are currently suffering in Israeli jails.
Protestors being tear gassed
The occupation forces met the demonstration with terrifying brutality. They used the skunk-water truck to spray down not only protestors but family homes and gardens covering the village in a foul stink.
At least five more people were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets. Maamoun Shtaiwi, 36, and Anna Johnson, a 30 year old ISM volunteer, were both shot in the head and taken to the hospital in Nablus where they were treated for their wounds. Maamoun’s injury required 13 stitches. One Palestinian activist was hit in the leg, and one in the chest, and an Israeli photographer had the camera on his helmet smashed.
31th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil Team | Wadi Fukin, Occupied Palestine
On Monday March 30th about two hundred people commemorated Land Day in the village of Wadi Fukin. The protest, which involved planting olive trees was a response to Israeli theft of village land.
Land Day protest marching in the streets of Wadi Fukin.
After midday prayer around two hundred Palestinians and internationals gathered in the village of Wadi Fukin to commemorate Land Day and support the villagers struggle against the illegal Israeli expropriation of their lands. People from Wadi Fukin, neighbouring villages and internationals started their march towards the green line carrying Palestinian flags, digging tools, playing music and singing, to where the settlement of Beitar Illit is forcibly taking over Palestinian land in order to expand. The protest continued peacefully through the small streets of Wadi Fukin and just before going to the hill above the village every protester was given an olive tree to carry. Spirits were high as protesters climbed the village hill overshadowed by the settlement expansion site and began to take back Palestinian land by planting the trees.
A village caught between settlements and under extreme pressure
Wadi Fukin is in a valley sandwiched between the Green Line to the north-west and the fastest-growing illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, Beitar Illit. With around 80.000 inhabitants (as of 2014), Beitar Illit is part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc surrounding and cornering Wadi Fukin. In order to expand these settlements and steal even more land, the apartheid wall is being built on Palestinian land far inside the Green Line around this settlement bloc. Regular Friday demonstrations are held in Wadi Fukin protesting against this continuous illegal land grab.
200 people at Land Day protest in Wadi Fukin, Beitar Illit settlement block in the background.
Military attacking unarmed Palestinians on their own land.
As Land Day protesters reached the Israeli construction site they managed to plant both olive trees and Palestinian flags directly on the site. While Palestinian flags and olive trees popped up on the ground, young Palestinian men and women also managed to take over and plant flags on the unmanned bulldozers and tractors parked there.
After about ten minutes on the site 4 military jeeps arrived with more than 40 soldiers and border police. The military attacked the protesters with tear gas and stun grenades and a police helicopter began circling the area and filming the protesters from the sky. As tear gas clouds drove the protesters from their lands and down the hill, soldiers began kicking down and destroying the newly planted olive trees and flags.
Soldiers and border police gassing protesters on their own land.
Spirits kept high in spite of tear gassing
Though several people suffered from tear gas poisoning the protest continued on the hill between Wadi Fukin village and the settlement expansion on the Green Line. Alternately running from tear gas and planting trees, protesters managed to stay on the hill for an hour continuing to plant and protest.
As everyone returned to the village spirits remained high and the succesful event was celebrated with music, speeches and freshly made bread.
Olive tree and flag planting at Land Day protes, Wadi Fukin.
Land Day – a historic day for fighting occupation and expropriation Land Day marks the day of a general stike on March 30th in 1976. The strike was a response to the Israeli Government’s expropriation of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land. There were marches in Palestinian cities within present-day Israel from the Naqab to Galilee. Six unarmed Palestinians were killed, 100 wounded and hundreds more arrested. The Land Day was a turning point in the struggle against the occupation as it was the first mass mobilization by Palestinians within the borders of 1948 Israel.
Protests have been and will be continue to be going on all through the West Bank in the weeks surrounding Land Day.
21st March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine
Israeli forces arrested three women in Nabi Saleh and injured several protesters, one with live ammunition, during the village’s weekly Friday protest on March 13.
The demonstration was met with the usual military violence as Israeli forces threw stun grenades and fired live ammunition at unarmed and peaceful protesters. After Friday prayers about forty Palestinian protesters together with international and Israeli activists marched down the main road towards the military tower and checkpoint at the entrance to the village, which Israeli forces had closed before the protest. Within less than five minutes the Israeli military fired the first of many rounds of tear gas canisters. The protesters continued regardless and were meet by a line of Israeli soldiers whose use of unnecessary physical violence and many stun grenades resulted in multiple injuries.
Israeli forces threw stun grenades at nonviolent demonstrators gathered in the streetThis young girl from Nabi Saleh faced an Israeli border policeman after being hit in the head in a confrontation with Israeli forces. Behind her illegal an illegal Israeli settlement occupied the hill beside Nabi Saleh.
Israeli forces threatened Nabi Saleh children, who walked down the road nearer to the closed gate. One young girl was hit with a rifle in the stomach and the head; she went to the hospital for treatment. Two Palestinian women – Bushra Tamimi and Shireen al-Araj – and Israeli activist Tali Shapiro were arrested and dragged away by Israeli forces.
Girls from Nabi Saleh confronted heavily armed Israeli soldiersIsraeli forces pursuing the children in Nabi SalehIsraeli forces arrested protesters after they sat down across the street
The violence escalated near the end of the protest; Israeli forces used live .22 caliber ammunition and shot a young Palestinian in the lower leg. The bullet missed the bone, and he will likely recover soon.
Israeli forces shot a young protester in Nabi Saleh in the leg with live ammunition.
The village of Nabi Saleh has been demonstrating against the theft of its natural spring by the occupation since 2009. Israeli authorities have violently suppressed the weekly Friday protests since their inception – in the last few months alone, several villagers have been shot in the leg with live ammunition. Since the actions began, two people have been killed in the village – Mustafa Tamimi and Rushdi Tamimi; many others have been seriously injured. Despite the Israeli forces’ severe repression, the people of Nabi Saleh continue to fight against the brutal military occupation.
Israeli forces released Tali Shapiro on the night of March 13, and Shireen al-Araj the following day. Bushra Tamimi was released on the evening of March 15 after paying 2000 NIS bail.
28th February 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On February 27 in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces fired live ammunition towards nonviolent protesters participating in the annual Open Shuhada Street demonstration, injuring five including four Palestinian activists, one of them 17 years old, and one German citizen. More were also injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades as soldiers and Border Police blocked the roads leading towards Shuhada Street and attacked the protesters.
Israeli forces advancing towards the demonstrators
Close to a thousand Palestinians, accompanied by Israeli and international supporters, marched towards one of the closed entrances to Shuhada Street carrying flags and signs and chanting. They called for the opening of Shuhada Street, whose closure to Palestinians has become a symbol of Israel’s Apartheid system, and for an end to the occupation. The march was turned back by stun grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition fired by the Israeli military. Around twenty demonstrators were injured in total; Hebron Hospital reported that at least six were admitted and two required surgery. One Palestinian activist, Hijazi Ebedo, 25, was arrested at the demonstration; all he had been doing was chanting and holding a sign.
Palestinian children holding signs, posing before the march began
Issa Amro, coordinator and co-founder of Youth Against Settlements (YAS) stated: “The protest, which was joined by groups from all over Palestine, marked the twenty-first anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre. Israeli occupying forces shot live ammunition towards peaceful protesters, which is against international law. The Israeli military should be held accountable in international court for their actions.”
“Julia was standing and filming next to me when suddenly she fell to the ground,” stated Leigh, a Canadian activist who was standing next to Julia when she was shot.
Julia, the injured 22-year-old German activist from Berlin, was evacuated to Hebron Hospital where she is being treated for a live gunshot wound which entered and exited her leg. “The brutality of Israeli forces is unbelievable, it seems like they don’t have a limit,” she stated. “In Palestine I have seen Israeli forces shooting tear gas, stun grenades, rubber and live ammunition at any kind of demonstration that is against the occupation. It doesn’t matter for them if it is peaceful or if there are kids attending. Yesterday I saw the army attack children who had been dancing in the street. Two people were shot with live ammunition in Bil’in. They shot me as I was standing and filming. It seems the soldiers just shoot at any one.”
Israeli military sniper aiming up the road towards the Open Shuhada Street demonstrators
The Open Shuhada Street demonstration marks the anniversary of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, when right wing extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians while they worshipped in the mosque. Following the massacre, Israeli forces shut down Palestinian businesses on Shuhada Street–once a commercial center–and began to implement the policies which would lead to what is now a total closure of the vast majority of the street to Palestinians. Twenty one years after the massacre, settlers from illegal Israeli settlements use the street freely while Palestinians are assaulted, shot and arrested when they attempt to reach it en masse during the Open Shuhada Street demonstration every year.
Nonviolent demonstrators faced dozens of Israeli forces, who assaulted them repeatedly with stun grenades
