October 8th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine
Israeli Forces shot and killed a 23 year old on Friday, the 6th of October, in demonstrations east of Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza strip. The man was identified by The Ministry of Health in Gaza as Salameh Moussa Abu Jame and was the 75th Palestinian to be killed since the beginning of October. Five others were injured in the clashes, from a combination of tear-gas and live ammunition.
Furthermore, in demonstrations in Nahel Oz and Karni border crossing, both in the area of Shijaia, Israeli forces shot tear gas and live ammunition at the civilian demonstrators injuring 30.
Palestinian youths at the demonstration in the Shijaia area.
31st October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team| Hebron, occupied Palestine
Today, tens of thousands of mourners gathered for the funerals of five Palestinian youth murdered by Israeli forces in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron). After the funeral, Israeli forces violently attacked mourners demonstrating at Bab al-Zawweya, injuring dozens.
Funeral procession on their way to the cemetry
Tens of thousands of mourners gathered for the midday prayer at the Husseini mosque, where the bodies of the five teenagers arrived yesterday night, after Israeli forces withheld them from their families for weeks. After the prayer, mourners marched the bodies to the martyr’s cemetry in al-Khalil, where Palestinians are laid to their last rest after being killed by Israeli forces or settlers from the illegal Israeli settlements.
When the funeral procession passed close to Bab al-Zawwiyah, Israeli forces from a nearby checkpoint fired tear gas and stun grenades, unprovoked, at the mourners who were solemnly walking towards the cemetery. Once at the cemetery, mourners flooded in to say their last goodbyes.
Mourners solemly walking to the cemetry
The five youth buried this day are Bayan al-Oseilly (16) and Tarek al-Natsheh (22) killed on October 18th; Bashar (15) and Hussam (17) al-Jabari murdered on October 20th; and Dania Arsheid (17) executed by Israeli forces on October 25th. All of them have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers under the pretext of knife-attacks in less than two weeks. Videos and eye-witness statements strongly refute these claims.
Electronic billboard with pictures of the killed teens.
The Israeli government according to a new law is keeping bodies of Palestinians they claim attempted to harm Israeli forces or settlers, withholding the last remains from their families thus depriving them of their right to mourn their deaths according to their own culture. The bodies returned today are only five of the total 19 Palestinian youth killed in the last two weeks since October 17th only in al-Khalil. A staggering number of Palestinians have been killed all over the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Keeping the bodies of these youths and young adults from their families deprives them of their right to bury their loved ones according to their religious rites and mourn them according to their culture.
After the funeral, a demonstration marched to Bab al-Zawwiyah protesting the continous murder of Palestinian youths by Israeli forces and the practice of denying the return of the bodies to the families. Family, friends and mourners walking back home from the funeral were forced to pass through areas tear-gassed by Israeli forces, leaving children, women and adults running away from the clouds of tear gas, clinging to alcohol-pads that were handed out in dozens by Red Crescent ambulances to prevent fainting from the highly toxic gas.
Streets filled with tear gas
Israeli forces later showered demonstrators with hundreds of tear gas canisters, and attacked them with stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition. 23 persons were injured with live ammunition and had to be taken to hospital for treatment, 3 injured with rubber-coated-steel bullets had to be treated in hospital while dozens more were treated at the scene. One person was injured with a tear gas canister in the chest and had to be rushed to hospital. Dozens suffering from tear gas inhalation were also taken to hospital for treatment while many dozens more were treated at the scene by medics.
One of the many persons suffering from excessive tear gas inhalation treated by a medic
This comes just as Israeli forces declared two major Palestinian neighbourhoods a closed military zone after ‘registering‘ all the families living there, preventing anyone that is not considered a ‘resident’ by the Israeli forces from entering this area. This further impedes the already tightly-restricted daily lives of Palestinians, completely denying them any freedom of movement. Even passing a distance of only 200 meters to buy essential groceries in a shop now closed most of the time due to the tight restrictions, Palestinians are detained and body-searched at gunpoint twice – all while settlers going to the nearby illegal settlement are walking around the streets freely without being bothered by the Israeli forces at all. This is apartheid.
31st October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Ramallah, Occupied Palestine
The recent escalation of force used in the occupied Palestinian Territories was clear yesterday, Friday 30th October, when clashes broke out at Beit El near Ramallah. The demonstration was met with extreme violence by the Israeli occupation forces, leaving 15 people injured by live ammunition, 8 people injured by rubber-coated steel bullets, and 4 medics injured by pepper spray. The use of lethal weaponry against civilians at demonstrations, in situations where the Israeli forces are not in immediate mortal danger, reveals the reality of what Benjamin Netanyahu, on 16th September, described as, “the war on stone-throwers”.
Video footage from the demonstration shows an Israeli military jeep speeding towards a group of young Palestinians and striking one of them. A soldier then hit the injured youth with his gun and stamps on his head. Medics attempted to give aid to the youth but were prevented from doing so and assaulted by Israeli soldiers. Journalists (clearly marked as ‘Press’) trying to film the incident were also harassed.
Medics assaulted by Israeli forces while attempting to administer aid (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Medic injured by teargas inhalation after being targeted by Israeli Forces (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Medics attempting to administer aid amid excessive teargas (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Medic suffering from teargas inhalation (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Journalists harassed by Israeli Forces (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Demonstrator at Beit El, “the war on stone-throwers” (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)(Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Ambulances targeted with teargas (Photo credit: Mohannad Darabee, ISM)Resident suffering from teargas inhalationExtreme use of tear gas
27th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team| Hebron, occupied Palestine
Monday, October 26th 2015, Israeli forces entered the Palestinian market, fired tear gas into the busy market place and closed down part of the market.
Twenty minutes past two o’clock, a group of 14 soldiers entered the Palestinian market, bustling with school-children on their way home from school and adults doing shopping. The Palestinian souq is located right next to illegal Israeli settlements. The soldiers entered the souq from the direction of the settlements, took over the main junction at Bab al-Baladiyya and immediately stopped all civilians from passing by in any direction.
Israeli forces blocking the main Palestinian market
Watch a short video:
Just a few minutes after Israeli forces aggressively took over the main intersection, they started firing tear gas towards a group of children. In total, one stun grenade and 14 tear gas canisters were fired into the busy market by Israeli forces. All the time, settlers on top of the nearby Beit Romano settlement were watching and cheering on, as Israeli forces showered tear gas on civilians in the Palestinian market.
Israeli settlers cheering as soldiers shoot teargas at Palestinians
Watch a short video:
While the soldiers were shooting tear gas and a part of the soldiers was going closer into a Palestinian neigbourhood to shoot tear gas, Palestinian freedom of movement was entirely stopped in the market for more than half an hour. A group of at least 20 school-girls was stopped on their way home from school by the soldiers yelling at them and raising their guns at them, ordering them to move back immediately. When the school-children were asking to be allowed to ‘just go home’, Israeli forces refused to allow them passage and continued yelling at them.
Watch a video:
A Palestinian man that drove up in his car was also denied passage. He got out of his car and requested soldiers to check his ID and pleaded to be allowed to go through, as it was an emergency and he had to go to the hospital. Even though soldiers in the beginning refused to let him pass dismissing his urgent request, they did finally allow him to go after about 2 minutes.
Watch a video:
While soldiers were blocking the market, about 50-80 Palestinian civilians were stopped and not able to move in any direction, forced to wait for the soldiers to finish their violent attack on every-day life in occupied al-Khalil. Once the soldiers went back through Bab il-Baladiyya towards segregated Shuhada Street, people were finally able to continue their everyday life.
19th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine
Members of the Daana family sat up into the early morning hours behind their home as explosions, gunshots and the whine of teargas canisters being fired rang out throughout the evening. In front of the family home where 16 children live, including a 13 day old infant, broken glass and large stones are strewn about; evidence of the night of violence they endured after settlers from the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement vandalized the fence separating them from Palestinian homes and went on a rampage.
Internationals from the ISM Khalil (Hebron) team joined the family after a night of settler terror injured ten Palestinians in the neighborhood. 13 year old Abdullah Nasser Daana’s chest was bandaged after a settler-thrown molotov cocktail smashed into his body. When his cousin Basil Khaled Daana, 16 rushed to his aid, settlers threw large stones at him, striking him violently just above his ankle. Ambulances were prevented from getting to the injured who had called the Mosques for help during the attack, prompting the Mosque loudspeakers desperate late night calls for assistance for the besieged family.
16 year old Basil Daana’s injuries from settler-thrown stone while aiding his injured 13 year old cousin.
25 year old Emid Sayeed Daana, whose wrist is bandaged after being injured by a stone looks up sharply after the sound of settlers screaming over the fence begins; one of many times throughout the evening this would occur. “They are shouting dirty things at us.” His words exhibit the commonality of this type of harassment the family gets on a constant basis with explosions randomly punctuating the typical miseries of life under military, and settler, occupation, “This is normal for us. The teargas, the gunshots. Where is the life? Where is the freedom.”
13 year old Abdullah Daana was injured by settler-thrown molotov.
His family is constantly on edge, waiting for the next attack. “If there are 15 of us inside the house, 15 are also outside to keep an eye out, to look out for them.” Emid, who in a rare quiet moment, shows us his diploma for studies in media, went on to express, “We cannot all be inside the home, if we do, the settlers will come through the fence and enter our families home. And the teargas from the soldiers. You see we can barely breathe here, we have a 13 day old baby inside. Teargas could kill a baby that young.”
Throughout the evening, intermittently with the deafening blasts of stun grenades, teargas filled the air, sometimes almost unbearably so which caused several members of the family to cover their faces or rush inside to escape it. In the late night hours, a hurled bottle crashed on the ground in front of the home.
One family member slept outside with two internationals to be on watch for the next attack. The settlers did not breach the fence again this night, yet every hour that passes with a family living in fear, is an hour of violence being committed against them. In the escalated chaos of the past two and half weeks in the West Bank, another Palestinian family navigates the continued crisis of a human rights crushing occupation.
