10th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine
The Israeli military did not even wait for Kafr Qaddum’s Friday demonstration to start before firing at the crowd of demonstrators today. Before prayers had finished the Israeli military began firing at the demonstration with teargas, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets. A 16-year-old child was hit in the head with a tear gas canister. He was taken to hospital with head injuries. International activists working with ISM have observed a pattern during recent Palestinian demonstrations of lethal violence starting at the beginning of the protest.
Israeli military bulldozer splattered with paint thrown by protesters
The Israeli military at this demonstration consisted of a mix of regular army and Border police. The military used two military bulldozers and a skunk truck to clear rubble and attempt to disperse the crowd. The protesters responded by disabling both bulldozers and skunk truck with bottles filled with paint throw at the windscreens of the vehicles.
Protesters defy the skunk truck
During the course of the demonstration Internationals witnessed a child of approximately 8 years old suffering from tear gas inhalation. Another 8 year old was wounded in his hand with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
The military moved into the village using .22 rifles and throwing stun grenades. The demonstration continued until the military withdrew.
Child hit by teargas canister taken away for medical treatment
11th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
Israeli forces began firing tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets even before Friday’s protest had begun, as the people of Ni’lin were gathering near the local school to begin their march against the Apartheid Wall and continued loss of land.
The protest was initially divided into two. Israeli forces confronted protestors on one side, while townspeople were sneaking behind the military on the other side, attempting to reach the Apartheid Wall without being noticed. Once there, the Palestinian protesters, accompanied by Israeli and other international activists, gathered tinder and rubber tires, attempting to set fire to sections of the wall. The hope was that the heat created by the flames then being extinguished with water could create a rapid change in temperatures and lead to a crack in the concrete wall. Two soldiers discovered the smoke and immediately rushed to the scene, firing tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Evidence of attempts to create cracks in the Apartheid Wall by burning rubber
Massive amounts of tear gas reaches the village
Suffering from tear gas inhalation, the two groups of protesters were then forced up towards the village, were they met and reunited to continue their demonstration. The retreat was only disrupted by protesters running into the wheat fields to extinguish a fire caused by the tear gas grenades.
Activists extinguishing a fire caused by tear gas grenades
Israeli forces then marched aggressively towards the protesters and launched massive amounts of tear gas. One international activist reported tear gas grenades passing centimeters from her head. Occupying forces fired several rounds of rubber-coated steel bullets and protesters retreated back to a near by abandoned house, which left them somewhat entrapped, before an escape route was found.
The Israeli military, with their overpowering arsenal of weaponry against unarmed protesters, successfully ended the demonstration, as tear gas grenades came alarmingly close to inhabited houses, where young children were out playing and women were doing their laundry. «We don’t want to continue our protest when it gets too close to the village, as we have a long history of soldiers eventually invading and raiding the entire village», local Palestinian activist Saeed Amireh said. «Anyway, we will be back again next Friday. Right now I’m just sorry to have heard the soldiers talking with each other in Arabic as they moved in on us», another local Palestinian activist added.
Soldiers closing in on protesters
The isolation of Ni’lin
Ni’lin and surrounding villages lost an estimated 40.000 out of a total of 58.000 dunums (equivalent to 580 hectares) of land following Al-Nakba in 1948, while an additional 8.000 dunums was lost during the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967 and the subsequent creation of the Kirgat Sefer, Mettetyaho and Makabbem settlements. With the building of the Apartheid Wall to the west of the town and an Israeli military camp to the south, Ni’lin has seen another 2.500 dunums stolen. Together, only 7.500 dunums of land are left for the population of Ni’lin, which today inhabits approximately 5.000 people. Compared to “normal” growth rates of Palestinian cities, the population of Ni’lin should have been five times higher than it is today, but continued displacements and unemployment – which might be as high as 60 percent, according to unofficial estimates – have left the town without any significant growth since the Al-Nakba.
Today, Ni’lin is threatened by an approved construction of a tunnel beneath the town, which will be running under the segregated settler-only road and replace the town`s main entrance. The main aim of the tunnel is to impose total Israeli control of movement in and out of the city, but also to further separate Palestinians from their land and to destroy the local economy. Upon completion, Ni’lin and close-by villages will be surrounded by settlements and turned into a virtual prison.
Anti-barrier protests met with continued extreme violence
Protests in Ni’lin have a long history of being met with extreme violence from Israeli forces, with the shooting of a ten-year old boy in 2008 standing out as the most striking example. Since then, several more have been shot and killed or wounded. Additionally, the repression techniques in the army have often been spraying people with a mix of weak sewage water, animal manure and chemicals known as “skunk,” due to its strong smell, with vomiting as a result.
Friday’s protest left no one injured, despite the massive amount of tear gas and firing of rubber-coated steel bullets. However, evidence of Israeli violence was there, as the 16-year-old boy who was shot in the head last week was back at the forefront of the protest with a bandage around his head and a Palestinian flag in his hand.
16th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Ni’lin, Occupied Palestine
During last week’s Friday demonstration in Ni’lin the inhabitants of the village commemorated the anniversary of US activist Tristan Anderson’s shooting during a protest in the village six years ago. At the demonstration Israeli forces fired several hundred tear gas grenades and canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, and two rounds of live ammunition at protesters.
Soldiers aimed tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition at demonstrators in Ni’lin
The demonstration began from the village mosque after noon prayers, as villagers accompanied by international and Israeli activists marched down a road leading towards the Apartheid Wall. Palestinians from Ni’lin carried posters calling for justice for Tristan Anderson.
Tristan, who was volunteering with ISM at the time, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas grenade by Israeli border police on March 13, 2009 after that week’s Friday demonstration in Ni’lin. The injury left him with permanent severe brain damage. He now suffers chronic pain, is blind on his right eye, paralyzed and requires 24-hour care. Tristan’s family is currently pursuing a civil lawsuit in court demanding that the Israeli government pay for the extensive care Tristan will need for the rest of his life.
As the protesters were walking towards the wall, which Israel illegally built on Ni’lin’s lands, Israeli forces fired several dozen rounds of tear gas to disperse the protestors. The Apartheid Wall annexed hundreds of dunums of Ni’lin’s land, which the village’s farmers can now no longer access.
After the initial military assault demonstrators spread out into the fields and Palestinian youth began throwing stones toward the army. The clashes went on for several hours, during which Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Toward the end of the demonstration, as Israeli forces retreated back behind the apartheid wall, they increased the amount of tear gas fired and threw several stun grenades. Finally as some of the youths followed the soldiers a hill overlooking the village, Israeli forces fired two rounds of live ammunition, though no one was hit or injured by the bullets. The protest ended when the Israeli occupation forces went back behind the Apartheid Wall and shot a few final rounds of tear gas.
Israeli forces blanketed Ni’lin’s olive groves with tear gas
A hundred or more Kufr Qaddum villagers, accompanied by international and Israeli solidarity activists, participated in a regular protest after the prayer this Friday.
Several hours before the demo started, the village youth blockaded part of the main village road and monitored the movement of the Israeli army, who frequently positions themselves, amongst the village houses and on the surrounding hills, prior to the start of the protest
Their aim is to snatch the protesters. They fire rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas at them from close range and take pictures of the demonstrators, to use them as evidence in the occupying military courts.
When we arrived, just before the noon, there were lines of rocks placed by the villagers on the road just before where the road closure starts. The Israeli Army was in full force on the other side, with the bulldozer and Army vehicles visible from where we were.
Demonstrators in Kufr Qaddum (photo by ISM)
What usually happens is that the Army showers the protestors with the tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets and then the bulldozer moves in, removing the lines of rocks, followed by the vehicle blasting a foul smelling ‘skunk water’ at the demonstrators and the surrounding houses.
This time the routine changed, as the army bulldozer broke down and the Israeli Army could not make an incursion into the village. Instead, they showered the protesters with wave after wave of tear gas, while the village youth threw stones at them and at their vehicles while burning tires.
Kufr Qaddum demonstration (photo by ISM)
The main village road was closed in 2002 to facilitate the needs of the illegal Kedumim settlement, which has been built around the road connecting Kufr Qaddum to the nearest West Bank city of Nablus, located 9 kilometres to the east.
The closure is one of the many examples of the disruption of Palestinian daily life to accommodate the needs of the illegal settler colonizers and the occupying army. It separates the villagers from their land and made Nablus reachable only via a massive detour, which increased a travel time from 15 minutes to up to 40 minutes, tripling the price of travel.
Kufr Qaddum Friday protests which started in 2011, have become known for extreme brutality of the Israeli army response, with scores of people being injured in recent times by the rubber coated steel bullets and the tear gas canisters fired at the bodies of demonstrators. We witnessed this ourselves on Friday, inspite of this practice contravening the guidelines of the occupying Army itself.
Army fires tear gas at protesters(photo by ISM)
In addition in recent months, dozens of Kufr Qaddum villagers have been arrested for participating in the protests, including children as young as 10.
As we travelled back to Nablus form the demo, we had to go through two Israeli checkpoints, which were not there when we travelled to Kufr Qaddum. Long lines of Palestinian cars were made to wait, inching slowly in the afternoon heat towards where the Army blocked the road, to have their ID checked. On the second checkpoint, three soldiers were checking the IDs referring to a sheet of paper one of them held, likely with the names of the persons they were looking for. The fourth soldier was standing on the top of the nearby hill with his machine gun pointed at the line of cars and his finger uncomfortably near to the trigger.
5th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Israeli forces fire tear gas at Palestinian demonstrators during the Jabaliya protest on 21 February. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
The regular Friday demonstration at the “buffer zone” east of Jabaliya was stopped by Palestinian police and security forces. The Israel had send a message via Egypt to the Palestinian authorities in Gaza that it would not tolerate any demonstrations and that it intended to shoot at the upper body of those who approached the separation barrier. From the crest at the slope of the hill on the other side, down to the fence and its rolls of razor wire, several Israeli military vehicles were seen. Palestinian police and security forces had a tough task keeping demonstrators away. Ambulances on standby stood behind them, but fortunately the Israeli military did not make their threats a reality.
Islam Shahwan, spokesman for the Palestinian ministry of the interior and national security in Gaza, later said in a statement posted on Facebook and released through the ministry, “It was our commitment to the lives of the our young people from getting shot by the Israeli army through lack of access to the fence and to keep young people away a little bit in order to preserve their lives.”
“We are keen on the lives of our young people and our children and we appreciate their enthusiasm,” Shahwan added. “Thanks God there was no one injured during that day, we take care of the lives of our young brothers.”
The demonstration was planned in dedication to Muatazz Washaha, 24 years old, who had been killed by the Israeli military the day before in the West Bank village of Birzeit. Military forces of the occupying power had surrounded the house where he lived, let other residents evacuate, then shelled the house, well aware that Muatazz were there. Like earlier targeted killings in the occupied territories, the Israeli military is very restrictive regarding protests, and has previously used violence against any form of demonstration. The warning to Gaza that the Israeli military intended to shoot at the upper body of civilians who approached the fence must be understood in light of the incident in the village of Birzeit.
According to an officer at the site of the planned demonstration, no more protests against the occupying power or its abuses will be allowed in the “buffer zone.” They have, on every occasion, resulted in a dozen injuries from live ammunition, as well as direct hits of tear-gas canisters. Mohammed Helles is still in a coma at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital after he was hit in the head with a canister at the previous demonstration.
