The Israel Defense Forces consider it a crime punishable by imprisonment for a Palestinian to possess used IDF weapons, according to an indictment filed by the military prosecutor against Abdullah Abu Rahma of the West Bank town of Bil’in.
Abu Rahma, 39, is coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall, which has been holding demonstrations against construction of the separation fence on the village’s land. A teacher by profession, he was arrested by IDF troops on December 10 and indicted in a military court last Tuesday.
In addition to charges of incitement and throwing stones, Abu Rahma was charged with illegal weapons possession due to his alleged possession of M16 rifle bullets and gas and concussion grenades – which, the indictment said, “the accused and his associates used for an exhibition that showed people the means used by the security forces.”
Abu Rahma’s associates confirmed that empty concussion and gas grenades used by the IDF to disperse demonstrators were exhibited in Bil’in, adding that no one tried to conceal the nature of the exhibition. However, they said, M16 bullets were not part of the exhibit, nor were they found in a search of Abu Rahma’s home.
Activists in Bil’in speculated that the M16 allegation stemmed from misinformation given to the army by one of the many young people the army has arrested in recent months. They charge that these arrests are made in an effort to obtain incriminating material against the protest organizers.
In the case of another local protest organizer, Mohammed Khatib, a military court concluded that evidence that he had thrown stones was fabricated, after it turned out that at the time of the alleged infraction, he was abroad.
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who met with Abu Rahma and Khatib last summer during a visit to Israel, condemned Abu Rahma’s arrest and indictment on Wednesday and urged the Israeli authorities to release him immediately. Tutu’s summer visit to the region was under the auspices of The Elders, a group of global leaders formed by former South African president Nelson Mandela.
In his statement on Wednesday, Tutu said that he and his fellow delegation members – who included former American president Jimmy Carter, former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland – were “impressed by [Abu Rahma and Khatib’s] commitment to peaceful political action, and their success in challenging the wall that unjustly separates the people of Bil’in from their land and their olive trees.” He called Abu Rahma’s arrest and indictment “part of an escalation by the Israeli military to try to break the spirit of the people of Bil’in.”
Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a school teacher and coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall, was indicted in an Israeli military court yesterday. Abu Rahmah was slapped with an arms possession charge for collecting used tear gas canisters shot at demonstrators in Bil’in by the army and showcasing them in his home.
An exhibition of spent tear gas grenades and projectiles in the village of Bil'in for which Abu Rahmah was indicted on. Picture credit: Oren ZivActiveStills*
An indictment was filed in a West Bank military court yesterday for incitement, stone throwing and arms possession charges against Bil’in Popular Committee coordinator, Abdallah Abu Rahmah. On receiving the indictment Adv. Gaby Lasky, Abu Rahmah’s lawyer said that “the army shoots at unarmed demonstrators, and when they try to show the world the violence used against them by collecting presenting the remnants – they are persecuted and prosecuted. What’s next? Charging protesters money for the bullets shot at them?”
On December 10, exactly one year after receiving the International League for Human Rights’ Carl Von Ossietzky Medal – on International Day of Human Rights – Abu Rahmah was arrested during an Israeli military night-time raid for his involvement in organizing unarmed protest against the Wall in the village of Bil’in. The indictment served yesterday also includes charges of incitement and stone throwing.
As part of a recent wave of repression against the Palestinian popular protest movement, Israel has charged numerous grassroots organizers with both stone throwing and incitement. In at least one case, that of Mohammed Khatib from Bil’in, the court found evidence presented on a stone-throwing charge to be falsified.
In the past six month, 31 residents of Bil’in have been detained by the military, and in neighboring Ni’ilin, 91 have been arrested in the past 18 months. Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s arrest and indictment, as well as that of Adeeb Abu Rahmah and the arrest of Jamal Juma’ of the Stop the Wall organization are part of a wider attempt to equate grassroots organizing with a hefty of incitement. This is part of the army’s strategy to use legal measures as a means of quashing the popular movement.
See here for an article on the subject from today’s Haaretz Newspaper.
* The above picture is for free-of charge single-use in internet publications only. Please include picture credit. For print and higher resolution please contact rnziv@yahoo.com
The Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin have been invaded by the Israeli military in the early hours of Saturday, 19 December 2009. Soldiers entered both villages at 2.30am and raided houses of four families.
In Bil’in, 5 military jeeps carrying about 30 soldiers entered the village and invaded the house of Yassin Yassin. Family members, woken up by the armed soldiers at the dark of night, were forced to leave the house and stand outside in cold and rain. The raid was conducted in order to arrest Yassin Yassin, wanted for his participation in the village’s regular Friday demonstrations against the Wall and settlements. As Yassin was not present in the house at the time of the raid, the soldiers left a note ordering him to attend questioning at the Ofer prison. Soldiers then continued to conduct a search in a second house.
In a similar scenario, the army invaded two houses in Ni’lin, detaining all family members in one room while searching the houses, looking for a resident of the village. The only reason the military had for searching for this young man was his participation in Ni’lin’s weekly demonstrations.
Sasha Solanas, an American solidarity activist, who was sleeping in one of the invaded houses, said: “The army raided two Ni’lin homes in the middle of the night, looking for a villager suspected of participating in the demonstrations. The recent revival of night raids is part of a new campaign to quash unarmed demonstrations in both Ni’lin and Bil’in. The army has used night raids to scare the villagers into abandoning their just cause.”
Owner of second house raided in Bil’in, Wajeeh Burnat, was questioned by the soldiers about used spent tear-gas canisters and bullets, left on the village’s land by the Israeli military, who fire them at demonstrators. In a non-violent act of resistance, residents of the village collect the used munitions at the end of every demonstration, using them to create art and to showcase the violence used against them by the Israeli army. The Israeli military, however, consider such spent munitions illegal and has recently raised suspicions against a member of the Popular Committee for their possession.
Collection of tear gas and shock grenades that have been picked after a demonstration in Bil'inArt created by Bil'in residents using spent munitions
Mohmmed Khatib, member of the Bil’in Popular Committee said: “The popular struggle is gaining momentum and its growing achievements both in Palestine and world-wide put Israel in a position which makes the military desperate to de-legitimize and stop us. Tonight’s raids are a part of an escalation in Israeli military’s failed attempts to break the spirit of the people of Bil’in and Ni’lin, their popular leadership, and the popular struggle as a whole – aimed at crushing demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall and settlements built on land stolen from both villages.”
Recently, Adv. Gaby Lasky, who represents many of Bil’in’s detainees, was informed by the military prosecution that the army intends to use legal measures as a means of ending the demonstrations. As a part of this strategy, the Israeli military investigators used intimidation techniques to coerce the young boys from the village to testify against the popular leaders. So far, all three detained coordinators of the Bil’in Popular Committee were released for lack of evidence, and, in the case of another member, Mohammed Khatib, the court even found some of the presented evidence to be falsified.
31 residents of Bil’in have been arrested since 23 July 2009, during a night raid and arrest campaign conducted by the Israeli military, targeted at boys accused of throwing stones at the Wall as well as participants and organisers of the weekly demonstrations. Amongst those arrested are Adeeb Abu Rahmah, a leading activist from the village and Abdallah Abu Rahmah, coordinator of the Popular Committee. Adeeb, who has been detained for over five months, is not suspected of committing any violence, but was indicted with a blanket charge of “incitement”, which was very liberally interpreted in this case to include the organizing of grassroots demonstrations.
This Friday the demonstration organized by the Popular Committee against the Wall was joined by dozens of leaders, members and supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, marking its 42nd anniversary. As every Friday a number of international and Israeli peace activists and residents of Bil’in and neighboring villages took part in the protest.
After the Friday prayers, a joyful and wet group of demonstrators carried banners condemning the Israeli occupation and its repressive practices while they marched towards the Wall built on Bil’in’s land.
Slogans and speeches called for national unity and emphasized the principles of the Palestinian state. When the demonstrators approached the Wall the Israeli army fired sound bombs and tear-gas grenades and after a while the soldiers proceeded to fire rubber-coated steel bullets.
The Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements just won the “Arab Creativity Award” for 2009, which was presented at a special ceremony held on 10 December in Kuwait. The Popular Committee is proud to receive this award, which is a celebration of their achievements in the 5-year long resistance against the occupation and is committed to continue in their struggle. It comes a year after another prestigious award, Carl von Ossietzky Medal for outstanding service in the realization of basic and human rights, awarded by the board of trustees of the International League for Human Rights in Berlin. Bil’in Popular Committee also received the Yasser Arafat award in 2007, the highest award associated with the late leader Yasser Arafat.
The Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bil’in also appealed to the international human rights organizations, UN Human Rights Council, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the General Assembly of the United Nations to intensify and co-ordinate their efforts and pressure on Israel in order to release of Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the Popular Committee, along with other political prisoners arrested during a night raid campaign conducted by the Israeli military over the last 6 months.
Just hours before today’s demonstration, Bil’in was once again invaded by the Israeli army. Five jeeps full of Israeli soldiers and immigration officers entered the village in the early hours of Friday, surrounding and invading a house which is used by international solidarity groups and activists. The soldiers ordered everyone to leave the house, checking the passports and belongings of activists from around the world who came to protest in solidarity with the residents of Bil’in. They declared the whole area a ‘closed military zone’, failing to present documents allowing them to do so.
Fatima Mohammed Yassen, aged 49, is a farmer from Bil’in. Despite the crippling Israeli occupation of her village, she continues to work her land, along with her husband, on a daily basis. Jody McIntyre spoke to Im Khamis, as she is known to local villagers, in her home in Bil’in:
Did you have land behind the Wall?
Yes! BeforeIsrael started construction of the Wall in Bil’in, my family had 45 dunams (1 dunam = 1000 square metres) of land, all of them filled with olive trees. My husband’s family had 50 dunams, which were a mixture of olive groves and vegetable patches, as well as another 50 dunams of land which was stolen after 1967 (after the war of this year, Israel began it’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza). When the Israeli army were building the Wall on our land, they stole land from many people, but only on my husband’s land did they steal his olive trees as well… We still go to our land, every day, to plant vegetables and look after the soil, because we will not allow the Israeli government or the settlers to claim that our land is unused. If we don’t go to our land, they will say it is unneeded and confiscate it so that they can expand the settlements, which are already illegally built on our land.
Do the Israeli army make problems when you try to go to your land?
Yes… sometimes they don’t allow us to enter, but me and husband will wait at the gate for one hour, two hours etc. If they don’t let us through we will stay there from the morning until the evening. We won’t go home until they let us go to our land.
The soldiers once told us that it was illegal for us to go to our land and that we should go back home, but I simply replied, “I don’t want to go home, I want to go to look after my land.” Sometimes when our sons come to help us on the land the soldiers beat them or try to arrest them. We’ve had these problems many, many times, but despite this, we will not stop resisting this occupation. We are not afraid.
Do the settlers make problems when you are on your land?
Yes. They came and set fire to a small room the people from Bil’in had built behind the Wall, four times. One of the times, I had just gone to make coffee for my husband – they were watching me and when I left went they went in and made a fire. But every time they damaged the room, we went to fix it again.
How did you feel when you first heard Israel wanted to build the Wall in Bil’in?
Everyone was angry when they heard the news, and sad because we knew it was a ploy to steal our land, so we started to protest against the construction of the Wall. The first time we heard that it was being built, all the people from the village went to our land and said that we would fight against it’s confiscation by the Israeli army. We could see the bulldozers uprooting our trees. For the last five years we have been fighting against the Wall, and for justice, and we will always continue. Do you attend the weekly demonstrations against the Wall in Bil’in?
Yes, of course. All my family go to the demonstrations, me and my husband, our five daughters and our five sons. These demonstrations are our way of non-violently resisting against the Wall, the settlements, and the confiscation of our land. We are not going out there to kill people, we are going to return to work on our land – to take back what they have stolen from us.
Have any of your family been injured at the demonstrations?
All my sons have been injured. The first one to be injured was Helme – he was injured at the very first demonstration we had in Bil’in; they shot him with a tear gas canister in the neck. After a few weeks, he was injured in the leg with the same weapon. A couple of months later he was arrested, becoming the first person to be arrested for our village’s campaign of non-violent resistance. But even whilst in jail they couldn’t crush the rebellious spirit in Helme’s heart – they started a protest against the terrible conditions in the prison, and the soldiers shot Helme in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Next, my son Hamde was shot with in the leg, also with a rubber-coated steel bullet, and then Mostafa was shot with a tear gas canister. My youngest son, Mohammed, was just 14 years old at the time, and he was injured three times by rubber-coated steel bullets, twice in the legs and once in buttocks. The last one to be injured was Khamis, my eldest son. He was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister, a new weapon at the time, and left in a coma. I was very sad when they shot Khamis. So all my sons have been shot in the demonstrations, but we will not stop until we return to our land.
Tell me about the night raids in Bil’in; have they ever invaded your house?
The first night raid was at our house, when they arrested Helme. Our house is very close to the Wall, so if there are any problems at the Wall the army immediately come to our home. Once they came in the day when I out working on my land, broke the doors to my house, beat my daughters and arrested my ten year old nephew. He wasn’t wanted for anything, they just presumed he was. The next time they came was to arrest my eldest son Khamis. As always, it was because he’d dared to non-violently resist against the confiscation of his family’s land. Sometimes they come and don’t arrest anyone, just to harass us, to wake us up in the middle of the night and to intimidate us. My son Hamde goes to photograph the night raids, to show the world what is happening here in Bil’in. Of course I am proud of what he is doing, but it makes me worry about him and I cannot sleep. I’m afraid that a soldier will shoot him or arrest him… I know that he has been beaten many times whilst photographing.
The soldiers are very violent during the night raids, so I worry about him. Another time, whilst Hamde was away, they invaded in the night and stayed in our home for three hours. When I saw all my sons lined up outside, and the soldiers trying to beat them and joking together about when they had shot Khamis in the head, laughing about how he had nearly died in the hospital… when I heard them say this I passed out. When I woke up, I was lying in hospital myself. Because Hamde was abroad, I was scared that they were looking for him and would arrest him at a checkpoint on the way back into the country. Once they invaded the house in the day, and the army commander came over to me and said, “One day, I am going to come here with a bulldozer and destroy your house.” They came two days later and started searching the house, but they didn’t find anything – because we don’t have anything to find! It’s like we can’t sleep in the day or the night now, because of the invasions. All we can do is sit awake.
After all the oppression the people of Bil’in have suffered at the hands of the Israeli Occupation Forces, do you think your campaign of non-violent resistance can continue?
Yes, we will certainly continue. Me and my husband will continue to go to our land every day. We will go until the last moment… I hope that I die on my land.
Do you think you will ever reach the peace you are fighting for?
The Israeli Government don’t believe in this thing called peace. I want there to be peace so that I know my children are safe. We are not violent people, but the Israeli Government steals our land, kills our brothers and arrests our children. Is that their way of making peace?
