Tag: Tel Rumeida

Homes searched during Israeli incursion in H1 Hebron

by Team Khalil

16 December 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

One Palestinian was arrested and many were harassed by Israeli soldiers on Sunday evening between 6pm and 7:30 pm during an incursion into the Palestinian Authority controlled area of Hebron.

Israeli occupation forces entered the Tel Rumeida area in H1. Homes and shops were searched, and a Palestinian teenager was restrained in handcuffs and blindfolded. The targeting of this person did  not appear to be based on any evidence. The soldiers illegal actions were an aggressive response to an incident in which a Palestinian allegedly threw a glass bottle at a watchtower.

During the excursion families, ranging from infants to elderly men and women, were made to stand on the street, vehicles were stopped and searched by the soldiers, and businessmen were made to come out of their places of work for interrogation.

The soldiers tried to raid one apartment that is rented by internationals despite possessing no legal documents authorizing a search. The civilians filmed as much of the harassment as possible in the dark and were repeatedly instructed to move 30, then 40 metres away.

When activists questioned the soldiers on their right to be in the area they were ordered to leave, threatened with arrest, and were only given the reasons: “because I said so” and “you are interfering with an investigation”. The military investigation was conducted without respect to the Hebron agreement, which states “Both sides reiterated their commitment to maintain normal life throughout the city of Hebron and to prevent any provocation or friction that may affect the normal life in the city.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_Concerning_the_Redeployment_in_Hebron).

The Hebron agreement governs the power given to soldiers in the city. Palestinians in the neighbourhood cite excursions such as this one, as well as the constant restrictions on Palestinian movement in the city, as causes for increasing conflict.

Settlers attack children in Hebron

by Team Khalil

13 December 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

After school on the 13th of December in Al Khalil (Hebron) two children were attacked by a group of settlers. Younes Azzeh, age nine, and his sister Raghad Azzeh, age fourteen, were attacked by three male settlers that are speculated to be between seventeen and nineteen years old. Younes was kicked in the shins, thighs and generally roughed up as Raghad was accosted by a hurled stone hitting her lower back.

The attacks ensued as the children were walking home after school at around one o’clock in the afternoon. Their families’ house is next door to the Ramat Yeshay settlement which has historically caused numerous problems for Hashem Azzeh’s family, who is the father of the children.

The Azzeh family is of the few Palestinians allowed to walk on the road close to where the incident took place besides Zionists. The incident took place around checkpoint 57 in Tel Rumeida, this means that Israeli soldiers were nearby while the aggression took place.

Hashem has been under house arrest, his extended and immediate family have regularly received abuse and is under constant threat of settlers or soldiers intruding on their property and/or well being.

 

Illegal outpost with settlers above Hashem Azzeh’s house. Photo taken in October 2012 during olive picking in Hashem’s garden. Credit: Ryan Rodrick Beiler

 

Team Khalil is a group of volunteers of International Solidarity Movement based in Hebron (al Khalil)

38 Military Orders on homes in Tel Rumeida, Hebron

4 December 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

There are 38 military orders issued on homes in Tel Rumeida and Hebron. On Sunday 3rd December the District Coordination Office (D.C.O.) and the lawyers representing the families who have military orders put on their homes were supposed to be visiting the sites that the orders refer to. The purpose of the tour of these sites was to ascertain exactly what the meaning of these military orders are. The tour of the sites has been delayed. This delay leaves the families concerned still wondering what will happen to their homes and lands.

The D.C.O. and the lawyers from the Hebron Rehabilitation Center (H.R.C.) representing the families will take the tour around the sites within the next twenty days. After the tour is taken the families will again have five days in which to make their legal objections to the military orders.

This delay will add to the anxiety suffered by the families involved. Many of these families already have military watchtowers on the roofs of their houses and have faced having military orders put on them before. The scale of the 38 military orders goes beyond simple harassment. The Israeli Occupation forces obviously have some kind of large plan for the area, to increase the already intolerable oppression on the residents of Tel Rumeida. All the families however have organized a collective response to this threat. The Palestinian community of Tel Rumeida will face this in solidarity with each other.

By Team Khalil

Settler attacks Palestinian man in Hebron – Israeli soldiers look on

9th November 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Police take photographs of injuries at Checkpoint 56 in Hebron
A group of soldiers and international activists surround Imad after the settler attack


On Thursday in Hebron, Palestinian activist Imad Al Atrash was beaten by an illegal Israeli settler whilst two soldiers watched, without intervening.

Imad reports that he was walking through an olive grove in Tel Rumeida when a man from a nearby illegal settlement shouted abuse at him. Imad called for a nearby Israeli soldier to witness the abuse, but two soldiers merely watched as the settler began attacking Imad, at one point using a stone as a weapon. Imad suffered blows to the head, back and leg. Following this, his attacker fled the scene.

(This attack follows a recent arrest of Imad by the army only a couple of weeks ago, see: https://palsolidarity.org/2012/10/3-arrested-as-palestinians-attacked-by-settlers-and-soldiers-in-tel-rumeida/ )

A group of soldiers who then arrived at the scene denied that it was possible for CCTV footage of the attack to be reviewed. The two soldiers who had witnessed the attack would not provide their names or military identification numbers, to ensure that they could be called to provide evidence against the settler. Impunity for settler violence is compounded by soldiers refusing to testify against the Israeli attackers, or testifying falsely. According to the Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Convention of 1907, ‘in any area under military occupation, responsibility for the welfare of the population falls on the occupying power’, an obligation which Israel is clearly neglecting.

Imad required medical attention and was taken to a hospital in Hebron, where he was monitored for three hours. There has been a long history of settler attacks on Palestinians in Tel Rumeida, where some of the most extreme Zionist settlers in Hebron are based. The violence is often random and extreme – for example, in the last month alone, there were attacks by settlers and soldiers in Tel Rumeida during the olive harvest. See:

https://palsolidarity.org/2012/10/settlers-attack-and-injure-palestinians-harvesting-olives-in-tel-rumeida/

https://palsolidarity.org/2012/10/3-arrested-as-palestinians-attacked-by-settlers-and-soldiers-in-tel-rumeida/

https://palsolidarity.org/2012/11/palestinian-collapses-while-detained-at-checkpoint-during-eid-holiday-in-hebron/

https://palsolidarity.org/2012/11/colonizers-ruin-olive-trees-in-hebron/

By Team Khalil

Israeli occupation forces issue five new military orders in Hebron

4th November 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Friday 2nd November the Israeli military issued five military orders on five families in and around Hebron. Families in Tel Rumeida are under threat of having their movement severely restricted. At the time of writing Sunday 4th November the objectives of the military orders is unclear.

A lawyer from the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (H.R.C.) is representing all five of the families who have received these orders. The families have been given five days to lodge their objections to the documents. A collective objection will be made by the lawyer representing the families but the complaint cannot be made until the military orders are completely understood. The H.R.C. met with the District Coordination Office (D.C.O.) on Sunday 4th November in an effort to clarify what the military orders pertained to. After the meeting the H.R.C. said that the orders were about the restriction of movement of the families concerned. The H.R.C. also said that some of the content of the orders was still unclear. It is a tactic of the Israeli occupation forces to make these orders as difficult to understand as possible. This makes legal challenges to the orders more difficult, it is also done to obfuscate the true intentions of the Israeli military. The orders are deliberately kept unclear so the Israeli army can then do whatever they want.

Imad Abu Shamsia and his family, who live in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, received a copy of the military orders issued to them in Arabic and Hebrew. The orders contained a map detailing their house and the surrounding area. It was assumed at first that the orders related to the roof of the house, the Abu Shamsia house has had a military watchtower on the roof for twelve years. It was thought possible that the Israeli military may be wanting to place surveillance cameras on the home.

On Sunday when being informed of what the H.R.C. had said and had been doing the Abu Shamsia family said that their movement would be restricted in the whole of the Israeli controlled H2 area of Hebron. This area covers the Ibrahimi Mosque, the souk, the old city and also the Abu Shamsia home in Tel Rumeida. At least one other of the military orders affects a family in this area.

The effect of denying the movement of the Abu Shamsia family in the whole of this area would be catastrophic on their daily lives. The route they take to school or to go shopping, their access to the whole of the rest of the city would be restricted. The uncertainty about what exactly these military orders mean, the uncertainty about their future and the future of all the other recipients, must have a devastating affect on the welfare and health of the family.

It would appear the Israeli occupation forces are planning to worsen the precarious existence of the Palestinian population of Tel Rumeida: how exactly is impossible to know at this point in time. There was one chilling phrase from the document issued by the Israeli army that was easily understood, “to put hands on this area.”

Team Khalil.