February 18, 2019 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Al-Khalil, occupied Palestine
The day after a group of illegal settlers and soldiers invaded a Palestinians’ home and threatened to slaughter their children in front of them, one of their children was arrested by the Israeli police.
On Saturday, a group of settlers climbed down onto the rooftop of Emad Eqneibi’s home. Among them was Noam Arnon (נעם ארנון)–a right-wing settler who referred to Baruch Goldstein (the mass murderer of 29 worshipers in the Ibrahimi Mosque) as an “extraordinary” and “lovely” person.
Responding to settler complaints, a group of soldiers descended on Eqneibi’s house the following day and arrested his 14-year-old son, Amer Eqneibi. Video was captured as the soldiers were taking the child away:
Amer is currently being held in an adult prison Ofer outside Ramallah. Locals expect that it may be more than 40 days before the child is released.
February 17, 2019 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Al-Khalil, occupied Palestine
Anat Cohen (ענת כהן), daughter of the convicted Israeli terroristMoshe Zar, attacked another international who was observing schoolchildren on their commute to the Qurtuba school this morning.
The International was an elderly woman who was keeping tally in a notebook of the number of schoolchildren that passed through the checkpoint and how many were harassed by illegal settlers or the israeli occupation forces. These numbers are submitted to UNSECO and Save the Children.
Cohen suddenly appeared and, before ISM volunteers could start recording video, she punched the woman in the ribs and began scolding her. ISM caught the rest of the exchange on video, when Cohen stole the observer’s notebook:
The observer complained to the police–who retrieved the notebook from Cohen–and then the police proceeded to evict the observers (including ISM volunteers) out of H2, claiming that the school and its surroundings were a “Closed Military Zone.”
The above document presented by the israeli occupation forces to the international observers shows that the order was created just 30 minutes before they were told to leave.
Creating closed military zones is a common tactic used by Israel to thwart international observers from being able to monitor for the illegal settler’s and soldier’s crimes against the Palestine people. In this case, Palestinian children.
One of the more dangerous checkpoints for Palestinian children in Al-Khalil exists outside the Qurtuba school–which is juxtaposed immediately adjacent to the Beit Hadassah settlement. Another independent observer group, EAPPI, had been peacefully monitoring this checkpoint until last week–when their head offices announced that their team would also withdraw from Hebron following a targeted campaign of harassment by the right-wing fascist group Im Turtsu.
To fill this void, ISM volunteers have been monitoring the Qurtuba checkpoint in mornings and afternoons to provide an international presence to ensure the safety of Palestinian schoolchildren. As a result, ISM has become the target of harassment by these illegal settlers. On Thursday, this ordinary verbal abuse escalated to physical assault when Anat Cohen–a particularly violent settler with a history of attacking peaceful observers–assaulted ISM volunteers at the Qartuba checkpoint.
ISM captured the assault on video:
Minutes after Cohen assaulted the ISM volunteers, she called the police. When the local Hebron Police arrived, they detained the ISM volunteers and informed them that Cohen was pressing charges against the ISM volunteers for assault.
The ISM volunteers vehemently deny these accusations, and they have video evidence clearly showing that the only physical violence that occured was when Cohen assaulted the peaceful ISM volunteers, who were simply observing the checkpoint to ensure the safety of the schoolchildren.
August 31st 2018 | Kristin Foss, International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah
I woke up feeling sad today. I’m just so sad. I’m crying now, I started crying in the supermarket, I cried a little when a farmer refused my money for grapes. I think that today, I’m just going to cry. Maybe I need it.
Yesterday, I was called by a friend to ask if ISM could spare some people to come to a place I can’t even remember the name of now. There are too many places, too much need for assistance. I wrote about it earlier though. Ras Karkar, the village is called. I remember now. The Israelis are going to build yet another illegal settlement there. Their village is already surrounded by three: in the North, in the South, in the East—and now the Caterpillar machines and the soldiers have arrived to block the West; to build yet another illegal settlement, trapping the villagers. It’s illegal according to international law of course. But, what is international law? It doesn’t apply in Palestine. The Israelis know it; they’ve never had to comply. The US has made sure of it, and the rest has accepted it.
The man who alerted me is my age; he has a professional job, a nice car. But he spends his free time alerting people, travelling to places where he is needed and getting beaten up by 20 year olds with machine guns. He does not get to go home and have a nice dinner with his wife or play with his kids. I guess he could. But then, will his kids even have a country when they grow up?
A man who is sending me live videos is my dad’s age. I’ve been watching the videos, videos of normal people, new friends I have not even met yet, although I recognize a few. Normal people, being brutally pushed over by young soldiers from God knows where, but from this land they are not.
I’ve watched videos of men trying to push heavy machines with their arms. I can feel the desperation. I want to be there. But today it’s only me here and I can’t go alone. I guess I could, but I don’t dare today. I need a time-out. Maybe my fear is stronger than my solidarity. I don’t want to die.
Rachel Corrie died. She was in ISM too. I don’t think she could have imagined that they would actually do it. That they would run her over with a bulldozer, as she was visible to all, standing in front of it, but they did. They killed her with a bulldozer. Her solidarity was stronger than her fear. The Israelis got away with it. They got away with it, and they call her Saint Pancake. She was 23, and they ran her over with a bulldozer for trying to stop a house from being demolished. She was American, and the US did nothing. Palestinians remember her still, with respect and dignity, gratefulness and immense sadness. The Israelis make fun of her. Most Americans don’t even know her name.
I’ve been reading comments that people have left in the comment sections of interviews with me, some say “third time lucky,” or “if she is there knowing the risks it’s her own fault, she deserved it,” etc. Then I think of what these same people say about my Palestinian friends: that they are an invented people, there was never a place called Palestine. If a nurse gets killed tending to the wounded, she is Hamas. If a school or hospital gets bombed, then Hamas was storing weapons there. If a child is murdered, his parents are using him for sympathy. It’s inexplicably inhumane. I have never witnessed anything like this, people denouncing a whole people. It is so unspeakably evil. How does it feel for Palestinians to read this; to read that they don’t even exist? To be faced with this evil? When all they did was to be born on their own land, and all they do is try to live under an inhumane occupation.
The thing is that the people who make these comments are the ones with the power. They are on the current winning side. Obama, Trump, Theresa May, Macron, Trudeau, Erna Solberg… these are the people that are on Israel’s side, and pour money and support into its government. They have the power, they have the money, they have the media and they have the politicians.
My own government doesn’t even care that five Norwegians were brutally beaten up, threatened with murder and arrested after being illegally boarded in international waters, or that I’ve been shot twice. I think they find us a nuisance. They blame us for being here; that we should not be here, that it’s the Palestinians who need to reconcile. I don’t even know what that means. They say that dialogue is the only way, and the Palestinians have to reconcile. There is no dialogue here, it’s all pretend. There is only violence, oppression, murder, land theft and politicians keeping up the facade that there is dialogue, while the press helps keep this game of pretend going. The Palestinians must reconcile… I think they mean that Palestinians must forgive and forget, get on their knees and hand over the keys they have left. I asked the representative for Norway what they meant with reconciliation—she did not know.
But there is another side. On this side there are the Palestinians, the people of this land, and some of us, international and Israeli activists who stand with them in solidarity. All we have is truth, dignity and humanity. We have this, but no power, unless everyone gets involved. Now, after getting shot twice, they talk about me, only because I’m a European woman—and thank god I videoed it. There are so many, just so many who would speak better than me, Palestinians, whose fate is incomparable to what happened to me. I’m a bit ashamed, but I will try to use it. If they all got the attention I got, would people care then? I would like to think so.
I still believe in humanity. I don’t believe there is any left in Israeli politics, but there is enough in Palestine to make up for their lack, when Palestine is free. But where is the global humanity, where are all those who say that we must never forget? Don’t ever forget, but don’t ignore what is happening now, because this too will have a horrible end if people do not react. This is not a history lesson, this is today and this can be stopped, before it becomes another shameful period of human history. Palestine can still be free. This cannot go on, it cannot!
Kristin Foss is an ISM volunteer who was shot twice in one week with rubber-coated steel bullets by Israeli soldiers in Kafr Qaddum. The first time with her hands raised, along with another female ISM volunteer from Iceland, and the second time while standing up against the wall of a shop. Below, see an interview with Kristin on Russia Today:
18th August 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine
A description of the events of Saturday, 18th of August, from the Norwegian ISM volunteer targeted and shot by a soldier in Kafr Qaddum
I, Kristin Foss (43) work as a volunteer for ISM (International Solidarity Movement). ISM is a non-violent, Palestinian lead organisation that responds to requests for assistance from Palestinians, who for various reason need international witnesses and/or protection. This can be for demonstrators, when houses get broken into by soliders or colonialist settlers on a daily/nightly bases, children needing to be walked to school as a result of being harassed by colonialist settlers, that they have been told their house or village is about to be demolished, that their access to water has been closed or broken etc.
I am fully aware that this job carries risk and that I will be exposed to dangerous situations, but this does not release Israel from their responsibilities with regards to international law. Israel portrays itself as a democratic state, with “The world`s most moral army”—as such, the minimum that could be expected from them, is that they adhere to international law.
On Saturday, 18.08, an Icelandic colleague, Anna, and I travelled to Kafr Qaddum, a village close to Nablus, West Bank. The inhabitants had asked for our presence due to violence from Israeli soldiers every Friday and Saturday.
The main road to Kafar Qaddum was closed for inhabitants, by Israeli soliders 7 years ago. The road was built and kept by the ethnic population to the region, throughout generations. Today the road is only open to Israeli colonizers, in the illegal settlements.
The local population of Kafr Qaddum now has to drive 14 km, instead of a couple, to arrive to Nablus, where many of the inhabitants study and work. The inhabitants have been protesting the closure of the road every Friday for 7 years—now also on Saturdays. Pre- or during demonstrations the village is invaded by soldiers who fire live ammunition, rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas at demonstrators. They have also sprayed skunk water (raw sewage) into the houses of inhabitants. Several inhabitants have been shot with live ammunition, including children and elderly. The inhabitants do not have any weapons themselves (!)—they want to be able to demonstrate in peace, and they want their road to be open for them to use.
When we arrived Saturday, there were already clashes. Soldiers were present at 2 points in the village. From both points they were shooting with rubber coated bullets, at a group of mostly very young boys, who were throwing rocks back at them. Anna and I were present at one of the points, observing and making sure our presence was known to the soliders.
The shooting was going for about one and a half hour, before it started to calm down. Apart from some tear gas inhalation there had been no injuries at this point.
When things were calm, I was approached by a senior citizen, asking if we could please help him. He had gone out to his drive way earlier as he was going to get in his car to pick up his wife. He did not notice that his drive way was full of soliders. The soldiers stole/confiscated his car and the keys, and parked it in the middle out the road as an economical shield. As it was calm, we agreed to accompany him to speak to the soliders and to ask for his car back. There was no shooting, nor stones being thrown at this point. Him, Anna and I started walking towards the soldiers, with our hands in the air. I had my camera phone in one hand. The man walked surprisingly fast and was soon with the soldiers, whilst Anna and I stopped some 20 metres behind, still with our hands up. I am filming at this point.
One of the soliders shouts something at me in Hebrew, I don’t understand, but I shout back that the man just wants his car back. Then he shouts that it is dangerous. I shout back that it is only dangerous because he is pointing a machine gun at me. Those far behind me posed no danger to the soldier, nor to me. One shot is fired as I am shouting, then another shot is directed at me, and hits me in the abdomen. I would say from approximately 20-30 metres. It is absolutely no doubt I was targeted and shot deliberately.
Being treated in the ambulence
It was extremely painful and I was in a state of shock, but quickly managed to withdraw to behind a brick wall. I was then helped by Palestinians who led me to the nearby Red Crescent ambulance. I received immediate treatment to my wound, the bullet had pierced some skin, so there was some blood, a massive bump and I was already black and blue. The ambulance staff was incredibly professional and calm.
After 5 minutes or so I wanted to go back to confront the person who had shot me—from a safe distance. I was angry about being shot, whilst unarmed, after having declared our mission—and whilst posing absolutely no threat. However, Anna then had to retire to the ambulance as she was suffering badly from teargas inhalation. We did join the protest a bit after this, but then decided to retire to the back as I felt very vulnerable and I was scared they would shoot me again.
I would like to add, that I know I am, and was, very lucky. I am Norwegian and have be shielded from this kind of violence my whole life. I do not have to be here and I can choose to go home at any given moment. This incident however, has only strengthen my resolve to keep fighting, in solidarity, with the Palestinians —who unlike me have no choice. Thousands of Palestinians have been shot this year alone. By rubber coated steel bullets and by live ammunition. Palestinians get shot for the crime of demonstrating for their basic human rights—or simply for the ‘crime of being born Palestinian’. Whilst my case have been blown up in media, theirs go unnoticed.
It is an unnerving feeling, the knowledge that a stranger has aimed his gun at me, perhaps discussed shooting me with his colleagues —and then made the choice to shoot me. That someone wanted to inflict pain on me, without knowing anything about me —to shoot me in the knowledge that it has no repercussions for themselves. Palestinians have to live with this everyday. The knowledge that at any moment an Israeli sniper might have them in their scope—and will shoot to kill or maim. Shoot them, shoot their kids, their parents, their friend, their loved ones. Violence. Because I am Norwegian, I can and will use my story to highlight what is happening here in the Norwegian media. But I do not, not even for one second, forget that what happened to me, is only a small taste, a minuscule taste of what life under Israel occupation is like. Free Palestine!
In solidarity!
Kristin Foss, activist with the International Solidarity movement
Right after the shooting
Bruises and a wound where the bullet pierced the skin
