In a blatant demonstration of the discriminatory policies used by the Israeli authorities when it comes to deal with protesters; out of the 21 persons who were arrested during the demonstration in Nabi Saleh on 16.12.2011, all the Israeli and internationals were released while two Palestinians are still in custody and are accused with ludicrous charges such as assaulting Israeli settler or throwing stones. This is so outrageous when you see how much the Israeli army kept assaulting the unarmed protesters yesterday, showering them with tear gas canisters and sound bombs directly at heads levels. In response the protesters just kept walking, chanting and shouting slogans, waving Palestinian flags and posters with the portraits of Mustafa Tamimi; killed the week before. Stones were thrown towards the “invaders” after they attack the crowd which was marching towards the entrance of the village.
Mohammad Katib from Bi’lin, one of the leaders of the Palestinian popular resistance, arrested when a group of protesters walked towards the entrace of the Halamish settlement during the weekly demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Salih, 16.12.2011. Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org/Mohammad Tamimi, a photographer of the village of Nabi Salih, is seen getting arrested by Israeli soldiers when a group of protesters walked towards the village’s confiscated spring during the weekly demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, 16.12.2011. Photo by: Keren Manor/Activestills.org
Both Palestinians who were arrested were unarmed; they were protesting against the occupation and colonization of their lands. Arrests of human rights defenders and Palestinians involved in the popular resistance is no exceptional this is routine practice from the Israeli Occupying forces which this way attempt to curtail any dissent.
This is not an coincidence that they are trying to charge Mohammad Katib, one the main leaders of popular resistance in Palestine. The fact that he is from Bi’lin and was in Nabi Saleh was also significant, it shows that the struggles of these villages are not disconnected. And this is exactly what Israel fears- that the struggles in those villages grow and take the popular resistance to another level.
Mohammad Tamimi from Nabi Saleh was also arrested when he walked towards the Israeli soldiers who were preventing the protesters to reach the village spring which was confiscated two years ago by the settlers. Mohammad is known to be the photographer of the village.
Both were arrested in doing exactly the same thing as the others 19 who were arrested in the same circumstances. Actually the Israeli army should have arrested all of us- the hundreds of protesters who joined this Friday the villagers of Nabi Saleh to raise our voice against the continuing oppression in Palestinians and to honour Mustafa Tamimi, killed in cold blood the week before by an Israeli soldier courageously half hidden in a military jeep. He shot directly at Mustafa’s face from a distance less than 10 meters.
The details about the charges and proceedings against Mohammad Katib and Mohammad Tamimi will be clearer in the next hours and a campaign is now starting to demand their immediate release. If they are arrested and jailed for what they did yesterday, then we should all be.
16 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
When my friend and I decided to walk downtown, we didn’t expect that this walk could be dangerous. There was a funeral going on for a settler woman who had been killed by her ex-husband, who in turn committed suicide.
First we passed about 3 Israeli military jeeps and a couple of soldiers, and we followed the road inbetween two graveyards leading down to the Gilbert checkpoint.
When we arrived, there were many military cars and about 30 soldiers crowding the area as illegal settler cars and buses were coming and going.
Settlers were inciting Palestinians, by aggressively cursing at them and flashing lude gestures. But Palestinians were calm and did not react.
Illegal settlers and Israeli military team up – Click here for more images
After two buses came there were too many settlers. Some came from Kiryat Arba, where the deceased settlers were from, while other buses came from Shuhada street.
A settler spit on a Palestinian man, who also returned the gesture, causing a fight.
“After the Palestinian spit back, settlers started to beat all the Palestinian around. All the settlers came down and very angrily started to attack everyone. I saw how they attacked internationals and smashed their cameras, and some Palestinians were bleeding. Of course soldiers didn’t arrest any of them, they tried to arrest me and some of my friends,” said Issa Amro, a local Palestinian activist who tried to stop settlers from causing clashes.
Soldiers did not try to stop the settler who started the fight; instead they tried to arrest the Palestinians who were attacked. More and more settlers were running down from the graveyard and attacking all non Jewish people in the area. About fifty individuals were targeted by the settler violence, while women retreated into their homes for shelter. Palestinian men were actively seen defending themselves without causing transgression. After all, anything slightly malleable to mean “fighting” could have landed any of them in prison.
After our camera was smashed and settlers still wanted to beat us, we had to run away.
“I felt really scared when settlers were attacking me and the soldiers just supported them. When they wanted the card from my camera, they just smashed it. It was really horrible, when I realized that the soldiers are with the settlers, instead of protecting the people. I was so scared that they were gonna lynch us,” said one international activist, who wished to remain anonymous.
“I was so helpless and powerless, when I had to fight for my life and saw all that anger from settlers who were supported by the soldiers,” said another international activist, also wishing to remain unnamed.
Palestinians from about 5 households had to lock themselves in to avoid the settler mob. Afterwards the soldiers invaded the houses and took position to attack, stationing themselves atop the roofs of Palestinian houses.
After twenty minutes, when the situation became better, we wanted to go back and help the people that were in the houses, but soldiers didn’t let us go down and when they saw that we didn’t have our camera any more, they started to push us and beat and jab us with their riffles. One of them charged like a bullet into the room, pointing at us with his gun as he yelled, “I am gonna kill you all!”
Soldiers didn’t have the situation under the control and were out of their minds.
“When one of them went mad, and charged the riffle and pointed it at me I believed, that he was gonna shoot,” an activist said.
The atmosphere here in Khalil and all West Bank is escalating. Only this week the settlers burned two mosques, and last week they attacked a family and burned three houses.
This is evidence of apartheid here in Khalil, where there was so many soldiers who are not even aloud to arrest the settlers at all according the Israeli law.
Fida Far is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
15 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Today on December 15, Israeli soldiers raided private property and at least one school in what appeared to be a military excercise in Hebron. Around 7:30 in the morning soldiers entered the playground of Ibrahimi elementary school and claimed that children had been throwing pieces of plastic. When the director was notified and went outside to talk to the soldiers, the military captain picked up a piece of glass from the ground and accused the children of throwing glass as well. The captain then threatened to close the school if it would happen again, but it remained unclear as to what excatly he meant since he was in the schoolyard of an elementary school where children frequently play during their breaks.
In the occupied area of Hebron known as H2, soldiers entered a family’s residential building and positioned themselves on the roof where they threw soundbombs and pointed their weapons towards civilians on the street. When ISM was notified soldiers on the street prevented them and other residents in the area from crossing the permanent barrier. One man living in the area referred to the event as an “excercise madness” and raised concern over children living in the area. After entering the homes the soldiers later withdrew into the nearby observation tower but returned back to the house after a short period of time. When internationals from the ISM followed the soldiers tried to block them from reaching into the building. When asked about the reason for the exercise in someone’s private home, the soldiers claimed that they needed “to stay in shape.”
Families living inside the apartment had not been notified of the exercise and did not know the reason why their homes were being used as military training camp.
In the Old City soldiers entered several families homes and continued to move up to the rooftops were they took firing positions towards the street were men, women and children were moving. At one instance soldiers lined up approximately twenty teenagers against the wall choosing two of them to stay and ordering the rest to leave. The two teenagers that were left were encircled by 6 soldiers who staged an arrest in what appeared to be part of the exercise.
Israeli soldiers frequently raid Palestinian homes and property in the occupied area of Hebron known as H2.
ISM regards the recent aggression against Palestinian civilians as part of escalating harassment, violence and attacks made by Israeli soldiers and settlers stationed in the area and surrounding illegal settlements. Israeli occupation of the Westbank and Hebron is considered illegal under international law. Many international organizations and human rights organizations have expressed deep concern over the situation in Hebron where between 3000 to 4000 soldiers are protecting the approximately 500 settlers who are occupying the city centre from within.
Carol Vans is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
So far, there were three people who had suffocated from the tear gas, and three people injured by rubber bullets. I saw gas, and so assumed that it was another case of suffocation. But the cries got louder, urgent, desperate — quite unlike the previous calls. Along with those around me, we began running to where the injured person lay, 50 meters away.
Screams. “Mustafa! Mustafa!”
I ran faster. I stopped. The youth I was so used to, the same ones who were always teasing and joking and smoking, were crying. One turned to me and groaned, “His head. His head is split into two!”
My stomach plummeted and I forgot to breathe. Exaggeration, I thought. Impossible. Not here. More screams of “Mustafa!”
I saw the man lying on the ground. I saw the medic with one knee on the ground, his face a mask of shock. I saw his bloodied gloved hands.
Mustafa’s sister was screaming his name. I saw Mustafa. I saw the blood, the big pool of dark red blood. I saw the blood dripping from his head to the ground as they carried him and put him in a taxi, since the ambulance was nowhere to be found. I saw other the tear-streaked faces of other activists, and all I felt was numbness.
Mustafa’s sister Ola was still screaming, so I put my arms around her as she buried her head in my chest. I was babbling, “It’s ok, he’s gonna be fine, it’s ok” but she kept on screaming. Her screams and the disturbing reactions of those around me made my legs numb. Ola then left to go to the watchtower where the taxi with her brother was, and my state of shock crumbled as I gasped out my tears in the arms of my friend.
The first protester death in Nabi Saleh
Friday, 9 December marked the second year since the tiny village began its weekly demonstrations protesting the expropriation of their land for the neighboring illegal settlement of Halamish, and the confiscation of the village’s main water supply, the Kaws Spring. It also marked the 24th anniversary of the first intifada. Fittingly, it seemed only natural the Israeli army would react with more violence than usual. But never did we expect someone to be killed. It’s too awful to think about. Nabi Saleh has a population of around 500 people. Everyone knows everyone in this tight-knit community, so when one gets killed, a big part of us dies also.
Mustafa, 28 years old, was critically injured after Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister at his face, and died at a hospital after his treatment was delayed by the occupation forces who had invaded the village to repress the weekly demonstration.
One difference that distinguishes Nabi Saleh from other villages with popular resistance committees, like Nilin, Bilin, Biddu and Budrus is that no one has been killed, or martyred in the protests. Beaten up, yes. Arrested, ditto. But never a death. Until yesterday.
My humanity is only human
Just before Mustafa went into the operating room, some good news came through. He had not suffered any cognitive damages to his brain, although he suffered a brain hemorrhage. There was a chance his eye might be saved. Relief washed over us. We tweeted, “please #Pray4Mustafa.”
I had pictured myself going to Nabi Saleh the next day, not the following Friday. I had imagined sitting in a room with weeping women, after passing by the somber men sitting outside. I had envisioned a funeral and an inconsolable Ola with her mother. Thank God there was a reassuring chance he would be ok. We’d make fun of his bandaged face, just like we did to Abu Hussam when a rubber bullet hit him under the eye a few weeks ago.
Then I got the call that Mustafa had succumbed to his wounds.
My humanity is only human. I hate my enemy. A deep vigorous hatred that courses through my veins whenever I come into contact with them or any form of their system. My humanity is limited. I cannot write a book titled I Shall Not Hate especially if my three daughters and one niece were murdered by my enemy. My humanity is faulty. I dream of my enemy choking on tear gas fired through the windows of their houses, of having their fathers arrested on trumped-up charges, of them wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets, of them being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged away for interrogations that are spliced with bouts of torture.
The soldiers laughed. They smiled. They took pictures of us, zooming in on each of our faces, and they smirked. I screamed at them: “Nazis, terrorists, vermin, programmed killing machines.”
They laughed at us as we screamed at them to let us through to where he was, unconscious in a taxi near the watchtower. They threatened us if we didn’t go back. We waved the flag with his blood on it in front of them. One of them had the audacity to bat it away. We shouted, “His blood is on your hands!” They replied, “So?”
I thought of Mustafa’s younger brother, imprisoned all these eight months. I thought of that brother’s broken jaw and his subsequent stay in the prison hospital. I thought of Juju (Jihad Tamimi), he of the elfin face who arrested a few days ago with no rights to see a lawyer after being wanted by the army for more than a year. I shuddered to think of the reactions of these imprisoned men from the village — Uday, Bassem, Naji, Jihad, Saeed – once they received the news.
I got the call just after 11pm Friday night. I was sworn to secrecy, since his family didn’t want to make it public yet. Anger, bitterness and sorrow overwhelmed me. I cried at my kitchen table.
The author (left) with Ola Tamimi (center) after Mustafa Tamimi was shot at close range by the Israeli military in Nabi Saleh village (Photo: Anne Paq / ActiveStills )
I hate my enemy. I can’t go to sleep. The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. They yells, the wailing, the groans, the sobbing all fill my ears like water gushing inside a submarine, dragging me further into a cold dark abyss.
I sought out religion as a source of comfort, yet it didn’t alleviate the anguish. His life was written in al-Lawh al-Mahfooz (The Preserved Tablet) since before he was born. His destiny was to become a martyr. How sweet that will be in the afterlife! But here on this earth, his sister is beside herself. His mother is hurting enormously. Her firstborn gone, no longer to drink the tea she makes or to make her laugh with his jokes.
The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. A bloody pulp on one side of his face. The pool of blood rapidly increasing. (Mama, there was so much blood.) His mouth slightly open, lying supine on the cold road. His sister screaming, her face twisted in grief. The young men weeping, looking like little boys again.
I hate them for making us suffer
I loathe my enemy. I will never forgive, I will never forget. People who say such hatred transforms a person into a bitter cruel shell know nothing of the Israeli army. This hatred will not cripple me. What does that mean anyway? Do I not continue to write? Do I not continue to protest? Do I not continue to resist? Hating them sustains me, as opposed to normalizing with them. Their hatred of me makes reinforces the truth of their being murderous machines. My hatred of them makes me human.
I can’t sleep. The shock flows in and then dissipates, before flooding back in again. I see no justification is implementing such violence on a civilian population, no sense in the point-blank murder of a man whose rights are compromised, and whose land is colonized and occupied.
Sure as hell, you will not be forgotten. You will become an icon, a symbol, and the added impetus for persisting and continuing your village’s struggle which reflects the plight of the average Palestinian for its basic rights, equality, and justice.
I hate them for making us suffer. Hating them will give me more strength to shatter their barbaric supremacist ideology, and to bring them under the heavy heel of justice. We’ve suffered so much. I hate them for not giving credit to our sumoud (steadfastness), and so continue to kill and dispossess and imprison and humiliate us.
They killed you, Mustafa. My insides crumple. You, in front of me. My tears are drawn from the depth of my wounded soul. You were engaged to be married. You were wanted by the army because of who you are: a Palestinian who resists the occupation he directly suffers from. I think of your father being denied a permit to be with you, of your mother who had to be granted permission by them to see you in the hospital. I think of your quiet, sardonic expression.
Your screaming sister. Your blood. Your murderers’ smiles.
Linah Alsaafin is a recent graduate of Birzeit University in the West Bank. She was born in Cardiff, Wales and was raised in England, the United States and Palestine. Her website is http://lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com/.
6 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Following the violent demolitions in Qalqiliya yesterday, and in Beit Hannina and Silwan on Sunday, Israel continued its displacement of Palestinians throughout the West Bank today in occupied East Jerusalem.
On the day Israel announced a plan to forcibly remove 2300 Palestinians from their homes, a demolition team arrived in Al Khalaylah, a small village in East Jerusalem. Two homes, an animal barracks, and part of a hardware store were flattened within hours. Palestinians watched as their homes were lost, leaving 6 children and several adults homeless. Armed military and police guarded the area as bulldozers destroyed the structures.
One woman was visibly crying during the demolition of the second home. When asked if the home was hers, she answered “No, my uncle’s.”
The ethnic cleansing of non-Jews from Palestine began in 1948 during the creation of the State of Israel. Sadly it continues its ethnic cleansing today, through house demolitions, apartheid laws, and the refusal of Israel to observe the Palestinian right of return as guaranteed by UN Resolution 194 Article 11.
Wahed Rejol is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
