Approximately 150 Palestinian, international and Israeli activists gathered in Bil’in today, marking the 22nd anniversary of the start of the First Intifada and calling for the release of the village’s prisoners arrested for their involvement in the non-violent demonstrations against the Wall and settlements built on land stolen from Bil’in.
Demonstrators gathered in the village after the Friday prayers and marched towards the Wall that is being constructed on their land. Organised by the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, activists raised Palestinian flags and banners condemning Israel’s policy of settlement expansion and the recent arrest campaign conducted by the Israeli military against the residents of Bil’in.
Protesters chanted slogans calling for national unity and rejection of political differences, stressing the need to keep with Palestinian national principles. They expressed their determination to resist the occupation and continue the fight for the release of all political prisoners. Demonstrators demanded the release of all Bil’in’s detainees, including Abdallah Abu Rahmah, coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee, who was arrested by Israeli military at 2am on Thursday 10 December and another leading activist, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, who has been held for over five months in sIsraeli prisons.
When the march arrived to the Wall, demonstrators were confronted by the Israeli soldiers, stationed on the other side of the barrier. The army started throwing tear-gas bombs within minutes of the start of the demonstration and, after activists attempted to open the gate supported by barbed wire that separates the villages from their land, the Israeli soldiers escalated their violence and proceeded to fire stun grenades, tear-gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at the crowd. Dozens suffered tear-gas inhalation as result.
The Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall expressed their support to the recent initiative of Sweden and the Foreign Ministers of the European Union calling for the recognition of Palestinian state within its 1967 borders, including occupied East Jerusalem as its capital and their rejection of any other proposals compromising the 1967 borders.
As part of a recent escalation of political arrests in Bil’in, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a school teacher and coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee was arrested by Israeli soldiers. At 2am on Thursday, 10 December 2009, nine Israeli military jeeps pulled over at Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s home in the city of Ramallah . Soldiers raided the house and arrested Abu Rahmah from his bed in the presence of his wife and three children. A previous raid targeting Abu Rahmah on 15 September 2009 was executed with such exceptional violence, that a soldier was subsequently indicted for assault. In addition, undercover army units have invaded Bil’in at two occasions last week, searching for Adballah.
His arrest is a part of an ongoing campaign conducted by the Israeli military against the residents of Bil’in and leaders of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, in an attempt to discourage them from continuing their non-violent struggle. Since 23 June 2009, 31 residents of Bil’in have been detained by the military.
Residents of Bil’in, alongside international and Israeli solidarity activists, demonstrated against the Wall after the Friday prayer. Many suffered from tear-gas inhalation, as the Israeli armed forces fired upon protestors as they approached the illegal Wall. The demonstration concluded at 1 pm.
The weekly demonstration, organized by the Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements, was centered on the recent endeavor of the Swedish government. Sweden, as president of the European Union, recently announced plans to discuss a draft for a Palestinian state, recognizing Jerusalem as its capital. The Popular Committee encourages the just effort and calls on other governments to support the initiative.
Demonstrators marched from the center of Bil’in village, chanting slogans against the theft of Palestinian land and called for an end to Israel’s military occupation. People rallied especially as a response to the escalation of the Israeli authorities to resume an arrest and intimidation campaign against Bil’in protestors (which began on 23 June 2009).
An amateur video shocked Palestinians on Tuesday, catching what appeared to be an Israeli settler repeatedly running over a wounded Palestinian at a gas station in Hebron last week.
The Palestinian, an unidentified man shot several times following an alleged knife attack at the station, appeared to be staggering when a silver Mercedes ran him down, stopped, reversed, and ran him over again.
The video was reportedly taken on Thursday, although at the time, Israeli representatives made no mention of the settler’s alleged attack, telling reporters only that a Palestinian man had been shot after he stabbed and lightly injured two settlers.
A military spokesman told Ma’an that after the two Israelis were hurt, a soldier shot and injured the Palestinian, who was taken to the Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem. The settler, on the other hand, was released under house arrest.
That evening, a hospital spokeswoman told Ma’an the Palestinian was undergoing surgery for serious wounds, but did not mention he had been run over and trapped under a car. He was transported by an Israeli ambulance, she noted.
What follows is a partial clip from Al-Jazeera. Click here for an uncut version of the same film.
Warning: contains graphic images.
The full video captures several soldiers standing by as the incident unfolds. Those who run up to the vehicle and appear to take the keys out of the ignition are armed settlers. The Palestinian is left underneath the car screaming as settlers extract the driver. Several seconds later, medics approach the injured man.
According to The Jerusalem Post, police believe the driver was David Mizrachi, an Israeli from the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba and the husband of one of the alleged stabbing victims. He may stand trial for attempted murder, the newspaper reported.
Both incidents come as tensions in settlements rise, with settlers vowing to defy recent orders to slow down certain West Bank construction. Soldiers have also shown an increasing aversion to cracking down on settler behavior, with some announcing their refusal to take part in missions that involve removing settlers from what Israeli courts determine are illegally occupied Palestinian homes or outposts.
Last fall in Hebron, dozens of soldiers were sent to evacuate the Ar-Rajabi home in Hebron, following which a rampaging settler from Kiryat Arba shot a Palestinian at almost point-blank range. The settler was briefly arrested and later released without charge.
Israeli settlers take over Palestinian home, elderly resident suffers severe medical complications
On Tuesday morning at around 9.30am, a group of settlers surrounded the al-Kurd family home in Sheikh Jarrah and took over a section of the house.
Fifteen to twenty settlers, accompanied by private armed security and Israeli police forces, entered an extension of the Palestinian house, and started clearing it of the family’s belongings. The family was not present in this section of the house in compliance with a previous court order, however local sources reported that the settlers also attempted, on several occasions, to gain entry to the inhabited part of the house.
One Palestinian resident, Khamis al-Gawi, has been arrested shortly after the settlers arrived, and is still being held at a local police station. Two international activists, American and Swedish nationals, who were filming the settlers taking over the house were also arrested by the police and their video cameras confiscated.
Later in the day, two Palestinian women suffered medical complications as a result of the take-over and had to be transported to a local hospital in an ambulance. One of them, the daughter of the owner of the house Refka al-Kurd, Nadia, was taken to the hospital with a suspected heart attack.
The take-over came minutes after an appeal, challenging an earlier court decision that deemed this section of the house illegal and gave the settlers the right to enter the property, submitted by the family’s lawyer, was rejected by the Magistrate Court this morning. The al-Kurd family only found out that their appeal was rejected when they saw the settlers approaching their home.
The first attempt of the settlers to take over the house came on 3 November 2009. In a similar scenario, settlers entered the al-Kurd property and locked themselves in, leaving only when escorted out by the Israeli police. However, the house remained occupied by armed settler security 24 hours a day since then. Further attempts followed including one on 26 November at 1am, when five settlers invaded the house, attacking the Palestinian family. An elderly woman, Refka al-Kurd (87) suffered a stroke following the incident.
The al-Kurd home was built in 1956. An addition to the house was built 10 years ago, but the family was not allowed to inhabit the section, based on an earlier agreement with the settlers (reached by the family’s former lawyer without their knowledge), which is currently still under dispute.
The al-Kurds have become the fourth Sheikh Jarrah family whose house (or a portion of the home) has been occupied by settlers in the last year. So far, 60 people have been left homeless. In total, 28 families living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes.
These actions are illegal under international law, which prohibits the occupying power (in this case Israel) from transferring its own population into the occupied territory. East Jerusalem, along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, is considered an occupied territory and its de-facto annexation by Israel has not been recognized by international law.
An appeal submitted by the family’s lawyer will be heard tomorrow, 2 December 2009 at noon, in the District Court in Jerusalem.
A court case, determining the ownership of the whole house, including the section built in 1956 by UNRWA, will be heard on 15 February 2010. Similarly to the Hannoun, Gawi and Kamel al-Kurd families in the past, this hearing can result in an eviction order against the al-Kurd family.
Background on Sheikh Jarrah
Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.
The eviction orders are a result of claims made in 1967 by the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesseth Yisrael Association (who since sold their claim to the area to Nahalat Shimon) – settler organizations that claim to have deeds for the land dating back to 1875. In 1972, these two settler organizations applied to have the land registered in their names with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA). Their claim to ownership was noted in the Land Registry; however, it was never made into an official registry of title. The first Palestinian property in the area was taken over at this time.
The case continued in the courts for another 37 years. Amongst other developments, the first lawyer of the Palestinian residents reached an agreement with the settler organizations in 1982 (without the knowledge or consent of the Palestinian families) in which he recognized the settlers’ ownership in return for granting the families the legal status of protected tenants. This affected 23 families and served as a basis for future court and eviction orders (including today’s take-over), despite the immediate appeal filed by the families’ new lawyer.
Furthermore, a Palestinian landowner, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, has legally challenged the settlers’ claims. In 1994 he presented documents certifying his ownership of the land to the courts, including tax receipts from 1927. In addition, the new lawyer of the Palestinian residents located a document, proving the land in Sheikh Jarrah had never been under Jewish ownership. The Israeli courts rejected these documents.
The first eviction orders were issued in 1999 based on the (still disputed) agreement from 1982 and, as a result, two Palestinian families (Hannoun and Gawi) were evicted in February 2002. After the 2006 Israeli Supreme Court finding that the settler committees’ ownership of the lands was uncertain, and the Lands Settlement officer of the court requesting that the ILA remove their names from the Lands Registrar, the families returned back to their homes. The courts, however, failed to recognize new evidence presented to them and continued to issue eviction orders based on decisions from 1982 and 1999 respectively. Further evictions followed in November 2008 (al- Kurd family) and August 2009 (Hannoun and Gawi families for the second time). At present, settlers occupy all these houses and the whole area is patrolled by armed private security 24 hours a day.
The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods.
On 28th August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.
At approximately 9am this Wednesday, four police vehicles containing eight Jerusalem police and four border police armed with automatic weapons came to Sheikh Jarrah and demolished the Gawi tent for the fourth time. The demolition took place as there were several people sleeping in the tent. The police failed to alert those sleeping to their destructive actions. The Palestinian family’s possessions were confiscated and removed in police pick-up trucks and golf carts. One hour later, a British national was arrested. The Gawi family has lived in the tent for four months now, since 2 August 2009 when they were forcefully evicted from their home, now occupied by settlers.
This action comes in the wake of yesterday’s settler invasion of the front section of the al-Kurd family home. As the settlers moved some of their possessions from the occupied Gawi home to the newly-confiscated al-Kurd home, the police were destroying and stealing the blankets, chairs, mattresses, lights and shelter from the evicted Gawi family. The settlers have also run electrical wires from the confiscated Gawi house to the confiscated al-Kurd house. As the constant crowd watched the settlers’ actions and those of the police, a British national was arrested, seemingly, for standing in the entrance of the al-Kurd family’s garden.
