Tag: Apartheid Wall

B’Tselem to Judge Advocate General – order security forces to stop firing tear-gas grenades directly at people

B’Tselem

22 April 2009

Last Friday, 17 April, during a demonstration in Bi’lin, in the Ramallah District, a soldier fired a tear-gas grenade from an increased distance at Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahma, 30. The grenade left a hole in his chest, causing massive internal bleeding, which led to his death. Two video clips filmed at the site prove that Abu Rahma was standing on the eastern side of the fence, about thirty meters from the soldiers, when he was hit. The video clips also show that during the incident, he did not throw stones, did not damage the fence, and did not endanger soldiers in any way whatsoever.

http://blip.tv/play/gukm+6pshKtR
Footage of the shooting of Bassem Abu Rahmah

B’Tselem wrote to the Judge Advocate General (JAG), Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit on 21 April 2009, demanding that he immediately order a Military Police investigation into the circumstances of Abu Rahma’s death, and that he make it clear to security forces that it is absolutely forbidden to fire tear-gas grenades directly at people. In a previous letter that B’Tselem sent to the JAG on this matter last month, following the severe injuries sustained by the American, Tristan Anderson, when he was struck in the forhead by a tear-gas grenade fired from an increased distance, no response has been received.

http://blip.tv/play/gukm97tThKtR
Video footage documenting the shooting of tear-gas canisters directly at people

In its letter of last week, B’Tselem attached video clips of demonstrations in Ni’lin, Bi’lin, and Jayyus filmed in recent months. The clips document repeated firing of tear-gas grenades directly at demonstrators, proving that, contrary to the army’s contentions, security forces in the West Bank have commonly practiced this unlawful act.

B’Tselem also noted that, at the location of the demonstrations in Bi’lin and Ni’lin, senior army and border patrol officers are always present. Whether they turn a blind eye to the extensive breach of the Open-Fire Regulations or give express orders to security forces to violate regulations, they bear responsibility for the lethal consequences of this forbidden practice. Furthermore, for some time, and at least since the extensive media coverage of the serious head injury to Tristan Anderson, on 13 March 2009, mentioned above, senior officers of the army and border police have known about direct firing of grenades at demonstrators. Since they were in a position to end this practice, they too bear responsibility for the lethal shooting.

Freedom Summer 2009: Defend the Land and Jerusalem

The International Solidarity Movement is issuing a call-out for internationals to volunteer as field activists and office workers in the West Bank, Gaza, and occupied East Jerusalem this summer.

Whether you can come for only few weeks or several months, your presence is needed to support Palestinian communities who are nonviolently resisting the Israeli occupation. Freedom Summer 2009, which will run from June 6th until August 15th, aims to challenge the continued theft of Palestinian land for the rapid expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and their infrastructure in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Volunteer training sessions will be held every week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Visit our “Join Us in Palestine” section to read more information about volunteering.

Below are some of the actions ISM volunteers can anticipate this summer:

  1. ISM volunteers will stand in solidarity with the Palestinian families of occupied East Jerusalem who face dispossession.
    International activists will join families in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Shu’fat, and other neighborhoods whose residences are threatened, in resisting evictions and demolitions with non-violent, direct actions methods. ISM volunteers will also participate in demonstrations against discriminatory Israeli policies and support ongoing organization of Palestinian heritage and cultural events.
  2. In the West Bank, volunteers will join Palestinian villagers in nonviolent demonstrations against the Wall, and other apartheid infrastructure of the occupation such as checkpoint, settlements, and Israeli-only roads. Activists will be working in communities such as Ni’lin, Bil’in, Jayyous, Husan and Tulkarem to support direct actions under Palestinian popular leadership. Recently Israeli military violence during nonviolent demonstrations has escalated, making it more important that international solidarity activists are present to help deter and document the repression from Israeli forces. Additionally, volunteers will accompany farmers and shepherds to deter violence from the Israeli military and settlers. In the South Hebron hills, the army’s designation of large areas as military closed zones will be challenged.
  3. The ISM volunteers in the Gaza Strip will continue to accompany Palestinian farmers who frequently face live fire from the army as they work their land in the buffer zone. Volunteers will stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza against the crippling siege and sporadic attacks on the region. Several ISM activists will be joining the Free Gaza Movement’s Hope Fleet that will sail into Gaza’s port at the end of May. International activists will mass on the Egyptian border with Gaza between the 22nd of May and the 14th of June, in an attempt to challenging the ongoing closure and isolation of the people of Gaza. Individuals interested in volunteering with ISM Gaza must have previous experience with ISM in the West Bank.

Come to Palestine to support the Palestinian people in their struggle against occupation. Become an eyewitness to the Palestinian struggle for freedom! ISM volunteers have become better advocates for the freedom and self-determination of the Palestinian people in their home communities.

This summer, support and participate in the Palestinian non-violent resistance to the Occupation by using direct action methods to defend the land of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Israel kills at will and in total impunity while the world demands nonviolence from Palestinians

Frank Barat | Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK

The death of Bassem Abu Rahme

On April the 17th, like any Fridays afternoon for the last 4 years, the small village of Bil’in, north of Ramallah, was preparing for the usual demonstration against Israel’s annexation wall (some people call it apartheid wall or separation wall. The Israeli government refers to it as the security fence).

The village of Bil’in has, since the mid eighties, lost more than 60% of its land for the purpose of Israeli growing settlements and the construction of the wall. The inhabitants of the village used to live mainly from agriculture and olive tree plantations, but more and more the people of Bil’in have to rely on their women to survive. Embroidery has become one of the main resource of the place, located a few kilometres away from Tel Aviv. On a nice day, you can see the inaccessible – for the Palestinians – beach from the roof tops of Bil’in.

In January 2005 a village organizing committee, led by Mohamed Khatib, Iyad Burnat and Abdullah Abu Rahme, was created and one month later non-violent demonstrations started, first every day, then once a week, on Yum Al Juma’a (Friday, the Muslim day of prayer).

The village won a huge battle in August 2008 when the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that the new route of the barrier in Bil’in was in violation of the Court ruling released on September 2007. That ruling stated that the Wall’s path was prejudicial to Bil’in and must be altered. The State was ordered to present a new route within 45 days, which upheld the principles of the ruling.

On Friday the 17th of April 2009, the wall still had not moved one inch and while the inhabitants of the village were praying at the village mosque, internationals and a strong contingent of Israeli supporters – including people from the Alternative Information Centre and Anarchists Against the Wall – were looking for some shade to hide from the baking sun and chatting about the day’s event. As soon as prayer was over with, the demonstration started to move forward in direction of the wall, a few kilometres away.

Bassem Abu Rahme (aka Phil) was right at the front of the march. He always was. I had met Bassem a few times while visiting Bil’in. He was a strong looking man, singing the loudest, joking all the time, jumping around and leading the way, accompanied by the rest of the village committee and the Israeli contingent.

As it usually happens, as soon as the march reached the corner where the Israeli soldiers can be seen, the tear gas started. A few brave ones, always continue anyway and reach the beginning of the wall. Bassem, as usual, was one of those. The Israelis present at the front of the demonstration started talking with the nearby soldiers in Hebrew and Bassem screamed, “We are in a non violent protest, there are kids and internationals…”

He was shot in the chest and never managed to finished his sentence. He fell to the ground, moved a little, fell again, and died.

Bassem was shot by a new kind of tear gas canister, called the “rocket.” The soldier who shot him was a mere 40 meters away. This is the same type of tear gas that critically injured US citizen Tristan Anderson a few weeks ago. Those tear gas canisters are as fast and lethal as live ammunition and very hard to get away from. Normally, tear gas canisters fly in the air for a long time, then fall and bounce a few times. These new canisters fly like an over-sized bullet and go straight, not up and down.

Once more, Israel is using the West Bank as its testing ground and Palestinians as guinea pigs for new kinds of ammunition.

The soldier who fired knew what he was doing and who he was targeting. The shame is that he probably knew Bassem. Bassem was always at the front, and had been for several years. The soldiers often serve more than once in Bil’in and start to know the people facing them at the demonstrations.

On April the 17th , Bil’in and Palestine lost one of their heroes.

What is going to happen next? Israel claims it will investigate the incident. Only 6% of offending soldiers from similar investigations have been prosecuted and those have usually been let off with a few weeks suspension. The Israeli government claims, as it has in the past, that the demonstration was violent and that soldiers were forced to respond. This worn-out propaganda is discredited by the video of the demonstration, which clearly shows otherwise.

We may even hear in a few days that it was actually the Palestinians who fired the tear gas and killed their beloved friend.

The Palestinian Authority, instead of issuing a strong statement against this act, stopping, once and for all, the negotiations with the Israeli government, and joining the demonstrators every Friday to be hand in hand with its people, said next to nothing and is looking forward to the coming up White House meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and President Obama.

The media has hardly reported any of Bil’in’s story. In their narrative of the conflict, the Palestinians do not count. This is even more shocking when a video of the event is available and shows so clearly the imbalance of violence directed at Palestinians.

The international community will not mention this “incident” and continue issuing calls for the Palestinians to renounce violence and resist peacefully. Since the start of the second intifada, 87% of the dead have been Palestinians. But the international community will say little about Israel’s violations of international law and oppression of the Palestinians.

It is therefore left to us, the citizens of this world, to act, to join solidarity groups, to write articles, to make films and talk – constantly – about the plight of the Palestinian people. Palestine has to become the number one issue.

It must. For Bassem, his family, Bil’in, and Palestine.

Frank Barat is in the organizing committee of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and a member of Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK.

The village of Bil’in is organizing its fourth conference on nonviolent resistance from April 22 – 24.

YNet: Relatives: Bilin protester was persistent in his struggle

Ali Waked | Ynet

19 April 2009

Medical inquiry confirms Bassem Abu Rahma died after being hit by gas grenade fired from tear gas canister. IDF claims demonstrators rioted in West Bank village, but protestor’s relative says ‘there was no violence or provocation on our part’

The family of 30-year-old Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahma, who was killed Friday by a tear gas grenade in a demonstration against the separation fence near Bilin, was comforted Saturday at its home in the West Bank village by many friends and relatives.

Bassem’s relative, Abdullah Abu Rahma, told Ynet that there was no provocation on the part of the protestors during the rally.

The Israel Defense Forces is still investigating the circumstances of the incident, which has been defined by the army as a riot. Military representatives met over the weekend with Palestinian medical representatives in a meeting brokered by the Civil Administration, in order to conduct a joint medical inquiry, which confirmed that Abu Rahma was killed by an object which hit his chest, and not by a bullet.

A video filmed at the scene of the incident shows the protesters approaching the fence, including Bassem Abu Rahma, who is seen wearing a yellow shirt.

Abdullah was near Bassem when he was hurt. “I can say for certain that there was no violence or provocation on the part of the protestors,” he says. “The casualty’s last words were to the soldiers and police officers: ‘Stop firing, stop firing.’ And then the grenade hit him and he was critically injured.”

‘He died in my hands’

In his version of the incident, Abdullah says that as there was no close ambulance, he carried Bassem himself into the car with the help of other residents.

“We rushed to a hospital in Ramallah, but Bassem died between my hands,” he says. “It was a very difficult sight, and the family received the news with great pain. Bassem was known as a simple man, everyone’s friend, a person who was loved by all of the village’s residents, all the families and the residents of nearby villages, because of his integrity, plainness and his persistence in the struggle for his land.”

He adds that Bassem was the youngest of five brothers and that he also had a sister. “It’s a simple family, a poor family which suffered a lot of pain after part of its land was robbed, and was always involved in the non-violent struggle to return the lands,” he says.

“Those who came to the house came to grieve the fatal casualty and console, but also to show their appreciation for the family, which has suffered directly for a second time.”

This is not the first time the Abu Rahma family makes headlines under unfortunate circumstances: Bassem’s brother, Ashraf, was one of the most famous victims of the Palestinian struggle against the separation fence, when an IDF soldier was filmed shooting him while he was bound, after being arrested while trying to transfer foods and medications to residents of the nearby village of Naalin, which was under curfew. The shooting soldier was accused of inappropriate behavior, and the regiment commander who was present during the incident was moved to a different post.

‘Struggle non-violent – and Israel is losing’

Abdullah claims that the increasing incidents of firing on demonstrators in recent weeks, and the growing number of protestors injured and killed in anti-fence rallies, show that the Israelis don’t know how to handle the non-violent protests.

“When the struggle is armed, the Israelis like it,” he says. “They know that with their weapon, with one aircraft, one bombing, they can handle the struggle. But when the struggle is non-violent, and when peace activists from Israel and the entire world are taking part in the demonstrations, it’s harder to conceal the truth, to hide the robbery and violence.

“We’re noticing that they’re losing their senses, and this why, over time, they run wilder and become more violent.”

According to Abdullah, “We know that what worries the Israelis more is that this style of a non-violent struggle might spread from Bilin, Naalin and other numbered centers and become a wide model. So they are seeking to suppress this model before it spreads even more, because they know our struggle is justified and that they are losing.

“Moreover, Bassem was killed when we were trying to enter land which an Israeli court ruled we are allowed to enter.”

The role of ‘State Land’ in settlement construction

B’Tselem

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The declaration of land as state land and the registration of state land in the land registry has, since 1967, been the principal method used by Israel to take control of land to build settlements and create land reserves for their future expansion.123 Until then, the state relied on the claim of “military need” to seize private land, which often required that it prove to the High Court of Justice that the taking indeed was a military necessity.

In implementing this procedure, Israel relies on its manipulative use of the Ottoman Land Law of 1858, which was incorporated in British Mandate legislation, and later in Jordanian law. This law was part of the local law at the time Israel occupied the West Bank, and as such has remained in effect. The law states that a person may acquire ownership of farmland and register it in the land registration office (Tabu) after working it for ten consecutive years. If the person ceases to work the land for three consecutive years, the land is considered state land, and possession is transferred to the government. The power to declare land state land and to administer it is given by the Israel military legislation to the Custodian for Government and Abandoned Property in Judea and Samaria.

A parcel of land that is examined prior to registering it as state land is classified as “survey land.”126 Until the check is completed, the Custodian declares the parcel state land and enables
Palestinians who claim rights in the parcel to file an appeal before a military committee within forty-five days of the declaration. At the end of this period, or following the committee’s decision rejecting an appeal that was filed, the land is registered as state land.

From 1979-1992, the Custodian registered 908,000 dunams as state land. The procedure for declaring and registering land as state land was suspended from 1992 to 1996, when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister. It was re-instituted in 1997.

A substantial portion of the land registered as state land and used to establish settlements and land reserves for their expansion was, even according to a strict reading of the Ottoman Land Law, privately owned by Palestinians. Israel’s illegal seizure of private land was possible, in part, because of the nature of the bureaucratic process in which the taking of control was carried out. Often (primarily in the 1980s), notice of declaration of a particular parcel as state land did not reach the Palestinians, and when it did, the time for filing an appeal had already passed.

Also, for a variety of reasons, Palestinians were unable to successfully compete against the military authorities at the appeals hearing. Even worse, there have been many cases in which Israel related to survey lands (the land that had not been proven to be state land) as if they were registered state land, and allocated them to the settlements.

It should be noted that, even if Israel had followed the strict letter of the Ottoman Land Law fairly and justly, and had not declared privately owned land as state land, the state has acted improperly because it administered the state land in a discriminatory and illegal manner. State land is public property, belonging to the lawful residents of the West Bank. The role of the occupying state, as the temporary substitute for the sovereign, is to administer the public land for the benefit of that public, or to meet its military needs in the occupied territory. Rather than act in this way, since it began to take control of state land, Israel has completely denied the Palestinians their right to use these lands, and has allocated them only for the establishment and expansion of settlements.