Tag: Yanoun

Settler attack in Aqraba leaves 3 injured, 1 hospitalized

By Ben Greene and Ellie Marton

19 September 2012 | International Solidarity Movement

On Monday 17, September, six Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Itamar attacked three members of the Benijaber family, who were walking home to the Palestinian village of Aqraba from their olive groves.

Maher Hashem Mostafa Benijaber reported that he, his brother Omar and cousin Hafed were set upon by six men, three of whom were armed with semi-automatic rifles. The attack occurred just before 7 p.m., around 600 metres from their home. The settlers punched and kicked the three men, as well as beat them with rocks and sticks. They also tried to block the path back to the village so Maher and his family could not escape.

Omar managed to escape, calling neighbours for help. Meanwhile, the attack on Maher and Hafed continued. After the arrival of other residents, the Israeli attackers fled the scene. Maher then attempted to walk back to the village, but collapsed, lost consciousness, and had to be carried.

Maher Hashem Mostafa Benijaber in the hospital being treated for injuries after settlers attacked him on his way home.

Maher, Omar and Hafed all required medical treatment at the local clinic in Aqraba for the injuries they sustained during the beating, and Maher was hospitalized overnight in Nablus. All three men suffered injuries to their arms, head, back and legs, consistent with a sustained beating with sticks. When asked what he thought about the latest attack, Maher said, ‘if no-one had come to help, they would have killed me.’

The family contacted the Israeli army via the Palestinian Police and District Coordination Office to report the attack, however the army instead visited Yanoun village, which is also near Itamar settlement. Despite being informed that they had gone to the wrong village, they never attended the scene of the attack in Aqraba or spoke to Maher.

The attack on the Benijaber family is just the latest of many on the village of Aqraba. Four days previously, an elderly shepherd was attacked and forced to flee from his fields back to the village. The attacking settlers then stole some of his sheep. Such attacks on Palestinian villages are commonplace throughout the West Bank, and there is effectively impunity for settlers who carry them out. According to the Human Rights Watch 2012 report, “The Israeli government generally took no action against Israeli settlers who destroyed or damaged mosques, homes, olive trees, cars, and other Palestinian property, or physically assaulted Palestinians.” Illegal settlements such as Itamar continue to be encouraged to expand with the support of Israeli government and occupation forces.

Maher’s room at Rafidia Hospital happens to be across the corridor from Akram Taysir Daoud, who suffered a similar attack in the village of Qusra on 15^th September and remains in hospital. Report at: www.palsolidarity.org/2012/09/qusra-man-left-for-dead-after-settler-attack/

Ben and Ellie are volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).

Yanoun: Settlers and soldiers attack village, injuring five

By Marshall Pinkerton

8th July 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Saturday 7 July, 2012, the village of Yanoun, located 12km southeast of Nablus, was attacked by illegal settlers from the illegal Itamar settlement. Five Palestinians were injured in the attack and large sections of agricultural land were set ablaze.

The attack began at roughly 2pm. The illegal settlers descended on the village and began setting fire to sections of land and firing on sheep while they were grazing. In the course of the attack on Yanoun, 5 resident of Aqraba, (the neighbouring village) were injured to varying degrees. Two men, Ibrahim Hamid Ibrahim, and Adwan Rajih bini Naber were beaten by settlers, and another, Joudat Hamid Ibrahim was stabbed in the shoulder after being beaten as well. When the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arrived, they joined in the attacks, injuring two more. Hakimun Ahmed Yusuf Bini Jaber, 42, was shot in the arm with live ammunition by an IOF soldier and Ashraf Adel Hamid Ibrahim, 29, was shot in the back with a tear gas canister when the soldiers attempted to scatter villagers who were to aid the injured.

The villagers who were aiding the injured attempted to carry the injured men to ambulances, but IOF soldiers blocked the roads and refused to let them through. The IOF and illegal settlers also stopped residents from putting out the fires. The first ambulance to leave was reportedly stopped at Huwwara checkpoint en route to a hospital in Nablus. Two of the injured men were taken from the ambulance and held in Israeli custody for an undetermined period of time. The second and third ambulance were not allowed to depart with those wounded for two hours.

After the attacks had stopped, IOF soldiers still held Adwan Rajih Bini Jaber captive, refusing to allow the ambulance carrying him to depart. Illegal settlers stood by heavily armed, protecting the fires that they had set to Palestinian land.

IOF soldiers blocking the main road out of Yanoun.

Nearing 6pm, illegal settlers and IOF soldiers once again advanced on the Palestinians, as internationals gathered to show solidarity, which ending in the firing of tear gas canisters and live ammunition into the air.

Yanoun and its residents have been subject to terrorism by illegal settlers from Itamar for many years. On October 19, 2002, there was a temporary mass exodus due to the harassment, drawing parallels with the refugees created in 1948. The villagers returned little by little in the weeks following, with the help of peace activists from Ta’ayush & other groups but the village still suffers from violent attacks regardless.

Marshall Pinkerton is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Fadi Abu Zeitoun, killed as settlers attacked farmers

by Rana H.

9 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Israeli settlers attacked and chased a group of Palestinian farmers last Thursday, causing a tractor to flip over during the chase, causing the death of the Palestinian driver.

On Thursday, April 5^th, armed settlers from the illegal Israeli colony of Itamar attacked a group of Palestinians en-masse. In haste and in fear for his life, twenty-eight year old Fadi Abu Zeitoun’s tractor tipped and crushed him as he fled from the pursuing settlers.

The villagers who own olive groves near Itamar rarely get “permission” from the Israeli District Coordination Office to access their own land. During the harvest season, they are permitted a few days, but in the spring when the land needs to be tended they have more difficulty acquiring permission. During this spring harvest, the villages of Hawarta, Yanoun, Aqraba, and Beita were told they had only four hours to access their land. The area to be tended is approximately 1000 dunums so the villagers collected forty tractors to work as much land as possible in the shortest possible time. Israeli activists from the movement Peace Now, and a group of international activists were present in solidarity. Prime Minister Salam Fayad joined them to make a statement re-affirming their right to utilize the stolen land that they were standing upon.

During the Prime-minister’s visit, Israeli authorities were positioned nearby and prevented the settlers from passing. However, shortly after Fayad left the area, Israeli soldiers permitted a mob of settlers to converge upon the Palestinian farmers tending to their land. They began by throwing stones, causing the group to separate and begin descending the hill. The settlers then proceeded to fire M-16 assault rifles in the direction of the unarmed farmers before releasing dogs. In the ensuing chaos, and as Fadi desperately attempted to escape, his tractor flipped over and fell on him, mortally wounding the young man.

Palestinians witnessing the incident ran back towards the scene to offer assistance. The settlers promptly dispersed as they rushed him down the hill to the road, unfortunately he was already dead.

Fadi is of the village of Beita . With a population of only 12,000, this death resonates among all the residents. As Fadi’s father-in-law, Isam Bani Shams says, “This is not our first martyr nor our last, we have been in this situation for sixty-four years. Our village has lost some seventy martyrs.”

On the same date, twenty-four years ago, two men from the village of Beita were also murdered by settlers from Itamar.

In the gathering following the funeral, Fadi’s father, Sleman Abu Zeitoun, sat with his head down. Beside him sat three other men who have had a son murdered by Israeli soldiers or settlers.

Fadi was newly married to nineteen year-old Fida’ Bani Shams who is left widowed and six months pregnant. Her brother was killed at the age of sixteen by Israeli soldiers during the second intifada, and as her father says, “She has lost a brother and a husband so what can I say of her emotions? She is in grief. She is exhausted.” Fida’ sat slouched in a corner of the room, her eyes closed and blankets covering her feet.

Fadi’s sister has had a nervous breakdown since the death of her brother. She does not recognize her husband or her daughters. Their mother, Mona Fihmeh says, “in terms of how I feel, I have patience, but my back has been broken from the burden.” Mona spent last night praying over her feverish body, and today she sent her daughter to the hospital. Her husband was on the way back from a funeral in Jordan when the accident occurred. He returned to Beita to find that his son had been killed.

Throughout the funeral, political talk arose about the various results of Israeli occupation and apartheid on Palestine. At first, the unemployment rate among Palestinians does not seem relevant to the death of Fadi Abu Zeitoun, but one soon realizes that Israel’s apartheid policies are to blame for both the impunity with which settlers are treated, and the numerous other negative consequences on livelihood.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory reported that over 90% of complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians to the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment. OCHA’s report on settler violence notes that “the root cause of the settler violence phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory. This activity has resulted in the progressive takeover of Palestinian land, resources and transportation routes and has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favouring Israeli citizens at the expense of the over 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Recent official efforts to retroactively legalize settler takeover of privately-owned Palestinian land actively promotes a culture of impunity that contributes to continued violence.”

Declared one of the men at the funeral, “every time Israel builds a colony, we will build another Palestinian town; every time they erect a building, we will build a new building.”

“Our steadfastness protects our land,” another proclaims.

Rana H. is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

Israeli flags hanged in Yanoun are a reminder of Itamar settler violence

by Ramon Garcia

7 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The illegal settlement of Itamar, constructed illegally on the land of Aqraba, Awarta, and Beit Furik, has taken a provocative step of incitement in the village of Yanoun, from which Zionists have also stolen land. On 7 March 2o12 illegal settlers entered the village of Yanoun and rose the flag of Israel over the home of village elder Abu Muhmad al Ajoori, who resides in the lower part of the village. Another flag was suspended over a water reservoir in the upper part of the village. The settlers were then seen by locals, wandering off into the hills.

Yousef Deria, a local activist against the wall and settlements, said locals contacted him following the incident, avoiding any conflict with the settlers who tend to have violent tendencies against Palestinians through their declared “Price Tag Campaign” which violently targets Palestinian villagers.

Deria was accompanied by peace activists and locals as they removed these flags.

Residents of Yanoun have suffered many years of terrifying violence at the hands of Itamar settlers – the murder of villagers, slaughter of their livestock, desecration of crops, property destruction and daily invasions and intimidation by armed settlers. The increasing brutality climaxed in 2002, as settlers rampaged the village, cutting down over 1000 olive trees, killing dozens of sheep, beating Palestinians in their homes with rifle butts, and gouging out one man’s eye. Unable to stand the fear – and indeed reality – of terrorism any longer, the entire village evacuated at the time, mostly families fleeing to the nearby village of Aqraba.

An international and Israeli activist campaign was launched immediately to allow the residents of Yanoun to return to their lands. A permanent international presence was established in the village by EAPPI which has assisted in encouraging people of Yanoun to return home, and has remained instrumental in what little peace of mind the people of Yanoun have salvaged since they were uprooted from their land. One by one, they boldly returned.

Over the 2002-06 period the entirety of the village’s families eventually came back to their homes and attempted to start their life in the shadow of Itamar’s ever-increasing outposts that dot the hills surrounding the village. Approximately 100 people remain in the village – 40 in “lower Yanoun” in the valley, and 60 in “upper Yanoun”, whose houses ascend the hill to where just a few hundred meters away lie dozens of settlement houses and agricultural complexes.

Although the entire village is located in Area C – under full Israeli civilian and military control – and stands at risk of being slated for demolition, residents believe that the settlement’s – and Israeli government’s – strategy is what may already be underway – a gradual exodus of families and individuals as they are confined to an ever-shrinking amount of land, engulfed by the expanding settlement and its violent inhabitants.

There are some who remain though, who are determined to stay – many families steadfastly refusing to relinquish the connection to the land that is rightfully theirs. The very existence of Yanoun today bespeaks its fighting spirit, one that will hopefully continue despite the collective punishment waged on the village.

Settler harassment and land theft continues in Yanoun

27 November 2009

Israeli settlers have annexed a further 40 dunums of what remains of the endangered Palestinian village of Yanoun, east of Nablus. Settlers from the illegal settlement Itamar were witnessed ploughing the land in question yesterday, effectively laying claim to it and furthering their annexation of Yanoun’s land, already entirely encircled by outposts of Itamar.

Two settlers were sighted driving their plough on to land that had previously remained accessible to Yanoun farmers yesterday morning. Noticing the audience they had gained, one settler approached Rashid, mayor of Yanoun, and villagers and the activists assembled to inform them that he had legal claim to the land as it had not been worked by farmers from the village in over five years (despite the 40 dunums in question having been used by Yanoun farmers as recently as 2 years ago). Land that stands unused for this time period becomes property of the state by Israeli law, the means by which settlers have managed to claim much of Yanoun’s land, under the continued campaign of intimidation and harassment wrecked on farmers that stray too close to the settlement and its outposts. An argument ensued between the settler and villagers over who had rights to the land, which was effectively ended as a second settler arrived on the scene brandishing an M-16 rifle.

Activists were told of how just the day before, the same settler had led a tour group of 60 Israeli settlers through the village itself, frightening the villagers and forcing them to withdraw to a state of effective curfew inside their houses, an all-too-common event in Yanoun. Settlers proceeded to strip naked and bathe in two of Yanoun’s wells (few of which have not been taken by the settlement), contaminating their drinking water.

Residents of Yanoun have suffered many years of terrifying violence at the hands of Itamar settlements – the murder of villagers, slaughter of their livestock, desecration of crops, property destruction and daily invasions and intimidation by armed settlers. The increasing brutality climaxed in 2002, as settlers rampaged the village, cutting down over 1000 olive trees, killing dozens of sheep, beating Palestinians in their home with rifle butts and gouging out one man’s eye. The settlers left promising to return the following Saturday, with the threat to spare no witnesses next time. Unable to stand the fear – and indeed reality – of terrorism any longer, the entire village evacuated, most families fleeing to the nearby village of Aqraba.

An international and Israeli activist campaign was launched immediately to allow the residents of Yanoun to return to their lands. A permanent international presence was established in the village by EAPPI which has assisted in encouraging people of Yanoun to return home, and has remained instrumental in what little peace of mind Yanounis have salvaged since they were uprooted from their land and one by one, have boldly returned to.

Over the 2002-06 period the entirety of the village’s families eventually came back to their homes and attempted to start their life over in the shadow of Itamar’s ever-increasing outposts, that dot the hills surrounding the village. This number has once again begun to dwindle however, as the younger generations of Yanounis mature and seek a life of career, education, urbanisation – a life outside of daily harassment and torment at the hands of those who have stolen their land, and what, in a more peaceful Palestine, could be a means of livelihood for them. Approximately 100 people remain in the village – 40 in “lower Yanoun” in the valley, and 60 in “upper Yanoun”, whose houses ascend the hill to where just a few hundred meters away lie dozens of settlement houses and agricultural complexes.