Tag: Yousef Abu Maria

Army raids the house of a Popular Committee member in Beit Ummar

23 December 2010 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Soldiers from the Karmei Tzur settlement/military base invaded a civilian house this afternoon in Beit Ummar using live ammunition and sound bombs. During the raid, woman and children were injured as the soldiers harassed one of the Popular Committee leaders of the village.

Wife of Ibrahim Abu Maria

At 3 pm, soldiers came from the Karmei Tzur settlement to the house of Ibrahim Abu Maria in Beit Ummar. Soldiers attacked his wife by hitting her on head and also attacked some of his children in a similar manner. The soldiers rampaged the house, breaking items left and right. The only clear motivate of this attack was to intimate Abu Maria, who is active member of the village’s popular committee which is responsible for weekly non-violent demonstrations against the occupation. Abu Maria’s house is also subject to constant harassment by the army because it sits so close to the Karmei Tzur settlement.

As the attack on the house intensified this afternoon, members of the villages popular committee attempted to help the family. The army responded by firing ten rounds of live ammunition at the villagers and throwing sound bombs directly at woman and children. The woman and children involved in the attack are now receiving treatment for shock and their wounds in a local hospital. To add insult to injury, the army set up a floating checkpoint at the entrance to the village. This resulted in a delay in reaching the hospital.

Beit Ummar and the adjacent Saffa valley have recently witnessed a tide in repression by the Israeli army. On November 18th, thirteen Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists were arrested when accompanying farmers to their land in the Saffa valley, near the illegal settlement of Bat Ayn. In the past month, soldiers have raided the village at nights and made arrests up to three times a week. Thirty five people were arrested in October, and several have been arrested this month.

Karmei Tsur, an illegal settlement according to international law, is one of five built on land belonging to Beit Ummar villagers. The demonstration is held every Saturday and organized by the National Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, and the Palestine Solidarity Project.

French human rights activist arrested at West Bank protest

26 September 2010 | ISM Media

Beit Ummar, West Bank

French activist Bruno de Ginestet-Puivert, 21, was arrested by Israeli authorities on Saturday 25 September demonstrating alongside Palestinians in the West Bank town of Beit Ummar, near Hebron. He is believed to be charged with assaulting an officer, though witnesses say this allegation is completely baseless.

The regular weekly demonstration protests against the Israeli occupation, and against the theft of Beit Ummar’s land by the illegal Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzur in particular. This Saturday the march also demonstrated against Rami Levy, an Israeli supermarket chain selling settlement produce, and commemorated the twenty-eighth anniversary of the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. Activists showed solidarity with the people of Silwan, the East Jerusalem neighbourhood where a man was shot dead by a settler security guard on Wednesday, and with Palestinian political prisoners – in particular 17-year-old Beit Ummar resident Yousef Abu Maria who has a serious medical condition.

The demonstration was attended by around 60 Palestinians accompanied by 15 international and Israeli activists. Setting off at 1 p.m., the march proceeded through the Palestinians’ land in the direction of the illegal settlement, where their path was blocked by Israeli soldiers who put a rope across the path and threatened to arrest anyone who crossed it. Some youths were not deterred and crossed the rope, at which point the soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades at all of the protesters. Several tear gas canisters were fired directly at the demonstrators, in defiance of the Israeli army’s own regulations.

The protesters burned cardboard boxes representing settlement produce in the path leading towards Karmei Tzur. The soldiers attempted to arrest one Palestinian campaigner but international activists managed successfully to shield him. He was beaten badly enough to lose consciousness. It was at this point that de Ginestet-Puivert was arrested. An Associated Press photographer was also detained but released before the demonstration ended.

De Ginestet-Puivert is currently in the custody of the Israeli authorities and is expected to be tried in a Jerusalem magistrates’ court on Sunday. Earlier in the summer a Swedish man and a British man were similarly accused by Israeli authorities of hitting soldiers at demonstrations; in both cases eyewitness reports contradicted the Israeli army’s allegations.