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Gaza, Day 12: The shooting of Amal, Souad, Samar and Hajja

Part 12 of a series recounting the findings of South African jurist Richard Goldstone’s UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

Bethlehem – Ma’an – In the late morning of 7 January 2009, one year ago today, Israeli tanks moved onto a small piece of agricultural land in front of the of the house of Khalid Abd Rabbo and his wife Kawthar, on the ground floor of a four-story building in the eastern part of Izbat Abd Rabbo, a neighborhood east of Jabaliya inhabited primarily by members of their extended family.

Speaking to Richard Goldstone’s UN inquiry, Khalid recounted: “On January 7 at 12:50pm the Israeli army bulldozed our garden and the Israeli tanks were positioned in front of our house. They started yelling at us through the speakers and asked us to leave the house.”

Moments earlier, at 12:30pm, megaphone messages telling all residents to leave were heard across the neighborhood. According to one witness’s recollection, a radio message was also broadcast by Israeli forces around 12:30pm announcing that there would be a temporary cessation of shooting between 1 and 4pm that day, during which time residents of the area were asked to walk to central Jabaliya.

“Of course this happened when Israel had declared [a] ceasefire for four hours, January 7 from 1:00-4:00pm, and that was a truce back then and that’s when wounded civilians could be rescued, and in spite of all of that, in spite of all of this declaration, the Israeli army was there right in front of our house not attempting to move,” Khalid said.

Responding to the messages, Khalid, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, nine-year-old Souad, five-year-old Samar, and three-year-old Amal, and his mother Hajja Souad stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 meters from the door was a tank, turned toward their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack. It was 12:50pm.

“So we stood by our entrance and holding flags, white flags. The tanks were seven meters away from our house.”

The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers, but none was given. “[W]e were by the entrance holding white flags and waiting for them to tell us what we should do, whether to go back inside the house or move to somewhere else. They did not say anything to us. There were two soldiers sitting on top of the tank. One of them was eating chips. The other one was eating chocolate. We were looking at them like what are we supposed to do, where should we go, but no reaction from them whatsoever.”

Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

“They starting shooting at the children with no reason, no reason, with no explanation, no pretext,” Khalid said. “My daughter, three years old, [her] stomach was, hit and her intestines were coming out. So really I was amazed at how could a soldier be firing at my daughter? So I carried my daughter, three years old. She could hardly breathe. Like I said, her stomach was wounded.

“My other daughter was also wounded in her chest. So I took both of them, Samar and Amal, inside the house. My wife and my mother and my other daughter Suad were still outside. All of a sudden my wife joined me carrying Suad. She was wounded also. Her chest was wounded by many bullets. My mother, 60 years old, she was carrying the white flag and she was wounded on her forearm and also in her stomach.”

Khalid and Kawthar carried their three daughters and mother back inside the house. There, they and the family members who had stayed inside tried to call for help by mobile phone. They also shouted for help and a neighbor, Sameeh Al-Sheikh, an ambulance driver who had his ambulance parked next to his house.

Sameeh put on his ambulance uniform and asked his son to put on a fluorescent jacket. They got in the ambulance, had driven a few meters from their house, when Israeli soldiers ordered them to halt and get out of the vehicle. Sameeh protested, saying he had heard cries for help from the family and intended to bring the wounded to hospital. The soldiers ordered him and his son to undress and then redress. They then ordered them to abandon the ambulance and to walk toward Jabaliya.

“So we were all inside the house and we started calling the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], the ambulances, anybody to come and rescue us but nobody came and all of a sudden we heard an ambulance but all of a sudden nothing, silence. But later, we saw that the Israeli soldiers asked the ambulance drivers to come out of the car, to undress, and they bulldozed the ambulance with the tank.”

Not like before , when civilians were safe

Khalid’s family decided to stay inside the house, all gathered on the ground floor, as they had done safely during previous Israeli incursions into the neighborhood.

According to Khalid: “Our house, or our area rather, was subjected to many incursions and each and every time the army would invade the area, would come into our houses, but no harm was done to civilians or to children. Last time, that is before the last war on Gaza, that was on January 3, 2008, the Israeli army came in our house and stayed three days and destroyed many things inside the house but left without harming the civilians or the children. Now during the last war that is on January 7, 2009, actually the ground war had already started and we heard that Israel had declared war on Hamas.

“We are civilians. We have nothing to do with Hamas and we were used to have the Israeli army come into our area,” Khalid recalled in his testimony to Richard Goldstone’s UN inquiry. “So I thought this time we could stay in our houses. We had nothing to do with Hamas. We did not pose any danger to Hamas. The war, the ground war, started on Gaza and as of the first half hour approximately on January 4, the Israeli army controlled the whole area. There was no resistance in the area. It’s an area nearby the Israeli border. Of course we were inside the houses. We were surprised because the war went on for four days while we were still inside our houses.”

On 7 January 2009, however, when Amal and Souad died of their wounds, the family decided that they had to make an attempt to walk to Jabaliya. They would take Samar, the dead bodies of Amal and Souad, and their grandmother to hospital.

“My mother, 60 years old, was also dying. I was helpless. I didn’t know what to do for my children. There was my daughter dying in front of me. So I carried her and left the house even if I had to die myself because I couldn’t take it anymore. So I carried my daughter and left the house again so that the soldier, he might as just well kill my daughter and kill myself because I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t let my children die in front of me.”

Khalid explained: “From 12:50 until 2:50 we were stuck inside the house. Once again, like I said, I went out to the soldier. They were there, three of them, and there was a Merkava tank positioned in front of the house. I was carrying Samar, even if I had to die, and I was surprised because the third soldier looked at me and two minutes later he went inside the tank and then he came out and he moved his hand just, you know, telling me you can go ahead. So I immediately went back home inside the house and told them we’re going to die anyway. So we don’t want to die inside the house. Let’s die outside the house. Let’s move.

“Although inside the house there [were] more than 25 children, my brothers, my sisters, my dad, my mom. So we had to bring children’s mattress to put my mom on top of the mattress because she was very tired. I carried my daughter Suad, three years old. She was dead… While we were moving, every ten meters they were shooting, once above our heads and the other time by our feet. ”

Khaled and Kawthar, as well as other family members and neighbors, carried the girls on their shoulders. Hajja Souad was carried by family and neighbors on a bed. Samar was transferred to Ash-Shifa Hospital and then, through Egypt, to Belgium, where she was still is in hospital at the time of writing.

“So we were trying to move and every now and then we would fall down. We walked for almost a kilometer and a half until we reached the edge of Jabaliya downtown. Of course, we reached the Kamal Idwan Hospital and they confirmed that the three of them were martyred…surprisingly enough they told me that Samar, no, she had survived and she was moved to Ash-Shiffa Hospital. I took the bodies of my two daughters in order to bury them. We didn’t have any time. This was an outrageous war and the Israeli army was moving around. So we had to bury them, Amal and Suad, and wait until they would bring Samar because we thought and we knew that Samar was going to die. ”

According to her parents, Samar suffered a spinal injury and will remain paraplegic for the rest of her life. “Samar, of course, and with God’s will, Samar survived, survived so that she would be the witness before the world for the atrocities,” Khalid said. “Samar survived, paralyzed. She can move only her arms. She can speak but the rest is paralyzed. She can speak for herself and she can tell her tragedy.”

According to Khalid, “I haven’t seen [Samar] since the events. My tragedy is still going on. It’s not over. So what crime did I commit? I have always been a peace-loving person. I’m for peace. I’ve always supported peace and despite [all that] happened to me I’m asking the world please, please help us live in peace. The Israeli army knows that, that I’ve never been a terrorist.

“… why did it happen to me, why did they come to my house, kill my children without having committed any crime. What did I do?

“There was no war. It was cold-blooded murder of children. That was not just accidental. No, the soldier even chuckled, like I said. I know that Israel has a very sophisticated technology and that every operation it carries out is actually filmed and I’m asking Israel please broadcast the film of the killing of my children. Did you see my children carrying any rockets?”

No home to return to

When Khalid returned to his home on 18 January 2009, his house, as most houses in that part of Izbat Abd Rabbo, had been demolished. He drew the UN fact-finding mission’s attention to an anti-tank mine under the rubble of a neighbor’s house.

He added: “I call upon the international community and ask the international community why my children were cold-bloodedly killed? Why were they fired on? My mother, 60, she was hit in her chest; my daughter Suad, eight years, in her chest; Samar, four years, in the chest; Amal, three years, in the chest, and this is despite the fact that they are all different sizes, all the targeting was at the chest.

“This was execution. This was utter execution and I’m asking the world what crime did my children commit? What danger did they pose for the Israeli army? I myself was there. Why didn’t they fire at me? Why didn’t they kill me and not let me see my children die in front of my eyes. My children, until now, I cannot get myself to realize there I was looking at them while they were dying.”

Factual findings

Goldstone’s team found Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo to be credible and reliable witnesses. “It has no reason to doubt the veracity of the main elements of their testimony.” The mission also reviewed several sworn statements they and other eyewitnesses gave to NGOs about the incident and found them to be consistent with the account it received, according to the report.

Goldstone’s report notes that, in general, Izbat Abd Rabbo and the nearby areas of Jabal Al-Kashef and Jabal Al-Rayes saw some of the most intense combat during the military operations.

No perceived danger

The testimony of Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo, however, shows that Israeli forces were not engaged in combat or fearing an attack at the time of the incident, the report states. Two soldiers were sitting on the tank in front of the family house and having a snack. “They clearly did not perceive any danger from the house, its occupants or the surroundings.

“Moreover, when the family, consisting of a man, a young and an elderly woman, and three small girls, some of them waving white flags, stepped out of the house, they stood still for several minutes waiting for instructions from the soldiers.”

“The Israeli soldiers could, therefore, not reasonably have perceived any threat from the group. Indeed, the fact that the gunfire was directed at the three girls and, subsequently, at the elderly woman, and not at the young adult couple, can be seen as further corroborating the finding that there was no reasonable ground for the soldier shooting to assume that any of the members of the group were directly participating in the hostilities,” Goldstone’s report states, finding “that the soldier deliberately directed lethal fire at Souad, Samar and Amal Abd Rabbo and at their grandmother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo.”

Goldstone’s report further states, that by preventing Sameeh Al-Sheikh from taking the wounded to the nearest hospital in his ambulance, Israeli forces deliberately aggravated the consequences of the shooting.

“The Mission recalls that the soldiers had forced Sameeh Al-Sheikh and his son to get out of the ambulance, undress and then redress. They therefore knew that they did not constitute a threat. Instead of allowing them to take the gravely wounded Samar Abd Rabbo to hospital, the soldiers forced Sameeh al-Sheikh and his son to abandon the ambulance and to walk towards Jabaliya.

Instructions given to Israeli forces: Low threshold for lethal force

The team found in the above incidents that “Israeli forces repeatedly opened fire on civilians who were not taking part in the hostilities and who posed no threat to them.” From that finding, the report extrapolated that the “incidents indicate that the instructions given to the Israeli armed forces moving into Gaza provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire against the civilian population.”

Goldstone found strong corroboration of this trend in the testimonies of Israeli soldiers collected by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, and in the Protocol of the Rabin Academy’s “Fighters’ Talk.” These testimonies suggest in particular that the instructions given to the soldiers conveyed two “policies.” Both are an expression of the aim to eliminate as far as possible any risk to the lives of Israeli soldiers.

The first policy could be summarized, in the words of one of the soldiers: “if we see something suspect and shoot, better hit an innocent than hesitate to target an enemy.”

Another soldier attributed the following instructions to his battalion commander: “If you are not sure – shoot. If there is doubt then there is no doubt.” The first soldier summarized the briefing from the battalion commander as follows “the enemy was hiding behind civilian population. […] if we suspect someone, we should not give him the benefit of the doubt. Eventually, this could be an enemy, even if it’s some old woman approaching the house. It could be an old woman carrying an explosive charge.”

A third soldier explained “you don’t only shoot when threatened. The assumption is that you constantly feel threatened, so anything there threatens you, and you shoot. No one actually said ‘shoot regardless’ or ‘shoot anything that moves.’ But we were not ordered
to open fire only if there was a real threat.”

The report notes that some soldiers stated that they agreed with the instructions to “shoot in case of doubt.” One of them explained his profound discomfort with the policy and of how he and his comrades had attempted to question their commander after a clearly harmless man was shot. While they disagreed about the legitimacy and morality of the policy, they had little doubt about the terms of the instructions: each soldier and commander on the ground had to exercise judgment, but the policy was to shoot in case of doubt.

The second policy clearly emerging from the soldiers’ testimonies is explained by one of the soldiers as follows: “One of the things in this procedure [the outpost procedure, which is being applied in areas held by the Israeli armed forces after the Gaza ground invasion] is setting red lines. It means that whoever crosses this limit is shot, no questions asked. […] Shoot to kill.”

A soldier recounted one incident of the red-line policy: A family is ordered to leave their house. For reasons that remain unclear, probably a misunderstanding, the mother and two children turn left instead of right after having walked between 100 and 200 meters from their house. They thereby cross a “red line” established by the Israeli unit (of whose existence the mother and children could have no knowledge). An Israeli marksman on the roof of the house they had just left opened fire on the woman and her two children, killing them. As the soldier speaking at the Rabin Academy’s “Fighters’ Talk” a month later observes, “from our perspective, he [the marksman] did his job according to the orders he was given.”

Investigators also read testimony from soldiers who recounted cases in which, although a civilian had come within a distance from them which would have required opening fire under the rules imparted to them, they decided not to shoot because they did not consider the civilian a threat to them.

Legal findings: Direct assaults on civilians

According to Goldstone, the fundamental principles applicable to these incidents – cornerstones of both treaty-based and customary international humanitarian law – are that “the parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants”452 and that “the civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack.”

Israel refers to the principle of distinction as “the first core principle of the Law of Armed Conflict.” It further states that “the IDF’s [Israeli army’s] emphasis on compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict was also directly incorporated into the rules of engagement for the Gaza Operation.” The principle of distinction was reportedly incorporated in the following terms: “Strikes shall be directed against military objectives and combatants only. It is absolutely prohibited to intentionally strike civilians or civilian objects (in contrast to incidental proportional harm).”

In reviewing the above incidents the mission found in every case that the Israeli armed forces carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians. In none of the cases reviewed were there any grounds which could have reasonably induced the Israeli armed forces to assume that the civilians attacked were in fact taking a direct part in the hostilities.

The team therefore finds that Israeli forces violated the prohibition under customary international law and reflected in article 51 (2) of Additional Protocol, that the civilian population as such will not be the object of attacks. This finding applies to the attacks on Amal, Souad, Samar, and Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo.

Not only are civilians not to be the object of attacks, they are also “entitled in all circumstances, to respect for their persons … protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof” (Fourth Geneva Convention, art. 27). Fundamental guarantees set out in article 75 of Additional Protocol I include the absolute prohibition “at any time and in any place” of “violence to the life, health, or physical or mental well-being of persons”. According to the facts presented to the mission, these provisions have been violated.

“The State of Israel would be responsible under international law for these internationally wrongful actions carried out by its agents,” the report states. “From the facts ascertained, the Mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces in these cases would constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of willful killings and willfully causing great suffering to protected persons456 and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility.

“The Mission also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation by the Israeli armed forces of the right to life as provided in article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“In most of the cases examined above, the Mission finds that the Israeli armed forces denied the medical emergency services access to the wounded civilians. …

“The Mission recalls that article 10 (2) of Additional Protocol I provides that ‘In all circumstances [the wounded] shall be treated humanely and shall receive, to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required by their condition. …’ This provision enjoys customary international law status. The Mission is mindful that ‘the obligation to protect and care for the wounded … is an obligation of means.’

“It applies whenever circumstances permit. However, “each party to the conflict must use its best efforts to provide protection and care for the wounded, the report states, including permitting humanitarian organizations to provide for their protection and care.

“The facts ascertained by the Mission establish that in the incidents investigated the Israeli armed forces did not use their best efforts to provide humanitarian organizations access to the wounded. On the contrary, the facts indicate that, while the circumstances permitted giving access, the Israeli armed forces arbitrarily withheld it,” according to Goldstone’s final report.

“On this basis, the Mission finds a violation of the obligation under customary international law to treat the wounded humanely,” the report states. The conduct of the Israeli armed forces amounted to violations of the right to life where it resulted in death, and to a violation of the right to physical integrity, and to cruel and inhuman treatment in other cases, which constitutes a violation of articles 6 and 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

January 7, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Israel to raze 28 buildings in Nablus area

Nablus – Ma’an – Twenty-eight homes and agricultural buildings were issued demolition orders by Israeli military personnel on Wednesday, all located on the outskirts of Aqraba village southeast of Nablus, a Palestinian official said.

Ghassan Doughlas, who holds the Palestinian Authority’s settlement portfolio for the northern West Bank, said Israeli forces gave the farmers only 48 hours to evacuate their houses, clear out their farms and sheds before the orders were implemented.

Dozens of Palestinian farmers and their families live in the area, about five kilometers from the Gittit settlement and three kilometers from the Mekhora settlement, raising sheep and cattle as well as planting crops. The crops help sustain the local community, Doughlas said.

“Israeli forces issued this decision to protect the settlers only without taking into consideration the families who will be rendered homeless,” Doughlas added.

Among the families who received orders to evacuate their buildings were Zaid Mahmud Qassem Beni Manna, Hani Jameel Abdullah Beni Jaber, and Feras Khalil Beni Jaber.

January 7, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israel leveled More than 23,000 Homes Since 1967

By SAED BANNOURA – IMEMC – January 6, 2010

The Palestinian Ministry of Information issued a report stating that Israel leveled more than 23.000 homes in the occupied territories since its occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 six-day war.

The Israeli Authorities leveled more than 700 homes and buildings owned by the Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Demolishing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem witnessed a significant increase in 2009 as Israel leveled 103 Palestinian homes, while 89 homes were leveled in 2008.

23 out of the 103 homes leveled in Jerusalem in 2009 were demolished by their Palestinian owners who were forced to level them in order to avoid the high fines and expenses imposed by Israel should the Jerusalem municipality demolish the homes.

600 residents, half of them children, were rendered homeless in 2009 due to the illegal Israeli policies in Jerusalem.

Israel also issued orders against 1500 Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem in 2009.

The so-called Absentee Property Department occupied 200 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and handed most of them to settler organizations.

January 7, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Israel orders Hamas legislator held for six more months

06/01/2010

Salfit- Ma’an – Israel has extended the detention of Abdul Jaber Fuqaha, a Hamas-affiliated member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from Ramallah first arrested in 2006.

Hamas PLC members issued a statement condemning the order to hold Fuqaha in administrative detention for another six months.

The order was the third such order, according to Hamas.

The lawmakers said Fuqaha was not charged with any crime. Fourteen Hamas legislators are still in Israeli prisons, including seven in administrative detention.

Israel seized dozens of Hamas officials in June 2006 following the capture of Isreali soldier Gilad Shalit.

In March Israel detained ten more top Hamas officials, including lawmakers, from the West Bank.

Also on Wednesday Hamas said that the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority arrested three members of the Islamist movement in the West Bank.

January 6, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Christian Peacemakers deported from Israel

January 05, 2010 – by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News

Two members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams have been refused entry into Israel, and deported by Israeli authorities.

Sarah Farahat told the IMEMC that she was scheduled to be part of a Christian Peacemaker delegation to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, which was planning to meet with Palestinian civil society groups and Christian leaders in the Holy Land.

But Farahat and another member of the group were detained at the Israeli airport in Tel Aviv and denied entry, after a lengthy interrogation.

According to the American peace activist, she was singled out along with all other passengers of Arab descent who were on the flight. After a twelve-hour interrogation and several full-body searches, she was told that she was considered a ‘security risk’ to the state of Israel, and put in a holding cell to await deportation.

While in the holding cell, Farahat says she met a young woman from Germany whose father was killed while serving in the Israeli military.

The German woman was deported after telling the Israeli border security that she had Palestinian friends in Bethlehem. According to Farahat, the guard asked the young woman, quote, “You are Jewish, how can you be friends with an Arab?”

Sara Farahat, whose father is Egyptian, believes that she was deported because of her Arab roots and her public statements calling for equal rights for the Palestinian people.

January 5, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

“I hope that I die on my land”

Jody McIntyre writing from Bilin, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine, 4 January 2010

Fatima Yassin watches looks on as Israeli occupation soldiers prepare to invade her home in Bilin. (Hamde Abu Rahme)

Fatima Mohammed Yassin, 49, is a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bilin in the occupied West Bank. In spite of Israel’s occupation and construction of its wall in the West Bank, including on Bilin’s farm land, Yassin and her husband continue to work their land on a daily basis. Jody McIntyre spoke to her for The Electronic Intifada.

Jody McIntyre: Do you have land behind the wall?

Fatima Yassin: Yes, before Israel started construction of the wall in Bilin, my family had 45 dunams of land [1 dunam equals approximately 1,000 square meters], all of it filled with olive trees. My husband’s family had 50 dunams, which were a mixture of olive groves and vegetable patches, as well as another 50 dunams of land that was stolen after 1967 [Israel’s occupation of the West Bank began after the June 1967 war].

When the Israeli army was building the wall on our land, they stole land from many people, but only on my husband’s land did they steal his olive trees as well! We still go to our land every day to plant vegetables and look after the soil, because we will not allow the Israeli government or the settlers to claim that our land is unused. If we don’t go to our land, they will say it is unneeded and confiscate it so that they can expand the settlements, which are already built illegally on our land.

JM: Does the Israeli army create problems when you try to go to your land?

FY: Yes, sometimes they don’t allow us to enter, but my husband and I will wait at the gate for one hour or two hours; if they don’t let us through we will stay there from the morning until the evening. We won’t go home until they let us go to our land. The soldiers once told us that it was illegal for us to go to our land and that we should go back home, but I simply replied, “I don’t want to go home, I want to go to look after my land.” Sometimes when our sons come to help us on the land the soldiers beat them or try to arrest them. We’ve had these problems many, many times, but in spite of this, we will not stop resisting this occupation. We are not afraid.

JM: Do the settlers create problems when you are on your land?

FY: Yes, they came and set fire to a small room that the people from Bilin built behind the wall — [they did this] four times. One of the times, I had just gone to make coffee for my husband — they were watching me and when I left went they went in and set the fire. But every time they damaged the room, we went to fix it again.

JM: How did you feel when you first heard Israel wanted to build the wall in Bilin?

FY: Everyone was angry when they heard the news, and sad because we knew it was a ploy to steal our land, so we started to protest against the construction of the wall. The first time we heard that it was being built, all the people from the village went to our land and said that we would fight against its confiscation by the Israeli army. We could see the bulldozers uprooting our trees. For the last five years we have been fighting against the wall, and for justice, and we will always continue.

JM: Do you attend the weekly demonstrations against the wall in Bilin?

FY: Yes, of course! My entire family goes to the demonstrations, me and my husband, our five daughters and our five sons. These demonstrations are our way of nonviolently resisting against the wall, the settlements and the confiscation of our land. We are not going out there to kill people, we are going to return to work on our land — to take back what they have stolen from us.

JM: Have any of your family been injured at the demonstrations?

FY: Of course! All my sons have been injured. The first one to be injured was Helme. He was injured at the very first demonstration we had in Bilin. [The Israeli army] shot him with a tear gas canister in the neck. After a few weeks, he was injured in the leg with the same weapon. A couple of months later he was arrested, becoming the first person to be arrested for our village. But even while in jail they couldn’t crush the rebellious spirit in his heart. [The prisoners] started a protest against the terrible conditions in the prison, and the soldiers shot Helme in the leg with a rubber-coated steel bullet.

My son Hamde was shot next, in the leg also with a rubber-coated steel bullet, and then Mustafa was shot with a tear gas canister. My youngest son, Mohammed, was just 14 years old at the time, and he was injured three times by rubber-coated steel bullets, twice in the legs and once in buttocks.

The last one to be injured was Khamis, my eldest son. He was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister, a new weapon at the time, and was left in a coma. I was very sad when they shot Khamis.

So all my sons have been shot in the demonstrations, but we will not stop until we return to our land.

JM: Has your house even been invaded by the Israeli army?

FY: The first night raid was at our house, when they arrested Helme. Our house is very close to the wall, so if there are any problems at the wall the army immediately comes to our home. Once they came during the day when I out working on my land, broke down the doors to my house, beat my daughters and arrested my 10-year-old nephew. He wasn’t wanted for anything.

The next time they came was to arrest my eldest son Khamis. As always, it was because he dared to nonviolently resist against the confiscation of his family’s land. Sometimes they come and don’t arrest anyone, just to harass us, to wake us up in the middle of the night and to intimidate us.

My son Hamde photographs the night raids, to show the world what is happening here in Bilin. Of course I am proud of what he is doing, but it makes me worry about him and I cannot sleep. I’m afraid that a soldier will shoot him or arrest him. I know that he has been beaten many times while taking photographs. The soldiers are very violent during the night raids, so I worry about him.

Another time, when Hamde was away, they invaded [the village] at night and stayed in our home for three hours. When I saw all my sons lined up outside, and the soldiers trying to beat them and joking together about when they had shot Khamis in the head, laughing about how he had nearly died in the hospital. When I heard them say this I passed out. When I woke up, I was lying in the hospital myself. Because Hamde was abroad, I was scared that they were looking for him and would arrest him at a checkpoint on his way back into the country.

Once they invaded the house in the day, and the army commander came over to me and said, “One day, I am going to come here with a bulldozer and destroy your house.” They came two days later and started searching the house, but they didn’t find anything — because we don’t have anything!

It’s like we can’t sleep during the day or at night now, because of the invasions. All we can do is sit awake.

JM: After all the oppression the people of Bilin have suffered at the hands of the Israeli army, do you think your campaign of nonviolent resistance can continue?

FY: Yes, we will certainly continue. My husband and I will continue to go to our land every day. We will go until the last moment. I hope that I die on my land.

Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom, currently living in the occupied West Bank village of Bilin. Jody has cerebral palsy, and travels in a wheelchair. He writes a blog for Ctrl.Alt.Shift, entitled “Life on Wheels,” which can be found at www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk, where a version of this article was originally published. He can be reached at jody.mcintyre AT gmail DOT com.

Source

January 4, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Are U.S. Forces Executing Afghan Kids?

Americans Don’t Even Know to Ask

By David Lindorf | January 4, 2010

The Taliban suicide attack that killed a group of CIA agents in Afghanistan on a base that was directing US drone aircraft used to attack Taliban leaders was big news in the US over the past week, with the airwaves and front pages filled with sympathetic stories referring to the fact that the female station chief, who was among those killed, was the “mother of three children.”

But the apparent mass murder of Afghan school children, including one as young as 11 years old, by a US-led group of troops, was pretty much blacked out in the American media. Especially blacked out was word from UN investigators that the students had not just been killed but executed, many of them after having first been rousted from their bedroom and handcuffed.

Here is the excellent report on the incident that ran in the Times of London (like Fox News, a Rupert Murdoch-owned publication) on Dec. 31:

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.
Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.
Western military sources said that the dead were all part of an Afghan terrorist cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have claimed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.
“This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time,” said a senior Nato insider. But he admitted that “the facts about what actually went down are in dispute”.

The article goes on to say:

In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster [of the local school] said that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. “Seven students were in one room,” said Rahman Jan Ehsas. “A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

“First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That’s why his wife wasn’t killed.”

A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and five were handcuffed before they were shot. “I saw their school books covered in blood,” he said.

The investigation found that eight of the victims were aged from 11 to 17. The guest was a shepherd boy, 12, called Samar Gul, the headmaster said. He said that six of the students were at high school and two were at primary school. He said that all the students were his nephews.

Compare this article to the one mention of the incident which appeared in the New York Times, one of the few American news outlets to even mention the incident. The Times, on Dec. 28, focusing entirely on the difficulty civilian killings cause for the US war effort, and not on the allegation of a serious war crime having been committed, wrote:

Attack Puts Afghan Leader and NATO at Odds
By Alissa J. Rubin and Abdul Waheed Wafa

KABUL, Afghanistan — The killing of at least nine men in a remote valley of eastern Afghanistan by a joint operation of Afghan and American forces put President Hamid Karzai and senior NATO officials at odds on Monday over whether those killed had been civilians or Taliban insurgents.

In a statement e-mailed to the news media, Mr. Karzai condemned the weekend attack and said the dead had been civilians, eight of them schoolboys. He called for an investigation.

Local officials, including the governor and members of Parliament from Kunar Province, where the deaths occurred, confirmed the reports. But the Kunar police chief, Khalilullah Ziayee, cautioned that his office was still investigating the killings and that outstanding questions remained, including why the eight young men had been in the same house at the time.

“There are still questions to be answered, like why these students were together and what they were doing on that night,” Mr. Ziayee said.

A senior NATO official with knowledge of the operation said that the raid had been carried out by a joint Afghan-American force and that its target was a group of men who were known Taliban members and smugglers of homemade bombs, which the American and NATO forces call improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s.

According to the NATO official, nine men were killed. “These were people who had a well-established network, they were I.E.D. smugglers and also were responsible for direct attacks on Afghan security and coalition forces in those areas,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.

“When the raid took place they were armed and had material for making I.E.D.’s,” the official added.

While the article in the New York Times eventually mentions the allegation that the victims were children, not “men,” it begins with the unchallenged assertion in the lead that they were “men.” There is no mention of the equally serious allegation that the victims had been handcuffed before being executed, and the story leaves the impression, made by NATO sources, that they were armed and had died fighting. There is no indication in the Times story that the reporters made any effort, as the London Times reporter did, to get local, non-official, sources of information. Moreover, the information claiming that the victims had been making bombs was attributed to an anonymous NATO source, though there was no legitimate reason for the anonymity (“because of the delicacy of the situation” was the lame excuse offered)–indeed the use of an anonymous source here would appear to violate the Times’ own standards.

It’s not that in American newsrooms there was no knowledge that a major war crime may have been committed. Nearly all American news organizations receive the AP newswire. Here is the AP report on the killings, which ran under the headline “UN says killed Afghans were students”:

The United Nations says a raid last weekend by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students.

The Afghan government says that all 10 people killed in a village in Kunar province were civilians. NATO says there is no evidence to substantiate the claim and has requested a joint investigation.

UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement Thursday that preliminary investigation shows there were insurgents in the area at the time of the attack. But he adds that eight of those killed were students in local schools.

Once again, the American media are falling down shamefully in providing honest reporting on a war, making it difficult for the American people to make informed judgements about what is being done in their name.

Let’s be clear here. If the charges are correct, that American forces, or American-led forces, are handcuffing their victims and executing them, then they are committing egregious war crimes. If they are killing children, they are committing equally egregious war crimes. If they are handcuffing and executing children, the atrocity is beyond horrific. This indeed, would actually be worse than the infamous war crime that occurred in My Lai during the Vietnam War. In that case, we had ordinary soldiers in the field, acting under the orders of several low-ranking officers in the heat of an operation, shooting and killing women and children. But in this case we appear to have seasoned special forces troops actually directing the taking captives, cuffing them, herding them into a room, and spraying them with bullets, execution style.

Given the history of the commanding general in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who ran a massive death squad operation in Iraq before being named to his current post by President Obama, and who is known to have called for the same kind of operation in Afghanistan, it should not be surprising that the US would now be committing atrocities in Afghanistan. If this is how this war is going to be conducted, though, the US media should be making a major effort to uncover and expose the crime.

On January 1, the London Times’s Starkey, in Afghanistan, followed up with a second story, reporting that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is calling for the US to hand over the troops who killed the students. He also quoted a “NATO source” as saying that the “foreigners involved” in the incident were “non-military, suggesting that they were part of a secret paramilitary unit based in the capital” of Kabul. Starkey also quotes a “Western official” as saying: “There’s no doubt that there were insurgents there, and there may well have been an insurgent leader in the house, but that doesn’t justify executing eight children who were all enrolled in local schools.”

Good enterprise reporting by the London Times and its Kabul-based correspondent. Silence on these developments in the US media.

Meanwhile, it has been a week since the New York Times reporters Rubin and Wafa made their first flawed report on the incident, and there has been not a word since then about it in the paper. Are Rubin and Wafa or other Times reporters on the story? Will there be a follow-up?

On the evidence of past coverage of these US wars and their ongoing atrocities by the Times, and other major US corporate media news organizations don’t bet on it. You’ll do better looking to the foreign media.

By the way, given that we’re talking the allegation of a serious war crime here, it should be noted that it is, under the Geneva Conventions, a legal requirement that the US military chain of command immediately initiate an official investigation to determine whether such a crime has occurred. One would hope that the commander in chief, President Obama, would order such an inquiry.

Any effort to prevent such an inquiry, or to cover up a war crime, would be a war crime in itself.– source

Subhanullah s/o Farooq, student of class 10 in Narang High School.

Atiqullah s/o Farooq, student of class 9 in Narang High School.

Villagers and relatives and parents of the victims are mourning. The woman seen in the photo is mother of three of the victims.

Villagers prepare graves for the civilians killed by US Special Forces in Narang district.

January 4, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Saber, patience

In Gaza | January 3, 2010

“I haven’t been on my land since we harvested the wheat last August. It’s too dangerous. There was an Israeli operation here yesterday…6 tanks and 4 bulldozers. I could see them from my rooftop in the village, but didn’t know if they’d destroyed my land.”

Abdul Nasser Abu Taima has 15 dunams of agricultural land roughly 400 m from the Green Line border dividing Gaza and Israel. Until a few years ago, he had a home on and lived off the land. Israeli bulldozers destroyed his house and razed his land.

“That was our home,” he says, picking up a piece of piping with a chunk of foundation still attached, chucking it onto the pile.

“I get so upset when I come to my land and see how beautiful it is, remember how well we lived off of it…and realize that now my children and I can’t live here.”

Although Abu Taima’s land is technically outside of the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone” – an area of 300m running along the Green Line border from south to north –he and the other farmers in the region are still subject to danger by their mere presence near the “buffer zone”.  Israeli authorities reserve the right to shoot at anyone within 300 metres of the fence, but in practice shoot far beyond 300 m, up to as much as nearly 2 km.

“Whenever we work on our land, we know the Israelis can shoot at us. They say it’s for security, because there is danger. But where’s the danger? What’s the problem? They know who we are, they can see us.”

His regret is amplified by the bitter observation that on the other side of the Green Line, Israeli tractors work the land, crops grow, and water exists in comparative abundance. Lines of un-razed trees provide a stark contrast to the now olive, nut and fruit tree-devoid land on the Palestinian side.

“We will still plant on our land. But we’ve got to wait for the heavy rains. All the water sources –the wells, the cisterns—were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers or shelling. Now we can only wait for rain.”

This year the rain is late in coming. Aside from a scant few days of showers, it has been dry, and the land remains parched and un-worked.

“We usually plant in November, or at least December. January is the latest we can plant our wheat. After that, there’s no point.”

The only thing growing now are the hardy cactus plants –saber, in Arabic. Abu Taima cuts a number of the prickly, bright pink-orange fruits and puts them in a bag. He stoops down and rips our handfuls of tall grass.

We walk, and he turns repeatedly to survey his land. “Mish hada haram? Mish haram?” he asks? Isn’t it shameful, outrageous, that he can’t work his land, that the land lies unused in a Strip that is in want of cheap, fresh wheat, for a family that is in want of a source of income and nutrition?

He stops, dumps the cactus fruits on the ground and, rolling them with the tall grass, begins cleaning them of their prickly needles.

The fruit is refreshing, mildly sweet.

“We used to give tea to the Israeli soldiers. Sure, there were always problems with the occupation… but still, we could live here on the land, farm here, without this kind of danger.”

Walking up the dirt lane, we pass a farmer tending his pea and bean crops. “He’s connected to a line from Khan Younis. That’s why he can farm his land,” Abu Taima explains.

The farmer sees us and greets us with a smile. “Wait a few minutes, I’ll bring you some peas.”

As he harvests, Abu Taima explains, “even here, this is maybe 600 metres from the fence. But even here they are shot at… from Israeli jeeps, from the guard towers, from the remote-controlled towers.”

The farmer returns laden with peas and beans, crisp, sweet, fresh.

“My children help me on the land. You know, the Israelis even shoot when they are with me. The Israelis see the children, but they still shoot.”

He also remembers a better relationship with the occupying soldiers.

“They’d come to my land and I’d give them watermelons, vegetables. Now there’s no interaction. They just shoot at us from far away.”

The nearest remote-controlled tower is open. The machine gun within is capped by a dome which ironically opens to a lotus-shape when the gun is ready to fire.

“I’ve got 18 people in my family. This actually isn’t our land. Our own land is right next to the fence, so we can’t go there any more. Now I rent land, pay $2500 a year to use it. During the Israeli war last year the Israelis destroyed my piping, my hothouses, so I had to replace that too.”

We leave, amble along on Abu Taima’s tractor past destroyed homes, cisterns, and largely-vacant land.

Abu Taima has saber: patience. He will return when the rains come.

January 4, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation authority continues to desecrate Mamanullah cemetery

Palestinian Information Center | January 4, 2010

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is still unearthing and destroying the ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, the Mamanullah (or Mamillah) graveyard, the committee for reconstruction of Muslim cemeteries in Jerusalem said.

It charged the IOA in a statement on Monday with sending its municipality bulldozers to the graveyard in western Jerusalem to cover it with a thick layer of wood shavings.

Mustafa Abu Zuhra, the committee’s chairman, rushed to the scene and halted work of the bulldozers, the statement said, adding that Abu Zuhra contacted the municipality and asked it to remove the wood shavings.

Abu Zuhra charged that the IOA was repeating previous attempts to wipe out the cemetery as it had done with 70% of its western area and turned it into the independence park.

He said that the Mamanullah cemetery’s area was reduced from 180 dunums into 19 dunums only, noting that 18 dunums were sold to the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center to build the Museum of Tolerance.

Abu Zuhra asked the Arab countries to support the cemetery which is in need of maintenance.

January 4, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Dexia Bank Refuses Grant For Jewish Settlements

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – January 01, 2010

The Belgian-French Group, Dexia, refused to finance grants meant for the construction of property in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. The decision came after a Palestinian and a Belgium groups filed a petition against financing settlement constructions.

Moayyad Affana, coordinator of the twin-project of the Intellectuals Forum in the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia, and the Artists Against the Wall in Belgium, said that the two groups sent several letters to Dexia group urging them to reject financing constructions in Jewish settlements.

Affana thanked the Artists Against the Wall for defending the rights of the Palestinian people and for highlighting the suffering of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

He also thanked the Dexia group for its decision as Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are illegal and violate the international law.

Khaled Jaber, head of the Intellectual Forum in Qalqilia, also thanked the Dexia group for its decision and called on European institutions to practice pressure on Israel to stop the construction of settlements in the occupied territories.

It is worth mentioning that the partnership between the Intellectuals Group and the Artists Against the Wall started five years ago.

Several summer camps were held in the West Bank as part of this partnership in addition to conducting several other projects for children, short documentaries, and training programs for in Qalqilia and in Brussels.

Yet, Israeli sources claimed that officials of the Bank in Israel rejected the claims that the decision was made due to pressure from what the Israeli National News described as “pro-Arab groups”.
The campaign against construction in Jewish settlements forced the shareholders to discuss this issue in Brussels last March.

The Israeli National News reported that the Dexia group rejected a demand to stop lending money to the Jerusalem Municipality for the construction of settlements in and around the city.

Shmuel Rifman, head of the illegal Ramat Ha-Negev council, urged all regional councils in Israel to boycott the Dexia group for its decision.t

Member of Knesset, Uri Ariel of the National Union Party, demanded the Israeli Finance Minister to act against the Dexia Bank in Israel for its decision.

He also called for revoking the license of the Bank and the agreement signed between it and Israel to finance “local authorities” such as municipalities and settlement councils.

Even the so-called “local authorities” in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, including in occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal and violate the International Law.

All Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and in occupied West Jerusalem violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitute a war crime.

January 3, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Israeli excavations blamed for latest Silwan collapse

03/01/2010

Jerusalem – Ma’an – The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage reported another street collapse on the main road in the area of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem on Saturday.

“The collapse created a hole, two meters long and one and a half meters deep,” according to a statement from the foundation, which oversees the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

According to the foundation, the collapse was related to ongoing excavations by Israeli authorities in the vicinity, apparently on tunnels extending underneath the neighborhood about 700 meters from the mosque compound. Authorities recently removed quantities of dirt and rocks from under Silwan to undisclosed locations, the statement said.

January 3, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

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