Aletho News

Israeli Occupation Forces destroy nine water tanks in parched Palestinian village

By Sean O’Neill | +927 | July 6, 2011

Late Tuesday morning, July 5, around 11:30am, a convoy of IDF, Civil Administration, and Border Police arrived in the Palestinian village of Amniyr accompanying a flatbed truck with a front end loader and a backhoe.  Israeli settlers having a picnic at the settlement outpost next to the Susiya archaeological site looked on as the army destroyed nine large tanks of water and a tent.

(Photo: Joe Yoder, Chrstian Peacemakers Team)

Amniyr is a small village of 11 families in the South Hebron Hills, just northeast of the Palestinian village of Susiya and the Israeli settlement of the same name.  The village of shepherds and farmers, like most villages in the area, is totally dependent in the summer on tanks of water.

That water does not come cheap.  Costs of transportation, due to the poor infrastructure in the area – Palestinians are normally not permitted to build roads in Area C of the West Bank and have restricted access to Israeli roads – mean the cost of water is much higher than normal.  A cubic meter of water in the nearby town of Yatta costs 6 shekels.  In Amniyr it cost 35.  The tanks themselves cost 1000 shekels each, and each tank held 2 cubic meters of water, yielding a total of over 10,000 shekels in damage, which for many in the area is equivalent to a half year’s work.

This is the fifth demolition in Amniyr in the last year, according to village residents and Nasser Nawaja, a B’Tselem worker.  One month ago the army destroyed 11 houses and two cisterns full of water.  The cisterns had also been destroyed 5 months ago and rebuilt with the help of Israeli activists from Ta’ayush.  The ruins of houses from previous demolitions is still present, broken stones and twisted metal.  Located just south of the archaeological site of old Susiya, the Israeli government claims it is state land.

Ten of the families now sleep in Yatta and come during the day to tend to their olive and almond trees as they have no place to stay and no water.    But Mohammed Hussain Jabour and his wife Zaffra refuse to leave.  The morning after the demolition they were making tea on an open fire next to their tent. “I’ve been here with my father and our sheep since I was a little boy,” he said, with visible indignation.  “Now I’m an old man.  And now Israel tells me I can’t be here.  I’m not leaving.”

“What are we supposed to do?”  Zaffra asked.  “What will we drink?  We can’t live without water.”

The demolition comes on the heels of the demolition of 6 tent homes and a lavatory in the village of Bir al Eid, two kilometers to the south, two weeks ago.  Both incidents are the latest in a long history of demolitions of Palestinians homes and buildings in the area by the Israeli army, affecting both these villages and the villages of Susiya and Imneizel, a village south of Susiya.

Sean O’Neill worked for Christian Peacemaker Teams from 2006-2009 in the South Hebron Hills supporting Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation and continued settlement expansion.  He is currently an MA candidate at New York University in Near Eastern Studies and Journalism.  He is in Israel/Palestine this summer researching for his masters’ thesis.

July 6, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Born at a checkpoint

IRIN – 05/07/2011

LONDON — For three years now a UK medical journal, the Lancet, has been working with Palestinian health professionals and researchers to document the effects of stressful living – coping with economic difficulties and shortages, restrictions on movement, political tensions and fear of outside attack – and has just published its latest findings.

Restrictions on movement are an everyday irritant in the occupied Palestinian territories. Apart from tedious and humiliating searches at checkpoints, residents never know for sure how long their journeys will take, or whether, indeed, they can be made at all. But in a medical emergency these restrictions can be a matter of life or death.

Last year the Lancet’s collaborators described vividly the terror of women waiting to give birth during Israeli bombing raids on Gaza in early 2009: They knew they might need urgent medical care at a time when they were trapped in their homes during the attacks. This year another of their researchers has looked at what happens to women already in labor who are caught at checkpoints.

Halla Shoaibi of Ann Arbor University in the USA estimates that in the period she studied (2000-2007) 10 percent of pregnant Palestinian women were delayed at checkpoints while traveling to hospital to give birth. One result has been a dramatic increase in the number of home births, with women preferring to avoid road trips while in labor for fear of not being able to reach the hospital in time.

Their fears are well founded. Ms Shoaibi says 69 babies were born at checkpoints during those seven years. Thirty-five babies and five of the mothers died, an outcome which she considers to amount to a crime against humanity.

When the Lancet group held their first meeting in March 2009, Gaza was still reeling from the Israeli attacks known as Operation Cast Lead, which led to the deaths of over 1,400 people. In the latest publication, researchers return to that period, with further analysis of survey material about the effects of the attack on the civilian population.

The disruption to normal life was great. Forty-five percent of those surveyed had to leave their homes and move in with other people for at least 24 hours; 48 percent had other people moving in with them; 48 percent of homes were damaged. Nearly everyone had power cuts all or part of the time, and many also suffered disruption to other services – telephone, water supply and rubbish collection.

Psychological effects

In terms of psychological effects, over 80 percent reported a family member screaming or crying or having nightmares. Loss of appetite was also commonly reported.

But although Gaza is a relatively small area, the effects varied considerably according to where the respondents lived, with the governorates of Gaza and North Gaza the most, and Khan Younis and Rafah (near the border with Egypt) the least affected.

Another study looked at the feelings of insecurity which remained, even six months after the end of the attacks. Women felt more nervous and insecure than men. The groups who reported lower levels of insecurity were those who were better educated, and had a better standard of living, and also older people, those over 65.

July 6, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Palestinian woman, child run over by Israeli settlers in separate incidents

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | July 04, 2011

An Israeli settler driving near Nablus ran over a 40-year old Palestinian woman Sunday, then tried to flee the scene. Separately, an Israeli-plated vehicle ran over a 14-year old boy in Qalqilia and then drove away.

In the first incident, which took place on the main road to Huwwara, southeast of Nablus, an Israeli settler driving at high speed struck a forty-year old woman and then tried to drive away, but was stopped by locals who prevented him from leaving before Israeli police arrived.

The unidentified woman was taken to Rafidia hospital with moderate injuries throughout her body, and several fractures.

The incident took place as a group of Israeli settlers were invading nearby Asira and Madama villages, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, and attacking local Palestinians and burning farmland. One young man, Mohammed Ziad, was taken to the hospital with head wounds inflicted by the invading settlers.

Separately, also on Sunday, an unmarked Israeli-plated vehicle ran over a Palestinian boy, Khaled Daoud Abed Al-Karim, 14, after abducting a 40-year old man, Ali Abu Khadejah, from the city of Qalqilia. The vehicle did not stop, and drove quickly away from the area. It is unknown whether the kidnappers were undercover Israeli military forces or Israeli settlers, and the Israeli government has made no comment on the incident.

The 14-year old wound sustained serious head wounds, and was taken to the main hospital in Nablus, where his condition is described as ‘critical’.

Ramming incidents such as these, in which unknown Israeli assailants attack Palestinian civilians using their vehicles as weapons, are common in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but are rarely investigated by the Israeli Occupation Forces who have imposed martial law on the region since 1967.

July 5, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment