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Hebron man walks down street for first time in years

September 10, 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Hashem Azzeh in front of the graffiti on his door
Photos: EA Phelie Maguire

On Sunday 9th September, Hashem Azzeh walked down the street outside his house for the first time in years.

Hashem lives with his artist wife Nasreen and their four children (14, 9, 4 and 2 years old) on a hillside in the Tel Rumeida district of Hebron. The street outside Hashem’s house is barred to Palestinians and overseas visitors, with an army checkpoint at the end of the street to enforce the ban. To reach their house, the family have to go via a treacherous back route, clambering over walls and around other properties on the way.

Despite all the harassment and violence, Hashem remains determined to stay in his house, and today said he wanted ‘an adventure’. Hashem and five ISM volunteers from the UK, Italy and the USA clambered up from the house to the street, then walked the 200 or so metres to the checkpoint at the end of the street. The Israeli soldier at the checkpoint appeared astonished to see Hashem and international volunteers come along the street from the ‘wrong’ direction and immediately started radioing for back-up. When the soldier asked Hashem why he was walking on the street, Hashem replied, ‘I am walking to my house’.

Hashem’s family have faced years of harassment from residents of the illegal Israeli settlement on the hillside just above their house. The settlement happens to be home to some of the most fanatical settlers in Hebron, including American-born extremist Baruch Marzel.

Over the years, Hashem’s family have faced attacks on their property by settlers, with Israeli soldiers standing alongside doing nothing to intervene. Settlers have also poisoned his water supply, and killed his olive trees, fruit trees and vines. When Hashem installed his own water tank, the settlers shot it full of holes in yet another attack.

As well as attacks on their property, the family have faced regular physical violence. Hashem’s nephew had his teeth knocked out by rocks, and his brother was also smashed in the face with rock and suffered damage to his teeth and nose. Nasreen has had two miscarriages. An ISM activist, 77 year old Australian academic Mary Baxter, also faced violence in the past, when accompanying Hashem’s children to school in 2005. She and the children were attacked, and Mary had four bones in her back broken and is now disabled as a result.

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September 10, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel cabinet moves to accredit university on illegal settlement

Al Akhbar – September 9, 2012

Israel’s government Sunday approved plans to upgrade a college on an illegal Jewish settlement to a full-fledged university, in a symbolic move which still requires a ruling by the High Court and the attorney general.

In July, the “Council for Higher Education in Judaea and Samaria,” a group close to illegal Jewish settlers, recommended that the Ariel University Centre receive the upgraded status, which would make it the first university in the occupied West Bank.

International law defines all Israeli settlement on Palestinian land occupied in Israel’s 1967 war with the Arab world, to be illegal.This includes the still occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank stifle the movement of Palestinians and encroach greatly on Palestinian property and resources. There are currently 350,000 illegal settlers in the West Bank, with the government continuing to build thousands of houses, defying calls to stop by the UN.

The number of settlers grew by 15,000 in the last year, according to Israel’s population registry.

Increasingly, companies and labor unions around Europe have divested from companies operating in the occupied West Bank to protest the Jewish state’s forays into the area.

Last month, South Africa re-labeled Israeli products made in the West Bank as coming from ‘occupied Palestinian territories’, a move that triggered a diplomatic row between the two states.

But Israel’s Council for Higher Education, which regulates the seven universities in the Jewish state, opposed the move, branding it political and filed a petition against it to the High Court of Justice.

On Sunday, the cabinet voted on a resolution declaring the move to be of “national importance,” while ordering that all measures be taken “to approve the decision of the Council for Higher Education in Judaea and Samaria, subject to the attorney general’s stance.”

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has yet to present his opinion to the move.

“It is important to have another university in Israel, it is important to have a university in Ariel,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the vote.

“I like breaking monopolies and cartels in every field,” he said, noting that there has not been a new university in Israel in 40 years, while the population has nearly tripled.

“Ariel is an inseparable part of Israel, and will stay an inseparable part of it in any future arrangement, like the other settlement blocs,” he said of the settlement which lies deep in the northern West Bank.

Set up in 1982 as an annex to Bar Ilan University, Ariel has 12,000 students in four faculties — medicine, engineering, natural sciences and social sciences — and also has architecture and telecommunications facilities.

Full recognition as a university entitles the Ariel facility to significant additional funding and the ability to grant advanced degrees.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

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September 9, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Soldiers Physically Attack Palestinian Youth In Hebron

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | September 04, 2012

Israeli soldiers physically attacked, on Monday at night, a Palestinian nonviolent activist after stopping his vehicle, in Hebron city, in the southern part of the West Bank. The soldiers forced him out of his car and brutally attacked and kicked him.

Tamer al-Atrash, media spokesperson of the Youth Coalition Against Settlements, stated that several soldiers stopped his car and forced him out of it before they started shouting at him, in addition to kicking and punching him.

Al-Atrash said that he recognized the soldiers who attacked him as he previously filmed them while they were assaulting a number of residents in the Tal Romedia neighborhood in Hebron.

“This is an act of revenge; it seems they think they are settling a score”, Al-Atrash stated. “We always expose their violations and abuse practiced against the civilians on a daily basis in Tel Romeida”.

Israeli settlers illegally reside in the neighborhood in privately-owned Palestinian property, in Tal Romeida and in several parts of the city.

Settlers who reside in the heart of the occupied city of Hebron are responsible for dozens of attacks against the residents and their property.

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September 4, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jerusalem Development Authority Implicated in Boycotted Film Funding

By Jinjirrie | Kadaitcha | September 4th, 2012

In the vein of its previous documentary project presenting a montage of 24 hours of life in Berlin, the German Zero One film production company has been planning a similar venture on Jerusalem.

Berlin-based Zero One Film will work alongside Palestinian producer Daoud Kuttab and newly founded Israeli prodco 24 Communications. The latter is a joint venture between Israeli prodcos Pie Films and Inosan, which worked on the original version of HBO hit In Treatment.

Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg and Jerusalem Film Fund are backing 24h Jerusalem and the producers hope to secure the remaining €400,000 (US$500,000) of its €2.4m budget at MipTV this week.

Palestinian directors have now pulled out of the project – they were unaware of the presence of the Israeli production company, nor of backing from the Jerusalem Film Fund, which is in turn funded by the Jerusalem Development Authority. Current activities of the JDA include expropriating Palestinian land in East Jerusalem for parks. The JDA received “40 million NIS in 2005 to develop green spaces around the Old City of Jerusalem”.

Designating urban space as a national park is not only easier but cheaper too, the state having no obligation to compensate owners.

The Jerusalem municipality leaves the creation of these parks to the National Planning Authority (in the Ministry of Interior), Bimkom noted, which deals more with the protection of nature and heritage than the rights of Jerusalem’s residents.
…

The disparity between the management of space for West Jerusalemites compared to their counterparts in the east is stark, with national parks notably absent from the west.

“The Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are crowded and they suffer from extreme neglect and shortage of public infrastructure,” Bimkom architect, Efrat Bar-Cohen, said in a statement.

“The residents are in desperate need of space by which they can improve their quality of life, even if slightly.”

The building of the park will have ramifications beyond the strangling of Issawiya and A-Tur residents.

It will stretch into the E1 area of the West Bank, which represents an important reserve of space for Palestinian development, creating a string of Jewish Israeli-only settlement between the Old City and Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

Elad Kandl is director of the Old City projects at the Jerusalem Development Authority, whose website describes their work as rehabilitating and conserving the Old City.

He expressed succinctly Israel’s aim of curbing Palestinian development in Jerusalem. “When you make it a national park,” he told The Jerusalem Post in reference to open space, “you keep the status quo.”

The JDA, which operates under the 1988 Jerusalem Development Authority Law, was established to further entrench Israeli control over the city and is also involved in the Jerusalem light rail project.

Indeed, the Prime Minister’s Office and the mayor of Jerusalem sponsored a JDA program to work toward this goal. On its website the JDA is very clear about the role of the Jerusalem light rail project, stating that “The investment in the light railway project was one of the government’s key strategies to empower Jerusalem as a capital.”

The JDA is also an instrumental actor in the proposed construction of 1,400 new housing units in the Gilo Jewish settlement colony, located near Bethlehem in occupied East Jerusalem.

In this light, the involvement of the JDA in the 24h Jerusalem project clearly designates the film as unacceptable normalisation with the Israeli occupation.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has defined normalization specifically in a Palestinian and Arab context “as the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.” [2] This is the definition endorsed by the BDS National Committee (BNC).

One Palestinian participant in the 24h Jerusalem project, Enas aL-Muthaffar, made clear his objections to the film project in an open letter on August 25th. He reveals that he was not informed at all about the Israeli production partner. Nor were the Palestinian directors to be involved in the editing process.

To whom It May Concern,

When Kuttab Productions first contacted me early July, it failed to mention that Israel is part of this project, although I specifically inquired about this issue. And then again, you sent me an email on July 9th, which also failed to mention that Israel is in fact part of your film production. I only knew about Israel being a co-producer of Jerusalem 24 when I asked specific technical questions about the characters, crew and the editing phase. I was surprised to know that the selected filmmakers are only requested to film on September 6th and that we have no say in the editing phase. Then, you said: The editing phase will happen in Germany where the Palestinian and the Israeli films will be edited in one feature length documentary. This is not information that can simply be passed on in such a way!

I reject to be part of Jerusalem 24: a German/ Israeli/ Palestinian co-production for the following two main reasons:

· I respect and support Palestinian civil society campaign for Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with International law and respects Palestinian rights.

· I refuse to be part of a peace propaganda machine that continues to ignore Israel’s cruel colonization of Palestine.

There is a longer list of reasons related to the current steps undertaken by Israel that aim at changing the demographic, social and cultural composition of the city of Jerusalem – to name few:

· Advocating the largest act of de-population of East Jerusalem since 1967.

· Continuing expansion of illegal settlements.

· Renewal of closure of East Jerusalem Institutions.

· Building restrictions and home demolitions.

· Revoking residency rights and denying family reunification.

· Continued illegal diggings under al-Aqsa mosque compound.

There is no way in which I can separate my art from who I am, from my life, from my duty to resist everything and anything that doesn’t acknowledge my right to exist on my land in freedom and dignity.

Regards,

Enas I. aL-Muthaffar

Enas’ stance is confirmed in an Al Akbar piece [Google translation]:

Yesterday, I sent a group of Palestinian institutions and individuals working in the field of culture and art message to «Book of production» declare the absolute rejection of various forms of normalization with the occupier and «standing in the face of attempts to penetrate the cultural front as the line of the clash with the basic occupation, and intellectuals were and will remain the spearhead in the clash of cultures and civilizations with brute occupation force.

Haidar Eid further affirms terms of the PACBI boycott relevant to the joint film project [Google translation]:

That all meetings and projects that combine between the Palestinians and the Israelis must be placed in the proper context against the occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, and most importantly that these meetings be pro-boycott by directives issued by the National Committee of the province.

According to Amira Hass, 20 directors, including Israelis, have now pulled out of the film project in support of the cultural boycott and filming, scheduled for September 6, has been halted.

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September 4, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel threatens to demolish ‘illegal’ Bedouin school

RT | September 3, 2012

Israel has threatened to demolish a Bedouin encampment in the West Bank that contains a school, claiming that the community was built without appropriate permits and was hindering the development of new Israeli settlements.

­The Khan Al-Ahmar elementary school was built in 2009 with the help of local and international humanitarian groups. The clay-and-tires structure employed 11 teachers, and instructed students belonging to some five neighboring Jahalin Bedouin tribes. Israeli authorities have issued a demolition order, claiming that the encampment containing the school was built illegally.

Demolishing the school would force the children to trek across the desert to Jericho for class, the closest place where education facilities are located. The Israeli military claimed that they will not destroy the school or the encampment until an alternate learning institution for the students is located.

According to UN reports, Tel Aviv has ordered the demolition of around 3,000 structures, including homes, cisterns, solar-power generators and 18 schools, including the Khan al-Ahmar Mixed Elementary School. Only 360 such demolitions have been carried out so far.

Israeli authorities believe that moving the indigenous population to planned communities will lift them out of poverty. Bedouin communities argue that their culture and its centuries-old traditions are being jeopardized by Jewish expansion.

The children of the Jahalin tribe previously attended school in Jericho, about 20 kilometers away, but school bus service was often unreliable. Locals now say that they may have no other choice: “We’ll go to school until it’s demolished,” the Washington Post cited 10-year-old Islam Hussein as saying,

Khan al-Ahmar is one of 20 Bedouin communities that are scheduled for relocation. Bedouin families have lived there since 1951, when refugees fled the Negev region during Israel’s war for independence. The West Bank is currently home to 300,000 Israeli settlers,

In September 2011, the Israeli government approved the ‘Prawer Plan,’ which called for the mass expulsion of the Arab Bedouin community in the Naqab desert. At the beginning of 2012, Tel Aviv announced a plan to establish ten new settlements along the disputed Green Line.

More than 70,000 Bedouins in 35 villages live in territory claimed by Israel. The settlements are considered to be ‘unrecognized’ by the Israelis, and the inhabitants are often referred to as ‘trespassers on state land.’

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September 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

26 attacks by Jewish settlers documented in August

Palestine Information Center – 01/09/2012

RAMALLAH — Different human rights organizations were able to document last August 26 attacks by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank and noted that there were other attacks not documented for many reasons, according to Haaretz newspaper.

These attacks were reported by B’Tselem, OCHA, Coexistence, and There is Law, organizations active in the occupied Palestinian lands.

The newspaper explained that in four different arson attacks, 19 Palestinians sustained injuries and the most dangerous one happened when Jewish settlers threw a Molotov cocktail at a Palestinian car boarded by six passengers from Nahalin village from the same family. All six Palestinians were admitted to the hospital, two of them were in serious condition and the others suffered moderate burn injuries.

The newspaper also mentioned other incidents in which Palestinians sustained injuries during attacks by settlers. Different arson attacks were reportedly carried out by Jewish extremists on Palestinian homes and cars in different West Bank areas.

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September 1, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel: South Africa labeling decision ‘discrimination’

Ma’an – 23/08/2012

BETHLEHEM – Israel on Wednesday denounced South Africa’s cabinet decision to label goods from illegal Israeli settlements as produced in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said the decision “is without precedent, as no such measure has ever been adopted in South Africa or in any other country. It constitutes therefore a blatant discrimination based on national and political distinction.”

The statement added: “Israel and South Africa have political differences, and that is legitimate. What is totally unacceptable is the use of tools which, by essence, discriminate and single out, fostering a general boycott. Such exclusion and discrimination bring to mind ideas of racist nature which the government of South Africa, more than any other, should have wholly rejected.”

The ministry said South Africa’s ambassador would be summoned Thursday.

August 23, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Bi-Nationalism: The Logic of Reality

By Sherri Muzher | Palestine Chronicle | August 18, 2012

Regardless of the US presidential election results in November, Palestinians will be told to resume direct negotiations with Israel if they wish to see a state of their own.

Apparently, the old expression that ‘actions speak louder than words’ doesn’t apply. The continuation of Israeli settlements speaks volumes. Physical separation and lack of contiguity has nullified the hopes of two states living side by side.

Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University, co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, summarized direct talks in three points. 1) There is no sign that the Palestinians are willing to accept less than a viable, territorially contiguous state in the West Bank (and eventually, Gaza), including a capital in East Jerusalem. 2) There is no sign that Israel’s government is willing to accept anything more than a symbolic Palestinian “state” consisting of a set of disconnected Bantustans, with Israel in full control of the borders, air space, and water supplies. 3) There is no sign that the U.S. government is willing to put meaningful pressure on Israel.

In fact, the last U.S. president to put serious pressure on Israel was George H.W. Bush who withheld loan guarantees to Israel for its settlement policies back in 1991.

A decade earlier, President Reagan said in September 1982, “Indeed, the immediate adoption of a settlements freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks.”

But leaders from Labor, Likud, and Kadima have never taken a reprieve from settlement-building.

Numerous reasons have been cited by Israelis for the need to build Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, including the need for more housing to accommodate Jewish immigrants.

Jewish settlers will tell you that their presence in the West Bank, known as Judea and Samaria to religious Jews, is necessary because God said the land must belong to the Jews even if it means ridding the land of its inhabitants.

Some say that the settlements in the Occupied Territories are necessary to protect Israel’s security. However, Binyamin Begin, son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin and a prominent voice in the rightwing Likud party stated that “In strategic terms, the settlements are of no importance.” Adding, they constitute an obstacle, an insurmountable obstacle to the establishment of an independent Arab State west of the river Jordan.”

But nobody expressed the objective of settlements better than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who once urged that, “Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours.”

That mentality has driven Israeli governments and hurt hopes for real peace. Short of removing 500,000 settlers from the Occupied Territories, there are still two chances for peace: 1) Jewish settlers can agree to become citizens of a future Palestine and abide under its laws or 2) agree to a bi-national state. Bi-nationalism is the idea of two national groups living in one nation as equals. The latter has picked up steam.

It is doubtful that bi-nationalism was in the cards either. Bi-nationalism is perhaps the greatest fear of those who wish to maintain the Jewish character of Israel since Palestinians would become the majority. But as Justice Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court once said, “The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.”

And this much is known: Palestinians aren’t leaving and Israelis aren’t leaving. They share the same land and the same natural resources. Their economies are linked. Israeli settlements have made physical separation impossible. The only solution is a democratic bi-national state where Palestinians and Israelis live as equals and are forced to make it work.

– Sherri Muzher is the author of Escape to a World of Palestinian Surprises. Visit: http://www.palestiniansurprises.com.

August 19, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Khan Al Luban: Settlers invade again

18 August | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Saturday August 11th 2012 the same events as three days earlier took place at Khan Al Luban. A group of four illegal settlers, from Mal´al Levona, armed with guns and wooden sticks came into Khan al Luban at 22:30 p.m. The settlers yet again broke into the house owned by Khalid al-Hamed Daraghani where international activists and the two sons of Khalid were staying.

When the settlers arrived Khalid’s sons and the international activists asked them to leave the property, but they refused and instead sat down near the spring on Daraghani’s land. After about half an hour two Israeli police cars arrived along with two military jeeps after having received a call from the settlers. A few minutes later two more military jeeps arrived at the scene. By then the Daraghani land was full of Israeli police, soldiers and security guards from the illegal settlement. The soldiers entered the house searching for weapons, but as usual they didn’t find anything.

Around midnight the soldiers, police, security personnel and settlers left the area, while Jamal, the oldest son of Khalid, and the international activists remained in the house. Throughout the night settlers stayed on patrol in the street near the Daraghani house, shouting and honking their car horns.

At 7:30 am the following morning, a border police car stopped near the Daraghani house on the road leading up to the illegal settlement of Mal´al Levona. The border policemen then proceeded to break into the house, aggressively asking for passports and other documents. Like the night before the house was searched and no bag, cigarette package or piece of clothing went unturned.

After a short dispute over a cigarette, Jamal was brutally pushed into one of the rooms by the police officers where he received several blows to the face before he was handcuffed and taken away. Jamal was taken to the police station of Binyamin, wrongly accused of having hit a soldier. He was released on bail the day after.

The continued pressure of the Israeli occupation forces and illegal settlers remain a constant threat during both days and nights in Khan al Luban.

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August 18, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish Settlers Empty Palestinian Well, Flood Farmlands

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | August 15, 2012

A group of extremist Israeli settlers used electric pumps to empty a Palestinian irrigation well and flooded Palestinian farmlands in as-Seer area, east of Sa’ir town, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Resident Yassin Mohammad ash-Shalalda, told the Land Research Center that settlers of Esfir and Mitzad settlements carried out their attack on Tuesday at night. The settlers reportedly used a motor pump to empty the well and flooded the nearby Palestinian farmlands.

He added that several hundred cubic meters of land were wasted in the attack, and that the residents use this water for both irrigation and as a source of drinking water for their livestock.

Ash-Shalalda further stated that the residents filed a complaint to the Israeli police in Keryat Arba’ settlement in Hebron, but are not hopeful that there will be any affirmative action by the police due to the fact that numerous previous assaults, carried out by the settlers, were never investigated

The area in question is subject to frequent attacks especially since the settlers of both the illegal settlements of Mitzad and Esfir have been trying to expand their colonies at the expense of privately-owned Palestinian lands. The two outposts were also built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a signatory.

Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are turning Palestinian cities, towns and villages into isolated ghettoes, while Israel and the extremist settlers continue to focus on fertile Palestinian lands, mainly in the Jordan Valley. Most Israeli settlements and outposts are also built on hilltops surrounding different parts of the occupied West Bank.

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August 15, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers spray toxic substance, kill herd of sheep

Palestine Information Center – 13/08/2012

AL-KHALIL — Jewish settlers sprayed a toxic substance in Palestinian grazing fields near the town of Yatta, southern al-Khalil, causing the death of a herd of sheep.

The coordinator of the popular committees against the wall and settlement in Yatta, Ratib Al-Jabour, asserted that the herd of sheep, which belonged to Jihad Noajah, had died after grazing in wild herbs, which were sprayed with toxic substances by settlers from Susiya settlement to the southeast of Yatta.

Meanwhile, the head of Wadi al-Maleh village council, Aref Daraghmeh, stated that the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) have ordered Palestinian Bedouins in Wadi al-Maleh in the Jordan Valley to pay excessive fines of up to 15 thousand shekels to retrieve their cattle confiscated a few days ago.

He added that the residents lost many of their cows which died during the confiscation raid while others were still held by the IOA even after paying the fines.

Ma’an:

… Herdsman Jihad al-Nawajah told Ma’an plant samples were taken to a laboratory in nearby town Yatta and found to be contaminated with poisonous chemicals. …

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August 13, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hebron: Palestinian streets closed for Israeli settlers

6 August 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In Hebron on the evening of July 29, almost 100 Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements occupying the centre of the city crossed into the Palestinian-controlled area H1. The settlers illegally entered H1 supported by a heavy Israeli military presence.

Earlier that evening, 4 Israeli military vehicles were witnessed driving through H1 area. At the same time, some 60 Israeli settlers gathered at Checkpoint 56 which marks the border between H1and H2 (the Israeli-controlled areas of Hebron). Several of the settlers, besides being armed with assault rifles, were also carrying compact tables and large bags of food.

Shortly before 7 p.m., Checkpoint 56 was closed to all Palestinians. Soon after, the Israeli military escorted the settlers through the checkpoint into the Bab al-Zawiyeh neighbourhood of area H1.

After the group of settlers passed through, Checkpoint 56 was reopened to Palestinians but the streets of Bab al-Zawiyeh were closed to Palestinian pedestrians and cars who were told to use a parallel street. The 4 military vehicles seen earlier were now parked and soldiers forced Palestinian shops to close down. Thus the otherwise lively Bab al-Zawiyeh was almost deserted.

The Israeli brigade commander declared that the street was a Closed Military Zone (CMZ), and when asked for the CMZ paper permit he replied,“this is a Closed Military Zone because I say so.” The same commander pushed several International Solidarity Movement volunteers in the chest for their inquiries.

Several Palestinians attempted to enter to their homes in H2, as they regularly would, but were aggressively refused at the checkpoint and directed to a lengthy detour. The detour is made kilometres longer by the fact that Palestinians are denied access to Shuhada street.

At 7:30 p.m., just before eftar when most Palestinians would be breaking the day’s fast, a group of about 30 settlers gathered at Checkpoint 56. A short while later, this group was escorted down the closed-off street to join the other settlers now numbering almost 100.

Twenty minutes later, a group of 20 settlers returned back towards H2. As they passed the empty square of Bab al-Zawiyeh they clapped their hands and started chanting in Hebrew, celebrating the empty Palestinian streets. Several pointed, laughed, and made rude gestures at the few Palestinians remaining on the edges of the street.

At around 8:30 p.m., the settlers returned to H2 in smaller groups and escorted by soldiers. Again they pointed, laughed, and took photos of Palestinians they passed. At 9 p.m., the last soldiers packed up and left the area. Immediately, shops reopened and Palestinians returned to the streets. Slowly, Bab al-Zawiyeh began to look like itself again.

More than 50 soldiers and almost 100 illegal Israeli settlers were participating in what is a yearly event. Annually, dinner is had at a site in Bab al-Zawiyeh which they consider a sacred place in Judaism. In practice, this dinner serves as an aggressive reminder of who is in charge. That Israel with more than 4000 soldiers stationed in Hebron, can do as they please despite what the lawful agreements may dictate.

It is noteworthy that this occurred in a week that has been rampant with military night raids, harassment and abuse against Palestinian residents of Hebron who are celebrating the month of Ramadan.

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August 7, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

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