Israel Can’t Force-feed Occupation to Those Who Hunger for Freedom
By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | June 24, 2014
For more than a month Israel sought to wriggle off a hook that should have snared it from the start. Two children, 17 and 16, were shot dead during Nakba Day protests near Ramallah, in which youths threw stones ineffectually at well-protected and distant Israeli military positions.
Hundreds of Palestinian children have lost their lives over the years at the end of a sharpshooter’s sights, but the deaths of Nadim Nuwara and Mohammed Abu Al Thahir in Beitunia were not easily forgotten. Israel was quickly cornered by an accumulation of physical and visual evidence.
Israel’s usual denials – the deaths were faked, video footage was doctored, Israeli soldiers were not responsible, the youths provoked the soldiers, no live ammunition was used – have been discredited one by one. Slowly Israel conceded responsibility, if only by falling into a grudging silence.
A CCTV camera mounted on the outer wall of a carpentry shop provided the most damning evidence: it captured the moments when the two unarmed boys were each hit with a live round, in one case as the youth can be seen walking away from the protest area.
But rather than come to terms with the world as it now is, Israel wants to preserve the way it once was. It believes that through force of will it can keep the tide of accountability at bay in the occupied territories.
There has been no admission of guilt, no search for the guilty soldiers and no reassessment of its policies on crowd control or the use of live fire – let alone on the continuation of the occupation. Instead, 20 soldiers arrived last week at the store in Beitunia, threatened to burn it down, arrested the owner, Fakher Zayed, and ordered he remove the camera that caused so much embarrassment.
According to Israel, the fault lies not with a society where teenage soldiers can choose to swat a Palestinian child as casually as a fly. The problem is with a Palestinian storekeeper, who assumed he could join the modern world.
The nostalgia for a “golden era” of occupation was evident, too, last week in a policy change. Israel has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians in the hunt for three Israeli teenagers missing since June 12. Palestinian cities like Hebron have been under lockdown for days, and several Palestinians youths killed, while soldiers scour the West Bank.
But with the search proving fruitless, Israel’s attorney general approved the reintroduction of the notorious “ticking bomb” procedure.
In doing so, he turned the clock back 15 years to a time when Israel routinely used torture against prisoners. Israel may not have been alone then in using torture, but it was exceptional in flaunting its torture dungeons alongside claims to democratic conduct.
Only in 1999 did the country’s supreme court severely limit the practice, allowing interrogators one exemption – a suspect could be tortured only if he was a ticking bomb, hiding information of an attack whose immediate extraction could save lives.
Now Israel’s law chief has agreed that the Palestinian politicians, journalists and activists swept up in the latest mass arrests will be treated as “ticking bombs”. Israel’s torture cells are back in business.
Israelis have been lulled into a false sense of security by the promise of endless and simple technical solutions to the ever-mounting problems caused by the occupation.
This week, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hoped to find another “fix” for Palestinians who refuse to remain supine in the face of their oppression.
Netanyahu is racing through a law to force-feed more than 100 Palestinian prisoners who are two months’ into a hunger strike. The inmates demand that Israel end the common practice of holding prisoners for months and sometimes years without charge, in what is blandly termed “administrative detention”.
Such prisoners, ignorant of their offence, are unable to mount a defence. And as it becomes ever clearer to Palestinian society that Israel is never going to concede Palestinian statehood, things that were once barely tolerated are now seen as unendurable.
Last week, the heads of the World Medical Association urged Israel to halt the legislation, which in a double bill of compulsion will require doctors to sedate and force-feed prisoners to break their hunger strike.
The WMA called the practice “tantamount to torture”. The legislation violates not only the autonomy of the prisoners but the oaths taken by the doctors to work for their patients’ benefit.
The liberal Haaretz newspaper warned that Israel was rushing headlong towards “a new abyss in terms of human rights violations”. And all this to prevent reality pricking the Israeli conscience: that Palestinians would rather risk death than endure the constant indignities of a life under belligerent occupation.
Israelis have yet to realise the dam is soon to burst. They still believe a technical fix is the way to solve ethical dilemmas continuously thrown up by the longest occupation in modern times.
Israel’s technical solutions work to an extent. They confine Palestinians to ever smaller spaces: the prison of Gaza, the city under lockdown, the torture cell, or the doctor’s surgery where a feeding tube can be inserted.
But the craving for self-determination and dignity are more than technical problems. You cannot force-feed a people to still their hunger for freedom.
Belligerent occupations – especially ones where no hope or end is in sight – engender evermore creative and costly forms of resistance, as the hunger strike demonstrates. A physical act of resistance can be temporarily foiled. But the spirit behind it cannot be so easily subdued.
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Palestinian prisoners assaulted before being detained
Ma’an – 24/06/2014
RAMALLAH – A Palestinian Prisoner’s Society lawyer reported Monday from Palestinian detainees at Etzion detention center that many of them were assaulted and beaten before they were detained.
Prisoner Faraj Ghaith, 57, told the lawyer that three settlers raided his house, assaulted him and his family before the Israeli police detained him and his two sons Ahmad and Omar.
Ghaith lives near the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arbaa.
Jaclyn Fararjeh said that bruises were still clear on the prisoners’ bodies.
Prisoner Ashraf al-Jaaidi, 30, from Bethlehem, said that he threw up blood since he was detained, and that he was beaten with butts of the riffles when he was detained from his house in Duheisha refugee camp last Friday.
Farajeh highlighted that al-Jaaidi requested to be examined by a doctor but the prison service refused.
PPS’ lawyer Fararjeh visited prisoners Yasser Banat, Muhammad al-Hreini, Taha al-Hur, Bassam al-Natsheh, Ismail Jabariya, Muath Muhammad, Rabee Izriqat, Issa Shalaldeh, Yahya al-Huroub, Munthir al-Shurouf, Youssif Tartour, Tariq Gharib, Muhammad Hmeideh, Youssif Awawdeh and Murad Abu Muhye.
Missing Israeli settlers: Al Jazeera English’s distorted reporting
By Orouba Othman | Al-Akhbar | June 23, 2014
Gaza – Al Jazeera English’s reporting on the missing Israeli settlers was not naive and it is rather impossible to classify it as part of the rhetoric of neutrality and objective reporting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
It is simply deliberate coverage that targets the Palestinians’ presence on their own land and their just cause, while giving leverage to the “perseverance” of the Israeli society living in a jungle of “barbaric” Palestinians. Al Jazeera English correspondent Jane Ferguson started her report a few days ago by focusing on the feelings of Israelis and specifically their shock following the [alleged] capture of three Israelis about 10 days ago.
This shock, of course, did not not originate from the Palestinians’ right to face their enemies, but was ignited due to the Palestinians’ insensitivity, which was displayed through their “kidnapping of three teenagers” who could be robbed of their lives with a fatal bullet, or rather “a deceiving” bullet in the words of the Qatari channel.
Certainly, all the misery the Palestinians have suffered for 66 years at the hands of those expressing their shock is insignificant. Today, the only thing that matters is the sorrow of the Israeli people. Ferguson began her report with images of a tent erected by residents of Nof Ayalon village to pray for the safe return of Naftali Fraenkel, a town native and one of the three [allegedly] kidnapped individuals.
Ferguson did not miss the opportunity to remind viewers that the three Israelis (Naftali Frenkel, Gil-ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach) were teenagers, further seeking the viewers’ compassion by stating that they were all under the age of 19. The reporter did not stop there, but gave Fraenkel’s aunt a platform to express her feelings on air, saying “I am still in shock, it is hitting me repeatedly, Fraenkel went to school and didn’t come back. It is really difficult, and the whole family is crushed.”
The correspondent’s report does not mention neither the suffering of over 5,700 Palestinians held in the occupation’s prisons, nor the fact that four of those prisoners died under physical and psychological torture in the past year.
“Not only in this small village are people waiting anxiously to hear news about the missing teenagers, but across the entire nation, everyone is gripped by this story,” Ferguson commented in her report, adding that Israeli channels have been in the village for days to cover the incident.
The scene displaying solidarity with the town’s locals is later taken off screen to be replaced with images of a street populated by Israeli settlers. The channel then sheds light on the challenges faced by Israelis to strengthen their “perseverance” on a land that is not theirs, saying that they are not scared and that they are going on with their lives as usual.
To give more credibility to her short analysis, Ferguson gives a female settler the opportunity to explain whether or not the “kidnapping incident” had negatively affected her life. The settler confirms Ferguson’s view by saying, “there is nothing to be afraid of. If there was a bombing on a bus, does it means we should not catch buses? This is the same for me, this is our lifestyle.”
The reporter seemed to have forgotten how Palestinians resist death and how much they love life even though they are besieged by their enemy’s weapons from the front, its tanks from behind and its planes from above.
Perhaps, Palestinian viewers would have better received the report if Ferguson had also visited towns and refugee camps in the West Bank, and had broadcast live images of the arrest campaigns and the raids on Palestinian homes, as well as Israel’s policy of systematic killing, as reflected by the fact that four Palestinians have already been killed since the beginning of the operation.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera English’s Gaza correspondent Charles Stratford started his report by linking the operation in Hebron to the Gaza Strip by showing two Palestinian boys from Gaza training on how to use weapons and participate in combat missions at a camp affiliated to Hamas.
Stratford then commented that “these are the children of people who believe, like the majority of Gaza residents, that Hamas represents the future of Palestine and is a part of the unity government rejected by Israel.”
The correspondent sought to differentiate between “terrorist” boys following Hamas’ path and other “innocents” that fall in the hands of the group that is training droves of “terrorists.”
The English-language Qatari channel claims to have been launched to change the stereotype about the Middle East. However, today it has become another burden on Palestinians, promoting the Israeli side of the story in the West while disregarding the real narrative.
Is Israel’s ongoing terror campaign punishment for Palestinian unity?
By Chloé Benoist | Al-Akhbar | June 23, 2014
As Israel continues its crackdown on the West Bank in the wake of three Israeli teenagers’ disappearance, the unrestrained violence of the occupying forces has seemingly developed into retribution for the recent establishment of a Palestinian unity government.
In the 11 days since the three Israeli settlers went missing while hitchhiking near the illegal Zionist settlement bloc of Gush Etzion in the West Bank, Palestinians have paid a heavy toll as the Israeli manhunt quickly turned into collective punishment.
Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) have searched countless Palestinian homes, media offices and schools in extensive raids, confiscating universities’ computers, destroying furniture, firing tear gas and live bullets at protesting civilians, a move seemingly more intent on furthering the control of the Palestinian population than finding the Israeli teenagers.
At least 471 Palestinians have been arrested since June 12. At least 75 of those arrested are former prisoners who had been released in a 2011 prisoner swap, according to the Palestinian Authority’s former Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe.
“Resentencing prisoners who were released in the [2011 Gilad] Shalit deal is a form of immoral and illegal revenge, an offense to Egypt who sponsored the deal, and collective punishment that is against the human and legal rights of prisoners,” he said on Saturday.
He added that 241 Palestinian minors were now locked up in Israeli jails, 45 more than in May according to statistics by prisoners’ rights NGO Addameer.
The prisoners have been placed in administrative detention, a practice whose excessive use by Israel has been denounced as being illegal under international law by rights groups. Israel has imposed a tight blockade on Hebron, and a curfew on the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip has sustained nightly air raids for the past week. The already isolated enclave has been subjected to an even more stringent siege, as an Israeli Defense Ministry statement on June 15 declared that the Erez crossing would be limited to humanitarian cases, while only fuel would be allowed in through the southern goods crossing.
Operation “Brother’s Keeper” keeps claiming Palestinian lives
At least five Palestinians have died during Israeli military operations in the West Bank since June 12. All available information indicates that the victims were unrelated to the disappearance of Gilad Shaer, Eyal Ifrach and Naftali Frenkel.
The first casualty was Ahmad Arafat Sabarin, who was shot dead on Monday during a military raid in the Jalazoun refugee camp north of Ramallah. He was 19 years old.
On Friday, 14-year-old Mohammed Jihad Dudin was shot in the chest with live bullets in an Israeli raid on the village of Dura, near Hebron. Photos of Dudin show a skinny, smiling child.
In Nablus, Jamil Ali Abed Jaber, 60, died of a heart attack as Israeli troops searched his house on Saturday. Palestinian security sources reported that Abed Jaber’s family was prevented from taking him to the hospital, leading him to die inside his home.
Early on Sunday June 22, Israeli troops in Ein Beit al-Mai refugee camp in western Nablus shot dead 36-year-old Ahmad Fahnawi, who was on his way to morning prayers as clashes were taking place. Eyewitnesses told Ma’an news agency that a soldier shot Fahnawi several times from point-blank range.
The Israeli army confirmed firing at a “suspect,” claiming he had approached troops “in a threatening manner.” However, Fahnawi’s family told AFP that he suffered from mental health problems.
Israeli troops also killed 30-year-old Mohammed Mahmoud Atallah Tarifi on Sunday during a crackdown in central Ramallah, Palestinian medics reported.
An untold number of Palestinians have been injured so far in Operation “Brother’s Keeper.”
International and Arab silence
Most of the Israeli public was quick to support the army’s actions in the West Bank. The hashtag “BringBackOurBoys” rapidly made the rounds on Twitter, a move criticized by some as an insensitive appropriation of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign in Nigeria, where over 200 girls are still held captive by Boko Haram.
Meanwhile, a Facebook page titled “Until the boys are back, every hour we shoot a terrorist” has accumulated more than 20,700 likes since its creation on June 13. The page vocally supports widespread violence against Palestinians as ‘punishment’ for the disappearance of the three Israelis.
While several rights groups have condemned Israel’s violent policies and rhetoric, a significant portion of the international community has come out in support of Israel’s ‘search’ for the teenagers, justifying the Zionist state’s military actions without addressing their impact on Palestinians.
“The European Union has called for the immediate and unconditional release of these three boys – it is, frankly, despicable that children’s lives should be put in danger in this way,” EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen said on Tuesday, referring only to Israeli children.
“Israeli suffering has to be understood,” the mayor of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, said during a conference on Wednesday with 19 other world mayors standing in support of Israel.
While there has been no shortage of lamentations about Israelis’ shared pain over the missing teens, the international community has remained silent about the plight of Palestinians. Even supposedly pro-Palestinian Arab countries have so far failed to condemn the Israeli raids or express condolences for the loss of Palestinian lives.
The Palestinian Authority’s collaboration with Israel
Almost as soon as the three settlers went missing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of being behind their disappearance, a charge Hamas dismissed immediately.
“Our young people have been kidnapped by a terror organization… there is no doubt about that,” Netanyahu told reporters in Tel Aviv on June 14.
The Israeli government has yet to provide any proof of its claims. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for United Nations leader Ban Ki-Moon, Farhan Haq, said that the UN had “no information to confirm an abduction.” This statement was quickly denounced by Israel as “out of touch, out of line and out of time.”
Downplaying the crackdown as “friction,” Netanyahu said on Sunday that evidence of Hamas’ involvement would be made public “soon,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has dismissed Palestinian casualties as a consequence of “necessary” Israeli “self-defense.”
Netanyahu has also targeted Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, holding him responsible despite the latter’s swiftness in condemning the alleged kidnapping.
The Israeli premier’s hostility towards the PA is all the more incomprehensible given the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing security coordination with Israel.
Palestinian police have worked with Israel intermittently since the Oslo Accords, but the security arrangement has been strengthened since Abbas came to power in 2005.
Palestinians have long been angered by the PA’s collaboration with the IOF, and Operation “Brother’s Keeper” has only exacerbated the perception of PA security acting as agents for Israel. Witnesses have seen PA forces arresting individuals in hospitals, and a demonstration by mothers of hunger striking prisoners on Friday was attacked by Palestinian police.
On Sunday night, PA security forces clashed with Palestinians protesting against their coordination with Israel. With support from the IOF, PA security shot in the direction of the crowd in Ramallah, injuring at least one person.
But it seems collaboration with Israeli brutality is not enough for Netanyahu.
“[Abbas’] words will not only be judged in terms of actions taken to bring the boys home, but also by his willingness to break up the unity government with Hamas,” he said.
Statements by IOF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz confirmed that undermining Hamas is a main goal of the Israeli military operation.
“We have a goal: to find these three boys and bring them home, and to damage Hamas as much as possible,” Gantz said on June 16.
The missing settlers: a pretext
Netanyahu’s demands support the idea that the ongoing brutal operation is not only intended to locate the three settlers, but to punish Palestinians after the recent reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and to sabotage the newly-created unified Palestinian government.
In an interview with ultra-Orthodox news outlet Hadrei Haredim published on Thursday, an IOF officer revealed that parts of Operation “Brother’s Keeper” had been planned long before the teenagers went missing. Notably, he said that the Israeli army had already prepared for an operation in Jenin in which soldiers were to purposefully provoke residents into throwing stones, and then use the clashes as an excuse to kill Palestinians.
This disclosure — among other statements — backs the idea that Israel is knowingly creating an unlivable situation for Palestinians only to blame them for pushing back, perpetuating its myth of Palestinian aggression as it has many times before. Despite decades of occupation, Israel continues to frame Palestinian resistance as unprovoked aggression, breaches of international law as legitimate defense, and oppressors as victims.
These provocative Israeli tactics are not new. In 1976, then-Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan explained the 1967 military tactics to the New York Times:
”Along the Syria border there were no farms and no refugee camps — there was only the Syrian army… The kibbutzim saw the good agricultural land … and they dreamed about it… They didn’t even try to hide their greed for the land… We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was… The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.”
Lebanon has similarly suffered from Israel using flimsy pretexts to push forward ulterior plans against its enemies.
The notion of Palestinian unity is a threat to Israel, and it will do anything in its power to weaken it. A unified Palestinian political front, having somewhat resolved its internal conflicts, could make a stronger claim for self-determination, a scenario that would further expose Israel’s unreasonable demands for “peace” and its divide and conquer strategies.
Israel, therefore, uses any pretext to try to stifle Palestinian aspirations, attempting to reduce an entire population’s existence to a question of mere survival.
Many Palestinians – adults and children alike – will continue to suffer as long as Israel is allowed to act unabated, using the undetermined fate of the three Israelis until it finds another excuse to continue its policy of repression, injustice and divisiveness.
Jewish Settlers Attack Funeral Of Slain Palestinian In Ramallah
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 22, 2014
Sunday evening a number of fanatic Israeli settlers attacked the funeral of a Palestinian, killed by the Israeli army in al-Biereh, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, wounding one Palestinian.
The Palestinians were participating in the funeral procession of resident Mohammad at-Tareefi, 30, in Jabal at-Tawil neighborhood, when settlers of the Psagot illegitimate settlement opened fire on them, wounding one resident.
Several minutes later, dozens of soldiers arrived at the scene, and fired live ammunition at the residents, and several homes, in al-Biereh.
The Israeli military attack pushed dozens of residents to advance towards Psagot settlements, and hurl stones at it.
The soldiers chased the residents in Dahiat Jabal at-Tawil and al-Jinan area, while firing dozens of rounds of live ammunition, gas bombs, concussion grenades, and rubber-coated metal bullets.
The funeral procession started in front of the Palestine Medical Center in Ramallah, heading towards the home of the slain Palestinian in Betunia, before advancing towards the Jamal Abdul-Nasser Mosque in al-Biereh city.
At-Tareefy was shot by a live round in his chest during Sunday dawn clashes with Israeli soldiers invading Ramallah.
Israel’s military offensive in different parts of the occupied West Bank started ten days ago, following the disappearance of three Israeli settlers from Gush Etzion settlement, near Bethlehem.
Although Israel said Hamas is behind the “abduction”, Hamas denied the claim.
The ongoing Israeli military invasion led to the abduction of more than 400 Palestinians, many of them are children, and the soldiers invaded and searched more than 1000 areas in the West Bank.
The army alleged uncovering dozens of tunnels under Palestinian homes in the West Bank, and that the soldiers “located underground labs used for the production of explosives”.
The army said Israel had no prior information about the alleged labs and tunnels, but uncovered them during the extensive searches of homes and property.
In a Sunday report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the center said Israeli soldiers shot and killed four Palestinians in the last ten days. Two of them were killed Sunday.
At least 38 Palestinians have been kidnapped by the Israeli army on Sunday, in different parts of the occupied West Bank.
The army also shot and wounded dozens of Palestinians in the ongoing offensive.
Israeli settlers shoot at Palestinians near Ramallah
Ma’an – 22/06/2014
RAMALLAH – Israeli settlers opened fire at Palestinians northwest of Ramallah late Sunday in the second such incident in hours, locals said.
Two settlers shot at nine men who were working in a quarry near the village of al-Mazraa al-Gharbiya, without causing injuries, the workers told Ma’an.
They said they noticed the settlers sneaking into the quarry and fled the scene as settlers opened fire with an automatic rifle.
After being chased for nearly two miles, the workers reached al-Mazraa al-Gharabiya unscathed, they told Ma’an.
The Palestinians identified themselves as Ismail al-Rajabi, 25, Momen Idriss, 24, Anas Idriss, 18, Yacoub Idriss, 20, Bilal Idriss, 20, Ahmad Jaber, 27, Wael al-Shalaldeh, 32, Mohammad Jaber, 23, and 10-year-old Abd al-Rahman Jaber.
An Israeli army spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Earlier, a Ma’an reporter said that Israeli settlers opened fire at Palestinians in al-Bireh near Ramallah, injuring one as mourners gathered for the funeral of Muhammad Tarifi.
Tarifi was one of two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces early Sunday.
The Siege on Hebron
By Matthew Vickery and Sheren Khalel | MEMO | June 22, 2014
As the lockdown on Hebron enters its tenth day, the atmosphere in the city is tense and restless, with people living under a state of erratic checkpoints and military closure for the past week. On the streets of the city, there is only talk of what will happen if the three missing Israeli settlers are not found, or the mystery around their disappearance is not resolved. Every day since their disappearance Israel has imposed ever-increasing restrictions on the West Bank, but residents of Hebron, near the original location of the teens’ disappearance, are feeling the brunt of the crackdown.
The road through Halhul to Hebron is usually a simple route to negotiate, but now the streets of Halhul are besieged with Israeli soldiers, jeeps, and checkpoints making travel through the small city arduous. Halhul is within the Hebron governorate and like the majority of cities and towns in Hebron, the past week has been filled with a series of difficulties and tragedies. Residents face the daily reality of being locked down— restricted to their small area, unable to travel due to imposed Israeli military restrictions, as well as having armed soldiers positioned outside on throughways, often in great numbers. Houses are repeatedly and unpredictably raided, leaving homes in a state of chaos.
“There are so many soldiers and army jeeps here now, it feels like a thousand are here in Halhul” Mohammed Rabah, a resident of the city told Middle East Monitor. “The soldiers are breaking houses down, raiding them at night, arresting people and kicking people out because they are searching for the three settlers. It has become a very bad situation.”
Over 300 Palestinians in the West Bank have been detained so far this week by Israel, almost all during these night raids. While the majority of those arrested have an affiliation to Hamas, Hamas has denied responsibility for the missing Israeli teens. However three small groups in the occupied West Bank have claimed responsibility, Ahrar al-Khalil, the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL), and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
On Friday, these now regular night raids, clashes and arrests in the Hebron area resulted in the death of a 14 year old boy who was shot in the chest by the Israeli forces in the early morning. By the afternoon, clashes were already occurring in Hebron’s city centre, as young men faced off against Israeli forces near the entrance to the illegal Israeli settlement situated in the along Shuhada Street.
During the demonstration, a 23-year-old Palestinian man was shot in the ankle by Israeli forces after four hours of clashes, with what his friends and fellow demonstrators said was a live round. Four young men quickly dragged him out of the line of fire and carried him to a car that screeched up to the protest after realizing someone had been shot.
“The bullet is lodged in his ankle for sure,” One of the protestors who helped carry the young man to the car told MEMO. “We are throwing rocks, and they are shooting bullets. Where else in the world is like this?”
A ten-year-old boy was also arrested during the protest.
According to protestors and bystanders, this demonstration was more intense than any they’d experienced before, as the recent Israeli crackdown on the city in search for the three missing Israeli settlers continues.
Previously the Israeli government had announced that the Israeli forces were permitted to use “all measures” to help find the missing settlers. MEMO contacted the Ministry of Defense several times for further comment on what all measures may involve, but the Ministry declined to return these phone calls or emails.
Earlier this week Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem released a press release urging the Israeli government and Israeli forces “to refrain from meting out collective punishment on the local population,” while carrying out their hunt for the missing Israelis.
With the demonstration in the background and speaking to MEMO under terms of anonymity, many of the young men at the protest spoke of increasing aggressive actions by the army and their belief that they had to respond to it.
While clashes continued into the late afternoon, the streets of Hebron’s city centre were deserted, an increasingly common site. Stores were closed and tourist spots were desolate. The Ministry of Tourism’s information office in the heart of the souk didn’t bother opening for business.
“Two weeks ago, it was very good with tourists who came to Hebron, but because of the problems with the Israeli here, there isn’t anything,” Shadi Sider, who runs a tour group and souvenir shop in Hebron said. “There isn’t work here in Hebron now, the work is just enough to take food in the house—no work, no food.”
The head of the Palestinian businessmen forum in Hebron, Mohammad Nafeth al-Herbawi, said the district of Hebron is losing $10 million a day during the siege on the area. While laborers are facing up to $2 million in losses, according to Ma’an News Agency.
While Sider is one of those who is severely impacted by the lack of business prospects during the siege, he says the problems he faces at home are more worrying. Sider’s home, positioned beside Shuhada Street where an illegal Israeli settlement is situated, is surrounded by illegal settlers. His house has been raided, and his roof annexed a number of times throughout the past week. Due to the proximity of the settlement to his home, Sider is rather used to living life surrounded by soldiers, but this week has been more punishing.
“Thereares more soldiers than there has ever been before. The soldiers come here in my house, and they go on my roof to see, to guard, to make problems,” Sider said. “For the last week since the kidnappings it has been much worse, there are so many soldiers here.”
While Israel’s increased military presence focused on Hebron during the beginning of the search for the missing settlers, it is quickly expanding. Houses have been raided and people arrested through the greater West Bank, and injuries from Israeli forces have been reported in almost every district. Already five Palestinians have been shot dead since the search began including the 14 year old in Dura, a 22 year old in Qalandiya refugee camp, a 20 year old in Ramallah’s al-Jalazun refugee camp, and last night a 35 year old in Nablus and a 30 year old in Ramallah’s city center.
Collective punishment in Palestine
International Solidarity Movement | June 22, 2014
Occupied Palestine – On Thursday 12th of this month, three settler youth disappeared while hitchhiking in the Hebron area of the West Bank. No Palestinian group or organisation has taken responsibility for the disappearance.
15-year-old Mohammad Dudeen was murdered in the early hours of Friday morning (20th) after he was shot with live ammunition by the Israeli military. This was during a raid on his home village of Dura, near the city of Hebron.
Mohammed was not the only youth killed on Friday. The Israeli military raided Qalandiya refugee camp (south of Ramallah) and shot three youths with live ammunition. Mustafa Hosni Aslan, 22-years-old, was shot in the head and died of his wounds later the same day.
A Palestinian man in his sixties died of a heart attack on Saturday, 21st, after the Israeli military invaded his home. Hajj Jamil Ali Jaber Souf was at his home in Hares village, near Salfit, when the Israeli military violently broke in and attacked him. One of his nephews stated that the soldiers prevented the family from moving Jabber to a local clinic to receive medial treatment.
The Israeli army invaded the city of Nablus last night at approximately 2AM. The youth took to the streets and clashes ensued as they attempted to drive the soldiers out of the city. Many stun grenades were used throughout the night and a final barrage of tear gas was fired on the youths as the were leaving the city centre at approximately 5AM.
An ISMer in al-Khalil (Hebron): “For the past week in Hebron, there has been a heavy military presence. Solders from the Israeli military have been taking over Palestinian homes for their own use and harassing people in the streets with body searches. Many people have been detained, beaten, and arrested.
Settlers from the illegal settlements walk around armed and have been attacking Palestinians on the streets. Today the Israeli army attacked the residents of the Qeitun neighbourhood in Hebron. They entered several times during the day, but this evening the solders attacked an 11-year-old boy by hitting him on the mouth. They arrested two Palestinians and searched the locals for no reason. The solders continued the violence with property damage, ripping apart a local car under the guise of a ‘search’.”
Last night Israel’s army invaded Ramallah district from three directions – Qalandia, Beituniya and Beit El, reaching as deep as Arafat Square inside the city. Pal Media offices in Baloa’ were raided. In Burj al-Sheikh, the army raided the office of a prisoner that was released in the Shalit exchange deal, and used it as a firing post against youths attempting to repel them from the area. The youths sustained multiple injuries from rubber coated steel bullets. In Batn al-Hawa the army raided a charity building and confiscated computers.
These are just some examples of life in Palestine over the last nine days. According to Maan News, approximately 370 Palestinians have been arrested since last Thursday. The Israeli military have been brutal in their tactics of collectively punishing the citizens of Palestine for the disappearance of three Israeli youths. All over the West Bank, in villages, towns, and cities, Palestinian homes and offices have been raided, cities have been held under siege, people have been injured, arrested, and executed.
In Gaza, Israeli warplanes have targeted several locations and caused extensive property damage and injuries, spreading panic among Palestinian civilians.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 33, states that: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”
Israeli forces demolish structures, road pavement in South Hebron Hills
Photo by Operation Dove
Operation Dove | June 20, 2014
Khallet Forem, Occupied Palestine – On June 18th, the Israeli army, along with border police officers and DCO (District Coordination Office) officers entered in the Palestinian village of Khallet Forem, in South Hebron Hills, and demolished seven houses, a bathroom, and a shelter.
No demolition orders were delivered for these structures.
According to Palestinian witnesses, a woman was injured by the soldiers during the operation.
The seven houses, the shelter, and the bathroom were owned by the Abu Dahar family. These demolitions involved at least 26 people, 12 of them are children.
In the same day, Israeli forces demolished the main road of Ar Rifa’Iyya Ad Deirat and built a roadblock in order to prevent the access from that road to the bypass road 356.
According to PHROC (The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council), the recent wave of demolitions, arrests, attacks, killings, and total closure of large parts of the West Bank following the disappearance of three Israeli settlers is a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. This is in direct violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that forbid reprisals against protected persons and their property, as well as collective punishment.
Photo by Operation Dove
Recent Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza infrastructure
Palestine Information Center – 20/06/2014
GAZA – The Palestinian interior ministry said that the recent Israeli aerial attacks on the Gaza Strip directly targeted its infrastructure, factories and workshops.
A spokesperson for the ministry stated that an Israeli warplane bombed a dairy plant in Gaza City at dawn today.
Israel escalated its aerial attacks on Gaza over the past few days in Gaza Strip, which rendered many civilians wounded amid persistent international and Arab silence.
For its part, the Palestinian education ministry strongly condemned Israel’s repeated bombing of educational institutions, asserting that 10 schools sustained damage during recent Israeli air raids on Gaza.
Palestinian dies of heart attack as Israeli troops raid home
Ma’an – 21/06/2014
SALFIT – An elderly Palestinian man died early Saturday of heart attack during a heated argument with Israeli troops who broke into his house in the village of Haris in Salfit district in the northern West Bank.
Palestinian security sources said Israeli soldiers refused to allow family members of Jamil Ali Abed Jabir to take him to hospital for treatment after he suffered a heart attack and eventually died at home. The victim was in his 60s.
The sources explained that dozens of Israeli soldiers stormed Haris village, ransacked several homes and assaulted residents.
Jawad Muhammad Dawood suffered a hand fracture after Israeli troops brutally attacked him and his brother Jawdat during a raid on their home. In addition, seven family members inhaled tear gas after Israeli forces fired a canister in their home.
No detentions were reported in the village.
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