1 mar 2015
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have started Sunday a large-scale military exercise in the West Bank.
The IOF's new central command chief Gadi Eisenkot called a massive surprise training exercise in the West Bank on Sunday, Israeli reports revealed.
According to the sources, 13,000 reservists were called to surprise training mission in West Bank in preparation for possible escalation with the Palestinians.
The drill, which will see two large full scale training operations covering the entire West Bank region, will also involve armored, artillery and air forces, the sources added.
The two-day training exercise is considered the first of its kind since the first Palestinian uprising and the Israeli invasion in 2002.
The IOF further said it would train for a possible kidnapping scenario, as well as practicing arrest raids.
Radio Israel quoted an unidentified senior military source as saying the drill had been unexpected, would be "unusual in size" and would also involve aerial and intelligence units.
The drill was held to test reservists' alertness and to prepare for the possibility of a possible escalation in the West Bank, according to the source.
The IOF's new central command chief Gadi Eisenkot called a massive surprise training exercise in the West Bank on Sunday, Israeli reports revealed.
According to the sources, 13,000 reservists were called to surprise training mission in West Bank in preparation for possible escalation with the Palestinians.
The drill, which will see two large full scale training operations covering the entire West Bank region, will also involve armored, artillery and air forces, the sources added.
The two-day training exercise is considered the first of its kind since the first Palestinian uprising and the Israeli invasion in 2002.
The IOF further said it would train for a possible kidnapping scenario, as well as practicing arrest raids.
Radio Israel quoted an unidentified senior military source as saying the drill had been unexpected, would be "unusual in size" and would also involve aerial and intelligence units.
The drill was held to test reservists' alertness and to prepare for the possibility of a possible escalation in the West Bank, according to the source.
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Art piece made from spent tear gas canisters by Rana Bishara
Plumes of teargas wafted up the terraced hillside of the West Bank village of Bil’in on Friday when over 1,000 demonstrators marked ten years of weekly protests against Israel’s separation wall and occupation outside of Ramallah. Israelis drove in from Tel Aviv, and international activists and Palestinians from nearby towns flocked to march from the center of Bil’in to the hamlet’s agricultural grounds. As they do every Friday, clashes ensued once protesters reached the outskirts of town where olive orchards and patches of vegetable farms buffer Israel’s concrete barrier and one of the most populated settlements, Modi’in Illit. Two Palestinians were injured with live fire, and the army detained four. Palestinian youths carried the flag of their occupied nation, with many sporting black tee-shirts with an outline of Ziad Abu Ein, a Palestinian minister who died in the winter after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers during an olive planting to commemorate International Human Rights Day. “Listen to that, we destroyed the jeep” said Ahmad Abu Rahme, 21, while resting under the shade of an olive tree near the wall as stones clanged against an army vehicle. Close by Ahmad’s childhood friends lobbed stones. “We grew up like this,” he said, recounting Bil’in’s first protest a decade ago. At that time, Ahmad’s father did not want him to protest, fearing an encounter with the Israeli army could lead to arrest or injury. Now ten years later, Ahmad’s father joins him on Fridays and weekly protests have become staple family outings. Bil’in’s Friday demonstrations started in 2005 when Israeli soldiers arrived to construct the separation wall at the edge of the town. |
The army wanted to build a cement barrier between a then uninhabited settlement neighborhood in Modi’in Illit and Bil’in. “Everybody from the village, we went to stop the bulldozer from cutting olive trees,” said Hamde Abu Rahme, 27, the celebrated photojournalist from Bil’in who documents the weekly protests. “At this time I was only 17 years old. And we tried our best to stop this.”
Within the year left-leaning Israeli activists from the group Anarchists Against the Wall joined the Friday demonstrations. Two years later a dozen of other villages facing land confiscations started their own weekly marches. Yet it was Bil’in that became the symbol for Palestinian non-violent resistance, a term that is debated because often the marches end in stonethrowing from the town’s youth. Bil’in is also recognized for creativity and costume. Villagers have come out in Santa Claus suits and blue alien garb and body paint modeled off of the movie Avatar. Once protestors even had an Israeli dress as Mahatma Gandhi and a Palestinian as Martin Luther King Jr. The press images of unarmed renowned peacemakers and cinema characters fleeing from the Middle East’s strongest army and its gun fire were so compelling that it catapulted Bil’in to become the West Bank’s real-life David and Goliath tale. What is now referred to as the Palestinian non-violent movement was born.
Bil’in suffered losses over the decade of dissidence. Regularly the army tear gassed and shot live fire into the crowds at the Friday protests. Two of Abu Rahme’s cousins were killed during such clashes. Bassem Abu Rahme, 31, was slain in 2009 and Jawaher Abu Rahme, 36, died in 2011 from asthma related complications after inhaling tear gas. Bassem Abu Rahme’s killing and the confrontations between villagers and the Israeli military were featured in the Academy-Award-nominated film Five Broken Cameras by Bil’in native-turned-celebrity Emad Burnat and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi. Although the army conducted investigations that trailed on for years, no soldier was ever charged in either of the cousins’ deaths.
And Bil’in lost land. By the time Israel’s army completed construction of the separation wall in 2008, around 2,000 dunums of Bil’in’s farmland was trapped behind the Israeli side of the barrier. Then in 2010 Israel’s high court intervened after a leading Israeli human rights law firm, Yesh Din, filed a petition. The jurists ruled that the path of the wall must be re-routed because it was built on privately owned Palestinian land. Still the new route took more than 650 dunums. Bil’in’s legal victory is widely seen by Palestinians as a win for popular resistance against settlement encroachment on Palestinian territory. And the protests continued. Bil’in villagers want to get the rest of their land back that the settlers usurped.
“As Palestinians you always lose, but we got something and it’s not for nothing of course,” Abu Rahme continued. “We got more than a thousand dunums back. It’s our land. It means it’s [popular resistance is] working, no? This is a good thing. And I think also Palestinians must struggle elsewhere,” Abu Rahme added.
“I believe with all my heart. I don’t just go to demonstration and say Palestine will be free, I truly believe it,” said Mohammed Hamad, 22. Hamad is from Bil’in and works two jobs in the West Bank’s economic center, Ramallah. His days are spent in a multimedia studio. At night he is a waiter in an upscale bar. Although he work days end at 4 am, Hamad rarely misses a Friday protest and comes dressed in lab goggles, eye protection against potent tear gas.
“I will never stop protesting. Just when Palestine is free then I will stop and go another country and protest there until they are free too,” said Hamad.
Popular resistance v. Palestinian Authority
After three hours Friday, Bil’in’s demonstration thinned. Internationals lounged on boulders, snacking on chips and drinking soda with locals. A few curled up for a nap on the sofa of the town’s media center, a modest building plastered with posters of Bil’in’s fallen demonstrators and political figureheads.
Meanwhile Hamad headed home. He walked uphill where he met Rana Bishara, 43, a Palestinian visual artist from the Galilee in northern Israel who lives in Beit Jala, outside of Bethlehem. Bishara sat on a plastic chair in front of two sculptures she made that morning from spent tear gas canisters and pieces of barbed wire from an army fence that buttresses the separation wall in Bil’in. Though she is not from the West Bank, Bishara regularly travels to different villages active in popular resistance against the wall. “We are under illegal occupation and our resistance is legal,” she said.
Some local officials attended the tenth anniversary protest: Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi and the mayor of Ramallah Dr. Laila Ghannam. But Bishara has more faith in demonstrations like Bil’in than the recent actions taken by Palestinian leadership at the United Nations, seeking a Security Council resolution that recognizes Palestinian statehood, or joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the end of this month, Palestinian officials have indicated they will charge Israel with war crimes relating to Gaza and settlements in the West Bank.
Bishara scoffed at the Palestinian government’s hopes of achieving a trial against Israel. “It’s a big joke,” she said. “Only a small portion of the Palestinian population support the leadership.”
Comparing the Palestinian Authority’s two decades of failed negotiations that failed to reduce Israel’s occupation to the five years of protests in Bil’in that led to Israel’s high court ordering a return of confiscated land, Bishara says she has more faith in Palestinian villagers than their leaders.
Hamad agreed; overall the government is wasting its time. “We are not unified and for that I feel shame,” he said.
It is worth noting that a handful of village activists from across the West Bank receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority to carry out popular resistance as a full-time job. To some, this is regarded as a buy-out of a grassroots movement. But despite the presence of paid organizers, sentiments against the Palestinian Authority run deep.
“There are some people in the government who say they are with the popular resistance, but if you are really with the people, don’t stop them from protesting at Beit El or Qalandia,” said Hamad, noting that Palestinian security forces break up demonstrations at Israeli checkpoints or settlements as a provision of the Oslo accord, which mandates security coordination between Israelis and Palestinians. “So we are under an occupation, under occupation.”
Within the year left-leaning Israeli activists from the group Anarchists Against the Wall joined the Friday demonstrations. Two years later a dozen of other villages facing land confiscations started their own weekly marches. Yet it was Bil’in that became the symbol for Palestinian non-violent resistance, a term that is debated because often the marches end in stonethrowing from the town’s youth. Bil’in is also recognized for creativity and costume. Villagers have come out in Santa Claus suits and blue alien garb and body paint modeled off of the movie Avatar. Once protestors even had an Israeli dress as Mahatma Gandhi and a Palestinian as Martin Luther King Jr. The press images of unarmed renowned peacemakers and cinema characters fleeing from the Middle East’s strongest army and its gun fire were so compelling that it catapulted Bil’in to become the West Bank’s real-life David and Goliath tale. What is now referred to as the Palestinian non-violent movement was born.
Bil’in suffered losses over the decade of dissidence. Regularly the army tear gassed and shot live fire into the crowds at the Friday protests. Two of Abu Rahme’s cousins were killed during such clashes. Bassem Abu Rahme, 31, was slain in 2009 and Jawaher Abu Rahme, 36, died in 2011 from asthma related complications after inhaling tear gas. Bassem Abu Rahme’s killing and the confrontations between villagers and the Israeli military were featured in the Academy-Award-nominated film Five Broken Cameras by Bil’in native-turned-celebrity Emad Burnat and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi. Although the army conducted investigations that trailed on for years, no soldier was ever charged in either of the cousins’ deaths.
And Bil’in lost land. By the time Israel’s army completed construction of the separation wall in 2008, around 2,000 dunums of Bil’in’s farmland was trapped behind the Israeli side of the barrier. Then in 2010 Israel’s high court intervened after a leading Israeli human rights law firm, Yesh Din, filed a petition. The jurists ruled that the path of the wall must be re-routed because it was built on privately owned Palestinian land. Still the new route took more than 650 dunums. Bil’in’s legal victory is widely seen by Palestinians as a win for popular resistance against settlement encroachment on Palestinian territory. And the protests continued. Bil’in villagers want to get the rest of their land back that the settlers usurped.
“As Palestinians you always lose, but we got something and it’s not for nothing of course,” Abu Rahme continued. “We got more than a thousand dunums back. It’s our land. It means it’s [popular resistance is] working, no? This is a good thing. And I think also Palestinians must struggle elsewhere,” Abu Rahme added.
“I believe with all my heart. I don’t just go to demonstration and say Palestine will be free, I truly believe it,” said Mohammed Hamad, 22. Hamad is from Bil’in and works two jobs in the West Bank’s economic center, Ramallah. His days are spent in a multimedia studio. At night he is a waiter in an upscale bar. Although he work days end at 4 am, Hamad rarely misses a Friday protest and comes dressed in lab goggles, eye protection against potent tear gas.
“I will never stop protesting. Just when Palestine is free then I will stop and go another country and protest there until they are free too,” said Hamad.
Popular resistance v. Palestinian Authority
After three hours Friday, Bil’in’s demonstration thinned. Internationals lounged on boulders, snacking on chips and drinking soda with locals. A few curled up for a nap on the sofa of the town’s media center, a modest building plastered with posters of Bil’in’s fallen demonstrators and political figureheads.
Meanwhile Hamad headed home. He walked uphill where he met Rana Bishara, 43, a Palestinian visual artist from the Galilee in northern Israel who lives in Beit Jala, outside of Bethlehem. Bishara sat on a plastic chair in front of two sculptures she made that morning from spent tear gas canisters and pieces of barbed wire from an army fence that buttresses the separation wall in Bil’in. Though she is not from the West Bank, Bishara regularly travels to different villages active in popular resistance against the wall. “We are under illegal occupation and our resistance is legal,” she said.
Some local officials attended the tenth anniversary protest: Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi and the mayor of Ramallah Dr. Laila Ghannam. But Bishara has more faith in demonstrations like Bil’in than the recent actions taken by Palestinian leadership at the United Nations, seeking a Security Council resolution that recognizes Palestinian statehood, or joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the end of this month, Palestinian officials have indicated they will charge Israel with war crimes relating to Gaza and settlements in the West Bank.
Bishara scoffed at the Palestinian government’s hopes of achieving a trial against Israel. “It’s a big joke,” she said. “Only a small portion of the Palestinian population support the leadership.”
Comparing the Palestinian Authority’s two decades of failed negotiations that failed to reduce Israel’s occupation to the five years of protests in Bil’in that led to Israel’s high court ordering a return of confiscated land, Bishara says she has more faith in Palestinian villagers than their leaders.
Hamad agreed; overall the government is wasting its time. “We are not unified and for that I feel shame,” he said.
It is worth noting that a handful of village activists from across the West Bank receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority to carry out popular resistance as a full-time job. To some, this is regarded as a buy-out of a grassroots movement. But despite the presence of paid organizers, sentiments against the Palestinian Authority run deep.
“There are some people in the government who say they are with the popular resistance, but if you are really with the people, don’t stop them from protesting at Beit El or Qalandia,” said Hamad, noting that Palestinian security forces break up demonstrations at Israeli checkpoints or settlements as a provision of the Oslo accord, which mandates security coordination between Israelis and Palestinians. “So we are under an occupation, under occupation.”
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened machinegun fire at agricultural lands to the east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip on Sunday morning.
Local sources told the PIC reporter that the IOF soldiers based on the borderline of the Israeli security fence fired machineguns at Palestinian farmers and bird hunters with no casualties reported.
Every now and then, the Israeli forces open indiscriminate fire and launch limited incursions into Gaza Strip, breaching the ceasefire agreement signed with Egyptian mediation late August.
Local sources told the PIC reporter that the IOF soldiers based on the borderline of the Israeli security fence fired machineguns at Palestinian farmers and bird hunters with no casualties reported.
Every now and then, the Israeli forces open indiscriminate fire and launch limited incursions into Gaza Strip, breaching the ceasefire agreement signed with Egyptian mediation late August.
The Israeli navy, Saturday, again opened machine gun fire on Palestinian fishermen offshore the al-Sudaniya, to the northwest of Gaza.
According to WAFA correspondence, Israeli naval boats indiscriminately opened heavy gunfire on fishermen sailing within the unilaterally-imposed six-nautical-miles fishing zone offshore al-Sudaniya, causing damages to at least one boat.
No injuries were reported among the fishermen who fled the scene for fear of being injured, killed, or arrested.
Israeli naval boats routinely open fire on Palestinian fishermen sailing within the six-nautical-miles zone and farmlands along the border, flagrantly violating the ceasefire deal.
Israel and the Palestinian factions inked a ceasefire deal on August 26, ending the latest 2014 summer deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza that claimed the lives of over 2,200 people, overwhelmingly civilians.
The ceasefire deal stipulated that Israel would immediately ease the blockade imposed on the strip and expand the fishing zone off Gaza's coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore, and would continue to expand the area gradually.
Israel has, however, failed to do so, repeatedly violating the ceasefire deal through opening fire on Palestinian fishermen within the fishing zone and reducing their intake.
Continuing the Cairo-brokered talks on the other key issues was repeatedly postponed in the wake of November attacks against Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel has imposed a tightened blockade since 2007, after Hamas won the democratic legislative elections and took over power in the Strip.
The current six-nautical-mile fishing zone falls drastically short of the twenty nautical miles allocated to Palestinian fishermen in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
According to WAFA correspondence, Israeli naval boats indiscriminately opened heavy gunfire on fishermen sailing within the unilaterally-imposed six-nautical-miles fishing zone offshore al-Sudaniya, causing damages to at least one boat.
No injuries were reported among the fishermen who fled the scene for fear of being injured, killed, or arrested.
Israeli naval boats routinely open fire on Palestinian fishermen sailing within the six-nautical-miles zone and farmlands along the border, flagrantly violating the ceasefire deal.
Israel and the Palestinian factions inked a ceasefire deal on August 26, ending the latest 2014 summer deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza that claimed the lives of over 2,200 people, overwhelmingly civilians.
The ceasefire deal stipulated that Israel would immediately ease the blockade imposed on the strip and expand the fishing zone off Gaza's coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore, and would continue to expand the area gradually.
Israel has, however, failed to do so, repeatedly violating the ceasefire deal through opening fire on Palestinian fishermen within the fishing zone and reducing their intake.
Continuing the Cairo-brokered talks on the other key issues was repeatedly postponed in the wake of November attacks against Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel has imposed a tightened blockade since 2007, after Hamas won the democratic legislative elections and took over power in the Strip.
The current six-nautical-mile fishing zone falls drastically short of the twenty nautical miles allocated to Palestinian fishermen in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
28 feb 2015
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) prevented on Saturday the access of Palestinian farmers to their land near Qaryot town in southern Nablus.
Bashar Qaryoti, an activist in the village, told the PIC reporter that the IOF soldiers attacked a group of Palestinian farmers who were heading to their land located between two Israeli settlements and prevented them from working in their own farms.
He revealed that an Israeli officer handed the farmers notices to stop working in their land or else their lives would be in danger and their farming tools would be confiscated.
The IOF continuously bars the Palestinians from working in the remained areas of Qaryot town estimated at around 50 dunums. The Israeli authorities claim that these lands are controlled by Israel and constitute a danger to the safety of Jewish settlers.
Qaryoti confirmed that the Popular Committee against Settlement insists on reclaiming the lands and constructing buildings on it despite the Israeli soldiers’ harassment.
Bashar Qaryoti, an activist in the village, told the PIC reporter that the IOF soldiers attacked a group of Palestinian farmers who were heading to their land located between two Israeli settlements and prevented them from working in their own farms.
He revealed that an Israeli officer handed the farmers notices to stop working in their land or else their lives would be in danger and their farming tools would be confiscated.
The IOF continuously bars the Palestinians from working in the remained areas of Qaryot town estimated at around 50 dunums. The Israeli authorities claim that these lands are controlled by Israel and constitute a danger to the safety of Jewish settlers.
Qaryoti confirmed that the Popular Committee against Settlement insists on reclaiming the lands and constructing buildings on it despite the Israeli soldiers’ harassment.
Palestinian workers cross a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya in this file photo
17-year-old Muhammad Asri Fayyad, from the northern occupied West Bank, says he was violently assaulted by Israeli soldiers at al-Jalama crossing, north of Jenin, while trying to cross into Israel.
The youth told Ma'an News Agency, Saturday, that he arrived at the crossing on Thursday morning, along with a busload of young men and teenagers who had organized a trip to Israel and obtained the needed permits from Israeli authorities.
He says he entered the crossing and complied with the instructions being given by Israeli officers over the loudspeakers. The instructions included "that we shove our mobile phones in one place and we cross from a different place, which we did," Muhammad stated.
"Everybody received back their mobile phones except me. The soldiers asked me to pass through a path under a bridge, on top of which stood a number of soldiers pointing their guns at me.
"They then asked me to enter a room which has several doors and I obeyed the orders. All the doors were immediately locked before the officers started to shout through loudspeakers demanding that I take off my clothes and my shoes."
He added that he took off his shoes first, but the soldiers continued to shout violently, repeating that he must take off all his clothes.
"When I took off my clothes, they turned on a huge ceiling fan which caused frigid coldness. I told them to turn off the fan because I was freezing, but they didn't, and so I knocked on the fan in an attempt to cause it to stop. At that point the soldiers broke into the room and started to beat be with rifle butts until I fell to the ground.
"They then tied my hand to a steel bar behind my back and tied my foot to another bar. I remained in that position from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. After that a number of soldiers arrived and a female soldier untied me after she took a silver necklace I was wearing. She ordered me to put on my clothes, then she handcuffed and blindfolded my eyes and escorted me outside the crossing and told me that I was denied entry to Israel. She gave me a small sack in which I found the remnants of my mobile phone which had been smashed."
Muhammad says he has been suffering severe shoulder and foot pain ever since.
17-year-old Muhammad Asri Fayyad, from the northern occupied West Bank, says he was violently assaulted by Israeli soldiers at al-Jalama crossing, north of Jenin, while trying to cross into Israel.
The youth told Ma'an News Agency, Saturday, that he arrived at the crossing on Thursday morning, along with a busload of young men and teenagers who had organized a trip to Israel and obtained the needed permits from Israeli authorities.
He says he entered the crossing and complied with the instructions being given by Israeli officers over the loudspeakers. The instructions included "that we shove our mobile phones in one place and we cross from a different place, which we did," Muhammad stated.
"Everybody received back their mobile phones except me. The soldiers asked me to pass through a path under a bridge, on top of which stood a number of soldiers pointing their guns at me.
"They then asked me to enter a room which has several doors and I obeyed the orders. All the doors were immediately locked before the officers started to shout through loudspeakers demanding that I take off my clothes and my shoes."
He added that he took off his shoes first, but the soldiers continued to shout violently, repeating that he must take off all his clothes.
"When I took off my clothes, they turned on a huge ceiling fan which caused frigid coldness. I told them to turn off the fan because I was freezing, but they didn't, and so I knocked on the fan in an attempt to cause it to stop. At that point the soldiers broke into the room and started to beat be with rifle butts until I fell to the ground.
"They then tied my hand to a steel bar behind my back and tied my foot to another bar. I remained in that position from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. After that a number of soldiers arrived and a female soldier untied me after she took a silver necklace I was wearing. She ordered me to put on my clothes, then she handcuffed and blindfolded my eyes and escorted me outside the crossing and told me that I was denied entry to Israel. She gave me a small sack in which I found the remnants of my mobile phone which had been smashed."
Muhammad says he has been suffering severe shoulder and foot pain ever since.
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Friday afternoon violently attacked an anti-settlement march staged by the "youth against settlement" group and foreign activists to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre.
The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) reporter in the city said that Israeli soldiers intensively used live and rubber bullets and tear gas grenades to suppress the rally, causing many participants to suffer injuries and suffocate.
According to the reporter, the protesters marched following the Friday prayers from al-Sheikh neighborhood to al-Shuhadaa area in the central district of al-Khalil, chanting slogans and carrying banners denouncing the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre and Israel's aggressive practices in the city.
He added that the troops' use of excessive force triggered confrontations in different neighborhoods of the city.
The Ibrahim Mosque massacre happened on February 25, 1994 when US-born Israeli army officer Baruch Goldstein, who lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the city, walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil armed with an assault rifle, and as Muslim worshipers were praying, he embarked on opening a barrage of fire, killing 29 Palestinians and wounding more than a hundred before other survivors overpowered him and beat him to death.
The 29 people killed inside the Mosque were not the only "martyrs" that day because many others were either killed or wounded by Israeli soldiers over the course of the day during protests outside the Mosque and at al-Khalil's Ahli hospital as well as at the local cemetery while the victims were being buried.
Al-Shuhadaa street, near the Ibrahim Mosque, has been a flash-point since the incident.
The street is lined with small closed stores whose owners used to live upstairs and was once among the busiest market streets in the city.
At the time, the Israeli occupation army, in response to the killing of Goldstein, shut down al-Shuhadaa street and welded the doors of all homes and stores there.
By the time of the second intifada in 2000, the army finished turning the entire street into a ghost street on which no Palestinian was permitted to set foot. Only Jewish settlers and foreign tourists are allowed to come and go along the road, to snap photos of the ethnically-cleansed area and make their way to the settlement outposts, Beit Hadassah, Beit Romano, and Avraham Avinu.
4 Palestinians, 1 Female German Demonstrator Shot w/Live Ammunition at “Open Shuhada Street” Protest
On February 27 in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces fired live ammunition towards nonviolent protesters participating in the annual Open Shuhada Street demonstration, injuring five including four Palestinian activists, one of them 17 years old, and one German citizen.
Palestinian children holding signs, posing before the march began
More were also injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades as soldiers and Border Police blocked the roads leading towards Shuhada Street and attacked the protesters.
Close to a thousand Palestinians, accompanied by Israeli and international supporters, marched towards one of the closed entrances to Shuhada Street carrying flags and signs and chanting. They called for the opening of Shuhada Street, whose closure to Palestinians has become a symbol of Israel’s Apartheid system, and for an end to the occupation.
The march was turned back by stun grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition fired by the Israeli military. Around twenty demonstrators were injured in total; Hebron Hospital reported that at least six were admitted and two required surgery. One Palestinian activist, Hijazi Ebedo, 25, was arrested at the demonstration; all he had been doing was chanting and holding a sign.
Issa Amro, coordinator and co-founder of Youth Against Settlements (YAS) stated: “The protest, which was joined by groups from all over Palestine, marked the twenty-first anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre. Israeli occupying forces shot live ammunition towards peaceful protesters, which is against international law. The Israeli military should be held accountable in international court for their actions.”
“Julia was standing and filming next to me when suddenly she fell to the ground,” stated Leigh, a Canadian activist who was standing next to Julia when she was shot. Julia, the injured 22-year-old German activist from Berlin, was evacuated to Hebron Hospital where she is being treated for a live gunshot wound which entered and exited her leg.
“The brutality of Israeli forces is unbelievable, it seems like they don’t have a limit,” she stated. “In Palestine I have seen Israeli forces shooting tear gas, stun grenades, rubber and live ammunition at any kind of demonstration that is against the occupation. It doesn’t matter for them if it is peaceful or if there are kids attending. Yesterday I saw the army attack children who had been dancing in the street. Two people were shot with live ammunition in Bil’in. They shot me as I was standing and filming. It seems the soldiers just shoot at any one.”
Israeli military sniper aiming up the road towards the Open Shuhada Street demonstrators The Open Shuhada Street demonstration marks the anniversary of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, when right wing extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians while they worshipped in the mosque. Following the massacre, Israeli forces shut down Palestinian businesses on Shuhada Street–once a commercial center–and began to implement the policies which would lead to what is now a total closure of the vast majority of the street to Palestinians.
Twenty one years after the massacre, settlers from illegal Israeli settlements use the street freely while Palestinians are assaulted, shot and arrested when they attempt to reach it en masse during the Open Shuhada Street demonstration every year.
The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) reporter in the city said that Israeli soldiers intensively used live and rubber bullets and tear gas grenades to suppress the rally, causing many participants to suffer injuries and suffocate.
According to the reporter, the protesters marched following the Friday prayers from al-Sheikh neighborhood to al-Shuhadaa area in the central district of al-Khalil, chanting slogans and carrying banners denouncing the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre and Israel's aggressive practices in the city.
He added that the troops' use of excessive force triggered confrontations in different neighborhoods of the city.
The Ibrahim Mosque massacre happened on February 25, 1994 when US-born Israeli army officer Baruch Goldstein, who lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the city, walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil armed with an assault rifle, and as Muslim worshipers were praying, he embarked on opening a barrage of fire, killing 29 Palestinians and wounding more than a hundred before other survivors overpowered him and beat him to death.
The 29 people killed inside the Mosque were not the only "martyrs" that day because many others were either killed or wounded by Israeli soldiers over the course of the day during protests outside the Mosque and at al-Khalil's Ahli hospital as well as at the local cemetery while the victims were being buried.
Al-Shuhadaa street, near the Ibrahim Mosque, has been a flash-point since the incident.
The street is lined with small closed stores whose owners used to live upstairs and was once among the busiest market streets in the city.
At the time, the Israeli occupation army, in response to the killing of Goldstein, shut down al-Shuhadaa street and welded the doors of all homes and stores there.
By the time of the second intifada in 2000, the army finished turning the entire street into a ghost street on which no Palestinian was permitted to set foot. Only Jewish settlers and foreign tourists are allowed to come and go along the road, to snap photos of the ethnically-cleansed area and make their way to the settlement outposts, Beit Hadassah, Beit Romano, and Avraham Avinu.
4 Palestinians, 1 Female German Demonstrator Shot w/Live Ammunition at “Open Shuhada Street” Protest
On February 27 in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces fired live ammunition towards nonviolent protesters participating in the annual Open Shuhada Street demonstration, injuring five including four Palestinian activists, one of them 17 years old, and one German citizen.
Palestinian children holding signs, posing before the march began
More were also injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades as soldiers and Border Police blocked the roads leading towards Shuhada Street and attacked the protesters.
Close to a thousand Palestinians, accompanied by Israeli and international supporters, marched towards one of the closed entrances to Shuhada Street carrying flags and signs and chanting. They called for the opening of Shuhada Street, whose closure to Palestinians has become a symbol of Israel’s Apartheid system, and for an end to the occupation.
The march was turned back by stun grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition fired by the Israeli military. Around twenty demonstrators were injured in total; Hebron Hospital reported that at least six were admitted and two required surgery. One Palestinian activist, Hijazi Ebedo, 25, was arrested at the demonstration; all he had been doing was chanting and holding a sign.
Issa Amro, coordinator and co-founder of Youth Against Settlements (YAS) stated: “The protest, which was joined by groups from all over Palestine, marked the twenty-first anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre. Israeli occupying forces shot live ammunition towards peaceful protesters, which is against international law. The Israeli military should be held accountable in international court for their actions.”
“Julia was standing and filming next to me when suddenly she fell to the ground,” stated Leigh, a Canadian activist who was standing next to Julia when she was shot. Julia, the injured 22-year-old German activist from Berlin, was evacuated to Hebron Hospital where she is being treated for a live gunshot wound which entered and exited her leg.
“The brutality of Israeli forces is unbelievable, it seems like they don’t have a limit,” she stated. “In Palestine I have seen Israeli forces shooting tear gas, stun grenades, rubber and live ammunition at any kind of demonstration that is against the occupation. It doesn’t matter for them if it is peaceful or if there are kids attending. Yesterday I saw the army attack children who had been dancing in the street. Two people were shot with live ammunition in Bil’in. They shot me as I was standing and filming. It seems the soldiers just shoot at any one.”
Israeli military sniper aiming up the road towards the Open Shuhada Street demonstrators The Open Shuhada Street demonstration marks the anniversary of the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, when right wing extremist settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians while they worshipped in the mosque. Following the massacre, Israeli forces shut down Palestinian businesses on Shuhada Street–once a commercial center–and began to implement the policies which would lead to what is now a total closure of the vast majority of the street to Palestinians.
Twenty one years after the massacre, settlers from illegal Israeli settlements use the street freely while Palestinians are assaulted, shot and arrested when they attempt to reach it en masse during the Open Shuhada Street demonstration every year.
A Palestinian photojournalist on Friday afternoon suffered a serious injury as he was covering Israeli soldiers' assaults on participants in the weekly anti-wall march in Bil'in town, west of Ramallah.
Eyewitnesses said that one of the soldiers fired at close range a rubber bullet at the head of Rami Elariya, who works for al-Quds News newspaper, causing him a skull fracture.
The journalist was rushed to a hospital in Ramallah to receive urgent medical treatment.
Marking the 10th anniversary of the launch of the popular resistance against Israel's settlement activities in the town, hundreds of Palestinian and foreign activists along with national figures and lawmakers participated yesterday in the Bil'in march.
Violent clashes broke out during the march when Israeli troops showered the participants with a hail of tear gas and stun grenades.
Eyewitnesses said that one of the soldiers fired at close range a rubber bullet at the head of Rami Elariya, who works for al-Quds News newspaper, causing him a skull fracture.
The journalist was rushed to a hospital in Ramallah to receive urgent medical treatment.
Marking the 10th anniversary of the launch of the popular resistance against Israel's settlement activities in the town, hundreds of Palestinian and foreign activists along with national figures and lawmakers participated yesterday in the Bil'in march.
Violent clashes broke out during the march when Israeli troops showered the participants with a hail of tear gas and stun grenades.
27 feb 2015
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Several Israeli military vehicles invaded, on Friday at dawn, Kuful Hares town, east of the central West Bank city of Salfit, to accompany Israelis touring archaeological sites in the town. Dozens of Palestinians suffer effects of teargas inhalation in Bethlehem.
Eyewitnesses said approximately 30 military vehicles invaded the town after surrounding it, forced shut local shops, and prevented the Palestinians from entering various areas.
They added that, after the army surrounded and invaded the town, dozens of Israeli buses drove through, heading towards the archaeological sites, while denying freedom of movement to the locals.
Many Israeli buses parked in the center of the town, as many colonialist settlers wanted to walk from there to the historic sites, and the rest of the buses drove straight to the sites.
Dozens of Israeli extremists started chanting anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian slogans, while marching through the town during the early dawn hours.
On Thursday evening, several Palestinians suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation, including a few who fainted, after the soldiers fired dozens of gas bombs, and rubber-coated metal bullets targeting Palestinian protesters near the Rachel Tomb area, at the northern entrance of Bethlehem.
Media sources said local youths hurled stones, Molotov cocktails and empty bottles at the soldiers, stationed in a military tower behind the Annexation Wall, on the northern entrance of the city.
Eyewitnesses said approximately 30 military vehicles invaded the town after surrounding it, forced shut local shops, and prevented the Palestinians from entering various areas.
They added that, after the army surrounded and invaded the town, dozens of Israeli buses drove through, heading towards the archaeological sites, while denying freedom of movement to the locals.
Many Israeli buses parked in the center of the town, as many colonialist settlers wanted to walk from there to the historic sites, and the rest of the buses drove straight to the sites.
Dozens of Israeli extremists started chanting anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian slogans, while marching through the town during the early dawn hours.
On Thursday evening, several Palestinians suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation, including a few who fainted, after the soldiers fired dozens of gas bombs, and rubber-coated metal bullets targeting Palestinian protesters near the Rachel Tomb area, at the northern entrance of Bethlehem.
Media sources said local youths hurled stones, Molotov cocktails and empty bottles at the soldiers, stationed in a military tower behind the Annexation Wall, on the northern entrance of the city.
Israeli forces, Thursday afternoon, opened gunfire on Palestinian houses in the central Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondence.
Soldiers deployed and stationed along the border to the east of the blockaded strip indiscriminately opened fire on Palestinian houses.
No casualties were reported in the cross-border attack which constitutes a flagrant violation of the ceasefire deal that ended the latest deadly Israeli onslaughtassault on the war-torn coastal enclave.
Soldiers deployed and stationed along the border to the east of the blockaded strip indiscriminately opened fire on Palestinian houses.
No casualties were reported in the cross-border attack which constitutes a flagrant violation of the ceasefire deal that ended the latest deadly Israeli onslaughtassault on the war-torn coastal enclave.
Israeli soldiers invaded, on Thursday evening, the al-Khader town, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, and clashed with local youths; many residents suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in al-Khader, said the invasion is the second since Wednesday.
Salah added that the soldiers fired of rounds of live ammunition, gas bombs, concussion grenades, and rubber-coated metal bullets into Um Rokba area of al-Khader.
Many residents suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation, and received treatment by local medics.
In addition, soldiers broke into the home of Mahmoud Hamdan al-Wahsh, search it, and used its rooftop and a military tower.
Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in al-Khader, said the invasion is the second since Wednesday.
Salah added that the soldiers fired of rounds of live ammunition, gas bombs, concussion grenades, and rubber-coated metal bullets into Um Rokba area of al-Khader.
Many residents suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation, and received treatment by local medics.
In addition, soldiers broke into the home of Mahmoud Hamdan al-Wahsh, search it, and used its rooftop and a military tower.
