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[Palestine] ISM report 11-02
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www.palsolidarity.org Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 at 12:06 PM |
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1) The Man in the Clothes Shop _ Chris Green
2) Just Like Christmas _ Drew Penland
3) From an Ambulance in Palestine_ Lisa Beth
4) Right to Education Petition from Bethlehem
1) The Man in the Clothes Shop That Dared To Be Open Date: February 10, 2003
Author: Chris Green Area: Tulkarem
A quick message-
I told you two days ago about the man who worked in the clothes shop, which dared to be a bit open during curfew and was shot in both legs. He was buried today. He was 21, about to be married, and had worked in the shop for a couple of weeks. The bullets went through steel shutters and through the windows before they hit him.
Today in the store besides the obvious pictures of bullet holes in doors, we also took pictures of jerseys still on the racks with holes in them and racks of jeans shot through. I went into the shop later in the day and tried to buy a shirt but the shop workers wanted to give it to me because of our help, so we end up leaving some money on the counter and hoping it's enough.
At the funeral an old man working in the Ministry of Health stopped to talk to me and gave me a portrait of his son- killed in March last year by an Apache helicopter in Ramallah.
Apart from that it was a quiet day in terms of trouble but everyone was expecting trouble so it wasn't a great shopping day for the equivalent of Christmas Eve. However, the shops were very busy, but everyone asks the price of everything. There was a power cut for the whole town this morning for about 4 hours- I don't know if it was imposed by the Israelis or not, but last night I past through a district of the Refugee Camp where the overhead cables had been cut- some of the tanks have special insulated cutting gear. I was due to go to Aziz's Mum's house for Zatta on home made bread so she was making it in a homemade oven in the back yard. Another family are making plans to build an oven so that they can bake bread when all the power is cut off when (if) the war starts and the Israelis impose an unlimited curfew. Yesterday I collected two stories from an ambulance driver of brutality against him. One was only last week, but they are too long to tell here.
Last night I collected 10 letters from local children wanting pen-friends two of them were written in English-Yousif Moosa Ibrahim writes "My ambitions: To be a doctor to treat the poor people in my camp, To see peace all over the world, and to see all my family together in one country. By friendship the world will be smaller"
I got some better feel of the smallness of the geography of this region yesterday when driving through it in the ambulance- I realised that all the places that I picked olives last year were all very close, even though it sometimes took ages to travel between them.
A lovely early evening in the Orphanage below our flat, dancing and reviewing our performance of "We are the Children of Palestine" which they love to sing. They drive people made with some noise making puppets we've bought, but they get a collection of presents from the ambulance drivers and local people. Tonight we are going to sleep in houses in the Camp just in case the military come in to spoil Eid
The checkpoints around the city have been very heavily applied today, to stop people traveling to visit their relatives-an important Eid tradition. As a present to the house I bought two plastic chairs two stools and another small table- Luxury- why did I do this two days before I leave?
Love Chris
=================
2) Just like Christmas February 10, 2003 Author: Drew Penland Area: Tulkarem
Today the feeling in Tulkarem is akin to Christmas in most of our countries. Or almost. The only difference is that soldiers in armored vehicles can enter your shop or mall at will and injure or murder with impunity. Let me tell you of one incident, of the many, from the last ten days. I think it will prove instructive about the present state of affairs in Occupied Palestine.
Two days back I and another ISM activist were watching one APC and border police jeep enforce curfew near the hospitals in the afternoon. They were announcing menacingly "curfew" over their loudspeaker and a few youths were throwing rocks from behind buildings without effect. After sitting at an intersection for a short time the armored vehicles headed down a hill to where they often head back to the Occupation forces base.
Just as we sought to catch our breath there was shouting from up the hill in the area of the hospital. It seemed more was yet to come. From around the corner at the hospital rolled a different APC and border police jeep. We stood at the side of the road and watched them come down the hill towards us.
The vehicles looked like they were from some absurd war fantasy for jingoists. Machine guns poked out of every window of both vehicles. Normally one or two machine guns are pointed at local Palestinians (and us) through windows but this time 5 or 6 guns protruded out of each vehicle and to me was a clear signal trouble was coming.
They rolled by and we waited for our companion who was pinned in at the hospital by herself. As the vehicles rolled by into the city center they picked up speed.
Just past us and at the edge of site I shuddered at three bursts of machine gun fire that came from the APC. I ran in the direction of the shooting and witnessed the vehicles rush off. Within seconds a man exited a shop and called in a shrill voice for an ambulance.
I was one of the first to the scene and rushed into the clothing store. A young man lay on the floor of the shop. He looked like a ghoulish yellow puppet with an extra joint in his legs. Both his femur bones in his legs were snapped by two bullets and blood was visibly spurting from one of his legs into a growing pool that surrounded him on the shop floor.
He was reaching with his hands into the air and in severe shock and excruciating pain, but conscious. All I could do was hold his hand. I had my camera and thought to photograph him and try to help, but I froze for a time. I just went rigid and held his hand and watched the crowd grow outside the store. As people started filtering into the store I took several steps towards the shop entrance and tried to stop people from entering. It seemed that the young man was in such an undignified state and I knew that too many people around him wouldn't help.
In a flash several paramedics, people who are true heroes of this struggle, rushed through the door and with some local help the injured man was lifted onto a bed. The ambulance was off within seconds back to Thabit-Thabit Hospital (Tulkarem).
Now, some details about the young man. His name is Muhammed. He is 21 and a university student who was hired at the shop for this holiday season to help out for this busy time. It was his third day at work. He was the friend of a close friend of mine.
I did not witness the actual shooting directly. We had to confirm with locals that it was from the APC and not the jeep. They said it was from the big machine gun atop the APC called a 215 something.
The evidence at the scene is quite damning. The store had been closed with steel doors at the time of the incident. The heavy gun just shot right through the cement wall and the steel doors into the back of the store and the man.
At the time of the shooting there were six people in the store, including a mother and her 10-year-old son. Many more could have been killed quite easily. Much of the merchandise is now bullet holed and a window manikin had its hand blown off.
The following morning the blood from the floor was mopped clean and the store back open for business. It was almost like nothing ever happened, but not in the hearts of the people.
The man was transferred to a hospital in Nablus (see other report) that night and according to a doctor from the hospital underwent 7 hours of surgery. He continued to have complications through the next day and his bleeding never stopped. He was conscious much of the time, I cannot even imagine the pain.
This morning he passed away. Today another funeral procession.
In truth similar incidents happen every couple days, and lesser but not insignificant incidents like maiming kids with more frequency yet. It is difficult to keep up with them and that is just in this city alone.
When contacted the Israeli Occupation Forces Spokesperson explained that shooting at random was illegal and therefore not done by IOF soldiers. Really. Apparently the killing of civilians isn’t as random as it seems.
Thanks oh Israeli soldiers for bestowing upon the people of Palestine such pleasant gifts this holiday season. They should be more grateful. Be assured they will never forget you and your gifts. Pray that they, and your god, will forgive you.
Eid Sayeed,
drew February 10 Tulkarem Occupied Palestine
Drew Penland is available for interviews over the phone and via email. He can be reached by phone in Occupied Palestine at: 972-(0)52-371338 972-(0)67-658873 (please remember the time difference!)
For information, to arrange interviews or to support ISM efforts please contact Reem Alnuweiri, ISM-Vancouver Coordinator by email at: ism-vancouver@palsolidarity.org
=============== 3) From An Ambulance In Palestine Date: February 10, 2003 Author: Lisa Beth Area: Tulkarem
This is an account of one stage in the treatment of Mohammed Qadourah from a paramedic's perspective. Mohammed is a 21-year-old university student who was gunned down while working his third day at a retail shop in Tulkarem. He was shot through both legs; one femur was shattered, and the other was also fractured with damage as well to the femoral artery. His bleeding was immediate and profuse. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance crew worked to stop the bleeding and transported Mohammed to the local hospital. There, the emergency room staff splinted both legs, took X-rays to diagnose the injuries, started intravenous lines with multiple units of blood, administered pain medication, and continued attempts to slow the bleeding with only partial success.
I accompanied the ambulance crew who transported Mohammed from Dr. Thabit Thabit Hospital in Tulkarem to Nablus, where Rafidia Hospital is better equipped for trauma patients. When we picked up Mohammed from the Tulkarem Emergency Room, he was awake and oriented, able to talk to his family gathered around the bed. He had only a weak pulse in his left foot and none in his right, evidence of an interruption in his circulation beyond the injury sites; his skin was white, his arms and legs were cold, and pulses in his wrists were very weak, all indications of his body's attempt to compensate for the hemorrhage by shunting the available blood away from the periphery and into his vital organs. He was also restless and in pain, and continuing to bleed through the dressings on his legs, especially on the right side.
We transported Mohammed, accompanied by a Tulkarem ER doctor and Mohammed's father, to a meeting point close to the Nablus hospital. There we were met by another ambulance where Mohammed was transferred through a roadblock set up by the Israeli army—the reason a transfer of care was necessary—and the second ambulance continued on to Nablus. At the time of this transfer, Mohammed's condition had deteriorated significantly. He was no longer responding to us, and except for grimaces of pain, seemed unaware of his environment. Pulses were no longer present anywhere except weakly in the carotid arteries (the major blood vessels in the neck); his blood pressure was only 60/40 despite additional IV fluids administered while we were en route; and his respirations were mechanical and ineffective, an ominous sign of shock so severe that his brain was not receiving enough oxygen-carrying blood. At the time I began writing this account, the update on Mohammed was that he had gone through several hours of surgery at the Nablus hospital and was in critical condition.
Our transportation of Mohammed would be called "Code 3" in the United States: "lights and sirens", and permission to disobey traffic laws safely in order to hasten the journey. However, "Code 3" in Palestine is defined much differently. For the most part, Palestinian ambulances do not use sirens, as the sound is too similar to the Israeli army vehicles that are constantly patrolling the cities and villages, and would therefore serve only to frighten the residents. In addition, while an American ambulance must negotiate stoplights and intersections—where the traffic law exemption comes into play—the Palestinian ambulance encounters instead multiple "checkpoints". Many of these checkpoints are established and known, but just as often the Israeli army will set up spontaneous checkpoints. At these locations the ambulance must stop. An Israeli soldier will either approach the ambulance and request identification of the driver and all passengers, or will request that the driver exit the vehicle with these i.d.'s; often, the ambulance is waiting several minutes before the soldier initiates this first stage of the check. At times, the driver must also lift his shirt and turn around at gunpoint, to prove he is not armed. The soldiers then inspect the ambulance, compare i.d. photos with faces, sometimes inspect bags and purses, and ask about our point of origin, our destination, the reason for transport, and other questions which vary in their apparent relevance. The Palestinian ambulances do not have traffic law exemptions at these checkpoints.
During the leg of the journey in which I participated, we were stopped at least three times. At one checkpoint we were delayed at least five minutes, even though the units of blood attached to IV lines were clearly visible, as was the blood on and around Mohammed's legs that continued to seep out throughout the transport. One soldier included in his interrogation the questions, "who shot him?", "why are you going to the other hospital?", and asked our point of origin three times. Finally, after several minutes, I approached the jeep with the intention of explaining again that our patient is critical—as I motioned to the soldier to roll down his window, he simply returned the i.d.'s and told us to go on.
My role has been not only as a paramedic and part of the rescue crew, but also as an international presence to facilitate movement through these checkpoints. It is unclear how much longer this ambulance would have been required to remain at the checkpoint if I had not been present.
At the time I am finishing this account, we have learned that Mohammed died of his injuries this morning, Monday, 10th of February.
----------lisa beth Tulkarem, Palestine
=================
Request To Join A Committee Of Recommendation For A Petition To Stop Restrictions On Palestinian Daily Life And Education
Dear Sir or Madam,
Through this letter we would like to enlist your support for a petition. The petition, included at the end of this letter, will be addressed to international educational authorities requesting that the Israeli government lift the present-day collective measures that it has imposed upon the civilian Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza. Specifically we would like to ask you whether you are willing to join a committee of recommendation for the petition. This committee will be presented in the following way:
"The petition is endorsed and recommended by the following persons (name and title)". In this way, we expect to collect more signatures and support and to increase the petition's impact. After the action will be completed in about two months' time, we will foreword the signatures to international educational authorities and the international press.
We appreciate having your response within two weeks (before February 14). If a person from your circle is willing to join the committee, we would also appreciate to have a brief description of their position/title. Apart from the petition itself, you can find a background text below. We welcome your response at aei@p-ol.com or fax: +972-2-277.7554.
Thank you very much for your attention and support.
Fuad Giacaman and Toine van Teeffelen
Arab Educational Institute/secretariat "Let Our Children Go To School Campaign"
Bethlehem / 00-972-2-274.4030 / fax: 00-972-277.7554
INTRODUCTION TO PETITION The Israeli army regularly and routinely imposes full 24-hour curfews across many inhabited areas of the West Bank without explanation and without accountability. It is expected that new curfews will be issued to coincide with a possible war in Iraq. After experiencing prolonged curfews during the last year, several of which lasted for more than a month, many Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have reached the limits of what they are able to bear.
The present Israeli Occupation is creating a humanitarian disaster. In combination with tight closures and other restrictive and oppressive measures, the curfews severely disrupt normal personal and family life. The economy in the Occupied Territories is in dire straits, poverty and health conditions reach alarming levels, and normal community life is completely paralyzed. It is not difficult to imagine how people feel when they consistently lack control over their daily lives and are barely able to plan. This particularly applies to education where the staff working at schools and institutes for Higher Education are constantly having to improvise their lessons and change their schedules, or cannot go to their work. Some universities have been closed by military order.
Not only are hundreds of thousands of pupils and students lacking any study rhythm, they are also often exposed to killings, injuries or teargas, and feel hopeless about their present and future. Their lack of orientation is compounded by the fear for a war on Iraq, and its consequences for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Many educators here have to live with the thought that a new young generation – the large majority of the Palestinian people, in fact – at present do not feel any future here. Regard this message, written while Bethlehem is once again under curfew, as an _expression of self-respect and a cry for help. We very much appreciate your support, especially at this dark moment in our lives.
The Arab Educational Institute (AEI) in Bethlehem is working on community education, especially for youths, in the southern West Bank. Its work focuses on peace and non-violence education, as well as inter-religious and inter-cultural cooperation and exchanges. AEI is affiliated to Pax Christi International, supported by CORDAID and a partner in the Euro-Arab Dialogue from Below (EAd) network.
AEI is also the secretariat of the campaign "Let Our Children Go To School" which started in the beginning of October 2002 in Bethlehem with a demonstration of many hundreds of school children in the presence of Christian and Moslem religious leaders, civil authorities and local NGOs. Another two demonstrations were held in Bethlehem and in the West Bank village of Taybeh, before the December curfews made new planned demonstrations impossible.
PETITION TEXT
To be addressed to international educational bodies and authorities.
Dear Sir / Madam,
Restrictive measures which collectively and over prolonged periods target the civilian Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, such as the present curfews and closures, are completely unacceptable and should be lifted immediately.
The undersigned emphatically support the rights of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza to go to their schools and institutions of learning, and to conduct their normal duties of daily life.
Also in order to strengthen a long-term prospect for a just and stable peace in the region, we request you to do everything in your power to put appropriate pressure upon the Israeli government in accordance with the demands of international legality including the right of education.
Name:
Profession:
Email address:
Copy and send the signed petition to: aei@p-ol.com or +972-2-277.7554 (fax).
The action will last until April, 2003. ===============================
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT http://www.palsolidarity.org
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www.rapprochement.org Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 at 1:50 PM |
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4-HEBRON: A Knock at Midnight CPTnet February 7, 2003
By Art Gish
It was almost midnight. I was fast asleep. The knocks on the door and the shouting startled me. I jumped out of bed to face my greatest fear about working with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron: getting attacked by Israeli settlers. What would the settlers do? Would they kill us or just beat us? How would I respond?
I was spending the night in the home of Sufian and Suzanne Sultan in the Beqa'a Valley, just east of Hebron. Sufian is deputy minister of the environment and a professor of agriculture. Suzanne is finishing her masters degree in computer science.
I had just spend the day in the Sultan neighborhood visiting about fifeen homes where two weeks ago settlers had gone on a rampage, attacking at least twenty homes and demolishing cars, gardens and trees, while soldiers watched. The windows in most of the houses are broken. In one home, a family showed me a home video of the rampage. The Palestinian victims of the assaults then endured a twenty-four-hour curfew for twelve days while the offending settlers came and went as they wished. The road into this neighborhood now seems to be for Israelis only.
I opened the bedroom door, walked out into the living room to face the unknown, and saw four soldiers yelling at us as if we were animals, ordering us around, trying to intimidate us. There were at least eight more soldiers outside surrounding the house. Only when they realized an American citizen was present did they quiet down.
After soldiers took our identification documents, they put us into separate rooms. They put the three frightened young children into my bedroom. The soldiers then began searching the house and interrogating the family as if they were criminals. Soldiers told the Sultans they were lying. We were forbidden to talk with each other. When threatened by one soldier, Sufian responded, "You can kill me if you want. I do not have any weapons like your gun. I use my mind."
The soldiers claimed to be looking for weapons, but the search was not very thorough. They seemed particularly interested in personal items. They searched through a stack of photo albums. I told them, "This is disgusting. Personal photos have nothing to do with weapons and you would not want Arabs coming into your homes doing this to you." The soldiers ignored me.
After an hour and a half of humiliation, the soldiers left. For over an hour we sat in silence, we laughed, we shared our disbelief that people could act in such depraved ways, that people could actually believe that this will bring peace. They showed me their possessions scattered around their bedrooms.
This is one small part of a larger picture of the increasingly harsh oppression of the Palestinian people. The universities have been closed; children are prevented from going to school, and the vegetable market--a major source of the Hebron food supply--was demolished on January 30. The Israeli government is dismantling the basic infrastructure of Palestinian society.
We have been living under 24-hour curfew for eighty days now. There are few signs of peace, but the people here seem full of determination and hope. They say they will let the Israelis kill them rather than leave. ======================================================== 1-Deep in Gaza, a Lopsided Battle Raid Illustrates Disparities in Firepower, Casualties
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49387-2003Feb9?language=printer
=================== 2-Israel Abducts, Tortures Wives Of Palestinian Resistance Fighters
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030210052451622
www.rapprochement.org
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[Palestine] ISM report 11-02 (2)
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www.palsolidarity.org Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 at 1:54 PM |
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1- Prisoners for 100.000 at the stroke of a pen 2- A War Against Children 3- The story of Mohammad ======================================================================== Prisoners for 100.000 at the stroke of a pen: Israeli Military Unmasks New plan for Wall to surround Tulkarem. The town of Tulkarem has been dealing with the devastating consequences of the Apartheid Wall since its construction started last year. On the morning of 29th January 2003 farmers arrived at their fields to find that the future of the local community is being further assaulted. A new military order had been nailed to their trees. It informed them that their land will be confiscated in order to build a 9.9 km long wall. It demanded that the farmers attend a meeting later that day or forfeit their right to compensation. Many will not attend such meetings, refusing to recognize the right of the Israeli occupation forces to determine the future of Palestinians´ land. This latest Apartheid Wall will complete the encirclement of Tulkarem and make the population of the city prisoners -requiring them to pass through a gate in the wall every time they travel. This policy of caging a large community has already been enforced in the city of Qalqilya with a devastating impact on the community. It is widely believed that the erection of this wall constitutes part of a long planned strategy of the Israeli regime to "encourage transfer" or ethnically cleanse the area by making it practically impossible to live in the city. Communities which will have land destroyed by this latest Wall include Nor Shamis refugee camp, Bala'a, Iktaba, Shofi, Ezbit, Shofi, Kufur Labad, Anabta, Jaroshiea, Mas Qafi and Shweka. Already many greenhouses, olive trees, wells and agricultural land have been destroyed or separated from their Palestinian owners in the first stage of the Apartheid Wall's construction, representing a massive de facto annexation of Palestinian land. This new second stage of the Apartheid Wall will continue this destruction and further the "Ghettoization" of the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee over 236 dunums of land will be lost by the actual construction of the Wall around Tulkarem while over 23,000 dunums will be included in the enclosed area. The Wall will also destroy a large part of the Nor Shamis forest, a natural habitat for a variety of rare birds. ISM will be steadfast in its support of Palestinian non-violent resistance to this latest illegal attack on the land of Palestine. We call on the Israeli regime to abandon this latest step towards further ghettoizing Palestinian communities and violating basic human rights. We call on the Israeli people to oppose the grave violations of human rights being committed in their name. We call upon all supporters of human rights around the world to boycott Israeli goods and lobby their governments to impose trade and diplomatic sanctions until it abandons the construction of the Wall and withdraw from the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it has illegally occupied since 1967. Join the campaign against the Apartheid Wall by contacting PENGON at: Jamal 052 285 610 / 026 565 887 email: info@pengon.org For further information on ISM in Tulkarem contact: · Drew 052-371 338 / 067-658 873 · Radhika 067-628 514 / 052-574 754 ======================================= Michael ISM Media Coordinator Beit Sahour Occupied Palestine Phone: +972-2-2774602 Cell: +972-67-628439 web: http://www.palsolidarity.org ======================================================================= 2- A War Against Children IWPS Report #28, February 10, 2003 On November 27, Ali was a normal teenager living in a small Palestinian village under Israeli occupation. He went to school, whenever it was open. He helped his parents harvest their olives and his sisters care for the chickens. He never got in trouble. He hung out with his friends and his older brother, Jihad, who was studying for his Taojihi, the final examination that high school students must pass to go on to university. Now Ali is a casualty of the Israeli government’s war on Palestinian youth, especially the young men it fears are most likely to become involved in resistance to the occupation. Since November 28, Ali, who was then only 14 years old, and Jihad, 17, have been sitting in Israeli military prisons. Ali is charged with throwing stones at Army jeeps and with being the lookout for someone planning to throw a Molotov cocktail. Like nearly all kids who are taken for “questioning,” he “confessed” to the stone throwing, but he has consistently denied being involved in the Molotov cocktail incident, despite the heavy coercive tactics of Israeli interrogators.[1] Kids charged with throwing stones who have not been arrested before are normally released after questioning. The Molotov cocktail charge is considered much more serious and is probably the reason Ali is still in prison. IWPS was contacted about the arrests the night they occurred by a friend in Deir Istya. We made phone calls for the next several days and finally located the boys, though there was a lot of confusion about where they actually were. Initially, the Army denied having them at all. Then, someone reported that Ali had called his parents and said he was in Qdumim, a military prison in the Tulkarem district. Qdumim is the nearest detention center to our area and most of those arrested in the villages in Salfit start out there. Qdumim does not hold children, however, so officers we spoke with denied that the kids were there. Hamoked, an Israeli legal organization which traces prisoners, said that they were in Qdumim. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) Spokesperson’s office, which also traces prisoners, called and told us they were in Shechem prison near Nablus. It was nearly a week after Ali and Jihad were arrested that anyone was able to tell their parents definitely where they were: Ali was in Qdumim and Jihad had been moved to Ofer, near Ramallah. Since Hamoked was already involved in the case, we felt there was nothing more we could do. They connected the family with Defense of Children International, which assigned a lawyer to represent Ali. Israeli law requires that children be allowed to post bail, and that they be represented by a lawyer at any hearing. However, Ali’s family was never given the opportunity to bail him out. He was taken to a military court and with no lawyer present, ordered held until March 4, when there would be another hearing to determine his fate. On Thursday, December 27, Ali’s father came to see us with a friend who speaks English. He wanted to know what we could do for Ali. He told us that Ali had never been visited by a lawyer or anyone else, in the month that he had been held. His lawyer had met with the prosecutor and tried to get her to drop the charges, but she refused to do it. He had not filed any papers in court. We offered to go with him and his wife if they wanted to try to visit. He said they would like that very much. I called the Army office in charge of the prison to see if that would be possible on Friday. The guy I talked to said it was impossible that Ali was there, that they never hold anyone that long and certainly not children. I said that we knew Ali was there, and we were so anxious to have the visit because it is illegal for a child to be imprisoned without representation and without being able to see his family. He said, “I agree, that’s why I don’t believe it.” He said he would check into it, and I should call back in half an hour. When I called in half an hour, I was told that he had left. Frustrated, I called an Israeli lawyer we know and he offered to call the prison. A little while later, he called back and said that he had confirmed that Ali was there and that we could visit. I asked if it would be a problem to go on Friday morning, because I know that Friday is kind of a half-day-off for a lot of Israelis and especially government offices don’t tend to work much on Fridays. He said no, he was told there is visiting on Friday. On Friday morning, Ali’s parents, Abu and Um Saad, picked up Karin and me at 8:30 and we went to Qdumim. They had brought a tote bag with clothes and some snacks to give him. Karin explained to the soldier in charge that the family wanted to see their son. He immediately said, “There are no visits in this prison.” I said, “But he’s only 14.” He said, “Oh,” and went into his booth to call someone, and I thought maybe they wouldn’t give us trouble about it. But when he hung up, he said the expected, “I'm sorry, but there are no visits allowed.” I said, “But I had an Israeli lawyer call and he assured me we would be able to visit.” “Yes,” he said, “they told me the Israeli lawyer called, but there are no visits here.” Karin began to list the illegalities about the detention: Ali had been denied bail, held without representation, held in an adult facility, and all we are asking is that at least his mother be allowed to visit her son. “No,” he said, “but I can bring him his clothes.” We asked to speak to whomever was in charge, and he said, “There’s no one in charge.” He said that the commander of the prison was not working because of the Shabbat, and we asked to speak to whoever replaces him. He kept insisting that there was no replacement. “There are only simple soldiers here now,” he kept saying. “Well, if there were an emergency, like a riot or a medical emergency, who would you call?” “The doctor,” he said. “Well, okay, but if there were a riot?” “Well, if there were a riot, we would deal with it; we're the guards. We can deal with that, but not visits.” This struck me as a little ridiculous, that “simple soldiers” would be entrusted to put down a riot but not to let a 14-year-old visit his mother. We stood there arguing for quite a while, getting nowhere. I kept thinking that he could just decide to ignore us, we weren’t in the way, but he didn’t. He seemed to want to help. “I’m sure if you come back on Sunday, it will be all right. I'm sorry you came all this way,” he added when I started to complain. “Look,” he confided, “I don't care. I don't even want to be here. I just want to go home.” This is a refrain we hear a lot from soldiers. Finally the surrogate commander came and told us that no exception could be made because “we have 30 or 40 prisoners here, and if we do it for you….” He didn't bother to complete the sentence. Karin and I both argued at once, “But no other children.” “No,” he said, “because we don’t hold children here.” “So you're making an exception already,” I said, “so you can make another one.” I called the Israeli lawyer who had told me that we would be able to visit, and he was incredulous. “They won’t let them visit their own son?” I got the major to talk to him, and when he gave me back the phone, Shamai said, “He’s rude and violent. He’ll never let you in.” He told me to tell him that he’d get in trouble, that he could be personally sued, and gave me the citation of a recent Supreme Court decision in which prison authorities had had to pay 5,000 shekels to the family of a Palestinian detained illegally. I wrote all this down and went to talk to the guy in charge, whose name is Nir. He was on the phone. When he hung up his phone call, he said to me quietly, “I’ll take the mom to visit her boy.” I was so shocked, I had to ask him to repeat it. I went with Um Saad into the prison. The guards searched the bag of clothes she had brought and said that the little bag of snack food was not allowed. Nir set up two chairs in a small fenced corridor, and told Um Saad to sit in one and Ali was led in, not cuffed or shackled, and they sat facing each other. He is a handsome teenager, taller than his mother, with deep black wavy hair. Instinctively, I reached for my camera, and one of the guards snapped, “No pictures,” but Nir said I could take one picture and then leave. I stood outside the fence with all the soldiers, who kicked around a soccer ball and played with a little dog while Ali and his mother visited for about 20 minutes, constantly touching. She kept adjusting the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Much of the time, they were both crying. After the visit, everyone’s spirits were high, though of course it was hard for Um Saad to see her son go in prison. We went back to Deir Istya, and Karin was finally able to reach the lawyer, who said he was going to file a petition on Sunday to try to get Ali released, or at least moved to an appropriate facility for juveniles, where his family could visit. But the following week, we talked to the family and they had never heard from the lawyer. We tried to get in touch, and were never able to reach him. We asked some other lawyers for advice, but no one could do anything else unless the family could pay them a lot, which they cannot. Two weeks later, a few days after Ali turned 15, Nijmie and I went with his parents to try to visit him again. I had tried repeatedly to reach the commander to see if he would allow it, but he was never available. When we got there, we again talked to a young soldier, a Yemeni Jew who spoke some Arabic, and who also was very polite but told us no, no one could visit. We argued and asked to talk to someone in charge, and eventually the commander of the military base came and then the commander of the prison, but they all said the same thing: only a lawyer could visit, and only with three days’ notice. This time, we were not able to persuade them. The commander said the previous visit had been allowed without his authorization, and “It was a nice thing to do, but it will not happen again. Not today, not ever.” A few days after that attempted visit, Ali was moved to Huwara prison near Nablus. We had been told that once he was moved to another facility, the family could visit, but Huwara does not allow visitors either, and we have not been able to get permission for the family to see their son. He has now been held more than two months. The Red Cross has visited him once, but he still has never seen or spoken to a lawyer. Ali is one of over 2000 children under 17 who have been arrested by the since the beginning of the Second Intifada two and a half years ago. Defense for Children International estimates that 300-350 are currently being detained. Several dozen are held in the infamous Ketziot prison in the Negev desert, where prisoners were recently beaten and tear gassed for protesting the inhuman conditions under which they are forced to live. The Mandela Human Rights Institute reports that in this Intifada, there has been a dramatic increase in the detention of youngsters 13 and older. On the night of January 15, the Army entered Hares and arrested an 11-year-old and his 13-year-old brother on their way home from the barber shop. (They were released the next morning.) Under Israeli law, children under 16 are supposed to be held at Telmond prison, inside Israel, and about 80 currently are. Ali’s lawyer has talked about having him moved to this facility, but if that happens, his family will have no chance to see him, since West Bank Palestinians are not allowed into Israel to visit their relatives. Moreover, a recent report by the Palestinian organization LAW concludes that children held at Telmond are subjected to “brute physical violence from Israeli guards, denial of family visits and communication with the outside world, a shortage of clothing, appropriate medical attention, hazardous living conditions, and extremely long prison sentences.…LAW’s lawyer said the children report they were suspected of having mobile phones. Israeli guards threatened to beat them with electric and wooden sticks. The children were strip-searched and police dogs were used. The guards threw Qur’ans on the floor, while dogs sniffed their prayer clothes and other religious items.” All of this is part of a larger campaign of violence and repression against Palestinian young people. In “A Generation Denied,” DCI reports Israel’s myriad violations of international conventions concerning the rights of children. Chief among them is denial of the right to education (see IWPS Report #13). Since the start of the Intifada, nearly 200 Palestinian schools have been invaded, shelled or damaged, including the school in Hares, which since last year has bars on the windows because the Israeli army threw tear gas and sound bombs into the school almost every school day in 2001. In numerous villages and cities we have visited, including Qalqilya and Jayyous, the army calls curfew almost every day at 7:00 a.m. and leaves town at 8:30 or 9:00, staying just long enough to make sure that the schools do not open. The final day of last term, the army invaded the school in A-Ras, which children are already being prevented from reaching because of the construction on the apartheid wall, and tore down the Palestinian flag which flies over every school in Palestine. The principal was told that if the flag was replaced, the school would be demolished. Students in D’aba, another village being devastated by the wall construction, have also been threatened with the demolition of their school if a single student is believed to have thrown one stone. Despite the hardships of 55 years of occupation, Palestinians have one of the highest literacy rates in the world, as well as the highest number of Ph.D.’s per capita. Israeli authorities realize that education is a valuable resource in any resistance movement. The strategies to crush Palestinian youth are part of the effort to destroy the Palestinian spirit. They will not succeed. IWPS is continuing to work with Ali’s family and lawyer to secure his release. We will inform our supporters if there is pressure you can bring to see that justice is served. If you are willing to be on our contact list but are not, please contact us. Text: Kate ======================================================================== 3- The story of Mohammad Muhammad Hilfe was released two days ago after he had been held for almost 48 hours. This is what he told us yesterday when we talked to him. When the soldiers came to the Hilfe house they immediatly arrested Muhammad. They put him on the phone with Mossad and they claimed that they had information about him. They asked him questions about his friends and they were particularily interested to know where his mobile phone were (he has not had a mobile phone for two years). They also threatened to demolish the house and to arrest his 15 year old brother. He was soon taken out of the house but the commander did not hand cuff nor blindfold him until he was put into a jeep (probably because of the internationals present). In the jeep one soldier put Muhannads head underneath his leg and the soldiers were calling him names like "Dirty arab" and they also adressed him as Shahid. He was brought to an uncompleted building on Asira street were he was beaten (handcuffed and blindfolded) and finally put in a corner where the rain could reach him. He was then left there until the morning. He was denied to go to the toilet and he was forced to wet his pants. He was very afraid and he was very cold. He could not feel his hands because the cuffs were so tight. The soldiers then dragged him into a hammer jeep and he was taken to Huwarra military base. There he was strip searched,interoggated,tested at a medical clinic twice (blood, hair and temperature) and he was finally allowed to go to the toilet and he was offered lunch. The interoggations lasted for a long time ( he could not keep track of time) and then he was taken to one of the worst interrogation centres in Israel, Betah tekfa. There he was again interrogated and they kept saying that he should tell the truth and that they had information on him. He was know hand cuffed to a chair and terrified. After this final questioning he was taken to a village near Qualqilya, Arson, and released together with some other men. He was very reliefed and happy when we met him and his family yesterday. We all know that the soldiers can come again and that this does not mean that this family and their house is safe but yesterday was a wonderful start of the celebration of Al Ein. We will keep staying with the family in their house. Maria - Tulkarem ==========================================================================
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