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1/100 Hours of Curfew Declared

Nablus
ISM Nablus
3 Apr 04

[Nablus] Today the residents of Nablus were once again confronted by
an Israeli military invasion, with a 100 hour curfew imposed on the
city. The military presence could be felt in the neighborhoods of
Juneyd, Makfiya, Zawata, Rujib, Rafidiya, the Old City, and in the
refugee camps of El-Ein, Askar, and Balata.

Nablus TV reported 80 military vehicles deployed throughout the day
in and around the city - including armored jeeps, tanks, APCs (some
with mounted sniper turrets), and hummers to enforce a 24-hour total
curfew on this city of 150,000.

The Israeli army entered a number of houses in early morning raids,
arresting over 40 people - including two journalists (one from the
Al-Quds newspaper, and one from Nablus TV ).

By 9 am, a large roadblock had been erected in front of the
destroyed Mukata building on the main road linking Balata to the
rest of the city. This roadblock was removed by Palestinians
following the last major invasion of Nablus in late December/early
January in which 19 Palestinians, 15 of them civilians, were killed.

For most of the day sporadic clashes between the military and rock-
throwing local shebab continued with a number of light injuries
reported. Three serious injures were sustained by civilians in the
El-Ein camp, two by rubber bullets and one by live fire.

Reports that the Israeli army had entered and occupied the Fatamiya
Girl's Middle School were confirmed by ISM volunteers on the scene.
Testimonies from sources in the neighboring village of Salem
reported Israeli military raids on a local school there as well.

Today's invasion also adversely affected the 9,000 university
students who study within Nablus but live in neighboring villages.
On Saturdays students typically travel into the city for the
beginning of the school week.

Meanwhile, medical personnel have reported some difficulties in
moving ambulances and reduced response times due to the invasion.
International media was conspicuous by its absence.

[Last-minute update]This report was written last night, as of today
however Israeli army forces have withdrawn from the city and life
has returned to 'normal', i.e. closure and siege. The threat of
reinvasion though still hangs over Nablus and the curfew can be re-
imposed at any point

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2/Arrested for demonstrating nonviolently

Ramallah
flo
31 Mar 04

On the 14th of March 2004, I was arrested for participating in a non-
violent demonstration against the Apartheid wall in the Palestinian
village of Deir Qaddis. I was charged with single-handedly inciting
a violent demonstration and attacking military police.

On the morning of March 14th, a group of volunteers with the ISM,
who were staying in the Palestinian village of Budrus, were asked to
attend an impromptu demonstration in the village of Deir Qaddis.
Deir Qaddis is a small village northwest Ramallah in the West Bank,
where the Israeli army is currently building the Apartheid wall no
more then 50 meters from the homes of the village. When we arrived
in the village, approximately 100 villagers and 6 Israeli activists
were standing at a low stone wall watching a D-9 bulldozer cutting a
path through the land where the wall is planned to go. We were told
that the dozens of Israeli soldiers and border police present on the
worksite already used rubber bullets, tear gas and sound grenades to
disperse the witnesses. As we joined the crowd, groups of
schoolchildren from the village, girls and boys, began to march
towards us chanting and singing. When the school kids got to the
edge of the village, at least 25 meters away from the soldiers, the
troops began firing tear gas canisters directly at them. For several
hours, as the villagers and their supporters stood peacefully at the
stone wall, soldiers and police repeatedly fired tear gas and sound
grenades into the middle of the crowd.

When I first arrived, I noticed that I could identify many of the
soldiers and police from my time in Tul Karem. Although this
demonstration was quite far from there, I realized that all of the
soldiers that I could recognize had been stationed in Tul Karem over
the winter. They seemed to have recognized me also. Almost from the
first moment I arrived at the site, the soldiers and police seemed
to target me. I could see them whispering to each other and pointing
at me, and at one point, as I stood in the middle of a large group,
the soldiers pushed through the group and attempted to arrest me.
They were unsuccessful in that attempt, but seemed to follow me
wherever I went, trying to surround and capture me. Although I was
aware that the smartest thing for me was to leave in order to avoid
arrest, I did not feel comfortable abandoning the Palestinians who
had asked us to come and stand with them. So I decided to stay.
After the demonstration had been successfully dispersed by the
soldiers with their tear gas, a group of women and old men decided
to cross the stone wall in an attempt to stop the work of the
bulldozer. Most of them seemed very scared and proceeded very slowly
to where the bulldozer worked. Despite the continued use of tear gas
and rubber bullets, the group, including ISM volunteers, was able to
get in the path of the bulldozer and stop the work. The soldiers
entered into the crowd and began beating and pushing people out of
the way. I was a part of a group of 10 internationals who, with
linked arms, were attempting to maintain a presence with the
Palestinian men and women. Several border police approached us and
starting beating us with their clubs and shoving us backwards over
large boulders. As we were very close to the police at this point,
with them actually grabbing us by our bodies, many of us were
speaking to them, telling them that we were peaceful and asking them
to consider what they would do if this was their land. Many police
responded that this place was their land, this place was Israel, and
the "Arabs" had no right there.

This is when they managed to grab me and take me away from my
friends. Some of the Border police – at least twice my size – who
had been trying to arrest me throughout the day, finally laid their
hands on me. Although many of the internationals attempted to free
me from the several policemen that held me, they did not succeed.
The police roughly dragged me away and threw me on the ground. One
of the policemen had me by the soldiers, while another attempted to
handcuff me behind my back, with one of my arms coming up over my
shoulder and one arm coming from below. As it felt as if my shoulder
would become dislocated, or break, I was yelling to the police that
I was willing to cooperate and that they were hurting me. The
policeman that was handing me by the shoulder laughed at me and they
continued their attempt. At the same time, one of the border police
had my glasses in his hand that he was screaming at me to put on my
face. I told him that as he had my arms wrenched behind my back, I
found it impossible to do as he requested. From the moment they were
successful in cuffing me, the cuffs were extremely tight and cut off
my circulation within minutes. I was taken to a border police jeep
waiting on the periphery of the demonstration, where I waited at
least 45 minutes to be taken to the police station.

At the jeep, many of the soldiers and border police screamed at me
for standing with the Palestinians, calling me a whore and pushing
me around inside the jeep. They also laughed at me that they had
caught me and advised that I should have worn a disguise. As they
bundled into the jeep in order to leave the site, many of the
soldiers threatened to beat me with their batons, making motions in
the air with the batons close to my legs and head, laughing. I got
scared at this point: I am a small woman and I was alone,
handcuffed, stuck in the back of a jeep with soldiers that obviously
hated me and wanted to hurt me.

I was first transported off of the site to a settler road, where I
was taken out of the jeep and made to kneel on the side of the road.
I was kept there, kneeling, still handcuffed behind my back, with
soldiers standing in a group around me. One of the soldiers, who had
been touching my body and threatening to hit me in the jeep, put his
hat on my head and began to take pictures. They talked about the
fact that they were going to throw me over the fence alongside the
road and send me falling, still handcuffed, into the canyon below.
Instead, they took me to a settlement, where I changed vehicles and
was sent to Pisgat Ze'ev, a settlement in the Jerusalem region.

At Pisgat Ze'ev, I was interrogated and held for 7 hours. I was told
at this point that I was charged with inciting a violent
demonstration and attacking the police. I was also told that I was
illegal in the country and was going to be deported. For the entire
7 hours that I was held in this station, as I was sitting alone in
one of the rooms, policemen, one by one, would enter the room and
scream at me about how much they hated the "Arabs" and me for
standing with them. After these 7 hours of being the recipient of a
pure and violent hatred, the likes of which I have never experienced
before, I began to cry. All the emotions and frustration of the
demonstration, of my arrest and of all this hatred being thrust at
me, came out through tears. For this, the soldiers and border
police, who had been screaming at me all day, came into the room
with me and spent the next 30 minutes simply sitting across from me
and watching me cry.

Close to 11pm that evening, I was transported to the Russian
Compound, in Jerusalem. This prison is used for criminal prisoners
and as an interrogation center for Palestinians, who are detained
for months at a time, being held in subterranean cells and tortured.
At the Russian Compound, I was put into a 5 foot by 5 foot cell,
with no windows and a cement slab for a bed. 12 hours later, I was
taken from this cell to the immigration police station in Talpiot,
Jerusalem area. At this station, the screaming process began once
again. I was told from my previous arrest in May 2003 (when the ISM
media office had been raided by the Israeli army), I had been
ordered, upon release from jail to leave the country, and that I was
illegal in the country with no visa. Both of these points were
false: I was never given a condition to leave the country after my
first arrest, and I had applied for a new visa when my original one
expired, but was waiting for an answer from the Ministry of
Interior. I tried to explain to the officer his error but he told me
that even if I had applied for the new visa – which they say I did
not – I was denied it that day and so it meant I had been illegal
since August 2003. I was told that I was to be deported for this
reason, with no opportunity to fight. The officer gave me the option
to be deported of my own free will that same day, or go to jail for
up to 14 days and then be deported. I chose jail.

On my way to what I was told would be the Hadera jail, I was first
taken to the deportation holding cell at Ben Gurion airport. At the
airport, security began to search my bags, becoming extremely
suspicious and aggressive when they found bus tickets and magazines
with Arabic writing. They put me in a corner, and gathered together
to pour over my police record (which was full of misinformation,
such as the charge of assaulting police officers, etc.). They were
whispering, gasping and pointing at me with looks of disgust on
their faces. I told them repeatedly that as I was on my way to jail,
and not getting on an airplane, they did not need to search my
things. I was ordered to be quiet. They told me they were doing
their job and they would search my stuff.

After 5 hours I was taken to jail. Up until we reached the city of
Hadera, I was told that was where I was being taken. As we passed
Hadera though, I realized that we were not stopping there. The
officer present told me I was going to the Nazareth deportation
jail. My belongings were once again searched when I arrived at the
jail, with the same suspicion and aggression when the officers came
across items with Arabic writing. I asked everyone who questioned me
if it was a crime to carry Arabic writing. I was never given an
answer.

More then 30 hours after my original arrest, I was finally deposited
in jail. Because there was so much false information in my police
record, it took me 11 days to be released from the jail in Nazareth.
I was finally released with conditions stipulating that I would pay
20,000 shekels bail, and that I would leave the country by March 30,
2004. This departure is of my own taking and would not be classified
as a deportation. I was also told that unless new information arose,
this and my previous arrest would not bar me from re-entering the
country in the future.


INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
www.palsolidarity.org