Stores in al-Birah, Area A, ruined after security forces cause fire and leave, delaying Palestinian firefighters

30 May 2016

The building damaged in the fire. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem, 17 April 2016.

On the night between 13 and 14 April 2016, military, police and Border Police forces came to a money-changing store in the center of al-Birah, a Palestinian town near Ramallah, as part of an investigation into suspicions that the owner was laundering money for Hamas. The forces confiscated computers, money and documents and attempted to break into the store’s safes with explosives. This resulted in a fire in the store. B’Tselem’s investigation and testimonies given to our field-researcher Iyad Hadad indicate that the officers had brought the elderly store owner with them, but that he had warned them that he did not know how to open the safes and had asked to bring his son to do so. The officers refused his request, tried to break into the safes themselves, and eventually resorted to using explosives.

Our investigation also found that after setting fire to the store, the forces left without trying to put it out. On their way out of the area, they detained a Palestinian firetruck that had been called in. The fire spread from the money-changer’s store to five other stores on the first floor of the building and to the top floors, which serve as a warehouse for the nearby vegetable market. The stores and warehouses were heavily damaged.

In a testimony he gave to B’Tselem on 18 April, money-changer Ghazi Qassem ‘Issa (al-‘Ajuli), 63, said that he had been summoned for questioning at the Binyamin police station on Wednesday, 13 April. He arrived at the station at around 3:00 P.M. with his son Muayad, 34. After several minutes, officers took him alone to the Ma’ale Adumim police station, where they stated he was to be interrogated for suspected involvement in a car accident. ‘Issa said that in the interrogation, the officers confronted him with accusations of money laundering and funding for Hamas, and the car accident story turned out to have been a ploy.

Ghazi 'Issa recounted:

When we got there, at 4:30 P.M., they took me into an interrogation room with seven or eight interrogators in civilian clothing. One of them said to me: We suspect that you’re involved in money laundering and in funding Hamas-related activity. They said they wanted to go to the store to take documents and money. I answered all their questions and denied any involvement in the actions they had mentioned. I asked an interrogator to note that I’d cooperated with the interrogation and had answered all their questions.
The interrogation lasted until 2:30 A.M. Then they told me to come with them to the store. I asked one of the officers to let my son Muayad come with us, to help me open the store and the safes, but the officer refused. I told him I’d never opened the safes by myself and that I didn’t know, but the officer was very firm in his refusal. When we got to the settlement of Psagot, at least 15 security force vehicles were waiting for us. They rode with us to the area where al-Birah meets Ramallah, which is where our store is, on the same street as the market.
They went into my office and confiscated four computers, accounting reports, checks, IOUs, and lots of other things. They may have taken some money too. It’s hard to know, because everything they didn’t take was lost in the fire. Then they went into the room that has two large safes. They asked me to open them and I explained again that I didn’t know how to. One of the officers said that if I didn’t open the safes, they’d use force. I said: Do whatever you want.
They brought in an oxygen tank, sawing tools and a drill, and tried to break into the safes that way. After about 45 minutes of trying, they took me outside. Everyone left the store except for four to six soldiers. Ten minutes later, while we were standing on the street, they told me and the soldiers to cover our ears with our hands and counted down from four to zero. There was a very strong explosion that shook the area. About 15 minutes later, there was another one, and 15 minutes after that, a third explosion, even more forceful. I was standing about ten meters away from the store and was thrown back from the shock wave.
I looked around and saw that the store doors had come off. Even the door to my brother’s store, which is next to ours, came off. There was a commotion. One of the officer told everyone to evacuate and they all got in the vehicles and left. It turned out that a fire had broken out in the safe room. The fire spread very quickly but hadn’t reached other stores at that point. They stayed there for another 10 or 15 minutes and then left. I had to leave with them because the interrogation wasn’t finished.
When they released me the next day, after the interrogation was over, I went back to the store and found immense damage. The fire had spread to neighboring stores and even to the vegetable market warehouses on the second floor. There’s no final estimate yet of the damage caused to all the stores, but my estimate is that it will reach millions of shekels.

Burnt lemons in the vegetable market warehouse. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem, 14 April 2016.

B’Tselem research indicates that not only did the forces make no attempt to put out the fire they had started, they even forced the Palestinian firetruck that was called to the scene to take a detour that delayed its arrival. Further along the detour, the fire truck stumbled upon clashes between security forces and Palestinians, resulting in further delays.

In his testimony to B’Tselem, firetruck driver Amin ‘Ayash, 36, said:

At 4:00 A.M., we got an order to respond to a fire at the al-‘Ajuli money-change store. We were sent by mistake to al-Hadadin Street, the next street over. Normally it would take two minutes to get there at that time of night, because it’s less than a kilometer away. On the way, when we reached Shawarfah Junction, we came across Israeli vehicles. I think there were more than ten of them. I was blinded by their lights and couldn’t tell if they were military or police cars. They were standing close to the burning store and looked like they were getting ready to leave.
When we were about 40-50 meters away from them, they ordered us through their loudspeaker system to stop and take a different route. When we left the fire station, we assumed our response was coordinated with the Israeli side. That’s a condition for our work here even though this is defined Area A, which is officially under Palestinian control.
I did as they ordered and switched routes. That forced me to take a long detour, so it took us about 15 minutes to get to al-Hadadin Street. When we got there, it turned out that the fire wasn’t even there but on the next street, where the vegetable market is, no more than a 100 meters away. We tried to drive to the right address but came across a minibus and someone fired a shot at us from inside it. Then they threw stun grenades from inside. We realized it was an Israeli special-forces car and saw that there was a confrontation going on between demonstrators and the forces in the minibus, as well as with the military forces that were getting ready to leave the downtown area. We were afraid to drive on for about 15-20 minutes and had to wait, about 40-50 meters away from the fire, until the forces were completely gone. We got to the location of the fire only at 4:40 A.M., about 40 minutes after we got the call and left the station.
By the time we got there, the store that belongs to the al-‘Ajuli family had burnt down completely. The fire had spread to other stores on that floor and to the top floor too, which is a warehouse for the vegetable market. The fire was starting to spread toward market stalls and another building. It was a frightening sight. I asked to send all of the Ramallah District firefighters there. About ten firetrucks and at least 30 firemen, technicians and auxiliaries arrived in less than ten minutes. It took us two and a half hours to put out the flames completely – that is, until 7:30 A.M.

Damage on the warehouse floor. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem, 14 April 2016.

This incident illustrates just how easily security forces can damage Palestinian property and disrupt life in Palestinian communities with their unbridled callousness. In this case, disregard for Palestinians resulted in dozens of families losing their livelihoods as their places of business went up in flames. The incident also illustrates how the official division of the West Bank into Areas A, B and C is utterly meaningless, as Israel makes cynical use of it – upholding the division when it helps Israel take over land in Area C but trampling it under foot when Israel wishes to operate in areas that are officially under full Palestinian control. This conduct proves that Israel uses the arbitrary division of areas to hide the reality on the ground, which is that the occupation continues everywhere in the West Bank.

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Fishermen at Gaza's fishing port. Photo by Suhaib Salem, Reuters, 4 April 2016

The Gaza Strip

Israel destroying Gaza’s fishing sector

In 2000, Gaza had about 10,000 fishermen. Today, the Gaza Fishermen’s Association has only some 4,000 fishermen registered, who are the breadwinners for approximately 50,000 persons. This figure, however, is misleading as half the registered fishermen are actually out of work, since their boats are out of commission and cannot be repaired due to the shortage in necessary raw materials. Ninety-five percent of Gaza’s fishermen live under the poverty line, defined as a monthly income of less than 2,293 ILS (roughly 600 USD) for a family of five. These families rely on humanitarian aid, and belong to the 80% of Gaza’s overall population who rely on humanitarian aid. The decline of Gaza’s fishing sector is a direct result of Israel’s policy, which includes severe restrictions on marine access, fishing exports, and the entry of raw materials into Gaza, as well as harassment of fishermen: a. Limited fishing zone: In March 2016, Israel expanded the range in which it permits Gazans to fish from six to nine nautical miles off the Gaza coast. In June, it reduced the range back to six nautical miles (some 11 km). These restrictions are in place despite Israel’s obligation under the Oslo Accords to permit fishing up to 20 nautical miles off the Gaza coastline. Israel has never lived up to this obligation, and the widest range it has ever permitted since the Accords were signed was 12 nautical miles. Over the years, the range was repeatedly reduced; at times, it was as little as three nautical miles. During periods of fighting between Israel and Gaza, fishing is prohibited altogether. Notices of changes in the permitted fishing zone are provided to the Fishermen’s Association by the Israeli DCO. The Israeli navy also marks the boundaries with buoys. The shrinking fishing zone has led to overfishing in a small area, resulting in a decreased fish population and depletion of fish breeding grounds. b. Shortage of raw materials, equipment, and spare parts for repairing fishing boats: Israel prohibits entry into Gaza of materials that are essential for maintenance and repair of fishing boats, including fiberglass, steel cables, engines and spare parts. Israel claims that these items fall under its definition of “dual-use materials”, i.e. materials “that are primarily designed for civilian use, but are suitable also for military use”. Over the course of 2016, delegates from the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture and the Palestinian DCO met several times with the Gaza DCO Commander, most recently on 10 June 2016. In these meetings, the Palestinian delegates provided the Israeli side with a list of items needed for the fishing sector. Not a single item on the list has been cleared for entry to date. According to the Department of Fisheries in Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture, some 200 rowboats and five small motor boats are currently out of commission as the materials and equipment needed to repair them are unavailable. Motorized hasake rowboat in Gaza's fishing port. Photo by Muhammad Sabah, B'Tselem, 11 Jan. 2017 c. Shootings and arrests: Over the course of 2016, B’Tselem received dozens of reports from fishermen that their boats had been struck by Israeli naval fire. Some of the fishermen were injured and others arrested. According to the testimonies, soldiers forced them, at gunpoint, to take their clothes off and swim over to the navy vessels, regardless of the weather. The fishermen’s testimonies, as well as GPS records on their devices, indicate that some were arrested although they hadn’t sailed beyond the military-permitted fishing zone. Fishermen brought on board navy vessels were taken to Ashdod port in Israel, where they were interrogated while blindfolded and handcuffed. Their boats were confiscated. Following the interrogation, which often focused on attempting to gather intelligence on Hamas operatives, most fishermen were sent home without their boats. The Gaza Fishermen’s Association has reported that since April 2016, Hamas has arrested and interrogated Gaza fishermen who were returned by the military to Erez Crossing, holding them for several days. According to the Department of Fisheries in Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture, the Israeli military arrested 113 fishermen over the course of 2016. Of these, 107 were released after interrogation and six are still in custody. Ten other fishermen were injured by Israeli navy fire. The Department of Fisheries has also reported that in 2016, the military confiscated 28 motorized hasake rowboats and six non-motorized ones. Only ten have thus far been returned to their owners, all in April. Also in April, five hasakes confiscated a year earlier were returned to their owners.* In 2015, 73 fishermen were arrested and 22 hasake rowboats confiscated. At present, 14 boats are out of commission due to damage caused by the Israeli navy, either by shooting or during confiscation of the vessel. Department of Fisheries data also indicates that the direct losses suffered by Gaza fishermen in 2016 as a result of Israeli navy fire or confiscation of boats and equipment amounts to some half a million US dollars. d. Restrictions on exporting catch to Israel and selling it in the West Bank: Prior to the blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007, fishing was a thriving sector. Fishermen sold their catch in the West Bank and exported it to Israel, making a decent living. As part of the blockade, Israel has banned the sale of fish from Gaza in the West Bank or its export to Israel, devastating the fishermen’s livelihoods. In 2014, Israel began allowing restricted sales in the West Bank once again, but under fastidious limitations that raise the cost of the process, and therefore the price of the goods. Current sales of fish caught in Gaza to the West Bank are much lower than they were prior to the blockade. Israel’s practices with respect to Gaza’s fishing sector illustrate why it is impossible to accept its contention that it ended its responsibility for the fate of Gaza’s residents and for what takes place there upon completing implementation of its disengagement plan in 2005. Though Israel removed its regular military presence and settlements from Gaza, it continues to control many aspects of daily life there from a distance. The terrible harm it inflicts on fishermen has no justification, and is yet another facet of the cruel blockade policy that Israel has been implementing in Gaza for a decade. Fishermen who gave their testimonies to B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah described the harsh circumstances forced on them: Mahmoud Sa’id Jum’ah Baker, 18, from a-Shati Refugee Camp, related on 5 Sept. 2016: I work at fishing with my father and brothers, on a motorized hasake rowboat. We go out to sea almost every day – off the shore of Gaza City and northward. We usually leave home at 5:00 A.M. and work until noon, depending on the situation and on how many fish there are. We sell the fish to merchants. Sometimes we catch twenty kilos of fish, sometimes ten or five, and sometimes not even a single fish. It depends on their availability, on the weather, and on what the Israeli navy does. On Friday, 12 August 2016, we went out to sea at 5:00 A.M. I went out with my father, my four brothers, and a hired worker we have. We sailed to the area of a-Sudaniyeh, about 2.5 nautical miles northwest of the permitted fishing zone. By 8:00 A.M. we had caught about three kilos of farida (blue-pointed porgy). While we were working, an Israeli navy patrol boat approached us, followed by a rubber dinghy. We tried to get away. The patrol boat and the rubber dinghy chased us, firing live bullets and rubber[-coated metal] bullets into the air. After we’d gotten about 200 meters away, the soldiers ordered us to stop, and we did. They told us to take our clothes off and jump in the water. We took our clothes off and swam over to the rubber boat, one by one. It took us to the patrol boat. The soldiers blindfolded us, tied our hands, and sat us down next to each other. After sailing for about an hour, the boat stopped. They took our blindfolds off and ordered us off the boat. It was Ashdod port. They gave us flip-flops and took us to a room, where they sat us down and blindfolded us again. Then a doctor came and took my temperature. He asked me if I was sick and I said I wasn’t. Then they used metal handcuffs to tie our hands and put us in a small bus that took us to Erez Crossing. At the crossing, they replaced the metal handcuffs with zip ties and brought us in, one by one, to an interrogation room. I went in last. When I got in the room, there was an interrogator there. He started asking me why I was angry. I said I was angry because they’d taken our boat, which is our livelihood. He started saying that they’d taken the boat because we’d crossed the border, and I told him it wasn’t true. He asked where we’d been, and I said in the permitted area. Then he asked if I was afraid of getting hit by a bullet. I said no. The interrogator asked me to point our house out on a map on a computer. When I asked what he wanted with our house, he said he wanted to know if I was really a fisherman or not. I told him he’d taken my boat, which I use for work. He asked for my cell phone number, and I told him I don’t have one. The interrogator kept asking me about my uncle’s house and my neighbors’ houses. Then he asked where I wanted to work. I said I don’t know, because I have no job other than fishing. He asked if I wanted to work in Israel. I said no. Then he started telling me they’d get me a car or a motorbike. I said I didn’t want to and that I wanted to leave. The interrogator asked: Don’t you want to tell me about a house that belongs to someone from Hamas? Then I was taken to a room where we waited for about an hour. At around 2:00 P.M., they told us to go to the departure hall that leads to Gaza. We walked all the way to the other side of the checkpoint, where Hamas police are stationed. They interrogated us about what happened at sea and at Erez. Then they took us to the Internal Security Services Headquarters at Jabalya, where they kept us until 8:00 P.M. From there, they transferred us to the Internal Security Services Headquarters in Gaza, at al-Ansar, where they arrested us. They gave us dark glasses instead of a blindfold, so we wouldn’t see anything. Then they asked me my name and led me to a small cell, 2 meters by 80 cm. Later, they brought me food and drink. The next day, Saturday, 13 August 2016, an officer took me into a room and asked me about what happened. Then they took me back to the cell. I stayed there until the next morning, Sunday, 14 August. Then they took me into an interrogation room where there were two officers. They asked me again about what had happened at sea and at Erez Crossing until I got to the Hamas checkpoint. Then they took me back to the cell, and I stayed there the next day, too. On Tuesday, 16 August, they transferred me to another cell, where my father was, and brought us a meal. At 3:00 P.M., they released us. The officers asked us not to go close to the border at sea, and not to put ourselves at risk so we don’t get arrested. Then they gave me a summons to a meeting on 31 August 2016, at 9:00 A.M. I came on the set date. They sent me to a room on the fourth floor. An officer came and asked me again about what had happened at sea. He was looking at some paper in front of him, comparing what I was saying to the notes from the previous interrogation. When he finished the interrogation, he asked me: “Did you come from the sea? I said I had. He said: “You won’t give up and still go to sea!” I told him it’s my work and that there’s no other work in Gaza. Launch boats in Gaza's fishing port. Photo by Muhammad Sabah, B'Tselem, 11 Jan. 2017 Mustafa Muhammad Khalil a-Najar, 29, a married father of two from Rafah, said in a testimony from 19 July 2016: I’ve worked in fishing with my father and brothers since I was 14 years old. We have six hasake rowboats of various kinds and one felucca sailing boat. On Monday, 18 April 2016, at 5:00 P.M., I set off from Rafah port with two hired workers. To save on fuel, a big launch boat tugged us out to sea. When we were about 8 nautical miles off shore, we disengaged from the launch. I turned toward the area off Khan Yunis, to keep away from the Egyptian border and stay out of dangerous areas. When I got to about 9 nautical miles off shore, we put the nets out and went to sleep on the boat, sometime between 10:00 P.M. and midnight. We waited for the wind to die down before pulling up the nets, which were spread to a distance of about 2 km. At 12:30 A.M., an Israeli military boat came from the northeast and started shooting from a large distance, straight at us. We got scared and turned on the motor and started fleeing to the southeast. The boat kept chasing us and shooting for about an hour. Our boat took a few bullets. When they started shooting directly at me and at the other people on the boat, I stopped. The Israeli boat stopped about 200 meters away from us. They sent a rubber boat over, and the soldiers ordered us to take our clothes off. We stayed in our underwear. They tied our hands behind our backs and brought us on to the rubber boat. They blindfolded us and took us to the ship, and had us sit in the bow. It was cold, and we asked for some clothes or something to cover ourselves. The soldiers refused. When we kept asking, they kicked us. Then they tied my boat to their boat and tugged it. We sailed to Ashdod port and got there at about 8:00 A.M. While we were sailing, I asked an officer on the ship about my boat, and he said it had been confiscated. I asked him when I would get it back, and he said within two weeks. When I asked him why they’d done it, he said I’d broken the law. When we got to Ashdod port, they gave us our clothes and took us into a room where there were already about seven fishermen from Rafah and Gaza. Their hands were tied with metal handcuffs and they were lying on the floor. We joined them. They left us like that, without food or drink. At noon, an officer came and told us we would be taken to Erez Crossing and interrogated there. We all asked about our boats. He said they were confiscated at Ashdod port and that one had been hit in the bow, and the navy was trying to keep it from sinking. I knew it was my boat. Then they put us a bus that drove us to Erez checkpoint, where Shabak (Israel Security Agency) interrogators questioned each of us separately. The interrogator asked me for my details and took down my cell phone number. He told me I’d exceeded the 9-nautical-mile range and that was why they shot at us and confiscated my boat. I told him I hadn’t sailed past the buoy that the military had put out and that I’d stayed within the nine-mile range. I asked him about my boat and he said it hadn’t sunk yet, and that it was with the rest of the boats that had been confiscated. My interrogation lasted about half an hour and ended at around 4:00 P.M. At about 6:30 P.M., they let us go and we went back to Gaza. Later that day, I contacted the Ministry of Agriculture, the Fishermen’s Association, and the Coast Guard. They told me my boat was at Ashdod port. After about ten days, I was told by the Fisheries Department that my boat had sunk and that the Israeli ship hadn’t managed to salvage it. I make most of my income from fishing. My boat was seven meters long and there was a lot of expensive equipment on it. We bought it about four years ago, and it’s now worth 20,000 shekels [over USD 5,000]. The motor was worth 30,000 shekels [almost USD 8,000 ]. I sold my wife’s jewellery for about 3,000 Jordanian dinars [just over USD 4,000] in order to buy it. I also took out a loan for the same amount from relatives and acquaintances. I still owe money to the suppliers. Because I didn’t have the boat, I missed the grouper and porgy season. Losing the boat caused problems with other members of the family, too, because they had also used it for their livelihoods. The employees who were with me that day lost their jobs. I’m heartbroken about the boat and the motor – they were new and I can’t afford to buy others to replace them. Ever since that happened, I’ve been sitting at home with nothing to do. Ahmad Abu Hamadah. Photo by Muhammad Sabah, B'Tselem, 27 Jan. 2017 Ahmad Jamal Lutfi Abu Hamadah, 29, a married father of four from a-Shati Refugee Camp, said in his testimony on 16 November 2016: I work as a fisherman on one of my dad’s four hasake rowboats. I started working in fishing when I was 17 years old. Our boats are made of fiberglass and they require constant maintenance and replacement of fiberglass parts due to saltwater damage, crashes with other boats at the port, or just wear, and also because of Israeli navy fire. About a year and a half ago, the boat I work on crashed into the port dock. There were high winds and the rope tying it to the dock had broken. The bow got holes in it. The side of another of our boats also crashed, apparently by a fisherman who hit it when it was docked at the port, but we don’t know who it was. We pretty much stopped working on both these boats because of their state. They constantly had to be drained, and we had to make sure they didn’t fill with water so we wouldn’t sink. We tried to get fiberglass to fix them but it was very hard to find, because Israel has been banning this material from coming in for a few years now. Before the ban, a kilo of fiberglass that came from Israel cost 16 shekels [around 4 USD]. Then there was fiberglass that came from Egypt through the tunnels, but in 2013 they got shut down. Since then, there’s been a shortage and the only fiberglass available is what they make here in Gaza. It’s much more expensive. I decided to get fiberglass anyway, and I bought 8 kilos for 80 shekels [around 21 USD] per kilo. I bought another 2 kilos of paint for 50 shekels [around 13 USD] and three meters of a special wrapping cloth for 180 shekels [a little over 45 USD]. I also paid 300 shekels [almost 80 USD] for timber and labor. So, altogether, repairing a small part in the bow of the boat cost me about 1,500 shekels [almost 400 USD]. I didn’t have the money, so I had to borrow it so I could work and make a living. The repair to the other boat is more significant. It would cost 2,500 shekels [around 660 USD], and we can’t fix it at the moment. We will have to do it soon though, because I work with my father and my three brothers, and that’s our entire family’s livelihood. Now, with the boat out of commission, our income is very low, especially during winter when there isn’t much fishing. The ban on fiberglass causes a lot of losses to fishermen, because we can’t fix boats and continue working, which makes everyone’s already difficult financial situation even worse. Ahmad Abu Hamadah by his boat, now out of commission. Photo by Muhammad Sabah, B'Tselem, 26 Jan. 2017 * Figures updated in June 2018 to reflect new information received by B'Tselem.

29 January 2017

Roadblock reinstalled at the western entrance to the village. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 8 January 2017

Restrictions on Movement

Deir Nizam: Two months of collective punishment after fire in nearby settlement

On the night between Thursday and Friday, 24 and 25 November 2016 – during a period when many fires broke out in Israel – a fire broke out in a wooded area south of the settlement of Halamish, in the West Bank district of Ramallah. The fire, which the authorities later determined had been caused by arson, spread and destroyed many homes in Halamish, as well as several hectares of woodland nearby. Although the settlement was built on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Deir Nizam and borders the village to the east, thanks to the direction of the wind, homes in Deir Nizam remained unharmed although olive groves belonging to its residents were burned. Large forces of Israeli fire fighters battled the fire until it was finally put out on Saturday, 26 November. Many of the settlement’s residents were evacuated from their homes during the fire. On Friday night, 25 November, the military imposed severe restrictions on movement in Deir Nizam. The three main entrances to the village were blocked off with dirt mounds, and soldiers were posted to guard them. Residents were also prohibited from going in and out of the village on foot until Monday, 28 November. At that point, military then relaxed its enforcement of the restrictions, but the roadblocks remained in place. Instead of regularly standing guard, soldiers are now posted at the roadblocks at random hours, almost every day. Soldiers also patrol throughout the village every day, sometimes more than once, and during the night. These patrols often lead to clashes with youngsters from the village, who throw stones at the soldiers. In some cases, the soldiers have responded with massive use of tear gas inside the village and arrests, including of four minors. This conduct is part of Israel’s collective punishment policy in the West Bank, whereby suspicions against individuals are deemed sufficient justification for trampling the rights of the entire community and disrupting their daily lives. In this case, residents of the village were held collectively responsible for the arson and marked as a ‘legitimate’ target for public rage over the fires throughout Israel by politicians wishing to curry favor with the settlers and their supporters. As far as B’Tselem is aware, the only village residents who were arrested and interrogated following the fire were suspected of stone-throwing rather than arson and were released shortly thereafter. Below is a review of the measures taken against the village residents, as found by B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad and related in testimonies given to him on 7 December 2016. Restrictions on movement Some 1,500 people live in Deir Nizam, and those of them that are employed work for the Palestinian Authority or inside Israel. The village lies some 20 kilometers northwest of Ramallah and is bordered to the east and south by the settlement of Halamish, which was built on village land in 1978, and by the areas it controls. The village has three entrances, from the south, the north and the west. Beginning on Friday night, 25 November 2016, the military blocked the three entrances with dirt mounds or rocks, posted military jeeps beside the roadblocks, and prevented people from entering or leaving the village, including on foot, until Monday, 28 November. Dirt road bypassing the roadblock at the western entrance to the village. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 8 January 2017 On Monday, military presence at the entrance to the village was scaled back and residents began going in and out of the village via a dirt road that runs through fields and bypasses the western entrance, or via fields south of the village, an approximately one kilometer walk from the main road. These provisory solutions cannot meet daily needs. Later, when soldiers were no longer regularly posted at the entrances to the village, residents removed the roadblocks from the northern and western entrances, allowing access by car once again. However, a few days later the military reinstalled the western roadblock. Though military presence in the village was scaled back, soldiers are still posted in the village at random times, restricting entry and exit. Residents cannot know when they will be able to enter or leave the village, which makes planning daily activities difficult. The restrictions seriously impede residents from reaching their work places, and people who live outside the village and work there from entering, including teachers at the village school. The village school principal, Mahmoud Yihya, 54, who lives in Deir Nizam, described the effect of the movement restrictions and of the soldiers’ presence on routine at the school, which includes an elementary, junior and high school: Our school goes from grade 1 to 12. There are 234 students and 24 staff members. On Sunday, 27 November 2016, the school was shut down completely. Eighteen of our 24 staff members live outside the village and they couldn’t make it to work. The restrictions were eased the next day, and some of the teachers managed to sneak in through the nearby fields, so 15 of the 18 teachers who live outside the village did come in. Studies continued almost as usual, apart from technology and English because these subjects are taught by teachers who couldn’t get into the village. Later, the restrictions became random, and teachers who come from outside had difficulty assessing whether they would be able to get in. This resulted in more teacher absences and late arrivals. We got the impression that the military was making sure to post soldiers at the roadblocks specifically when teachers arrived for work. It disrupted studies and caused lesson cancellations due to teacher absences. Students were more absent than usual, as well. On any given day three to five kids are absent, but during this time, the number jumped to 15-25. In some cases, this was due to harassment of the children by the soldiers in the village, so parents and students were afraid. Also, the soldiers patrolled specifically when the children left school. This led to stone throwing by the children, to which the soldiers responded with tear gas and stun grenades. On 5 December, the soldiers fired tear gas canisters into the school yard. It was during class, and no one was outside. The gas penetrated a classroom used by fifth graders, 11-year-old children. They felt suffocated and ran to other classrooms. More than 20 students were hurt by the gas. The next day, 13 students did not show up, and the day after that, 11 – most of them from elementary school, because the students were panicking. Deir Nizam school. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 7 December 2016 Tawfiq Mizhar, 49, a married father of six from the nearby village of ‘Abud, drives passengers between the villages and Ramallah by minibus. He described how the restrictions affect his work: I work on the Deir Nizam-‘Abud-Ramallah line. I usually do four trips a day and make 50 to 70 shekels for each trip. Because of the fires on Friday night, the Israeli authorities blocked off the entrances to Deir Nizam. On the first day of the closure, I was about to leave Deir Nizam with a minibus full of passengers, most of them students, public servants, and laborers. Then I discovered that the southern and western exits were completely sealed off, so I tried to leave through the northern exit, which was blocked with movable rocks, but there were also army vehicles and soldiers waiting there, outside the village. One of the soldiers aimed a rifle at me from a long way off, about 50 meters away, and ordered me to turn around. I was afraid and had no choice but to go back and unload the passengers. The same thing happened the next day. I went to the village center, but everyone said the roads were still closed. I tried waiting, but nothing changed. On the third day, some residents managed to open up a side exit in the western part of the village. I managed to get through there safely, even though it’s a rough dirt road full of stones and potholes. On the way back, I had to drop the passengers off there and they had to carry on by foot, because it’s very difficult to get through with the minibus. The passengers had to walk a kilometer to the village, and some were carrying backpacks and shopping bags. I imagine they suffered a lot. Because of the situation, I had to drop two of the four trips I make every day. My income has gone down significantly and it’s hardly enough to pay for the minibus expenses. I’m the breadwinner for eight people, and this situation is very worrying. We have to put off shopping, including things we need now for winter, because we’re afraid this will go on. Entry of military forces into the village and arrest of minors: Since the military began to collectively punish the entire village, soldiers frequently patrol it. Testimonies of residents indicate that the patrols do not serve any specific purpose such as arrests or searches, but appear to be simply a show of force. The residents report that they often take place just when school lets out. In some cases, clashes erupted between soldiers and students who threw stones at them. The soldiers responded by firing tear gas canisters and stun grenades, in one case into the school yard. During the first two weeks, the military patrolled the village every day, sometimes several times, including at night. The frequency of the patrols has since decreased, but they remain an almost daily occurrence. On 29 November 2016, during a clash between soldiers and several youngsters, the soldiers arrested five minors between the ages of 13 and 15 for allegedly throwing stones. Two of them were released after two hours and one was held until nightfall. The other two were held in custody and interrogated until the following morning. Two other young men, one 19 years old and the other 21, were also arrested on stone throwing suspicions and released the next day. Some of these minors and young men reported that their interrogators pressured them to confess to the arson that caused the fire. L.T., 15, from Deir Nizam, described his arrest by soldiers during the clashes on 29 November: At around 11:00 o’clock in the morning, I was in class when I saw military jeeps driving into the village. We went on with our school day as usual and finished at midday, around 1:30. There were still soldiers outside and they were firing tear gas and stun grenades. When I got home, my aunt asked me to go get my cousin Rami, 12, because she was worried about him being out in the street with soldiers in the village. I found him by the northern exit of the village and told him to come home. We were on our way home when suddenly, we saw five soldiers running from the center of the village. We didn’t try to run away at first, but one of the soldiers fired in our direction and a bullet landed not far from us. We got scared and started running in the opposite direction. We ran into the fields and saw three other kids who were also running away from the soldiers. We saw military vehicles there, too, and soldiers and police officers got out of one of them and started chasing us. We ran and they kept chasing us, firing tear gas at us. We choked on the gas and our eyes started to water, but we didn’t stop until we got to the residential part of the village. My aunt, Rami’s mother, saw us and came to protect us with other women from the village. She told us to not be afraid and to turn ourselves in, and that they wouldn’t do anything to us. The officers and soldiers came up and one of them grabbed my hand from behind. He punched me in the back and then took me away. They got Rami, too, and another kid, all of them violently. They dragged us to the military jeeps and tied our hands and feet. At first, they took us to the military camp in Halamish and held us out in the open. It was cold and I only had a short-sleeved shirt on. Then they took us to the entrance to Halamish. I managed to take off the blindfold but a soldier saw me and hit me. A few minutes later, they put me in a military vehicle. We didn’t know where they were taking us, but when they took us out of the vehicle they removed our blindfolds and handcuffs. I saw that they had brought other kids there. I was cold and scared and hungry, because I hadn’t had lunch. Every time I asked for water, they said no. In the evening, some soldiers and officers came. One of them was in plainclothes. He pointed at me and said, ‘That’s him’. They blindfolded and handcuffed me. I waited for some time, I’m not sure how long, and then they put me in another vehicle and took the blindfold off. A kid I know from the village was there, too. He had a watch and it was already 11:30 at night. They took us to the Binyamin police station and we waited opposite the reception rooms. After an hour or two, a vehicle came and I saw my father get out, along with the fathers of the other kids. They wouldn’t let us to talk them. Then a police officer dragged me into a room and took the blindfold off . I saw an interrogator sitting behind a desk. He spoke Arabic. He took my fingerprints and took a picture of me. He told me I was accused of setting fire to the Halamish settlement and of punching a soldier in the face. I denied it. During the interrogation, he asked me to sign a white paper with Hebrew words on it. He tried to pressure me. He banged on the desk and insisted that I had to sign it, but I refused. Then they let my father come in. He saw the Hebrew page and told me not to sign. They took my father out and the interrogator tried to convince me again to sign it. He said that if I didn’t, I should talk to a lawyer. I told him I didn’t have one, and he offered to call one for me. I asked if the lawyer was an Arab and if he would help me, and the interrogator said that he would. The interrogator called some number, handed the phone over to me, and said, “Take it, talk to the lawyer”. Someone spoke to me in Arabic. He told me that if the interrogator asked whether I’d thrown stones, I should say yes and it would work in my favor. I asked him what to do if they were accusing me of setting fire to Halamish. He said it was a serious accusation that could lead to a long imprisonment, and that I shouldn’t talk about such things but just admit to throwing stones. I suspected the guy who was talking to me was a crook, even if he was a lawyer. I suspected him because of his accent, too. I told the interrogator that I didn’t want to talk to him and hung up. The police officers handcuffed and blindfolded me again. They took me into a very small empty room, maybe a square meter in size. It was dark and had no windows. There was nothing there, not even a mattress. They left me there until the morning and gave me no food or drink, except a can of energy drink that a soldier brought me at some point after I asked him to, but I was afraid to drink it because I didn’t know what was in it. At 9:00 A.M., they interrogated me again. They accused me of arson, again. After I denied the accusations again, they handed me over to the Palestinian DCO people at the checkpoint, who took me to my father in Ramallah. That was already at 11:30 A.M. I got home at 12:30 and went straight to bed.

26 January 2017

Residents and police in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa. Photo by Hussam ‘Abed, B’Tselem, 29 Nov. 2016

East Jerusalem

Batan al-Hawa neighborhood, Silwan: The next target for "Judaization" of E. J’alem

The Batan al-Hawa neighborhood, in the heart of Silwan, is the setting for the most extensive expulsion in recent years in East Jerusalem. To date, eviction claims have been filed against 81 Palestinian families that have been living in Batan al-Hawa for decades. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, this number reflects a third of all families under threat of dispossession on the basis ethnicity in the city. Ever since Israel annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have employed discriminatory policies against the city’s Palestinian residents, and have worked in different ways toward decreasing their number while increasing the number of Jewish residents, with a view to achieving demographic and geographic conditions that would obstruct any future attempts to question Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. As part of these efforts, Israeli authorities have confiscated hundreds of hectares of land from the Palestinian population and built 12 neighborhoods designed exclusively for the Jewish population in the occupied area that was annexed to Israel. In terms of international law, the status of these neighborhoods is no different than that of the settlements elsewhere in the West Bank. In recent years, in addition to the housing shortage, poor or lacking infrastructure, services and government funding that affect all East Jerusalem residents, various government ministries and the Jerusalem Municipality have mobilized to help the settler organization Ateret Cohanim dispossess Palestinian families living in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa, and hand over their homes to Jewish settlers. Israel’s courts have given the seal of approval to every aspect of this process, despite its being a legal justification for organized state violence in pursuit of an unlawful end – the forcible transfer of protected persons from their homes in an occupied territory. B’Tselem has undertaken a neighborhood survey, and mapped the processes underway in Batan al-Hawa. According to the survey, the neighborhood is divided into some 50 parcels, nine of which have been handed over to Ateret Cohanim, including five that are already in use by settlers. To date, Ateret Cohanim has filed eviction claims against 81 families, all living in Parcel 96 which covers 0.26 hectares in the center of the neighborhood. Most of the claims were filed over the course of 2015. The municipality has fined two more families, who live in Parcel No. 84, and issued demolition orders for parts of their homes on the grounds that they had encroached on land that belongs to the settler association. Ateret Cohanim already has possession of six buildings in the neighborhood, containing 27 housing units, most of which had been home to Palestinian families. The expulsion of these families from homes they had lived in for decades, purportedly as a measure of law enforcement, as the houses had been Jewish-owned prior to the 1948 War, would make some of the neighborhood’s residents refugees for a second time, after having already been expelled from their homes in that war. Um Naser, a neighborhood resident, by the settlement built adjacent to her home. Photo by Hussam ‘Abed, B’Tselem, 23 Nov. 2016 The government dispossession apparatus in action The Ateret Cohanim association began efforts to seize properties and establish a Jewish settlement in Batan al-Hawa in 2001. It modus operandi rests on manipulating a combination of three laws passed by Israel since 1948, which allow Jews, and Jews only, to demand that the Custodian of Absentee Property hand over ownership rights to property in the annexed area that had been owned by Jews prior to 1948, but ended up beyond the country’s borders after the war. Settlers sometimes purchase ownership rights from the Jewish heirs to the land. In other cases, aided by the state, they are given permission to manage the trusts that owned the property before 1948. They then contact the Custodian of Absentee Property who hands over the property to them. Another avenue pursued by the settlers is to have the Custodian sell them property in the neighborhoods directly. These are usually properties where Palestinians live, and the settlers file actions to have them evicted. In stark contrast to the significant efforts Israel makes to restore property to Jewish ownership, the state does not even allow Palestinians to demand restoration of property they owned in west Jerusalem prior to 1948. In 2001, the Jerusalem District Court sanctioned the decision made by the Custodian of Absentee Property to hand over to Ateret Cohanim the management of the Benvenisti Trust, a Jewish trust that operated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries. In 2002, the Custodian released to the Trust Parcels 95 and 96, where the families now facing eviction live. In 2005, the Custodian sold the association another 0.3-hectare area (Parcels 73, 75, 84 and 97), where ten more Palestinian families live. The pressure on families who live in a property the settlers want for themselves often puts them in a cruel dilemma – agree to leave in return for significant sums of money, or refuse and still risk losing the property (a very real possibility given the expulsion of other families in the neighborhood), accruing serious debt and suffering harassment. View from the west of Batan al-Hawa. Photo by Amit Gilutz, B’Tselem, 6 Dec. 2016 Tension and violence – an everyday reality The settler presence has changed the neighborhood. In addition to the hardships that come with the settlers – lawsuits, invasion of privacy, economic duress, daily harassment of residents and the resulting clashes between local youths and the settlers, often involving stone throwing – there is now an added presence of the Israel Police, the Border Police and private security guards paid for by the Ministry of Housing. They too use violence against Palestinian residents, threaten them, arrest minors and disrupt life. The stronger the hold settlers have in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa, the greater the number of Palestinians directly impacted by the settler security apparatus, even without being expelled from their homes. Security guards escort settler children through the neighborhood. Photo by Sarit Michaeli, B’Tselem, 6 Dec. 2016 The end goal: “Judaization” of Jerusalem The settlement in Batan al-Hawa, advanced by Ateret Cohanim, is part and parcel of the efforts made by the authorities and settler associations to increase and cement Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Old City Basin: in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter and the Palestinian neighborhoods that surround it. There are currently about 2,800 settlers living in some 140 buildings located in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in and around the Old City – an area that is home to about 100,000 Palestinians. According to figures by the NGOs Peace Now and Ir Amim, the number of settlers living in Palestinian neighborhoods in the Old City Basin has seen a 70% spike between 2009 and 2016. An increase of 39% in the number of new construction sites designated for Jews in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem has also been recorded. During this time, 68 Palestinian families were evicted in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and the Muslim Quarter, 55 of them over the last two years. According to UN figures, settler organizations have filed eviction actions against at least 180 Palestinian families throughout East Jerusalem, usually based on claims of ownership over the building and loss of protected tenant status by the Palestinian families. As a result, 818 Palestinians throughout the city, including 372 children, are facing expulsion from their homes.

11 December 2016

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