Evidence of Extra-Judicial Executions - 11 year old girl killed by sniper - 35 injured – 6 Killed in Nablus, 4 in Jenin


(AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

Israeli military operations in Nablus and Jenin today have resulted “in the highest Palestinian death toll in the West Bank for months” according to the BBC, while Haaretz is claiming that today’s killings constitute “the highest single-day Palestinian death toll in the West Bank for more than two years” (although that claim is disputable). Early this morning Shayetet 13 commandoes raided a building near Old Najah Street in an area of Nablus inhabited by many Christian families not far from the Latin Convent. Backed by tanks, Apaches, and armored vehicles Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian militants for two hours. Several homes were occupied in the area, including the Latin Convent itself. By 5am, five Palestinian resistance activists from the Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) were dead – including Nader Aswad (22), the new leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades in Nablus, Abdel Halim Salem (22), Munham Abu Jamileh (24), Halim Aqqad (22), and Mohamed Mareh (23) - while another fighter on the scene is reported to have escaped. Medical teams were blocked from reaching the bodies by Israeli troops in the area until 11am. They were only allowed to pass after the IDF had ensured free passage for a D9 bulldozer, which was brought into Nablus to demolish part of the house used by the fighters. While medical teams were evacuating the bodies of the dead, 11-year old Mariam Al-Nakhleh, who was watching the medical teams from her balcony, was inexplicably shot in the head by an IDF sniper. The news of the killings sparked clashes between military units deployed throughout the city and stone throwing shebab since the morning. At least 35 people were injured in the ensuing confrontations. What fallows is a detailed report of today’s events.   more »

The ‘break’ didn’t last long. Last night at 2am the soldiers came back to the old city. This morning at 6:30 am we were woken up by a call from our coordinator in Askar and told that the military was rounding up men in the refugee camp. By the time we reached the premises of the UNRWA Askar Girl’s School, some 1,000 men between the ages of 16-40 had been rounded up and detained by the IDF in overcrowded school rooms or outside in the sun. Familiar scenes, cramped premises, men hooded and shackled on the grounds of a UN facility – with no UN staff around. Razor wire dividing the playground with soldiers milling about the area. We manage to negotiate the right for family members to bring food, water and medicines to the detained men – but in other areas of the camp we’re unable to prevent the house-to-house searches, home occupations, beatings and general property destruction perpetrated against the Palestinian refugees.

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NABLUS, West Bank - Mohamed Haysam Fawkih (17), like many residents of the Old City today, was standing on his roof during curfew when two live rounds pierced the upper portion of his body. He died almost immediately afterwards, as relatives and nearby medical volunteers crowded around the body. Since Thursday morning the 30,000 residents of the Old City have been under constant curfew. A ring of steel enforced by Israeli armor and troops – including more than 35 military and Border Police jeeps, Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), hummers, imposing troop transports, snipers hidden in occupied houses, Special Forces and members of the feared Mistaruvim - are laying siege to one of the key centers of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.   more »

NABLUS - On Monday, Khalil Marshoud (25), the head of the Al-Aqsa Brigades in the Balata refugee camp, and Awad Abu Zeid, from the Askar refugee camp, were assassinated by an Israeli Air Force (IAF) helicopter while traveling in a car near Jacob’s Well Monastery on the outskirts of Balata. This killing is the second time in a little more than a month that the IAF has enacted its policy of extrajudicial executions - condemned by international human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch - targeting prominent local Palestinians engaged in armed resistance to Israeli occupation here in Nablus. Besides the two unarmed victims, Mohamed Al-Assi - also from Balata - and another bystander where critically injured and are now being treated in Rafidia hospital.   more »

TARGETING OF CIVILIANS

Last night 13 year old Hani Mahmoud Qandil was shot in the head by Israeli military. This is the way local ISM volunteer Sameh described the scene in the Old City of Nablus last night: "At 9 pm we heard the soldiers coming in the Old City. A group of us went to check if they are coming or not really and to see if they will occupy any houses. I’m going in the Old City and found twenty jeeps around the Old City. The first coming four jeeps inside the Al-Qaryon district
and after that more soldiers. There are twenty of us guys trying to check where the soldiers are. We heard live bullets. We founded a boy shouting. We founded the live bullet in his face and a gaping wound from the back of his head. We take him up near the Zafer al-Masri school to check his condition. The heart for him was not working. We take him in a civilian car to the Tahasuseh Hospital near An-Najah University and the doctor told us he’s died."   more »

NABLUS (West Bank) - Last night death came quickly in Nablus. 2 missiles within moments of each other crashed into a car driving by the Watani Hospital. Within minutes the scene was surrounded by ambulances, medical volunteers, and curious onlookers. An Israeli military helicopter had unleashed its lethal payload, claiming the lives of three men from the Balata refugee camp and one from Qalqiliya in the latest extrajudicial execution carried out by the occupation forces.   more »

NABLUS (West Bank) - In Rafidia Hospital last night there were two sets of people in two different hallways displaying two different emotions. Sameh and I were in the first hallway where Jamal Shadeh Hamdan (21) from the Old City in Nablus was lying in critical condition. His friends and family were in the hallway, wet eyes and slouched forms. One friend recalled how just the night before they had been joking with Jamal, when a friend had stopped them and said, seemingly out of the blue, "We can’t joke like this, we have to respect ourselves even if no one on the outside cares."   more »

[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.   more »

On March 30th, Palestinians throughout the historical mandate of Palestine marked "Land Day" in commemoration of the day in 1976 when Israeli forces confiscated 22,000 dunums of land in the villages of the Galilee, declaring them closed military zones only to later carry out intensive settlement acts in the area (a fact that provoked the local Palestinian inhabitants that had lost their lands and who as a result confronted the settlers). The confrontations that erupted as a result claimed the lives of 6 Palestinians. 96 were wounded and another 300 were arrested.

In Nablus this year the occasion was marked by a rally in the main square, the Duwar, inclusive of colorful banners, marching bands, impassioned speeches and a theatrical demolition of a mock apartheid barrier and colonial settlements. It was also marked by a military raid on a student housing complex on An-Najah Street, the shooting of rubber bullets and live rounds, the targeting of journalists with stun-grenades and the tear-gassing of medical personnel.   more »

What follows is a detailed report about the situation in the Nablus region, that was written by a Swiss volunteer with the ISM: "While movements within the West Bank got easier in the past few months, the villages around Nablus still suffer from very tight closure measures. Checkpoints added to hundreds of roadblocks and several no man’s land areas prevent many villagers from reaching their fields as well as the markets. This situation has been lasting for years now and the consequences for the villages are fatal."   more »

Today, about 30 Palestinian activists from the Student Union Council of Al-Quds Open University in Jenin, the General Union of Palestinian Women, and ISM activists from the United States and Canada held a peaceful vigil in front of the District Coordinator’s Office (DCO) for the Jenin region at Salem checkpoint.   more »

Approximately 9h30 am woken to the sound of single shot gunfire, average three shots every 10 seconds. Army and Border Police armored jeeps next to ISM Office. Army hummer moved along street from direction of Nablus. Rate of fire increased in volume. 9:35-9:40 am. A few rocks and rubbish thrown by shebab at Army/Police vehicles. Army responded by launching several concussion grenades. Approximately 75-100 shots fired in the space of 5-10 minutes. Difficult to say if the raid was opposed by local fighters.   more »