Israeli security forces punish town of Silwad, near Ramallah, for car-ramming attack by local resident

25 June 2017

On 6 April 2017, Malek Hamed – a resident of the Palestinian town of Silwad – carried out a car-ramming attack at a hitchhiking station at the intersection near the settlement of Ofra, Ramallah District, killing Elhai Teharlev, a 20-year-old soldier, and wounding another soldier. Hamed was arrested at the scene.

For a period of about two months following the attack, Israeli security forces imposed collective punishment on the town’s 10,000 residents. The punitive measures included blocking off roads – a measure that remained in force until the end of May; nightly raids into homes; confiscation of funds and vehicles from town residents; and voiding Israeli work permits. A military official quoted on news website NRG explained the measures were implemented “with a view to putting pressure on the whole village, so residents understand it’s in their best interests to change their ways”.

Restrictions on movement

On the day of the incident, the military erected checkpoints on the streets of Silwad, and checked the IDs of passersby. The military also closed two gates it had installed about a year ago on the road leading to the main entrance to the town, which is located at the southern end of Silwad. This road links the town and the villages east of it to Route 60 – the West Bank’s main artery – and to Ramallah, the area’s major city. One gate was installed across from the entrance to Ofra, a settlement built in the 1970s mostly on land privately owned by residents of Silwad and ‘Ein Yabrud. The second gate is located south-west of the first one, past the tunnel that connects Silwad to the nearby village of ‘Ein Yabrud. Both gates remained closed until 29 May.

Gate installed by the military at the main entrance to Silwad. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 23 May 2017

Gate installed by the military further down the same road. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 3 May 2017

Two other entrances to Silwad remained open: the eastern entrance, which connects the town to al-Mazra’ah a-Sharqiyah, Deir Jarir and the eastern villages; and the western entrance leading to the village of Yabrud (north of ‘Ein Yabrud). This route also runs through a tunnel under Route 60. It is a winding and dangerous road, and travel to Ramallah on it is 12 km and half-an-hour longer than by the main road. The need to use this road has also driven up the price of public transportation.

Several times a week, the military also set up flying checkpoints on the alternate road to Ramallah, via Yabrud, making travel to and from the town even more difficult. Blocking off the roads harmed not only residents of Silwad, but also residents of neighboring villages, who rely on the services available in the town. Some of these services are the regional center for persons with special needs (Silwad Rehabilitation Center), a medical clinic, and an emergency care clinic. In addition, the roughly 70 percent of Silwad’s municipal employees and teachers, who live outside the town, had great difficulty getting to work.

In addition, the gate closures isolated three families, numbering a total of twenty members altogether, whose homes are located in the area between the two military gates. At first, they had to contact the Palestinian DCO (District Coordination Office) every time they wanted to leave or return home, and the Palestinian DCO would then contact its Israeli counterpart. Every time such a request was made, Israeli soldiers would come down from the military watchtower located by the gate leading into the town, check the family members’ ID cards, and conduct a physical search. Ten days into these measures, the military put locks on the gates and gave each family one key they could use to enter and exit, subject to random ID checks. About twenty days later, this arrangement was cancelled, and the families again had to go through the DCO every time they wanted to enter or exit.

On 29 May 2017, the military removed the gates it had installed a year earlier, after having kept them close for nearly two months.

Map of Silwad travel restrictions. Click to download map as PDF

Other measures of collective punishment

These months saw soldiers carrying out late-night raids on homes, staying for an average of two hours at a time: Soldiers woke up the occupants of the homes, frightened them, and then left, leaving chaos behind.

During these raids, soldiers confiscated more than NIS 100,000 [approx. USD 28,000] in total from seven different homes, serving the owners confiscation warrants for the funds. Soldiers also confiscated twenty cars and a motorcycle. Testimonies collected by B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad indicate the vehicles were confiscated without warrants, citing as pretext that they were unlicensed.

Another severe punitive measure employed by the military was the revocation of Israeli work permits from ten residents who work in the Atarot Industrial Zone. In six cases, the soldiers confiscated the permits during a raid, and four other workers discovered their permits had been revoked only in the morning, when they arrived at the checkpoint on their way to work.

In late May, after residents contacted the Palestinian DCO, confiscated money was restored to two families, and the ten workers received new Israeli work permits.

The military disrupted the lives of more than 10,000 people who did nothing wrong and were suspected of no wrongdoing. This disruption of daily life is morally and legally indefensible, and is entirely based on a policy of violence that cynically exploits the military’s authority in order to abuse and intimidate a civilian population.

In testimonies given to B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad, residents of Silwad spoke of how these restrictions disrupted their lives and harmed their livelihood:

Sarhan Hamed by one of his trucks. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 3 May 2017

Sarhan Mustafa Hussein Hamed is a construction-material manufacturer. A 39-year-old married father of four, he recounted the difficulties of running his business with the road closures in effect. He gave his testimony to B’Tselem on 7 June 2016:

I live in Silwad. I own a factory in town that makes cinder blocks, and I have two trucks with cranes for transporting building materials. Whenever the military closes the ‘Ein Yabrud road, which connects us to Ramallah and the villages near it, such as ‘Ein Yabrud, Beitin, Dura al-Qar’ and Deir Dobwan, we find ourselves in a sort of lockdown. The military shuts us in and opens up whenever it feels like it.
Most of the deliveries I make are to the area of ‘Ein Yabrud. There are two gates halfway there. Every time there’s been an attack or any security-related incident, the military immediately closes these two gates. It does so quite easily, and we feel like cooped up chickens, or cattle shut up in a barn. And that’s that, we can’t do anything anymore.
When the road is closed, the only route we can take runs under Route 60, through the village of Yabrud, but parts of it are on a very steep incline, and even small cars have a hard time negotiating it. For the trucks we use to haul construction materials, this road is a disaster. There are no minimal safety features there.
When you take this road, you’re always tense, always on edge. If a large vehicle comes towards you, that’s it, you stop. Neither vehicle can continue, because the entire road is just five meters wide. Sometimes it takes an hour or two until traffic resumes, you start moving, but there’s a real skid hazard there.
I once a rollover accident with a crane-truck, during one of the closures they put on us. It was in the summer of 2012. I was driving there and the truck flipped over. I got out of it with just some light injuries, but I lost a lot of money – NIS 10,000 [approx. USD 2,800]. Since then, I’ve been really scared of traveling there. Every time they close the road on us, I’m terrified during every trip.
When the regular road is open, it only takes me two, three minutes to get to ‘Ein Yabrud, and most of my deliveries go there. It’s just two or three kilometers away. When the road is closed, we have to take a detour through three villages to get there. You drive out of Silwad, go through Yabrud, ‘Ein Siniya and Dura al-Qar’ to ‘Ein Yabrud. It’s a 25-30 km trip instead of being just two or three, and with the truck, it takes me about an hour, if traffic is moving. With traffic jams, it can take two or even three hours.
And as if this weren’t enough, the military didn’t leave us alone, and put up flying checkpoints at the entrance to Yabrud, under Route 60. It was completely random, whatever the soldiers felt like. Sometimes we were delayed there for five, ten minutes, and sometimes an hour. We lost a lot of money because of the road closures - on diesel and the wear and tear to the tires and brakes from driving on this road – the. The five, six thousand shekels (net) I bring in in a month are reduced to no more than three or four thousand.
The amount of work has also gone down. Instead of making two-three shipments a day, the truck barely made a single delivery. Customers prefer to order from other places, that can supply them faster, on the spot.
Business revenue dropped by at least a third. This business provides for several families – mine, my parents’, my brothers’ and the families of the two workers and the driver – more than thirty people all told.
The road closure also impacts our social lives. For instance, I have a sister who’s married and lives in Bitunya, about 25 km away from Silwad. I didn’t visit her at all during the last closure, because I had to think a thousand times before I’d venture outside the village. She didn’t visit us all this time either, because she was afraid of the difficult road and the military checkpoints. The closure doesn’t just restrict our movement, it makes our lives miserable.

Ikram Faruk Hamed is an office worker at a company based in al-Birah. A 33-year-old mother of three, she spoke of the difficulties of getting to work in a testimony she gave B’Tselem on 8 June 2017:

I have three children, aged five, three, and three months. I’m an office worker at al-Binar, a dairy company in al-Birah. I drive every day from Silwad to work in al-Birah. When the road is open, it takes me ten-fifteen minutes to get there.
The last closure was imposed in early April. The Israeli military closed the gates, and forced us to take the alternate road, through Yabrud, which is known to be dangerous because it’s narrow, steep and has no minimal safety features in place. There were traffic jams there because of the large traffic volume and the big trucks, especially during rush hour: 7:00 to 8:00 o’clock in the morning, and then for the commute back, from 4:00 to 5:00 P.M. The trip took anywhere from half an hour to two hours, depending on the situation.
On top of this, the military set up flying checkpoints on the road that goes through the Yabrud tunnel, especially during the busiest times, when the workers go home, which made the trip even longer. Crossing one of these checkpoints took between 30 and 60 minutes. All this made me late for work, sometime even two hours late. My employer deducted the hours I lost from my pay, or my vacation days. So sometimes I stayed late to make up the hours.
When traffic was particularly heavy, I sometimes had to go through al-Mazra’ah a-Sharqiyah, and then east through Deir Jarir, a-Taybah, Rammun, Deir Dobwan and Beitin, all the way to al-Birah. That’s a 50-km trip which took me an hour or two hours, depending on traffic. But that road isn’t always easy, and it’s not always possible to take it, because some days the DCO checkpoint [located after Beitin] is also closed. It was closed during some of this closure.
During the last closure, in April and May, I missed ten work days and lost NIS 1,400 [approx. USD 390], which is half my monthly salary. Is that not an injustice?
The restrictions also hurt my husband, who works in construction in Ramallah. He missed about seven days of work and lost about NIS 1,750 [approx. USD 480]. All these losses came at the expense of our needs, and our children’s needs, and hurt our income and our quality of life. I kept having to ask my parents to take the kids to daycare or pick them up. It’s okay to ask once, twice, maybe even ten times – but not every day. It became a burden.
Because of the extra time it took, I wasn’t able to do anything. I didn’t cook. I had no time to be with the children or do housework. I would come home exhausted from the trip, and had no time left for family life.
I was always tense and on edge. I felt no one was happy with me, either at home or at work. I had neither a family life nor a social life. For these two months, my husband and I visited no one, not even my parents.
Life here has become intolerable. We don’t know what else to do, except look for someplace else to live, where we wouldn’t have to worry all the time if the road is open or closed.

Raed Muhammad Hassan Hamed is a 39-year-old married father of two. He lives between the two gates installed by the military. He described the impossible situation forced on his family in a testimony given to B’Tselem on 23 May 2017:

I live at the southern entrance to Silwad, near the settlement of Ofra. I live in a building with my brother Wasim, 35, who is also married and has two boys and girl, and with my father. My sister sometimes stays with my father. Our building has two stories and each one of us has an apartment. My wife and I have two little girls. One is four and the other is a year-and-a-half old.
Unfortunately, we live on the main road that connects the villages east of our town with Ramallah and al-Bireh. About two months ago, the Israeli military closed off both gates near the old entrance to Ofra, which are about 800 meters apart. As we’re in-between the two gates, whenever the military closes them we’re stuck. Since installing these gates, the military has opened and closed them at will.
For the first twenty days of the last closure, we could go in and out only if we first coordinated with the Israeli side via the Palestinian DCO. We thought a thousand times before going out in the afternoon or evening, to pay a social visit or anything like that. The settlers are very active in our area and we’re afraid to leave our homes unoccupied at night for fear they’ll be damaged – especially when the media reports cases of torching or other violence by settlers.
Because it’s so difficult to get in or out, we’ve restricted ourselves to minimal movement. Every time we go in or out the soldiers might detain us, depending on their mood, and then they search the car. Sometimes they also do a body search. The soldier calls out to me from a distance to lift my shirt and show my torso, to make sure I’m not hiding anything. When he asks for my ID card, he orders me to throw it over to him and then throws it back to me. Every inspection takes about five to ten minutes. The soldier calls headquarters to check my ID number and only then lets me through. The whole thing is insulting.
My niece, Ashwak Zaher Hamed, 17, and our neighbors’ daughter, Aya Ziad Abu Hatab, 17, have to get to their high school which inside Silwad. In the morning, Aya’s mother drives them to the gate leading into the town. From there, they walk about thirty to fifty meters and then take the school bus. On the way back, the school bus lets them out at the gate and they have to walk about 500 meters to get home. They walk alone, in a military-controlled area, and it’s dangerous. They are also subjected to ID checks and insulting searches of their bags, depending on the soldiers’ mood.
They’ve taken away our right to move freely and that’s hard to live with. Normally, if we need something in the evening I can easily go out and buy it. Now we have to plan all our shopping in advance – food, drink, clothes, anything – so we don’t get stuck at night without baby formula or diapers and have to coordinate with the DCO at such an hour.
We’re heading into the month of Ramadan, in which you work while fasting and visit relatives a lot. I don’t know what we’ll do if the gate remains closed. How will we make it to prayers at the mosque, and especially to the a-tarawih prayers after the final meal for the day, late at night? How will be able to visit our relatives and how will they visit us?

Muhannad Hamad in his hardware store. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 3 May 2017

Muhannad Shukri ‘Abd al-Hamid Hamad owns a hardware store. In a testimony given to B’Tse;e, on 3 May 2017, the 39-year-old married father of four recounted how soldiers raided his house in the dead of night and confiscated money:

On Thursday, 13 April 2017, at 3:15 A.M., we all woke up from banging on the front door of the building. I looked out through the window and saw about twenty soldiers at the entrance to the building and in the parking lot. They were carrying rifles with lasers and had various kinds of equipment with them, including ladders. They shouted: Open the door, open the door. My father opened the door.
They spent about thirty minutes in my brother’s apartment, another ten in my father’s apartment, and then they came to us. I woke my wife and kids – I have a son and three daughters – so we’d be ready when the soldiers came in. They went from one apartment to another and then it was our turn. The moment they knocked, I opened the door.
The soldiers came in, ordered me to turn and face the wall, and frisked me. Before they came in, I gathered all the money we had in the house and put it in my pockets, because I was afraid they’d confiscate or steal it as I heard happens a lot. When they frisked me, they found the money and took it. It was NIS 72,577 [approx. USD 20,500], including my daughters’ savings that they’d kept in piggy banks – about NIS 3,500 [approx. USD 990].
I asked the officer in charge why they were confiscating the money and he replied that it was terrorist money. I told him it was money related to work and trade and that I have no connections to any political organization, neither Fatah nor Hamas nor anyone else; that I’m a peaceful man who minds his own business. He insisted that the money was meant for financing terrorism.
My wife and I felt especially bad about the girls’ savings. They’ve been saving penny by penny since they were five or six years old. It really hurt them and they ask about the money every day. I try to reassure them that we’ll get it back. I told the officer that those were my daughters’ savings and that it’s a shame to take something away from little kids. He answered that it was terrorist money. He didn’t care that the girls were crying.
They’re punishing us all though we’ve done nothing wrong. What are we guilty of? I mind my own business. I’ve never been arrested or called in for questioning by the Israelis or by anyone else. I have a clean record. I still can’t quite believe what happened and can’t explain it to myself. They turned my life upside down, and especially my trade ties.
I gave a lawyer power of attorney and filed a complaint with the Palestinian DCO about the confiscated money. They’ve taken it up with the military’s legal adviser in Beit El.

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Harassment

Israeli military disrupts life of ~6,500 Palestinians in Kafr a-Dik for 40 days

On 11 August 2017, the Israeli military shut and locked the gate it had installed some six years earlier at the main entrance to Kafr a-Dik, a Palestinian village west of Salfit, to prevent passage by vehicle. According to the village council, the Israeli DCO justified the closure on the grounds that youths from the village had repeatedly thrown suspicious objects and Molotov cocktails at Route 446, which is used by settlers. Approximately 6,500 people live in Kafr a-Dik. Some 200 are employed in settlements north of the village – particularly Alei Zahav, Pedu’el and Bruchin – and another 500 or so are employed in civil service in Ramallah. The village has four entrances. The main entrance, which was closed off, lies on the northwest side of the village and leads to a road that connects to Route 446 – a highway. Six years ago, the military installed a gate some two kilometers from the entrance. Another entrance, to the northeast, leads to a road that passes through the village of Bruqin and serves as the residents’ alternative route. Two other roads – one to the south, leading to Deir Ghasana and other villages, and a narrow and run-down road to the east that also leads to Bruqin – are rarely used. The closure of the gate forced residents to take the alternative route, which is narrow and weaves between the houses of Bruqin, adding nine kilometers to their journey. Those who work in the settlements to the northwest had to park their cars by the gate and walk about a mile or drive along a lengthy detour, incurring extra fuel costs or higher taxi fares for those who do not own a car. On 7 September 2017, the military opened the gate, only to close it again the next day without offering any explanation to the residents. On 21 September 2017, the military opened the gate again, without any prior notice. It has remained open since. For 40 days, the military casually disrupted the lives of thousands of people who were not suspected of committing any offense. This collective punishment is part of a policy in which the military cynically abuses its power to harass Palestinians. There can be no moral or legal justification for this conduct. The gate at the main entrance to Kafr a-Dik, which the military closed. Photo: Abdulkarim Sadi, B'Tselem, 28 Sept. 2017 In testimonies given to B'Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi, village residents described how the closure disrupted their lives: ‘Anan ‘Ali Ahmad, 24, married, works in a welding workshop in the settlement of Alei Zahav. In a testimony he gave on 13 September 2017, he described his exhausting journey to and from work: About a year ago, I started working in a welding workshop in the industrial zone of the Alei Zahav settlement. I usually get to work and back in a shared taxi with four other workers. The journey costs five shekels (~1.5 USD) each. A month ago, the military closed the gate on the road that leads to our workplace. Since then, the taxi driver has had to take a detour through the neighboring village of Bruqin, connecting to the bypass road that leads to the settlements of Alei Zahav and Pedu’el. The detour has made the journey much more expensive. The driver started taking 15 shekels (~4.5 USD) a head – three times the usual rate. We also have to leave home earlier in order to get there on time. Our workday is very long as it is – from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. After three weeks of paying the higher rate, my friends and I decided to start driving a car to the gate and walking to work from there. That’s about a mile on foot in every direction. A lot of people from Kafr a-Dik and the neighboring villages have been forced to do the same – pay higher rates or walk. We don’t know why the military closed the gate. I should add that there are security cameras on the gate, so the military can monitor any movement in the area. Closing the gate is collective punishment that hurts us all, including the neighboring villages. Ahmed Ali Ahmad next to his taxi. Photo by Abdulkarim Sadi, B'Tselem, 28 Sept 2017 Ahmad ‘Ali Ahmad, 30, single, drives a taxi in Kafr a-Dik and in the area of Salfit. In a testimony he gave on 28 August 2017, he explained: The northwest road is a major traffic artery connecting Kafr a-Dik with the villages in the west of the Salfit District, such as Deir Ballut, Rafat and a-Zawiya, as well as with villages in the Ramallah District, including a-Lubban al-Gharbiyah, Rantis, Ni’lin and others to the west. Closing the road has made travel more difficult and forced residents to find alternatives that cost time and money. For example, when residents book a taxi from Kafr a-Dik to Deir Ballut, the journey is usually six kilometers and I charge 25 shekels (~7 USD). Now that gate is closed, we drive through Bruqin and then onto the 446, coming back toward the closed gate from the west and then on to Deir Ballut. That’s 15 kilometers along an exhausting route. It takes much more time and the passenger pays 45 shekels (~13 USD) – almost double – to reach the same destination. It’s an added burden for both passengers and driver, not to mention the poor condition of the alternative route. In a testimony he gave on 28 August 2017, Fathi Sharif Sa’id ‘Ali Ahmad, 60, a married father of seven, explained how closing the gate without warning made relatives late for his son’s wedding: On 11 August 2017, as part of my son’s wedding, we drove to the bride’s home in the village of Deir Istiya to bring her to our village in a traditional procession. We drove in twenty private cars and a bus carrying fifty passengers. We left Kafr a-Dik at 6:00 P.M., along the road that leads to the highway. After two kilometers, we reached the gate and were surprised to find it closed, with a military jeep stationed there. We parked the vehicles and I got out, with several relatives, to ask the soldiers what was going on. I asked them to open the gate so we could bring the bride in. We argued with the soldiers and tried to explain that we had many women and children with us, and that this was a wedding. But they refused to open the gate. We had to go back to the village and travel through Bruqin, from there onto the highway to Haris, and on to Deir Istiya. The road to Bruqin is in bad shape – it isn’t a main road. We don’t know why the soldiers closed the gate. No one informed us of the reason. This is collective punishment of our entire village and of other villages in the area, and it harms us all.

3 October 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

Suliman Muhammad Fuqaha next to his car, which was set on fire by settlers who attacked the village of Sinjil in Ramallah District. Photo by Avishay Mohar, B'Tselem, 20 Jan. 2025

Open-Fire Policy

This is not what a ceasefire looks like

For over 15 months, Israel has been waging an all-out war on the entire Palestinian people. Ever since Israel and Hamas announced a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a hostage and prisoner release deal three days ago, on 19 January 2024, Israel has intensified its violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.Far from holding its fire against Palestinians, Israel’s actions demonstrate it has no intention of doing so. Instead, it is merely shifting its focus from Gaza to other areas it controls in the West Bank.The ink had barely dried on the ceasefire agreement before the Israeli army blocked most access points to and from Palestinian villages, and all the cities in the West Bank, severely disrupting the daily lives of more than three million Palestinians: Students could not reach schools and universities, patients could not access medical treatments, and ordinary civilians could not get to their workplaces.A series of military raids in Sabastiya, ‘Azzun, Jenin, Beit Furik and Hebron, among others, have already claimed the lives of eight Palestinians, including at least one minor. Dozens were injured and scores were taken into custody in mass arrests.In the past two nights, a wave of settler violence has swept through the West Bank. As soldiers looked on, Israelis attacked Palestinian communities, trying to set fire to homes with occupants inside, torching cars and vandalizing property on a massive scale, in Turmusaya, al-Funduq, Sinjil, Al-Mughayyir and Jinsafut among other places. The attackers themselves have declared these pogroms were an act of revenge for the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal. Settlers have also blocked major intersections across the West Bank, pelting passing Palestinian vehicles with stones.Adding the military activity of the Israeli army in the West Bank to the war’s official objectives just two days before the Gaza ceasefire agreement took effect, speaks volumes about the Israeli government’s true intentions. Forced to stop the fighting in Gaza by the Americans and Saudis, the Israeli government is using this pause as an excuse and opportunity to ratchet up the oppression of West Bank Palestinians.This is not what a ceasefire looks like.

21 January 2025