THE DRONES OF THE WEST BANK

September 16, 2012 at 07:17 (Collective Punishment, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Occupied West Bank, Oppression, Palestine, War Crimes, zionist harassment)

Israeli army uses surveillance drone at Nabi Saleh weekly demonstration

By Paddy Clark*

See photos from demonstration here and get up to date information from Nabi Saleh Solidarity here

Weekly Demonstration

On Friday, September 7, Israeli forces sealed off the village early in the morning and at least 4 people were detained hiking over the hill and two cars of Israeli activists were also detained while on route in to Nabi Saleh. All were released in the evening.

Israeli forces broke up the demonstration with tear gas.  Clashes broke out with local youth throwing stones, with Israeli forces firing rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas.

On Friday evening after the weekly demonstration, Israeli forces drove through the village playing loud noises through speakers. Clashes broke out and Israeli military fired tear gas and at least one live round in the air. This week was relatively quiet with no serious injuries sustained.

Locals also reported that soldiers used an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or surveillance drone during the protest. Israel’s practice of testing weapons or security industry products on Palestinians is well documented.

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Palestine as a weapons industry laboratory and BDS

Naomi Klein talked about the Israeli war economy in her book The Shock Doctrine (2007) warning:

“The Israeli Export Institute estimates that Israel has 350 corporations dedicated to selling homeland security products, and 30 new ones entered the market in 2007. From a corporate perspective, this development has made Israel a model to be emulated in the post-9/11 market. From a social and political perspective, however, Israel should serve as something else—a stark warning. The fact that Israel continues to enjoy booming prosperity, even as it wages war against its neighbors and escalates the brutality in the occupied territories, demonstrates just how perilous it is to build an economy based on the premise of continual war and deepening disasters.”

Israeli economist Shir Hever wrote an essay in 2011 which made the point that Israeli arms companies such as; Elbit, Magal and Nice increasingly rely on Palestinians to test their weapons, and then advertise their products in arms trade showrooms as ‘battle tested’ in the field.

Private companies operating in ‘conflict’ zones are often not subject to the same laws and treaties governing states making it even more difficult to hold perpetrators of crimes responsible, and move away from impunity.

Ibrihim Shikaki, economics teacher at al-Quds University commented:

“In places of armed conflict where International humanitarian law applies, the obligation to respect and ensure respect is for “high contracting parties” i.e states. Even though there have been several attempts to start regulating the work of Private Military and Security companies (PMSC) such as the Montreux Document, and some efforts on self regulating such as the International code of conduct for private security service providers, things are only in the first steps.”

The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (see handbook here) is increasing pressure against weapons companies who are profiting from the occupation. In August, 2011, members of Palestinian youth movement, Hirak Shababi, symbolically delivered a Palestinian call for military embargo on Israel to the United Nations office in Ramallah.

Youth activist Aghasan said: “We face Israeli repression and violence on a daily basis. Our generation has grown up under occupation and seeing friends and relatives killed, injured or imprisoned. We demand that the international community stops funding and profiting from the military and security apparatus that sustains the colonial Israeli apartheid regime. All trade and cooperation must stop. Young Palestinians demand a comprehensive military embargo now.”

International solidarity and anti-arms trade BDS

The Smash EDO campaign in Brighton, UK, is a great example of local resistance to illegal arms trade at the point of production in Europe. In an article recently published in Electronic Intifada, Jessica Nero, BDS and anti-arms trade activist and researcher, wrote about some of the groups’ tactics; using direct action at a community level as a means to legally challenge an international weapons manufacturer, exposing corporate complicity in war crimes in the process.  Jessica spoke about one of their biggest successes saying:

“The biggest success so far came in 2010, when nine defendants were found not guilty of criminal damage after breaking into EDO and smashing it up “to the best of their abilities” as a response to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza during winter 2008-09.  After hearing all of the evidence, a jury acquitted the activists on the basis that they had acted with the intention of preventing war crimes against Palestinians.”

*Paddy Clark is an activist and writer living in the West Bank (name has been changed).

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IT GETS WORSE….

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Israeli Army shoots resident of Nabi Saleh following settler attack

By Paddy Clark (Also FROM)

 

On Sunday evening, settlers entered Nabi Saleh village. In clashes that followed Israeli soldiers shot Omar al-Tamini, 25, with live ammunition in the abdomen, and then arrested him and Eyas from inside the ambulance which was taking Omar to Ramallah hospital. On Monday, September 11 at 2:30 a.m., Israeli forces forced entry to homes in Nabi Saleh and arrested Mohammed, and Zeyad, younger brother of martyr, Mustafa Tamini.

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Most of the local residents were at home on Monday as a result of the Palestinian general strike. Settlers entered the village in an attempted attack which was reported on PSCC. Residents of Nabi Saleh resisted the intrusion, and then clashes broke out between local youth and the military. Omar al-Tamimi was shot with live ammo during clashes which continued in to the night.

Later that night around 2.30 a.m, Israeli military invaded again (see video here.) They raided the family home of martyr, Mustafa Tamini, who suffered a fatal injury on December 9, 2011, after being shot in the face with a tear gas grenade from a distance of less than 10 meters (see photo here and video here.) Heavily armed soldiers once again, stood in the hall of their home, this time demanding another family member to be taken away to an Israeli jail.

I blog on Palestine and Resistance blogged;

“i feel so so angry that they had the nerve to go into that house once again, that they dared to harrass this family once more. its not even been a month since they released loai (20) from ofer military prison – and already when they had arrested him, in the middle of the night, from inside their home, barely two months after they had shot dead mustafa in cold blood in their own village, i (like so many others) could almost not believe it, felt so so enraged that they would enter their home again with their guns. it still makes me furious that they actually imprisoned loai – FROM INSIDE THEIR HOME – only two months after he saw his eldest brother bleed into the street in their village, before friends carried him into a car and away from him forever. (watch this video: loai, wearing a grey/black checkered jacket, can be first seen at 0:22). I still feel a mixture of rage and pain and i struggle to grasp that they not only murdered mustafa in the way they did, but that they did storm the house of the bereft family so shortly after and violently arrested the brother who actually saw mustafa dying, when they had only released his twin odai from military jail the day of mustafa’s funeral – AFTER the funeral. i still can’t grasp that odai heard in jail that someone in his village was severely injured, heard in jail that the injured young man was his eldest brother, heard in jail that it was a serious injury and that he might lose his eye, heard in jail that he might be fine after all, and heard in jail the next day that his brother was martyred. and that he was denied the right to spend that terrible day with his family and friends, with his twin brother.”

The legal office of Gabi Lasky said yesterday that Zayed and Mohammed were being detained at Ofer prison but was still unaware where Omar and his friend were being held.

For background information about the struggle and further information in Nabi Saleh see blog here

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