Don’t Say We Didn’t Know 657
Augenzeugenbericht von Aviv Tatarsky on July 30, 2019 über die Ereignisse in Issawiya (see Don’t Say We Didn’t Know no. 653).
I was there a day before yesterday and this is what I saw with my own eyes:
At 5 p.m. 15 large vans of Israeli special police and Border Police entered the village of Al Issawiya (adjacent to the Hebrew University Jerusalem campus at Mount Scopus). They carried about 70 heavily armed men. Some of these vehicles stopped in the heart of the neighborhood – a junction where many cars cross and which contains shops. The police stood there with their weapons at the junction disrupting traffic, sometimes actually blocking passage and causing Palestinian vehicles to get stuck.
They detain a passerby, hold and shackle him. After 10-15 minutes, a small stone is thrown. The special police forces tense up, run down the alley. But they have no idea where this stone originated and are forced to give up.
Dozens of inhabitants are in the street. They sit, talk, and watch the police. On the balconies women and children watch too. Everything’s is tense. But too quiet. Not a single inhabitant is throwing stones, confronting the special forces, or even arguing with them. This way the police will not achieve the „goal“ for which our best boys have been sent on their dangerous mission.
So after half an hour, the special police forces decide it’s time to produce violence. They turn to a group of adolescents sitting next to one of the houses and roughly order them to get out of the street. During the ensuing argument a stone is thrown from some direction. The police have no idea from where. So they break into the nearest home. They demand to climb up to the roof (this is not legal, they have no search warrant and no permission for policemen to just enter any home). One of the family members tells the police they can climb up to the roof if they wish but he wants to accompany them. The police do not agree. He repeats his words. One of the policemen leaps at him and chokes him. Others join in and beat him up. The other family members try to help – the special police forces shower them with pepper spray – and it all takes place in a small, crowded living room. The fellow is taken out into the street, shackled and badly bruised. The inhabitants yell at the police. The policemen are stressed and want to throw a stun grenade but end up blowing it up on the guy’s back. He collapses, screaming. Bleeding heavily. This is not enough. The police hurl stun and teargas grenades in all directions. All hell breaks loose. We run into a house but the police do not stop. More and more stun grenades explode loudly. Our eyes smart from the teargas.
The policemen throw the wounded young man into the van like a sack of potatoes and take him into custody.
I spare you the video of him being beaten and groaning in pain. I spare you the image of his exposed back, bleeding.
I didn’t have the energy to write this report yesterday. So now, late, I can tell you that at the end of a few hours he was released. Police attempts to place false accusations against him failed – it was a violent ungrounded arrest. This direct violence was absorbed by one single heroic young man. But all of his family members were impacted by this wildness and hundreds of inhabitants of this street and near houses suffered tangible horror.
The Israeli police have been going wild on a daily basis for six weeks now, in Issawiya – terrorizing thousands of inhabitants. How long are we going to let this continue?
Don’t Say We Didn’t Know 658
Seit Scheich Sayyakh am 23. Juli aus dem Gefängnis entlassen wurde werden die Dorfbewohner von Al Arakib im Negev fast täglich von der Yoav Einheit, der Green Patrol und der israelischen Landverwaltung schikaniert und drangsaliert. Am 25 Juli wurde der Scheich festgenommen und ihm befohlen, das Dorf 15 Tage nicht zu betreten. Nahezu jeden Tag kommen sie mehrere Male in den Ort, inspizieren Ausweise, beschlagnahmen Gerätschaften und richten Zerstörungen an (vier Mal). Während eines dieser „Besuche“ wurde eine Skulptur, die an die Opfer von 1948 erinnert, zerstört. Diese behördlichen Aktivitäten werden von Aufforderungen des Gerichts beleitet, die von den Einwohnern die Kosten der wiederholten Zerstörungen im Dorf verlangen und die sich auf 1,6000,000 NIS belaufen.
Ein Beispiel: Am Donnerstagmorgen, 8. August 2019, wurden Ausweise kontrolliert. Am Nachmittag erschien der Vorstand der Natur- und Nationalparkverwaltung. Um 17:30 Uhr wurden die wiederaufgebauten Teile des Dorfes zerstört. Um 20:30 Uhr wurden 4 Dorfbewohner festgenommen und am frühen Morgen des nächsten Tages freigelassen.
Der Originaltext:
Since Sheikh Sayyakh was released from prison on July 23, 2019, the Yoav Unit, the „Green Patrol“ and the Israel Land Administration have been harassing the villagers of Al Arakib in the Negev nearly every day. On July 25, 2019 the Sheikh was arrested and ordered to keep his distance from the village site for 15 days. Nearly every day the place is invaded several times, IDs are inspected, inhabitants are arrested, equipment is confiscated and demolitions are constant (four times). During one of these „visits“ a sculpture commemorating the village’s casualties in 1948 was smashed. The authorities‘ activity is accompanied by demands of the court – that charge the inhabitants with the expenses of the repeated demolitions in the village amounting by now to 1,600,000 NIS.
Thus, for example: on Thursday morning, August 8, 2019, IDs were inspected. In the afternoon, the CEO of the Nature and National Parks Authority arrived. At 5:30 p.m. the structures of the village were demolished. At 8:30 p.m. four villagers were arrested, and released at dawn of the next day.