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According to the eye witnesses the hilicopters then fired around 5 missiles at the same car killed Dr Abd El Aziz Rantesi and 2 of his Company. After local Palestinians and Israeli activists saw a young boy being beaten by border police, the boy's mother sent a Palestinian man to try and help him and Rabbi Ascherman also approached the police. The boy, crying, shaking from fear and eventually cold, was sat on the hood of a jeep and tied to the bars protecting the glass. The other three arrestees were bound and placed in front of a second jeep. After the arrests, local Palestinians began throwing stones, a number of them hitting the jeeps. The unit commander was Shahar Yitzhaki Rabbi Ascherman repeatedly requested over the next few hours that they not be used as human shields, that the boy receive medical attention and that the officers identify themselves. He also asked to lend his coat to the child and to stand in front of the child to protect him from stones. All these requests were met with physical and verbal threats, orders to "shut up," and/or derision. The division commander, "Benny," also visited the site during these events. Rabbi Ascherman was eventually told that the boy had been checked by a medic before Rabbi Ascherman was arrested. Rabbi Ascherman was seized by his throat and head butted by Yitzhaki upon arrest. The arrestees were moved from the scene after several hours, but kept outside. By this time, the adults were also shaking from cold and sharing Rabbi Ascherman's coat. They were released, but Yitzhaki "rearrested" them and took them to the Givat Zeev Police station. There, after continuing to be held outside, Rabbi Ascherman convinced the attending officers to allow them to sit inside. The Palestinian was taken to Ofer, while Ascherman and the ISM activist were conditionally released late that night. At today's High Court session a final debate on the 9 petitions regarding the route of the separation barrier was set for next Wednesday, April 21st 2004 at 9:00 am. For More Info: Rabbi Arik Ascherman 02-5637731 or 050-607034 For photo of boy tied to an Israeli jeep, please see: 19 ISM Report 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. Nablus TV reported 80 military vehicles deployed throughout the day in and around the city - including armored jeeps, tanks, APCs (some with mounted sniper turrets), and hummers to enforce a 24-hour total curfew on this city of 150,000. The Israeli army entered a number of houses in early morning raids, arresting over 40 people - including two journalists (one from the Al-Quds newspaper, and one from Nablus TV ). At approximately 3:30pm 2 bulldozers accompanied by at least 7 jeeps, approximately 90 soldiers (mostly border police) as well as members of an anti-terrorism task force and a truck with a water canon attached to the top, arrived in Biddu and began bulldozing their land. Immediately a call for a demonstration was made in the mosques and people began to arrive at the work site. About 150 Palestinians, as well as 7 internationals, and 4 Israelis came and peacefully confronted the soldiers. The soldiers cut off the road leading out of Biddu as well as occupied a partially-constructed home overlooking the worksite and surrounded the demonstration. Demonstrators attempted to negotiate with the soldiers at which time the soldiers showed a piece of paper declaring the area a closed military zone and threatened arrests. One activist, assigned the spokesperson for the village action, standing with his 12-year-old son, in face-to-face discussion with one heavily-armed soldier appealed to the soldier to refuse service in the Israeli Army, an army, through its actions creating divisions and hate. Instead, the Israeli military fired an immense amount of tear gas and sound grenades, as well as rubber-coated steel bullets. The Palestinians and their supporters scattered and then regrouped and again attempted to approach the bulldozers, but they were again attacked with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. At one point, the soldiers began firing tear gas at the entrance to a nearby home where there were over a dozen small children inside. A man attempted to exit the building with a small baby but found he could not get through the tear gas. Internationals approached the soldiers and informed them that there were small children inside. They stopped firing gas near the home for a short time but then began again. Another man who had been attempting to negotiate with the soldiers for some time was shot in the thigh with a tear gas canister while sitting with a group of approximately 10 men on the land from less than 15 meters away. Alaa Kan'an Mahmoud Badwan, 15 years old, a relative of Mohammed Badwan who was killed by the Israeli military during demonstrations in Biddu a month ago, was shot in the head by a tear gas canister (fired out of a gun) and is currently in the hospital in Ramallah with a fractured skull. Three people were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets, one in the leg and one in the stomach, as well as one international, Peter from Sweden, shot twice with rubber bullets in the back. An Israeli was hit in the wrist with a tear gas canister and there were at least 8 other injuries caused by tear gas canisters being shot into crowds at close range and inhalation of that gas. After 2 hours the bulldozers and soldiers left as the Palestinians and their supporters refused to be dispersed by the use of violence on the part of the Israeli military. On Sunday March 21st, one week after Flo was 'officially' arrested, she was granted a temporary injunction on her deportation order until a court hearing can be scheduled. Yael Berda, Flo's lawyer has also submitted an appeal to the Ministry of Interior for Flo's release from Nazareth detention center where she has been kept for over a week now, until the yet-to-be-scheduled hearing. Flo was arrested on Sunday March, 14 in the village of Deir Qaddis near Budrus, west of Ramallah while participating in a nonviolent action to prevent Israeli army bulldozers from continuing their work on the Apartheid Wall that will completely encircle Deir Qaddis and eight other villages in an enclave. On Wednesday, March 17, 2004, an Israeli court decision ordered the work to cease for a week in Deir Qaddis and Al-Midya's lands. Since then, the residents of these villages supported and participated in the demonstrations in the neighboring village of Kharbatha Bani Harith, where tens of Palestinians have been injured, some seriously, due to the use of excessive violence by the Israeli army against the demonstrators. And I find myself thinking about an orange, a ghost orange, growing on a branch on a ghost tree that no longer stands in the courtyard of a home crushed to bloodstained rubble. In Rafah, the border town that lies on the dusty frontier where Gaza meets Egypt. A place of cement tenements pockmarked with bullet holes, streets choking in dust and smashed concrete, barbed wire and fences and sniper towers, where Rachel and Tom died, like so many of the Palestinians they had come to stand with in solidarity. The illegitimate kangaroo 'trials' that routinely occur in these courts have been roundly condemned by international human rights organizations for violating the fundamental principles of fair jurisprudence as enshrined in international law. The villagers protest against the Wall which is currently being built by the Israeli Army throughout the West Bank. The wall will de-facto annex over half of Beit Liqya's farmlands to Israel, cutting off major resources from the residents. Yet, Beit Liqya, along with surrounding villages, took its case to the Israeli Supreme Court and got an injunction ordering the army to cease all work on their land until the outcome of a court hearing, postponed to next Wednesday. However, the Israeli army is deliberately ignoring this injunction and has c...
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