Settler attacks on Palestinian village backed by Israeli army arrests and violence

Palestinian rights organization Addameer warned yesterday about an escalation of violence against the people of Palestinian village Azzoun in the occupied West Bank.

Nine young men, including six children, have been arrested by Israeli forces over the past few days. The army executed the arrests after Israelis from nearby illegal settlement attacked Azzoun. Addameer writes:

On 9 February settlers twice attacked the village. At 7pm they first tried to attack the home of a village member, before returning later that night at 9pm to again attack the village. After IOF [Israeli occupation forces] arrived violent clashes broke out until 11.45pm, with IOF using tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs. The following day 10 February a group of settlers again attacked the village, closing off the main road for two hours.

At 2.30am on the morning of 11 February IOF raided the village and arrested nine people, including 6 children, the youngest of which was just 12 years old. Five of the nine youngsters have since been released.

As a further punitive measure IOF have also closed off the main entrance of Azzoun with concrete blocks forcing residents to walk six kilometers to get to the other side.

Azzoun, a village located just outside of Qalqilia, has witnessed a spike in arrests, especially of youth and children, in the past year. About 80 residents were arrested by the IOF in 2012, of them 68 were youth under 18 years old. So far in 2013 25 residents of Azzoun have been arrested.

During the arrests, children are treated violently, including being handcuffed and subjected to intimidation and in some cases beatings during interrogation. The residents spoke of deliberate destruction of the contents of the homes during night raids, sometimes with the aid of police dogs, in order to ruin the family’s food and personal property.

A village living under Israeli occupation

An estimated 8,500 Palestinians live in Azzoun. Over the years, Israeli forces have regularly blocked and raided the village.

November and December 2012: Israeli occupation forces implemented curfews on ten different occasions, and regularly blocked the main village entrance during the night raids, reports Addameer.

October 2012: Israeli soldiers invaded Azzoun, sealed the village, and imposed curfew forcing the residents under house arrest, reported the International Middle East Media Centre:

Local sources reported that the soldiers were deployed on all main entrances of the village, and prevented the residents from entering or leaving it. The army invaded the village from different locations, and forced all merchants to close their shops, and attacked several residents before imposing curfew on the village.

January 2012: “On 16 January, at around 1:30 am, approximately 20 Israeli military jeeps entered ‘Azzoun. Soldiers raided some 20 homes. During the raid, the Israeli forces physically and verbally attacked two Palestinians, Mahmoud Rashid Radwan and Yousef Ahmad Saleem; and arrested ten people, among them a 16 year-old boy,” Palestinian rights organization Al Haq reported.

April 2011: Israeli soldiers isolated Azzoun and prevented all residents from entering or leaving it. “Soldiers claimed that their act came to stop local youths from hurling stones at Israeli settlers who drive near the village,” wrote the International Middle East Media Centre.

During 2011: “Israeli forces arrested and detained 147 people from the village. Only a quarter of those detained have been released while the rest remain in prison. This month alone, Israeli soldiers have invaded the village three times, raiding houses and arresting 19 people, of whom six were children,” Al Haq reported.

Comments

Israel's army of occupation

Permalink Frederick replied on Thu, 02/14/2013 - 14:34

Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people are endless. Their actions are nothing short of sadistic. That Israeli crimes go unpunished by world sanctions, like those given to Iran, shows how might is the only factor that seems to count in our world. To compare the Israeli state to Nazi Germany is not hyperbole. It is based on concepts of ethnic supremacy of one goupp over another, ethnic cleansing of neithborhoods and villages, and no rights for Palestinians, just as the Jews and Gypsies had no rights under the Nazis, and were treated as "untermencshen"--subhuman. Israel's brutal treatment of Palistinians, is an abomination, and so, of course, is US support of it.

Israeli settlers terrorizing Palestinians

Permalink Alec replied on Thu, 02/14/2013 - 14:38

This barbaric behaviour has been going on a long time. Zionists would have you believe that it is all being exaggerated by pro Palestinian activists, but this is not the case.

"A senior Israeli army commander has warned that unchecked "Jewish terror" against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank threatens to plunge the territory into another conflict.

In unusually outspoken comments, Major General Avi Mizrahi took aim at extremist Israeli settlers, and said the yeshiva, or religious seminary, in Yitzhar, one of the most radical Jewish strongholds in the West Bank, should be closed, calling it a source of terror against Palestinians.

The general's comments are likely to put him at odds with Israel's pro-settler government, which has resisted US-led efforts to curb settlement expansion in a bid to revive stalled peace talks. The foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, himself lives in a West Bank settlement.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

eretz palestine

Permalink Peter Loeb replied on Fri, 02/15/2013 - 11:19

The very concept of "state" is relatively new. It did not exist in Medeival Europe
during the First Crusades, for example. "France" was not a "state" but an area
inhabited b y a particular tribe/group, "francs". In today's world "States" have
authority and political possibilities not accorded areas. "Africa" cannot be a "Member" of the United Nations nor sign or ratify anything at all. The North American continent without the designation of "state" had little or no international
standing. The State of Palestine has an equal place at any negotiating table
no matter whom it may choose as representatives. It is not "terrorists" which
Zionist prefer just as colonists of 500 called the Native Americans "savages."

"sav