Witnesses to war crimes

The trial of Israeli peace activists Neta Golan and Shelly Native opened 19 June in a Kfar Saba courthouse. The two have been accused of blocking IOF bulldozers from uprooting Palestinian olive trees in the village Dir Istya near Nablus. Golan and Native have been charged with interfering with police work, interfering with a public servant's work (the bulldozer driver) and disobeying a decree of "closed military zone". The trial is expected to continue on 2 September 2003.

Meanwhile, International Solidarity Movement (ISM) founder Huwaida Arraf was detained by the IOF on 18 June at Huwara checkpoint near Nablus. Arraf, who was released the same day, was protesting the abusive treatment of Palestinians by the IOF. An excerpt of the events leading to Arraf's arrest follows:

I arrived at Huwara checkpoint near Nablus with Rick, an American ISM volunteer. The queue was long, at least 70 people, and it didn't look like the three Israeli soldiers who were manning the checkpoint were letting anybody through. Since the soldiers make Palestinian females stand in one line and males in another line, Rick and I decided to stand in the shorter female line. Half an hour later a soldier came over and let a handful of women, myself included, pass. Rick came with me.

I noticed two young Palestinian men crouching up against the cinder blocks that form the checkpoint, their hands tied behind their backs. An old woman was pleading with the soldiers, telling them that her son -- one of the young men -- suffers from back problems and is on his way to hospital in Nablus. She was trying to show the soldier her son's papers and X-rays, but he wasn't interested and yelled at her to go away,

I learned from the two men, Rashed and Ramsy, that they had been held for three hours and that their ID cards had been confiscated. I telephoned HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organisation in Jerusalem that often turns in complaints of abuses to the Military District Coordinating Office.

The soldiers kept telling me to leave the area, saying I was in a closed military zone. I refused. This whole time they did not let anyone through the checkpoint, though every once in a while a soldier would get on the loud speaker and yell at the Palestinians to form straight lines and to stand behind the plastic barricades or else the checkpoint would be closed for the rest of the day. After several more hours of pushing, yelling, loosening and tightening of cuffs, Ramsy (the sick one) was released. One of the soldiers kept saying to us in English, "I want to kill him today." He came up behind Rashed, grabbed his arms and tightened his plastic cuffs until they couldn't be tightened any more. When I protested, he yanked Rashed away and threw him behind an area of cinder blocks telling him to kneel so that he was out of sight. Rashed tried to stand up a few times, "my hands, my hands!"

A young boy came up to me to tell me that Rashed had been released. At first I didn't believe it. But Rashed came up to the front of the line and waved. By now the soldiers were getting pretty annoyed with me. A police jeep pulled up and I was taken away. Rick was given the option to leave and it seemed best, though I was worried about him travelling alone on his second day in the country.

I was released nearly seven hours later from the police station in the settlement of Ariel. A friend drove 40 kilometres in the dark on the windy settler road to pick me up.

Huwaida Arraf

18 June 2003

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 26 June - 2 July 2003 (Issue No. 644)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/644/re41.htm