‘Closed military zone’ around Issa Amro’s house followed by arrest of human rights activist and other activists
Hebron, occupied West Bank
On Monday 28 November, Palestinian peace activist Issa Amro was arrested by Israeli Security Forces at Ja’abara Police Station, near the Israeli Settlement of Kiryat Arba in Hebron.
Amro had been summoned to the station for an interview after filming an Israeli soldier brutally beating a Jewish Israeli activist in Hebron two days earlier, which had gained traction on social media:
When Amro challenged another soldier regarding the assault, the soldier referenced far-right ‘Jewish Power’ leader, Ben Gvir – who last week was promised the role of Security Minister in the government by Prime Minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu – and told Amro: “You people are done [when Gvir takes over]… I decide what the law is”:
The activist, who had been undertaking a tour of the old city and wishes to remain anonymous, sustained a broken jaw in the attack, and has likewise been placed under house arrest, along with two other female Israeli activists who were also on the tour.
Amro was placed in Israeli custody but reportedly released yesterday by Ofer Military Court. However, locals says that the military ransacked Amro’s home and harassed his family and local community. Natalie Strecker, a former human rights monitor in Hebron, tweeted a ‘heartbreaking’ conversation she had with Amro’s cousin Murad:
There remains deep concern amongst activists and human rights organisations for Amro’s safety and wellbeing, as well as that of the Israeli activists, in the context of recent events and the continued deterioration of the situation as a whole in the region with the election of a
far-right government in Israel.
Akram Natsheh, spokesperson for ‘Youth Against Settlements’ (YAS), said on Monday:
The occupation police notified Issa’s family this evening of his arrest… Youth Against Settlements and Issa have recently been exposed to all kinds of attacks, harassment and threats by the Israeli settlers and the occupation army and so we hold the Israeli occupation responsible for the life and safety of Issa Amro.
Earlier this month the Israeli army enforced a closed military zone (CMZ) around Amro’s home in the ancient area of Tel Rumeida, which doubles as the YAS centre, after Amro attempted to file a complaint at the local Israeli police station regarding harassment he and others had experienced from settlers and soldiers during the annual olive harvest. Amro was physically assaulted several times during the month by
settlers and the Israeli Military Forces. Right-wing settlers have rampaged through occupied territory, sometimes as many as ten times a day, terrorising Palestinian villages and vandalising their homes.
Issa Amro is co-founder and former coordinator of the Hebron-based Youth Against Settlements initiative and an advocate of non-violent resistance. In 2010, the UN OHCHR declared him “Human Rights Defender of the year in Palestine” and he is formally recognized as such by the European Union.
In 2016, Amro was indicted by Israel on 18 charges condemned by Amnesty International as “baseless” and “politically-motivated.” Amro was convicted of six charges in 2021, including three counts of “participating in a protest without a permit” pending appeal.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
How can any civilised person reading this be a Friend of Israel?
Hatta al-Nasr Issa Amro!!!
Freedom for Palestine!!!
Congratulations to Heir Starmer and his LFI MPs for supporting THE APARTIED STATE OF ISRAEL Abusing and beatings and Murdering of innocent children And Torture and stealing of their homes and land VIVA PALESTINA
Palestine Action puts Israel’s war industry “on trial”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-action-puts-israels-war-industry-trial/36736
Care to admit that Keir has been categorically wrong to back this now-permanently right-wing and now-verging on outright fascist nationalist movement- which no longer needs to exist as a movement since it achieved its objective in 1948- “without qualification”? Care to admit that nobody ever deserved to be slandered with false accusations of antisemitism simply for no longer supporting it?
………& we say prayers, wring our hands & complain on Skwawkbox
Reply to Steve H
What do you suggest we do Steve? Genuine question. I would love to be able to make a difference
Smartboy – Why would you expect me to know?
Corbyn has been campaigning on behalf of the Palestinians for decades but because he’s never been in a position of power he hasn’t been able to make one iota of difference to their plight.
But if you want some foreknowledge where the next stage of the anti- Semitism campaign may be heading you should watch this.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/david-baddiel-jews-dont-count.
It’s an hour long but I would recommend that you persevere and watch it all, it’s quite informative.
Jonathan Cook has written an interesting critique on this program (link below)
Smartboy – https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2022-11-24/david-baddiel-apology-jason-lee/
If you don’t know what else we can do and neither do I then it looks like we’ll have to continue praying ,wringing our hands and complaining on Skwawkbox Steve.
Also thanks for the links. Very interesting. Baddiel behaved in a truly vile racist way towards Jason Lee and he had neither the guts nor the decency to apologise to him for it for 25 years. Baddiel only did so when he exploring anti Jewish racism for a TV programme for which he was no doubt very handsomely paid. Genuine apology? I doubt it. Disgusting hypocrisy from David Baddiel.
Reply to Steve H
I replied to you at 5.22 in error The reply was in response to Steve 101704’s comments at 3.01. Sorry.
Also thanks for the links provided. My comments about them are contained in the reply to Steve 101704.
SteveH, you will concede the obvious point, though, right? You will admit that it is impossible to declare oneself “a Zionist without qualification”, and to force an entire political party party one leads to be unquestioning Zionist as well, and still be capable of having either any decent or humane values towards Palestinians or being, in any sense, in solidarity with the tiny-but-heroic Israeli Left, the only people in the majority commnity in that country who acknowledge that any injustice is being done to Palestinians at all? You will admit that it is impossible for a Starmer government to fight for justice on the Israel/Palestine issue, as well? There is, after all, no decent alternate conclusion to be reached- nobody is ever timid-to-reactionary on any issue in opposition, and THEN decent and progressive in government,
You will, for once, admit that we have all the information we need and that there is no reason to withhold judgment or comment on this, right? That there is no way an Israeli soldier severely beating a Jewish civilian can possibly be called “self-defence”, or that the State of Israel can only survive if it does things like this?
Ken – You are of course entitled to your own opinions but please don’t project them onto me. I’m quite capable of speaking for myself, thank you.
Where has Corbyn’s stance got him or the Palestinians?
Why do you single out Jeremy Corbyn when there have been numerous groups and organisations and individuals over decades supporting the Palestinians?
Oh, right, because you’re a fucking full-time paid shill with an agenda to try and discredit JC every-which-way you can think of. Yeah, how about that…. so skwawkbox posts an article about a Palestinian peace activist being arrested for filming an Israeli soldier beating a Jewish civilian, and YOU – being the nasty little piece of shillshit that you are – use it as an opportunity to fraudulently criticise Jeremy Corbyn!
You really ARE a total scumbag cnut.
Allan – What’s your issue, is anything that I’ve said above inaccurate?
Re: Julian Assange (again)
Caitlin Johnstone is spot on
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/01/caitlin-johnstone-how-the-guardian-can-help-assange/
Excellent link goldbach – thanks. It’s so typical of those bastards at the guardian to change their sails according to which way they sense the wind might be blowing. I’m especially glad that Caitlin flags up Leigh and Harding, whose treachery I find most especially and breathtakingly, despicable.
SteveH01/12/2022 AT 5:54 PM
Why would you expect me to know?
Precisely because you’re the one with the credible alternatives – or so you’d have us believe.
Meanwhile…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63825611
“The House of Commons has been given a low hygiene rating by Westminster City Council after mouse droppings were found in 19 different places”.
Wanna try the chamber of the commons every Wednesday around noon. There’s hundreds of them to be found all in the one spec. 😒
Toffee – 🥱
Guess you now know how it feels for everyone else when they’re subjected to your incessant repetitive tripe.
Toffee – Are you bored and/or lonely?
Asks the narcissistic gobshite that replies to questions quite obviously meant for somebody else but is, as ever, compelled to make it all about himself.
About the Baddiel film – JVL has a critique of it – and they
quote the Daily Telegraph (of all papers) for a very
perceptive comment.
JVL is also in the process of producing play giving an
alternative Jewish perspective of JVL members who
have been persecuted by the LP. They are crowd –
funding for it.
Here’s the link – https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/do-jews-count/
Let us not forget that Starmer, the ‘Zionist (i.e. racist) without qualification’ would approve of all of this. Otherwise he might be accused of ‘antisemitism’.
The silence of the official Labour Party, anxious not to offend the Israeli Embassy front group Labour Friends of Israel, is shameful
BREAKING NEWS – CHESTER BY ELECTION – SUBSTANTIAL LABOUR WIN
Reasons to be cheerful
Chester By Election Results – Vote share (the 19GE results are in brackets)
Labour – 61.2% (49.6%)
Conservative – 22.4% (38.3%)
LibDems – 8.4% (6.8%)
Green – 2.8% (2.6%)
Others – 5.2%
Swing to Labour 13.8%
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Samantha Dixon 17,309 61.2 +11.6
Conservative Liz Wardlaw 6335 22.4 -15.9
Lib-Dems Rob Herd 2368 8.4 +1.6
Green Paul Bowers 787 2.8 +0.2
Reform UK Jeanie Barton 773 2.7 +0.2
Rejoin EU – Richard Hewison 277 1.0 New
UKIP Cain Griffiths 179 0.6 New
MRL Howling Laud Hope 156 0.6 New
Freedom Alliance Chris Quartermaine 91 0.3 New
Majority 10,574 38.8% +27.5
Turnout 28,541 41.2 –30.5
Swing 13.8%
Reasons to be cheerful?
What are they, exactly?
Toffee – The worst Tory result in the seat since 1832 and a substantial increase of 4,790 in Labour’s majority. What’s not to like.
Turnout down 30%.
People were really enthused then.
I see that Labour gained 1165 votes.
Conservatives lost 7930 votes.
So the “swing” was principally a result of Tory voters staying away.
Will they get off their sofas in 2024?
goldbach – I see the worst Tory result in the seat since 1832 and a substantial increase of 4,790 in Labour’s majority. What’s not to like.
Toffee – The worst Tory result in the seat since 1832 and a substantial increase of 4,790 in Labour’s majority. What’s not to like.
Whoopee-fookin’-doo. 😕 You’ve conveniently omitted THE key point.
It’s yet another smarmerite faux-toerag careerist; who will stick rigidly to the smarmerite faux-toerag line – Where socialist policies are not only anathema, but viscerally despised to the point of being made criminal offences.
THAT’S what NOT to like.
(And before you even begin to entertain the idea, you can shove shove your all-too predictable credible alternative stock reply up your hoop…sideways.)
Ged (Toffee) – Is there a reason that ‘the left’ failed to contest this seat? 🤔
What’s not to like? Surely it’s obvious – Starmer and his odious bunch of chancers.
Where has Corbyn’s stance got him or the Palestinians?
Yeah Corbyn….Shut it, or we’ll butcher a few hundred more Palestinians and smear you even more…
Bellend.
Toffee – Didn’t someone once say “Corbyn has been campaigning on behalf of the Palestinians for decades but because he’s never been in a position of power he hasn’t been able to make one iota of difference to their plight.”?
Of course, if Starmer were to become PM, then he wou ………………… oh, hang on, he says that he’s a Zionist ……………….. er, oh dear.
Precisely, goldbach.
It was because of Corbyn’s support for Palestinians that a load of fascists conspired to oust him.
But they’re not really fascists. Oh no. They’re socialists, apparently.
They just omit the national prefix 😙🎶
Clare Daily is spot on about the UK and its allies Nato are sponsors of state Terrorism against the Palestinians no matter what we see hear on S/B it will never be shown on main tv thats how corrupt the UK are, If you go onto youtube look her up along with Mick Wallace they are absolutely spot on
Yes, Clare Daly always tells it like it is. Mick Wallace too.
England fan at World Cup says “Free Palestine” on Israeli TV
https://youtu.be/tacPbnrZm_U