Just before 1 am Monday, March 8, 6 Israeli military jeeps with over 2 dozen soldiers surrounded the homes of Mousa Abu Maria (and his wife, Bekah Wolf) and Mousa’s father, Abdelhamid Abu Maria, 78, who lives with his wife, adult daughter, and two small children, Sarah, 2, and Hamze, 1 month.

The soldiers broke down the doors of Mousa and Abdelhamid’s houses and ordered the adults, along with the small children, outside. Mousa, Palestine Solidarity Project co-founder and well-known activist in Beit Ommar, was forcefully searched. The soldiers then made a cursory search of Abdelhamid’s home and demanded to see the ID’s of the adults present. The two small children, particularly Sarah who was awakened by the invading … Continue reading

Saturday, March 6–Beit Ommar, population 17,000, is located halfway between the cities of Betlehem and Hebron, both homes to religious sites significant to all three monotheisitic religions which have been the focus of a new move by the Israeli government to declare the sites “Israeli”. More importantly, both sites, the Ibrahimi and Belal Mosques, are located deep within Palestinian territory.

At the beginning of March, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu declared the Ibrahimi Mosque (also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where Abraham is believed to be buried by Muslims, Christians, and Jews) in Hebron and The Belal Mosque (also known as Rachel’s Tomb, where all three monotheistic religions believe Rachel, the matriarch, is buried) in Betlehem … Continue reading

In the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, February 25, Israeli forces entered Beit Ommar and carried out an extensive arrest and intimidation operation, lasting several hours. Five men were arrested, their homes ransacked and copious amounts of tear gas and percussion grenades were shot throughout the streets. An additional seven men were summoned for interrogation by the Israeli intelligence services, Shabak.

One of the men arrested, Ibrahim Awad, lives above a local kindergarten supported by Palestine Solidarity Project. Israeli soldiers returned to Awad’s home at approximately 7am and threw sound grenades at the door of the kindergarten while children were inside. They remained in the area, continuing to throw sound grenades within feet of the kindergarten, as children … Continue reading

A relatively newly formed Nationalist Committee (Al Lajna Al Wataniya) in Beit Ommar has been working on a program to increase Palestinian participation in local actions and demonstrations. Around 70 Palestinians marched towards the outer fence around Karmei Tsur settlement, carrying flags and demanding that they be allowed through the perimeter fence to privately-owned Palestinian land which was cut off from its owners when the secondary fence was built on Beit Ommar’s land in the summer of 2006. Settler security arrived quickly and began threatening to shoot any Palestinian who touched the fence (which a few farmers proceeded immediately to do). Soon after, the Israeli … Continue reading

On Saturday, February 13, 2010, a group of farmers from Beit Ommar and Saffa were accompanied by members of the Beit Ommar popular committee, Palestine Solidarity Project under the new Center for Freedom and Justice of Beit Ommar, and international and Israeli solidarity activists to march into the valley below Saffa, which has been under threat of confiscation through settler violence and the Israeli military declaring the entire area a closed military zone in perpetuity.
PSP had organized a series of tree-plantings along with Israeli anti-occupation activists last month. The Israeli military attempted to prevent the tree-plantings and went so far as to announce they would … Continue reading

On Wednesday, February 10, more than 50 international volunteers with the YMCA along with a group of Israeli activists joined 20 Palestinians in a coordinated tree-planting for 4 farmers who own land near the Karmei Tsur settlement. The action was organized by PSP, the Beit Ommar Center for Freedom and Justice, and the newly re-formed Beit Ommar Popular Committee and was designed to plant 400 trees on land that is threatened with confiscation as the Karmei Tsur settlement continues its plans to extend its “security perimeter” further onto privately-owned Palestinian land.

In 2006, these four farmers, Hamad Soleiby, Hossam Bahar, Mousa Abu Maria and Mohammed Awwad … Continue reading

Either the Israeli military’s intelligence isn’t that good, or the unit(s) assigned to the Beit Ommar were just looking for a clash. This morning, Saturday, February 6, 7 military jeeps with 30 soldiers arrived in Saffa, a district of Beit Ommar that has been under intense military repression and settler violence for more than 8 months. They came, despite the fact that there was no planned action this week, as in weeks past during several tree-planting missions and follow-up visits after farmers were informed that the land was being declared Israeli “state land” and therefore the more than 800 trees planted in the area would be uprooted.

Their arrival, and closing of the only street in Saffa, provoked local … Continue reading

In the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, February 4, several units of Israeli soldiers stormed Beit Ommar, invading several houses and forcing women and children out into the rain, some standing for several hours. In the end, 9 men were arrested:

Murshid Muhammad Murshid Al-Aqeed, 35
Ayesh Ahmad Murshid Za’aqeeq, 23
Rami Bassam Khalil Za’aqeeq, 32
Muhammad Bassam Khalil Za’aqeeq, 20
Murad Amer Ahmad Abu Juda, 21
Muhammad Amer Ahmad Abu Juda, 20
Sharif Fathi Muhammad Brageith, 22
Ashraf Ali Khalawy Sabarna, 27
Jihad Khalawi

This makes a total of 16 people arrested from Beit Ommar in the last 2 weeks alone. We know that several of the previously arrested youth were taken directly to Al Mascobieh (Russian Compound), usually reserved as an Israeli intelligence interrogation center. No … Continue reading

Update: Preliminary research done by Peace Now has revealed that the area in which farmers from Saffa planted trees (to replace what was destroyed by settlers from Bat ‘Ayn) that the Israeli military announced it would uproot last week was not registered as Israeli ’state land’ in the 1970’s as they previously claimed. They are, however, in the process of declaring it state land, a legal maneuver to confiscate the land from the Palestinians who have been using it since the before the creation of the state of Israel.

Update February 1, 2010: Farmers Prevented from Accessing Land Ahead of Uprooting

On Saturday, January 30, a group of farmers from Beit Ommar and Saffa, including those from the Thalji family whose … Continue reading

Today, January 28, at approximately 10:30am Israeli soldiers and representatives of the Civil Administration (the liason body between the Israeli military and Palestinian civilians) approached farmers from the ‘Adi and Soleiby farmers in the Saffa area of Beit Ommar and handed them a military order that stated their intention to uproot trees the farmers had planted two weeks ago as part of PSP’s massive replanting Saffa project. The order stated that the farmers had planted these trees on Israeli-owned state lands and they had 48 hours to appeal in Israeli civilian court.

Lawyers with Rabbis for Human Rights, who also supported and participated in the re-planting Saffa campaign investigated the issue and found that the Israeli government claimed it had … Continue reading