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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel uses deadly force on
both sides of Green Line</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy"
moz-do-not-send="true">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span>
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<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span
class="gmail-date-display-single">18 January 2022</span></span>
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<span><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2022-01/190321_msh_1_00_1.jpg?itok=tfcdDiyV×tamp=1642544841"
alt="" title="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="452" height="301"></span>
<p>Haj Suleiman Hathaleen confronts Israeli soldiers
during a rally against expropriation of Palestinian
land for the expansion of Carmel settlement near
Yatta village in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills,
March 2021.</p>
<small>
<span>APA images</span></small>
<p>A Palestinian shepherd who was a constant presence
at protests in the southern West Bank died on Monday
two weeks after being struck and critically injured
by a tow truck escorted by Israeli police.</p>
<p>Haj Suleiman Hathaleen had attempted to use his
body to block the tow truck transporting cars
belonging to Palestinians that were confiscated by
Israel on the pretext that they weren’t licensed.</p>
<p>Hathaleen’s grandfather was expelled from the Naqab
desert in what is now part of southern Israel soon
after the declaration of the state in 1948.</p>
<p>Following their expulsion, the Jahalin tribe to
which Hathaleen’s family belongs relocated near the
Palestinian town of Yatta, south of Hebron.</p>
<p>Israel has never left the agrarian community in
peace, subjecting them to land confiscation, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/eu-logo-no-shield-israels-bulldozers/17681"
moz-do-not-send="true">home demolitions</a> and
the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-orders-destruction-entire-west-bank-village/11461"
moz-do-not-send="true">constant threat</a> of
further displacement.</p>
<p>Residents of the South Hebron Hills frequently
protest Israeli measures aimed at pushing them off
of their land. Hathaleen regularly participated in
demonstrations in the area, which is under full
Israeli military control.</p>
<p>Hathaleen, an older man who carried a shepherd’s
staff, was a community leader and an iconic presence
who constantly put his body on the line at protests,
as others from the South Hebron Hills <a
href="https://www.972mag.com/haj-suleiman-masafer-yatta-police/"
moz-do-not-send="true">recount</a>.</p>
<p>The man’s family suspects that Hathaleen may have
been deliberately injured when he was struck on 5
January. He was well known to Israeli authorities
and had been detained multiple times but never
charged.</p>
<p>The tow truck driver hit Hathaleen and dragged him
for several meters. The police vehicles sped away
and the officers provided no assistance.</p>
<p>A Palestinian field researcher working with
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization,
found “fragments of Suleiman’s skull and a few of
his teeth” at the site of his injury, <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-israeli-police-ran-a-over-palestinian-anti-occupation-protester-and-fled-the-scene-1.10539835"
moz-do-not-send="true">according to</a> the Tel
Aviv daily <em>Haaretz</em>.</p>
<p>The police claimed that a “militant mob” attempted
to harm the police force, and thus “it was
impossible to stop and assist the injured person.”</p>
<p>They took no responsibility for striking Hathaleen.</p>
<h2>“Racial discrimination par excellence”</h2>
<p>Over the past year, three Palestinians in the area,
<a
href="https://www.972mag.com/settler-violence-sukkot-pogrom/"
moz-do-not-send="true">including a toddler whose
skull was fractured</a>, were permanently injured
as a result of Israeli police, military and settler
violence.</p>
<p>In all three cases, “the Israeli authorities
quickly closed the case without prosecuting anyone,”
as Ali Awad and Awad Hathaleen write for <em>+972
Magazine</em>.</p>
<p>“The Israeli army, police and settlers all work
together and systematically to ethnically cleanse us
from our land,” the writers add.</p>
<p>The same relationships are at play throughout
historic Palestine, whether in the South Hebron
Hills, Sheikh Jarrah or the Naqab desert, where
police have violently repressed protests against a
Jewish National Fund afforestation project over the
past week.</p>
<span><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2022-01/448a3576.jpg?itok=H3xNRwAS×tamp=1642544841"
alt="" title="" style="margin-right: 25px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="452" height="302"></span>
<p>Israeli police detain a protester in the Naqab on
13 January.</p>
<small>
<span>Oren Ziv</span>
<span>ActiveStills</span></small>
<p>The JNF and the Israel Lands Authority are planting
forests in the Naqab “to displace Bedouins, viewed
as ‘trespassers,’ from their lands,” <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10524"
moz-do-not-send="true">according to</a> Adalah, a
group that advocates for the rights of Palestinians
in Israel.</p>
<p>“This is racial discrimination par excellence,”
Adalah added.</p>
<p>In its crackdown on the protests, Israel used
drones that dropped tear gas against its citizens
for the first time – an “extremely dangerous,
disproportionate and unlawful” act, Adalah said.
</p>
<div id="gmail-file-115146">
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">The Israeli regime army is
using drones to drop tear gas on Palestinians in
the Naqab resisting settler colonisation. They
test out their latest technologies on us &
then sell them to other nasty regimes. Watch
out, soon coming to a protest near you. <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/savethenaqab?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">#savethenaqab</a></p>
— Dr. Yara Hawari د. يارا هواري (@yarahawari) <a
href="https://twitter.com/yarahawari/status/1481646814701170690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 13, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>
Israeli police have also “endangered the lives” of
demonstrators by using other crowd control weapons
like rubber-coated bullets.
<div id="gmail-file-115151">
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">In other news: 39-year-old
father of four, Talib Sa’aydeh, was targeted and
shot by an IOF rubber-bullet which fractured his
skull and left him in a coma. He’s currently
fighting for his life in the ICU. <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SaveAlNaqab?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">#SaveAlNaqab</a></p>
— Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) <a
href="https://twitter.com/m7mdkurd/status/1483087719647563780?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 17, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Israel Lands Authority allocated land belonging to
the al-Atrash Bedouin tribe near Sawa to the Jewish
National Fund despite registered claims of ownership
and its use as agricultural land by Bedouin residents,
Adalah said.
<h2>Harming habitats</h2>
<p>The rights group added that Israeli environmental
groups object to the tree-planting scheme due to its
harm to native habitats.</p>
<p>Since 1948, the Jewish National Fund has planted
hundreds of millions of <a
href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/19171.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">predominantly European
conifer trees</a> on the remains of Palestinian
villages depopulated in 1948 and 1967 to erase their
existence and prevent their residents from
returning.</p>
<p>While boasting that its tree planting helps
mitigate climate change, in reality the European
pines and cypress tree species have fueled forest
fires exacerbated by dryer conditions.</p>
<p>Dozens of residents, including children, have been
arrested during the Naqab protests, according to
Adalah.
</p>
<div id="gmail-file-115156">
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">An Israeli settler police
officer taking a selfie with a Palestinian
Bedouin minor from Al-Atrash and say’s “he’s my
arrestee”. It’s like they are counting heads! <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%82%D8%B0%D9%88%D8%A7_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A8?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">#انقذوا_النقب</a> <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D9%83%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B7%D8%B1%D8%B4?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">#كلنا_الاطرش</a> <a
href="https://t.co/URIcQzXdVh"
moz-do-not-send="true">pic.twitter.com/URIcQzXdVh</a></p>
— Riya Al (@RiyaAlsanah) <a
href="https://twitter.com/RiyaAlsanah/status/1481206384377176064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 12, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>
An array of groups in Israel are calling on the
government and the JNF to stop the “provocative” tree
planting on disputed lands and to stop the violent
police crackdown.
<div id="gmail-file-115161">
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Along with our partner
organizations, we call upon authorities to
immediately end the "foresting" plans and
respect the rights of Bedouin citizens of
Israel. The purpose of JNF's "foresting" is
clear: to stop the development of Bedouin
communities and prevent their recognition.🧵 <a
href="https://t.co/cgjgjJxoO4"
moz-do-not-send="true">pic.twitter.com/cgjgjJxoO4</a></p>
— ACRI (@acri_online) <a
href="https://twitter.com/acri_online/status/1482736828348260355?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 16, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>
Whether through routine harassment like confiscating
cars or planting European pine trees on agricultural
land, Israel’s policies are aimed at pushing
Palestinians off of their land and destroying their
way of life.
<div id="gmail-file-115166">
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">JNF Canada (<a
href="https://twitter.com/JNFca?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">@JNFca</a>), which has
charitable status in Canada, was "instructed"
last year by the Canada Revenue Agency not to
fund projects in occupied Palestinian territory.
However, JNF activities 'inside Israel' are no
less colonial, as we see this week in the Naqab
(Negev) 👇 <a href="https://t.co/XuRikXO0Wu"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://t.co/XuRikXO0Wu</a></p>
— Michael Bueckert (@mbueckert) <a
href="https://twitter.com/mbueckert/status/1481286463065141252?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 12, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>
And it’s an aim that Palestinians resist with their
bodies and their lives on both sides of the Green
Line.
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