Jerusalem protests bring global attention to Israeli brutality

December 14th, 2017

Awake Goy

Videos and photos showing the brutality of Israel’s occupation are streaming out of Palestine and circulating across the world as protests against US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem raged on for the sixth consecutive day on Tuesday.

Meanwhile two Palestinian fighters with the armed wing of Islamic Jihad were killed in an explosion in Gaza on Tuesday.

The Gaza health ministry said the pair were assassinated in an Israeli military drone strike but the army denied responsibility, suggesting that a weapon carried by the fighters exploded prematurely. Islamic Jihad later dropped its claim that the men had been killed in a drone strike.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society told media that 124 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces during protests in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

A Palestinian boy was reportedly shot and gravely injured by Israeli forces during confrontations near the settlement of Ariel in the West Bank on Tuesday. Palestinian outlets identified the injured youth as Hamed al-Masri, 15.

Israeli soldiers initially claimed that al-Masri was attempting to stab soldiers when he was shot but an army spokesperson later said that the youth was not carrying a knife and was instead among a group of Palestinians “suspected of an attempt to attack on the border.”

A photo of al-Masri circulated on social media after the incident:

Another Palestinian protester was reported to have been shot and wounded in the thigh by Israeli forces in Jerusalem on Monday night:

The injured youth, Mousa Jamil al-Qadmani, is currently being detained by Israel.

Video shows protesters raising the Palestinian flag atop the Israeli fence along Gaza’s eastern boundary on Tuesday before Israeli forces fire on them with what appears to be tear gas:

Israeli forces fired sound grenades to forcibly disperse Palestinians who had assembled to march on Salah al-Din street in East Jerusalem on Tuesday in protest of Trump’s announcement.

Israeli police were seen on video assaulting and taking a Palestinian flag from a pair of women protesters at the Damascus Gate to Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday:

In the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Tuesday, a Palestinian youth was shown on video facing off against an Israeli soldier, causing him to run away:

Israeli soldiers were photographed attempting to extinguish a fire that had caught on their boots during the same Bethlehem demonstration:

إصابة مباشرة بزجاجة حارقة لجنود الاحتلال خلال مواجهات شمال مدينة بيت لحم، اليوم.

تصوير: موسى الشاعر pic.twitter.com/6WUKUZozsP

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) December 12, 2017

Palestinian protesters confronted Israeli troops at the Palestine Technical College near Arroub refugee camp in the Hebron area of the West Bank on Tuesday:

Israeli forces were seen detaining student Ibrahim Nasir, removing him from a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance while he was apparently suffering respiratory distress, and transferring him to an Israeli ambulance:

On Monday the Israeli government accused the Palestine Red Crescent Society of “transporting rioters to [a] violent riot targeting IDF forces” during a protest in al-Bireh, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, that same day.

COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of Israel’s military occupation regime, tweeted a video showing two youths with their faces covered and wearing flags tied like capes around their necks exiting from the back of a Red Crescent ambulance:

Earlier, Palestinian Red Crescent was caught transporting rioters to violent riot targeting IDF forces.

On its site, the Red Crescent claims “to refrain from participating in all belligerent actions and conflicts”

The Red Crescent is lying, or they have some explaining to do pic.twitter.com/RvSkJs2ulX

— COGAT (@cogat_israel) December 11, 2017

The Red Crescent denied Israel’s allegations that it transported protesters, stating that the footage shows a female protester who had been exiting the ambulance with a friend after being treated by paramedics for injuries sustained during the protest.

Another video is said to show Israeli forces detaining a Palestinian youth who had fallen off his bike during a confrontation in the West Bank town of Jericho on Monday. In the video, a soldier wearing an Israeli flag tied around his neck like a cape is seen taking the youth away:

A video said to have been recorded in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem on Tuesday shows heavily armed Israeli forces detaining three small Palestinian boys:

Palestinians also marched in Ramallah on Tuesday:

And at Huwwara checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Nablus:

And Palestinians in Israel protested in front of the US embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night:

Syrians also protested in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights against Trump’s declaration:

And in a testament to the optics of Israeli brutality, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, referred to a now iconic photo of a Palestinian boy being arrested by tens of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron last week:

“Look at how the Israeli terrorists are dragging him while being blindfolded,” Erdogan told an assembly of his AK Party.

The boy shown in the photo, 16-year-old Fawzi al-Juneidi, is currently being held by Israel:

Another photo of a Palestinian being detained in Hebron last week resonated in Turkey.

The photo shows Muhammad Tawil, who has Down syndrome.

A group of Turkish citizens with Down syndrome stood in solidarity with Tawil: