WATCH: #IDF night raids on two #Palestinian villages in the West Bank (#ApartheidIsrael #FreePalestine)

Originally posted by +972 Magazine at http://972mag.com/watch-idf-night-raids-on-two-palestinian-villages-in-the-west-bank/48669/

By Mairav Zonszein

The Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh was raided last night (Sunday) by the IDF. Nabi Saleh, which has been conducting weekly nonviolent demonstrations since the end of 2009 against Israel’s occupation and the encroaching settlement of Halamish, has been the target of repeated night raids over the last two years.

In the video below, uploaded by Bilal Tamimi, you can hear the IDF shooting stun grenades into the village and see the flashes of light they give off. Towards the end of the video, you can clearly see the IDF jeeps parked in the village, some soldiers firing shots, and then they all drive away.

While it is difficult to see in the dark, it seems as if the soldiers are shooting in every direction around them, nearly a full 360-degree circle. If the soldiers were being attacked in some way, it is unlikely it would be from literally all sides and besides, if they were really being threatened, they would be probably also use tear gas, not just stun grenades. It is hard to understanding this as anything other than the IDF terrorizing the village, punishing it for holding weekly demonstrations that call attention to Israel’s occupation.

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The village of Ni’lin, which recently marked five years of demonstrations, suffered an especially harsh night raid on Thursday night in which two Palestinian residents were arrested. According to the Ni’lin village website, from Saturday:

At 01:30 on Friday morning more than 120 soldiers surrounded the village of Ni’lin from all sides but the west. Thirty minutes later the soldiers invaded the village on foot accompanied by 14 military jeeps. They proceeded to raid five houses inside the village, the houses of Jameel Srour, Jammal Srour, Yousef Srour, Shukri Kawaja and Mosab Srour.

During the house raids, the families were put in one of the rooms in the house while the soldiers harshly went through their belongings, destroying furniture and leaving chaos in their wake. The five men listed above were all arrested but three of them were released later during the night. The two remaining men, Yousef and Mosab Srour were taken to an as of now unknown Israeli military facility where they are still being held as this is being written.

During the invasion of the house of Mosab Srour one of the soldiers stole NIS 1000 NiS from a moneybox of the youngest brother of Mosab. Mosabs brother had been saving this money for months, little by little from his work as a vegetable farmer and salesman. A laptop was also stolen from the house.

While this has not been verified, Palestinian residents claim that in addition to stun grenades, the IDF shot tear gas straight into civilian houses and that live ammunition was used as well.

~ reposted by Sofia Smith