Night domestic confinement ... the latest trend of collective punishment in Jerusalem

Aseel soldier - occupied Jerusalem

For the ninth month in a row, Al-Issawiya town in Jerusalem is subject to collective punitive measures, namely demolishing homes and surprise searches of them and their residents, in addition to freeing arbitrary violations, daily arrests in bulk, firing sound and gas bombs, and sometimes live bullets.

The violations in the town do not stop there. Rather, the people were summoned to investigate to put pressure on their children, and to use the penalty of deportation outside the city of Jerusalem.

Perhaps the most recent cry of arbitrary measures in Al-Issawiya was the occupation authorities' handing over of nine young men from the town, orders of "night" house arrest, for periods ranging between two months and four months, and the imprisonment begins every night at eight in the evening and ends at six in the morning.

The occupation handed the decision to Nadim Al-Safadi, Saleh Abu Asab, Nidal Farroukh, Anwar Obaid, Muhammad Alyan, Fayez Muhaisen, Muhammad Mustafa, Adam Mahmoud and Mahmoud Obaid.

In a step to support the youths, the people of Al-Issawiya launched a night sit-in that breaks the new occupation decision, led by the punished, but the occupation forces did not give them long, and they rushed to re-arrest five of them who broke the arbitrary decision.

Two darkest options are bitter

Muhammad Alyan's father feared his son, who had been arrested 33 times during five years, since he reached thirteen years of age, pushed him to prevent him from breaking the night detention decision, and in his conversation with Al-Jazeera Net he said, "This decision is very difficult ... I am imprisoned with him. I never leave the house, Because the army, since the first day of the issuance of the decision, stormed the house daily to inspect Muhammad and photograph his identity before leaving. "

Alyan fears that submitting to this decision will lead to further subjecting Al-Issawiya youth to this new punishment, but at the same time he fears for his son the consequences of breaking the occupation decision.

He added, "Our life in Al-Issawiya has become very difficult. What is happening now is violations that we have not seen in the first and second uprisings ... daily incursions, intimidation of the population, random arrests, and the occupation escalates daily from its repression of the population."

Son Muhammad Alyan (18 years old) laughed when asked about the number of times he was arrested, and said, "So far 33 arrests." But when asked about the details of his recent summons, he answered remarkably quietly. "They called the house and called me to the investigation center of the Macropolis investigation, and they told me with one letter you have three options: We whiten you, migrate, or undergo house arrest at night. "

On the impact of the new decision that he will be subjected to for four nights, and which will last for four months, he said, "I started to feel bad, especially when I called my friends and knew that they would go out together ... I started to work finally and my work ended at half past five in the evening, I wanted to resume driving lessons, but I will not I can do it now because of the new night detention decision. "

Security and political bankruptcy

Member of the Follow-up Committee in the town of Al-Issawiya, Muhammad Abu Al-Homs, after the new punishment imposed by the occupation authorities on the youth of the town, saying that this indicates the bankruptcy of the occupation government and intelligence. "This is a security and political bankruptcy because Israel tried to bring down the people of Al-Issawiya by all means nine months ago, and I believed that calm would come to the town after a martyr was elevated in it, but the results were always counterproductive to the continued resistance and steadfastness."

It is worth noting that the new administrative decision against the young men was issued by the commander of the Home Front, "Tamir Claims" in his capacity as the military commander of the region, and used to implement this emergency regulations established by the British mandate.

It is not uncommon to apply military laws to the city of Jerusalem, which Israel claims to be united in its two parts and subject to its sovereignty, and the issuance by the army, not the police, of such decisions in recognition of East Jerusalem as an occupied city.

Jerusalem case lawyer Khaled Zebarqa said that the application of this measure is new to the city of Jerusalem, because it is usually carried out collectively when the military commander in a West Bank governorate announces a night curfew in a specific area for some reason.

According to the nine young men’s youth, the new punishment not only affects the negative effects, but its negative effects extend to all the townspeople. “The occupation considers the people of Al-Issawiyah the spearhead in facing its policies and rejecting them. If he succeeds in applying the new punishment on them, he will resort to applying it to many Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.”

Regarding the re-arrest of the youths who broke the nightly house arrest decision, Zebarqa commented, "The youths' reaction is spontaneous, and it is automatically carried out by everyone under occupation and rejects its procedures. There is no recognition of the legitimacy of the Israeli authority over the city of Jerusalem, and this is what Jerusalemites prove every day."

Regarding the application of this military decision to the city of Jerusalem, Zubarqa said that this confirms the continuation of Israel to impose its military systems on Jerusalem, as it is within the territories occupied in 1967, although it always praises and celebrates the unification of its eastern part with the West under its sovereignty, which requires it to be subject to the laws of the police, not the army .

It is noteworthy that mandatory emergency regulations grant broad powers to the leaders of the occupation army, which it uses to carry out administrative arrests and demolish homes in the West Bank, while its use in areas under Israeli sovereignty is very rare, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.