The Electronic Intifada 18 August 2015
This video shows Israeli police and right-wing extremists violently attacking and assaulting Palestinians who had gathered outside the hospital where a Palestinian hunger striker is gravely ill.
Flag-waving Israeli extremists sing songs celebrating and calling for the slaughter of Palestinians, especially children.
The events occurred on Sunday, when hundreds of Palestinians and supporters protested in Askalan (Ashkelon) in the south of present-day Israel in solidarity with Muhammad Allan, the Palestinian who has been on hunger strike for two months against his “administrative detention” – without charge or trial – by Israel.
As Allan struggled for his life, his supporters arrived aboard buses from Jerusalem, Jaffa and the north to hold a vigil outside Barzilai Medical Center where he is being treated and detained.
“Allan come and see, your people are supporting you openly,” the supporters call out in the video before they are attacked.
An Israeli police officer shouts through a megaphone: “This is an illegal gathering.”
Police assault protestors, dragging them away and confiscating Palestinian flags, and use a water cannon and pepper spray.
Genocidal songs
Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, who tries to intervene to prevent the police violence, says: “The police are beating people, young women and men.”
At the same time, extreme right-wing Israeli Jews can be seen assaulting protestors without police intervention and indeed with police protection.
“Zoabi, you are whore! You are a terrorist,” one of the right-wing demonstrators shouts at her. The mob then starts to chant “Zoabi is a terrorist! Death to terrorists!”
Many openly declare support for Meir Kahane, the founder of the violent anti-Palestinian organization Kach.
They chant anti-Arab slogans including a song celebrating the mass killing of children in Gaza: “Why is there no studying in Gaza? Because there are no children left there.”
“Gaza is a cemetery,” they sing, and “Death to reporters!”
These same genocidal songs were heard on Israel’s streets during last summer’s 51-day assault on Gaza that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children.
Assaults and arrests
The extremists have been present at the hospital for a week, assaulting visitors and supporters of Allan.
“They don’t even let us gather in one place to demonstrate, to send a political message that we support Muhammad Allan,” Zoabi observes of the police ban. “A conqueror acts like a conquerer, so the oppressed need to act like the oppressed.”
Eight activists were arrested, at least four of whom required hospital treatment due to injuries from police violence, according to the photography collective ActiveStills, which produced the above video.
Allan, a 33-year-old lawyer from the occupied West Bank village of Einabus, recently fell into a coma for four days. On Tuesday he regained consciousness and, still gravely ill, vowed to continue his hunger strike until Israel frees him.
Video by Keren Manor, Faiz Abu Rmeleh and Oren Ziv of the ActiveStills collective.
Text by The Electronic Intifada.
