28 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Today in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood of Silwan, the Sumarin family awaited a ruling from Israeli court on the pending eviction from their home.
Members of the Sumarin family awaits court decision with solidarity activists from Japan, Sweden, Spain, US, and Israel.
Israeli news reported this week that the current eviction set for this week had been delayed. But according to the family, their attorney had not yet received an official ruling. Until today.
According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, approximately 60% of the houses have received demolition notices in Silwan – a town in East Jerusalem with a population of 55,000 Palestinians. The Elad Association is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American nonprofit Jewish National Fund which is working to evict and destroy Palestinian homes to make way for the expansive City of David excavation project.
Twelve family members including five children currently live in the Sumarin family home. Today international activists from the International Solidarity Movement and other solidarity groups joined the family outside the home in protest of the eviction. A twenty-four hour presence was planned until the eviction was postponed or canceled.
At approximately 2 PM the family received news that the eviction had been postponed. The Jewish National Fund is expected to submit a subsequent appeal to continue the eviction process. This is expected to take at least 2 months, although the family expects another response within the next three weeks.
Wahed Rejol is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
25 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
At 11 AM this Thursday the 24 of November, Mohammed Ka’abne and his family of Beit Hannina, were shocked by the arrival at their doorstep of an Israeli military unit accompanied by several police officers and two bulldozers.
Without issuing any kind of eviction order, or notification to the family, they proceeded to demolish the two houses of Mohammed’s sons and their families, and the tent where Mohammed himself has lived for five years.
Demolitions in Beit Hannina - Click for more images
When the the bulldozers arrived at the scene at 11 AM, the accompanying military assisted by shooting several teargas canisters throughout the small area. In addition to this they forced the men and women to step aside from the houses.
According to Mohammed they also arrested his grandchildren and beat them, while the bulldozers tore down their houses.
Since the military did not issue any kind of warning in advance, all of the family’s furniture and other belongings were still in the houses when they were torn down.
When the two houses and the tent, including their water tanks, had been destroyed, the military left the family who, with the help of friends and neighbours, started to collect the few belongings which might be saved.
A short while afterwards international observers and activists came to the location to record what had happened. Around 3 PM personnel from the Red Cross also arrived with tents for the family to stay in.
The Bedouin family of Mohammed Ka’abne, 67 years, includes his three sons and their respective wives and six small children.
Mohammed grew up in the South Hebron Hills from where he was forced in 1948, when he moved to Jericho, and some years later came to Beit Hannina.
According to Mohammed he had to spend several thousand shekels to buy a piece of land of 1500 m2, including money for a lawyer to get a building permit and money for the military to let him stay there. Muhammed also says that after having bought the land, he waited for five years for a building permit. He then realized that he couldn’t wait any longer and decided to build the two houses for the families of his sons and put up his tent, although he didn’t have the legal permit to do so.
Five years later the family ais now being forced to live in tents from the Red Cross.
Talking about the brutal way that the demolition was carried out Mohammed said, “If they would have told us to destroy the houses with our own hands we would have done it. But not like this.”
Beit Hannina is a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem which has suffered from the establishment of Israeli settlements since 1970. In addition the area also took a heavy blow when the Israeli government started to build the illegal Segregation Wall straight through Beit Hannina in 2004.
The Segregation Wall now effectively cuts off the older part of the neighbourhood – Beit Hannina al-Balad – which is located in the West Bank, from the newer part – Beit Hannina al-Jadida – which is located on the other side of the wall.
A walk between neighbours before the construction of the Segregation Wall might take a few minutes has now been replaced by a bus or taxi ride around the wall and through the Qalandia checkpoint, which takes about 45 minutes, and which of course is not possible for Palestinians without Israeli citizenship.
The family of Mohammed Ka’abne live in Beit Hannina al-Balad, which is supposedly under the control of the Palestinian Authority, yet still the Israeli government decides who they allow to live here and for how long.
25 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The Occupation Forces invaded An Nabi Saleh village three times injuring several people by shooting directly at demonstrators with tear gas canisters and rubber coated steel bullets on Friday, November 25th.
Three people were arrested Wednesday in a night time raid earlier in the week. Rami Tamimi, 33, Uday Tamimi, 20, and Muatasim Tamimi, 16 years old were all taken away. The Israeli military justified the arrest Uday and Muatasim because they will be used as witnesses against Bassem Tamimi in his court hearing next week. Bassem Tamimi is one of the local members of the Popular Committee who was arrested in Spring, 2011. The main evidence in Bassem’s case is the testimony from a 14 year old boy, which was fundamentally flawed and violated the rights set forth in the Israeli Youth Law. The same mistreatment was used against Muatasim who was arrested Wednesday night in order for him to testify against Bassem.
Bassem Tamimi has a long history of being targeted by the Occupation. He has been arrested by the Israeli army 11 times to date, though he was never convicted of any offense. Bassem Tamimi has spent around three years in administrative detention, with no charges brought against him. After popular demonstrations began in An Nabi Saleh 10 houses have gotten demolition orders, including the home of Bassem. Bassem’s wife, Nariman Tamimi, has been arrested twice, whiles two of his young sons have been critical injured.
In the last court proceeding against Bassem, he gave a statement dening the unlawful charges against him but proudly admitting to organizing demonstranstions in An Nabi Saleh and stuggeling against the Occupation.
On Friday, soon after the noon prayer demonstrators gathered near the mosque of An Nabi Saleh, where one of the local coordinators gave a small speech about solidarity with the struggle in Jerusalem and also about the negotiations and agreements between Hamas and Fatah. He emphasized the importance of the leaderships’ focus on the resistance and support of it as well. In the end he talked about the night raids of An Nabi Saleh and arrests of youth and minors in connection to the arrest of three people from An Nabi Saleh Wednesday night.
Demonstration in Nabi Saleh – Click here for more images
The demonstration proceeded towards the entrance of the village and was met by skunk water and tear gas canisters shot directly at demonstrators. When the Occupation Forces withdrew to the entrance of the village, demonstrators closed the roads and prevented the military jeeps from entering the village, going towards the mountain in front of the water resource that the illegal settlement Halamish attempts to annex.
The Occupation Forces had invaded the mountain and threatened the demonstrators with the words, “If you come near we will shoot you,” but demonstrators were steadfast and managed to make the Occupation Forces withdraw by walking in between them.
Meanwhile the Occupation Forces invaded An Nabi Saleh village, shooting tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and spraying demonstrators and houses with foul-smelling water.
In the end the Occupation Forces withdrew all units to the entrance of the village, and demonstrators ended the demonstration with a small gathering.
Aida Gerard is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
Layla and her daughters with the turkey in Faraheen (Photo: Radhika Sainath, Notes from Behind the Blockade) - Click here for more images
It all started with a simple question from Jabar, a Palestinian farmer from Faraheen, during Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice.
“Is there an American eid (holiday) where you slaughter an animal?” he asked Nathan, a colleague here in Gaza, a few weeks ago.
Thanksgiving and turkeys came to mind.
And so, I found myself celebrating “Thanksgiving,” Gazan-style, this afternoon in the small, southern Gazan village.
Nathan painstakingly put together a variety of ingredients over the past couple of weeks to make a proper meal: turkey, baked beans, sweet potatoes, biscuits and chocolate chip cookies! We had to nix the stuffing, gravy was too difficult, and pie, out of the question.
After six weeks of falafel (delicious as it is), I was really looking forward to Nathan’s Midwestern cuisine. But would it all come together given Gaza’s regular power outages, Israel’s recent shooting at farmers in the area and the lack of key ingredients due to the siege?
We rose early to accompany farmers in Faraheen to their land within Israel’s 300 meter ”buffer zone” – or “kill zone” – as Palestinians here frequently call it.
The week had not been a good one, and I was concerned that our belated Thanksgiving would turn into Black Friday.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army had shot live ammunition in the air when our group went with farmers to the buffer zone in nearby Khuza’a.
The day before, the Israeli army had called the Palestinian Office of Coordination and told them that they “wanted to shoot” us and twenty Palestinians while we were in northern Gaza nonviolently protesting the Israeli occupation, the buffer zone, and 63 years of dispossession in the buffer zone. The Palestinian Authority frantically looked for the phone number of Saber Zanin, the organizer of the weekly Beit Hanoun protests and told him, “We are trying to ask the Israelis not to shoot you. They wanted to shoot you and kill you.”
And yesterday, 3 nautical miles of the coast of Gaza, an Israeli naval warship chased our small humanitarian boat, the Oliva, along with several Palestinian fishing boats, towards the shore for no apparent reason.
Today just couldn’t be good. Would our Gazan Thanksgiving look more like the original Thanksgiving — a symbol of land seizure, dispossession and ethnic cleansing — than the delicious turkey-filled version I was hoping for?
I rose early, gulped down a cup of sugary tea and dry floury date cookies that Jabar’s wife Layla made before heading out to the buffer zone. The sky cleared and I heard Israeli drones overhead.
On the way to the buffer zone, we met 26-year-old Yusef Abu Rjeela, the farmer who want was hoping to sow wheat on his land. We asked him what he wanted to do if the Israelis started shooting.
“Stay on the land,” he said. If the Israelis shot in the air, he didn’t want to run. And if they shot at us, well…
We continued onward, and my cell phone rang. It was Nathan. “I put the beans in the pressure cooker for 30 minutes and they’ve become bean soup!” he exclaimed. “Layla says I shouldn’t have soaked them and used the pressure cooker.”
“Stay calm,” I said. “Do you have more beans?” He did. We continued on our way.
Five of us foreigners donned our yellow vests, and accompanied Yusef and another farmer as one sowed wheat and the other plowed the land. The drones went away.
All seemed quiet on the eastern front.
An Israeli military tower stood in the distance. A white balloon equipped with an aerial surveillance camera flew overhead. The former farmland was dry and brown from years of Israeli bulldozing and tank traffic.
After a while, we made bets on when the Israelis would start shooting. It was 11:25 a.m., and I put in for 11:45 a.m., another person for 11:50 a.m. Hussein, a Palestinian university student who came with us, didn’t think the Israelis would shoot at all.
At noon, the farmers had finished and we all started to walk back to the village. Yusef explained to us the lawsuit his family had filed against the state of Israel for murdering his younger brother the day after Operation Cast Lead ended in January 2009. His father, who had witnessed the murder, had gone to Israel to testify.
As we left the buffer zone, I congratulated Hussein on being right about the shooting. Then we heard it — Israeli army gunfire in the distance. The time: 12:05.
We promptly head back to Jabar’s house in the village. There, Nathan was immersed in a whirlwind of preparation.
“Get the baking soda out of the bag!” he directed.
“You mean baking powder?” I asked him, looking the plastic bag he had brought from Gaza City.
“No, soda.” There was no baking soda. We were in for a biscuit disaster. Moreover, Layla and four of her five children were swirling around the kitchen, unsure of these strange American preparations.
Beans with sugar? In the oven? Nathan opened the ancient iron contraption, and held out a spoon for me. I stuck my tongue out and slurped up the brown deliciousness.
“Is it good?” asked Layla, suspiciously. “Is Nathan a good cook? Can you cook better?”
“Zacky ikthir,” I responded. Very tasty. “Not quite done,” I said to Nathan. “I can cook, but maybe Nathan is better than me,” I added to Layla. She didn’t seem convinced.
Nathan shooed everyone away, but we stayed in the kitchen, it was the warmest room in their small, cement block, metal sheet-roofed house. And, I was clearly the only one cut out for the role of taster. Layla turned to more important questions.
“You’re a lawyer, can you sue Israel for me?” she asked. “All our problems come from Israel. When I was 14, they shot me in the hip. Then they bulldozed our olive trees and took our land. What can we do?” I hadn’t realized that Layla’s limp stemmed from about 1980, when the Israeli army entered her school and shot her as she tried to help a wounded friend.
She turned away to take the turkey out of the pot. The oven wasn’t big enough for a whole bird, which was only sold in pre-cut pieces. All in all, it was a delicious lunch, and no one got shot. And that, is something to be thankful for.
