Year: 2011

Further violence against prisoners as the second stage of the swap deal begins

by Shahd Abusalama

16 December 2011 | Palestine from My Eyes

Sketch by Latuff

As the second stage of the swap deal begins, Israeli jailers escalate their violations of the simplest rights of the Palestinian political prisoners behind bars and exercise more violence against them. Such are the typical actions of typical Zionist soldiers.

A statement I have heard repeatedly from all my friends who are former prisoners, every time I have asked about how Israeli torture impacts the prisoners’ spirits, is that “Israeli jailers never keep a sense of stability inside prisons. They expose prisoners to extremely difficult situations tying to depress their spirits. However, they always fail at achieving their inhumane aim. Their cruelty brings more strength and will out of the prisoners. No matter how strong those armed and heartless jailers are, our barehanded prisoners are stronger in spirit.”

On Tuesday, 13 December, a savage group of armed Israeli jailers broke into section 10 of Eichel prison and attacked prisoners aggressively.  They sprayed tear gas and pepper powder into the detainees, which resulted in several injuries and cases of suffocation.  They summoned additional military units to break into all 13 rooms of the section. Adding more savagery, they confiscated all the detainees’ possessions, dragging away TV, fans, banning them from the cafeteria, and cutting off electricity and water, leaving Eichel Prison isolated from the outer world.

Rebelling against this violent aggression, the prisoners reacted by chanting and banging on doors.  Our strong-willed detainees have started a short-term hunger strike protesting the unjustified attack, and threatened to take serious protest action, like refusing to stand up for the daily count, in objection to Israeli soldiers’ brutality and arrogance.

As I read this news, reported by the Palestinian Prisoner Club, my mind was preoccupied with my friends Mohammed Brash and his brother Ramzy, who are imprisoned together at Eichel Prison and who witnessed this aggression. I found myself consumed with anger and contacted their family, who live in Al-Am’ary Camp in Ramallah. I called Hamza, their youngest brother, who sounded very worried. “I can’t wait to hear some news about them. I don’t know what to expect from Israel brutality. My brothers might be among those who were injured, but I can never know. Tomorrow, a lawyer of a detainee imprisoned there that I know is going to visit Eichel Prison, and we expect to hear some news if he is allowed to visit.”

Sketch by Latuff

His words added insult to the injury. He made me even more frustrated than I was already. Thinking of his mother, I asked him whether she knew about this attack that prisoners, including her two sons, had faced. I hoped that she doesn’t know about the increased repression. He settled my fears that his mother was aware. “If you were me, would you tell her?” he asked me, but when he only heard my silence, he continued “of course, I didn’t tell her. Imagine the reaction of a mother of two detained sons in the merciless Israeli prisons as she hears of this attack against them. She is already worried and laments their names over and over again, just knowing that they are in prison for the tenth year, so what if this old mother hears such terrible news?”

These violations by Israeli jailers are not something unusual to our ears, which are used to hearing about their violence and aggression, and to our eyes, which are used to witnessing their enduring crimes, oppressions, and humiliations against all categories of Palestinian people. However, one shouldn’t stay silent. The language of silence means submission to their power, which they think is unbreakable, and allows them to exceed all red lines and openly violate human rights and international law. Only the language of action can work here.

“This is Apartheid” poster contest

14 December 2011 | It is Apartheid

HELP FIGHT INJUSTICE,  HELP THE WORLD UNDERSTAND ISRAELI APARTHEID.  WE ARE CALLING ON ACTIVISTS AND ARTISTS TO SUBMIT A POSTER TO THE “THIS IS APARHTEID POSTER CONTEST.

Art has always been an important part of liberation struggles.  It can inspire and convey concepts beyond words.  www.itisapartheid.org  and its primary partner, Lajee Center, are sponsoring a competition for artists and graphic designers who are invited to submit posters on the theme of “Israeli Apartheid.”  These posters should reflect the nature, realities, and/or consequences of apartheid policies in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Posters will be judged by a panel of distinguished activists and artists.  The winning entries will be featured in an online poster gallery and disseminated widely on the internet and various other venues.  Youth from refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank will participate in the contest.


Prizes

  •          Expert Jury Prize made up of distinguished artists and activists:   $400
  •          Global Jury Prize from global internet voting:   $400
  •          Palestinian Prize (winner must be Palestinian):   $300
  •          6 Honorable Mention prizes:   $50 each

* As we raise more funds we will raise monetary amount of prizes.

Deadline for submission of all posters is June 1, 2012

Guidelines for submissions

Work must be original for this contest.  Submissions should not exceed 2MB.  If your work is selected, you will be asked to provide a high resolution (minimum 300 dpi), print-ready digital file to a maximum size of 38” x25”.   All posters should include the phrase Endisraeliapartheid.com in a prominent location.

Use of the Posters

All posters will remain the property of the maker, but Itisapartheid retains the right to use, disseminate and/or display them in any way it deems appropriate.

Application

Posters must be accompanied by a statement from the maker including her/his name, contact information and any companies, organizations and/or agencies with which s/he is associated. Competitors must also include a statement acknowledging acceptance of the terms of use.  Email: submissions to info@itisapartheid.org

Co-Sponsors: Badil, Code Pink, Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa, Friends of Sabeel North America, American Muslims for Palestine, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee, Artists Against Apartheid International Alliance, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), Students Against Israeli Apartheid (Canada), Queers Against Israeli Apartheid , Palestine freedom Project, Australians for Palestine.   Palestinian Network for Children’s Rights, Pontifical Mission, the Papal Agency for Middle East Relief and Development,  The Alternative Information Center, Birzeit University, Defense for Children International, Palestine Section, Alhaq Organization, Defending Human Rights In Palestine, NGO Development Center, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid  Faculty 4 Palestine, South African Artists Against Apartheid.

Narratives under siege: Overcrowded living

14 December 2011 | Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Muhammed Salman Abu Rashad, 45, Amna Abu Rashad, 31, and their nine children live in the Jabalia refugee camp, one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The family represent just 11 of the 1.1 million refugees who make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population of approximately 1.7 million people.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Jabalia is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and is home to around 110,000 registered refugees in an area of only 1.4 square kilometres; unsurprisingly, the camp is infamous  for its overcrowding.  Israel’s illegal closure policy, first used to isolate the Gaza Strip in 1991, has been particularly devastating on the residents of Jabalia camp, who, like Muhammed Abu Rashad, previously relied on jobs within Israel to support their families. Since the beginning of the complete closure of Gaza in 2007, the now-unemployed residents have been forced to rely on UNRWA aid to survive.

The Abu Rashad’s home, consisting largely of a 3 meter by 3 meter room, is typical of many homes in Jabalia camp. A single room acts as the sleeping, living, studying and eating area for all eleven family members. With winter approaching, it is obvious that the house, which displays long winding cracks along its walls and an open doorway where there should be a functioning door, is entirely inadequate for the couple and their nine children, with a tenth on the way. When the rain comes it flows into the house and onto their blankets, and despite the fact it is a crisp dry day outside, the damp in the room is particularly noticeable. Muhammad is quick to point out that the conditions would be better in prison: “it is not a home but a cemetery”.

The crowding affect’s all aspects of family life, but for the couple’s 9 children the effect is crippling. A majority of the family’s children study during the evening shift in the local UNRWA school, which is forced to run double shifts to facilitate all the camp’s students. When the children return home it is dark and, given the constant power cuts, lack of space, and loud noise from electrical generators the children are unable to study. As a result, two of the Abu Rashad children have failed a year in school and been kept back.

With a lack of space to play – either in the home or in the tight, rubbish strewn, alleyways outside – the children have little physical or emotional space and tend to lash out against each other as a result. The boys resort to violence against their younger siblings and Muhammed tells me that his two daughters are unable “to behave like young girls”, instead imitating their brothers violence in an attempt to “hold their own”. Muhammed himself regrets lashing out at his children when they misbehave, saying that the stress of living in such close quarters leaves him anxious and prone to outbursts.

The crowding has repercussions not only on the family’s mental health but also their physical health. Greeting the children it is obvious they are all suffering from colds and flu. Muhammed says that “when one child comes down with an illness, with no space to isolate and treat them, the rest of the children are all rapidly infected”. Given the constant damp and cold getting the children well again once they become sick is no easy task.

While the crowding has left the family at crisis point, the situation is only getting worse. The children are currently young, the eldest being 15, but as they grow older the tiny room will become progressively more cramped. The eldest daughter Sundus, 10, will soon be too old to sleep next to her brothers. Muhammad tells us that with the neighbours building on top of their current houses in an attempt to alleviate their own crowding problems, the sun will soon be blocked entirely from the already dank family home. The result, according to Muhammad, will be “the families’ destruction”.

The Palestinian refugee crisis is one of the largest and most longstanding refugee problems in the world; today approximately one in four of the entire world’s refugee’s are Palestinian. The rights of Palestinian refugees, and in particular the ‘right of return’, are protected in numerous UN Resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 194. However, for as long as the international community refuses to enforce international law, these resolutions will continue to bear little relevance for the Gaza Strip’s refugees, whose fundamental human rights continue to be systematically denied.

Record number of Palestinians displaced by demolitions as Quartet continues to talk

13 December 2011 | Amnesty International

There has been a sharp rise in demolitions of Palestinian homes in 2011 © Amnesty International

Israeli authorities have stepped up unlawful demolitions in the West Bank including East Jerusalem over the past year, displacing a record number of Palestinian families from their homes, an international coalition of 20 leading aid agencies and human rights groups said today.

The statement comes as the Middle East Quartet meets in Jerusalem in its latest effort to revive peace talks.

The sharp rise in demolitions in 2011 has been accompanied by accelerated expansion of Israeli settlements and an escalation of violence perpetrated by settlers, the groups said.

The humanitarian and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam International, are calling for the Quartet to hold all parties to the conflict to their international law obligations. The Quartet must, therefore, press the Israeli government to immediately reverse its settlement policies and freeze all demolitions that violate international law.

“The increasing rate of settlement expansion and house demolitions is pushing Palestinians to the brink, destroying their livelihoods and prospects for a just and durable peace. There is a growing disconnect between the Quartet talks and the situation on the ground. The Quartet needs to radically revise its approach and show that it can make a real difference to the lives of Palestinians and Israelis.” said Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director, Oxfam International.

The evidence of rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground includes:

  • Doubling the number of people displaced by demolitions: Since the beginning of the year more than 500 Palestinian homes, wells, rainwater harvesting cisterns, and other essential structures have been destroyed in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians, UN figures show. This is more than double the number of people displaced over the same period in 2010, and the highest figure since at least 2005. More than half of those displaced have been children for whom the loss of their home is particularly devastating.
  • Accelerating settlement expansion: Plans for around 4,000 new settler housing units have been approved in East Jerusalem over the past 12 months – the highest number since at least 2006, according to Peace Now. In November, moreover, Israel announced plans to speed up construction of 2,000 new units in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
  • Sharp increase in settler violence: violent attacks by settlers against Palestinians have escalated by over 50% in 2011 compared to 2010, and by over 160% compared to 2009, the UN reports. 2011 has seen by far the most settler violence since at least 2005. Settlers have also destroyed or damaged nearly 10,000 Palestinian olive and other trees during this year, undermining the livelihoods of hundreds of families. The perpetrators act with virtual impunity, with over 90% of complaints of settler violence closed by the Israeli police without indictment in 2005-2010.
  • Impending threat of forced displacement of Bedouin: Up to 2,300 Bedouin living in the Jerusalem periphery could be forcibly and unlawfully relocated if Israeli authorities follow through with their reported plans in 2012, which would destroy their livelihoods and threaten their traditional way of life. Rural communities in the Jordan Valley are also facing the prospect of further demolitions as settlements continue to expand.

“The Quartet should call ongoing settlement expansion and house demolitions what they are: violations of international humanitarian law that Israel should stop,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“Israel’s escalating violations show the fundamental failure of the Quartet’s approach. It’s time for the Quartet to understand that they cannot contribute to achieving a just and durable solution to the conflict without first ensuring respect for international law,” said Phillip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Interim Programme Director, Amnesty International.

Planting the seeds of resistance and steadfastness in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey

13 December 2011

Photo: Beit Hanoun Local Initiative – Click here for more images

We set off from in front of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College under the flags of half a dozen countries, but listening to the music of Palestine.  Every Tuesday, for three years, we set off from here into the no go zone, that three hundred meter strip of death which surrounds Gaza.  We are a diverse group, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other Gazans.  We march down the road into the no go zone, the tension builds, we play music, we chant.

Today, as we approached the buffer zone a shot rang out.  Israeli soldiers shooting into the air, shooting from the concrete towers which line the border of the prison that Israel has created in Gaza.  We do not stop, we keep walking into the no go zone.  The no go zone is different this week, it is green.  Usually it is a dead brown, every couple of weeks Israeli bulldozers come and uproot any plants that manage to sprout, nothing is allowed to live in the no go zone.  It is hard to imagine that this used to be an area of thriving orchards, that their used to be houses here, they have all been destroyed, not just destroyed, erased like the hundreds of Palestinian villages which most of the people of Gaza are refugees from were erased after 1948.  Just as Palestinians have refused to be erased by the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, or the war on Gaza, the no go zone steadfastly refuses to become a place of death, green plants emerge from the land after every rain.

We march all the way to the giant ditch which scars the no go zone.  We plant a Palestinian flag.  It joins the other flags we have left in the no go zone, the orchard of olive trees which we planted here last month.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative spoke, he vowed to “continue the popular resistance despite the bullets of the occupation, resistance would continue until the liberation of Palestine.”  Almost on cue he was answered by the bullets of the soldiers, shots began to ring out, not at us; the soldiers were shooting into the air.  We calmly walked back to the road to Beit Hanoun; we still had work to do.

On the road to Beit Hanoun we met a tractor.  We had brought the tractor to farm, to plant the land of the no go zone.  Israel claims that the no go zone extends only three hundred meters, but in reality the danger extends much farther, just before the demonstration today the Israeli’s had shot a fourteen year old boy from Beit Hanoun while he gathered scrap metal to help support his family, he was not in the no go zone, it didn’t matter, they shot him anyway.  We drove the tractor into a large patch of unfarmed land next to the road.  We lowered the disc and began to turn the soil.  The thistles that grew here were turned under the red soil of Gaza.  Young men pulled stones from the field; they were left by the cactuses which mark the border of the land.  As soon as the soil was turned young men spread out and began to plant it, barley.  When the rains come, the barley will sprout, in four months we will harvest it.  We will harvest it under the guns of the Israeli army, just as Palestinians have done for sixty four years, steadfast in their refusal to abandon their land.  We are planting not only barley, but also resistance, steadfastness.