31st January 2009
Footage of a house in Al Faraheen village, damaged during the recent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. Video shows the upper floor of the house shelled and burnt. Remains of the shell casing – marked “155m M825E1” – apparently a projectile for deploying white phosphorous – and a substance suspected to be white phosphorous were filmed and collected by ISM volunteers.
“If you stay here for five minutes, you will hear gunfire”, explain locals in Wadi Salqa. “They shoot at anything moving in the village”.
Palestinian radio stations have reported that people living in Wadi Salqa are scared to death. Arriving in the village, this seems no overstatement. “If you move beyond the end of this road, you will be shot”, explains Mohammad Abu Magaseeb, pointing to the end of the road we have just arrived on.
He takes us into his uncle’s house, situated just 1km from the Green Line – the electrified fence and military bases clear from the three-storey home. It’s a beautiful home, only partly finished, but it’s already been bombed. Tank shells were fired through the second storey during the war. They take us into the newly-furbished bathroom – the bathtub full of rubble and the southern wall missing. Somehow
the damaged mural of a waterfall on the tiling seems particularly tragic. No one is sure exactly when this shelling happened, because, like most other villages near the border with Israel, the entire village evacuated as soon as the War on Gaza started – drawing back into villages closer to the centre of the strip.
Mohammad’s uncle is lucky, however. Whilst his home is badly damaged, more than 30 houses in the village of 6000 people were demolished during the war, leaving 120 families (approximately 10% of the population) homeless. The rest of the 70 houses in the southern border area were damaged or partially destroyed. Mohammad and the neighbours who accompany us are clearly nervous to be in the house, especially to be near the windows, for fear of getting shot.
We move up to the rooftop, from where we can see the Green Line on one side, and the Mediterranean on the other. At this point, halfway between Gaza city and Rafah, the Gaza Strip is just 5 kilometres wide. “We are in a small cage”, one neighbour notes. They point out the destroyed houses in the south of the village, as well as a pipe factory that was attacked with tanks and Apache helicopters. In that neighbourhood, the only building standing is the village water reservoir. Al hamdalilah.
Whilst being in the house itself is considered dangerous, nowhere in the village is really thought to be safe. Certain types of behaviour, though seem to be more dangerous than others. “If any guy carries just a pipe in the village, they shoot at him”, Mohammad advises. “They can see everything. They have cameras and are filming everything that happens in the village. When guys have been arrested, they have been shown the footage that the soldiers have”. This intense level of surveillance takes place not just in Wadi Salqa, but throughout the villages close to the border. Beit Hannoun in the extreme north of the Strip, for example, has white, camera carrying, fish-shaped balloons floating above the border, looking for all the world like childrens helium balloons, filming everything.
The other sure-fire way of getting shot at in Wadi Salqa is to be within 1km of the electric fence, regardless of your age of what you might be doing there. On 26th January, Israeli forces shot a 13 year old boy who was working on farmland approximately 500m from the Green Line – an area that was previously considered safe. Yousef Al Akhrasi was shot in the back whilst he was working harvesting peas to help earn some money for his family, villagers advise.
Whilst we are standing on the roof, a tank appears on the dirt-road that runs behind the electric fence, and we are quickly ushered downstairs.
The extension of the “no-go” area of the village, from 500m to 1km from the Green Line, has been replicated throughout the Gaza Strip. In almost every border village, farmers are unable to enter their lands; families are unable to reach their (mostly destroyed) houses. Not only have their houses been destroyed, they now have no hope of rebuilding them. In Wadi Salqa, where the majority of the villagers are farmers, approximately 4000 dounums (1000 acres) of land have been effectively confiscated – hugely significant in the sixth most densely populated region in the world.
Wadi Salqa is a village living with precarity in the extreme. Whilst villagers will enter the town during the day, since the cease-fire approximately half are sleeping in other villages – with friends; relatives; friends of friends.
Visiting another house in the village, Salim’s house, gunfire starts. People shuffle to make sure the house is between them and the Green Line. His four year old daughter, Sara, shows us the cast on her leg – she broke it when she fell down, running from gunfire. His neighbour, Tubi, explains how he no longer sleeps at night – how he is kept awake by the shooting, and the fear of it. Tubi’s mother, whose house is even closer to the Green Line, hasn’t stayed in her house since the start of the War. It seems she has no intention of returning any time soon.
Salim shows us the gunshots holes in his house, and explains that they never sleep with only one wall between them and the Green Line. The bullets used can penetrate through walls, so the family always make sure they have at least two walls between them and Israel when they sleep.
“The cease-fire is for the cities – the centre of the cities”, he cries. “Not for the people near the borders!”.
Saed Bannoura | IMEMC
Israel is ongoing with the infrastructure work, which includes roads and homes in the so-called E1 area, in east Jerusalem in order to impose its own vision of any future peace deal by disconnecting geographical contiguity of the Palestinian territories and linking Maali Adumim illegal settlement with East Jerusalem and other settlements around it. 
Israel planned this construction initially in 1994, and in 1999 the Higher Construction Committee approved the plan but was not implemented due to American pressure.
In May of 2008, Israel constructed a police station in the area and went on to pave roads, main junctions, public squares, checkpoints, a bridge, side walls, and other constructions with a total cost that exceeded 100 Million New Israeli Shekels.
Israel also paved a road which links Khizma Palestinian town with Al Zeaayim area in order to be used by the Palestinians as they will not be allowed into the E1 area. The plan will further bloc any contiguity between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said after he won the elections in March of 2006 that he intends to construct and expand settlements in the E1 area and vowed contiguity between the settlements and Jerusalem. This includes Gush Azion settlement bloc and Ariel settlement bloc in the southern and northern parts of the West Bank.
On Saturday, Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that Olmert’s office declared that Ma’aleh Adumim settlement bloc is and will remain part of Jerusalem under any peace agreement. The settlement as well as all Israeli settlements and outpost are built on Palestinian lands illegal annexed by Israel.
Under the current plan, Israeli will build a new settlement on 12442 Dunams that would be annexed from the Palestinians living in Al Ezariyya, AL Toor and Al Esawiyya. It will contain 3500 housing units (for nearly 14500 settlers).
Also, ten hotels, recreational facilities, other settlement units, and an industrial zone would also be built under this plan.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, said that Ma’aleh Adumim is an inseparable part of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.
Haaretz reported that Barak’s office issued a statement saying that Ma’aleh Adumim will be linked with Mount Scopus and that it “is absolutely necessary to keep the area as part of Israel.
This was the same position of former Israeli Prime Minister Yithak Rabin, who was killed by an extremist Jew in 1995, as well as the position of consecutive Israeli government since East Jerusalem fell under Israeli occupation in 1967.
Ma’aleh Adumim is built on Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem, it lies 14 kilometers to the east of the city and is inhibited by more than 30000 settlers. The E1 project will ensure the expansion of the settlement and linking it with Jerusalem by annexing more Palestinian land from villages and towns in East Jerusalem.
The plan will cut off any possibility of developing Palestinian villages and cities in the area, and will block geographical contiguity which threatens the possibilities of establishing a viable Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The plan will prevent Palestinian construction between Jerusalem and Ramallah and will complicate the situation and make it difficult to reach an agreement on borders.
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and its surrounding Palestinians areas, are illegal under the international law since they are built on occupied lands. Yet, construction and expansion of illegal settlement remains the first priority of consecutive Israeli governments and the Palestinians continue to lose lands, olive orchards, and their villages, cities and towns continue to be isolated and separated by settlements and the illegal Annexation Wall.
Hebron – Ma’an – Seventeen Palestinians were injured when Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators in Israeli-occupied Hebron on Friday.
Confrontations between Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinian youths took place on Tareq-Ibin Ziad Street, which is in a section of Hebron under the full control of the Israeli military. Medical sources said that the soldiers used live ammunition.
Medics at Muhammad Ali Hospital in Hebron said that eight children were among the 17 treated for bullet and shrapnel wounds. Most of the injuries were on the demonstrators’ lower bodies, except for two people who were wounded above the waist. Three people were shot with rubber-coated metal bullets.
Massive demonstrations have taken place in Hebron after prayer every Friday since the beginning of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. In mid-January one demonstrator was killed by Israeli fire.
The demonstrations have also seen the largest number of Hamas supporters openly showing their presence in the West Bank, which is ruled by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA however has no authority in the Israeli-controlled H2 section of Hebron, which is where the demonstrations have been.
5pm, 30th January 2009, Ramallah: On Friday, January 30th, two people were shot by Israeli forces with live ammunition in the West Bank village of Ni’lin.
Ulrika Andersson, 31, was shot in the leg with live ammunition during the weekly demonstration against the construction of the annexation wall in the village of Ni’lin, occupied West Bank.
Ms Andersson, from the Swedish town of Gothemburg, was taking part in the non-violent demonstration when an Israeli soldier shot her from approximately 50 metres with a new 0.22 bullet. The bullet entered and exited through her lower right leg.
Witnesses have reported that the demonstration was in fact finished when the two people were shot, with Israeli forces opening fire as demonstrators were returning home.
A nineteen year old male demonstrator was also shot by a 0.22 bullet in the foot. Fragments of the bullet are still lodged within his foot. He is currently being operated on.
Both demonstrators shot has been taken to Sheikh Zaid hospital in Ramallah for emergency treatment.
Ulrika Andersson said when in Sheikh Zaid hospital;
“I am lucky, I was hit in the calf. Many residents in Ni’lin have not been so lucky resulting in many injuries from the Israeli aggression against the demonstrations in Ni’lin, including four deaths. The soldiers were aware of an international presence within the demonstration and clearly saw me.”
Since the start of the massacre on Gaza (27 December 2009), the Israeli army has been testing new types of weapons in several villages around West Bank. One of these new weapons is the 0.22 caliber bullet.
The small bullet, known by its caliber size as “0.22″, does not make a sound when fired. The low caliber allows the bullet to easily enter the body and causes internal bleeding.
Since the introduction of this new weapon, eight people have now been shot with the “0.22″ in the villages of Bi’lin, Ni’lin, and Budrus. Several people from Bi’lin and Ni’lin have this bullet lodged in their knees, one bullet went through a demonstrator’s leg and another demonstrator was shot in the stomach (causing internal bleeding).
International activists have joined the demonstrations against the construction of the annexation wall in Ni’lin since the village started it’s regular protests in May of 2008. According to the Israeli daily Maariv, in March 2008 the Israeli authorities issued a new directive enabling Israeli forces to open fire directly on Palestinians who try to demonstrate near the wall, unless internationals or Israelis are amongst demonstrators.
The construction of the annexation wall and Israeli only roads around Ni’lin will separate the village from 40% of it’s land and see a total loss of 85% of the village’s land since 1948.
