The struggle against the apartheid wall in villages south of bethlehem took a step forward today, when the regular “Friday demo” was replaced by a direct action against the bulldozers that works on Israel’s Apartheid wall.
Some forty demonstrators gathered together in the village of Wadi Nis, near Umm Salamuna, inspired by the work of the great surrealist artist Muhammad Khatib of Bilin. The demonstrators carried a huge cross to observe “Good Friday,” the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus.
Demonstrators marched to the path of the wall where they blocked a working Israeli bulldozer, destroying Palestinian land in the path of the Apartheid Wall Israeli is constructing. The demolition was stopped for an hour until a force of “MAGAV”(border police) issued the usual excuse of “close military zone”.
After the demonstrators refused to leave the site of destruction, the police force attacked the demonstrators injuring one of them and detaining three others .
Mahmoud Zawahari, from nearby Umm Salamuna, said, “the soldiers beat me in my teeth because we refused to move. The soldiers kept trying to throw down the cross. But the cross was our flag for the demo, and we would not let it go down!”
After a short negotiation with the police, three people detained were released, and the demonstrators walked back to the village promising to repeat a similar actions on a regular basis.
19-year-old girl dies when hospital runs out of dialysis solution due to ongoing economic embargo from IWPS, 7 April 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On March 1st, 2007, a 19-year-old girl named Olfat with kidney problems from Qira village, died after her parents were forced to dilute her dialysis liquid.
Due to the West and Israel’s ongoing economic embargo of the Palestinian Authority, state hospitals have been unable to receive adequate medical supplies for over a year. When they began to run out of the necessary 4.25% dextrose concentration (D-C) in mid-February, Olfat’s parents began mixing it with 1.5% D-C liquid. In less than two weeks, Olfat, who had been receiving successful dialysis treatment for more than ten years, began to show signs of deterioration as her body absorbed rather than processed incoming water. They first went to Salfit hospital because Al-Watani Hospital in Nablus was under siege during Israel’s February-March 2007 Nablus “Hot Winter” Invasion. By the time Olfat was able to reach Al-Watani, her chest was so full of water that she was past the point of recovery, and died shortly thereafter.
Qira villagers suffer from a disproportionately high percentage of kidney failure, likely due to the stagnant water that villagers are forced to purchase from Israel while nearby Ariel settlement enjoys disproportionate amounts of the region’s fresh water. Olfat is just one of many kidney patients who’ve died since the embargo began.
For more information, contact:
Anna Baltzer (IWPS), 0542-167-376
ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157
The Untold Stories: Tragic, but Not Enough to Mention by Anna in Palestine
Today I visited my friend Dawud in Kufr ‘Ain for the first time since he lost his six-month-old baby at Atara Checkpoint. It was heartbreaking to hear the details of the story from a man who just one month ago was asking me when I would come visit his family for pleasure, not just to take a report. He said there was more to Palestine than the sob stories. But today was all about grief. We watched a video of the funeral in silence, and saw Dawud’s mother break down and say she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d already lost two sons to natural causes, but apart from moderate and treatable asthma, Khalid had been a happy, healthy, chubby little boy.
Last time I visited Kufr ‘Ain I took reports from one family after another regarding nightly incursions by the Army. A 14-year-old girl told me how the soldiers woke her, her mother, and her five younger siblings (her father is working in the United States) up in the middle of the night with sound bombs, forced everyone out in their pajamas with no shoes and isolated the young girl to question her before enclosing the mother and children in their living room and ransacking the house. She said the soldiers put explosions in her room and in the family’s well.
Another family told me how they were woken with sound bombs, rushed out into the cold, and then the young men were stripped, handcuffed, and lain on their front lawn before being taken to a neighbor’s living room for interrogation. The neighbor’s family was meanwhile locked in their bedrooms with the lights off, warned against any sound or movement.
There were more stories. Too many, in fact. Eventually I had to stop taking reports, partially because I had to be somewhere, but more because as I recorded the stories I had a sinking feeling that the incursions were simply too common, too unremarkable to catch anyone’s attention. This would not be a human rights report that any legal or humanitarian organization would follow up with.
Major operations in Nablus or Ramallah make headlines, but incursions into many small West Bank villages are just a part of daily life. For example, for the past two months, the Army has come nightly to Marda village, throwing sound bombs, arresting men, abducting boys. They steal IDs and refuse to return them until their holders give names of kids in the village who put stones in the settler road that cuts through Marda. They spontaneously shut the village completely, preventing residents from entering and visitors from leaving. Two weeks ago soldiers broke into the house of a family with three sons. The middle son Ahmad, 19, who was studying for an English exam the next day when he heard soldiers outside, told me his story:
“I left my books to go see what all the commotion was about. There were about 14 soldiers total surrounding my house, and three jeeps. Soldiers were kicking our front door and throwing sound bombs. When the soldiers saw me, they grabbed me and began to hit me. My parents and my brother Qutaiba–he’s only 13–tried to intervene but the Army pushed my mom and dad to the ground and hit Qutaiba in the stomach. Each time my little brother tried to stand up they would punch him in the gut again, and my mother began screaming for them to stop. It seemed like each time she screamed they beat him again. Suddenly my mother began to wail and I saw that two soldiers were covering Qutaiba’s face with their hands so that he could not breathe, suffocating him until his face began to turn red. Eventually they allowed him to breathe.”
I asked Qutaiba what happened after that.
“The soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed me and Ahmad and brought us in their jeeps to the entrance of our village. They dragged me out of the jeep by lifting my cuffed hands behind my back, which hurt my shoulders. Several soldiers beat me with their fists, bats, and guns, and then they started asking me questions about which village boys were throwing stones. I told them I was cold and sick, and one soldier said that this was nothing; he would punish me to the point of death. They took my cap and began throwing it above my head, laughing, making fun of me. After half an hour they got bored and left me to walk home. They drove away with my brother still blindfolded and handcuffed in the jeep.”
Ahmad continued his story when Qutaiba had finished: “It was terrible listening to my little brother being beaten, and I was almost grateful when we drove away. The soldiers took me to the Ariel police station, where they beat me for several hours all over my body, especially in my head and temples. All the time I was blindfolded so I could not anticipate where the next blow was coming from. It was very scary. One soldier put his boot in my mouth. I asked the commander for some water and he told me to ‘Go to Hell.’ Suddenly one of them kicked me very hard in the groin and everything went black. The next thing I knew they were splashing my face with cold water, and when they saw I was awake they began to beat me again, accusing me of throwing stones, destroying settlers’ cars, and being a member of Hamas. After four hours they finally let me go and I walked home.”
Ahmad’s father Rasmi cut in. “When my son came home after 1am, it looked as if he had taken a blood shower. He had to go into school the next day but his English teacher let him postpone the exam. I teach my children good values, to respect others and to never use violence. But how can they continue to be peaceful when they are constantly surrounded and threatened by so much brutality? I’d like to live peacefully with the Jewish people. They build their state, and we build ours. They take care of their children, and I take care of mine. I lived in Chicago for 15 years. I know that in America it’s a sin to hit your children. Here, soldiers can hit other people’s children and nobody says a thing! But even if they kill my children, I will not kill theirs. These are my values, what my parents taught me and what I teach my children.”
As Rasmi spoke, a car drove by and the whole family jumped. They laughed nervously when they realized it was just a neighbor. Rasmi said the soldiers returned three days later and took Ahmad again, this time with his older brother Samiah. They blindfolded and handcuffed them, and brought them to an abandoned warehouse off of the main road. Ahmad was still fragile from his fresh head wounds, but the soldiers still beat him and his brother, first in silence, then cursing them and accusing them of harboring weapons. When it began to rain, the soldiers brought the young men outside, removed their jackets, and began hitting them again. Eventually they let the boys go, after stealing all the money in Samiah’s wallet, 70 Jordanian dinars and 60 Israeli shekels. This in addition to 400 shekels that they stole from the house the first time, all together the equivalent of more than $200 (not to mention the CDs and toys that they broke when they ransacked the home). They also took the university documents that were in Samiah’s wallet.
Although Marda villagers call us more than most, Marda’s situation is far from unique. Most village’s have simply given up on us. We recently met a 56-year-old grandmother named Hilwe who was shot in the face three weeks ago by soldiers hiding behind a corner in her village, Qarawat Bani Hassan. One rubber-coated metal bullet (don’t let the name fool you; rubber bullets can–and do–kill) grazed her face, tearing and detaching a segment of her right nostril, disfiguring her and requiring 20 stitches. I asked Hilwe what the soldiers were doing in her village and she shrugged, “They come every day. It’s nothing special.” I asked why nobody had called IWPS to respond to the incursions and Hilwe’s brother answered straightly, “What are you gonna do, take a report?”
We encouraged the family in Qarawat to call us more, but I won’t blame them if they don’t. How much are we really helping by writing these reports that policymakers and even most activists will never read? How much are we just creating false hope and forcing families to relive painful episodes that they’d rather forget? The best we can do is to offer our services and be honest about what we can and cannot do. We cannot bring criminals to justice; we cannot get innocent men out of jail; we cannot keep the soldiers from invading, or settlers from stealing land. Pretty much all we can do is write and look sympathetic, and occasionally remind soldiers that we are watching.
Even our village seems to have given up on us. The jeeps still come, but nobody calls. Yesterday I heard by chance from a friend that a boy from Haris was kidnapped by soldiers because he was wearing too much olive green. They said that color is for the Army. The soldiers drove him onto a quiet road between our village and Kifl Haris, made him take off all his green clothes (everything but his underwear), and left him half-naked to hitch his way back. He hid behind the olive trees until one car took pity on him and brought him some clothes.
Like Ahmad’s and Hilwe’s, the Haris boy’s story will never make headlines. But there will always be the stories that do get out. The well-known Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy recently followed up on two of our recent reports: Dawud’s baby and the 11-year-old human shield. The latter made it to the New York Times and other mainstream media, and the Israeli Army has officially stated that it intends to look into the human shields charges (meanwhile, other Israeli soldiers and spokespeople have stated that in fact the invasion “was pretty boring, we barely felt any action.”
Photos by Anna
Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.
Israeli army injures 14 Palestinians, 1 Israeli arrested at Bil’in demo by Martinez,, 6 April 2007
UPDATE on arrest of Jonathan Pollock, 8 April 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UPDATE: VIDEO, 7 April 2007
UPDATE: After his court hearing in Jerusalem, Jonathan Pollock was “released on own recognisance” last night. Kobi Snitz said, “This is indeed a complete victory because if Jonathan would have received any restrictions, the army would have been tempted to do this every week. Kobi said that the judge asked, “If the situation was really as dangerous as the police said, why wasn’t anyone else arrested?” According to Kobi, “it was clear that Jonathan was only being arrested because of a previous suspended sentence– which was no cause for arrest at the Friday demo.”
For over two years, Palestinians in the West Bank village of Bil’in have been non-violently resisting Israel’s illegal annexation of their land. Because the Palestinians in Bil’in were honoring the children today, there was a large number of demonstrators, aged 8-12. This did not stop the Israeli army from firing rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at the crowd.
After Friday prayers, Palestinians were joined by Israeli and international solidarity activists and began their march to the Apartheid Wall. Today, the Palestinian children began the march, holding banners and singing songs of freedom. When the demonstration reached the gate in the Apartheid Wall, Israeli soldiers were already awaiting their arrival.
The army had added metal beams of reinforcements to the gate in the Wall. Palestinians began bending the beams and peeling them from the gate. Three soldiers attempted to attack the Palestinians with sticks as this was happening.
Before any rocks were thrown by Palestinians, and with the children still near the front of the march, soldiers began throwing concussion grenades. The crowd dispersed and some Palestinians at the bottom of the hill started to throw rocks. Soldiers then took aim and began firing rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas in their direction. A sound bomb exploded next to a 55 year old Palestinian man’s leg, causing his foot to immediately swell up and turn black and blue. Palestinian medical workers tended to the injuries.
Suddenly, the army arrested Jonathan Pollock, an Israeli activist. Martin, an American human rights worker, said, “I saw the whole thing. Just after the army started firing sound bombs, they grabbed Jonathan, who was just standing to the side of the soldiers. He wasn’t throwing rocks or anything. The soldiers started to take him behind the wall. ‘What did I do? I didn’t do anything,’ Jonathan was saying.”
The army continued to fire tear gas and rubber bullets down the hill. Demonstrators who were standing next to the soldiers were chanting, “Shame on you!” and, “They’re just kids!” Ten of these demonstrators, a mix of Palestinian, Israeli, and internationals, then stood in front of the soldiers, preventing them from continuing their shooting. After 5 minutes, the soldiers retreated back towards the Apartheid Wall.
Soldiers near the Wall then started firing sound bombs toward the demonstrators near the Wall. To protect the children, organizers urged the activists to return back to the village. Some stones were thrown by Palestinian youth at the soldiers’ shields and helmets. The army responded by shooting more tear gas and rubber bullets at the retreating demonstrators. The whole march back to the village, the army continued to shoot at the crowd.
A Palestinian media worker later explained that they counted 14 injuries from rubber bullets and concussion grenades. All of those injured were Palestinian.
Jonathan remains in Israeli police custody at this time (20:30). He is being charged with “illegal assembly” and “entering a closed military zone.” Koby, an Israeli activist, stated that, “the army came to the demonstration looking to charge Jonathan with something. The head of prosecution and the head of interrogation are personally involved with keeping him in jail overnight.”
Bil’in is a Palestinian village that is struggling to exist. Since early 2005, the state of Israel has annexed close to 60% of Bil’in’s land for Israeli settlements and for the construction of Israel’s Apartheid Wall. Palestinians from Bil’in are fighting to safeguard their land, their people, and their liberty. The Israeli army has consistently responded to Bil’in’s non-violent demonstrations with teargas, sound bombs, clubs, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition.
For more info, contact:
Mohammad Khatib (Arabic), 0545-851-893
Koby (Hebrew), 0542-191-547
Martin Frank (English), 0542-103-657
ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157
Fourteen volunteers from Brighton Tubas Friendship Group arrived in the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories on April 5th for a 10 day cultural exchange and fact finding tour.
Lasting links will be made between Brighton and Tubas region in Palestine. The delegation includes students from Sussex University and Brighton Quakers. They will visit Tubas Women’s Group, the medical centre, local farmer’s cooperatives, a youth group and schools – bringing letters and donations from children at the Supplementary Arabic School in Brighton.
The students from both countries will discuss their proposal to twin Sussex University Students Union with the Al-Quds Open University in Tubas. This initiative was inspired by the Nelson Mandela Scholarship and an understanding of the difficulties that Palestinian students have in accessing higher education.
Spokesperson for the delegation, Sarah Cobham said: “When we returned to Brighton last year, after visiting Tubas, we were determined to make sure that the voices of ordinary Palestinians are heard. Support in Brighton has been overwhelming and we are delighted to be returning with donations of computer equipment for schools and the local community.”
The group will be staying with local families in Tubas town and the Jordan Valley. They will witness the pressures of life under Israeli military occupation and discuss the possibilities of fairly trading their products, such as soap, pickles, honey and handicrafts in Brighton.
Tubas region is approximately 24km across and 28km north to south. It spreads from Tubas town, in the northern hills of the Israeli occupied West Bank, over to the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley.
Traditionally most of the people are farmers, travelling from the town to their land in the Jordan Valley. However, 95% of the land and 98% of the water in the Jordan Valley has been taken illegally from the Palestinians since 1967 and is now controlled by the Israeli Army and Israeli settlers. Palestinians struggling to survive often have no choice but to work in the Israeli settlements.
In Palestinian villages the people have lost nearly all their land and many have had their houses demolished. There is very little health care, education is limited, there are no phone lines or public transport, often there is no electricity, and much of the water supply is contaminated by waste from Israeli settlements.
The Jordan Valley can only be accessed from Tubas via Israeli Army checkpoints, which Palestinians cannot go through unless they have a Jordan Valley ID (which are only issued to existing residents of the Valley) – a situation reminiscent of the apartheid South African pass laws.
Israel’s clear intention is total annexation of the entire Jordan Valley. It is urgent that people know about this and act to prevent it.
On returning they will hold a photographic exhibition and give eye witness accounts at a public meeting at the Friends Meeting House, Ship Street on 3rd May at 7:30 pm. They will also meet with other local people and groups that have supported this initiative including Brighton Amnesty International and Brighton and Hove City Council Unison branch.
Mark Simons, who arrived in Palestine this morning, commented: “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to meet Palestinian people and see for ourselves the effect of Israel’s illegal occupation on all aspects of their daily lives. I have no doubt that I will return to Brighton far better informed and with many new friends.”
Photos and video provided upon request.
For more info, contact:
Peter Jackson, 0526335750
Polly Wingfield, 0525029691
ISM Media Office, 0599943157
