To listen to the interview by Democracy Now! with ISM activist Darlene Wallach click here
Israel’s tightened blockade of a million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is now entering its third week. On Monday the Israeli Navy seized 15 Palestinian fishermen and three international activists off the coast of Gaza. The fishermen were released but the activists remain in an Israeli jail. We speak to Darlene Wallach from inside the Masiyahu prison near Tel Aviv.
Israel’s tightened blockade of a million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is now entering its third week. Tel Aviv rebuffed calls Thursday from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to re-open the crossings into Gaza for humanitarian aid. Israeli government officials cited continuing Palestinian rocket fire as the reason for closing the crossings.
Residents of Gaza are running out of essentials like food, medicines, and fuel as a result of the almost continuous blockade imposed November 4th.
Meanwhile the 15 Palestinian fishermen seized by the Israeli navy off the coast of Gaza were released Wednesday. The three international volunteers accompanying the fishermen however remain in a prison near Tel Aviv.
American Darlene Wallach, Italiani Vittorio Arrigoni, and Scottish Andrew Muncie had arrived by boat into Gaza in late August as part of the first Free Gaza delegation. They remained in Gaza working with the International Solidarity Movement alongside Palestinian fishermen, documenting any harassment by the Israeli navy.
The three internationals are reportedly beginning a hunger strike today to protest their detention. They are also demanding that the Israeli navy release the Palestinian fishing boats they confiscated this week.
U.S. citizen in Israeli detention Darlene Wallach joins me now on the telephone from inside the Masiyahu prison near Tel Aviv.
To view original article, published by the BBC on the 21st November, click here
Three International Solidarity Movement activists detained with 15 Palestinian fishermen off Gaza by the Israeli navy say they have gone on hunger strike.
Briton Andrew Muncie, Vittorio Arrigoni from Italy, and American Darlene Wallach are being held in a prison near Tel Aviv and face possible deportation.
Mr Muncie, from Lochaber, told the BBC their protest would continue until the impounded fishing boats were returned.
Israel said the boats had deviated from the zone where fishing was permitted.
The ISM disputes the allegation, saying the Palestinian vessels were 12km (7 miles) from shore when confronted by the Israeli navy – well within the fishing limits outlined by the 1994 Oslo peace accords.
‘Harassment and intimidation’
Speaking to the BBC from prison, Mr Muncie said that for the past two months, he had been going out on Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Gaza.
On Tuesday, the vessels were operating within the permitted offshore zone when they were boarded by Israeli sailors, he said.
He and two ISM colleagues were arrested, along with 15 Palestinian fishermen. The fishermen were later released but their boats remained impounded, he said.
Mr Muncie said he wanted to remain in the Gaza Strip to continue documenting unprovoked attacks by the Israeli navy.
“Our presence on the fishing boats has in no way provoked a reaction. The Israeli navy do this anyway,” he said.
“It’s a project of harassment and intimidation to prevent fishermen from reaching the more fertile fishing zones,” he added.
Andrew Muncie was detained in 2003 after obstructing Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Nablus.
The ISM says it is “committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles”.
Massiyahu Prison, Lida, Israel (20 November, 2008) – Three Human Rights Observers (HRO) with the International Solidarity Movement began a hunger strike today in protest over the illegal confiscation of Paestinian fishing boats by Israel. The three HROs, Darlene Wallach of the U.S., Vittorio Arrigoni of Italy, and Andrew Muncie of Scotland, were forcibly abducted by the Israeli Navy on Tuesday, while accompanying unarmed Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
According to Wallach, “We were fishing about 7 miles off the shores of Gaza. The Israeli soldiers came on board the three boats via four Zodiacs. The frogmen came up and over each boat. They used a taser on Vik while he was still on the boat, then tried to push him backwards onto a sharp piece of wood. He jumped into the sea to avoid being hurt more than he already was and was in the water for quite a while. Then they came for me and forced me into the Zodiac at the point of a gun. They kidnapped me and Andrew and Vik and all of the Palestinian fishermen.”
Israel abducted and later released 15 Palestinian fishermen during the incident, and confiscated their fishing boats. The HROs are refusing to be deported, and refusing to eat, until the boats are returned– undamaged–to their rightful owners in Gaza.
“We R on hunger strike and want 2 go before judge in court. No deportation til boats are returned 2 fishermen,” was the text message sent out from jail by the HROs this afternoon.
At court today, HRO Andrew Muncie asked the judge under what law they had been arrested. According to the judge, their detention was authorized by the Oslo Accords “because it is forbidden by military law for you to fish 7 and a half miles off the coast. It is a no-fishing zone.”
However, the Oslo accords grant Palestinians the right to fish 20 miles off their own coast. When Andrew’s attorney handed a copy of that portion of the Oslo accords to the judge, she had no comment.
On August 23, 2008, Wallach, Muncie and Arrigoni were among 44 participants in the Free Gaza Movement who were aboard the first boats in forty-one years to enter Gaza by sea, breaking the Israeli blockade. They remained in Gaza to participate in human rights activities with the International Solidarity Movement. They have been living and working in Gaza since the summer, providing accompaniment to Palestinian farmers and fishermen, and documenting Israeli human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip.
The three will stop eating tomorrow morning until the confiscated fishing boats are “returned in the condition they were in when the frogmen boarded the boats, with any damage they made repaired.”
On the 19th March, around 30 settlers from Kiryat Arba in Hebron occupied a house strategically placed along the road between the large settlement and the Tomb of Abraham.
The Israeli High Court acknowledged that the documentation that the settlers claimed was proof of ownership was indeed forged and made a final decision on Sunday 15th November that the settlers had 72 hours to vacate the Palestinian owned house. The settlers had made it clear that they will not leave the house voluntarily and threatened to confront any attempt to forcibly evict them.
As the 72 hour deadline came to an end yesterday (19th November), settlers had grouped around the house, protected by Israeli army soldiers stationed around and on the roof of the house they were supposed to be evicting the settlers from. The military had previously announced that they were ordered to complete the eviction within 30 days.
A group of around fifty, mostly younger, settlers kept vigilant watch all day. The army was present at all times inside and outside the house. There seemed to be no confrontations between army and settlers.
During the afternoon, settlers twice attacked Palestinian youth who had gathered in the area to see if the eviction would actually take place. On both occasions the soldiers ignored the settlers throwing of stones at the Palestinians, yet immediately attacked the Palestinians with tear-gas when they responded by throwing stones back at the settlers. One Palestinian was then detained by the Israeli army.
There was no attempt made by the Israeli army to prevent settlers from attacking Palestinians residents of the area. Several times the settlers threw stones, also using a slingshot, at international human rights activists who were observing the situation. Israeli soldiers were also present on the roof, but did nothing to prevent the settler violence.
From around 11pm, settlers used slings to hurl stones randomly at Palestinian homes around the occupied house. This was occurring from the roof of the house and from around the house. After about an hour of stone throwing, a group of 15 settlers approached a Palestinian house from which the international activists were observing. The settler group escalated their attacks against the Palestinian residents and the internationals staying with them. This lasted for around half an hour before the settlers returned to the occupied house.
At 1.20am, a large group of settlers came down the street close to the occupied house, surrounding and heavily bombarding neighbouring Palestinian houses with rocks. After five minutes of heavy stone throwing, settlers walked in the direction of Ibrahimi Mosque. All night a police or army jeep would patrol the street every 5 minutes without intervening to stop the settlers.
Settlers attacked several Palestinian houses on the way to the mosque, seriously injuring a Palestinian man who was hit in the head by a rock. At 2am they returned to the occupied house they have dubbed the ‘Peace-House’. More Israeli police forces arrived at this point initially and began to intervene, with the stone throwing slowly dying out. The settler youth then surrounded police and army cars and prevented them from moving, by dancing around them and sitting on top of them, while other settlers painted insulting slogans and stars of David on the Mosque.
During the evening Israeli army and police were routinely ignoring settler violence and did not react to the situation until several hours into the violence against Palestinian homes. Appeals to the police and DCO were systematically ignored. Israeli authorities seriously violated their obligation of protecting all civilians as the occupying force.
A neighbour to the so-called “Peace-House”, Atif Jaber, a 40 year old shopkeeper, who has lived in his home opposite the occupied house all his life, says that attacks from the settlers occupying the house are very common and that the police are uninterested in these crimes. The settlers do not only throw stones, they have also vandalised the cars in the neighbourhood, desecrated the local Muslim graveyard and physically assaulted people in the vicinity.
The last assault was on a man called Motee’a, who was hit and kicked by several of the settlers. Atif also says that his father has been offered 9million dollars for his lands, which consists of an olive and grape grove and the land of three houses including the ‘Peace-house’, but that he immediately refused this offer.
Atif maintains that he will never leave the area where he was born.
9:30 am 20th November, Occupied East Jerusalem: Israeli forces have again demolished the protest camp in Sheikh Jarrah, set up after the eviction of the al-Kurd family on the 9th November.
A bulldozer arrived at the private property at 8:45am with orders to destroy the tent and the surrounding fence where the al-Kurd family has been living since they were evicted from their home on the 9th November 2008. The camp is situated on Palestinian-owned private property.
The Israeli bulldozer later created a wall surrounding the residents who remained on the site of the protest tent. The wall that the Israeli forces are creating is on Palestinian owned private land.
Yesterday the tent was also demolished, and one Palestinian and four internationals were taken into Israeli police custody. The Palestinian resident of Sheikh Jarrah continues to be held.
The family re-constructed the tent yesterday in order to continue their protest. Today, while the fence surrounding the private land was being bulldozed, neighbors dismantled the tent in order to save it from repeated destruction.
The decision to remove the al-Kurd family paves the way for the takeover of 26 multi-story houses in the neighborhood, threatening to make 500 Palestinians homeless and signifying the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Occupied East Jerusalem by the Israeli State. In July the US State Department brought forward an official complaint to the Israeli government over the eviction of the al-Kurd family, openly questioning the legality of terms on which the Israeli Jewish settler group claimed to have purchased the land. (see www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/1005342.html).
The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The al-Kurd family began living in the neighbourhood after having been made refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem. However, with the the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, following the 1967 war, settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was build on.
Stating that they had purchased the land from a previous Ottoman owner in the 1800s, settlers claimed ownership of the land. In 1972 settlers successfully registered this claim with the Israeli Land Registrar. While the al-Kurds family continued legal proceedings challenging the settlers claim, the settlers started filing suits against the Palestinian family.
In 2006, the court ruled the settlers claim void, recognizing it was based on fraudulent documents. Subsequently, the Al-Kurd family lawyer petitioned the Israeli Land Registrar to revoke the settlers registration of the land and state the correct owner of the land. Although it did revoke the settlers claim, the Israeli land Registrar refused to indicate the rightful owner of the land.
In 2001 settlers began occupying an extension of the al-Kurd home. Despite the fact that their claim to the land was revoked, settlers were given the keys of the al-Kurds family home extension by the local Israeli municipality. This was possible after the municipality had confiscated the keys of the extension that the al-Kurd family built on their property to house the natural expansion of the family. When this extension was declared illegal by Israeli authorities, the Israeli municipality handed the keys over to Israeli settlers. The al-Kurd family went to court and an eviction order was issued against the settlers. When the al-Kurd family were evicted on the 9th November 2008, the settlers were allowed to remain in the property, despite their own eviction order.
In July 2008 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the al-Kurd family, for their refusal to pay rent to the settlers for use of the land. Although the settlers claim to the land had been revoked two years earlier, the court instead based their decision on an agreement made between a previous lawyer and the settlers. It should be noted that the al-Kurd family -and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a whole- rejected this agreement and fired their legal representative at the time.
