Palestinian children in Wadi Tiran in Masafer Yatta, threatened with murder by extremist settlers if they don’t leave their village
I am still perpetually on the verge of crying or crying most of the time. Throughout my travels in Palestine, I have learned from the wisdom of children. Children everywhere know when they are very young that their tears are not something to repress, but rather their crying out helps bring about what they are needing.
Where my Arabic and their English are inadequate to be able to communicate, playing together is a way to speak a deeper language of companionship and encounter. Our smiles and laughter together is a defiant blossoming of life surrounded by the threat of life’s extinction.
Last week a young child kissed my hand and put it to their head. I didn’t know the most appropriate way to respond.
But forty miles away, a new acronym has had to be created for children just like her, WCNSF, wounded child, no surviving family. Everything I do, even if I stay up through the night to keep watch so a family can sleep more soundly, still feels so inadequate in the midst of such catastrophe.
More than 10,000 children have been killed in Gaza in these last 100 days. Surrounding Gaza there is a fence, and armed guards ready to shoot anybody who comes near it, keeping them from coming to me and me from going to them. UNICEF warns “All children under five in the Gaza Strip—335,000—are at high risk of severe malnutrition and preventable death as the risk of famine conditions continues to increase. UNICEF estimates that in the coming weeks, at least 10,000 children under five years will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, known as severe wasting, and will need therapeutic foods.”
Ceasefire Now Gaza by Sanya Hyland
In Florida, where I am from, when a hurricane hit and I knew of children suffering from dehydration, I could empty every pharmacy in my vicinity of pedialyte and drive it to them in a matter of hours. But there is an army, supported and financed by my government and tax dollars, keeping me from doing the same for these children.
I learned a new Arabic phrase since I’ve been here and have used it often. People in Palestine are so heartbreakingly welcoming. There is rarely a “hello (marhaba)” in Arabic, just “welcome and welcome again” (ahlan wa sahlan). The implied longer meaning, that ahlan wa sahlan is a shortened version of, communicates: “You left your own people, but you are among family, and you are safe here.” But when a Palestinian asks me where I am from, I always tell the truth. “I am from America (Ana min Amrika).” I have seen people shake with the deepest hurt and speak about what the United States of America has done to their family. And saying “I am sorry (assif)” in Arabic is much too little. To me, it implies that I am expecting Palestinians’ understanding, forgiveness, or ablution. I am not. So I have learned to say “I seek forgiveness from God (astaghfirullah)” as the second part of responding about where I am from.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was put in a concentration camp during the holocaust and later hanged by the Nazis, warned, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Amid such horrors and one’s inability to stop them, I think I understand how to be imprisoned, to be beaten, to be killed even, would be a balm for one’s soul, knowing that others weren’t suffering alone, and when people were thrown into a furnace, there was another in the fire.
I have 109 prayer beads on my wrist. This about matches the amount of children killed each day in Gaza. What I have done and am doing has not been enough for 10,000 children. And 10,000 more. I don’t know what will be enough. But I will seek it.
12 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | The Hague, Netherlands
One day after a chilling presentation by South Africa’s legal team, constructing a sweeping case against Israel for genocidal intent and acts amounting to genocide of the Palestinian population in Gaza, Israel took its place before the 15 judge panel to try and convince the world that 3 months of mechanized, relentless mass-killing should escape the designation. Despite a trove of documentary evidence to the latter, Israel contended before the court that it is not committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel’s legal team in the International Court of Justice. Photo credit: The Independent
The “right to self-defence” was the main argument that the Israeli legal team, lead by British lawyer Malcolm Shaw KC, brought forward at the second and final day of the preliminary hearings at the International Court of Justice for the case brought by South Africa while denying that Israel is carrying out a genocide in the brutal attack on Gaza.
Opening statements in today’s hearing were made by Co-Agent of Israel, Tal Becker who expressed what he termed as Israel’s ‘singularity’ in understanding the birth of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide for which the state is evidenced to be committing.
Becker’s claim that Israel is “defending itself in a war it did not start” showed yet again the blatant denial of a 75-year history of land grab, abuses, violation of human rights, illegal occupation, as well as an illegal 16 year blockade on Gaza. “Israel is in a war of defense against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.”
The duality of Becker’s statements on what he states to be the “outrageous” nature of the use of the word genocide to explain Israel’s actions in Gaza stood out sorely in juxtaposition to Professor Malcom Shaw who next assumed the floor to dismiss statements of genocidal intent distributed from the highest political offices in Israel, offices which are directing military operations on the ground in Gaza.
From Becker’s court address, “We live at a time when words are cheap. In an age of social media and identity politics, the temptation to reach for the most outrageous term, to vilify and demonize, has become for many irresistible. But if there is a place where words should still matter, where truth should still matter, it is surely a court of law.” Indeed. The point was made the day prior when South Africa legal team lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi stood before the International Court of Justice presenting testimony related to Israel’s genocidal intent expressed by Israeli authorities of the highest order.
Ngcukaitobi platformed the frequent and routine nature of genocidal discourse spoken explicitly and how it translates into real-world violence on the ground by occupation foot soldiers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaaz Herzog and the Israeli Minister of Defense’s explicit exterminationist rhetoric were highlighted to support the case for intent. Yet, that incontrovertible evidence was dismissed in court today by Professor Shaw as not legally significant. “Sometimes statements are made which are nothing more than a part of the recent war-time rhetoric intending to put the blame and shame on the other side.” Shaw further stated that they were “not to be ascribed an importance…nor of legal significance.” To counter, using Tal Becker’s words, “if there is a place where words should still matter… it is surely a court of law.”
Galit Raguan addressed the panel on Israel’s behalf to argue the “facts on the ground.” Most shocking of all was her claim that “hospitals have not been bombed” when, in fact, Israel struck several hospitals including the Indonesian Hospital, the International Eye Care Centre, the Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital among others.
With three quarters of Gaza’s hospitals profoundly destroyed to the point of relegation to non-functional status, Raguan stated that while “Hospitals have not been bombed; rather, the IDF sends soldiers to search and dismantle military infrastructure, reducing damage and disruption.” If the reduction of damage and disruption are what Israel’s military in Gaza were seeking to achieve, they have failed beyond measure. We have seen successful Israeli military surgical operations unfold which spared civilian life in the very recent past during its breaking of another international law when it assassinated Hamas Deputy Leader Saleh al-Arouri in a residential structure in Beirut, Lebanon. One imagines if Hamas fighters were positioned in a hospital in Israel, operations would be similarly surgical in nature.
In an attempt to justify the atrocities committed, Galit Raguan claimed that “urban warfare will always result in tragic deaths, harm and damage,” saying that these are the “desired outcomes of Hamas.” While Raguan explained away three months of mass civilian murder, ascribing the most morally sound intentions and actions on occupation forces, her only roadblock to successfully making the case were the countless occupation foot soldiers who have filmed themselvescommitting atrocities on deceased Palestinian bodies, blowing up entire residential blocks as birthday gifts to their family, looting Palestinian civilian homes, raising the Israeli flag over the wreckage of Mosques, holding skits where they lie in Palestinian children’s beds in homes they have bombed and dancing gleefully amid the wreckage and body parts of Gaza’s people while singing explicit songs about ethnic cleansing.
Throughout the hearing, no address was made as to why clearly marked journalists, ICRC medics, UN staff, humanitarian aid workers and Palestinian Civil Defense rescue workers were massacred in targeted killings. No argument was made to explain the moral navigation involved in documented occupation forces committing of extrajudicial executions or the rounding up, blindfolding, stripping, shackling and abduction of Palestinian civilians, nor of the doctored videos where Palestinian civilians were directed to act on film as though they were surrendering Hamas fighters.
Further, Raguan’s assertion several times that Israeli occupation forces had acted to explicitly mitigate civilian harm flies in the face of prolific genocidal rhetoric from the Israeli political and military directors of this onslaught which is being acted out on the ground in real time. While Raguan touted the supposed Israeli humanitarian mobilization to bring critical supplies into Gaza, it would seem counterintuitive for the very same politicians and ministers of the Israeli government to be simultaneously touting their starvation and total siege of the “human animals” of the Gaza Strip.
Omri Sender assumed the floor to address the condition of risk of irreparable harm and urgency. Sender’s opening sentiments were the wholesale blaming of what he recognized as a “grave” humanitarian situation, on Hamas “prosecuting war from under, and within, the civilian population.” Sender’s statement continued to fly the torch carried by his predecessors speaking in Israel’s defense in that it painted Hamas as an agent of terror that Israel was battling to protect Palestinian civilians from. A common sentiment expressed publicly among Israeli political and social society is that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.”
Sender touted its opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing for aid delivery to enter three months, thousands of dropped bombs and tens of thousands of murdered civilians later. Gaza’s population is now starving. As Sender’s statement to the court focused on Israel’s direction of aid in recent history to enter through Gaza’s border crossings, the entire problem was missed; the fact that Israel is controlling the land, air and sea borders of another people and has unilateral say over what comes in and what goes out, when it wants to starve the population and when it will open a crossing under conditions of a looming famine to allow a truck to enter for which its entry will be used to exhibit Israel’s kindness to the Palestinians it is mass murdering at the very moment the words were spoken to the court.
Christopher Staker was the next speaker for the Israeli defense. He did so to denounce the context for requested provisions as made by South Africa on the first day of the hearing. His argument centered around the sentiment that neither South Africa, nor Palestinians, “have a plausible right” to request provisional measures and went point by point through South Africa’s 9 provisional requests in this manner.
The final speaker was Co-Agent of Israel, Gilad Noam who concluded Israel’s arguments through requesting the International Court of Justice “(1) Reject the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa; and (2) Remove the case from the General List.” With the final words of their arguments brought to a close, Israel has now requested the judges of the ICJ to refuse the words of every humanitarian agency who has worked on the ground in Gaza, the millions of Gazans who have filmed their own destruction and the tens of millions of horrified people across the world who have watched this massacre unfold for over 90 days, and to instead find Israel not guilty of violating the 1948 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
The final day of the court hearing occurred during another day of the active destruction of Gaza itself as she is reduced to mass rubble fields, indistinguishable from the universities, hospitals, schools, shops, residential blocks, utilities buildings, Mosques, Churches and shelters which once comprised her streets. With Oxfam noting that the “Israeli military is killing 250 Palestinians per day with many more lives at risk from hunger, disease and cold,” during the course of the two-day hearing on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, 500 Palestinians were massacred.
12 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | East Jerusalem
Video showing the attack by the IOF on worshippers at Wadi Al Joz. Credit: ISM
The arbitrary restrictions on Palestinian Muslims accessing the holy site in Jerusalem for prayers have now been in place for over four months. These restrictions continue to be imposed by means of an excessive and intimidatory presence of Israeli Occupation Forces around the access points to the Old City where the Al Aqsa Mosque is, especially around the time of Friday prayers.
Worshippers have responded steadfastly to the occupation forces’ denial of their rights by praying in the streets close to the Old City and Al Aqsa, in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Wadi Al Joz. The occupation forces appear to view this as a threat of the highest order, one which cannot be tolerated, and respond with extreme brutality.
Worshippers praying in the Street in Wadi Al Joz.
At today’s (12th January) Friday prayers, twenty five worshippers laid down makeshift prayer mats on a side road in Wadi Al Joz, in a very calm, dignified and non-threatening manner. However, within two minutes, IOF soldiers could be seen running down the road towards them brandishing weaponry, from the direction of the Old City. Volleys of tear gas were launched towards the worshippers forcing them to abandon their prayers and run further into the residential area, pursued by their attackers and a skunk truck, a weapon used for its nauseating bad smell.
“Skunk truck” in action at Wadi Al Joz. Credit: ISM
The IOF prevented ISM volunteers and most of the Israeli activists, as well as the media, from following and documenting what happened. But ISM understands that in their pursuit of the worshippers – a phrase that in itself shows the absurdity of the occupation forces’ behaviour –, IOF soldiers fired excessive amounts of teargas including inside residents’ homes before withdrawing from the neighbourhood.
IOF blocking access to the mosque to media and activists.
IOF brutality in the service of enforcing a collective punishment on the Palestinian Muslim community in East Jerusalem will not deter the Al Aqsa faithful. For four months they have endured this, and every Friday they have continued to resist.
11 January 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | The Hague, Netherlands
It came through a series of damning statements. A striking case for genocidal intent and acts tantamount to genocide by Israel against the totality of Gaza’s Palestinian population, was presented in a powerful, if gut wrenching, presentation by South Africa’s legal team this morning in a landmark case in the International Court of Justice. The charge, submitted to the ICJ on December 29th, seeks provisional measures for Israel to end its onslaught in Gaza related to clear violations of the 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. A final ruling may be years in the making.
A fifteen judge panel heard the case laid out sharply by South Africa’s robust legal team. The most incriminating evidence could arguably be the presentation of the systematic normalization of genocidal rhetoric conveyed by Israel’s highest political offices and understood as state policy by the foot soldiers of the occupation army on the ground who made props and tiktok backdrops of their razing of entire residential blocks, universities and hospitals. Occupation forces on the ground comfortably filmed themselves committing shocking and prolific atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza without any attempt to hide their identities, painting a picture of collectively understood intent and impunity.
Here are the points of the case as laid out by South Africa before the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
Opening the hearing, lawyer Adila Hassim outlined, point by point, a case for Israel’s actions in Gaza as tantamount to genocide including the intentional destruction of infrastructure, the blocking of aid delivery, humanitarian mission denial and the intentional creation of conditions that would ravage survivors of bombardment with forcible starvation and infectious disease. Hassim cut to the bone of the ethnic cleansing project the world has witnessed in horror, “Reproductive violence against Palestinian women, children and babies,” held the intention of Israel’s war purveyors to, “impose measures to prevent birth in a group.”
Hassim carefully laid out the sheer breadth of the devastation Israel has wrought onto Gaza through “large-scale homicidal destruction,” before addressing the court for the closure of her remarks, “In sum, Madame President, all of these acts individually and collectively, form a calculated pattern of conduct by Israel indicating a genocidal intent.”
Lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi followed up with more pointedly platformed statements of genocidal intent by high ranking members of the Israeli government. He referenced the “extraordinary features” of explicit language expressing intent to exterminate the Palestinian population of Gaza. Presenting a litany of exemplary evidence of rhetoric born in high political offices of the Israeli government, he then noted that the sentiments were, in turn, “repeated by Israeli soldiers on the ground in Gaza.”
Making a case for the normalization of rhetoric of intent, Ngcukaitobi presented quote after quote distributed from the upper echelons of Israel’s political and social bodies utilizing explicit exterminatory discourse with regards to the Palestinian population of Gaza, not of Hamas, which he then expertly threaded to statements and actions on the ground by occupation forces; the correlation of violence vocalized and violence committed. “Genocidal utterances, are therefore not in the fringes, they are embodied in state policy.”
Israeli society and occupation forces alike have an understanding of their government’s intent for the destruction of Gaza interwoven so deeply that, as Ngcukaitobi explained, they rose up in anger at talks of a limited trickle of aid entering the embattled Strip because it was a violation of Israel’s promises to starve Gaza’s population.
Arguing the question of jurisdiction and the existence of a dispute between South Africa and Israel, International Law Professor John Dugard assumed the floor and noted the recognition that Gaza “is now turned into a concentration camp where genocide is taking place.” He traced the steps which led from South Africa’s condemnation of Israel’s genocidal acts in the Security Council to the emergency special session of the General Assembly to its filing on December 29th with the ICJ seeking provisional measures for immediate cessation of genocidal acts on Gaza’s Palestinian population.
On outlining the pathway to the ICJ, Professor Dugard concluded his statements on the Republic of South Africa’s charge, “Despite these harsh accusations, Israel has persisted in its genocidal act against the population of Gaza.”
South African advocate Professor Max Du Plessis addressed the court for a statement on “the rights that South Africa seeks to preserve through its application.” He painted a picture of a trapped population existing piecemeal to this point on rights deprivations imposed by the occupying force “for more than half a century” in a world where Israel has operated as though it were “above and beyond the law.”
Arguing South Africa’s intention against turning the court “into a theater for spectacle,” the presentation of videos representative of convention violations were decided against. However, an unobjectionable case was made for provisional measures as the reality on the ground in Gaza reflects, as Professor Du Plessis pointed out, beyond a doubt, genocidal act definitions warned against in the 1948 convention including defined-group persecution of which Palestinians in Gaza represent and are being slaughtered as members thereof. Invoking provisional measures rulings in the cases of Ukraine, Bosnia and Gambia, Du Plessis contended that “Palestinians in Gaza are no less worthy of this court’s considerable protective power… to issue provisional measures.”
He then called Tshidiso Ramogale speaking to the “urgency and irreparable harm” conditions needed for the provisional measures bar to be met. Contexts on the ground in Gaza were expressed before the court in shocking detail. Food insecurity, looming specter of famine and daily births in a war zone.
“It is becoming ever clearer that huge swathes of Gaza; entire towns, villages, refugee camps are being wiped from the map.” From death littered streets to mass amputations to the fact that two mothers an hour are massacred in this aggression, Ramogale constructed rubble-wrought Gaza in the courtroom, in explicit retelling, to support South Africa’s case.
“There is an urgent need for provisional measures to prevent imminent, irreparable prejudice to the rights and issue in this case.” Hers was an aching expression of the real time genocide being narrated by Israel and witnessed by the world at large. “The situation could not be more urgent.”
Also making the case for precedent set by the court in prior rulings, the irreparable prejudice argument was exhibited aptly through stories “expressing scenes from a horror movie” through the stripping and humiliation of rounded up Palestinians to associated harms of infrastructure destruction to impromptu abductions by occupation foot soldiers.
Professor Vaughan Lowe appeared next, making the case that requirements of the convention have been met in order to urgently usher in provisional measures to halt the onslaught and promote the “right of the group to not be physically destroyed” as the death toll arches to 25,000 with masses of Palestinians still missing and presumed trapped in the rubble.
Stated plainly, Professor Lowe asserted that “Israel’s actions have violated its obligations under the genocide convention, they have continued to violate them and Israel has asserted that it intends to continue them.”
Palestinians gather in Ramallah’s Mandela Square in the occupied West Bank in support of South Africa’s genocide charge. Photo credit: ISM
Friday’s hearing will conclude with Israel’s utilization of the 3-hour case presentation allowable by the court to convince a horrified world that their prolific incitement to genocide and genocidal acts committed on the ground against the Palestinian population of Gaza is an act by any other name.
This episode of the International Solidarity Movement Podcast was recorded last year, long before the current Israeli genocidal attack against Gaza began. Since te interview took place the situation in the Jordan Valley has got much worse. Jordan Valley Solidarity (JVS) is still working to support the people of the Jordan Valley to stay on their land, despite massively increased settler violence and forced expulsions of entire Jordan Valley communities. This interview focuses on what JVS are struggling for: the beauty of the Jordan Valley, and the steadfastness of its people.
[00:00:00]Introduction: Hey, welcome to International Solidarity Movement Podcast [translation in Arabic]
[00:00:19]Tom: Hey, and welcome to episode 14 of the International Solidarity Movement podcast. In this episode, we speak to Rashid Khudary of the Jordan Valley Solidarity campaign. The Israeli state has wanted to annex the Jordan Valley since it occupied it in 1967. In 2021, Netanyahu announced final plans for the annexation of the valley, an area which makes up one third of the West Bank.
[00:00:41]Tom: People in the Jordan Valley resisted strongly against these plans, and there was an international outcry. Thankfully, the plans have been shelved for the moment, but the people of the Jordan Valley are under a constant threat from settlements expanding onto their land, from the violence of the Israeli settlers, from the closures of the Israeli military, which make most of the valley inaccessible to Palestinians. And from the constant demolitions of Palestinian property, which are carried out by the Israeli army. Jordan Valley Solidarity works to support the steadfast resistance of people in the Jordan Valley, to rebuild the schools and homes that have been demolished, and to celebrate the beauty of the Jordan Valley. Rashid talks about taking strength for the struggle from the natural world and the beauty of the land.
[00:01:23]Tom: And now over to Rashid to talk about life in the Jordan Valley and about the campaign, uh, in solidarity with people living there.
[00:01:44]Tom: I’m here with Rashid from Jordan Valley Solidarity at the beautiful house that you’ve built in Bardala. And I wondered if you could tell me about the Jordan Valley Solidarity campaign, about what you’ve been doing in the Jordan Valley, when it was established, and yeah, why there’s a need for a solidarity campaign for the communities in the Jordan Valley?
[00:02:02]Rashid: First, the Jordan Valley Solidarity Movement [was] established in 2003. Me, I joined since 2006. We as the Jordan Valley Solidarity, we are a network of Palestinians farmers from different communities, Palestinian farmers associations [together] with international solidarity and support [from] international volunteers. We work even with the Palestinian trade unions. Our main goal from our movement is to defend our population in the Jordan Valley to make him stay and [support them] resisting there.
[00:02:39]Rashid: Why the Jordan Valley [Solidarity] movement and why the Jordan Valley [is a] special area? First, the Jordan Valley region and area is very important and [strategic] for our Palestinian people in the whole region of Palestine and the West Bank because it’s very rich [in] resources in the Jordan Valley. Huge fields and a huge land, which is really very rich land, and it’s very rich of water resources in the Jordan Valley.
[00:03:11]Rashid: Even it’s the main border to travel from all West Bank, it’s only from Jordan Valley. To the Arabian [countries], to Jordan… From Jordan, we can travel to any place in the world. But because in the whole population [of] the West Bank, we are not allowed to travel from Israel to any country – even thousands or maybe millions of Palestinians – you are not allowed to enter to Israel.
[00:03:44]Rashid: And the Jordan Valley area for us it used to be, before, our main Palestinian breadbasket producing [all kinds] especially of vegetables. And before 1967, before the occupation and the war, it was the Palestinian population in the Jordan Valley, more than 300,000 [people].
[00:04:04]Rashid: Now we are only just 56,000 who [are] still resisting and living in the whole Jordan Valley, and there is thousands of Palestinians who’re refugees. Thousands of people after the war – after ’67, the Israeli policy… They abused our community and [policies against] our people making a lot of our people [get] out of the Jordan Valley through using different policy and displacement, most of our population [are now] outside of the area of the Jordan Valley.
[00:04:48]Rashid: Again, why the Jordan Valley? It was the Israelis who put this strategy and the plan before they even occupied the area… Now the Israelis, since 1967 until now, they’ve built 39 Israeli [colonies] in the Jordan Valley. They’ve built more than 20 army bases and army camps in the Jordan Valley. Even they control the main water resource through the Israeli company that they created in 1937, which they call it Mekarot company. This company, they build more than 20 water wells and taking the whole [of] our water resource under the ground and [controlling] it just for the Israeli settlers. Which that mean even we are not allowed, as Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley, to have the drinkable water. This is now one of the main Apartheid system the Israeli created in the Jordan Valley. Without respecting even the international law, without respecting the [human beings], and trying to use the water as a weapon and as a gun to [displace] our people and kick him outside of the Jordan Valley.
[00:06:01]Rashid: And in the same time, if you look into the Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley, is totally so green, big swimming pool, having good economic and good agribusiness there – especially dates, flowers, vegetables, grape farms they have, the settlers – which most of this kind of product, the settlers, they export it outside in the world: in Europe, in the UK, in the United States, everywhere. They have like a free [subsidised] land, free water. They have huge fundraising from Israeli government and from different international government to occupy our land, not just to build this kind of agribusiness.
[00:06:48]Rashid: In the same times, we are as a civilian under occupation not having any kind of right. Our right of water, we are not allowed to have water. Our right of health service: even we are not allowed to build in the Jordan Valley any kind of hospital or health clinic. Our right of education: even we are not allowed to build the schools and not allowed to go to the school inside the Israeli colony.
[00:07:15]Rashid: This is kind of what we need as [human beings]… the Israeli government, they don’t respect [us]. And this is why [we] established the Jordan Valley Solidarity because we need any kind of help and support for our communities, for our people, for our farmers, for our women, our children, to support what we need to resist.
[00:07:36]Rashid: And exactly what we are doing: we built six schools in different villages and communities in Area C, we built two health clinics in the Jordan Valley, we build and renovate more than 200 houses from north to the south of the Jordan Valley. We build four pipe line of water to bring water from village to other village where family not allowed to have a water.
[00:08:03]Rashid: And we try to have more international solidarity and support because even we as Palestinians, we work mostly as a volunteers… And we need more hands, we need more internationals to join our work. We need more internationals who can help us writing articles [and reporting]. We need more internationals who can support our farmers working with our farmers to harvest, to plant.
[00:08:36]Rashid:[As well] there’s many [things internationals] can do. Especially for us [it] is very important for international [volunteers] to see the facts about the occupation, about this kind of conflict, how the Israeli government and Israeli soldiers, and even the Israeli settlers councils, how they are dealing in our [real] life. For confiscating our car sometimes, even confiscating our tractors when we are going to work in our field or in our farm, and even how they came to destroy our structures and our house or our school. Because all [all of the things the Israelis are doing] we don’t think [that all the] people in the world they know about it. And this is why it’s very important for internationals to come. Even they can help for recording for filming, taking pictures and publishing or sharing this kind of information with the people in the world. And even trying to do something for the families who lost their houses or for children who lost their schools.
[00:09:50]Rashid: Even we have different kind of activities, like planting trees, sometimes organizing walking trails, like a path where Palestinians and internationals they can crossing the area to enjoy the [nature], to show them our plants, our beauty in the Jordan Valley.
[00:10:10]Rashid: And even they can learn cooking in the wood, cooking with our women, the Palestinian food. That’s something for us – even it’s very important, to share it, to show them: even we have a life if we are under the occupation. If the Israelis [are] stealing our culture, our land, our water, stealing everything. But they cannot steal our resistance. They cannot steal that, we can still teach the people: about our life, about our beauty life in the Jordan Valley. To show them- because most of people they think we don’t have a real life. No, we have a life. We have children. We [are] trying to use this kind of education [as] a seed, to show people how we are [resisting] and how we are sharing our hope and our power through all these projects and activities [and] work in the Jordan Valley.
[00:11:04]Tom: You were saying in the car on the way here that very often people from the Jordan Valley and in Palestine in general, they talk about the the situation with the Israeli occupation, the attacks of the Israeli forces on Palestinian people. But… well, it makes people forget about talking about the beauty of, for example, life in the Jordan Valley.
[00:11:01]Tom: So the Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign tries to preserve and document the cultural heritage and natural heritage in the area, right?
[00:11:50]Rashid: Yeah, we create a path from a village called Hammamat al Maleh to another village called Ein al Hilwa. And we call the path in Arabic: ‘Yalla min Al Maleh l’Ein al Hilwa’.
[00:12:10]Rashid: And this path, before we started, we made a big research which we make it with mostly volunteers: Palestinians from the university and activist groups who join us, even some teachers from schools, and we used to go to the mountains to take pictures [of] plant[s], and even trying to learn about the name and why they give this kind of name. And even we try to learn from the plant, which we know, or if we don’t know, if it’s used for any kind of thing, like some kind of a plant we have it, we use it for medicine. And the same, we learn about animals and we writing about all kinds of animals in the area.
[00:13:00]Rashid: … We collected the story of the place, why this village is called Hammamat al Malih. Hammamat, it means ‘shower’. And Al Maleh, it means ‘salty’… In this village [there were] seven showers, which is like a swimming pool, because the water in this community it was coming from the natural spring water which is hot water which is good for the skin and people they was using it as a medicine, when they have a problem in the body or in the skin.
[00:13:44]Rashid: And [there were] a lot of people [who] came from different areas to this place. Me personally, the last time I [went] swimming in this place [was] in 1998, with my parents and my family and a friend there. And it was very beautiful valley full of water. In this project, we try to bring people to see the nature, to see the beauty of the Jordan Valley. We [even planned] to build in this [community] a tent where women can produce all hand make stuff or food that they make it to sell.
[00:14:20]Rashid: The Israelis, they came, they destroyed this tent and even they confiscated my private car. And they kept it for two months, later they gave it back after I paid 2,175 [Shekels, which is over $500]… This is what’s happening, which that means even the Israelis, they don’t give us the right [to have] beauty – to enjoy our nature. To go hiking, to go for a walk, to enjoy the plants, to enjoy our time, especially in the spring. This is what they start trying to steal and they change even some areas, or they create some areas, which they call it a ‘close military firing zone’ and [it is] forbidden to enter to this area. And in the same time, they make it as a national park. And at the same time, we are not allowed to enter [these places] without having permission from the Israeli military, not even from the Israeli natural organization, you know. And all this… is just to control the land and our resources just for the settlers.
[00:15:35]Rashid: Even everyone in the world, I’m sure they are in love with nature and they don’t have any problem with nature. But the Israeli government, even they have the problem with the natural reserves area. Why? Because since 2014 until 2020, there was every years, especially the settlers from April to June, the summertime, they burn the natural area. Which that’s mean they kill a lot of seeds. In this time, in the years, there is a bird, we call it Shinar, some people they call it Al Hajal, we have gazelle, they give the baby from April to June. Which that mean when they burn it, they kill the seeds, which that mean, maybe some kind of a plant, we cannot find it again, they kill a lot of animals.
[00:16:38]Rashid: Why? Just because they don’t want our shepherd taking his sheep, or goats, or cow to the mountain to feed it from the [nature]. Even this kind of animals, they- they spread the seeds of a plant, which is good for the [nature]. But even they use the natural area to [displace] our people without respect even the [nature] or the plant and the animals.
[00:17:04]Rashid: This is what they do for our people and our humanity, you know, when they kill or they are shooting, or when they destroy our houses, or our schools, or our water.
[00:17:08]Rashid: This is why it’s very important to talk about it, because we don’t want even people in the world to be silent.
[00:17:17]Tom: We talked a bit about international support and about volunteers coming here. But in the past, I know there have been big campaigns outside of Palestine to boycott Israeli goods in supermarkets and particularly to boycott Carmel Agrexco, which was the Israeli state owned national exporter that was exporting goods particularly from the Valley. That company was liquidated, but there are many other companies like Mehadrin and Galilee that are still exporting from the Jordan Valley. What would you say about the importance of these boycott campaigns which are happening outside Palestine?
[00:18:04]Rashid: What I will say. I will say anyone who’s working or who’s buying, or they have any kind of project with this kind of authority or this kind of government, you know, that’s mean he’s agrees about all the crimes have been [done] to [human beings] in Palestine. That’s mean he’s supporting the Israeli soldiers to have more bullets to kill more Palestinians. That’s mean he’s support the Israeli bulldozers [which] destroy our schools and our houses. Who’s agree and who’s support?
[00:18:40]Rashid: If we just respect a [human being], everyone they should think he’s under occupation. Because what Israeli they do, because what [the] Israeli government they [are] doing, is not just against us. We are surviving, and we still resist, and we are still learning from what’s going on, and what’s happening [to] us, what’s happening with our neighbours, with our villages, to keep going and to fight.
[00:19:04]Rashid: And we don’t take any decision to go outside of our country, our land. But why people in the world, at least, they will not, by cutting the Israeli products? Or [links with] Israeli academi[a]? or Israeli support, or [links with] Israeli companies? – who are stealing our right of water, our right of education, our right of health service. If you just respect the idea of a [human] being, and if you want to have a world – really have the [real] democracy and [real] freedom, at least we have to boycott the Israeli government, at least.
[00:19:40]Rashid: And we need, of course, the whole kind of support from international people to make even a pressure to international governments who are supporting or who are agree about all these kind of [Israeli] crimes.
[00:19:50]Tom: Yeah, one of the things people talk about here, the idea of staying on the land, and remaining on the land. even when there’s huge pressure against them, when their houses are being destroyed, when their right to water, right to education is being taken away… Often you hear this word steadfastness being used to describe the resistance here. Can you talk about what drives people to carry on resisting against the occupation and remaining on the land here in the Jordan Valley? What is it that drives people to keep on resisting, do you think?
[00:20:38]Tom: And also another question I had was what hope do you have for the struggle against colonization here in the valley?
[00:20:46]Rashid: Just this question?
[00:20:48]Tom: Sorry!
[00:20:49]Nicole: Haha!
[00:20:50]Rashid: No, no, don’t worry! About hope, it’s not really easy to have hope. Even I hope that everyone will hear my message, you know. It’s not easy to imagine the situation, really, because… It’s every minute, every second, every day, especially in the area that Israeli create and call as the Jordan Valley, Area C, ‘closed military zones’. Every day people [are] having different kinds of challenges and they still resist. Sometimes, me personally, I have hope from animals, from birds, from plants, from the beauty of the Jordan Valley, from [the] strong man that I’m [working] with or a strong woman. I see here – how she’s resisting to build her oven that has been destroyed many times and cooking her own bread for her family, you know.
[00:21:55]Rashid: This is what gives me back more hope- sometimes from international volunteers or the international movement who’s supporting. It’s from different ways that we can have hope, to be honest. This is what we need, we need really support. As I told you before, I don’t feel like we are just occupied from Palestine, and we are not just as a Palestinians still under occupation. But, I’m thinking we are [occupied by all] international governments… The whole people in the world is still occupied… If we don’t have the freedom, and our justice, and our country back, that will mean all people [around the world] are still under occupation too.
[00:22:43]Rashid: This is my message. Did I answer you?
[00:22:44]Tom: Yeah, yeah, you answered. Thank you very, very much.
[00:22:45]Nicole: Yeah, that was amazing!
[00:22:45]Rashid: Thanks for you!
[00:22:52]Tom: And, yeah if you’re interested in finding out about Jordan Valley Solidarity, you can look at jordanvalleysolidarity.org. The campaign is asking for donations from people internationally as well.
[00:23:04]Tom: So, if you want to raise money for the campaign, you can donate through the website or get in touch with the campaign to hear more about the project.
[00:23:05]Rashid: Exactly, yeah.
[00:23:06]Tom: Is there anything else you want to say?
[00:23:08]Rashid: Ohhh yes. I will ask people to come and join our resistance and enjoy our vegetables, and our fruit, and our nature!
