10 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The Israeli army enforced a system of extensive closures, detentions, and violence against Palestinians and internationals activists during the Jewish holiday of Passover in Al Khalil (Hebron).
The army closed off the busy Beersheba road to allow Jewish settlers to visit the tomb of Othniel Ben Knaz inside of Palestinian controlled Hebron. Under the Hebron Protocol the city is divided into two parts; H1 is under complete Israeli military control and H2 is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, although the Israeli army frequently violates the protocol by entering P.A. controlled Hebron.
The closure of the street involved forcing Palestinians to close shops, restricting Palestinians from passing through the main checkpoint into H1, and blocking off the road with military jeeps, soldiers and an attack dog. Palestinians trying to access their road and return to their homes were met with violence by the Israeli army, who shoved and pushed several people. International activists who tried to intervene during the assault of a Palestinian by Israeli soldiers were violently kicked, hit and dragged by the army. An Italian, Canadian and a Dutch woman were slightly injured and a Palestinian-American activist was violently arrested by Israeli soldiers, who choked her and smashed her head into the army jeep during the arrest. She was released after several hours.
The army also imposed severe restrictions of Palestinian freedom of movement all throughout H2 , detaining, and body searching dozens of Palestinians at checkpoints in the area. Two men were detained until 1:45 am at Checkpoints 55 and 56 near Beit Haddasah settlement. Both were held for three hours. The house of the Sharabati family near checkpoint 55 on Shuhada street was raided by Israeli soldiers just past 10 PM. The soldiers forced the family to remove the CCTV cameras on their windows supplied by Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem to record settler violence and army violations.
Paige is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
10 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Poverty is pervasive in Gaza. After 44 years of occupation, and six years of siege the economy is in tatters. Exporting anything is basically impossible, farming is crippled by the no go zones which encircle Gaza leaving over 30% of agricultural land off limits, the fishing industry has been devastated by the 3 mile limit on fishing imposed by Israel. Gaza survives on the tunnels. All this being said, as a Palestinian friend once proudly told me, no one starves in Palestine. This is true. Palestinians have created an amazing network of charity organizations that help to blunt the worst effects of the occupation. Today, in Khan Yunis, we saw this network at work.
The municipality of Khan Yunis teamed up with the Ethar Initiative to provide a day of fun for local children from poor families. Ethar is a volunteer group which works to help disadvantaged children and families; they provide opportunities for women to make money to support their families as well as sponsoring days like this one. Today about 80 children from several local school were brought to the Municipality building of Khan Yunis for a party. The celebration started at ten o’clock. First, was singing, children volunteered eagerly from the crowd to have the chance to come and sing in front of everybody. Then the children moved on to games, blind man’s bluff, musical chairs, an apple eating contest, and games with balloons. The winners of each game were rewarded with a goodie bag containing coloring books and school supplies. In the end though, who won didn’t matter, all of the children were sent home with a goodie bag.
Days like today remind us that the people fighting the occupation aren’t just politicians and those that go to demonstrations. Farmers who continue to farm their land despite harassment from settlers, fisherman who continue to fish despite being shot at by the Israeli Navy, and volunteers that work to provide the children with some happiness amongst the problems that surround all fighting the occupation. The Naqba, the Naqsa, the occupation, two Intifadas and the massacre of Gaza have not broken Palestinian steadfastness. This steadfastness wouldn’t be possible without the efforts of volunteers who work to provide so much of what the occupation tries to take away, hope, joy, and whatever small moments of pleasure that can be seized.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
Two days ago, we visited Deir Yassin, or to be more specific, what remains of Deir Yassin, with Zochrot, an Israeli organization dedicated to educating the Israeli public about the nakba. The tour was organized in commemoration of the Deir Yassin massacre.
We walked along the main street of the village (now Kanfey Nesharim Street), and passed the few homes still standing, where many people were massacred.
The girls school, built in 1941, still stands. What used to be the city center is now a bus station. As for the homes, they are surrounded by a fence and have been incorporated into the Kfar Shaul mental hospital. After passing the homes (hospital), we walked by the remains of the Palestinian cemetery and ended the tour in the grove behind the hospital.
In April 1948, the town was attacked despite its peace treaty with the Jewish community. The killings at Deir Yassin are regarded as one of two pivotal events that led to the exodus of around 700,000 Palestinians from their towns and villages in 1948, along with the defeat of the Palestinians in Haifa. News of the killings, amplified by Arab media broadcasts of atrocity, triggered fear and panic among Palestinians, who in turn increasingly evacuated their homes.
55 young children were orphaned as a result of the massacre. 31-year-old Hind al-Husseini found them near the Holy Sepulchre church in Jerusalem’s Old City. On 25 April, two weeks after the massacre, Hind founded Dar Al-Tifl Al-Arabi at her family’s mansion which catered to Deir Yassin orphans, and later to orphans from all over Palestine.
9 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Israeli settlers attacked and chased a group of Palestinian farmers last Thursday, causing a tractor to flip over during the chase, causing the death of the Palestinian driver.
On Thursday, April 5th, armed settlers from the illegal Israeli colony of Itamar attacked a group of Palestinians en-masse. In haste and in fear for his life, twenty-eight year old Fadi Abu Zeitoun’s tractor tipped and crushed him as he fled from the pursuing settlers.
The villagers who own olive groves near Itamar rarely get “permission” from the Israeli District Coordination Office to access their own land. During the harvest season, they are permitted a few days, but in the spring when the land needs to be tended they have more difficulty acquiring permission. During this spring harvest, the villages of Hawarta, Yanoun, Aqraba, and Beita were told they had only four hours to access their land. The area to be tended is approximately 1000 dunums so the villagers collected forty tractors to work as much land as possible in the shortest possible time. Israeli activists from the movement Peace Now, and a group of international activists were present in solidarity. Prime Minister Salam Fayad joined them to make a statement re-affirming their right to utilize the stolen land that they were standing upon.
During the Prime-minister’s visit, Israeli authorities were positioned nearby and prevented the settlers from passing. However, shortly after Fayad left the area, Israeli soldiers permitted a mob of settlers to converge upon the Palestinian farmers tending to their land. They began by throwing stones, causing the group to separate and begin descending the hill. The settlers then proceeded to fire M-16 assault rifles in the direction of the unarmed farmers before releasing dogs. In the ensuing chaos, and as Fadi desperately attempted to escape, his tractor flipped over and fell on him, mortally wounding the young man.
Palestinians witnessing the incident ran back towards the scene to offer assistance. The settlers promptly dispersed as they rushed him down the hill to the road, unfortunately he was already dead.
Fadi is of the village of Beita . With a population of only 12,000, this death resonates among all the residents. As Fadi’s father-in-law, Isam Bani Shams says, “This is not our first martyr nor our last, we have been in this situation for sixty-four years. Our village has lost some seventy martyrs.”
On the same date, twenty-four years ago, two men from the village of Beita were also murdered by settlers from Itamar.
In the gathering following the funeral, Fadi’s father, Sleman Abu Zeitoun, sat with his head down. Beside him sat three other men who have had a son murdered by Israeli soldiers or settlers.
Fadi was newly married to nineteen year-old Fida’ Bani Shams who is left widowed and six months pregnant. Her brother was killed at the age of sixteen by Israeli soldiers during the second intifada, and as her father says, “She has lost a brother and a husband so what can I say of her emotions? She is in grief. She is exhausted.” Fida’ sat slouched in a corner of the room, her eyes closed and blankets covering her feet.
Fadi’s sister has had a nervous breakdown since the death of her brother. She does not recognize her husband or her daughters. Their mother, Mona Fihmeh says, “in terms of how I feel, I have patience, but my back has been broken from the burden.” Mona spent last night praying over her feverish body, and today she sent her daughter to the hospital. Her husband was on the way back from a funeral in Jordan when the accident occurred. He returned to Beita to find that his son had been killed.
Throughout the funeral, political talk arose about the various results of Israeli occupation and apartheid on Palestine. At first, the unemployment rate among Palestinians does not seem relevant to the death of Fadi Abu Zeitoun, but one soon realizes that Israel’s apartheid policies are to blame for both the impunity with which settlers are treated, and the numerous other negative consequences on livelihood.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory reported that over 90% of complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians to the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment. OCHA’s report on settler violence notes that “the root cause of the settler violence phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory. This activity has resulted in the progressive takeover of Palestinian land, resources and transportation routes and has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favouring Israeli citizens at the expense of the over 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Recent official efforts to retroactively legalize settler takeover of privately-owned Palestinian land actively promotes a culture of impunity that contributes to continued violence.”
Declared one of the men at the funeral, “every time Israel builds a colony, we will build another Palestinian town; every time they erect a building, we will build a new building.”
“Our steadfastness protects our land,” another proclaims.
Rana H. is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
April 6th Demonstration - Click here for more photos
I’m a bit slow at writing things up, so in the meanwhile, here are some photos of this past Friday’s action in Ni’lin. To me the the most vivid pictures were the shebab, including boys who looked as young as 12 , symbolically lobbing stones at and over the gate and wall (probably not visible in my photos), amid clouds of stinging teargas and stinking “skunk water,” and Mohammed Amira calmly standing with his megaphone addressing the soldiers in Hebrew (telling them to go home to their families, and basically trying to get them to reflect on what they’re doing), while himself being sprayed with teargas and targeted with skunk water (they missed him with the “skunk,” as far as I could tell as we returned to his home for cold drinks and a rest, and didn’t notice the tell-tale stench of sewage he would have been carrying if hit.
Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
