22 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
For three years the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative and the International Solidarity Movement have marched into the buffer zone north of Beit Hanoun. Tuesday, September 20th was no different. We gathered near the agricultural college, and at 11 AM we marched north into the buffer zone. There were about thirty of us. The sun was hot, but spirits were high. Over the megaphone we played Bella Ciao and chanted for a free Palestine.
As we crested the hill nearest the buffer zone we were greeted with a new sight. The tower in the wall closest to where we protest had been covered with netting used to hide snipers. We could see the dust of tanks rising from behind the wall. This did not deter us. We marched into the buffer zone. We were propelled both by the horrors of the past and hope for the future. Twenty nine years ago the world was just learning of the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla. Thousands of Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in these two camps by Lebanese Phalangists with the support of their Israeli allies. This massacre will not be forgotten. Today though, was also a day of hope. The Palestinian Authority was going to the UN to seek recognition of the Palestinian State. Hopefully this new initiative will help to bring 44 years of occupation and 63 years of Nakba to an end.
We advanced to about 50 meters from the wall. We stood along the ditch which scars the buffer zone. Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke of his hope for the future, that the Palestinian people would finally know the justice that has so long been denied to them. He vowed that “we will continue the peaceful popular struggle until the occupation ends.”
As we chanted against the occupation a window on the tower began to open so that the soldiers could shoot at us. We marched back through the buffer zone and into Beit Hanoun. Hopefully, somewhere, someone, heard us, heard our calls for justice, freedom and peace.
21 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The Atta and Rudaina Jeber’s farm is situated upon a hill. The area is called Sheik Sherah, in the Beca’a Valley in the outskirts of Hebron, or Al-Khalil. Atta’s family has owned the land since the Ottoman Empire was in power, and he explains that he is part of about 19,000 Palestinians who originally settled the hills when they came from the lands now called Jordan, some 800 years ago.
He will also show you the caves where many of his ancestors were born. It is in this part of Palestine where the Israeli settlers have fought so aggressively in recent years to invade Palestinian lands especially where Atta and his brothers live on two hills now fractured by two large settlements, Gryet Arba and Givat Ha Harsina. Atta and his brothers and cousins have been petitioning the State of Israel to recognize their deeds to the land since 1986. Instead, in 1982 Israel had already confiscated thousands of dunams to build a highway which links Jerusalem in the north to southern towns like Hebron which bring settlers in.
To date they have confiscated about 7,000 dunams and bulldozed the fruit orchards of the families. The confiscation of the land, however, was kept a secret from the Palestinians, Atta said.
“They wanted to bring strange people from different countries,” he said.
According to Atta, the Israeli judge in Beit Il himself is a settler. This struggle has cost the Palestinian families thousands of dollars in legal papers, and lawyer fees, only to give people like Atta and his brothers reprieves of three days or one month or a year, but never a clear permit to remain on their property. Sometimes the families don’t get the permits to keep their houses. When that happens, “You don’t know when they (Israeli Military) are going to come. Sometimes it is about 5 AM, and they come with many soldiers, and they tell us to get out.”
Atta’s two houses were bulldozed twice in the past 10 years.
“My family has been petitioning the Israeli government for a permit since 1983 and we have spent thousands of dollars in legal fees. They do this until you don’t have a cent left. Every time you go to the high court it costs us $1,800 dollars. When they take over our houses, they demolish them and then rebuild for settlers.”
Both Atta and Rudaina were born in 1962, but like the rest of the Palestinian farmers, their weathered faces show the hardship they have endured since the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. They were both seven years old when the Israelis first bulldozed their fathers’ homes.
Rudaina’s brothers then joined the resistance with the P.L.O. One brother spent 16 years in an Israeli prison; her other brother spent three years, and the other spent one. At one point, an uncle and his three sons spent five years in jail.
Atta laughs at the pain. This is life for the families. Their four children go to school. When they are not fighting in court to keep their property, they till the soil, separating the mineral rich dirt from the rocks. They built terrace farming where they grow abundant eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables which they sell in the marketplace. Their white grapes are abundant and their fig trees bend with fullness. Over the years the families have built an extensive irrigation network for their crops and they have a well that has also gotten them in trouble with the State. The well was also bulldozed once. Within the last 10 years, 13 cisterns of all the families have been destroyed. Atta’s irrigation system was also destroyed. But again, the family rebuilds and fixes what the settlers and the Israeli Military destroy. And now, the family must buy their drinking water from the Israeli district authority which sells them their own water.
“They try to steal our humanity,” Atta said, when asked by a visitor to explain what the Palestinians want. He waves his hands, “I’m asking the world to support us in our struggle for humanity. This is all we want. We don’t want help from the world. We have minds and muscles. We have a rich mind. We don’t want a million or a billion dollars. We are not beggars. We have been waiting for over 60 years for this. I can support myself and my family,” he looks down at his wife who is busily making stuffed grape leaves for supper, and he gazes with pride at his daughters nearby working on a computer.
When asked where he learned his English, he proudly states that he worked in an Israeli hotel for 12 years and pointed to a hotel management certificate on the wall. He added that he also speaks some Spanish and German.
Atta and Rudaina have three daughters and one son all of which go to school in Hebron. One of them comes to us with a huge sunflower and breaks it in several parts. Together we pick the seeds and crunch them in silence occasionally looking down the next hill at a gas station across the road in what was also once family land, where the settlers are amassing.
Rumor around the town all week has been that there would be trouble with the settlers. They are incensed that the United Nations this week is considering a petition by Palestinians to declare them a legitimate state. Whenever there has been trouble in any part of the Occupied or Israeli territories, the settlers from the two illegal settlements descend upon the Palestinian families. They have entered Atta’s house and set fires then afterwards prayed. “They are a very religious, you know,” Atta said as he crushes a cigarette butt in an ashtray. The irony is not lost on the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) observers. In Hebron in August the Israeli military arrested 200 men when the attacks in Eilat occurred.
Today especially there is talk of problems in Hebron particularly in the old city. Everyone is on high alert. Abuses by the Israeli military happen daily especially at night and around the checkpoints. Atta looks out in the distance and sees a white car approaching.
It is Rabbis for Human Rights activist, Rabbi Arik Acherman. The family is elated. Rudaina and her daughters serve dinner. Both the Rabbi and Atta are on the phone connecting with other Palestinian leaders as they eat. By now about 50 people have amassed at the gas station. In the distance we can see several armored cars and dark figures that turn out to be soldiers. Some people carrying Israeli flags begin walking toward the lands of Atta an his brothers. A regiment of about six soldiers begin to ascend up the road, but stop at a large boulder below the house.
Lara, Atta’s youngest, clutches her father waist. He strokes her head tenderly, looks over and says she is afraid. Meanwhile, Rudaina retreats to a corner of the terrace and begins to pray. Rabbi Acherman sooths the family and observers by explaining that he has spoken to the Israeli military, and they have told him that the settlers would be allowed to go onto state land but not unto private property.
Evening has descended upon this human drama. Rudaina comes out of the house, nervously looking towards the valley. She takes out an automizer inhaler and breaths in. After about two hours, the settlers begin to disperse. Only an SUV with a very,very loud speaker and a glowing menorah defiantly blasts music to the wind. The observers wondered if the driver’s hearing will be permanently damaged by the blasts. Only the soldiers behind the boulders can be seen. Eventually, even they disappear down the road and into the night. Rabbi Acherman takes his leave saying he has to get back to his family in Jerusalem. The children gleefully guide the ISM observers down the hills around to a waiting taxi. They kiss and bid the ISM observers goodby. The last words they hear are al hamdulilah, Praise be to God, and ma’ al salama,[go] with Peace.
18 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
While farming their land in the village of Qusra, 50 year old Fathalla and his three sons were attacked by a group of armed settlers on the morning of September 16th. The attack came amid recent increase of settler violence in anticipation of the UN vote on recognition of Palestinian state.
Fathalla and his three sons were working in a fig orchad, when one of the boys heard someone breaking the lock on their well. They saw 9 armed settlers, three of them with M-16 and the rest with pistols and a dog. The Abu Reida family decided to hold back the settlers until Israeli military arrived. Following a similar incident, Palestinians reported settler attacks to the Israeli district coordination office, but were dismissed and told to “hold back settlers” next time there is an incident until the army could arrive.
As Fathalla and his sons approached the well, they noticed that one of the settlers was taking a bath in the well, which houses water used for both farming and drinking by the Palestinian family.
“I’m afraid to drink this water now. I think they dirtied it, and maybe even poisoned it, as has happened in the past,” said Fathalla, adding that settlers believed that water from that area was holy and bathing in it rinsed all sins.
In the mean time, one of the Fathalla sons called Qusra’s local sheikh, who announced on the villages loudspeakers that settlers had invaded the village. Fathalla and his sons were preventing settlers from leaving by blocking a fenced road running through the fields. Settlers kept firing their guns in the air.
When villagers approached, settlers panicked and one of them jumped the fence. Fathalla’s19-year-old son followed one of the settler’s who was armed with an M-16.
Another settler released the dog, which attack the young man. As he was being attack and fell to the ground, the settler broke his leg. His brothers left the other settlers to flee, while they assisted their injured brother.
As they were escaping the scene, settlers shot random series of live ammunitation in the direction of villagers, wounding Fathalla Abu Reida in his thigh.
Tought by the previous experience with reporting settlers attacks, Fathalla sons took plenty of pictures documenting the entire incident. Abu Reida family submittted pictures and their testimonies to the Palestinian Authority, who in turn said they would communicate with the Israeli district coordination office.
“I don’t believe they will react. But I still have to do everything that is possible to try to save my land,” said Fathalla.
The Israeli military forces, claiming they were coming to arrest one of the settlers, arrived to Qusra around 1 pm on the same day.
“There were 200 soldiers! Why would they send so many soldiers to arrest one man?, said Fathalla.
Soldiers cracked down on the village, showering it with tear gas at the southern outskirts of the village. Women, men, and children reportedly protested this second invasion by Israelis.
Qusra inhabitants felt their village has become a scene of increasing settler violence over last four months. Settlers activity typically occurs every Friday during the congregational prayer time for Muslims.
The last attack took place on September 5th, when settlers from an outpost of the illegal settlement Migron torched a mosque. Just few days earlier, on August 28th, settlers uprooted 100 hundred olive trees. The entire village came to stop them, yet the army arrived soon after, ordering people to disperse. As Jamal Adli Hassan was walking away, an Israeli officer shot him with live ammunition in his leg.
The surge in violence coming from the illegal settlements in the West Bank last week might be connected to arming and training settlers by the Israeli miliatary in anticipation of Palestinian protests against lack of recognition of their basic right to self-determination as the Palestinian Authority approach the UN for their bid as the 194th country in the world.
17 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The people of Kufr Qaddoum demonstrated on Friday, September 16th, against the illegal settlement Qadumim, which is situated west of the village. They demanded access to their main road which passes adjacent to the settlement and leads out from the village.
The demonstration started at 1:30 pm and consisted of around 300 villagers and four internationals from the ISM. The demonstrators carried a coffin covered by the Israeli flag which symbolized the funeral of the Israeli Occupation in spirit of the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood at the UN this month. The coffin was then burned.
Kafr Qaddoum is surrounded by a red line which prevents the villagers from crossing. When this boundary line was reached, just a few hundred meters from the center of the village, the demonstration stopped for speeches, chants and dancing, and the spirit was positive.
Inside the illegal settlement compound one settler family and a few soldiers were seen watching the procession. From outside the settlement boundaries 3 military vehicles were waiting for the protesters to cross the line, which they eventually did. Just a few steps over the line was enough to make all the vehicles drive in full speed against the peaceful protest. Immediately the soldiers started to fire tear gas in high volumes, and the young protesters began throwing stones.
At least four soldiers were also watching from the hill north of the village from where tear gas also was shot.
As the protesters were moving back into the village, the soldiers followed and tear gas was fired into the village. At least one family was affected by the gas inside their home and was seen fleeing. Two people were taken away from the scene by ambulances, and a significant amount of people were helped by doctors from the Red Crescent.
The demonstration ended at 2:30 pm with celebrations inside the village.
This was the 12th week of Friday protests in Kufr Qaddoum, and the first time in three weeks since the army left the settlement to violently obstruct the demonstration.
This is a bad story with a happy ending. It’s also a story that makes one happy, but still leaves a bit of a bitter taste in one’s mouth.
It’s the story of a Palestinian baby girl who was born during a period of unrelenting siege and curfew in her village and became ill, so that her parents had to carry her through the hills to a hospital. It’s the story of a Palestinian infant who needed a kidney transplant but for whom no suitable donor was found in the family; finally, a courageous South African woman decided to donate one of her kidneys to the little girl. It’s the story of how the donor got to Israel, after a complicated legal effort involving government authorities and after donations were collected to finance the operation. It’s the story of a successful transplant and the girl’s full and joyful recovery. But it is also a story that has something bad about it: At present, Israel is preventing the donor from visiting the girl whose life she saved.
Lina Taamallah
It was Lina Taamallah’s bad luck to be born on the day Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, in the late winter of 2002. The delivery was in Rafadiyeh Hospital in Nablus. It was a rainy day, tanks and soldiers were everywhere, and most of the villages and towns were under curfew.
“It was a miracle that we made it to the hospital at all,” recalls her father, Fareed, 37, who holds a master’s degree in journalism and international relations from Birzeit University and works for the Palestinian Authority’s elections commission. His wife, Amina, a housewife, gave birth to Lina by C-section.
A few months later, Lina fell ill. For a week it was impossible to get her out of the house and to a doctor because of the curfew in their village, Qira, near Salfit. Lina, who developed a high fever and had severe diarrhea, was treated according to telephone instructions by a pediatrician, using medicines in her parents’ home.
In an article Fareed Taamallah published in The Los Angeles Times in May 2006, he described how his wife once had to carry Lina five kilometers through the hills of the West Bank to reach a doctor. In the wrenching article, Taamallah drew a connection between Lina’s ordeal at that time and the kidney failure that afflicted her a few months later.
When she was a year old, Lina contracted anemia. At first she was thought to be suffering from thalassemia, a blood disorder, but her parents had undergone genetic testing before the birth so that was ruled out. A few months later, Lina (who has three healthy siblings ) was diagnosed with renal failure. The family endured 16 hard months, in which she underwent dialysis every four hours, 24 hours a day, via a special machine suitable for infants.
Her physical development was arrested and her parents’ life became unendurable. Distraught, they turned their home into a kind of miniature hospital and they themselves became a medical team: It was essential to ensure that Lina did not come down with any infection. “I can’t bring myself to remember that period,” Fareed says now. “It was a nightmare.”
It was urgent to find a kidney donor for Lina, to save her life and then upgrade its quality. Her parents were willing to donate a kidney but were quickly found to be incompatible. Desperate, they looked for another solution. They examined the possibility of obtaining a kidney from Egypt or Pakistan, but discovered there are serious ethical problems about the way kidneys are harvested in those countries. Fareed says he did not know what to do.
Around this time, he met Anna Weekes (whose father is Jewish ), who later went by the name Majavu, from Cape Town; she was born in 1973. They met at a summer camp of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists in the West Bank. Anna stayed with the family after the camp disbanded and became a good friend. She knew Lina almost from the day of the girl’s birth. After a time, Anna was put on the Israeli authorities’ blacklist and deported due to her pro-Palestinian activity in the West Bank; she was in Britain at the time Lina fell ill. Fareed informed her about the development by e-mail, and she replied immediately that she would donate a kidney.
“I didn’t believe it. I thought she only wanted to express solidarity and friendship, and that the offer was meant just to make me happy,” Fareed says. He thanked Anna politely and added that at that point, he and his wife were then undergoing tests to see if they could be donors. Two months later, Fareed wrote to Anna that both they were incompatible, and Anna repeated her offer and emphasized that she was perfectly serious.
Anna then suggested that the transplant be done in Britain, however, under British law, organs must be donated by a member of the family. She decided to come to Israel for a compatibility check, and entered using a different passport which she carried legally. She underwent the examination in a private hospital in Nablus, in the meantime taking part in demonstrations against the separation fence in Bil’in and Budrus – and was again deported. She was found to be compatible.
“Now we had a compatible donor but one who could not enter the country,” Fareed recalls, going on to describe the family’s ordeal to save his daughter’s life: They considered having the operation done in South Africa, Egypt, Jordan or Pakistan, but discovered that in all these countries the donor had to be from the family. They found that the most suitable place for the transplant was Israel, where organs can be donated by people who are not family members after a professional committee considers the motives for the donation.
A few devoted friends of Fareed’s – Israeli peace activists who had heard about Lina’s illness – rallied to the cause. “We now faced two battles,” Fareed explains, “the battle to get Anna into the country and the battle to raise $40,000 to pay for the transplant.” They had to choose between Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva and Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. With the help of local friends, they chose the latter, which offered to do the operation at a discount. After lobbying, the Palestinian Authority agreed to cover half the cost of the transplant, the Peres Center for Peace also contributed and the rest was obtained through private donations. All that remained was to bring in Anna.
Attorney Gabi Lasky, who specializes in human rights cases, conducted negotiations with the Interior Ministry for Anna to be allowed to enter the country because of the special humanitarian situation. The authorities finally relented – on condition that Anna go directly from the airport to the hospital, have the kidney harvested and then return directly to the airport. Fareed himself was (and still is ) barred from entering Israel, and Lina’s mother took her for the preliminary tests at the hospital alone.
In September 2005, Lina entered Hadassah. Anna arrived from South Africa – after she was interrogated for several hours at the airport – and the operation was performed on October 2, 2005. Lina was three years old at the time. Her father also finally received a permit to be with her at the hospital. On the day of the operation, Anna’s fiance, Mandisi Majavu, arrived to be with her at the hospital.
The transplant was successfully performed by Prof. Ahmed Eid, head of the department of surgery at Hadassah in Ein Karem. Anna was discharged after a week and taken to Qira for recovery. She stayed there for about a month and flew home to South Africa on the day Lina was discharged. “We only had a few hours when the two of them were together,” Fareed relates.
On the last night of Anna’s stay in the village, the family held an improvised wedding reception for her and her fiance, who would be married a few weeks later in South Africa. The photos of the party in the family album reflect tremendous joy: Anna in a colorful and traditional embroidered Palestinian dress; Mandisi in a kaffiyeh and galabiya, both pure white, rolling amber beads with his fingers.
A short while later at the airport, Anna was again interrogated for a few hours before being allowed to leave. The security people told her she would never be allowed into Israel again. She did not sign any document, she said this week. Since then, she and Mandisi have become the parents of a daughter in South Africa. Her name: Bil’in Nkwenkwezi.
Lina recovered fully. We met her this week in the family’s second home, in an affluent suburb of El Bireh, next to Ramallah. She is a charming girl, full of life. One cannot see any outward signs of what she went through. She is in the fourth grade in the American School of Palestine, which is near her home.
Every few months she goes to Hadassah for a checkup, and because her father cannot enter Israel, an Israeli volunteer takes her from the checkpoint to the hospital. It’s usually Shraga Gorny, a 76-year-old Jerusalemite. Gorny, an electronics engineer, worked for 41 years at the Hebrew University and for the past 10, did medical research at Hadassah. Gorny regularly volunteers to drive Palestinian children for medical treatment at the hospital, which is how he met Lina and her family and got to know them well. (He is one of a group of Israelis – among them Herzliya-based peace activist Dorothy Naor – involved in such efforts.)
A few weeks ago, Gorny wrote me: “The girl who was like a matchstick before the transplant now looks beautiful and blooming.”
According to Fareed, Lina is not yet able to appreciate what Anna did for her. For her part, Anna told me this week, on the phone from Cape Town: “It was nothing. The body does not need two kidneys. I did not do anything special. I don’t think it was a noble act, as you said. I know the family and I have known Lina since she was born. I know the ordeals the family endured when they had to go through the hills by foot to get her to the hospital during the period of the curfew. It was only logical for me to donate a kidney for her. That was my duty. I just worry that Lina’s kidney will function and that no problems will arise in another few years.”
Anna is now a journalist in South Africa and raising Bil’in. Meanwhile, in a few weeks, the family will celebrate the sixth anniversary of the transplant. They celebrate Lina’s rebirth every year and their dream is for Anna to join them. Lina has never met Anna since the operation, but Anna is still banned from entering Israel.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority sent the following response to Haaretz: “An examination of the details shows that there is no request by Mrs. Weekes to enter Israel. The interrogation she underwent when she left the country was not carried out by a representative of the authority, so, accordingly, in the absence of a reason of which we are not aware, there is nothing to prevent her from visiting Israel. “It should be clarified that if she wishes to enter the territories of the Palestinian Authority,” the spokeswoman continues, “she must arrange this with the coordinator of government activities in the territories. It is also desirable to check the question of why she was delayed [at the airport] with the relevant authorities.”
The Shin Bet security service provided this response to Haaretz: “Usually, the person authorized to either permit or deny the entry of Mrs. Weekes into Israel would be the interior minister, or someone associated with him. At this time, it is not his intention to recommend, to any authorized figure, to object to her entry unless negative up-to-date security-related information about her is received which would change his position.”
As we crested the hill nearest the buffer zone we were greeted with a new sight. The tower in the wall closest to where we protest had been covered with netting used to hide snipers. We could see the dust of tanks rising from behind the wall. This did not deter us. We marched into the buffer zone. We were propelled both by the horrors of the past and hope for the future. Twenty nine years ago the world was just learning of the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla. Thousands of Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in these two camps by Lebanese Phalangists with the support of their Israeli allies. This massacre will not be forgotten. Today though, was also a day of hope. The Palestinian Authority was going to the UN to seek recognition of the Palestinian State. Hopefully this new initiative will help to bring 44 years of occupation and 63 years of Nakba to an end.