Author: Yara

Youth arrested in Hebron over cereal

2 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On 2 October in Al Khalil (Hebron), the Israeli army and police arrested 2 Palestinian children based on petty, unfounded accusations whilst allowing settlers to employ violence with complete impunity. 13 year old Khaled Abu Snaeneh and 15 year old Said Abu Aisha were arrested and detained for over 4 hours at Kiryat Arba police station.

At 2:45 soldiers came to the Abu Aisha house in Tel Rumeida to investigate a complaint made by settlers that Palestinians had stolen some boxes of expired cereal from their backyard. A group of around 30 settlers gathered around the house shouting at both the Palestinian residents and the police and army. Under pressure from the gradually increasing number of settlers surrounding the house Israeli police made the decision to arrest the two young boys, solely on the evidence of being accused by the settlers.

Ibrahim Abu Aisha explained that the boys arrested had not taken the cereal as they were working at the time the incident took place.

Several Palestinians reported that Baruch Marzel from the Tel Rumeida settlement kicked 30 year old Fawaz Abu Aisha requiring him to go to hospital. Despite the visible bruising on Fawaz’s leg and attempts to complain to the police they refused to take any action on this assault. Marzel has a history of assaulting Palestinians and was formerly a spokesperson for the Kach party before it was made illegal in Israel as a racist, terrorist organization.

After being driven to Kiryat Arba police station and detained for 4 hours, the boys were not charged but still forced to pay a fine of 200 shekels each.

Demolitions: Israel annexing more land in Kufr ad-Dik and Salfit

4 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Homes destroyed in Kufr ad-Dik and Salfit - Click here for more pictures
Homes destroyed in Kufr ad-Dik and Salfit - Click here for more pictures

On Tuesday around 11am the Israeli army carried out demolitions in the West Bank towns of Beit Ula and Kufr ad-Dik, destroying homes, animal pens, wells and hundreds of trees.

Yousef Muhammed Turshan sat amongst the rubble that used to be the home for him, his wife, and 5 children.

“This is our only home, I don’t know where we will sleep tonight. They destroyed the building that held the sheep and now they have gone missing. This is my children’s future they are destroying.”

The Tursham family lost the tent they lived in as well as 2 brick rooms, an animal pen, and a water cistern. Their land was one of 3 sites demolished in Beit Ula. In total the Israeli army destroyed 1 residential tent, 4 brick rooms, 4 animal barracks , 4 wells, 2 irrigation systems, 150 olive trees and 400 other trees and vines. In Kufr ad-Dik, west of Saflit at least 2 animal barracks and a water well were also destroyed.

Another farmer from a site in Beit Ula showed the wasteland that had just a few hours ago, been full of hundreds of olive and fruit trees.

“I have cared for this land where they destroyed for years, checking every plant everyday. We pay 40 shekels per cubic metre of water from Israeli companies just to water them. I used to go out every night with a torch to check that the irrigation system was working correctly, now they are all destroyed and all our efforts were for nothing.”

After the bulldozers uprooted the 150 olive trees they also confiscated them from the land so that nothing could be salvaged. The farmers told us that they managed to save one home from demolition by sitting in front of it and refusing to move. However the house still has a demolition order on it, and they know that the army will return eventually to destroy it.

All of the farmers told us that they had documents proving that they owned the land, the sites destroyed were all at least 1 kilometre from the Israeli apartheid wall and there are no settlements in close proximity.

One of the farmers explained that the demolitions could not have been for security reasons because pine trees much closer to the wall were not destroyed. He believes they want to drive the farmers out from the land so that it can be claimed as state property after 3 years of not being used.

There are a further 11 demolition orders around Beit Ula, which means many families have to live with the fear that their homes, buildings or crops may be destroyed at any time.

Gaza: Planting in something dead

5 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza 

Around Gaza is a 300 meter “buffer zone,” a no go zone, a land of death.  Gaza is not just a prison, it is a shrinking prison.  Every time that Israel expands this zone, Gaza gets a little smaller.  Every Tuesday, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative and the International Solidarity Movement march into the buffer zone to challenge the occupation and the theft of Palestinian land.  Today, we also marched in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strike in the jails of the occupation.

What could be more logical than one group of prisoners marching in support of another group of prisoners?

We gathered near the Agricultural College of Beit Hanoun at 11 a.m.  We loaded olive trees, shovels, and big jugs of water onto the van.  There was no space in the van, so all of the goods rode on top of the van.  We set off down the road toward the buffer zone, slowly so that nothing would fall off the van as we drove down the rutted road.  We reached the buffer zone, stopped the van, and began to unload the olive trees and everything necessary to plant them.  These olive trees would join the others that we planted last week.  We plan on slowly returning the lands of the buffer zone to what they were before the Israeli’s declared the area a zone of death, we plan on making olive groves flourish in the buffer zone.  Our struggle is not just to return life to the buffer zone, but to make a regular life possible in the areas close to the buffer zone.

The buffer zone is now a little greener than yesterday after planting 20 trees in the buffer zone.  The death that haunts this area is a result of the occupation and its relentless destroying bulldozers.  The same bulldozers that crushed Rachel Corrie to death in Rafah in 2003.

Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke.  He said that we must “affirm our right to land and cultivate and strengthen the resilience of farmers and their return to work the land despite all the terrorist practices of the Israeli occupation.”

“[We] need for a mass movement to support the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”

Hebron in solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike for rights

3 October 2011| International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On the sixth day of the hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, major political factions joined in Hebron and united in support for human rights for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, victims of Israeli collective punishment tactics.

On Tuesday the 27th of September, an open-ended hunger strike was initiated until the fulfillment of 9 demands by Palestinian prisoners, which include the right to family visits, end to the use of isolation as a punishment against detainees, and profiteering of Israeli prisons from financial penalties charged against prisoners.

Approximately 3000 prisoners are taking part in the strike including all the different political fractions from eight different prisons.

On Sunday solidarity tents with the prisoners were positioned in the center of all the main cities in the Palestinian occupied territories, and there are plans for actions such as demonstrations and public street theater throughout the entire week in Hebron and the rest of the territories in support of the prisoners strike.

Amjad Najjar the media spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club in Hebron said, “The strike is a reaction towards the collective punishment imposed on the prisoners that have been further increased after the UN bid for Palestinian statehood. The strike is a reaction towards the humiliation that the Palestinian prisoners are exposed to.”

Najjar elaborated that the conditions for prisoners are much worse in present days, and it is one of the negative byproducts of the Oslo agreement, since prisons are placed outside regions Palestinians have access to, complicating the possibility of family visits. He continued to explain that payment for visits by families as well as fines against all prisoners have developed a prison industrial complex from which Israel is profiting.

The hunger strike in Israeli prisons is a political method used through history to gain certain rights and traces back to the first Intifada. In May and June two prisoners, Attif Uridat Said and Yussif Aleskaffi, who both have medical issues conducted a hunger strike for 34 days in protest of Israel’s denial of medical aid for Palestinian prisoners.

Nablus joins West Bank and Gaza in support of prisoner strike

by Alistair George

3 October 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Hundreds marched in Nablus today to protest against the harsh conditions endured by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and to show solidarity with over 150 prisoners currently on hunger strike.

Prisoners from the leftist PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) movement began open-ended hunger strikes – eating no food and drinking only salted water – on 27 September 2011 in several Israeli prisons, including Nafha, Askhalan and Ramon.

Palestinian prisoners issued a statement on 25 September 2011 demanding the Israeli authorities end solitary confinement for all prisoners and “end the policy of systematic humiliation by the occupation army against the Palestinian people at checkpoints and crossings, particularly targeting visitors to prisons, and end the arbitrary denial of visits to the prisoners, especially the prisoners from the Gaza Strip.”

Protesters are also demanding access to secondary and higher education in prisons – according to Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association there are at least 340 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons and protesters claim that many have been refused education and denied books whilst in Israeli prisons.  According to protesters, prison authorities have frozen the accounts of some inmates, which they use to buy food and other supplies.

The protests have gathered momentum in the past week, spreading to several other prisons.  Prisoners allied to other political parties have begun ‘limited’ hunger strikes – accepting no food from prison authorities and fasting for 2-3 days a week.  Several people began a hunger strike today in Nablus in solidarity with family members in prison.  They plan to stay in tents in Duwar, central Nablus, from the 4 October 2011 onwards as part of their protest.

Protesters converged outside the Red Crescent building in Nablus at 11:30 am today where several speakers, including the Mayor of Nablus and the Chairman of the Popular Committee to Support Palestinian Rights, spoke from a makeshift stage mounted on the back of a truck to call for Israeli to recognise the Geneva Conventions and respect prisoner rights in accordance with international law.  They also called on the international community and Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, to pressure Israel to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

Protesters chanted and called for solidarity with political prisoners in Israeli jails and urging them to continue to resist.    Many waved flags and held up photographs and placards bearing the faces of political prisoners.  After the speeches were finished protesters marched past the western cemetery through the centre of the city Duwar, where the protest ended.

A significant number of the protesters were allied to the leftists group PFLP, alongside many supporters of Fatah and members of humanitarian organisations such as the Palestinian Prisoners Society. There were dozens of female protestors, many of whom were clutching photographs of family members currently incarcerated in Israeli prisoners.  Protestors allied to Hamas and the smaller political parties were also present.

One female protestor, who declined to give her name, said that she was protesting to support the prisoners on hunger strike.

“I have a son in prison, he is serving a life sentence as he was a fighter with the PFLP.  He has been on a hunger strike for seven days and he is in solitary confinement, but I have not been allowed to see him”.

Tahani Al-Shati’s husband has served 11 years of an 18 year sentence for being a fighter in the PFLP.

She said, “ I am worried about my husband as I heard today that he has been taken to an isolation cell because he began a hunger strike.  Me and my children are very upset about this so I came to protest and to be in the struggle with the families of other prisoners.”

Bassam Gyias and Wafa Gyias were protesting to show support for their son Hassan who has served 3 ½ years of a 5 year sentence and began a hunger strike last week in protest at prison conditions.  Yesterday, Hassan was transferred to an unknown location, along with 27 other prisoners affiliated to the PFLP.

Bassam said that they “are suffering because he hasn’t eaten anything for a few days; we feel sad but appreciate his resistance.”

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics there were over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in 2010.

Myassar Atyani is the Director of the Cultural Committee in the PLO’s General Women’s Union and has campaigned on behalf of political prisoners from all parties for six years.  She spent a month in solitary confinement in 2009.

“It was very small, dirty and cold.  It was winter but they put a fan at the window and I was only given one blanket.  I was shivering all the time.  The tap constantly dripped, which gave me a headache and I couldn’t sleep as it was so noisy; either the guards were shouting or the Israeli prisoners were shouting, laughing or singing.”  She says that being held in solitary confinement took a huge psychological toll on her; in addition to not being able to communicate with anyone, she was disturbed by a mirror placed in her tiny cell, which distorted her reflection.  Atyani was only allowed to see her lawyer after eight days in prison – twice in total during the month.

Atyani says that prisoners in isolation cells are usually allowed one hour’s exercise a day, taken alone.  She was not allowed any exercise whilst in prison and the cell was underground, so it was hard to tell whether it was day or night.  Atyani says she kept track of the time through meal times and through the daily ritual of being made stand to attention in her cell at 6am, 10am, 6pm and 10pm.  She scored marks into the walls to keep track of the days. She was only taken from her cell for interrogations, during which she sat in silence and picked at her nails.

She says that she was on hunger strike for a month, only having coffee and water with salt.  “I was very ill; eventually I couldn’t stand or talk.  I also had a severe earache whilst in prison and the Israeli’s didn’t let me have my medicine.  Now, if there are loud noises, I find it hard to hear well and follow conversations”.

Atyani was released after a month; however her brother, who was arrested at the same time as her, was kept for a year in administrative detention – a practice in complete violation of human rights as sentences are based on confidential material kept from the detainee and their lawyer.  According to Addammeer there are at least 750 Palestinians currently detained in Israeli jails without charge or trial.

Atyani is hopeful that the hunger strikes will help to unite different Palestinian factions; “Outside the prisons we need to be united and be stronger across all political parties so that the prisoners will also be strong.”

She is also keen to raise awareness abroad of the plight of Palestinian prisoners – “Some prisoners have been in solitary detention for 15 years and no one hears about this.”

 

Alistair George is an activist with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).