27 August 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | West Bank
At the invitation of Palestinian communities, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is issuing an urgent call for volunteers to join us for the 2024 Olive Harvest Campaign, in collaboration with Faz3a and other groups, starting beginning of October throughout November.
While this is a period when Palestinian families get together in the field and celebrate their connection to the land, it is also a time of increased violence and harassment by Israeli settlers, protected and aided by the army. Harvesting therefore represents a symbol of resistance and defiance towards the occupation and colonisation of Palestine.
In many areas of the West Bank, Palestinian farmers are forced to coordinate with the Israeli army to obtain permission to access their own land. Last year, as Israel perpetrated a genocide against the people of Gaza, the army cancelled almost all permits, preventing farmers to access their land. According to OCHA, during last season more than 96.000 dunums of olive-cultivated lands in the West Bank remained unharvested and over 2,000 trees were vandalized during harvest-related incidents. Palestinians also experienced increased violence from settlers and the army.
As settlers’ and soldiers’ violence is spiraling across the West Bank, speeding up the ethnic cleansing in the area, and the genocide in Gaza approaches one year, Palestinians are expecting a particularly hard harvest and are requesting the presence of international activists now more than ever.
!! To register your interest in joining the Olive Harvest contact ismtraining@riseup.net !!
During this time, the ISM will continue supporting other communities that are facing violence and forcible displacement, as in Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in Palestine is seeking dedicated long-term volunteers to join our efforts in standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people. ISM is a Palestinian led movement founded in 2001 committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles
**Minimum Commitment:** 2 weeks volunteering ON THE GROUND!! (excluding travelling/ training)
**Maximum Commitment:** As long as your visa allows
While a minimum commitment of 2 weeks is required, staying for longer periods, especially 3 months, greatly enhances the continuity and impact of our work. As we grow and strengthen our connections with local families and communities, an extended presence is invaluable.
**Why Stay Longer?**
– **Continuity:** Longer stays help maintain the momentum of our initiatives and relationships.
– **Impact:** A deeper understanding of the situation on the ground.
– **Support:** We strive to assist volunteers staying for 3 months in making their stay more financially sustainable.
Join us in supporting the Palestinian popular resistance to the Israeli occupation and apartheid. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s just demand for freedom.
**Get Involved Today!**
For more information and to apply, visit https://palsolidarity.org @ismpalestine
Can’t come? You can still participate! Considering donating to support our work in Palestine: https://www.gofundme.com/f/isms-vital-work-in-palestine-worldwide
06 May 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Worldwide
Student encampment in support of Gaza at City College of New York campus. Credit: David Dee Delgado/Reuters.
From Palestine to the Freedom Flotilla to College Encampments, Resistance is Growing: An ISM Communique
*****
Human rights defender, Bassam Tamini, has been issued another six-month administrative detention, joining hundreds of Palestinians being held indefinitely without charges. Tamini and his daughter, Ahed, have been strong critics of settler violence in the West Bank. This recent extension is just another tactic to quell dissent and silence Bassam’s advocacy for Palestinians in the occupied territories.
As we look to how brutally police responded to the college encampments, we are reminded that repression is everywhere. And as we are watching Palestinian activists like the Tamini family endure, Palestinians are cheering on young people from the other side of the world who are calling out their government’s complicity in genocide and their college’s refusal to join the BDS movement to divest from Israel.
International Solidarity Movement (ISM) stands with these students risking their academic future, and sometimes their lives, to demand a free Palestine.
Just as we stand with the Freedom Flotilla’s righteous efforts to bring hundreds of doctors, teachers, lawyers, and international human rights advocates from over 40 countries to break the siege of Gaza by sailing across the Mediterranean with 5500 tons of desperately needed humanitarian aid.
We have the right to stand with Palestinians resisting extinction by Land and by Sea.
The International Solidarity Movement continues to host activists in the occupied territories to serve as a protective presence–as advocates and witnesses– against the violence of settler colonialism. Because of this work, we are often deemed incendiary. Similarly, President Biden released a statement claiming the student encampments are violent and destructive and Israeli newspapers published the names of Flotilla participants, painting them as terrorists. But we come together through a diversity of tactics grounded in freedom and resilience reaching across continents and international waters for the sake of our humanity.. and yours.
Consider this a formal invitation to students involved in the encampments, the hundreds of flotilla activists setting sail, and everyone working towards a just peace in Palestine. We are all in this together and there’s nothing quite like being here on the ground, so, come summer, consider spending some time in the West Bank with us. We promise it’s an education you won’t get on campus.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by working immediately alongside Palestinians in olive groves, on school runs, at demonstrations, within villages being attacked, by houses being demolished or where Palestinians are subject to consistent harassment or attacks from soldiers and settlers as well as numerous other situations.
All ISM volunteers must agree to work within the four founding principles :
Palestinian-led
Nonviolence
Consensus
Anti-oppression
What do we do?
ISM’s main objectives in offering support to the Palestinian resistance to the apartheid and their demand for freedom are twofold:
1. DIRECT ACTION: participating in Palestinian-led demonstrations, creatively disrupting activity by the Israeli occupation forces, accompanying children to school and farmers to their fields, residing with or near families whose homes are threatened with eviction, demolition or harassment by settlers and answering Palestinian calls to action.
2. DOCUMENTATION: documenting and reporting to local and international media about the daily life under apartheid and countless human rights and international law violations by the Israeli military and settlers. Activists take photos, write reports and journals, which are shared on our website and social media. The need for documentation is not just to show that there are illegal and unjust actions going on, but also to provide a real means of evidence for accountability to the police and courts, case by case. ISMers are also committed to sharing their experiences when they return to their home countries, through interviews and talks.
Why now?
Since Israel began its current onslaught on Gaza in October 2023, occupation forces have been taking advantage of the state of emergency to escalate their violence and displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. Soldiers and settlers have systematically bulldozed homes, carried out night raids, attacked and killed Palestinians across the region.
There is almost no international media coverage on the ground in the West Bank because of the situation in Gaza, and many human rights organisations have had to leave the area. ISM activists on the ground continue their vital work in solidarity with Palestinians, reporting their eyewitness accounts of the daily atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers and settlers, amplifying the voices of Palestinians and answering local Palestinian-led calls to action.
As a resident of Masafer Yatta told an ISM volunteer, “What is happening is unlike anything before; nobody can predict what tomorrow may bring. There seem to be no openings for hope or a clear vision of tomorrow at this time… The people endure immense suffering, despite limited media coverage of these distressing events. It begs the question: How much longer must Palestinians endure before the world takes notice and acts?”
We are committed now, as ever, to standing in solidarity with Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine and listening to their requests, whether this is being a protective presence, bearing witness to the crimes of the occupation and recording breaches of human rights, or participating in direct action.
What will the money be used for?
Renting an apartment for use by ISM volunteers
Contributing towards travel, phone and other expenses for Palestinian ISM organisers
Creating a solidarity pot to enable international ISMers to remain in Palestine for longer periods of time and have a constant presence in the West Bank
URGENT: Contact occupation authorities to demand the release of human rights monitor:
On November 22nd, 2023 early in the morning, Israeli occupation forces bulldozed a family home in Sha’ab Al-Butum in the Yatta region of the occupied West Bank which has seen soaring levels of extremist settler and IOF violence against Palestinians and human rights defenders.
Palestinian family watches as bulldozers arrive
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been 916 home demolitions in the West Bank, in 2023 alone. As international human rights monitors were present to document the destruction of the residence, occupation authorities arrested a peaceful Belgian/British foreign national and currently have her detained in a central police station.
Human rights worker being led away under arrest during demolition.
The human rights worker, Alison Russell, was standing peacefully at the site of the demolition, and was arrested on outrageous allegations of “publications supporting Hamas” “disturbing soldiers,” “desecration of state symbols,” and “supporting a terror organization”. Alison Russell was brought before a judge on Thursday, November 23, 2023, and charged with “praising, encouraging, or publishing a call to do an act of violence” “damaging the respect of the country’s flag or other symbols” and “disturbing a public worker”. The judge extended Alison’s detention until Sunday, November 26th.
Since October 7th, human rights defenders monitoring this campaign of escalating violence and terror against occupied Palestinians in the West Bank have been groped, verbally assaulted, held at gunpoint, had their phones smashed and confiscated, and the passwords to their devices demanded by occupation forces along with their proxies, the extremist ideological settlers working to ethnically cleanse the area in the South Hebron Hills.
Palestinian women and children survey the damage of the home demolition in Sha’ab al-Butum
Documenting the atrocities occurring in the occupied West Bank has included reporting on the ethnic cleansing of 16 Palestinian villages in Massafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. The Palestinian families in these villages are enduring violent raids, the smashing of their vehicles, the destruction of their farming equipment, the slashing of their water tanks, invasion of their homes and threats that if they do not abandon their homes and villages to the settlers, they would all be murdered within 24 hours.
Free speech is not treason or terrorism. Even Israel’s state prosecutor has previously warned Israeli police that unjustified arrest of dissenters harms the rule of law. International human rights workers and Israeli peace activists are being arrested and jailed for speaking out against settler violence, apartheid, massacres, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. These same unfounded, absurd accusations, when leveled at Palestinians in the West Bank, result in their arrest and torture. And these same unfounded, absurd accusations when directed towards human rights activists in Gaza, result in missiles killing them or their families, as has occurred with Kahlil Abu Yahia, Ahmed Abu-Artema and others.
Urgent action is needed to demand occupation forces release Alison Russell and stop the arrests and prosecution of all international, Israeli, and Palestinian peace activists and human rights workers:
State Prosecuter Eisman:
Email: Amitai@justice.gov.il
