Category: Features - Page 156 - International Solidarity Movement

Beit Hanoun demonstration under fire

by Nathan Stuckey

25 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Strip

Gaza was treated to a strange new sight today, not really new, but something that has not been seen in Gaza in a long time: tear gas. In Gaza protests are not smashed with tear gas and clubs like in the West Bank, they are met with live ammunition. In a continuation of Israel’s policy to separate the West Bank from Gaza, nothing is overlooked. The sub-human status they wish to cement in the world’s mind when it comes to the people of Gaza is adhered to brutally. On May 15^th2011, when over a hundred demonstrators were shot near Erez, only one canister of tear gas was fired. Before that the protesters faced live ammunition and tank fire. In the three years that regular demonstrations have been carried out near Erez by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, regulars tell me that this was the first time they had seen tear gas.

The demonstration started like all the others. We gathered near the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College and marched towards the no go zone. There were about forty of us, men and women together. As always, the demonstrators were armed only with a megaphone and our voices. Today, we planned to hike from Erez to the east of Beit Hanoun, near the site where two young men were murdered last week while catching birds and collecting rubble near the no go zone. The no go zone, which used to be an area of flourishing orchards has been reduced to yielding rubble to recycle into concrete.

Israel bans the import of concrete into Gaza. Only humans would need concrete to rebuild the thousands of houses Israel destroyed in the 2008-2009 massacres they carried out in Gaza. In Israeli eyes, Gazans aren’t really full people; they are half people to be murdered at will for even thinking of coming close to the no go zone.

This is why we march, we deny the no go zone, and we deny the occupation. The refugees of Gaza, thrown from their homes during the Nakba, want to return to their homes.

We walked down the muddy road that leads to the no go zone. As we got close to the no go zone, the shooting began. Shooting is not unexpected; bullets are the language of the occupation, at least the language that you hear. Ethnic cleansing, oppression, and torture are also languages the occupation speaks, but the loudest voices of the occupation are the bullets and the bombs. The bullets passed over our heads; they slammed into the dirt in front of us. Then, the unexpected happened; the tear gas began to fall. The clouds of tear gas were smaller than I remember from protests in the West Bank. Perhaps the shells are old, they are used so seldom in Gaza that maybe the inventory is old.

This isn’t an issue in the West Bank, there the protests are coated in tear gas, men are killed or severely injured by tear gas canisters shot at them like Mustafa Tamimi and Bassem Abu Rahma who both passed away, or Tristan Anderson, who survived. Women are suffocated by it, woman like Jawaher Abu Rahma. It is fired into houses, schools, fields, villages; tear gas is omnipresent. In Gaza, tear gas is a blast from the past, here the occupation has discarded that language, in Gaza, it only speaks with bullets and bombs.

At first it wasn’t clear if the protest would continue. People were shocked by the use of the new weapon. Quickly though, a decision was reached: We would continue. We walked east along the edge of the buffer zone. Soldiers in concrete towers hundreds of meters away fired live ammunition at unarmed protesters walking on their own land–soldiers in concrete towers built on the land these protesters were ethnically cleansed from.

The black flag that flies over the occupation did not come down after the massacre of Kfar Kassem, it is still there, it is just that it has been flying for so long that no one remembers anything else. the black flag is like the sun, people do not remember a day before it was in the sky.

Walking in the no go zone isn’t easy. The ground is uneven from the constant destruction of the bulldozers which Israel uses to make sure that nothing takes root there. The ground is littered with the past: irrigation pipes, metal rods and concrete rubble from the destroyed houses. Slowly all of this is ground up under the blades of bulldozers and treads of tanks. We walked east, the shooting stopped for a bit. Two soldiers appeared on a hill to the north, they raised their guns. They lost sight of us behind a hill. We emerged from behind a hill: we saw a tank on another hill. Jeeps sped along the border. The shooting began again. Bullets flew over our heads.

Beit Hanoun demonstration under fire – Click here for more images

We reached the eastern edge of our prison and turned south. Soldiers appeared again on a new hill. Shooting resumed, tear gas canisters from 500 meters arced over our heads. We stopped and reminded the soldiers that this was a nonviolent demonstration by people on their land.

They continued to shoot, then the soldiers on the hill began to yell at us with a megaphone, “Gazans are donkeys.” Gazans are not donkeys, they are people, but perhaps if you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe, people like these soldiers. We passed the carcass of a horse, rotting. A donkey grazed to the east of the dead horse. At least the donkey was still alive.

The soldiers continued to shoot at us, bullets and tear gas. Just as Gaza did not kneel after the 23 day massacre three years ago, we will not be stopped by bullets and tear gas. We will continue to protest until the occupation disappears. We will continue to protest until we achieve justice. Without the end of the occupation and true justice, peace is impossible. We will not accept the peace of silent oppression. We will never accept the occupation. Gaza will not kneel.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

A call from Gaza fishermen

11 January 2012 | Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Photo: Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA)

>Do not forget Palestinian fishermen who are prevented from fishing beyond the unilaterally imposed Israeli limit of 3 nautical miles and whose life is constantly under threat from the Israeli Naval Forces.

We are waiting for you to lift the naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and its seawaters and to force Israel to respect international legal obligations.

We the Palestinian fishermen of the Besieged Gaza Strip, the CPSGAZA, the Union of Fishermen in Gaza City, the Palestinian Association for Fishing and Marine Sports and Al Tawofeek Society are calling on the word to force Israel to lift the naval blockade which restricts the Palestinian fishing area to 3 nautical miles and to support the Oliva and similar peaceful civil missions aimed at monitoring Israeli violations and at ensuring Palestinian fishermen the possibility of fishing in safe conditions.

As it has been the case with the buffer zone on land, since the beginning of the second Intifada Israel has been progressively implementing restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical mile permissible fishing area, agreed under the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), was reduced to 12 miles under the never implemented 2002 Bertini Commitment. In 2006, the fishing zone was reduced to 6 miles off the coast. Following the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip ‘Operation Cast Lead’, Israel banned Palestinian fishermen from sailing beyond a distance of 3 nautical miles, preventing them to access 85 per cent of the maritime areas they are entitled to according to the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement.

Despite pledges by the Government of Israel in June and December 2010 to ease the ongoing blockade, the restrictions at the sea continue to paralyze the Palestinian fishing industry, forcing thousands of fishermen to abandon their work because the area within 3 nautical miles is markedly over-fished. Restricting the work of the Palestinian Fishermen by limiting the permissible fishing area to only 3 nautical miles denies them access to the sole source of income available for them and their families. This is inconsistent with Israel’s international legal obligations.

Recently, the Israeli Naval Forces have place large buoys to serve as limit markers for the 3 nautical mile allowed area and have warned Palestinian fishermen not to sail beyond such limit markers; otherwise, they will be subject to shooting, detention and confiscation of boats and fishing equipment. Palestinian fishermen expose themselves to high risk every day at sea, they are frequently harassed and arrested by the Israeli Naval Forces under the pretext of sailing beyond the 3 nautical miles. This has been documented and denounced by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Israeli violations in Gaza’s water have been also documented by the Oliva, the boat sponsored by dozens of local and international organizations, which accompanies fishermen in their activities since June 2011. While trying to document the Israeli violations in Gaza’s seawater, the Oliva herself has been also attacked several times by the Israeli Naval Forces.

We call on the International Community to condemn the continuous attacks by the Israeli Navy against Palestinian fishing boats and to exert pressure on Israel to open the fishing area up to 20 nautical miles. We also call on the International community to support peaceful civil missions with the presence of international observers and entirely legal tools, such as the Oliva, to continue monitoring the violations of human rights in Gaza’s seawaters and allow Palestinian fishermen to work in safe conditions.

Signed:

Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA)
The Union of Fishermen, Gaza
The Palestinian Association for Fishing and Marine Sports, Gaza
Al Tawofeek Society, Gaza
Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Gaza

We Remember: Tom Hurndall

13 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement

Tom was 21 years old when he was shot. A photography student, he had left the UK to volunteer as a ‘human shield’ in Iraq. Here he heard about the ISM, one of whose volunteers, Rachel Corrie, had just been killed by a bulldozer whilst protesting house demolitions in Rafah. He headed there himself, arriving on the 6th April.

On the day of his shooting, Tom was with other ISM activists walking through Rafah when Israeli sniper fire started. Almost everyone ran for safety, but Tom noticed that three children, aged between four and seven, had remained motionless, paralysed with fear. Tom went back for them. He got the little boy to safety, and then went back for the two girls. He was wearing a fluorescent vest, and was clearly unarmed. An Israeli sniper shot him in the head.

There was a two hour delay at the border of the Gaza Strip before an ambulance was able to take him to a hospital in Be’er Sheva. In a coma, he was transferred to a hospital in the UK, where he died the following year.

The soldier who shot him, Taysir Hayb, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eleven and a half years in prison. A British inquest into the killing found that the killing was intentional – in other words, murder.

Tom’s shooting followed the murder of Rachel Corrie, run over by a bulldozer on the 16th March, and the near fatal shooting of Brian Avery, shot in the face in Jenin on April 5th. Later that month, another Brit, filmmaker James Miller, was also killed by a sniper in Rafah. The Israeli military have refused to accept any responsibility for what they did to Rachel, Brian or James.

Hurndall was trying to save Palestinian homes and infrastructure but frequently came under Israeli fire and seemed to have lost his fear of death. “While approaching the area, they (the Israelis) continually fired one- to two-second bursts from what I could see was a Bradley fighting vehicle… It was strange that as we approached and the guns were firing, it sent shivers down my spine, but nothing more than that. We walked down the middle of the street, wearing bright orange, and one of us shouted through a loudspeaker, ‘We are International volunteers. Don’t shoot!’ That was followed by another volley of fire, though I can’t be sure where from…” – Robert Fisk, The Independent, 2009

Tom Hurndall was a young man with a dream…he paid for it with his life. –The Telegraph, 2004

Tom, blind to nationalities and borders, exuded humanity. He wanted, he wrote in his journal, “to make a difference”. He did. He also had an outrageous sense of humour and will be missed, most of all, because he made those of us who were his friends smile. He is survived by his parents, sister Sophie, and his brothers Billy and Freddy. – Carl Arindell, The Guardian, 2004.

Today International Solidarity Movement pays tribute to Tom Hurndall for his bravery and sacrifices. He is never far from our thoughts, and he continues to inspire our Palestinian, Israeli, and International volunteers throughout our campaigns in the Occupied Territories. Tom would want us to remember him. But we also know he’d want us to remember that thousands of innocent Palestinians have died under similar circumstances. These people’s deaths have not been investigated, and have often been lied about, claiming the victims to be combatants or explained away with empty phrases like “caught in the crossfire” or “tragic accident.”

While the ISM acknowledges that the Israeli military court found Wahid Taysir guilty of manslaughter, an injustice was committed by his early release from prison in September 2010 due to “good behavior.”

The international community will continue to question the policy and decision makers responsible for Tom’s murder and the murder of thousands of other innocent people.

ISM turns ten

7 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement- Northern California

As one of the co-founders of the International solidarity movement (ISM) I often refer to ISM as my first baby. Well, my first baby is now an independent unruly and uncontrollable ten-year-old and I am one proud Mama. But I am one of ISM’s many proud Mamas (some of whom are male). For a movement to come into existence it needs to be a vision shared by hundreds or thousands of people who find an opportunity to come together and make it happen. In truth ISM has hundreds of co-founders, and only few of us have been acknowledged.

There is a word in Arabic, Nawal, that means a deep wish that is fulfilled. ISM is one of my Nawals and I am proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in its birth. Now, more than ten years later it is obvious that ISM has a life of its own, independent from any of us that were involved in its beginning. This is the one of the sources of my pride in the movement and there are many. I would like to name a few:

Those of us who where involved in the birth of the movement know that we were making it up as we went along. We still are! ISM is constantly changing, adjusting and reinventing itself. In the first official ISM campaign in 2001 we had a small group of about 30 activists from around the globe and a forty person Italian activist delegation organized by the legendary Luisa Morgentini. Among us we were blessed to have Linda Bevis and Ed Mast from Seattle who had been involved in the then flowering global justice movement. Our mentors from the Christian Peace Makers Team that included Le Anne Clausen and Rick Polhamus coached us in the principles of consensus decision making. Linda and Ed made sure to show us how to apply those principles to all levels of our organizing and decisions taken during the campaign.

The flat, non-hierarchical structure that we adopted early on has proven to be key in the movement’s growth and survival. The Israeli authorities have tried to chop off ISM’s head several times by imprisoning, deporting and denying entry to people they consider leaders of our movement. They seem unable to understand that our movement does not have leaders.

We of course do have experienced and inspiring activists but from the outset in ISM being a hero on the field, or in your field, did not make you a leader, and when it came to making decisions everyone had to sit through the meetings with everyone else or accept the group’s decision. We do still occasionally face problems when people translate their role or position in the movement into power over others, but I am happy to say that ISMers generally don’t put up with that for very long.

As ISM has matured, more often than not, the principle of non-hierarchy is applied and we enjoy a working environment free (or almost free) of power struggles. This structure and the flexibility that it has afforded us has not only allowed us to weather the frequent turn over that results from the occupation’s policy of denial of access, it has also made ISM a structure of empowerment for the thousands of activists who have worked with and through ISM.

ISM’s mandate is that of a supporting participant in the Palestinian struggle against colonialism and Apartheid

The other element in ISM that I am proud of is our principle of being Palestinian led. Ghassan Andoni, another one of ISM’s co-founders set this principle out as an essential condition for our work from day 1. This principle may sound like a contradiction to some since I just said that in ISM we do not have leaders. But being Palestinian led does NOT mean that we have Palestinian leaders. What it does mean is that ISM’s mandate is that of a supporting participant in the Palestinian struggle against colonialism and Apartheid.

The Palestinian people have been engaged in popular struggle since the colonization of Palestine began. Palestinians do not need anyone to tell them what to do, teach them how to do it or to save them but often, they do need our support – and that is what ISM is here for. The call from the Palestinian activists to us has never been clearer. We are called on to engage in and promote Boycott Divestment and Sanctions of Israel (BDS) and to counter Israel’s attempts to isolate the Palestinian people by breaking the siege and coming to Palestine via water, air and land. The siege has taken its most brutal form in the besieged Gaza strip but it exists in a less complete version in the West bank, to which access is severely limited. While in Palestine we are invited to witness and to join in Palestinian popular protest and to carry Palestine’s message back to our home countries.

As I write these words the Arab revolutions and the Occupy Wall Street movements are once again proving the potential of leaderless mass mobilization. It saddens me that in the global solidarity movement with Palestine, some experienced activists, some of whom grew up as activists in ISM, disregard these principles and have fallen back on the old fashioned vertical politics of top-down coalitions, charismatic leaders, and a version of professional activism where experience is used as a tool to withhold power rather than something we have a responsibility to share with others.

The last principle I will mention that ISM is organized around is that we participate in non-violent popular struggle – a form of resistance in which every one and not just a select trained and armed group of people can engage. We did not invent any of these principles. But we were fortunate and smart enough to learn and adopt them and by doing so ISM has set a standard and an example of what solidarity can be.

Neta Golan, an Israeli citizen and a founder of ISM, lives in the West Bank town of Ramallah with her Palestinian husband and three daughters – an illegal act under Israeli apartheid law.

Israeli navy attacks international observers, injures Palestinian, on monitoring boat in Gaza waters

28 December 2011 | Civil Peace Service Gaza

Photo: Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) – Click here for more images

At 10:55 am, an Israeli naval warship attacked the international observers and Palestinian captain of the Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) boat Oliva, injuring its captain in an apparent attempt to capsize it.

“The Israeli navy passed near us and the fishermen, and started to go around us, creating waves,” said Rosa Schiano, one of the international observers. “The fishermen escaped, but we couldn’t because of a problem with our engine. We couldn’t move, and they went around us very quickly. The Israelis saw that we couldn’t move, and that the captain was trying to fix the engine, but they didn’t stop. We told them, ‘Please stop! Please stop!’ But they didn’t.”

When the warship was two meters away from the Oliva, one of the waves it had created nearly capsized the small boat, filling it with water and causing the Palestinian captain to fall out, injuring his left leg.

“Their intentions were to do something very bad,” said international observer Daniela Riva. “Coming so close to us was very dangerous, and they obviously knew that.”

After more than twenty minutes, the warship retreated, and the Oliva was rescued by a small Palestinian fishing boat, or hasaka, which threw it a line and towed it toward the shore.

Photos are available for free use with attribution to Rosa Schiano, Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA): http://bit.ly/CPSGAZAphotos. Additional photos and video will be available upon request: email press@cpsgaza.org.

The incident followed similar attacks on the Oliva during previous missions. Video footage is available: http://bit.ly/CPSGAZAvideos.

Background

Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially 20 nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.”

During the Oslo Accords, specifically under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994, representatives of Palestine agreed to 20 nautical miles for fishing access. In 2002 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan empowered Catherine Bertini to negotiate with Israel on key issues regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a 12 nautical mile fishing limit was agreed upon. In June 2006, following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit near the crossing of Kerem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom), the navy imposed a complete sea blockade for several months. When the complete blockade was finally lifted, Palestinian fishermen found that a 6 nautical mile limit was being enforced. When Hamas gained political control of the Gaza Strip, the limit was reduced to 3 nautical miles. During the massive assault on the Strip in 2008-2009, a complete blockade was again declared. After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army began imposing a 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010).

The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’ and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gazan coast by Israeli gunboats.

The fishermen have been devastated, directly affecting an estimated 65,000 people and reducing the catch by 90%. The coastal areas are now grossly over-fished and 2/3 of fishermen have left the industry since 2000 (PCHR: 2009). Recent statistics of the General Union of Fishing Workers indicate that the direct losses since the second Intifada in September 2000 were estimated at a million dollars and the indirect losses were estimated at 13.25 million dollars during the same period. The 2009 fishing catch amounted to a total of 1,525 metric tones, only 53 percent of the amount during 2008 (2,845 metric tones) and 41 percent of the amount in 1999 (3,650 metric tones), when the fishermen of Gaza could still fish up to ten nautical miles from the coast. Current figures indicate that during 2010 the decline in the fishing catch continues. This has caused an absurd arrangement to become standard practice. The fisherman sail out not to fish, but to buy fish off of Egyptian boats and then sell this fish in Gaza. According to the Fishermen’s Union, a monthly average of 105 tons of fish has been entering Gaza through the tunnels since the beginning of 2010 (PCHR 2009).

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip.” Oct. 2010.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “A report on: Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishers in the Gaza Strip.” August 2009.