Category: Features

Open letter from Gaza: Three years after the massacre, justice or nothing!

27 December 2011 | Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine

We, Palestinians of Gaza, 3 years on from the 22-day long massacre in Israel’s operation ‘Cast Lead’, are calling on international civil society to make 2012 the year when solidarity with us in Palestine captures the spark of the revolutions around the Arab world and never looks back. On this anniversary we demand an international liberation movement that eventually leads to just that, liberation for us Palestinians from 63 years of brutal military occupation and ethnic cleansing that pours shame on any organisation or government claiming to endorse universal human rights.

We will never forget the hurt of 3 years ago, the criminal onslaught that we lived through, the blood of over 1400 murdered men, women and hundreds of children running through the streets of Gaza, between the rubble, soaking our beds and etched on our minds. We will never forget. For they are still dead, and thousands more are still maimed.[1]

We will never forget the last 63 years during which our land, homes, olive groves, lemon trees and cherished way of life was taken away from us, while Israeli soldiers held our fathers’ faces in the sands, imprisoned them, or shot them in front of us. We will not forget the sickening cowardice of the international community that has allowed and enabled this ethnic cleansing of our people, subjecting us to Israel’s racist Zionist vision that defines us, the indigenous people of Palestine, as the undesired ‘ethnic group’ for the region.

The US continues to ‘reward’ Israel with 6 billion dollars of tax-payers money while the EU increases its trade and diplomatic relations. For the Israeli apartheid regime this translates as the green light to unleash the 4th most powerful military on us to ‘do its worst’ against our civilian population, of which over half in Gaza are children and over 2 thirds are UN registered refugees.

In recent years, civil society and solidarity movements throughout the world have grown in their support for us, especially in 2011. As the world wakes up, the prospect of life without Israeli occupation and its system of race-based subjugation becomes more than a dream. We demand simply, human rights that anyone else would expect. This year, the first taste of liberation in the Western controlled Arab world arrived in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Many of those who took to the streets moved beyond their fear of being killed or tortured, facing up to the despotic, Western-backed regimes in the name of freedom for their families, communities and compatriots.

We will never forget them too, as we have lived much of our lives beyond this fear, our resilience against Israeli apartheid growing as the solidarity movements around the world grow. No longer under the boot of Western governments we urge the Arab street to do what the Israeli Apartheid Regime fears the most, to unite and build against them, the state that has violated more United Nations resolutions than any other. The siege breaking attempts into Gaza must continue, the second Free Gaza Flotilla exposed again the brutal and merciless edge of Israel’s hermetic siege.

In Europe and America the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS)[2] movement is reaching the mainstream. Huge victories have included campaigns against waste and transport infrastructure firm Veolia who build transport routes on Israeli occupied lands.[3] Inspired and supported by Nobel Prize winner and anti apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the University of Johannesburg ended its collaboration with Ben Gurion University in Israel.[4] Other University campuses are pursuing boycott campaigns and major European Trade Unions have broken ties with Israeli Trade Unions. And a growing number of conscientious artists and singers are refusing to perform in Israel.

 All over Israeli internet sites and in government policy are attempts to deter the growing BDS movement,[5] an international strategy that succeeded against a similarly well-armed, Western affiliated apartheid regime in South Africa.

The effect worldwide of the Gaza massacres 3 years ago was a catalyst for a huge rise in worldwide solidarity and action in support of Palestine, just as the South African Sharpeville massacre was for South African blacks in 1960.

Our call this year will accept no compromise. We call upon all Palestine solidarity groups and all international civil society organizations to demand:

  • An end to the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of their exercise of democratic choice.
  • The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention.
  • The immediate release of all political prisoners.
  • That Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip be immediately provided with financial and material support to cope with the immense hardship that they are experiencing
  • An end to occupation, Apartheid and other war crimes with immediate reparations and compensation for all destruction carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza.

For us, the sacrifices for resisting have often meant imprisonment, torture, collective punishment and death. Outside, the risks are lower, but with great possibility. We call on you to Boycott Divest and Sanction, join the many International Trade Unions, Universities, Supermarkets and artists and writers who refuse to entertain Apartheid Israel. Speak out for Palestine, for Gaza, and crucially ACT. There has never been a time when mobilizations are gaining such support. 1994 was the year of South Africa when Apartheid was thrown into the dustbin of history; with your support we can make 2012 the year of free Palestine!

THE TIME IS NOW!

List of signatories:

General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Health Services Workers
University Teachers’ Association
Palestinian Congregation for Lawyers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women’s Work Committees
Union of Synergies—Women Unit
The One Democratic State Group
Arab Cultural Forum
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
Association of Al-Quds Bank for Culture and Info
Palestine Sailing Federation
Palestinian Association for Fishing and Maritime
Palestinian Women Committees
Progressive Students’ Union
Medical Relief Society
The General Society for Rehabilitation
General Union of Palestinian Women
Afaq Jadeeda Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Deir Al-Balah Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Maghazi Cultural Centre for Children
Al-Sahel Centre for Women and Youth
Ghassan Kanfani Kindergartens
Rachel Corrie Centre, Rafah
Rafah Olympia City Sisters
Al Awda Centre, Rafah
Al Awda Hospital, Jabaliya Camp
Ajyal Association, Gaza
General Union of Palestinian Syndicates
Al Karmel Centre, Nuseirat
Local Initiative, Beit Hanoun
Union of Health Work Committees
Red Crescent Society Gaza Strip
Beit Lahiya Cultural Centre
Al Awda Centre, Rafah

References

[1] http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?CategoryId=1&DocId=917

[2] http://www.bdsmovement.net/call

[3] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/veolia-takes-severe-blow-as-it-fails-to-win-485-million-pound-contract-in-west-london-8559

[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8404451/South-African-university-severs-ties-with-Israel.html

[5] http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/07/13/israel-anti-boycott-bill-stifles-expression

Your help needed: Donating olive trees this holiday season

19 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

As we creep up to Christmas and are seeing more and more trees appear in houses and high street windows, while we debate when to put up our own, if at all this year, I ask you all to give consideration to a much more special tree (in my opinion): the Palestinian olive trees.

International volunteers assisted in planting the olive trees
International volunteers assisted in planting the olive trees

This year has been a rough one for farmers in Palestine. In one village alone, Burin (Nablus) over 4000 olive trees have been destroyed by Israeli settlers. Qusra bid its martyr farewell, Essam Aoudhi who was murdered by Israeli soldiers while trying to defend his olive trees and land. Attacks leading up to the olive harvest were coming thick and fast, with the Israeli settlers ensuring the most amount of damage before the harvest, causing unbelievable loss to farmers’ revenue.

In January volunteers in Palestine will join the farmers to show solidarity in projects such as land repair, ploughing for the new season and replanting olive trees. It is the latter project that we ask for help with.

Olive trees are the Palestinian Christmas tree. We ask from the most sincere of places for you to make a donation of whatever you may be able to afford. We are looking to raise as much as possible to buy olive trees and donate them to the villages.

Olive trees cost about $3 at the moment plus inexpensive transport.  Buy an olive tree along with your Christmas tree this year, or if your Jewish why not buy eight for the eight evenings of Hanukkah.

Please feel free to donate through our PayPal account using the email zatoun.nablus@gmail.com, where you can also contact us if you have anu additional questions. For more information please visit our Facebook Event.
Thank you so much!

Much love and Merry Christmas,

International Solidarity Movement

Mourning Mustafa Tamimi as Israeli soldiers escalate violence

by Alistair George

11 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Over two thousand people attended the funeral of Mustafa Tamimi in Nabi Saleh today.  Tamimi was killed during a protest in Nabi Saleh on Friday after he was struck in the face by a tear gas canister fired at close range by the Israeli military.  He was 28 years old.

Mustafa Tamimi (left) a moment before his injury. Circled in red are the barrel of the gun and the projectile that hit him. Picture credit: Haim Scwarczenberg

At least six people were arrested and several people were injured as the Israeli military reacted violently to protests following the funeral.  Despite the nature of Tamimi’s death, the Israeli military continued the practice of  firing tear gas canisters directly at  protesters.  Although it is permissible to fire tear gas canisters in an arc to disperse demonstrations, it is forbidden to use them as weapons by firing them directly at protesters.

 At least seven people were treated by the Red Crescent paramedics and one protester was taken to hospital after suffering from severe tear gas inhalation and respiratory problems.  One protester sustained a wound to the head, which paramedics suggested came from being struck by a tear gas canister.

 Over 100 people gathered at the hospital in Ramallah this morning from 9am.  Just before 10am, Tamimi’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, was carried from the hospital through central Ramallah.  The crowd chanted slogans and waved Palestinian flags as they carried his body – some held up posters showing a photograph of Tamimi’s bloodied face; his orbital lobe was smashed where the tear gas canister hit his right eye. Tamimi’s body was then taken in an ambulance to Nabi Saleh, the village 20km north of Ramallah where he lived.  A long procession of cars and taxis followed as people joined from Ramallah for the ceremony.

 Upon reaching Nabi Saleh, mourners gathered and walked up the main road leading to the mosque in the village. The approach was strewn with spent tear gas canisters from previous demonstrations. Tamimi’s body was taken to the family’s house and then to the village’s mosque at around 11:30. The village’s mosque was packed and people performed the noon prayer, followed by the Janazah prayer, customary after a death. Tamimi was then carried to the village’s cemetery where he was buried as mourners chanted and made speeches.  Bouquets of flowers and tributes were laid over his grave.  As the funeral drew to a close, hundreds of demonstrators headed out of the village to protest against the killing, where they were met by several military vehicles and dozens of Israeli soldiers.

 The military fired tear gas canisters and deployed a foul-smelling water cannon at protesters, some of whom threw stones in response.  The military fired tear gas canisters directly into houses and gardens lining the road at the entrance to the village.

The mourning of Mustafa Tamimi - Click here for more images

Several protesters headed out of the village down the slopes towards the Ein al-Qaws spring, which is the focus of the weekly protests in the village.  The spring and surrounding area was taken over by residents of Halamish, a nearby illegal Israeli settlement, in 2009.  Hundreds of protesters have been injured in Nabi Saleh but Tamimi was the first fatality during the demonstrations in the village.  Tamimi was the twentieth person to be killed at similarWest Bankdemonstrations over the past eight years, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

 The protesters confronted Israeli military personnel on the road, demanding to know “who killed Mustafa?”.  The military responded to the peaceful demonstration by violently shoving, choking and kicking Palestinian and international protesters.  Soldiers dragged one protester across the road by his neck and crushed another’s head into the ground with his arm.  One soldier grabbed a poster of Tamimi and tore it up.  They detonated sound bombs in the middle of crowds of protesters, the explosions causing ringing in the ears.  They also fired tear gas canisters directly into crowds of protesters.  At least two international protesters were arrested, including a member of ISM, and four Israeli peace activists were arrested.  They are currently being held at Abu Dis station, near Ramallah.  No Palestinians were arrested.  The Israeli military violently shoved a number of press photographers who were attempting to cover the protest.

 Ibrahim Bornat, 28, was with Tamimi when he died; “We were alone, with the rest of the protest quite far behind.  We were chasing the jeep, telling it to leave the village.”  Bornat says that one jeep waited for them, opened the door and fired two tear gas canisters directly at them, from a distance of around three meters.  When the first tear gas canister was fired, Bornat claims that “Mustafa pushed me so it went over my head, the second one hit him but I didn’t realize…I thought maybe he had passed out from the gas.  I went to him and turned him over and took the cloth off his face.  It’s worse than any words I can say…the side of his face was blown off, the eye was hanging out and I pushed it back but I could see the inside of his head.”

 Bornat says that, although Tamimi’s heart may have been revived later temporarily, he knew he was dead – “When I was holding him, I’m sure that he died in my arms.  He let out a gasp and his soul left.”

 According to Bornat, there were no ambulances around, so they put Tamimi in a service [communal taxi] but the Israeli military stopped it and tried to arrest Tamimi, until they realized how seriously injured he was.  Bornat says that Tamimi lay on the ground for half an hour, receiving treatment by the Israelis, until someone fetched his ID card; “They were doing something but he needed to be taken to hospital right away.”

 Bornat was not surprised at the actions of the Israeli military – “The occupation maintains itself through killing” he said.

 Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

No miracle yesterday in Nabi Saleh: Mustafa Tamimi murdered

by Linah Alsaafin

10 December 2011 | The Electronic Intifada

Mustafa Tamimi (Photo: ActiveStills)

“Ambulance! Ambulance!”

So far, there were three people who had suffocated from the tear gas, and three people injured by rubber bullets. I saw gas, and so assumed that it was another case of suffocation. But the cries got louder, urgent, desperate — quite unlike the previous calls. Along with those around me, we began running to where the injured person lay, 50 meters away.

Screams. “Mustafa! Mustafa!”

I ran faster. I stopped. The youth I was so used to, the same ones who were always teasing and joking and smoking, were crying. One turned to me and groaned, “His head. His head is split into two!”

My stomach plummeted and I forgot to breathe. Exaggeration, I thought. Impossible. Not here. More screams of “Mustafa!”

I saw the man lying on the ground. I saw the medic with one knee on the ground, his face a mask of shock. I saw his bloodied gloved hands.

Mustafa’s sister was screaming his name. I saw Mustafa. I saw the blood, the big pool of dark red blood. I saw the blood dripping from his head to the ground as they carried him and put him in a taxi, since the ambulance was nowhere to be found. I saw other the tear-streaked faces of other activists, and all I felt was numbness.

Mustafa’s sister Ola was still screaming, so I put my arms around her as she buried her head in my chest. I was babbling, “It’s ok, he’s gonna be fine, it’s ok” but she kept on screaming. Her screams and the disturbing reactions of those around me made my legs numb. Ola then left to go to the watchtower where the taxi with her brother was, and my state of shock crumbled as I gasped out my tears in the arms of my friend.

The first protester death in Nabi Saleh

Friday, 9 December marked the second year since the tiny village began its weekly demonstrations protesting the expropriation of their land for the neighboring illegal settlement of Halamish, and the confiscation of the village’s main water supply, the Kaws Spring. It also marked the 24th anniversary of the first intifada. Fittingly, it seemed only natural the Israeli army would react with more violence than usual. But never did we expect someone to be killed. It’s too awful to think about. Nabi Saleh has a population of around 500 people. Everyone knows everyone in this tight-knit community, so when one gets killed, a big part of us dies also.

Mustafa, 28 years old, was critically injured after Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister at his face, and died at a hospital after his treatment was delayed by the occupation forces who had invaded the village to repress the weekly demonstration.

One difference that distinguishes Nabi Saleh from other villages with popular resistance committees, like Nilin, Bilin, Biddu and Budrus is that no one has been killed, or martyred in the protests. Beaten up, yes. Arrested, ditto. But never a death. Until yesterday.

My humanity is only human

Just before Mustafa went into the operating room, some good news came through. He had not suffered any cognitive damages to his brain, although he suffered a brain hemorrhage. There was a chance his eye might be saved. Relief washed over us. We tweeted, “please #Pray4Mustafa.”

I had pictured myself going to Nabi Saleh the next day, not the following Friday. I had imagined sitting in a room with weeping women, after passing by the somber men sitting outside. I had envisioned a funeral and an inconsolable Ola with her mother. Thank God there was a reassuring chance he would be ok. We’d make fun of his bandaged face, just like we did to Abu Hussam when a rubber bullet hit him under the eye a few weeks ago.

Then I got the call that Mustafa had succumbed to his wounds.

My humanity is only human. I hate my enemy. A deep vigorous hatred that courses through my veins whenever I come into contact with them or any form of their system. My humanity is limited. I cannot write a book titled I Shall Not Hate especially if my three daughters and one niece were murdered by my enemy. My humanity is faulty. I dream of my enemy choking on tear gas fired through the windows of their houses, of having their fathers arrested on trumped-up charges, of them wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets, of them being woken up in the middle of the night and dragged away for interrogations that are spliced with bouts of torture.

The soldiers laughed. They smiled. They took pictures of us, zooming in on each of our faces, and they smirked. I screamed at them: “Nazis, terrorists, vermin, programmed killing machines.”

They laughed at us as we screamed at them to let us through to where he was, unconscious in a taxi near the watchtower. They threatened us if we didn’t go back. We waved the flag with his blood on it in front of them. One of them had the audacity to bat it away. We shouted, “His blood is on your hands!” They replied, “So?”

I thought of Mustafa’s younger brother, imprisoned all these eight months. I thought of that brother’s broken jaw and his subsequent stay in the prison hospital. I thought of Juju (Jihad Tamimi), he of the elfin face who arrested a few days ago with no rights to see a lawyer after being wanted by the army for more than a year. I shuddered to think of the reactions of these imprisoned men from the village — Uday, Bassem, Naji, Jihad, Saeed – once they received the news.

I got the call just after 11pm Friday night. I was sworn to secrecy, since his family didn’t want to make it public yet. Anger, bitterness and sorrow overwhelmed me. I cried at my kitchen table.

The author (left) with Ola Tamimi (center) after Mustafa Tamimi was shot at close range by the Israeli military in Nabi Saleh village (Photo: Anne Paq / ActiveStills )

I hate my enemy. I can’t go to sleep. The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. They yells, the wailing, the groans, the sobbing all fill my ears like water gushing inside a submarine, dragging me further into a cold dark abyss.

I sought out religion as a source of comfort, yet it didn’t alleviate the anguish. His life was written in al-Lawh al-Mahfooz (The Preserved Tablet) since before he was born. His destiny was to become a martyr. How sweet that will be in the afterlife! But here on this earth, his sister is beside herself. His mother is hurting enormously. Her firstborn gone, no longer to drink the tea she makes or to make her laugh with his jokes.

The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. A bloody pulp on one side of his face. The pool of blood rapidly increasing. (Mama, there was so much blood.) His mouth slightly open, lying supine on the cold road. His sister screaming, her face twisted in grief. The young men weeping, looking like little boys again.

I hate them for making us suffer

I loathe my enemy. I will never forgive, I will never forget. People who say such hatred transforms a person into a bitter cruel shell know nothing of the Israeli army. This hatred will not cripple me. What does that mean anyway? Do I not continue to write? Do I not continue to protest? Do I not continue to resist? Hating them sustains me, as opposed to normalizing with them. Their hatred of me makes reinforces the truth of their being murderous machines. My hatred of them makes me human.

I can’t sleep. The shock flows in and then dissipates, before flooding back in again. I see no justification is implementing such violence on a civilian population, no sense in the point-blank murder of a man whose rights are compromised, and whose land is colonized and occupied.

Sure as hell, you will not be forgotten. You will become an icon, a symbol, and the added impetus for persisting and continuing your village’s struggle which reflects the plight of the average Palestinian for its basic rights, equality, and justice.

I hate them for making us suffer. Hating them will give me more strength to shatter their barbaric supremacist ideology, and to bring them under the heavy heel of justice. We’ve suffered so much. I hate them for not giving credit to our sumoud (steadfastness), and so continue to kill and dispossess and imprison and humiliate us.

They killed you, Mustafa. My insides crumple. You, in front of me. My tears are drawn from the depth of my wounded soul. You were engaged to be married. You were wanted by the army because of who you are: a Palestinian who resists the occupation he directly suffers from. I think of your father being denied a permit to be with you, of your mother who had to be granted permission by them to see you in the hospital. I think of your quiet, sardonic expression.

Your screaming sister. Your blood. Your murderers’ smiles.

Linah Alsaafin is a recent graduate of Birzeit University in the West Bank. She was born in Cardiff, Wales and was raised in England, the United States and Palestine. Her website is http://lifeonbirzeitcampus.blogspot.com/.

Still casting lead: Israeli air force attack kills 2, injures 12 in single family

by Radhika Sainath

9 December 2011 | Notes from Behind the Blockade

Midhad El Zalaan in his home after Israel’s bombing (Photo: Radhika Sainath, Notes from Behind the Blockade) – Click here for more images

Update: Midgdad’s 12-year-old cousin died yesterday.

“This is the occupation,” a neighbor mumbled as we stepped into what remained of twenty-year-old Migdad El Zalaan’s cement-block home in the north of Gaza City this afternoon.  The Israeli Air Force dropped the first of three bombs near Zalaan’s home at approximately 2 a.m. this morning killing his uncle, wounding El Zalaan and the rest of his twelve family members, and destroying his home.

In one corner of the living room a baby doll lay on a mattress buried under shards of tin roof.  Cement blocks squashed plastic party hats and red stuffed bears, and  El Zalaan family’s modest possessions lay buried under layers of dust and rubble.  El Zalaan was on his computer right before Israel attacked.

“After the Israelis dropped the first bomb, I took my family and left my home,” explained El Zalaan, periodically looking up at the sky, where the ceiling once was. “Then the second bomb dropped and I went to my uncle’s home to find out if they were okay. My uncle’s wife [Saada El Zalaan] called me from under the rubble. She was holding her baby, I took the baby and then Israel dropped the third bomb.”  El Zalaan then helped his aunt out of her house despite her pleas to get her son out and leave her.

“I kept digging, looking for my uncle, then I found him, buried, but still breathing. He told me ‘take care of my family, take care of my wife and my children’ and then he died in my arms.”  Bahjat El Zalaan was 33-years-old and the father of 5 when he died.

El Zalaan described how during the bombing he was screaming and pulling his hair out, and how he was trying to protect his mother, father, grandmother and siblings from the shrapnel by holding them in his arms. “I got rubble in my leg and back,” he explained, wincing in pain throughout the interview.

He took his family to Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Two of his siblings, ages 8 and 10, remain in critical condition.  Israel had destroyed the roof of his home before, during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009.  On the outside of the home, a small plaque hung near the broken window, “This shelter was repaired by UNRWA through a generous fund from the Federal Republic of Germany.”

Before leaving, El Zalaan asked if he could take a photograph with us and his cousin, who snapped a photo on his cell phone. As we left I asked him if he worked, and he said no, “we stay at home because there’s no work.”