Category: Gaza - Page 36 - International Solidarity Movement

“When we see that our efforts are making a difference, it is easier to continue”

11th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

On Christmas Day 2013, a small armada of tank trucks drove around Jabaliya, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and one of the areas severely affected during the recent floods. Clean water is in short supply here, and many households are forced to spend more than a quarter of their disposable income on this coveted resource. In a refugee camp marked by poverty, this cost is even higher than it sounds. So the truck made frequent stops to fill the water tanks on rooftops, in stairwells or in shacks of corrugated iron and tarpaulins, since the water, this time, was free.

The news of free water spread like wildfire in the camp, and people began to gather around the cars with jugs they wanted to fill, some as small as five liters. A little girl with pigtails came with a coffeepot. Others pointed to houses a few blocks away, afraid that the water would run out before the cars reached them. But the water would suffice. 2.3 million liters were distributed over a period of five weeks in a well-coordinated program. The initiators are an Irish couple, Derek and Jenny Graham, and the program was funded by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation.

This was not the first time the Grahams had taken the initiative to coordinate a similar program. In 2012, they worked for three months handing out water, all over the Gaza Strip that time in green-colored bottles. 600,000 1.5 liter bottles, purchased from an international soft drink giant’s Gaza plant, were carried into mosques and churches for further distribution to hospitals and schools, but also handed directly from the cars to the outstretched hands in the areas most affected by poverty. On Fridays, during the weekends here, the drivers also worked for free, contributing in this way to distribute water to more people in need.

Water distribution is not the only thing the Grahams do. On Christmas Evem they were in a Bedouin camp in the north with blankets and plastic sheeting they had purchased using funds raised on their Web site, separate from Perdana. Because of the simple homes the Bedouins had built, they were hit very hit by the storms that recently swept across the Gaza Strip and in dire need of help. Not only was there major damage to their homes and cattle-sheds, but most of their crops were beyond rescue. But they fell through the cracks if they were not refugees, and were therefore not supported by the UN refugee agency, UNRWA. The government’s ability and willingness to invest in infrastructure near the buffer zone near the separation barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strip, facing constant shootings and incursions by the occupying power, is limited.

The Grahams’ solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza did not start here. In 2008, Derek was on the Free Gaza and Liberty boats when they broke the siege, even if only temporarily. Later that year, he sailed on the Dignity which was boarded by the Israeli military, resulting in a short detention. More attempts followed, on Humanity in 2009, and with Jenny on the Rachel Corrie and Challenger I and II in 2010. In 2011, they made an effort with the MV Finch, but were forced away, and into Egyptian waters, by the Israeli military about 400 meters from their goal. A three-week detention on board the boat, docked in al- Arish, followed. According to Israeli terminology, they are probably classified as repeat offenders. That they tried to bring medicine to a health care system desperately in need because of the blockade, as well as cement for reconstruction, is not likely to be seen as a mitigating factor. The cargo the MV Finch carried, a total of 7.5 kilometers of PVC sewer pipe, finally entered Gaza, with help from the UN, after an eight-month battle.

Their work for the Palestinian people has resulted in an impressive network of contacts with influential people at multiple levels within the community, necessary contacts for the plans they are making for the future. Recently they received approval from the port authority and support among fishermen for an experiment to significantly reduce fuel consumption relative to the catch, something important when fuel prices have doubled since Egypt demolished the tunnels, and with catches gradually decreasing already due to Israeli military limits on fishermen’s ability to pursue their profession. Among their plans is also a sea rescue unit, an effort that is already underway and a project that finds legitimacy in the fourth Geneva Convention.

But what is it that compels them to do all this? They are now in their sixth year, starting from when they first entered by sea. They do not seek fame, and the compensation they receive from Perdana is only paid when they perform projects on its behalf. And why Gaza? Jenny looks up from her laptop when I ask the question, shrugs, and explains for me the similarities between the Palestinian situation and the Irish people’s suffering during the British occupation: the arbitrary arrests, the denials of human rights, and the desire for freedom and self-determination that cannot be extinguished even by force of arms. They have no trouble identifying their history with the Palestinians, and it feels completely natural to assist them. Derek nods in agreement, adding that they cannot reach the West Bank after their time in Israeli detention, and the Gaza Strip is the only part of Palestine where they can reach and work. There are moments when we wonder how long we will cope, he tells me, but when we see that our efforts are making a difference, it is easier to continue.

Local Israel boycott part of Gaza’s “resistance mentality”

8th March 2014 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine

Israeli restrictions on Gaza’s fishermen are an example of apartheid, say activists.

Agricultural organizations in the Gaza Strip are working with academic and other civil society groups to prepare for Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).

Local events, as part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, will run from Sunday, 9 March through Thursday, 13 March in the besieged coastal enclave.

“On the last day, I can guarantee we’ll have a good activity,” said Saad Ziada, field coordinator with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the Gaza Strip and its representative on the local IAW preparatory committee. “I expect 600-700 people will participate, at least.”

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees will organize the last of this year’s local events, a gathering for farmers and fishermen in the Gaza seaport on 13 March.

“Why in the Gaza port?” Ziada said. “Because Palestinian fishermen are prevented from entering and using our sea for their resources. At the same time, Israelis freely use the sea, which is our sea. This is a clear example of Israel’s discrimination and apartheid policies.”

Targeting farmers, fishermen

A joint report, issued a month ago by the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rightsand the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, found “522 documented shooting incidents targeting fishermen at sea, resulting in nine civilian deaths, 47 injuries and 422 detentions” off the Gaza coast between 1997 and 30 November 2013.

During the same reporting period, the report states, “The facts available suggest that hundreds of farmers were unarmed when they were shot at and injured” (“Under fire: Israel’s enforcement of access restricted areas in the Gaza Strip,” January 2014 [PDF]

A year ago, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees held a rally in the seaport, as well as another in the so-called “buffer zone” by the separation barrier surrounding the Gaza Strip, to support a boycott of Israeli agricultural products.

These events were part of a “Farming Injustice” campaign that included actions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as well as 40 European cities.

Activating the boycott

“This year, we want to activate the boycott of Israeli products in the Gaza Strip,” Ziada said. “We want farmers and fishermen to be involved in these activities, to know more about boycott and normalization.”

“The boycott movement will not be just for students and academics,” said Mohamed Abu Samra, an activist with the Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel. “It must include all sectors of Palestinian society.”

As another member of the preparatory committee, Abu Samra has helped to plan a range of talks, films and presentations in the Nuseirat municipal hall, the Palestine Red Crescent Society building and the Women’s Development Center.

He also worked with other Gaza activists to film an Israeli Apartheid Week promotional video.

“BDS gives us a wide area for the biggest part of the population to participate in a kind of resistance, and it’s succeeding,” Abu Samra said.

Workshops

The Arab Center for Agricultural Development, another organization involved in Israeli Apartheid Week has an ongoing campaign to encourage the boycott of Israeli agricultural products by Gaza Strip farmers.

“Last year, we had three workshops on BDS with farmers and other groups,” said Abeer Abu Shawish, the center’s project coordinator and the Israeli Apartheid Week preparatory committee member. “These workshops aren’t finished. We’ll keep them going, to reach all the farmers in Gaza and encourage them to support BDS.”

The center will focus its other major campaign, organizing accompaniment for olive farmers during the harvest season, on the West Bank and coordinate it with the BDS National Committee this year, Abu Shawish said.

In the Gaza Strip, the center plans to increase its boycott activities.

“ACAD will recruit a coordinator just for BDS, to be responsible for all the activities we will have in the BDS campaign,” Abu Shawish said. “We are going to do more activities in all the Gaza governorates, in cooperation with our partners in the West Bank. We are also producing posters, newsletters, social media, radio announcements and other publicity tools. It is a main program in our strategic plan this year.”

Challenge

Despite enthusiasm for BDS by civil society groups like the Arab Center for Agricultural Development and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and their constituencies, implementing it under occupation and siege in the Gaza Strip poses a challenge.

“You cannot ask people not to buy something for which they don’t have an alternative, especially after the closure of the tunnels,” said Mohsen Abu Ramadan, ACAD’s director in Gaza and one of three representatives of the Palestinian NGO Network on the BDS National Committee. “Most of the commodities now come through Kerem Shalom [crossing from Israel].”

Abu Shawish agreed that the siege presents the biggest obstacle to boycotting Israel from Gaza.

“The main difficulty is that we don’t have alternatives to many, many products,” she said. “We can’t stop using them all. If we don’t have an alternative product, whether local, national or international, we have to use the Israeli one.”

But the local boycott has cultural value, she said, even if its economic impact is necessarily limited.

“It’s a kind of resistance. People can do it themselves, without it costing anything.”

“We try to make the boycott a culture, as part of a resistance mentality,” Abu Ramadan said.

Gaza IAW, and local BDS activities in general, contribute strength to a global effort, Abu Samra said.

“It raises the awareness of BDS among people in the Palestinian community, and support the BDS movement outside Palestine. BDS succeeded in the past, in South Africa, and we think it will succeed in ending the occupation now.”

Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. Follow him on Twitter @jncatron.

‘I can’t give you information about your health, it’s a security matter’

7th March 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

International action has been called for in solidarity with prisoners held in Israeli jails. Corporate Watch has been investigating the companies involved in the Israeli prison system and interviewing ex-prisoners. This interview is part of a series of articles which will be released over the coming months focusing on companies providing equipment and services to the Israeli Prison ‘Service’ (IPS).

Israeli surveillance technology overlooks Palestinian farmland in Beit Hanoun- Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013

We met ‘Salah’* at his home in Beit Hanoun in the Northern Gaza Strip a few weeks after his release from seven years prison in Israel. A celebration tent had been set up in his house since his release. We wanted to speak to Salah about the conditions for sick patients in Israeli jails, the particular problems for prisoners from Gaza and the complicity of international companies like G4Sand Hewlett Packard in the Israeli prison system. The Ketziot prison where Salah spent some of his period of imprisonment has been receiving servicesfrom British/Danish company G4S since 2007.

The effects of Israeli air attacks are never far away in Beit Hanoun. As his sons and grandsons bring us tea to drink, Salah tells us that during the Israeli bombardment in November 2012 his grandson ‘Hisham’, who was three and a half years old, “was playing a little way away from a government building. The building was struck by an F16 and rubble hit him on the head. He was in intensive care for seven days.” We are invited to feel the soft patch in Hisham’s skull where he was injured. Salah goes on to tell us: “My son ‘Abed’, now 20 years old, was in the street when the group of boys he was with was targeted by an Apache [helicopter]. One of them was killed and 18 injured. Abed’s hand was amputated, he is seriously psychologically affected.”

When we defended our children, our homes and our homelands

Salah tells us that he wants to tell us the story of what happened when, as he puts it, “we defended our children, our homes and our homelands”. “I was arrested during the first intifada [uprising] and detained under administrative detention for four months. During my arrest I was hit on the head with a stone. While I was interrogated they tortured me by squeezing my testicles. I was released for ten days then detained without charge again for another two years. During that period I remember one of the soldiers pissed on the ground and then scooped up the urine and forced it to my mouth. During the interrogation they hit my legs and toes with sticks.” He rolls up his trouser leg and shows us his bent and scarred legs and feet.

He goes on to say that in November 2006 the “Israelis invaded [Beit Hanoun] and ordered all the men aged from 15 to 50 to gather in one place and asked for our IDs. When they came to me they looked at my ID, then they told me to take off all my clothes except my underwear. They made me walk around several times, it was embarrassing. Then they arrested me.”

At the time of his arrest Salah was being treated for a heart problem. He was taken to the Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint where he was detained for three days, then they took him to Ashkelon prison where he was allowed to see a doctor. The doctor said ‘that he would not be responsible for what happened during interrogation’ as Salah ‘might die’ due to the weakness caused by his health problems. Despite this Salah was interrogated continuously for ten hours. During the interview he had a pain in his chest. They gave him painkillers but the interrogation continued.

Salah told us: “I spent 35 days inside the interrogation cells without any medical care. During my interrogation my health deteriorated. The last part of the interrogation was non-stop for 17 hours – I was exhausted. When it was over they forced me to sign documents in Hebrew which I didn’t understand.”

“They accused me of being a leading figure in Fatah and of membership of the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades [an armed resistance group aligned to Fatah] and of inciting the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades. I told them that I had nothing to do with these things.”

“In Bir al Saba [Beeersheva] prison in 2007 I had a heart attack. They put me in a prison vehicle similar to an ambulance but I was on a stretcher handcuffed and leg-cuffed and wearing an oxygen mask. When I got to Bir al Saba hospital I said ‘where am I, where am I?’ But they didn’t tell me anything.

I stayed there for a few hours. The doctors in the hospital didn’t communicate with me, they just spoke to the soldiers. Then I was driven back to the prison. I asked what the doctors had said about my condition when I returned to the prison. I was told by the officer that he could not tell me anything about my health, as it was a security matter.

I had to return to the hospital regularly. It took more than nine hours from the hospital to the prison. I asked to be transported in a proper ambulance but they refused.

“He is a dog”

In 2012 when I was being taken to hospital one of the guards slammed the door on my legs on purpose. The other guard said to him, ‘why did you do that?’ The first guard answered, ‘he is a dog, don’t worry about him.’

I was always protesting about inappropriate medical care and because of this they constantly transferred me from prison to prison. Painkillers and water drinking are the only solutions they give to medical problems when you bring them up. I met with the International Committee of the Red Cross inside the prisons. I explained to them about the conditions. They made promises but it seemed like it was only slogans, only words.

During the 2012 hunger strike I was in Nafha prison. I was too sick to participate in the strike. The guards tried to make people eat. I saw how they did this. Me and the other sick prisoners threatened that if the Israelis did not meet the demands of the other prisoners we would join the hunger strike and not take food or water.

When I was in the prison clinic getting oxygen I saw the Israeli units kicking and punching the hunger strikers. The guards had food with them and were telling them to eat.

I saw doctors telling the hunger strikers: ‘if you do not stop your hunger strike we will not give you your medicine.’ It was like a battle of defiance between the Palestinian prisoners and the IPS. If an inmate did break the hunger strike the guards tried to humiliate them. Sometimes our clothes were taken and we were left in our underwear. They invaded our cells all the time.

The lives of the people on hunger strike were worth nothing – but what can you expect from people who kill children?”

Denial of visits

After the election of Hamas in 2006 and the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, which ended with Hamas remaining in control of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military decided to end all visits to Israeli prisons by the families of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza. According to Salah, “From 2006-2012 I received no visits. Then, after 28 days of the hunger strike there was an agreement under the supervision of the Egyptians. The IPS agreed to allow some family visits. I received visits about every 2 months”. The number of visits received by prisoners from Gaza is still limited by the IPS.

Salah was imprisoned in Ketziot in the Naqab (Negev) for three years. G4S have a contract to supply equipment and services to Ketziot. Salah told us that the conditions in Ketziot were particularly bad: “We were kept in the caravans. There were three sections to Ketziot: tents, caravans and cement huts. One of the Israeli officers at Ketziot came to my cell and threatened to kill me, another of the guards there took a stapler and fired a staple into my head.

Ketziot Prison – picture from Alternative News

When they invaded our cells in Ketziot they shot tear gas grenades and used pepper spray. They sprayed canisters of gas into the cells. There was a bad smell – you would wash your clothes but the smell would still linger for days. It made you sneeze. Some people lost consciousness because of this. During that time in Ketziot they no longer distinguished between the healthy and the sick and the elderly. My friends used to put me under the bed to protect me because I was weak and they were afraid that I would be killed.

I was also imprisoned in Ramon and Ohalei Keidar prisons.”

‘From a small prison to a big prison’

“When I was released they said ‘let it be the last time for you Salah’. They claimed they could get me back easily if I caused trouble. Since my release I am very nervous, I cannot bear to hear any loud noise. I prefer to be alone.” As he describes this Salah begins to cry.

“I have gone from a small prison to a big prison, here there are drones in the sky and the crossings are closed.

The Israeli border fence in Beit Hanoun – Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013

The British government should put pressure on Israel to release the prisoners – it is Britain’s responsibility. Administrative detention is their law and the Balfour Declaration started all the problems.

I would like the international community to continue their efforts to raise awareness of the conditions for people in Israeli jails. G4S and other companies should be prosecuted and pursued in the International Criminal Court, they are making money out of the crimes being committed against the Palestinian people.”

Physicians instrumental in the Israeli prison system

A group of doctors has called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association in line with the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. The call is on the basis of the IMA’s complicity in torture and Israeli violations of the rights of the civilian population under the fourth Geneva Convention. Dr. Derek Summerfield, a British supporter of the boycott, said it was justified as many Israeli physicians were complicit in the occupation’s crimes. According to Summerfield, one Israeli physician had confessed that he had “removed the intravenous drip from the arm of a seriously ill Palestinian prisoner, and told the man that if he wanted to live, he should co-operate with his interrogators.”

Take action

One way to act in solidarity with sick prisoners is to support calls for the Israeli Medical Association’s expulsion from the World Medical Association over its complicity in Israeli militarism and apartheid. For more details see www.boycottima.org

Or you can join the campaign against G4S, click here to find out more.

A specter is hunting Israel: the specter of the BDS movement

6th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Marco Varasio | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

A 9 February 2012 UAWC demonstration for the boycott of Israeli agricultural products by the "buffer zone" east of Gaza City. (Photo by Desde Palestina) — A 9 February 2012 UAWC demonstration for the boycott of Israeli agricultural products by the “buffer zone” east of Gaza. (Photo by Desde Palestina)

While Israeli ministers are discussing the usage of lawyers and the Mossad to fight boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), in the besieged Gaza Strip, like in 250 other cities around the world, activists, students and representatives of organizations are preparing for the tenth annual Israeli Apartheid Week, the worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli apartheid regime and occupation through lectures, rallies, film screenings and conferences.

One of the changes for IAW 2014 in Gaza, organized by the Preparatory Committee for Resistance to Israeli Apartheid through five preparatory workshops from 22 February to 6 March, will be the key role played by the Union of Agricultural Workers Committee (UAWC), which will involve fishermen and farmers in activities scheduled from 9 March until 13 March.

One of UAWC’s main goal is to make fishermen and farmers aware of the BDS call launched in 2005 and its potential. It organized several workshop about BDS through its local committees.

“The BDS movement must include all Palestinian sectors, such as fishermen and farmers, because the Israeli apartheid policies directly affect them,” said Saad Ziada from UAWC. “Israeli occupation forces prevent our sea from being sailed and worked, while they are using it. This is a clear example of discrimination and apartheid policies.”

The aim of IAW 2014 in the Gaza Strip, where Israel controls the borders, territorial waters, airspace and, due to the Paris Protocol signed in 1994, the economy, is to “raise awareness among the Palestinian people in order to get them to help BDS outside Palestine and Gaza – where goods are supplied through Kerem Shalom checkpoint and Israel often monopolizes the market – showing how the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement affects the Israeli occupation,” said Mohammed Abu Samra, a member of the Preparatory Committee and the Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI).

“Why did we choose to fight through BDS movement?” Mohammed says. “First, the experience in South Africa proved that it is effective. It succeeded in the past. BDS gives us a wide area to involve people and is based on international law.”

“We want to thank all the BDS activists around the world for their activities and their huge amount of work,” he added. “This is an historic moment to prove the success of the BDS movement, to prove that we can isolate the Israeli state. We ask for even more pressure. We ask the international community to implement all the resolution to guarantee us, Palestinian people, our main rights.”

In the besieged Gaza Strip, IAW 2014 activities will start on 9 March with an opening ceremony at the Palestine Red Crescent Society offices in Gaza City, where recorded video messages from Omar Barghouti and Ahmad Kathrada will also be displayed. It will then spread across the universities and municipal halls of the Strip, ending in the Gaza seaport with a final demonstration that, according to UAWC, at least 600-700 people should attend.

Threats of lethal Israeli violence stop a weekly demonstration in the Gaza Strip

5th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Israeli forces fire tear gas at Palestinian demonstrators during the Jabaliya protest on 21 February. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

The regular Friday demonstration at the “buffer zone” east of Jabaliya was stopped by Palestinian police and security forces. The Israel had send a message via Egypt to the Palestinian authorities in Gaza that it would not tolerate any demonstrations and that it intended to shoot at the upper body of those who approached the separation barrier. From the crest at the slope of the hill on the other side, down to the fence and its rolls of razor wire, several Israeli military vehicles were seen. Palestinian police and security forces had a tough task keeping demonstrators away. Ambulances on standby stood behind them, but fortunately the Israeli military did not make their threats a reality.

Islam Shahwan, spokesman for the Palestinian ministry of the interior and national security in Gaza, later said in a statement posted on Facebook and released through the ministry, “It was our commitment to the lives of the our young people from getting shot by the Israeli army through lack of access to the fence and to keep young people away a little bit in order to preserve their lives.”

“We are keen on the lives of our young people and our children and we appreciate their enthusiasm,” Shahwan added. “Thanks God there was no one injured during that day, we take care of the lives of our young brothers.”

The demonstration was planned in dedication to Muatazz Washaha, 24 years old, who had been killed by the Israeli military the day before in the West Bank village of Birzeit. Military forces of the occupying power had surrounded the house where he lived, let other residents evacuate, then shelled the house, well aware that Muatazz were there. Like earlier targeted killings in the occupied territories, the Israeli military is very restrictive regarding protests, and has previously used violence against any form of demonstration. The warning to Gaza that the Israeli military intended to shoot at the upper body of civilians who approached the fence must be understood in light of the incident in the village of Birzeit.

According to an officer at the site of the planned demonstration, no more protests against the occupying power or its abuses will be allowed in the “buffer zone.” They have, on every occasion, resulted in a dozen injuries from live ammunition, as well as direct hits of tear-gas canisters. Mohammed Helles is still in a coma at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital after he was hit in the head with a canister at the previous demonstration.