Category: Gaza

Mosques, churches, protests: Gaza on the Balfour Declaration’s 102nd anniversary

3rd November | Wafa Aludaini | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Gazans march in protest on the 102nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

On the 102nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, churches rang bells and mosques called for prayer at the same time, while tens of thousands of Palestinians entered the buffer zone this Friday between the besieged Gaza Strip and Israel in the massive weekly Great March of Return protest.

This 81st week of protests was called “Down with the Balfour Declaration!”. It marks the 102nd anniversary of the British declaration announcing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Palestinian masses now are calling on Britain to not only apologize but also rectify this major historical disregard for Palestinian self determination and statehood.

Palestinian children at the 81st week of the Great March of Return in Gaza.

Ali Salim, 55, stated that the Balfour Declaration, in fact, is the cause and source of all the Palestinian tragedies and sufferings since then: “The 102nd anniversary means 102 years of displacement, expulsion, massacres, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”

Khawla Khalil added, “We came here today to confirm our rights, and our rejection of Balfour! These days, we are experiencing the declaration through Trump’s Deal of the Century, when he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

Palestinian women holds a key, symbolizing the right of return for Palestinian refugees, at a protest in Gaza on Friday, November 1st.

Duaa Abdellateef — spokesperson for the Women’s Committee adjunct to the Committee for the Great Return March — said the weekly marches will continue until Palestinian rights and demands are met.

“We will defeat all the local and international conspiracies that aim at liquidating our Palestinian national cause, including the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, disregard of the internationally recognized right of return, and the proposed Israeli annexation of the West Bank.”

On Thursday afternoon, October 31st, mosques in Gaza called for prayers at precisely the same time local churches rang their bells, marking the 102nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The public statement was intended to show all faiths in Gaza renewing their rejection of the British empire’s edict. The coordinated actions by mosques and churches across Gaza were organized by the Great Return March’s higher committee.

One of the churches in Gaza which took part in the coordinated actions for the 102nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

Wafa Aludaini is a journalist and activist in Gaza who writes a weekly column for ISM on the Great March of Return.

Slain Gaza protester: father, husband, brother, and “a Palestinian who dreamed of liberation”

5th October | Wafa Aludaini | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

A Palestinian protester identified as Alaa Nizar Hamdan, 28, was shot dead yesterday by Israeli Occupation soldiers in Jabalia, northern Gaza during the 77th week of the “Great March of Return” protests.

As thousands of Palestinians gathered near the Israeli barrier fence surrounding Gaza to participate in the marches, Israeli forces, who were positioned on sandy hills near the separation fence, opened fire, using live ammunition and tear gas canisters against the unarmed protesters. At least 50 were injured, 22 of them from live ammunition.

Alaa Nizar Hamdan was a husband and father with a 3 year-old daughter, Layan. On Saturday, the day after Alaa was killed, I spoke with his wife and family.

“Layan was everything to her father, since his death she has asked me hundreds of time about him, and I just keep crying… he always dreamed to have kids, and to bring them up in a beautiful home of their own,” his wife recalled. Layan was conceived through in vitro fertilization, an extremely costly process anywhere in the world but especially for Gazans. “He was working on his new flat, it just needed a few more things to be ready for us, but he died before achieving his dream”.

 

Alaa Nizar Hamdan, 28, killed by Israeli live ammunition on October 4th, 2019

 

Layan, Alaa’s only daughter, sat beside me while I spoke with her mother, playing with the new toys her father brought her for her 3rd birthday, blissfully unaware that her father would not be coming back, that she is now fatherless. “Last month, he celebrated his daughter’s birthday for the first time. He saved money from his salary for 6 months for the celebrations and gifts.”

One of Alaa’s sisters, Hanaa, 22, told me, “We are seven sisters and six brothers, Alaa was the middle brother, and the kindest among us…He was always so helpful and smart,” she added.

 

Alaa’s sisters mourn their brother’s death.

 

Alaa was previously shot and injured in the leg a month ago by Israeli snipers during the Great March protests. Alaa’s brother Mohammad recalled that “even after his injury, he would go with his crutches, to keep protesting for our rights. He enjoyed life, he liked swimming and travelling…his only fault was being a Palestinian who dreamed of liberation.”

Mohammad was there the day Alaa was killed and saw it happen in front of him. “He posed no threat to the Israeli soldiers, he was not even holding anything in his hands. He was more than 100 hundred meter away from the soldiers.” According to PRCS ambulance medics, who took him to the Indonesian Hospital where he was pronounced dead, Alaa was shot in front of the main gate of Abu Safiyah area while he was about 80 – 100 meters west of the Israeli barrier fence.

 

Alaa’s brothers mourn his death in Jabalia, Gaza.

 

Alaa used to work in a stone factory but the factory closed several years ago due to the Israeli economic and military blockade imposed on Gaza.

Medics say the slain father was shot in his chest by an explosive bullet, banned under international law, fired by an Israeli soldier enforcing an illegal occupation. Since the commencement of the Great March of Return in Gaza, in March 2018, 313 Palestinian protesters have been killed by Israeli forces, among them 2 journalists, 3 paramedics, 3 women and over 90 children. Thousands more have been wounded.

Palestinians in Gaza are calling for an end to the longstanding Israeli siege, which blocks the shipment to Gaza of everything from medical supplies, food and fuel, to materials to rebuild their homes, and the right of return to lands they were forcibly expelled from inside Occupied Palestine.

 

Wafa Aludaini is a journalist and activist in Gaza who writes a weekly column for ISM on the Great March of Return.

On the 71st week of the Great March of Return, the world forgets while Gazans remember

August 25, 2019 | International Solidarity Movement | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Gazans run from tear gas at the 71st Great March of Return. Pic: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Eleven consecutive weeks of protests in Hong Kong have captured the focus of online commentators, heads of state, and global media. In France, 39 weeks of protests by the Yellow Vests movement continues to garner widespread interest. In the US, Occupy Wall Street is now an international household name after occupying Zuccotti Park for 9 straight weeks. 

Last Friday marked the 71st week of the Great March of Return protests in Gaza, a staggering 1 year and 4 months of weekly demonstrations that have become largely forgotten in the amnesic world of headlines and social media. 

The protests began to demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees and an end to the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of Gazan economy and society. Friday’s protests, titled “Protests for al-Aqsa Mosque” took place in Abu Safiyah, Gaza City, Bureij, Khan Younis, and Rafah. Once again, for the 71st week in a row, the Israeli army responded with undue force, spraying non-violent protesters with live ammunition, tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. 149 civilians were injured, including 66 children, as well as 7 paramedics. 77 unarmed protesters were shot with live bullets. On the 70th week, titled “Palestinian Youth’s Friday”, 83 civilians were injured, including 24 children. 36 civilians were shot with live bullets. The week before that, the 69th week 73 civilians were injured, including 30 children, two journalists and a paramedic. I could go on. 

Journalist is treated for bullet wounds after being shot by Israeli soldiers at the Great March of Return. Pic: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

The Israeli Military justify their actions by claiming they are responding to protesters throwing stones, Molotov cocktails, and flying burning kites and balloons. 

  Since the start of the Great March of Return protests, on March 30th, 2018, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights has documented 208 Palestinian deaths by Israeli forces, including 44 children, 4 paramedics, and 2 journalists. Another 13,629 were injured, including 196 who now suffer from serious disabilities ranging from amputations, paralysis, permanent loss of sight and hearing, and other disabilities. 

The death toll and number of injuries after one year of protests in the Gaza strip. Pic: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

  One might ask, in light of the brutal violence and tremendous human cost, why Gazans continue to protest every Friday, knowing the risk to their health and lives?

  Maybe because Gazans don’t have the luxury of not protesting, of being able to quit and return to their “daily lives”. Maybe because while we, in the comfort and security of our homes, can choose whether or not to open a news story about protests in Gaza, Gazans must face a devastating reality; according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 90% of Gaza’s water is undrinkable.

The rest is projected to become undrinkable due to pollution and lack of sewage treatment by 2020, at which point Gaza may become “unlivable”. Gazans receive on average of only 10 hours of electricity a day. Unemployment stands at 47% (65% amoung youth). While 75% of Gazans rely on international aid, mostly food aid, 35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are inaccessible due to Israeli military policies. Hospitals are massively overstretched and under supplied, with one third of medicines deemed essential by the UN unavailable. 85% of schools in Gaza are running on double shifts, meaning students can only have 4 hours of classes a day. 

Jamil stands in the wreckage of his home years after the Gaza massacre of 2014

All of these realities on the ground have been confirmed by United Nations reports, in addition to UN Security Counsel Resolution 1860 (2009), which calls for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. Yet the international community has thus far failed to act on the resolution, or make any concrete actions to push for its enforcement, leaving Gazans no choice but to try to call attention to their plight in any way they can, regardless of the cost. 

The casualties of last Friday’s Great March of Return protesters failed to capture the world’s attention. It wasn’t reported in CNN, BBC or Al Jazeera; it didn’t make news in the Times, Reuters, or RT. Perhaps, if we as individuals listened to what Gazans have been trying to say for the past 71 weeks, the international community would be forced to respond. Perhaps, if the protests in Gaza elicited the same attention as the protests in developed nations, governments around the world would take notice and maybe even take action. 

Perhaps, if we stopped forgetting the people of Gaza, they would not have to put their bodies and lives on the line to make us remember. 

8th anniversary of the death of Vittorio Arrigoni

16th April 2019 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

This week marks the 8th anniversary of the death of Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and an italian activist working with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza. On April 16th 2011, when Arrigoni was 36 years old, his body was found in Gaza city, only a few hours after “The Brigade of the Gallant Companion of the Prophet Mohammad bin Muslima”, a Salafist group operating in Gaza, released the video where he was blindfolded and wounded. His alleged murderers were arrested and sentenced to 15 years after appealing their sentences.

Vittorio Arrigoni spent three years inside Gaza, working with peoples who’s lives were affected by the blockade of the area. He witnessed and documented the effects of the Israeli blockade and the continuous human rights abuse in the area. He was a committed ISM activist which also made him a target for arrest and harassment by the Israeli forces, but also lead him to different demonstrations and protests around Gaza.

After breaking the blockade in 2008, Arrigoni described that moment as being on of the happiest of his life, as “it became clear, not only to the world, but Palestinians also, that there are people who are willing to spend their lives to come and hug their brothers here in Gaza.”.

On the 8th anniversary of his passing, when Gaza remains besieged by the occupation, we still remember Vittorio through his words and actions and hope to continue our work through the example that he set us.

“We must remain human, even in the most difficult times …
Because, despite everything, there must always be humanity within us. We have to bring it to others.”
Vittorio Arrigoni
4th February 1975 – 15th April 2011

2 realities

29st October 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Last Friday, nearly fifty Israeli and ISM protestors demonstrated at the Gaza Border in solidarity with nearly 15,000 Gaza protestors heading toward the border. This action was in conjunction with the weekly Right of Return March.


As the activists were confronted by a couple of Zionists counter-protestors and the Israeli Occupation Forces on the 48 border side, the IOF opened fire on the Gazan protestors marching to the border. The Palestinian and Israeli activists spoke on the phone via a loudspeaker from opposite sides of the border. During the conversation, a Gazan protestor was shot in the leg.


There were so many mixed emotions going through my head. This was my first trip to the Gaza Border and it was totally different from how I imagined. The area is beautiful despite the circumstances. I’d always thought Gaza was a desert area. This assumption was totally wrong. Everyday that I’m in the Occupied Territories, the more I’m seeing:

Most Israelis are living in a false reality. This was hammered in my head from the ride to the boarder. The Zionists have made an effort to “green” inside the 48 borders thus why they call the border the ”green” line. They’ve planted European landscape that is foreign to the Middle Eastern terrain. This effort has wasted valuable water resources, while there are daily water shortages inside the Occupied Territories.

Once we reached the military zone and park yards from the Gaza border. It was smoke in the air caused by the burned tires and missile strikes coming from Gaza. I noticed hundreds of crows flying in the air. Not sure what this was about, maybe the smoke threw them off path.

Gunfire and smoke in the background, I couldn’t believe that people were walking their dogs and a family of 4 was coming to the park like nothing was going on. Mind-blowing!!!!! These are the two realities: Palestinian and Zionists.

Later, i would find out, 5 people killed and close to a hundred killed in a non-violent protest. Palestinians resist occupation with violence, they’re met with heavy handed military force. Palestinians resist occupation with non-violence, they’re met with heavy handed military force. It’s a no-win situation.