Volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement are encouraged to write personal reflections about the work they engage in with Palestinian communities, the events they experience, and the people they meet. These journals offer the human context often missing in traditional reports or journalism. These articles represent the author’s thoughts and feelings and not necessarily those of the International Solidarity Movement.
“Since October 7, while all eyes are on Gaza where they are destroying everything, the Israelis have seized the highest number of dunams ever here in the West Bank. “In one year they declared more hectares as ‘Israeli land’ than they had ever declared in the past 30 years,” says R., looking at the new outpost rising in front of us in Beit Lid. “If Western states continue to fund and legitimize Israel, maybe they really will try to annex the whole West Bank.” He shakes his head. “In addition to the land they take, you have to count all the roads they block, and the lands you no longer have access to because are close to the new Israeli settlements.” A demand, a silent shout that resonates ever more clearly from north to south in the West Bank, where Israel is waging a full-fledged war of annexation, consisting of record land seizures, destruction of Palestinian homes, and a flood of funds for illegal colonies already springing up on Palestinian land.
R.’s extended family welcomes us among the olive trees in the small village of 5,600 inhabitants located between Tulkarem and Nablus in the northern West Bank. They serve us tea first, then coffee, in the tradition of deep welcome typical of Palestinians. There are six farmers gathered to meet us. “There it is, you see? That is the new Abu Jamrah outpost, which will enlarge the Einav colony. They stole 30 dunams of land from us to build it.” In front of us, on the hill opposite, caravans and prefabs, a communications antenna, cars and vehicles. “Since October 7, the Israeli Authority has started expanding its settlements in the Palestinian territories. This is just one example. In recent months here in Tulkarem province alone they have built 4 more outposts: Qaffin, Shweikeh, Avni Hevets (shouffeh) and Jbara. They are taking more and more land, in everyone’s silence,” says R. Hundreds of meters as the crow flies from the outpost, in the middle of the vegetation, a large Israeli flag flies. “They want to go all the way there. As always, they have no right to it. That land belonged to my grandfather’s family.” In the area around Tulkarem, the Israelis are not even issuing agreements to access even a few days’ worth of land: it is a collective punishment for the entire population of the village, considered the “cradle” of resistance, they say. “This year they prevented us from harvesting about 2,000 olive trees,” R. says again, on behalf of everyone. A big blow to the already difficult family economies during this time of war. “The settlers even tried to steal our donkeys, but they couldn’t do it.”
The story of R.’s family is the story of now more and more Palestinians, who since Oct. 7 are experiencing even more harassment, violence, and land theft than since the beginning of the 1967 occupation.
According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israel has confiscated 52,000 dunams in one year (1 dunams=1000 square meters, 1/10th of a hectare). This is a huge number, compounded by the new annexations declared in recent weeks. In fact, in a single day, Finance Minister Bazalel Smotrich announced the confiscation of 24,000 dunams declaring them “state lands.” This is the largest confiscation ever, covering more than half of the hectares Israel has taken since the Oslo Accords in 1993. Added to it are the 25,000 dunams that were confiscated under the pretext of changing the boundaries of nature reserves, plus the 1,233 dunams confiscated for “military purposes.” Israel’s “practice” of self-declared “state” lands had been discontinued in 1992, until Netanyhahu’s first government resurrected it in 1998. Since then, until Oct. 7, 2023, confiscations had been periodic until reaching the figure of 40 thousand dunams.
Instead, over the past 14 months, it seems that the government has been racing in grabbing as much land as possible. The goal is clear, and the various ministers in Tel Aviv have openly stated it: to create corridors between settlements, build new ones, annex the West Bank and thus fight attempts to build a Palestinian state. A goal Israel has always had, but it is experiencing an unprecedented acceleration. “2025 will be the year of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich wrote on X, using the name Israel gives to this part of Palestine. Ministers in Tel Aviv want to take advantage of Trump’s presidency, and perhaps the now clear international inaction, to carry out one of their plans for the creation of Greater Israel: the disappearance of the West Bank as such. Starting with the already announced divestment of the Civil Administration in the West Bank and the transfer of its powers directly into the hands of Israeli ministries.
According to the Israeli organization PeaceNow there are at least 43 new outposts built since October 7 throughout the region, and 5 new colonies. 70 outposts – illegal under Israeli law itself – legalized, plus 3 others that have been designated “neighborhoods” of nearby colonies. New settlements also legalized inside the city of Hebron. Settlement of the territory is also taking place thanks to the dozens of kilometers of roads to connect the settlements that have been approved, with funding of more than 7 billion shekels. About 450 million furthermore the shekels promised for “projects” in the settlements and outposts to encourage the arrival of new settlers.
While Palestinians are effectively prevented from building new homes, thanks in part to the definition of many lands as “military zones” or “nature reserves,” the Tel Aviv government has authorized the construction of 8,861 new housing units in the colonies. Simultaneously through settler and military violence, there are at least 277 Palestinian families (about 1630 individuals) and between 19 and 28 entire Bedouin communities that have been forced off their land. Threats, fires, theft of livestock, sabotage to livelihoods and violence of various kinds have indeed escalated in many areas of the West Bank (while this was already the norm in many areas even before Oct 7). Especially since Israel has given the settlers a green light and given them thousands of weapons, effectively promising impunity for their actions. There have been 16,663 attacks on Palestinian land and property since Oct. 7.
At least 900 homes have been demolished, not counting the hundreds and hundreds of homes destroyed in military raids on camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, Tubas and Nablus. The West Bank is undergoing an unprecedented direct attack. On Dec. 15, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates also expressed deep concern over Israel’s recent escalation of unilateral and illegal actions in the occupied West Bank aimed at “intensifying and expanding ethnic cleansing and gradual annexation.” He called on the international community to implement its resolutions, particularly U.N. Security Council Resolution 2735 and the U.N. General Assembly decision adopting the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. “Resolving the Palestinian issue and ending the occupation is the only way to achieve security, stability and prosperity for the region and the world,” he reiterated. In the hope that someone will act.
In the afternoon of December 28, six soldiers ushered a group of activists and journalists away from the usually bustling Bani Dar neighborhood in Al Khalil. This show of force came to no surprise. For over two decades, Occupation Forces have entirely cleared neighborhoods in the Old City within Al Khalil under the false pretenses of guided tours for illegal Israeli settlers.
Within a half hour, a group of around fifty soldiers assembled to guard the group of three dozen settlers. For the next hour, Palestinians were restricted from walking near the incursion, and almost all the shops in the Old City were forced to close.
The weekly settler and military incursion is a major disruption for Palestinians in the historic city. It is a demonstration of intimidation and harassment, a theatrical show of force with the intention to further dispossess local Palestinians. For the duration of the tour, the souq (market), the main economic infrastructure for Palestinians, especially since the closure of Shuhada Street, essentially becomes a closed military zone for settlers.
The tour, mostly in Hebrew and some English, spouts lies of a history discounting Palestinian existence. A false history is proselytized to the group of settlers, denying the years of well documented peaceful coexistence between different groups in the city prior to 1948, as well as the constant violence enacted on Palistinian lives since.
It seemed like the whole Palestinian neighbourhood closed their doors and held their breath for the duration of the march. A crowd assembled as the armed soldiers opened the settlement gate, and shepherded the tour safely back inside. Before closing the gates again, the soldier made a joke—another mockery to add to the intimidation. Slowly, some shops opened back up. People started using their beloved roads. Many, however, will always walk carefully, living in fear of the occupation that wants to remove them.
This week has been a bad one for al Amal. Soldiers issued new threats to him, a souvenir-shop owner on the main drag in the Old City of Hebron (al Khalil), and his neighbours demanding that they close. And today, the mosque director refused to be searched when going through the checkpoint, and was beaten up by the military so badly he needed hospitalisation. Things are escalating for al Amal and the traders in the Old City. Again. Al Amal’s shop is deep in the Old City – the beautiful Mamluk and Ottoman stone alleys that are the heart of many of Palestine’s ancient cities: Old Jerusalem, Nablus, Bethlehem and al Khalil. They are the souk – lined with stores which in reasonable times are bustling with life, leisure, and commerce. Al Amal’s store is within 100 metres of the holy place: the al Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, that contains the ostensible tombs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives. It might be considered a favourable location. Sadly, that proximity is not an advantage. Access to the holy place is only through a fearsome checkpoint, because it is in the fenced-off, gated, and heavily-guarded area of the Jewish settlement in Hebron. The soldiers’ threats are new, but the experience is familiar to al Amal. His family’s shop has been forcibly closed and reopened more than once. They have had a shop in al Khalil for multiple generations. His grandfather started a souvenir and crafts shop in As-Sahle Street. It’s not there any more. There are no shops there any more. They were all closed and none of their previous owners can access them, because As-Sahle street is in the settlement. And no one who doesn’t live in the settlement – except tourists and those with special dispensation– is allowed in through the checkpoints that guard the self-imposed ghetto that is the settlement. Back in 2000, al Amal tells me, during the intifada all the shops there were closed, more than 1,800. Reopening them was a real ordeal (in the face is settler harassment) and required permits and support from local authorities and international organisations, but after 7 October 2023, the closures were demanded again, this time for good. And the current, concrete checkpoint with its grey corridors of hell – all clanging metal gates, glassed-off inspection point, and electric cattle turnstiles was erected. But Al Amal was not going to give up. Since the age of 10 he has been doing business in al Khalil, latterly working in the family shop to help support his five sisters and two brothers. So earlier this year he opened a new, small boutique on this side of the checkpoint, selling quality fabrics, bags, and kuffiehs. And now the threat of forced closure is being replayed. “Three or four soldiers came to the Old City and told us to close. I asked them why. There is no reason,” reports al Amal. “I told them, I want to see formal papers ordering the closure; you want to arrest me, arrest me! So the soldier pushed my table of goods back into the shop. I asked, What do you want from me?” The next day, Thursday, the soldiers came back and again demanded, “From the checkpoint up to here, the shops must close.” That’s seven or eight more businesses to close. The rumour is, I’m told, that they’re planning to move the checkpoint itself up the street to that corner, thus expanding the gated settlement further. In the meantime, the store holders are afraid, angry, and ever more insecure. Al Amal is dismayed, but certain of his position. “I’m still open. I will keep resisting,” he says. For him keeping the shop open is not about making good money, it is more about making a stand against oppression and occupation and maintaining a presence in the place. “I was born here; I grew up here; this is my land. It’s a holy land for us.” Business has actually been very bad. The war has kept tourists away, and this week’s harassment also keeps locals away, not wanting to be where trouble might catch up with them. But al Amal is not giving up. He urges me to tell people to come. “It’s safe,” he says. And for tourists that is true. The shopkeepers are desperate for the business. Al Amal speaks for many of them when he says: “Even if there’s no business we have to keep the shop open.” Their presence here is about sumud: steadfastness. Existence is resistance. They are determined not to allow the occupation to humiliate and force Palestinian people to leave.
Ahmad smiles, his eyes black, his wrinkles deep. He speaks his basic English as he lugs around plastic bags and water bottles: a breakfast that looks to me more like lunch. His olive grove is in front of a settlement; one of many Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law but have been colonizing the West Bank for decades.
“Five days ago I came to clean the land, but I couldn’t. The settlers shot at me,” he says.
Ahmad pointing at the trees he planted, Einav settlement is on the left.
On the hill in front of us stands Einav, the Israeli settlement built on 470 dunams (1 dunam = 1/10 hectare) “confiscated” from the Palestinian village of Ramin and 20 dunams stolen from Kafr al-Labad . A wire fence in the valley divides the military road from Palestinian olive groves.
“I planted these trees 45 years ago. Then, there was no one there.” Ahmad points to the houses. There are now three clusters of Israeli houses that have sprung up in the last few decades. The first construction was in 1981, and settlement named 30 years ago, “and they keep expanding.” A half-buried tear gas canister is testament to one of many moments of repression by the military who patrol the area.
“My daughter has not been back here for 12 years. She was afraid, and I was afraid for her.”
Jasmine is 21, a recent college graduate. Glasses, a light black veil covers her hair. “They are dangerous. They scare me,” she admits. “Look: they burned those.”
Burned olive trees
Not far away, an expanse of charred trees reaches the fence. “Those are our neighbour’s, but we had more than 50 burned a little further away, too. All a few months ago.”
Settler attacks are nothing new, but since 7th October last year, the burning and destruction of olive trees has been increasing throughout the West Bank. According to the Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission, from the beginning of this harvest season until 29th October, 239 attacks against olive pickers were recorded. They include assaults with stones and sticks, threats, gunfire, burning and destruction of olive groves. Crop theft and violence of various kinds are commonplace, and in at least 109 cases, Palestinians have been prevented from accessing their land by settlers or the military. A 59-year-old woman, Hanan Abdul Rahman Abu Salama was killed in the village of Faqqu’a, northeast of Jenin by settlers, and over 50 people were injured in the two months of harvesting. These are only the confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, fires set by settlers have destroyed thousands of trees this year. On 6 November, in the village of Qaryut alone, Palestinian farmers found more than 500 ancient olive trees cut down. They had been violently prevented by the Israelis from accessing their land for two years. Earlier this month they obtained a “coordination,” a two-day agreement with the occupation forces that they could go and harvest the olives. They arrived in the morning to find that most of the trees had been cut down. They were also assaulted by the military and settler “security” who “confiscated” their olive harvesting equipment.
“Why are they doing this? This is our life,” says Ahmad, angry. He worked for 49 years in ’48, the country the rest of the world calls Israel. He was an electrician. “Since 7 Oct., I can’t go there any more. I also speak Hebrew, I read it. Those people don’t care about anyone.”
Ahmad is almost 65 years old, has five children, and numerous grandchildren. He has been picking olives in these hills since he was a child. The work is long, and beautiful, and tiring: first you put tarpaulin sheets under the tree to cover the ground, making sure they overlap leaving no gaps. Then the harvest begins: you can pick with your hands, rake the branches with brightly-coloured plastic combs, shake the trees, and hit them with sticks: everything comes in handy to get the olives off the branches. Then they are piled up, and the bigger sticks and leaves that have landed on the tarps with them are picked out by hand. They are then thrown into buckets and emptied into large plastic bags that are very heavy to carry.
“The soldiers are coming!” someone shouts. About 300 metres away, five military personnel are crossing the fence, heading in our direction.
“Let’s keep working. This is my land!” In Ahmad’s eyes shines the anger of those who have been abused for too long. There are many of us, close to 20 international solidarity activists who have come to support the Palestinians at this sensitive time of year. Indeed, the olive harvest is crucial to the livelihood of thousands of Palestinian families, and the Israelis know it. That’s why they try to disrupt or prevent it where they can. Almost everyone in Palestine has a few trees; Palestinian oil is well known throughout the region. It’s an ancient tradition, and the economy of many villages is based precisely on the products derived from it. The olive groves near settlements are the most dangerous: settlers, sometimes just children, frighten Palestinians away. The settlers’ “security” service goes around with machine guns, and they are joined by the army, which under the guise of self-defence, push the Palestinians further and further away, saying they cannot stray near the settlements.
The soldiers peer at us from above, machine guns drawn, body armor, knee pads, helmet. “What are you doing? You can’t be here. You have to leave!” they declare.
One of us internationals starts filming on his phone. He is immediately pointed at, surrounded.
“Papers please, passport, give me the phone!” The soldiers force him to delete everything immediately. The Palestinians are also pulled aside and all are identified.
The soldiers ask intrusive questions: Where are you from? What are you doing? But the international solidarity activists who have come to support the harvest are many, and the number seems to subdue the soldiers. One of the soldiers, with red hair and blue eyes, speaking perfect “very British” English, points to a girl from the UK. He will be one of the thousands of Jews who chose to leave Europe to join the Israeli occupation army, becoming citizens of their new country in just a few short weeks. And what is their task? To drive out a people who have no state but have always inhabited those lands.
Ahmad speaks to the military in Hebrew, and handles it well. Maybe that’s the only reason they leave. Or maybe it’s that and the presence of so many internationals.
“This morning they made trouble for a friend of mine who was working over there,” Ahmad points to the south. “They threatened him with the military. He left.” He adds. “We were very lucky.”
Yasar lives in a village nearby. For a living he sells fruits and vegetables at the market. He smokes cigarettes even while clubbing olive branches. He likes to talk, telling us about living in Palestine, daily life, repression. “I was afraid. I don’t want to go to jail right now,” he says. “I already spent seven months in jail for a demonstration.” Prison violence has been even worse since 7 Oct. The state of Israel’s revenge for it has included thousands of administrative detentions with repeated torture, and no visits from family members and lawyers allowed. “They just killed my wife’s cousin in a raid in Tulkarem.” He says this in an ordinary tone, as it is now routine. “This is the fifth death in the family since 7 October. They have killed hundreds of people in Tulkarem since the beginning of their revenge.” He lights a cigarette. “There are no more roads in the Tulkarem camps.” According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 803 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 Oct., and more than 6,450 wounded. These large numbers of deaths and injuries occur during repeated raids on Palestinian villages and the harsh repression in camps and at demonstrations. Palestinians’ lives are worth little to the military. But their land is coveted. “See up there?” Yasar asks pointing to the top of the hill opposite, above the settlements. A couple of structures soar beside a kind of turret with an antenna.
Outpost
“That’s an outpost, the beginning of a new settlement. First they put a container, a shack, something. Then a fence. Then a house. And then it becomes a settlement.”
They built it not even a year ago, after 7 October. “Those were my grandfather’s lands. I remember as a child accompanying him to graze the goats up there. Now they’ve taken it.” Another cigarette. “There’s a song here in Palestine, it talks about Rome too,” he laughs. “Nero in Rome, he burned everything. Nero died, Rome endured…. Like here. Occupation will finish, Palestine will resist.”
Kafr Qaddum, November Kafr Qaddum is a village about 13 kilometers west of Nablus, one of the largest cities in the West Bank.
The village has around 4,300 inhabitants and is surrounded by ancient olive groves. It also has five settlements in the hills around it. Kafr Qaddum is considered a village of resistance, with a history of struggle that spans more than 20 years, with no end in sight. Eleven thousand dunams of the village’s land (about 52 percent of the total area) have been declared “Area C,” meaning they are under the full control of the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) which has taken more and more land over the years. As in many other places, the IOF has banned access to land “too close” to the settlements, i.e., at an indefinite distance they determine as they wish. This ban means blocking and destroying the economy of hundreds of local Palestinians, since the trade in olives and olive oil is the economic mainstay of Kufr Qaddum. Besides, it is also a matter of principle. “We love these lands, these trees,” says Madhat, one of the residents prevented from accessing their olive groves. “We love Palestine… It is our land.” He adds: “We will never leave.” The army will give permission to reach the land only twice a year, once to clean the land, another time to harvest olives. But often, it won’t even grant those. Settlers often prevent the harvest anyway, or destroy olive groves to send Palestinian farmers away for good.
“We don’t ask for ‘coordination.’ No agreement with the occupation forces. Should we ask for permission to access our own lands?” insists Abdullah, another Palestinian from the village detained in Israeli jails many times for his resistance. In addition to being denied access to their land, since 2003, the local Palestinians have been blocked from using the main road from Kufr Qaddum to Nablus by the Israelis. “It used to take us 15 minutes to get to the city,” Madhat says. “Now it takes us at least 45 because of this permanent roadblock.” In fact, a gate prevents Palestinians from passing through. The road is now only for the Israeli settlement, which was funded by the far-right Zionist group Gush Emunim in 1975 and has been expanding ever since. Complaints before Israeli courts have been to no avail. Since 2011, the citizens of Kufr Qaddum have been organizing weekly demonstrations every Friday. Their protests try to approach to the gate. They meet with stiff repression.
“They shoot at us tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, real bullets. We have had so many injured over the years, so many have risked their lives,” explains A.
According to Harretz, more than 100 villagers were injured, including six children. The latest is a 9-year-old boy who was shot in the head by a soldier and miraculously survived. At least 175 villagers have been arrested for participating in protests; more than half a million shekels have been paid by families as bail over the years. Attempts at negotiations have fallen on deaf ears. The community repeatedly offered to stop the protests if the road was reopened: but the IOF has always refused. And the protests continue to this day, although in recent months the encirclement by the police forces is often so tight that they cannot even march at all.
By the time we start harvesting olives, the sun is already high. We have spread the tarps, and pick the lowest branches when, “Here come the soldiers!” someone says. Two white cars stopped on the road below the terraces, and seven or eight military-looking people approach.
Army in Kafr Qaddum
“Let’s keep harvesting,” is the agreement. The approaching individuals are dressed in army green uniforms and carry machine guns. They have no insignia, their shoes are not all the same. Hard to tell if they are security settlers or military, though it makes little difference: they now have almost the same powers, and they threaten and arrest in the same way.
“Stop the work! Stop! You have to go away!” One of them begins.
The number of foreign pickers certainly diminishes the level of their violence. That is what the international solidarity volunteers are for: by our presence we hope to deter conflict and limit the repression of the Palestinians, in an effort to redress some of the power imbalance to enable the olive harvest.
Most of us continue working, some approach the soldiers.
“What? Where is the problem?” they ask.
“You can’t be here, it’s illegal. You are less than 200 meters from the settlement. You have two minutes to leave or we will arrest you.” They threaten.
Less than 200 meters? The group is at least 500 meters from the encroaching settlement. “We are more than 200 meters away,” someone objects, but it’s no use. Some of us keep arguing, the others keep working. The ‘soldiers’ notice the Palestinian who owns the olive grove; one of them talks to him in Arabic and makes him approach. They argue and surround him, weapons in hand. They push him toward the road. The protests of us the sympathizers are useless.
“He is under arrest. He knew he couldn’t stay here. Now you have two minutes to leave or we will arrest you too.”
We say we’ll go if they release the man.
“I don’t have to bargain with you. Leave!”
From a distance the military man can be seen putting a blindfold on the Palestinian farmer. Then he pulls out his cell phone and takes a selfie with the newly-arrested man. Some of us continue to argue, buying more time, and two more olive trees are harvested.
Palestinian farmer arrested by the Israeli army.
Then the military warms up. “That’s enough, we’ve been arguing for 45 minutes and I gave you two! Now you’re leaving.” The tone is rising. The tarps are pulled up, the last olives are gathered, and the retreat begins.
A teargas canister is on the ground, still full of gas. Probably left from last year when, following 7 October, almost all olive harvesting was prevented; a revenge by the state of Israel on the economy of the Palestinian people. For that reason, this year many civil society organisations called for international solidarity and urged young and old from all over the world to join the Palestinians for the harvest. Hundreds of people have responded to the call of movements such as ISM and Faz3a to offer protective presence in defence of the civilian population.
Meanwhile in April, Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, initiated a “task force” specifically targeting foreign activists in the West Bank: it appears that the government does not want witnesses or hindrances to the violence meted out to Palestinian farmers among the olive groves.
We climb up to the waiting Palestinians a little higher away from the military. They are quiet – used to this oppression. We sit in the shade of a large olive tree and they bring out lunch: manāqīsh with plenty of za’tar and cheese, hummus, and of course cigarettes. Madhat then takes us for tea at his house. I ask him if this happens all the time. “Eh! Often,” he says. “I was arrested three times last week,” he laughs. “They keep you five, six, seven hours. Then they released me.”
Before release, detainees are often beaten. But Madhat doesn’t tell me that. “That’s how it is here.” After tea he offers us coffee. “Tomorrow I will come back. And the day after tomorrow, too.” He shakes our hands. “We, from here, will never leave.”
This isn’t something I had necessarily expected to do on the West Bank. We’re told that the risk level at demonstrations is high; Ayşenur was murdered at one. And I had made a solemn promise to my very anxious friends and family back home that I would calculate these important amorphous abstractions for my actions in the field: the riskiness of my action balanced against its effectiveness. I’m still not sure how the calculation resolves for big demonstrations.
This was different: more of a vigil, and in Ramallah, which is part of Area A where Israeli soldiers, indeed any Israelis, are not allowed in (but nonetheless raid whenever they please). This vigil was one of many all across Palestine to support Gaza and prisoners.
I’ve grappled with this juxtaposition before. It seems to me that once you mention Gaza, all other issues must give way before it. It does and should command all the attention. But how can Palestinians come together and not mention Gaza!
It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm December noon at Manarah Square, where a couple of hundred people – a mixed group of men and women – were gathered, flags flying around them, facing a banner declaring a “Global Day of Support for Gaza” and “Prisoners Rejecting Genocide and Execution of Prisoners” and pictures of young men ranged in front of it – victims of the evils being protested against.
Photo: a sign reading “Global Day of Support for Gaza & Prisoners” followed by “Rejecting Genocide & Execution of Prisoners”
After a few speeches, a truck carrying the loudspeaker set off and we all trooped behind it on a short walk round the block. At this point the crowd found its voice. One boy mounted on the shoulders of another led the crowd around him in slogan shouting, while a group of girls, all of an age and swathed in identical keffiyehs hollered their chants behind them.
I was suddenly joined by Malach, my comrade in my first two weeks here, and now as two internationals together, I suddenly felt I belonged. We strolled while I endeavoured to interview people in English, which all yielded a single sentiment: we’re here to show our support.
Returning to the square, the girls finally noticed me and, practising their English on me, explained this was a school outing. They’d written the slogans out before they came. I just needed to ask them to read them into my phone.
These are the slogans that I’m told they were shouting, and I discover that to translate them is far from easy, partly because the language is freighted with connotations and associations, and partly because they were commonly taken from anthems – songs heavy with symbolism:
“Cross your sword with my sword” (metaphor for fighting jointly).
“A welcome salute from Ramallah to our beloved and unvanquishable Gaza”.
And finally, “With our souls and our blood, we sacrifice our utmost for Palestine”.
