Category: Journals

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.

Jane’s Journal

Jane’s Journal

Demonstration
I came back from Hebron to go to the Bil’in demo which happens every week on Fridays. Last Friday a delegation of foreign diplomats from about 8 European countries visited Bil’in and met with the Popular Committee. Apparently they observed the demonstration but I didn’t see them. Some people felt the Israeli soldiers were on their best behaviour because of this. This didn’t stop them arresting 3 Israeli’s, 1 foreign journalist and Harrison from ISM, hitting another journalist in the back of the neck with a rubber bullet and injuring two Gush Shalom peace campaigners from bits flying off sound bombs and stun grenades. It didn’t stop the soldiers gripping their clubs like they were ready to beat the shit out of you but perhaps it did stop them doing it. I’m more scared of the clubs than the rubber bullets. The Israeli activists were arrested for being in a closed military zone and damaging Israeli Defence Force (IDF) property. The military can decide anywhere in the West Bank is a closed military zone and invariably do when there’s a demonstration. At the Bil’in demo’s people often bang the metal rail of the wall/annexation fence with stones which makes a loud ringing tone. This can lead to the accusation of damaging IDF property. It’s so kafkaesque in the context of the damage to the land caused by the fence that looks like an enormous scar across the beautiful landscape and the damage to people caused by the soldiers brutality. After Harrison was arrested he was accused of attacking the soldiers. Again a very common accusation when the Israeli Police or military get their hands, clubs, boots on a Palestinian or international. All were realeased later that day. Harrison signed a paper that means he can’t go near the wall/annexation fence at Bil’in for 15 days.

The villagers processed to the wall/annexation fence carrying a large metal pot, empty of food, with a child in it. This symbolised the hunger Palestinians are experiencing caused both by the annexation fence and the with holding of tax revenue since the election of Hamas. Lack of food and money caused by the annexation of their land which falls on the other side of the wall/fence on which villagers grow olive trees, graze sheep and goats, plant vegetables, gather wild herbs and wood. Lack of work and money caused by the wall/annexation fence being another huge barrier to travelling to work and the transportation of goods and materials from place to place. The wall is a malevolent tool for wrecking what’s left of the Palestinian economy. Baraket told me he has a permit for working in Israel but since the demonstrations started in Bil’in he hasn’t risked using it. This is because it’s very likely that when passing into Israel and showing his permit, a soldier will confiscate his permit as punishment for the protests. His permit lasts till 2009 and he’s thinking it will be better to keep hold of it for possible use in the years to come. At the moment he has work 1 or 2 days a week. Mohammed Khatib and his brothers explained that economic aid is only available for short term projects. There’s even a US Aid project that doesn’t pay wages but just gives people food in return for their labour. No one will fund a self sustaining project that will provide long term jobs. People in Bil’in are living day to day.

The people of Bil’in say they are facing another wall that is causing hunger, the International Community threatening to withdraw aid and allowing Israel to with hold Palestinian taxes. Did you know that Palestinians pay VAT on things they buy in shops in the occupied territories and road taxes to Israel. A percentage of this has to be returned to the Palestinian Authority by international agreement. It’s this money that Israel is refusing to release since the election of Hamas. It’s Palestinian money, paid by Palestinians, in Palestinian occupied territories.

On the moring of the demonstration the Israeli’s closed the gate at the wall/fence which now prevents Palestinian vehicals driving to the outpost. During the demonstration villagers tried to construct a bridge of peace over the closed gate that was seperating the two people, the Palestinians and the Israelis. When Israel builds a wall, Bil’in will build a bridge.

Drowning

Today is not the first of the rain. Three nights ago it absolutely poured down, Thunder rolled across the countryside, lightening flashed in the window of the hut at the outpost. I kept waking up with a start, thinking the soldiers had come and the flash of light was the hummers headlights. As the rain stopped, Ashraf, Chris and I didn’t realise that the construction of the wall/fence had caused a damning effect, leading to the river in the valley rising and then swooshing over the bridge on the Palestinian road carrying away 2 brothers in their car. One brother was found alive and taken to hospital. The other brother Eyad Taha’s dead body was found entangled in the wire mesh of the wall/fence, half a mile downstream. His body was eventually recovered from the water, his body was carried back the half mile to the ambulance, his arms and hands jutting out from his body.

I need to head back to the Bil’in Outpost now. More later…

Activist’s Journal

Wednesday was a quiet day in which I caught up with sleep lost to jetlag and fixed my email setup. On Thursday there was a demo in Beit Sira that we went to. It was Land Day, which commemorates a 1976 uprising of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The idea was to plant trees in the land of the village. This was unsuccessful because of the fully tooled up riot squad of Israeli soldiers that blocked our path. The most mild of pushing on their huge plexi-glass shields led to a full-on battering session.

Friday, of course, was the regular Bil’in demonstration. It was great to be back! Spirits were high and there was a good attendance. The Israeli anarchists were there in force as always. Also there were a lot of folk from Gush Shalom this week. The village committee’s plan was to use a large metal frame as a ramp to be able to get over the gate in the fence. A good attempt was made at this, but the soldiers were particularly nasty this week and lashed out almost immediately to stop this bridge building attempt. Can’t let the Palestinians into their own land now can we? The usual beatings and usage of “less lethal” weaponry on unarmed demonstrators ensued.

That night, myself along with two others from ISM stayed overnight in the Bil’in outpost, which was fun. It was a nice camping trip – it’s good to be outdoors in the fresh air! We sat around the fire with guys from the village, learned some Arabic and drank loads of sweet tea. About 7 in the morning we were woken up by the sound of an off-road vehicle pulling away. M. had seen them and said that it was soldiers who peeked in the door of the outpost to watch us sleeping. Furthermore they had apparently done the same thing three times that night!

Raining outside, though weather was warm yesterday. Training for new ISM folk tomorrow.

Must sleep. Bed soon.

***
The ISM training was yesterday and today. We had about eight new recruits, so it was a pretty good weekend session. At the end of today, we were planning how to spread ourselves around the regions that ISM covers and there was a really good vibe. We have some good activists here now and I am feeling more confident. The majority of us here now are British, I think. Mansour jokes that it is a British occupation of ISM (like there used to be a Swedish occupation).

This morning we went to a legal training session organised by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israeli (PCATI). It was a very useful and interesting session, and folk from ISM (including the new trainees), IWPS, the Tel Rumeida Project and CPT were there amongst others. Two Israeli lawyers gave us briefings on how Israeli military law applies to Palestinians in the occupied territories (the first session) and the rights of us as internationals in the occupied territories (the second session). The two lawyers are brilliant, committed people and they do loads of work for Palestinians and international activists like us supporting them. The main point that came across was that although Israel claims to uphold a fair, equal rule of law that governs the Palestinians in the occupied territories, in reality the military is the law and what they say goes. The Palestinians are subject to a whole slew of military orders, which are only written in Hebrew and are hard for the public to access. It’s a really nightmarish system. And it is an apartheid system too, because the Jewish settlers who live in the occupied territories are not subject to these military orders, rather they are governed by regular Israeli law which is far more lenient and accountable. Just one example of this – Israelis (and internationals) arrested in the occupied territories have to be brought before a judge for the initial hearing within 24 hours, but Palestinians will not see a judge for eight days. Furthermore, since this judge is a uniformed military officer, this hearing is simply a formality in which one part of the military asks another part of the military to extend the arrest. There are lots of examples of things like this, but the whole thing amounts to a system of apartheid, whose main aim is to ultimately to make the Palestinians leave their homes.

I might go to Hebron at some point this week to help the Tel Rumeida Project, as the folk there are very tired by the sound of it.

Must do laundry now.

How Can I Stop You?

By Mary

Tuesday March 21st 2006

At about 8pm, there was a lot of yelling in the street outside the internationals apartment in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. Israeli soldiers were demanding that men from the building opposite came down to the street. Two men came down. They were told that everyone, including the baby, must come down to the street. An international asked what was the reason for this. A soldier replied that he could not tell her but that there had been a complaint about someone in one of the apartments. He could not say which apartment. This all sounded odd. Soldiers sometimes go into apartments to search but they do not usually expect babies and small children to be brought into the street at night. The soldiers persisted in demanding that the two men bring the families out. The men refused. One man was sent back into the building but the families did not come out. The international rang the DCO (District Command Office). The woman at the DCO said that she would check the matter.

Some more soldiers came by. One of the original soldiers asked the international why she would not let them do their work. She replied “Let? How can I not let you? I can’t stop you.” The soldiers went into the apartment building with guns ready as though after terrorists! They banged on a door. They then came down, let the two men go and left themselves. It looked like bluff. They probably were taking orders from settlers and were not supported by the DCO. This can happen with new soldiers, if the settlers make a complaint, whether based on fact or fiction.

Wednsday March 22nd 2006

Al Jazeera newsmen were visiting Tel Rumeida. They telephoned and asked an international if she had film or video of settler attacks on Palestinians or Palestinian buildings. She went, with a Palestinian, to the Al Azzez house to collect material. This meant scrambling over rocky ground because only the family are allowed to use the track alongside the settlement, which replaces the street taken over by settler caravans. When they were leaving the house, Israeli settler children came on to Palestinian land and threw rocks ( 3inches or 8cm in diameter) at the owner of the house and the people leaving. At first, the one Israeli soldier nearby did nothing to help. However, another four soldiers arrived. Even then, some children continued to throw rocks for some minutes before the soldiers forced them to leave the area. No one was injured but the visitors had to dodge and duck away from rocks which could have caused serious injury. There is no safe way to leave the area!

The story of Saeed Abu Salah

by Laila El-Haddad

Saeed Abu Salah is a patient man. Judging from all he has endured during the past four years at least. Abu Salah-40 years old with graying hair and eyes the color of chestnuts, and 20 children from separate two marriages-lives in Gaza’s northernmost region in the farming town of Beit Hanun-nearly as far north as you can go without being killed as so many have.

He is less than a kilometer away in fact from the border with Israel-and the fence and wall that bulldozers, active even as we spoke and visible in plain distance, were building.

Directly across from his house, at the end of an unpaved dirt path that used to lead to his 40 donom cattle ranch and citrus groves-now inaccessible and razed to the ground- is an Israeli lookout tower, resting atop a large mound of sand just across the border. It is equipped with a camera that monitors the family’s every move even as we speak, and a sniper, who every now and again fires “warning” shots at us.

“He doesn’t like you being here, as a journalist. Its normal-he shoots day and night, but particularly when visitors come” explained Abu Salah matter-of-factly, of the unseen sniper, whom he talks about with unenviable confidence and the seemingly intimate knowledge of a close acquintance.

Still, Abu Salah is unflinching in his determination to stay put, asserting that he will only allow Israeli troops to drive him out, which he says they have tried to do so many times before, “over his dead body”.

The UNDP estimated the damage done to his farm, which one employed over 30 Palestinians, at nearly half a million dollars. All he got in return was a zinc-sheeted shed, shielding little more than a wounded horse. “We just can’t afford to buy any more cattle. Or plant any more trees. Why should we? The Israelis will just destroy them again,” he says, staring at the forboding and ever-present tower in the distance. His family used to be self-sufficient, but since his farm was razed, he now has to rely on working for a local contractor once a week for money.

He greets me with tea and sweet, strong coffee as he displays his “museum of Israeli war artifacts”-a room full of 55kg tank shells that we can barely lift together, which he has decorated with artificial flowers; an arch, neatly trimmed with a line of Israeli bullet casings; and a photo album he keeps of all the damage done to his ranch-including his sniped cows, lying dead alongside each other, their intestines spilling out of their bloated stomachs.

“It’s as if they wanted to say, ‘this could be you’” he said, his young children peering through the iron-barred window in front of us, and the smallest, piercingly blue-eyed child giggling under his arms. “They used to be so afraid-the young ones still are. Now, they have gotten so used to it that if we don’t hear shelling, we think something is wrong. They are always firing at us, and when not firing, then shelling, and when not shelling, hovering over us with F-16s and drones, mocking us, provoking us, trying to show us that we are surrounded from all sides and that we have to eventually leave.”

There are no clinics where he lives. No grocery stores. Nothing is allowed. His wife is expecting anyday now, but Abu Salah is worried an ambulance may not be allowed in.

“Since Israeli forces declared the area-including my home, a buffer zone a few months ago, dozens of heavy shells fired by either Israeli tanks or warplanes have fallen in the area, wounding my 21-years old son Eid in his right arm, inflicting severe damage to my modest house and casting panic in my children’s’ hearts” explained Abu Salah, lifting his son’s wasted arm, left with little more than base muscle and stubs of fingers.

“I am not a Hamas supporter, but let me say that we’ve given enough concessions-and whole decade of concessions for free. The PLO decided to recognize Israel and what did recognition bring us? Have them recognize our rights first, our freedom to live, our right of return, then surely, we will recognize their rights.”

At night, Abu Salah and his family become prisoners in their own home, unable to move for free of being shot by the faceless sniper.

“This is our existence. This is our reality. This is our fate. And we will bear it out, but never another hijra (exile)-I will stay here till they bury me in my grave.”

For more of Leila’s writings from Gaza her blog

Destruction and Defiance in the Shadow of Bethlehem

The Rabah family, including 8 children, are now homeless, after the Volvo earth-movers tore through the back of their dwelling while family members scrambled desperately to remove furniture and other items. Another home nearby was also levelled, two more examples of an ugly Israeli tradition that occurs on average 2-3 times each month. A teacher in Bethlehem, Hadr Rabah tells me that the village is very united against the Occupation, so there is no shortage of people offering to take in family members temporarily at least. When I asked why the earth-movers left the front of the home intact, his reply was “they were afraid of the electric”.

It’s not hard to see why Israel desires this land that overlooks Jerusalem and a couple of illegal settlements that used to be parts of Beit Jala and Walaja. As one neighbour -himself in receipt of a destruction order- said…”This land is beautiful, so Israel needs it”. Another neighbour
explained that the Israeli government …”needs to have the ground without the people”. In the distance towards Jerusalem, I could see the zoo, complete with giraffes wandering in their pen. After a couple weeks in Hebron, listening to Tel Rumeida settlers refer to Palestinians as pigs,
dogs, and animals, I couldn’t help but see the parallel: The Israeli government sees the West Bank as their zoo for Palestinians, complete with walls, fences and gates…except they would rather you did not visit. I realize the comparison is primitive and unflattering, but I think it
reflects the unwillingness of Israel to see the Palestinian people as teachers, doctors, shop-owners, students, mothers and sons.

I stood with the Rabah family as they explained how Israeli officials had been out repeatedly to photograph and survey the area around their home and many others in al-Walaja. I felt awful, but was encouraged to take pictures to record and report the flattened home and the young people sifting through the rubble for household goods. Another local teacher added her thoughts
about the effects on young children when they witness such events at a young age. She told me that it is very difficult for the children of Walaja to sit in their classes and focus on education while there is such upheaval in the community at the hands of the occupying authorities. “Imagine what a two-year old will grow up like”. Why is not the entire village crowded
around the ruins, embracing the family? “It happens so often. If they stand here now, will that change things? People still have to go to school and to work. If I stand here until 12:00 tomorrow, will it be any different?”

When homes in al-Walaja are destroyed, it often means olive and orange trees
fall as well, but what is left standing is defiance.