Category: Journals - Page 129 - International Solidarity Movement

Anniversary Protest in Bil’in met with military violence

By A.

To mark the one year anniversary of the International Court of Justice decision that the annexation barrier being built by Israel is illegal, hundreds of villagers, Palestinians from surrounding villages, internationals, and Israelis demonstrated in Bil’in on Friday.

The people of Bil’in constructed a three-meter high scale, with Israel on one side and the rest of the world on the other side, “Israel” weighing much more than the “world.” The scale represented the symbolic scales of justice and had a US American flag at the top, giving the message that the USA sees justice as what Israel wants rather than for all peoples from all countries.

Carrying the scale, as well as posters and Palestinian flags, we marched toward the route of the wall chanting in Arabic and enjoying the music from the taxi that accompanied us along our route. Hundreds of meters form the route of the wall we were met by Israeli soldiers and border police we were waiting for us behind a roadblock they had set up with concrete blocks and barbed wire.

The soldiers had also posted documents near the barrier to show us that the area beyond the roadblock was a closed military zone. Upon reaching the roadblock we chanted in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, and then stopped for the midday prayer.

Following the prayer there was some negotiating between the villagers and the Israeli army commander, and the demonstrators removed the barded wire that was lying across the road to the wall. A few moments later the soldiers and police began shooting tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber bullets into the crowd of demonstrators as some of the young Palestinians began to throw stones toward the soldiers.

The demonstration was dispersed into the village at this point, and the soldiers followed the demonstrators, ruthlessly continuing to shoot rubber bullets and some live ammunition. I was standing next to one young Palestinian man who was handing out water to the demonstrators when he was suddenly shot by a rubber bullet in the side of his head. He immediately collapsed, blood rushing from his head, and several people rushed to get him into an ambulance.

When I saw this man shot by an Israeli soldier, my realization of how brutal the occupation is reached a new level. This man was simply offering water to his friends and guests to his village when he was wounded. Being Palestinian it seems is reason enough for the Israeli military to shoot deadly weapons at a person.

At least four other Palestinians were wounded at this demonstration, and two, including the man shot in the head, had to stay overnight in the hospital. The last word I received about him, one day later, was that he was in intensive care, experiencing internal bleeding, and unconscious as a result of his injury.

When You Remember

A poem By Bob Green

Marhaba Ya Rifka! Hello! Marhaba Yoram, Malka, Avishai,
Marhaba K’tsia, Marion, Yehoshua, Yaël.
Keef hal-ak? How are you?
Beloved friends of my father and mother for 50 years –
When will I visit you in Tel Aviv? In Zichron Ya’aqov?
When will I walk in your vineyards? Meet your grandchildren?
Meet the son-in-law in the blue jeans business?
When you remember Deir Yassin
And why do I address you in halting Arabic?
Surely I can say “Shalom, Ma sh’lom cha?” in Hebrew?
This would show the respect I long to feel
We could embrace at the airport
Dine again under arbors laden with next year’s wine
We would again pass silently among memories
Enshrined at Yad Vashem
When you remember Deir Yassin
We can eat oranges from trees my mother planted
as you watched in 1953.
When you remember Deir Yassin.
We can talk about your friends and family
About David Shoham’s precious Absalom
Slain in a war against neighboring states
About Yehoshua’s first wife Ruthie,
Dead in an airport attack in the `60’s
We can talk about your friend David Tithare
Who sat me on his lap when I was six
And bragged of slitting Palestinian throats
In Jerusalem, when he was chief of police
In 1948.
All this we can do
When you remember Deir Yassin.

Another Child- Update from Balata

I’m tired. Not just from sleep deprivation — the Israeli occupation forces have entered several nights this week — although that is some part of it, or the anaemia I’ve now succumbed to. I’m tired by the frustration and heartbreak of being 50 metres away again when the Israeli army shot another Palestinian child, 16 years old Khalid Mohammed Msyme, the brother of a friend of ours.

A friend once described our role here as babysitting, watching the eighteen year old Israeli boys with guns so they don’t think they can shoot Palestinian children in the homes with impunity. I fear the truth is they do act with impunity. I’ve lost count of the outraged reports I’ve read of children being killed by an invading Israeli army in Palestinian towns. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve reported invasions, arrests and killings in breach of the Sharm Al Sheikh agreement and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve hoped this breach will be the one the world notices at last.

Before the army came tonight a Palestinian friend was telling me about all the killings and atrocities he’s witnessed. Occasionally he thinks of the smell of charred flesh or of the feeling of what he called “meat from their bodies” in his hands but mostly these graphic memories don’t trouble him. He says it was shocking at first but it’s normal for him now. I hope I never get to that point. Seeing the army murder should never be normal. When I called to tell him what happened tonight he sensed my frustration and guilt. I didn’t say anything, I knew it wasn’t right to but somehow I wanted to apologize for not stopping them shooting the boy. When I told him wearily they killed another boy, he said gently “It’s alright.” In that moment I was overwhelmed with resentment for everything he’s been through and utterly humbled that he wants to protect and reassure me. Why should he have to live through all that and then take care of a stupid foreigner too?

It’s light now, I haven’t slept; my emotions are still too high. Angry, frustrated, resentful, disappointed. The Israeli Army was in streets of Balata Camp again. In the heart of the West Bank of Palestine. The residents are refugees, people already displaced by Israel once. The children are continually under attack in this refugee camp, their home. I was never optimistic about Sharm but I’m still desperately disappointed. I’m frustrated, sad and weary that another child died. We were a few metres too far away. I wish this would never happen again but part of me wishes everyone there would have this experience. If everyone felt this sadness and frustration you would all pressure our governments and corporations to stop funding Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

The mosque was broadcasting noise all night. I don’t know if it was a coincidental malfunction or a tactic of the army. At the call for the pre-dawn prayer I could still hear jeeps and a woman crying. Then ethereal echoes of more distant mosques, the unified broadcast muezzin rebounding off the hills. Finally the Balata mosque joined in after 4am. It was comforting.

At 7:25 the mosque announced the death of another boy, 16 year old fighter Khalid Mohammed Msyme. He died in a clash with the army during the night. The first boy, Noor Njam,14, although shot with a live bullet in the head, is not yet dead but not expected to live. A third boy, also 16, from Sanegre family, is critically injured too, having been shot in the stomach.

At the morgue boys not as high as my elbow jostled to see Khalid’s body. Khalid’s teenage friends sat outside in silence, dazed and shocked. An older friend tried to offer comfort but he was shaking with emotion himself. Khalid was a fighter and a martyr at just sixteen years old. Men lead the funeral procession back to the camp, praising the child as a hero. Meanwhile the women waited near his mother’s home. One of her sons died before the intifada, another has been imprisoned by Israeli for the last three years. In that time a second brother died and today Kahlid. His mother has lost three sons now.

During the funeral service we sat in silence, exhausted. New visitors were exhausted and shocked. Palestinian friends were silent in their grief. For myself I am just very weary. The futility of all this death is heartbreaking. The deaths of yet more children in a so-called ceasefire is devastating. I’m not hopeful the killing will stop anytime soon.

Transcript of Abdallah’s Interrogation

Abdallah waited until 2pm to be lead into the interrogation, accompanied by an international and an attorney. They were not present during the interview. Captain Rizik did not participate in the interrogation but typed into the computer, whilst the other man present (S) spoke with Abdallah.

S: Are you a man? Why did you bring those two sluts with you? [Referring to the women who were with Abdullah]

A: She is my lawyer. I know that this is a state that works according to law.

S: No. there is no law in Israel.

A: There is.

S: The Mukhabrat [Intelligence/Secret Service] has no law. Your lawyer says the paper we gave you is not official, so why did you come? It is not a problem if you don’t come, we will just write it on the computer and then come and take you from your house. What is your job?

A: I am a teacher.

S: In Bil’in?

A: No, Bir Zeit

S: What are you doing in Bil’in? You are doing something wrong. You don’t get called to the Mukhabrat unless you have done something very wrong. Where were you last week?

A: In jail.

S: Why were you in jail?

A: I was taken from a peaceful demonstration.

S: How long were you there?

A: Five days.

S: And then what happened?

A: The judge said that I was arrested by mistake and that I should be released.

S: All of you are arrested by mistake. You know now there are no demonstrations in Biddu?

A: There are demonstrations there.

S: Do you know what happened in Biddu?

A: Yes. They moved the fence further away.

S: Yes, but what’s the price?

A: Five martyrs.

S: No. Five people killed. The people that used to speak on the microphone and organise the demonstrations, do you know where they are? They are sitting in their homes, they are not demonstrating now. Five people were killed and then they stopped demonstrating.

A: If you take a balloon and you step on it what will happen?

S: It will burst.

A: That’s what you are doing to Bil’in. Bil’in used to be called the village of peace. You are strangling it. We are left with no land. Where is my son going to live? The wall in Bil’in will be moved back, but it will happen by peaceful means. We have decided that we are going to resist peacefully.

S: You throw stones. What about the soldier who lost his eye?

A: At the demonstrations stones are not thrown, but when the army enters the village and starts firing between the houses people throw stones at them.

S: We know everything you do.

A: I know you know everything I do and I have done everything according to the law. I haven’t thrown stones.

S: You do something worse than throwing stones. You tell the people to go out on demonstrations. We have reports about you. We know you make problems. Go home, sit quietly in your house, enjoy your life, don’t make problems. We are watching you very, very closely.”

Tulkarem choked by Israel’s illegal chemical fumes

Today’s Freedom Summer action was focused on the presence of a toxic chemical factory at the edge of Tulkarem. The Israeli-owned factory was originally located near residences in Israel, but was deemed to be polluting beyond acceptable legal levels. Following a court case in Israel, it was moved to the West Bank city of Tulkarem in the mid-eighties. The complex of factories has been expanding ever since, spreading like the cancer that the output from the factory induces.

This issue represents a particularly dangerous dimension of the occupation for the Palestinian people. As I stood looking up at the chimney and IOF watchtower inside the factory compound, it occurred to me that this was a large, ugly weapon, slowly but surely attacking the people around it.

Tulkarem has the highest cancer rates in Palestine. Residents living near the factory also suffer disproportionately from respiratory tract diseases and other health problems. The land around the factories has been labeled unsuitable for agricultural production, and farmers have faced extreme difficulties getting to it. One farmer has been shot at a number of times by the owner of the chemical factory. He has decided to convert his farm to organic production a decision which reflects the strength and resilience of the Palestinian people. No attempts have been made to clean the surrounding environment or dispose of the chemical waste safely – it is being repeatedly dumped on nearby Palestinian land.

The protest began with a march from the centre of Tulkarem towards the factory. We wore blue surgical masks to highlight the danger of inhaling the factory fumes, but as we approached the factory and began to smell the foul stench in the air I was genuinely glad to be wearing it.

Our group of Palestinian, Israeli, and ISM Activists, proceeded from the centre of Tulkarem to the factory located at the city’s edge. We walked carrying gravestone shaped signs in Arabic and English proclaiming the death of the environment, justice, freedom, and human rights, in addition to the disregard of organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the International Court of Justice.

Arriving at the factory, which is in close proximity to the Apartheid Wall around Tulkarem, the demonstrators placed the “gravestones” outside the main gate and began to chant. Messages were sprayed on the wall and we banged on the gate with stones, but nobody responded and the military did not turn up.

I only hope that they do not punish the farmers involved in the protest later, when we have left the city.

Photos can be viewed at: freckle.blogs.com/photos/no_more_poison/

The factories in Tulkarem are one of many sites throughout the West Bank where Israeli industrial complexes are situated. The companies are free to operate outside of Israeli laws regarding health and safety, the environment and the treatment of workers. The Palestinian workers come from a pool of very cheap labour; they have no rights and, following the economic strangulation of Palestine over the last five years, are desperate to work, even if this means going to a settlement and working in unhealthy or dangerous conditions. The factories are built on stolen land and disfigure the beauty of the West Bank, causing environmental problems and flattening agricultural land with concrete.