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.
10 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Poverty is pervasive in Gaza. After 44 years of occupation, and six years of siege the economy is in tatters. Exporting anything is basically impossible, farming is crippled by the no go zones which encircle Gaza leaving over 30% of agricultural land off limits, the fishing industry has been devastated by the 3 mile limit on fishing imposed by Israel. Gaza survives on the tunnels. All this being said, as a Palestinian friend once proudly told me, no one starves in Palestine. This is true. Palestinians have created an amazing network of charity organizations that help to blunt the worst effects of the occupation. Today, in Khan Yunis, we saw this network at work.
The municipality of Khan Yunis teamed up with the Ethar Initiative to provide a day of fun for local children from poor families. Ethar is a volunteer group which works to help disadvantaged children and families; they provide opportunities for women to make money to support their families as well as sponsoring days like this one. Today about 80 children from several local school were brought to the Municipality building of Khan Yunis for a party. The celebration started at ten o’clock. First, was singing, children volunteered eagerly from the crowd to have the chance to come and sing in front of everybody. Then the children moved on to games, blind man’s bluff, musical chairs, an apple eating contest, and games with balloons. The winners of each game were rewarded with a goodie bag containing coloring books and school supplies. In the end though, who won didn’t matter, all of the children were sent home with a goodie bag.
Days like today remind us that the people fighting the occupation aren’t just politicians and those that go to demonstrations. Farmers who continue to farm their land despite harassment from settlers, fisherman who continue to fish despite being shot at by the Israeli Navy, and volunteers that work to provide the children with some happiness amongst the problems that surround all fighting the occupation. The Naqba, the Naqsa, the occupation, two Intifadas and the massacre of Gaza have not broken Palestinian steadfastness. This steadfastness wouldn’t be possible without the efforts of volunteers who work to provide so much of what the occupation tries to take away, hope, joy, and whatever small moments of pleasure that can be seized.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
4 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Over the weekend Israeli planes dropped flyers over Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia warning that anyone who approached within three hundred meters of the border would be shot. It is not as though the people don’t know of this policy.
As the following conversation between Israeli soldiers makes clear, this has been policy for many years. The soldiers in this conversation are discussing the murder of a thirteen year old girl, Iman Darweesh Al Hams. She was murdered in October 2004 on her way to school. The chilling transcript relating her murder is still fresh in the minds of Gazans.
In a three-way conversation between watchtower soldier, the operations room in another location, and finally, Captain R, the officer on the ground near watchtower, they discussed and confirmed the cold killing.
From the operations room: Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?
Watchtower: A girl about 10, she’s behind the embankment, scared to death.
A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts
Watchtower: I think that one of the positions took her out.
Captain R: I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over.
Capt R then “clarifies” why he killed Iman:
This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over.
The Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old, was acquitted on all charges by a military court. The soldier, who has only been identified as “Captain R”, was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp.
As you can see, the new leaflets aren’t really necessary. Everyone in Gaza knows of Israel’s policy of murdering anyone who goes near the border. The leaflets were also ineffective.
The weekly demonstration against the no go zone in Beit Hanoun went on just as it has every other Tuesday for the last three years. Just last Friday the Israeli military shot thirty two people at the Erez border crossing, one of them, 20 year old Mahmoud Zakout, was killed.
We gathered as we usually do outside the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College. You could hear the thump of an Apache’s blades, somewhere, unseen, there was a helicopter nearby. A farmer came by on a donkey cart; we went over to speak to him. He told us that because of the lack of fuel in Gaza his crops were threatened. He had no diesel to run irrigation pumps, and without water his crops will die. What was he to do? No one had an answer for him. After he left the music began over the megaphone, flags went up and a giant banner was unfurled. We began to march down the road to the no go zone.
We entered the no go zone with its shoulder high crop of thistles and quickly moved to single file to walk down the paths that we have worn through the thistles in previous demonstrations. We made our way to the ditch that bisects the no go zone, probably seventy meters from the giant concrete wall that marks the perimeter of the prison that is Gaza. Right in front of us was an Israeli tower from which they shoot whom they will. We lined along the ditch and began to chant against the occupation.
The chanting broke for a few minutes, Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke. He said “the resistance will continue until the end of the occupation.”
Then an Irish activist spoke, and he compared the Israeli occupation of Palestine to that of Rome and the Ottomans. “Just as those occupations came to an end so too will this one, Palestine will be free,” he said.
As we made our way back to Beit Hanoun we noticed smoke in the distance, behind a hill off to our east. An Israeli tank was releasing smoke, probably to cover the movement of the soldiers it was disgorging into Gaza. We stopped at some concrete blocks that we had painted with Palestinian flags in an earlier demonstration.
We soon noticed another tank making its way west along the wall. Two tanks and a helicopter, all this to try and scare thirty unarmed demonstrators off Palestinian land. It didn’t work.
Maybe in the future Israel will stop dropping leaflets and stop sending tanks to try and scare people. Israel could just play footage of the murder of Iman Darweesh Al Hams on giant televisions they could install in the wall.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
4 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
On March 30, 1976, the Palestinian people declared a general strike and demonstrated against the Israeli confiscation of thousands of acres of land in the Galilee. The Israeli’s responded with violence, killing six unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and injuring hundreds. Every year Land Day is commemorated in Palestine in remembrance of those who rise up to protect their land.
On this Land Day, I was at Erez Crossing. Several hundred youth had managed to find their way around the Hamas policemen blocking the roads leading to Erez. At the crossing, they moved to within two hundred yards of the Israeli gate. There they found their path blocked by rows of concertina wire across the road. The shabab, or young men, set fire to tires in the roadway and threw stones towards the Israeli wall, most falling into the roadway, well short of their target. Intermittently and without warning, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire on the stone throwers. Each volley consists of one to three shots, and with each volley, young men fall. Others immediately retrieved them. Dozens of youth mobbed the wounded. Somehow they managed to carry them through the crowd and loaded them onto motorcycles, where they were ferried to the Palestinian side of the crossing to waiting ambulances.
They shoot the youth don’t they? - Click here for more photos. Courtesy Johnny Bravo, 2012
I wonder about the young Israeli soldiers, picking their targets amongst the crowd and firing, like shooting fish in a barrel. I remember in 2002, the head of the IAF, Dan Hurlitz was asked what it felt like releasing a bomb over Gaza, and he said, “No. That is not a legitimate question and it is not asked. But if you nevertheless want to know what I feel when I release a bomb, I will tell you: I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb’s release. A second later it’s gone, and that’s all. That is what I feel.”
I disagree with Hurlitz on this point. In any caring world this is a completely legitimate question. It is the answer that rings of illegitimacy. It is the answer of a sociopath. I wonder if this dehumanization trickles down to the soldiers opposite us. I wonder what they feel.
And I wonder about the young stone throwers, completely exposed to the guns of the Israelis, knowing full well someone is going to be shot.
As the latest injury drives off on the back of a wobbly motorcycle, the shabob turn back to the wall and hurl a barrage of stones. Some grab on to the concertina wire and begin pulling it away from the road. I wait for the crack of the M-16’s and look to the front to see who has fallen. “We are going to Jerusalem, millions of martyrs” the shabob chant, and the shouts ring out “Allahu Akbar!” Some young men, blood covered, reach in and try to help each new casualty, others sit on the sidelines, taunting the newly injured, mimicking their cries as they are carried off.
In the moment, i am overwhelmed with the futility of throwing stones at a concrete barrier as the Israelis methodically pick people from the crowd and shoot them.
At the mourning tent of the only fatality that day, Mahmoud Zaqout, who would be 20 years old on April 19th, I speak to his father, Mohamed and his cousin, Nizar Zaqout.
Mohamed said he was proud of his son, the sixth son of seven boys. He says he was a quiet child, a loving child, and though he was soon to be twenty, he was still a child.
Mahmoud’s cousin, Nizar, who was at Mahmoud’s side at Erez, hobbles over to us on crutches, to talk about the moments leading up to Mahmoud’s death. They had traveled to Erez with two friends. They carried a Palestinian flag. Nizar tells us Mahmoud had a premonition of his impending death, and prior to entering the crossing he stopped to pray. They decided to move forward and place the Palestinian flag on the gate. In order to do this they would need to move the razor wire blocking the road and they began pulling on it. Israeli soldiers, crouching behind concrete blocks signaled to them as if to say, “What are you doing, you’ll see what happens.” On seeing the soldiers the two friends retreat. Mahmoud and Nizar continued pulling on the wire, determined to place the flag at the gate. Nizar said the soldiers signaled them with thumbs up. Shots rang out. Nizar and Mahmoud turned and ran. Nizar saw the blood on Mahmoud’s neck, after a few steps, Mahmoud collapsed in Nizar’s arms. Nizar carried his cousin back to the crowd of Palestinian youth. He held his hand over the wound as they were loaded onto a motorcycle. When they reached the ambulance, an attendant pointed to Nizar’s bleeding thigh. He had been shot as well.
I asked Nizar what he felt as he faced the soldiers. He said they were prepared to hang the flag on the gate or be shot. He spoke of his family’s history of resistance, the loss of an uncle during Cast Lead, and his determination to fight. “Even today, I want to pray in Jerusalem. This is our right. Since we were born Mahmoud and I have protested the Israelis.”
Someone handed Nizar a blood stained flag. The blood was Mahmoud’s. Nizar held the flag close to his cheek, breathing deeply. Breathing in the blood stained cloth, Mahmoud, his lost uncles, and all the sorrow and loss of Palestine, Nizar paused. He said, “Mahmoud could not place the flag at the gate. I will. Or my children will. We will continue to resist until we win our rights. Mahmoud’s blood will not be wasted. Hundreds will take his place. We will fight for our rights, for our children, we will fight until we get our land back.”
“The occupiers want us to forget about our land, and about Jerusalem, by turning our focus on our troubles- no jobs, no cooking fuel, no power, no gasoline, but we will not forget. My family is a family of resistance. My uncles have been killed, they’ve been to prison. They died for Jerusalem. Everyone around you here may die for Jerusalem. We are proud to do this.” Nizar exclaims. I turn and look at all the young faces surrounding us, listening intently.
As we get up to take our leave, Nizar asks where I am from. When I answer America, he says some in Gaza view America as the enemy. He said he appreciates my presence because it was critical to inform Americans about what is happening in Gaza.
This is what is happening in Gaza. The 36th anniversary of Land Day has come and gone. Israeli soldiers shot two young men, armed only with a flag, from point blank range. Over the course of the day, they shot dozens of young men, all armed with nothing more than stones. While I stood in Erez Crossing, no tear gas or other methods of crowd dispersal was employed. No warning shots were fired. Every shot hit flesh. American media does not find the story newsworthy. Nakba Day, “The Catastrophe”, is next, on May 15th. The youth will return to Erez. How many will be shot? Will the world take note?
In Gaza, the resistance remains, and is carried by the youth. I realize the struggle is not futile, Palestinians resist with what they have. They are not taught to hate, they are taught to demand their rights and stand for freedom.
Mohamed says, “For these demonstrations all the young men go, we do not stop them, it is their struggle. I am proud that Mahmoud went to the front of the crowd. We resist as our grandfathers did.” He says these words so quietly I can hear his heart breaking.
Johnny is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
1 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Al Huda School is a small, private primary school in Khan Yunis. It serves about 400 students, a quarter of them orphans. The school isn’t in the center of town, it is more out in the countryside. You look out the windows over fields of wheat and groves of olives. The countryside is reflected in the building, nicely painted white and green with a large outdoor area for the children to play. It has smaller classes than most schools in Gaza, only 20 to 25 students per class unlike the 40 to 50 that cram into UNWRA and government schools. The classrooms are clean and stocked with books and supplies for the children. Today the school was showcasing their arts and culture program in honor of land day. Al Huda School was working in conjunction with the Ethar Initiative, a local voluntary group that seeks to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and children. The Ethar Initiative works to provide job opportunities for poor women and children’s programs for needy children. The children were doing art projects and putting on a play. We were honored guests.
Land Day Commemoration - Click here for more photos
We were met by the headmistress, Reham S. Al Najjar, a young woman who seems to have an easy way with kids. We are ushered into her office while we wait for the students to get ready for the play. She told us about the school while we drank tea and ate small chocolate bars. When the students were ready we went outside, about 100 of the students had gathered to watch the play. They sat in the sandy soil that serves as the schools playground. The play told the story of some young Palestinian farmers threatened with losing their land to Israeli settlers. They are unafraid of the soldiers and the settlers; they go to their land despite the threats. They are beaten and arrested by Israeli soldiers. From prison one of the men writes his wife a beautiful letter, her reading it to her family inspires other young men to struggle until the prisoners are freed.
After the play we went back into the school, the children were going to have art class. The assignment today was to draw something from their memories of Gaza. The children eagerly set to work with the paper and crayons provided. Some of the little girls drew flowers and trees and houses, others had darker memories, missiles falling from the sky and tanks shooting shells. Both of these are constants of life in Gaza, Israeli attacks and the simple joy of spring days. When the girls finished their drawings they had their pictures taken with their artwork.
Then they made posters. The girls made hand prints on posters vowing not to forget their land. After the children went home for the day we went to visit the display room the school keeps for the children’s art. It was truly amazing. The children had decorated small pillows, made tissue holders, decorated vases, used crayons to color on glass, and many really nice crayon paintings.
The martyrs of land day have not been forgotten in Palestine, the land for which they died has not been forgotten, the occupation does not allow forgetting. I hope that someday these children can visit the land on which the six martyrs were killed, the land that their grandparents were ethnically cleansed from.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
30 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Sometimes, the more things change the more they stay the same. On March 30, 1976 during protests against the confiscation of Palestinian land, Israel killed six protesters, injured over one hundred and arrested hundreds more. This was the first Land Day. Every year for the last thirty six years Palestinians have commemorated the heroism of those protesters and reiterated their attachment to their lands. This year was no different. This year protests occurred in over eighty countries, thousands of people tried to march to Jerusalem. Almost everywhere whoever was in power tried to prevent these marches. Gaza was no different from everywhere else.
The march from south of Beit Hanoun - Click here for more photos
Today’s protest began at a gas station south of Beit Hanoun. Thousands of people gathered for the protest, many of them made it obvious that they wanted to march to Erez, and, God willing, on to Jerusalem. Rows of police prevented this. On a stage speaker after speaker spoke of resistance and return. Off to the side, tires burned, youth on top of a billboard rhythmically pounded on it, demanding to go to north toward the border. The police were having none of this, armored, carrying Plexiglas shields and batons; they stopped anyone who attempted to push north. For three hours thousands of people stood under the sun in honor of Land Day.
At about four o’clock we were told that some people we know had moved past the police lines that were preventing protesters from reaching Erez. The Israeli army was firing on the demonstrators. Live bullets from soldiers ensconced in concrete towers embedded in a giant concrete wall shooting at protesters on the narrow road to the border. That is a constant in Gaza, all protests are met with live bullets. We set out to Erez to see the situation.
We arrived at Erez at about five o’clock. There were a couple of hundred young men on the street leading to the border. They were blocked from coming close to the massive concrete wall in which the soldiers hid by a fence of razor wire. Israeli soldiers shot at young men burning tires and throwing stones. None of the stones made it within a hundred meters of the concrete towers, but that did not stop the Israelis from using deadly force, their bullets smashed into body after body. One young man, Mahmoud Zakot, 20, from Jabalia was killed. Thirty one others were injured. There were no ambulances. Young men would be shot, their friends would carry them to waiting motorcycles, the motorcycles would roar off to take the injured to ambulances waiting by the checkpoint behind us.
The young men were not deterred by the gunfire. They had come to Erez to protest forty five years of occupation, sixty four years of dispossession, no one had any illusions about how Israel dealt with protests in Gaza with bullets. Young men would move forward with whatever they could light on fire and leave it in the razor wire which blocked the road. Other young men would try to pull the razor wire out of the way so that we could advance toward Jerusalem. Bullets would ring out; young men would fall into the arms of their friends and be put on motorcycles for the trip to the hospital. While the Israeli’s shot them the young men chanted, “The doors of Al Aqsa are made of iron” and “We are going to Jerusalem, martyrs in the millions”. Freedom is more valuable than life.
We did not reach Jerusalem today. We remember though, and we are grateful, that Jerusalem is not Lifta and is not Jarash, Palestinians still live there, it has not been ethnically cleansed. We will be back on May 15, in commemoration of the Nakba, we will return on June 5th to commemorate the Naksa, we will return to this border until the occupation disappears.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
