Category: Journals - Page 65 - International Solidarity Movement

Nakba day in Gaza

18 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Nakba Day. The day of the Catastrophe. A day to mark the ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians from their homes. A day to remind themselves and the world, that one day, they will return to their homes, that they have not forgotten their land. Today marked 63 years of dispossession, 63 years of ethnic cleansing. Thousands of Palestinians marched north from Beit Hanoun to the wall; thousands of Palestinians marched toward their homes.

As we approached the wall the Israeli army barked out its hello. A tank began to fire over the crowd and into the sand dunes lining the road. The Israeli bulldozers had already thoroughly destroyed anything that was once on this land, outside of threatening the crowd there was nothing to accomplish by this shooting. It is a strange thing to be fired at with a cannon from a tank; you can almost feel the air shake when the shell explodes. The crowd did not stop, it continued forward, chanting against the occupation, chanting their love of their land.

Soon the stream of wounded began. From the front of the crowd men and boys carried by their friends, by whoever was standing near them when they were shot. They came in a steady stream; you could hear the tak tak tak of the Israeli rifles echo against the calm sky. In the West Bank, the soldiers are usually stationed on a hill, first comes the tear gas, and then come the bullets, usually rubber at first, later the live ammunition. In Gaza there are no pretenses, first the tanks fire their cannons, then the soldiers safe in their concrete tower start to shoot live ammunition into the crowd.

The crowd, maybe a thousand strong by now, is strung out along the street. Their only cover the concrete lane separators. Above them, Apaches hover, not for the whole protest, but they come and go; perhaps they will fire missiles into the crowd. It is pretty hard to imagine what possible use an Apache has in crowd control. Then again it is hard to imagine the possible uses of a tank for crowd control, yet off to the right of the crowd an Israeli tank shelters behind an earth berm. In front of them is a giant concrete tower manned by soldiers who shoot into the crowd. Underneath this tower there is some sort of room, apparently for people crossing the terminal. Occasionally you see soldiers there; they seem to be playing with a luggage cart. It is hard to imagine that they are afraid for their safety. Off to their left is another giant concrete tower, this one has a very large gun mounted on top of it.

Saber says: “On the tower in front of us there is a sniper, he does not miss a shot fired: every bullet achieves exactly the target. The tower on the left is fitted with a remote control machine that shoots projectiles with a caliber much bigger, those are illegal under international law.” The danger is increased by the fact that the direct line between the remote control gun and the protesters is obstructed by bushes, which obscures visibility and makes accurate aim less likely. None of the Palestinians are carrying weapons, none are a real threat to Israel. This is the first event since the agreements were signed for national unity: there are those who bare obvious signs of Fatah, Hamas and the PFLP. All sectors of the population are represented including women and children. Nalan a girl of twenty-one years, says “I wanted to go further in the front row, because is my land, and I wanted to go further. But my friends pulled me back and wanted to keep me safer …”.

The hours pass, the soldiers continue to shoot into the crowd. The wounded trickle to the back, shot one by one. The soldiers sit safely in their concrete tower firing into a crowd a hundred meters away. You can only imagine how they decide who to shoot. They can’t possibly feel any threat; they young men barely even bother to throw stones. The wall, the tower, are too far away for a stone to even reach them. The stones that are thrown are thrown almost on principle, if you are going to stand in an open street while soldiers shoot you from their concrete tower, surely you should do something.

Three young men try to put a flag up on a light pole. The soldiers start to shoot at them. They hide in a jumble of concrete blocks at the base of the light pole. When the shooting pauses, they try again to put up their flag. As soon as they emerge the firing begins again. This pattern is repeated several times. Finally the soldiers start firing some sort of heavy machine gun at the boys; everyone realizes that the situation has become much more serious. Soon, the boys will be killed. A young man from the crowd joins them, and tries to convince them to make a run for it, to leave the shelter of the rocks for the shelter of the crowd. He fails. Men from the crowd try to convince people to walk over en mass and take the boys out, they can’t convince enough people, people are too afraid that the soldiers will shoot them. Finally, the boys realize that they have to move; one by one they make a run for the crowd. Thank god they all make it.

The soldiers start shooting again; I feel a punch in the chest. Probably just a ricocheting piece of stone, the young boy next to me was not so lucky. When I look over he is being helped away, his face streaming blood. It looks like he has a hole in his cheek, like he was shot in the face. I never see him again, surely he wasn’t shot in the face, it is hard to imagine him living through that.

A boy next to me is shot in the leg. You can see that his leg is shattered even through his pants. When they pick him up to carry him to ambulance his leg hangs as if in two pieces. He doesn’t scream, he doesn’t say anything, but you can see the fear and pain in
his face. He seems to be about 14. What were the soldiers thinking? That this young boy, 100 meters from their concrete tower was somehow a threat to them? It is strange, none of the wounded seem to scream, perhaps you just don’t notice, I don’t know, but I don’t remember any screams of pain, just the look of fear and pain on young faces.

After about three hours of shooting live ammunition into the crowd the soldiers decide to try something new, well, new for the day, but familiar to all Palestinians. They begin to fire tear gas into the crowd. The crowd surges back to escape the tear gas. The soldiers aren’t very committed though, after one volley of tear gas they return to shooting live ammunition into the defenseless crowd. If this were Libya, Syria, the world would denounce the use of live ammunition on a crowd of unarmed people who pose zero threat to anyone, but this is Gaza, shooting unarmed demonstrators is a given.

A young man walks forward alone. He keeps walking toward the wall, you can feel the tension, the crowd is worried that he walks toward his death, brave but suicidal. The soldiers don’t shoot; he comes closer to the wall than anyone has in hours. He takes a Palestinian flag that has been left there; he walks slowly back to the crowd. He is greeted like a hero. The soldiers go back to shooting random young people from the crowd.

After leaving the protest we went to visit some of the wounded in the hospital. They were
already out of the emergency, resting in beds, six to a room surrounded by their families.

Ahmed Gomaa Abd Al Malik is 17 years old. His family lives in Beach Camp, but they are from Deir Sneid where they were expelled in 1948. He was one of the first injured in the protest, shot at 11 am. He went to today’s protest to return to his home, to return to Deir Sneid, the village of his forefathers, his land. He says that he will not forgot his land, Israel should know this, he will return.

Mustafa Saif Abu Saif lies nearby. He is pale, he looks tired. He is only 14 years old, one of the many kids shot today. His family are refugees from Jaffa, now they live in Jabalia Camp. He was shot near the wall. He had found an Israeli flag and brought it to be burned, while he and his friends were trying to burn the flag the soldiers shot him. He asks that the world wake up to what Israel is doing in Palestine, that they assist the Palestinians in any way that they can.

Yehia Adel Al Shareef is the oldest person we meet today who was shot. He is 23. His family lives in Beach Camp. He has no idea why he was shot, they just shot him.

Shadi Rayan is 19 years old. He wants to return to his homeland, to the village which his family was expelled from in 1948. He doesn’t want the world to forget that 63 years later, his family is still refugees; their right to return to their land is still being denied. He was shot at 3:30 while he tried to hang a Palestinian flag.

These are only some of the casualties. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, one 18 year old boy is dead and the total number of wounded is 105, including 31 children, three women and three journalists. The injured were taken to three different hospitals in the Gaza strip, and incredibly, some of those with minor injuries returned to the demonstration after being treated at the hospital. Others preferred to stay at the demonstration rather than be taken to the hospital; for example a man with a wounded leg, his trousers torn and stained with blood, tied a flag around his bleeding leg and continued demonstrating.

The shooting continued for over 5 hours. The Nakba has continued for 63 years. Hopefully we will not have mourn the 64th anniversary of the Nakba.

Do you see that land? That land is mine and I cannot go there

14 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On May 8, 9, and 10th the farmers of Khuza’a harvested their wheat. Khuza’a is a village near the Israeli border in the southern Gaza Strip. For three days they visited the fields, starting very early in the morning and picking the fruits of their land. For three days the Israeli occupation forces fired from their automated turret while the farmers continued to harvest their grain. However, they did not allow the Israeli Occupation Force to prevent them from going to their land.

The area where the farmers, along with three international ISM activists and five Palestinian activists traveled to, is about 450 meters from the border. Before the second intifada melons were grown there, along with other fruit trees and olive trees. “We came here to do barbecue, party and relax… the Israeli jeeps used to pass in the distance but did not bother us, they used to leave us in peace.” Ahmed said. Today the trees have been uprooted, the plants destroyed. The only thing that can be grown, because it does not require constant attention, is wheat. But the wheat needs several hours to be collected, and snipers have fun terrorizing the farmers during those hours.

On May 8th in addition to the activists there were eight farmers in the fields, mostly women, but also a child of 13 years and a girl of seven, all brothers and sisters of the AnNajjar family which resides in Khuza’a. They were on 10 dunams of their land, collecting the golden-yellow wheat in bundles and they thought that the presence of activists (foreign and not) could protect them at work, and decided to go farther than usual to collect plants to feed their animals. Where the wheat fields end the land is crossed by sand dunes caused by Israeli bulldozers; here grows thorn bushes and small trees that seem dry, but are a good food for donkeys and sheep. A man bends down to pull up some plants, extends his arm and points his finger at a dune a few tens of meters away, “You see that land? That land is mine and I can not go there.”

From the towers, the Israeli forces are not slow to remember who has the power to decide which land can or can not be farmed by these farmers. We heard the first shots in the air above us just before 9:00. Suddenly and without warning, three bullets landed within 50 meters of the farmers who were working their land. When someone shoots into the air you just hear the shot, but if the bullet is in your direction you can hear the whistle, and the sound of the bullet landing. The soil was sandy, and when the bullets hit, we could see three clouds of dust rise. Close. Too close to a group of nearly 20 civilians who were only harvesting wheat. Some twenty minutes later a man, furious, stopped collecting grass for his animals and said of the other side of the border, where a tractor is plowing a field, “Look, the Israelis can grow undisturbed. However if we go out they shoot at us. ”

On the second day another group, also linked to the extended family AnNajjar, started to collect the grain in a nearby field, which also covers an area of 10 dunam. There were more than 10 farmers intent on collecting the grain and some woman who were collecting grass. But what can they make from 10 dunams of land? Akhmad AnNajjar tries to quantify it: “In the past, we brought home 50-60 bags of wheat, now we are only able to make between 10 and 20: we are unable to take care of the land because we cannot reach it, the amount of grain is much smaller than it was 10 years ago.” From the control tower a shot was heard at around 7:30 and at around 8 o’clock, the motion of the jeeps and tanks across the border were beginning to become constant. On the third day jeeps and tanks continued to move constantly, raising clouds of dust on the land that today is recognized as Israeli. The bullets were not missing either. A man told us: All day they shoot. But when there is presence of internationals they shoot a bit less. ”

Khuza’a is a farming village that is located in the southern Gaza Strip, in the governate of Khan Younis. The center of Khuza’a is located about one kilometer from the border, while about 80% of its arable land (from a total of 2000 dunam) is located in an area where there is a high risk of being hit by Israeli bullets or areas where the Zionist entity has unilaterally denied access, the so-called “buffer zone“. Many dunams cannot be cultivated, and access to some land is completely blocked by the occupation forces. According to a UN report, 35% of all of Gaza’s arable land is in “high risk” areas, and cases of farmers being seriously injured or killed while on their way to cultivate their land are not rare. The poverty line reaches 80 percent, the same for unemployment and the majority of workers who lost their jobs since the beginning of the 2nd Intifada are still jobless. Among the marginalized people are farmers and fishermen who depend on international assistance.

Akmad explains why despite everything, he and his family go there again and again to collect the grain: “We want to eat, and live a normal life. This is our right, this is our land, we will not abandon our fields, even if Israel continues to shoot and try to intimidate us.”

Today the farmers of Beit Hanoun harvested their wheat

26 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today the farmers of Beit Hanoun harvested their wheat. This would be unexceptional news in any other part of the world, but in Palestine things aren’t always so simple. Beit Hanoun is close to the Israeli border, a border where Israel imposes an illegal “buffer zone” in which it claims the right to shoot anyone it wishes. Israel claims the buffer zone is 300 meters wide, but farmers and scrap collectors who work along the border are often shot at at distances up to 1.5 kilometers from the border. The border is lined with massive towers containing guns, sometimes the guns fire, and people die. You won’t read about the dead in the New York Times though, they are Palestinian and their deaths are unremarkable and un-newsworthy.

In honor of the slain Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni the Local Initiative, the group that organized today’s harvest, had decided to launch the Vittorrio Arrigoni Campaign to Harvest Wheat. Today was its first action. Vittorio had often worked with farmers to plant and harvest their crops along the buffer zone, after his death we continue to harvest in his name, in his memory.

We set out to the fields at about eleven. Loudspeaker, posters, and scythes ready. We parked the van and started to walk to the fields, playing Vittorio’s favorite song, Onadeekum, over the loudspeaker. We reached the field and set to work; kneel, cut, and make a pile of freshly shorn wheat. The field we were working in is about a kilometer from the border, it doesn’t look like much is planted closer to the border than this. It is dangerous to work close to the border. After a few minutes shots ring out. They aren’t aimed at us though, at some other unseen farmer, maybe a poor man trying to collect rocks to make cement which is in critical shortage in Gaza due to the blockade Israel imposes. Back to work we go, the wheat still needs harvesting, and there is nothing to be done about unseen shooting. Perhaps later we will read about the death of somebody in the newspaper, but you can be sure that the New York Times will make no mention of the murder. We didn’t finish harvesting the wheat today, but we will back, we will continue to challenge the illegal buffer zone that Israel imposes on Gaza.

Vik’s not gone

22 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Vittorio Arrigoni and Adie — Vik and Adie

Vik, habibo, you’re not gone, not for me at least. In life you brought the warmth every time I met you, and to everyone else. You did not see it as a duty or a service but it was just how you were, to rouse and stir the best things inside us all for the better, every day, starting with ‘yallah habibo!’

I’m sorry Vik, for a few days there was the shock and the sorrow, which still re-emerges when I think of what happened to you or read another account of how you touched or brightened someone else’s life in Gaza and beyond. Don’t worry, I’ll stay on the right track, the joyful track, the human track, for the overlying feeling left with me is of your warmth, the comforting feel that a big friendly giant is still escorting me onwards, your huge heart and boundless humanity that is the lifeblood of your actions, so strong that it wraps us all up and takes us with you.

I don’t know when or how it was exactly that your life became an indomitable, unswerving and relentless drive for the cause of others more hard done by and wronged than yourself. You joined the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation nearly 10 years ago and since I met you it’s been routine for you to use any means at your disposal to put justice for the Palestinians first before anything else.

There have been dedicated people for the Palestinian cause but why so much love for you Vik? Why so much affection? I’ve heard Palestinians saying they cried more for you than when they lost a brother or a sister. Because, probably a long time before your decision to tirelessly and bravely dedicate your life to justice in Palestine, it also became your priority to remind everyone of their humanity for every living minute you were around them.

As you recounted for me that meant attempting to fight your own anguish in Gaza during Israel’s Cast Lead attacks as you met people in Gaza hospitals or ambulances that you aided and reported from, trying to stay strong and positive for the many men, women and children you met who had lost limbs, or loved ones. ‘Stay human’, you titled your book so eloquently describing life during this devastation. With me I saw you entertain kids everywhere we went, them hanging off your enormous arms tattooed with ‘Handala’, ‘Guevara’ and ‘resistance’. Or your time jostling and joking with the fishermen who took you in as their crew and comrade, accompanying them into the perils of fishing under fire from Israeli gunships.

And the laughter, your bellowing roar coming from the gut, bringing us to life in harder times. The story of your arrival on the first Free Gaza boat to huge Gaza crowds while you stood on top waving just a stick around for half an hour not realising the Palestinian flag had blown away a long time before. Our attempts to communicate with Taxi drivers (mumkin! mushkila! Ah mish mushkila! akid!) Our macabre jokes before facing the Israeli firing while accompanying farmers or demonstrations – Abu Tunis was happy to be your sidekick as we faced the music while you sang ‘Ounadikkum’, ‘I’m calling you’. The games we had, spoons, cheat, football with shisha, chai, shawarma, barbecues and our own variations of debka dancing.

Like our brothers and sisters in Palestine who so endeared themselves to us with their generosity of spirit, you too put out there your big warm heart no matter who they were, a dedication to staying human amidst the good and tragic times. Such humble and equal treatment of everyone brought out the humanity in those around us, as did your accepting of your own strengths and weaknesses. And just as people in Gaza loved you, it was their compassion that inspired your love for them, and your unbreakable commitment to their cause.

After arriving and breaking the siege on the first Free Gaza boat to dock at Gaza’s port in 40 years, you wrote:

Our message of peace
is a call to action
for other ordinary people like ourselves
not to hand over your lives
to whatever puppeteer is in charge this time round
But to take responsibility for the revolution
First, the inner revolution
to give love, to give empathy
It is this that will change the world

You had obviously had this inner revolution Vik, and no doubt battled to constantly renew it. You won the battle, you brought more love and empathy than most of us will ever do, and it will warm my heart for years to come. Vittorio you are the dreamer who never gave up and we won’t give up. Like the love, the humanity, the laughter and the courage, your dreams live on inside all of us and through your life you taught us that this victory counts the most.

Your habibo,
Adie

Views from the Jordan Valley

19 April 2011 | Jack Curry

The cluster of Jordan Valley villages located around Fasayil offer a twisted microcosm of the fickle barbarity of Israel’s illegal occupation. Families who seemingly share land, live side by side with no separation except the invisible borders enshrined in Israel’s military law. Yet, as you tread amongst the stones between the close lying villages it is clear where the limited rights afforded to Palestinians ends and the increased terror of the occupation begins.

To the south lies Fasayil, which is classified as Area B under the misleadingly named Oslo Peace Accords. Because of the status afforded to it by the 1994 treaty, villagers are entitled to build schools and houses, as well as run water and electricity to their homes. Life is by no means perfect, and the Palestinians who live there are still deeply affected by Israel’s occupation. Yet, being in Area B does afford them a limited right to education and healthcare.

Just under five kilometres to the north is the village of Fasayil al-Fauqa, classified as Area C under Oslo. In 2008, after a project by Jordan Valley Solidarity to build a school, Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair negotiated a special status for Palestinians living there. All solid structures built since the signing of the 1994 Oslo agreement were allowed to stand, despite being ‘illegal’ under Israel’s punishing military law. Yet Fasayil al-Fauqa is still Area C, and these small gains can be cruelly taken away at any time the occupation decides.

Nestled between the two, Fasayal Al Wusta is home to a small community of Bedouin, many of whom travelled to the area from Bethlehem during the late 1980s and 90s following harassment by the army. Fasayal Al Wusta lies in Area C, and it’s inhabitants are thus denied the basic necessities afforded to their neighbours in Area B. This includes water, and electricity from the power lines that criss cross above their homes to Area B and the surrounding agricultural colonies (settlements) of Tomer and El’Fasail.

As a further affront to their human rights, the Bedouin must watch as families a few hundred metres away in Area B receive rice and cooking oil from USAID, and American boxes litter the bumpy road that connects the villages. The only benefit for one family is a cardboard box serving as a makeshift toy box, emblazoned with a ‘gift from the American people’. Now the little these families have is under threat from demolition orders served by the Israeli Occupational Force (IOF).

At any time these men, women and children – some as young as 2 months – could be woken, perhaps at 5am, to the sound of confrontational soldiers barking orders that they leave their home. Then, without even a minutes respite to collect their belongings, they may have to watch as a bulldozer and it’s emotionless driver proceed to destroy what has taken years to build. Over the weekend of 15th-17th April the army came to the village, taking photographs of the condemned tents and their occupants. It is feared the bulldozers will come when the weekend passes.

The demolition orders were served at the beginning of March by a court in Bet El military base, just outside Ramallah. As the Bedouin carry a Jordan Valley identity card they are all but denied the right to defend their homes, as entry into other areas of the West Bank can be a lengthy process. Whilst a lawyer represented the families, he could only gleam a one month stay of execution. That brief period expired on the 9th and 10th of April.

It is difficult for the Bedouin to leave Fasayal Al Wusta because the men have jobs in the area, the majority earning 50 shekels (£10) a day picking fruit and vegetables in the fields of Tomer settlement. The produce, ranging from bananas to aubergines and dates, are then packaged and shipped to Europe, Israel and the Middle East. Whilst grown on Palestinian land, stolen in 1948 and approved by the international community under Oslo, profits are for Israeli’s only.

Now the families fall to sleep at night uncertain of what the next twenty four hours may bring. In a show of strength and resilience, they sit and watch TV amongst belongings that could lie flattened and unrepairable come morning. Maybe the bulldozers will arrive by daylight, maybe they will never come. It is an agonising wait, and an integral element of the psychological war being waged against Palestinians across the West Bank. And on this stretch of land spanning the eastern part of the Occupied Territories the suffering is rapidly intensifying.

In the Israeli state’s drive to ethnically cleanse the fertile land of all Palestinians, the Bedouin of the Jordan Valley suffer constant harassment that extends beyond house demolitions. In February, the Israeli Boarder Police descended upon Fasayal Al Wusta at 1am with megaphones and aggression. They demanded that every man in the village over the age of 15 years had five minutes to make their way to the playground a short walk away in Fasayil. The men were detained for an hour, and it was claimed that the Police chief had a problem with the amount of stones in the road.

A month earlier, two brothers were arrested and taken to Ofar prison near Ramallah again on a spurious charge that the Police chief had taken a dislike to large stones in the street. They were released after two days, but without their identity cards – meaning they couldn’t travel or work. Yet, they had to make the trip back to Fayasal Al Wusta. In order to return home it was essential they avoided Israeli checkpoints, as they would be arrested again. So they took a treacherous trip across mountainous back roads in a private taxi. The cost of the journey was 300 shekels, and each brother had to pay a further 1,000 shekels for a new identity card from the Palestinian Authority. In the three week period it took to receive the cards neither brother was able to earn even a shekel.

These payments are part of a wider economic squeeze on the already poverty stricken Bedouin, which include bail payments for arrested animals and fines if sheep or cattle wander over to the wrong side of a road. It seems the Israeli’s are becoming tired with the capacity of Bedouin families to restart their lives following each demolition. With one tent destroyed, they move a little further across the land and rebuild again. If Israel can bankrupt them, perhaps they will get the Zionist message they are not welcome on their own land. Or, if the international community can get it’s act together, maybe Israel can be told it has to end it’s apartheid laws and hand the Jordan Valley back to the Palestinians.