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.

The sharp end of Hebron

11 April 2011 | Issa Amro

Hebron’s problems began after 1967. The Israeli army worked hard to create the Kiryat Arba settlement, and after that the settlers and soldiers started living inside Hebron, transforming it into an occupied city. We started to feel it when they created settlements in the heart of the city. In the early 1980s settlers started to come from all over the world, moving into our houses and markets. They treated Palestinians as slaves and animals, fourth-class humans, only there to be taken advantage of.

All this was not so obvious until 1994 and the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, when a fanatic settler killed 29 Muslims. After that we were punished. The apartheid policy was employed more obviously, with the closure of Shuhada Street and many local businesses. The army divided Ibrahimi Mosque and confiscated the gardens.

My resistance efforts began in 2003. The army had closed Palestine polytechnic University when I was a student there. They locked the gates and told us to “go to the streets. You will have no future here.” This made my decision. I would struggle, in a nonviolent way. I was fortunate to be guided by a specialist in activism. With him I discussed strategic planning and a methodology for how to re-open our university. One day we just broke in, opened the doors, started the classes and began to study by ourselves. The army arrived shortly after, so we camped out in a sit-in tent that we had bought. We called our international friends and media. We explained to everybody the importance of our university to us. After six months, it was finally re-opened.

That has given me the encouragement to continue ever since. I understand when Palestinians feel that resistance is hopeless. The Israeli army does not distinguish between unarmed demonstrators and armed enemies. They have one law, which is against protest in every form. To oppose them is to provoke a killing machine.

I do not criticise any form of resistance. It is our right. I follow the nonviolent path for two main reasons. Firstly, I want our community to remain peaceful. As Ghandi said, using violence to be rid of an oppressor “establishes a pattern of violence.” This is not our way. Secondly, through nonviolence we can achieve massive participation from whole communities rather than individuals.

Nonviolence is dangerous for the occupation. How do I know? Between April 2010 and now, I have been arrested no less than ten times. This tells me that our methods are working. The army is not trained to deal with nonviolence, as the Egyptian authorities were unable to handle the youth movements. It is only a matter of time, and will, before we see a similar result here. When I am arrested they try to paint me as a terrorist. I have been accused of attacking policemen and settlers, of stealing guns, and of other crimes which fit their image of Palestinians. I am never discouraged by being arrested, but it is very difficult for my wife and family. We all know that my safety is endangered by my activities.

The army has a new crime to accuse us of: “incitement.” It is such a vague term that it can be applied to anything, especially protest. It carries the threat of prison time and was used to jail Bi’lin organiser Abdallah Abu Rahmah in 2009. The creation of this law implicates the highest Israeli authorities and the legal system in allowing, even promoting, institutional racism. The law itself is racist. If incitement means anything, why not use it against Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who talks about killing people, rather than me, for exercising my right to peaceful demonstration? We see racist laws every day in Hebron, where we are under Martial Law, and our settler neighbours are under Israeli Civic Law.

We look to international leaders to help our struggle against settlements, and we were shocked by the recent American veto (of a UN resolution condemning them). US leaders announce that they are against them, but when they are tested we find that they are still blindly supporting Israel.

So we must do it ourselves. I represent the Youth Against Settlements group in Hebron, which includes the Tel Rumeida project, empowering families to deal with the daily effects of settlers. Our work is preventing the quiet transfer of Palestinians from their homes and is a barrier against the beatings, theft, and rights abuses so common here.

Yet we face a complex and determined opposition. The Israeli government is clever in using settlers. They are trying to say that Hebron is important for religious history, but what I hear from settlers is that it is a step towards taking Nablus, Ramallah, and the entire West Bank. Hebron is a frontline. If they succeed here in their campaign of ethnic cleansing under the banner of religion, they will move on to new goals.

But I am very optimistic about the future. Our Open Shuhada Street demonstrations attract thousands. Our movement is growing, and we will soon have a new Youth Against Settlements branch in Ramallah. We need Palestinians from all towns and villages to come and lend us their support. On the settlement issue we are all united and our youth activism movements are developing. International boycott campaigns against settlements must continue as they are already effective. It is only a matter of time before we see our own mass nonviolent uprising, as in the other Arab countries. A new generation is coming together to reject the violence and injustice of settlements. I believe it will happen next year.

Issa Amro is a lifelong Hebron resident. He is an electrical engineer, human rights activist and community leaders. He has founded several youth projects and initiatives

Army continue to harass Palestinian farmers in the Jordan Valley

31 March 2011 | Jordan Valley Solidarity

Milk poured over the floor of the store room
Yaser and his family (including 8 children) have been living during the spring time in Kherbet Samra, Jordan Valley, since 2006. At 8.30 pm yesterday evening the Israeli army came to his home claiming to be looking for terrorists from Nablus who they said they knew were staying with him. Despite his insistence that only his family were there, they made everyone leave the tents and requested to see the ID papers of all of the family, including his terrified young children.

On the request of the army the family produced their IDs. All the IDs showed that they were related and none of the IDs produced were Nablus IDs. The army refused to say why they believed that people from Nablus were staying with the family. For some time the family were made to stand while the army decided what to do.

The army then claimed that they believed that the family were hiding guns in their tents. They made their way straight to where the children slept and ransacked their tent emptying all the clothes onto the floor. After failing to find any guns they went to the milk store and poured the contents of the milk vessels onto the floor and mixed it with sugar.

The children's bedroom after the army had left
Yaser and his family keep goats. They use their milk to drink, to make cheese for them to eat and then sell what is left in Hebron. The milk from the family’s goats is their only form of income. That morning all of the goats had been milked and their full store (60 litres) was destroyed. At no point did the army show any documents which proved the search was legal as well as speaking in Hebrew the whole time so that the family were unable to understand what was happening. After destroying the families livelihood they left. In total the army remained at the family’s home for one and a half hours whilst the family were made to watch as their home was turned upside down and their way of generating income to support them destroyed. This is just one case of harassment of local Palestinian farmers in the Jordan Valley by the Israeli army. The constant harassment is part of a deliberate policy to make life so difficult for Palestinian families that they leave the valley, whilst at the same time the Israeli state continues to build new settlement homes for Israeli citizens to expand their agricultural development. This colonisation of the valley by Israel is destroying the lives of Palestinians that have lived here for generations.

The names of the innocents who are killed

5 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Omar Maruf was killed by a soldier who was heavily armed, and well equipped with everything the latest Western military industry has to offer. Omar was wearing old, dirty clothes, and collecting stones with his donkey. Omar was not even “collateral damage” unfortunately hit by a misguided bullet or bomb during a military attack: no, a young soldier, heavily armed and well equipped, targeted Omar, who was standing there, with shabby clothes and stones in his hands, and decided to shoot him. A young soldier on a sunny winter morning felt the need to kill a man his same age who he probably considered less important. He knew that this act would never have any consequences and that he wouldn’t have to justify that deed to anyone. Because it was a Palestinian with no rights, whose life didn’t count.

This article is about Omar Maruf, because his life does count. Because his death deserves outrage and a demand for justice. Because I’ve looked into the silent faces of Omar’s grieving brothers, because I have listened to his cousins, who spoke all the more, out of anger and helplessness. How can you just murder a young man, they asked me. How it is possible that the Israeli soldier will not be sued, that there is no justice, that no one cares? Why you can just kill people like us, why can you just shoot Palestinians? Why does no one do anything? Why is no government in the world is helping us, when the Israeli government believes that international law does not apply for them?

So here it is, the story of the death of Omar Maruf. He was twenty years old, and the father of a two years old son. “Don’t go too close to the border, it’s too dangerous,” his cousin Talal has previously warned him. He had no choice, Omar had responded. He had a son who needs food. So he went to the border to collect stones. It was 9:30 in the morning of the 28th February 2011, Talal was about 700 meters away from the border, on his own land. Omar was at 400 meters, when the Israeli soldiers opened fire. He was outside the so-called buffer zone, the 300-meter-wide strip of land along the border with Israel, which the Israeli military has banned from entering under threat of death. It is debatable whether it is lawful to declare publicly to shoot any civilian of the neighbour state who is on his own farmland close to the border. But that is not important, Omar was over hundred yards away from this area.

Talal couldn’t see Omar from where he was standing, he didn’t know what had happened to him, whether the shots had hit him. The soldiers fired several volleys, and with the last volley, they shot the donkey, Talal could see how he died. Why the donkey, one wonders, such a pointless additional cruelty. But Talal didn’t know yet what had happened to Omar. Shortly after, two bulldozers and a tank broke into the land, it was impossible for Talal to come closer. Even the ambulance from the Red Cross which he had called received no permission to approach the donkey cart, even after several attempts to coordinate with the Israeli side. The bulldozers began to dig a ditch around the cart with the dead donkey, almost half a kilometer away from the territory of their own state. Why, one wonders. Why did they dig a ditch around the donkey cart? Shortly after, Talal watched from a safe distance how Omar’s lifeless body was brought into the tank. Why, one wonders. Why did they take Omar with them? Maybe they wanted to treat him, said his cousin. Treat? For two hours, the paramedics of the Red Cross were trying to find out what happened to Omar, where he was, whether he was still alive. In vain. Finally, the paramedics received a call from the hospital of Gaza City: A body had been brought in from the Israeli Erez crossing, Omar was dead.

“What on earth was this soldier thinking when he shot him?” his cousin asks me. “Did he think he would pose any danger? He doesn’t even have money to buy milk for his child. Did he think he had money for a weapon? Did he think he would have a tank?” As if I would have the answer. So I follow the question of why the soldiers have taken Omar with them. They wanted to help him, the family is convinced. I ask one of his brothers, whether traces of medical treatment were visible on his body. He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I have seen his body. There were no puncture marks of an infusion, no bandages. The bullet had entered at the left side of his body, and had come out again on the other side.” A dumdum bullet, which causes maximum damage. Bullets, which explode on impact inside the body are prohibited according to Geneva Convention 1889, Declaration 3. I don’t mention that that hardly matches the version that soldiers wanted to help. Perhaps the idea is just too reassuring that one of them has actually seen Omar as a human being who needs help.

But something had changed in him. As Omar’s dead body reached the hospital, a notice was fixed to his chest. “Terrorist” it said.

Omar Maruf is the eighth civilian being shot dead in the buffer zone in the last two months. Since the beginning of last year, far more than a hundred workers and farmers have been shot by Israeli snipers in the buffer zone: 18 of them died.

The pirates of the Mediterranean

5 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Government measures on the sea, even if they are illegal, are not an act of piracy, according to international law. The actions of the Israeli military are not likely to have been considered in the implementation of this law. The cousins Mustafa, 42, Mahmoud, 30, and Hjazi ElLaham, 27, were on the morning of the 19th February 2011, like every morning, fishing with their boat off the coast of Gaza. They were in the same area in which they are always located, 2.5 nautical miles from the coast, well inside the allowed zone. The Oslo agreement had assured the fishermen of Gaza bilaterally 20 nautical miles of fishing. Israel later unilaterally reduced this distance to 6 miles, and since the blockade was declared the fishermen are only allowed to fish within 3 nautical miles.

It was a stormy day, the cousins were almost alone on the sea. While the other fishermen had stayed at home because of the weather, the three couldn’t afford to lose a day of work. They were just pulling in their net, when an Israeli warship approached. The soldiers on the ship began to shoot at their net. The three fishermen began to work faster, they couldn’t risk to lose their net, and started the engine.

Until then, it was an ordinary day. “We are shot at by Israeli warships almost daily,” says Mustafa, the eldest, “we are used to that.”

Then they were ordered over loudspeakers to stop the engine, or the soldiers would shoot the captain’s hand. The three stopped the boat and pulled the motor out of the water. The Israeli warship began to circle around the small boat, so fast that they generated waves that made the fishing boat almost capsize. Next they were ordered to strip to their underwear and jump into the water. “We can’t swim,” they shouted to the soldiers. “You really can’t swim?” Hjazi grins. “Of course we can swim, we are fishermen. But what could we have done?” The answer they got was that they could either jump into the water and swim to the Israeli ship, or they would be shot at. So they jumped, one by one. Arriving at the soldiers, they were handcuffed and blindfolded, and ordered to kneel on the metal floor of the warship. They said they were freezing, that the plastic cords at their hands cut off the blood, but they were only told to be quiet. Their own boat was towed away by the Israeli one.

When they reached the port of Ashdod, and were taken from the ship, they finally got new clothes, and the blindfolds were taken away. A doctor came to have a look at them. Then a soldier came, who asked them if they had planned a suicide mission. A suicide mission? The three looked at each other dumbfounded. They had been arrested in the south of the Gaza Strip, near the border to Egypt, just opposite from the miles away border to Israel. “We were brought here almost naked, and you have our boat,” Mahmoud said finally. “Just search it, you will find nothing but fish and a net.”

They were then separately interrogated by the Shin Bet, the secret service. They weren’t asked about the attempted attack again, which apparently appeared ridiculous even to their interrogators. Instead, they were shown photos of their houses, their family and friends, recorded in detail by a drone. We know everything about you, this said. Then they had to describe the port, and the place where the naval police normally are. Mustafa, the eldest, was shown money. A lot of money. If he could imagine working with them, he was asked. Mustafa just shook his head.

After being locked in a cell for the rest of the day, they were brought to the Erez crossing around nine clock in the evening. They finally arrived at home, shoeless. Their family was beside themselves with worry. Because of the stormy sea, they had feared the three had an accident. One of the fathers of them had borrowed a boat to search for them, when he came close to the Egyptian border, an Egyptian warship sent him home. The soldiers asked him for his mobile phone number, they said they would call him if they found the boat.

The Israeli soldiers were less helpful. Before being sent back, the three cousins had asked them what would happen to their boat, and if they would get it back. “You will find it in Egypt,” answered one of the soldiers. “What does this mean?” Asked Mustafa. “It was just a joke,” he got as an answer. One of the other soldiers was in a good mood too. “We have the season in which we get the stuff, and you never get it back,” was his strange statement.

For Mustafa, Mahmoud and Hjazi this issue is less funny. The restriction to 3 nautical miles renders it impossible for them to earn enough to live from the boat, but the boat and the 3 miles are all that they have. “Every meter further outsides helps us to find more fish”, they say. And with that problem they are by far not alone. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, nearly 90% of Gaza’s 4000 fishermen are now considered either poor (with a monthly income of between 100 and 190 US dollars) or very poor (earning less than 100 dollars a month), up from 50% in 2008. In addition, they live in constant danger, even if they are within the 3 mile limit. Al Mazen Center for Human Rights states that between 1 May 2009 and 30 November 2010 the IOF carried out 53 attacks against fishermen: two men were killed, seven injured and 42 arrested, while 17 fishing boats were confiscated and one destroyed. Just last month there were three other cases in which fishermen were in exactly the same pattern kidnapped and then released again, without their boat.

A total of six families, for whose livelihood Mustafa, Mahmoud and Hjazi are responsible, depend on this boat. Six families now don’t know what to live from. What will they do now? How will they go on?
“We still hope that we may get the boat back at some point. We can’t afford to buy a new one. “Hjazi says. Then he laughs softly. “I also still have my breakfast eggs on the boat.”

Israel’s attack on civilians: two children killed

23 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Until now I am doubting whether to upload the horrific pictures of the latest fatalities of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. They show what remains of 15-year-old Qasem Salah Abu Uteiwi and his 16-year-old friend Imad Mohammed Issa Faraj Allah. Both teenagers are from Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza Strip. They were killed on Saturday evening, March 19th, while they were playing in the neighbouring village Johr Al-Dik, at approximately 300 meters from the border.

Warning — extremely graphic images were uploaded here:
http://guerrillaradio.iobloggo.com/2064/il-vero-volto-dell-occupazione-israeliana-attenzione-immagini-cruente

At approximately 21:30 an Israeli tank, stationed along the border, fired more than 20 artillery shells. As a result the two children were immediately killed. Witnesses state that the IOF continued firing until late in the evening.

Yesterday, me and my friends from ISM went down to Nuseirat refugee camp to give our condolences to the families of the victims.

“We were all worried when they did not return home in the evening, and our worry increased after after we heard the bombing. The next morning, we heard on the news that the bodies of two civilians were brought to Shifa hospital. I immediately hurried down there and recognized Qasem in the remains of one of the bodies in the morgue. He was missing an arm, was covered in burns, his face was tattered with shrapnel, and he did not have a single tooth in his mouth”, says Khaled, one of Qasem’s uncles.

The Uteiwi family is a poor family, which was pushed deeper into poverty during Israel’s massacre in 2008-2009. Khaled’s house was destroyed during Cast Lead, just like 3 dunums of his land, while his daughter, Ayat was shot in the chest by a sniper in early January 2009.

Friends and family of Imad Mohammed Issa Faraj Allah gathered in a different mourning tent, a couple of blocks further on. Imad’s father, Mohammed, suddenly turned to me and said: “They have no conscience, no laws, they can do what they want to us. The UN, which promptly adopted a resolution to attack Lybia, has vetoed the condemnation of Israel for its illegal colonies in Palestine. It has turned our souls bitter. They call it ‘the war on terrorism’, but they should call it the war on Arab terrorism, because Israeli terrorism is untouchable.” The man takes a breath and continues.

“I worked 12 years in Israel, and this must be my bonus. Imad’s brothers have seen the photos of his massacred corpse and they demand revenge. These killings are the reason for the conflict. “