Two foreign peace activists say they were assaulted by settlers Tuesday in South Mount Hebron while accompanying a Palestinian family to the village of Tuba. One of the activists was reportedly kicked in the stomach and needed medical attention. The two women, who filed a complaint with the police, had their cameras stolen as well.
“My colleague and I were with a family that was on its way home when we were harassed and assaulted by settlers,” Sarah MacDonald, one of the activists, told Ynet.
MacDonald, who is hear as part of her activities with the Christian Peace Group,” advised the family to travel on a different route because, according to her, many settlers travel on that route.
“They chose to take the long way home, and we went with them. We crossed the hills south of Havat Maon when we saw four settlers on the ridge above us, about 50 meters (yards) away. They stood between the outpost and us. When we kept walking, they started to run after us.”
“The Palestinian man said to them, ‘We just want to go home.’ Then the settler pushed him, and the Palestinian boy started to cry. My friend, Laura Chigi, tried to separate the settler and the Palestinian, but the settler pushed her,” added MacDonald.
“They kicked Laura’s ribs after she had fallen to the ground, and they injured her. They also managed to steal our cameras that were in action throughout the entire incident. They moment they did this, they left in the direction of Havat Maon.”
Laura needed stitches and was evacuated to a Palestinian hospital for medical attention.
When the two activists arrived in Tuba, they called the Judea and Samaria Police. The police came to take their testimonies.
According to MacDonald, the incident only reinforced the reason she came to the territories in the first place. “We walk with Palestinian families, get involved in certain incidents, and try to prevent violence. In addition, we document the events. This is why we had cameras,” she explained.
MacDonald added that the residents of Maon and Havat Maon regularly exercise violence of this sort.
MacDonald and Chigi are slated to arrive at the police station Wednesday in order to identify pictures of the suspects. Judea and Samaria Police reported that testimonies were taken from the two peace activists and that they are conducting searches for the suspects.
Tents setup have been set up for families whose homes were destroyed by the Israeli assault on Gaza nearly one year ago. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)
EZBT ABBED RABBO, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) – Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza living in tents and damaged homes face a wet, cold and miserable winter as Israel’s blockade of the coastal territory continues to prevent the importation of building and reconstruction material.
During the last few weeks Gazans were given a brief reprieve from the oncoming winter as an unseasonal snap of warmish, sunny weather held off winter rain and plummeting temperatures.
But, during a tour of northern Gaza last week, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Maxwell Gaylard, and the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) called on Israel to open its border crossings immediately to avert a further deterioration in the humanitarian situation on the ground.
“With winter rains and cold weather now imminent, the people of Gaza are even more desperately in need of construction materials such as cement, roofing tiles and glass to build and repair homes destroyed and damaged during the Israeli military offensive of 2008/2009,” said Gaylard.
During Israel’s intensive bombing campaign in December/January Gaza’s infrastructure was heavily targeted leading to the destruction and damage of thousands of homes.
“Gaza urgently requires 268,000 square meters of glass for windows and 67,000 square meters of glass for solar water heaters or enough glass to cover more than 30 football pitches. More than 500 children are still living in tents,” Mike Bailey from Oxfam told IPS.
Damage caused to Gaza’s water, sanitation and electricity systems, exacerbated by Israel’s crippling blockade which forbids the import of most essential spare parts and fuel, has further limited the ability of aid agencies to supply essential services.
The lack of concrete water storage tanks means that fresh water can only enter water pipes when there is electricity to power water pumps. Backup generators — which rely on fuel — are needed to ensure power cuts do not lead to water shortages and pollution of water.
“The humanitarian situation is going to deteriorate if something doesn’t give,” Gaylard told IPS during a tour of the Ezbt Abbed Rabbo area of the northern Gaza Strip.
“We are reaching out to the international community. We are appealing to the member countries of the UN on a regular basis about this continuing crisis … We are holding discussions with the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council. One would hope that the message would be getting out after the Goldstone report,” said Gaylard.
“We are continuing talks with the Israeli government but pressure must be brought to bear on those responsible for keeping the border crossings closed,” Gaylard told IPS.
Fifty meters away from where the media gathered to hear the UN coordinator address the escalating humanitarian crisis, dozens of Gazan families were living the crisis first-hand.
Muhammad Zaid’s five-story home — which took four years to build and was home to 16 persons, the youngest a one-year-old — was flattened during 15 days of intensive Israeli shelling at the beginning of the year, forcing the family to flee.
For the first five months after the war Zaid and his family lived under the caved-in bottom floor of the building. For the last five months the Zaids have lived in a tent supplied by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency responsible for Palestine refugees.
Despite the recent unusually warm and dry weather, the heavens opened up for one night last week and rainwater flooded their tent as the family desperately tried to salvage belongings.
“We were awake the whole night scooping water out and trying to dig a small ditch around the tent to prevent more water flooding in but it didn’t help. The children were terrified and screaming. It was so cold,” Zaid told IPS.
However, when the winter rains begin to flood his tent on a regular basis in the near future Zaid, who is unemployed and in huge debt, will face the additional problems of having only intermittent electricity, and no running water.
“I have spent over 3,000 dollars of borrowed money for a new refrigerator and stove and some other basic appliances but we have no heater and the electricity keeps cutting,” said Zaid.
Several kilometers away, near the border with Israel, mother of eight Taghreed Abu Amrayn, showed IPS her new “home,” a tent attached to the remains of her former three-story house, as she jiggled 20-month old Safedin on her hip.
“I’m not sure how we will cope with winter as heating and electricity are a big problem and the children are always getting sick. I think the phosphorous bombs that were dropped nearby may have affected them.”
“Apart from the health issues we still live in fear on a daily basis as Israel continues to bomb these areas,” Amrayn told IPS.
Nearby the Abu Amrayns, Rifat Bakri, 28, and Wissam Amoud, 27, were using improvisation to try and overcome the absence of construction material. They had “rebuilt” their former garage and mechanical workshop with cardboard boxes.
“We couldn’t just sit around, we needed to get back to work. These boxes have provided a provisional garage for the short-term but when it rains in winter they will become water-logged and I’m not sure what we will do then,” Bakri told IPS.
“This abysmal situation can’t continue. People are desperate. Enough is enough. It is time for the blockade to be ended and for humanity to return to Gaza,” Bailey told IPS.
The chairman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office, Dr. Rafiq Husseini, on Monday urges all Arab countries to cancel their business ties with two French companies – Veolia and Alstom – involved in the construction of a Jerusalem-based light railway which passes through the West Bank.
Husseini spoke in a press conference organized by the BNC – The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee – made up of several non governmental organizations.
So far, the Palestinian civil society organization are those which have initiated local and international activities calling for various types of boycotts (mainly on companies which are active in the occupied territories, and on Israeli academics and artists.)
It seems that the international attention their activities have garnered has encouraged the Palestinian Authority to join in the boycotts: The new Palestinian minister of economy, Hassan abu Libdeh, recently declared that the PA considers itself obliged to enforce the ban (so far declarative only) on selling settlements products in the Palestinian market.
Also present at the press conference were Jerusalem Mufti Mohammad Hussein and Orthodox Archbishop Attallah Hanna, both of whom supported the requested boycott.
This is the first time that the BNC has publicly addressed Arab nations, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and requested that they join the boycott and cancel their existing contracts with the French companies.
Until recently the committee has focused – with the assistance and support of organizations abroad – on arranging activities in the West which have brough to the termination of business deals with the two companies in Sweden, Britain, France and Australia.
The committee has petitioned the Saudi government to end their business deals, specifically with Alstom, but have yet to receive a response.
Saudi Arabia has contracts worth billions of dollars with Alstrom to build a railway to Mecca, as well other deals to constryct power plants.
Husseini lambasted those Arab countries continuing to work with the two companies, accusing them of “not fulfilling their duties” despite the repeated requests by the Palestinian from them and from the Arab League.
The committee worded softer criticism and said in a press release that “the BNC strongly urges Arab governments to practically translate their consistent verbal support for Palestinian rights in Jerusalem into action, at least by refusing to deal on a business-as-usual basis with companies implicated in violation of international law and Palestinian rights.”
According to the committee, building the light rail on occupied territory is a violation of international law.
Group urges GCC states to shun Alstom and Veolia involved in Occupied Jerusalem projects
Dubai: A pressure campaign targeted at Gulf states was launched in Occupied Jerusalem on Monday by a coalition of 170 Palestinian organisations urging Arab states to boycott companies complicit in Israel’s expansion in the holy city.
In a rare public pressure campaign, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Palestine, a grouping of Palestinian civil society organisations, has turned its focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is preparing to build a multi-billion dollar railway to link its six members.
The BDS campaign has called on the GCC and its member states to shun French transport giants Alstom and Veolia, both of which are involved in the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), an Israeli project that is expected to link the eastern and western parts of Occupied Jerusalem as well as Jewish colonies on the West Bank.
Critics say the JLR will hinder Palestinian aspirations to have occupied East Jerusalem as a capital of a future Palestinian state.
Unaware
The BDS campaign has proven successful in Europe, where companies have excluded the two transport companies from tenders and divested from them, leading to a loss of $7 billion (Dh25.69 billion) to $8 billion in opportunity cost, according to campaigners.
“Despite these important achievements in the West, no Arab state, especially in the Gulf, has to date excluded Alstom or Veolia from bidding for their public contracts,” read a press release issued by the movement yesterday.
The two companies are now facing a lawsuit in France filed by Palestine Liberation Organisation and French advocacy group Association France-Palestine Solidarité for their activities in Occupied Jerusalem.
Diplomacy
Alstom has expressed enthusiasm about participating in forthcoming Gulf rail projects, estimated to be worth $25 billion.
“We are certainly going to be participating in all tenders in the GCC for transport and power,” said Sylvan Hijazi, country president for Alstom Gulf. “We are proud to contribute and build the future of the Gulf.”
Activists are hoping that Gulf states could use their financial prowess to pressure the two companies to abandon the JLR, thus crippling the already troubled project.
The BDS movement has resorted to a public campaign targeted at Gulf states after apparently failing at a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign with the region’s governments.
Jamal Jum’a of the Stop the Wall, part of the BDS movement, said that the BDS movement sent a number of letters to Gulf governments asking them to withhold contracts from the two French companies which were “met with silence”.
Jum’a however insisted that the public campaign was not an attempt to shame Gulf states or “prove any kind of Arab conspiracy against [occupied] Jerusalem”.
“There’s a strong possibility that Gulf states are unaware of the work Alstom and Veolia are doing in occupied Jerusalem. It is unacceptable that Arab states don’t take a stand on this.”
Alain Gresh, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique in Paris, said that the political climate was right for Gulf states to apply pressure on Israel.
“It is the right moment to show clearly to Israel that the continuation of the occupation policy has a price, and not only a political price but even an economic price,” he said.
“I can’t say if the Gulf states will do it. The political climate is right especially after the Gaza [war] and the Goldstone report. Public opinion in Europe is that we can’t let the [status quo] continue. If the [Gulf states] take a strong position now it will have an effect not only on Israel but also on Western positions on Israel.”
He said however that Israel being a “legal entity” meant that European companies could not legally apply a blanket boycott on the state, but the two companies could legitimately withdraw based on the argument that the project is being built on occupied territory. “This can be defended in any court,” he said.
Were the companies to withdraw, he added, they would likely attribute the decision publicly to reasons other than occupation, “but everybody will understand”.
Gulf News did not receive a response from Veolia by the time of going to print.
Marryam Haleem writing from Beit Hanoun, occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
“That was the happiest day of my life,” Ahmad explained, “I was freed that day.”
"The day I graduated from university was the best day of my life," says Ahmed from Beit Hanoun. (Marryam Haleem)
“Come on,” I laughed as we walked down the dusty Gaza street, the Mediterranean sun beating down hard on our faces. “It couldn’t have been that bad. I mean, we all dislike school to some degree, but it has its nice things too.”
His grave eyes looked wholly unconvinced. “The day I graduated from university was the best day of my life,” he firmly repeated. And then he added, more to himself than to me, “I wish I could erase all my memories of my time in school.”
Ahmad’s first day of school was in 1991 during the first Palestinian intifada. Then six years old and living in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, Ahmad was a good student who enjoyed school. He worked hard and was always the first in his year. After the Oslo accords were signed in 1993 and the Palestinian Authority was created, one could say that life in Gaza was approaching a degree of normalcy. And upon finishing middle school in 2000, as a reward for his scholastic achievement, Ahmad received the gift of a lifetime. He, along with 19 other students from Gaza, was selected by the Ministry of Education to join a Seeds of Peace summer camp in the US.
He had a wonderful time in America. What an adventure for the 14-year-old boy! He improved his English. He made new friends. He experienced a new and different world in the beautiful state of Maine — one that was open, free and full of opportunity. He returned to Gaza after this month-long excursion full of hope.
But the second intifada irrupted only two months after he returned home from the US, at the start of his first year of high school. Israel’s brutal attempt to crush the intifada was felt throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “There was no space,” Ahmad explained, describing how the Israeli offensive affected every aspect of personal life for the Palestinian individual. Student life was only one such casualty.
It became dangerous to go to school. It became impossible to have a normal education. In his three years of high school, Ahmad’s school was shelled by Israeli tanks six times, twice while students were inside.
“Each day we would have demonstrations against the attacks in Gaza and the West Bank because we had so many martyrs … No school. Just demonstrations … You had to go and demonstrate against the horrible attacks against these children and kids everywhere.”
Still, despite all the madness, the students clung as much as they could to their vocation. They would loyally go to school, as much as circumstance allowed. But even this effort was frequently quashed. Too often the students would trek to school only to find it closed. They would ask the reasons for the closures. The answers became the soul-grating refrain of their lives.
Why?
Because Israeli tanks are getting close to the school and there is no school today.
Why?
Because people in our city have been martyred and there are demonstrations so there will be no school today.
Why?
Because the tanks have closed off Beit Hanoun and the teachers cannot come from outside. So we’ll have no school today.
It was in this environment that Ahmad and his classmates (the ones who were not killed) came to their third and final year of high school in 2003. It is during this final year that students take their tawjihi exam which determines their entire future studies and career.
“Tawjihi,” Ahmad aptly described, “is like a stage between life.”
Tawjihi year began normal enough — for a Palestinian in Gaza, that is. Normal attacks. Normal shootings. Normal curfews. But the last two months before the exams began the Israeli army laid siege on Beit Hanoun. No one could enter. No one could leave. Everyday there were attacks and explosions. Everyday there were injuries and martyrs.
“We didn’t study, actually,” said Ahmad, “Nothing. You cannot study [when] people are dying,” he explained.
Yet their exams were approaching. The first day of examination was 9 June 2003 — and the Israeli army was still in Beit Hanoun.
“What do we do?” said Ahmad. “We need to take our exams. So we decided to go to school even though the Israeli tanks were at the doors outside the school.”
So they went. Despite the fact that they hadn’t prepared at all due to the siege and the killings. Examinations went on for a month. Every day the students went. And every day the Israeli tanks were at the doors of the school.
It was the worst month, Ahmad said. All your time in high school you wait to prepare and do well on these final examinations, only, in the last moments, to be prevented from studying because your city is under attack.
The soldiers left after 67 days of siege. And then their exam results came in.
“I passed,” said Ahmad, “my average was 83.5. So very good.”
Yet, at the same time, he added, “You don’t know what is going on. You just go and study for a life you’ve been dreaming about. But then you find you can’t have it because of obstacles put up by enemies. And these are horrible obstacles. They’re not just any kind of obstacles that anyone could pass.
“It’s war everywhere. And people are dying everywhere. And you just don’t know. Maybe it’s your turn. I mean, we believe in God, and we know everyone is going to die. But when it goes on so continuously, every day there is attacks, you just keep worrying about it. So the feeling was, what should I be doing? Should I go fight and resist? Should I go study as a way to resist, as a better way of resistance? Should I just stay afraid, doing nothing, with my family?”
“I started to believe that maybe the power from my education in the future will be greater than the power of a stone against a tank. I asked myself a million times, if I should do the same [and take up throwing stones at the Israeli tanks like some of the Palestinian youth]. Even if it was a little thing.
“Some people say it’s stupid, a stone against a tank. But it’s their will and determination [that counts]. It comes from deep inside. That you are not afraid from anything, whatever it may be. You just want to fight, resist, for your rights. Even if it takes your life, takes everything; I believe that it’s my right and I have to do it.”
That is one way to resist. But Ahmad decided to resist through his education.
“I had to take care of my family. Reach what my parents wanted of me. They wanted us to be educated, get a good life, good jobs, have a good place in the community. They wanted us to help them and help people. So that was the final, or not the final, but a decision that I made.
“You are feeling many things, but you have to go on, to keep going. The only way is to just keep fighting, through your education, and your dreams, and your beliefs. That was the feeling.
“But I never felt like I have to give up. I didn’t find a way that told me, you just need to give up now. And every time a bad thing happened, or a disaster happened, it gave me more power to continue.
“Because this life became normal for us — an abnormal life for other people became the normal for us. So we had to figure out another way of life for us. It’s our reality. We had to face reality, however it was. So it helped us to figure out that life, in spite of all this.
“And all the challenges that we are facing, and all the power that is fighting and destroying everything here in Gaza, we still need to keep going. It’s not going to stop us. Because if we stop, it wont help us. [The Israelis] will keep going. Whether or not we stop, they will try to get what they want. So why give them more opportunities to get what they want? We need also to continue.”
He paused at the end of this grand soliloquy. “How difficult it was,” he said softly.
But the difficulty continued as he moved on to get his bachelor of arts in information technology at a university in Gaza.
“I faced troubles when I was in high school because of the intifada but they increased at university,” Ahmad explained. “Beit Hanoun is the most violent area in Gaza Strip because it is very close to the [Israeli] border so there were usually attacks. Every day we had events. People killed. People injured. Homes destroyed. Lands demolished. My father’s farm was bulldozed four or five times. Most of my relatives’ homes were targeted.
“Most of the semesters I couldn’t attend many lectures because of the usual attacks on my city. There were weekly attacks, sometimes daily attacks so I could not leave home; it was not safe to leave. And I’d also have to stay home when there were other attacks around the city, or around the university.”
Many times he wasn’t even able to attend final exams.
“I’d just keep studying throughout the semester and when it was exam time, attacks would happen in Beit Hanoun and friends and relatives were killed, [so I’d miss the exams]. I was supposed to graduate in 2008, but I graduated in 2009, one year late because of these attacks. Attacks which have never stopped. Even now. Especially in my city.”
Ahmad was finally set to graduate in December 2008, but once again larger events intervened.
“The end of December turned out to be the beginning of a war, not the beginning of final exams. It was a big, I don’t know how to describe it,” he said. “It was like, ‘here is a gift for graduation: You won’t graduate. Just keep waiting for death.'”
His month of exams was exchanged for a month of terror.
“It was 23 days,” he said, “but you can say 23 weeks. Twenty-three months. Twenty-three years. Twenty-three centuries. It never ends. You keep waiting, moment by moment. And you know nothing. You can only feel the darkness. There is no light, for any kind of hope, or safety, or human rights, or whatever. Just 23 days full of darkness. Full of horror. Full of victims. Massacres. Everything bad. I cannot find words to describe it.”
But those days did pass. And he found enough strength to pick himself up out of the rubble and finish the mission he began. He graduated, at last, this past spring. But not without sacrifice and loss that no one should ever have to endure.
“These five years in university, I said and will keep saying forever,” Ahmad concluded, “these five years were the most horrible years of my life. Even though they’re supposed to be the best years, the nice years. The time to go out and discover life. But it wasn’t discovering life. It was discovering disasters, actually, here in Gaza.”
Marryam Haleem is a senior at the University of Wisconsin studying philosophy and comparative literature and spent this summer in Gaza doing research for her senior thesis.
