Category: In the Media - Page 27 - International Solidarity Movement

Six arrests in three days in South Hebron Hills

January 20th, 2014 | Operation Dove | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Between January 18-20, four Palestinians and two Operation Dove (OD) volunteers were arrested by the Israeli police and army while Palestinian shepherds were grazing their flocks.

On January 18 at 1:04 p.m. seven settlers came out from the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), entered the Humra valley while two of them crossed the Palestinian-owned fields, trespassing in an area to which entry is prohibited for Israeli citizens. In the meanwhile two Palestinian shepherds, accompanied by three OD volunteers, were grazing their sheep in this area. At 1:14 p.m. the shepherds left for their homes and encountered another group of five settlers. After one minute Israeli soldiers arrived, telling the settlers to move away and declaring the area a closed military zone. Subsequently arriving to the area were an additional nine settlers, several Palestinians and Israeli activists, the Israeli police, Border Police and officials from the District Coordination Office (DCO). Once the Israeli forces start to push the people away from the area the shepherd, Mfaddi Ahmed Rabai, refused to leave the area, claiming his right to remain on his own land. While a policeman and a group of soldiers tried to arrest him, he collapsed on the ground. At 1:43 p.m. the Israeli army forced everyone to leave the area. Palestinians, Israeli activists and OD volunteers slowly came back to At Tuwani. The Israeli police arrested Mfaddi Ahmed Rabai and brought him to the Kiryat Arba police station before the ambulance arrived to check his health. Rabai was released after some five hours of detention.

On January 19 five Palestinian shepherds from Umm Al Kheer and Tuba villages were grazing their flocks in the Umm Zeitouna valley, accompanied by two OD volunteers. At 10:58 a.m. an army jeep arrived and three soldiers chased the shepherds along the valley. After several minutes the soldiers were situated very close to a Palestinian child, so an OD volunteer placed himself between them. The soldier then forcibly took the passport of the OD volunteer. Afterwards the same soldier caught a Palestinian man and asked the other OD volunteer to give him his passport, but he refused. The soldier threaten the OD volunteers with arrest and ordered the other soldiers to bring him to the jeep. The soldiers, the OD volunteers and the Palestinian walked toward a gravel road inside Ma’on. Once there they encountered three settlers, including the settlement’s security chief, and two policemen. The police officers collected every detail about what happened and declared that the OD volunteers and the Palestinian were under military arrest. At 12:40 p.m. the army brought them to the Kiryat Arba police station by jeep. Those arrested waited several hours inside the police station without knowing the charges against them. At around 5:45 p.m. the Palestinian shepherd was released after the policeman took his fingerprints. The OD volunteers were released at around 8 p.m. after been interrogated for 45 minutes total.

On January 20 at around 8:20 a.m. two Palestinian children from Umm Al Kheer were chased by Israeli soldiers while leading their flocks to the grazing areas in the nearby valleys. Meanwhile another Palestinian went up the hill facing the village to tape this chase. To that hill arrived two settlers, three soldiers, seven women from the Palestinian village and at 8:44 a.m. the Israeli police also arrived. The security chief of Karmel settlement told the police that two women on the hill tried to stone him. After half an hour the police arrested the Palestinian women and brought them to the Kiryat Arba police station. They were released at 3:35 p.m. without any charge.

The villages of At Tuwani and Umm Al Kheer are situated in the South Hebron Hills, defined as area C. According to the Oslo accords, area C is part of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and security control. As like many of the Palestinian villages located in area C, At Tuwani and Umm Al Kheer suffer from settlers and military intimidation and violence. As a result, the Palestinian residents encounter great difficulties in accessing their own lands for their everyday farming activities.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the incident: click here

For further information:
Operation Dove, 054 99 25 773

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

Photo by Operation Dove

VIDEO: Protesters in Gaza’s “buffer zone” under fire from Israeli forces

17th January 2014 | Institute for Middle East Understanding | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

They are young, and they are fearless. In Gaza, a growing nonviolent movement, led predominantly by youth, is challenging Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands in the so-called “buffer zone” — a unilaterally demarcated and militarily patrolled area that, according to Harvard researcher Sara Roy, now absorb[s] nearly 14 percent of Gaza’s total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land.” The zone officially extends 300 meters into Gaza’s territory, but attacks against civilians take place anywhere up to approximately 1.5 kilometers inside the border fence,” according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. (That’s about a mile into a strip of land that is seven miles at its girth.) In this video, some 300 protesters are shown under fire from Israeli guns, too far to see but no less lethal for it. The protestors’ crime? They were planting citrus trees to replace those destroyed by Israel’s ongoing occupation, which daily deprives Gaza’s more than 1.7 million Palestinians of access to their farmland, to the sea that borders them, to the airspace above them — and, crucially, to their fellow Palestinians. With more than 10 percent of the worldwide Palestinian population living in Gaza, no serious discussion of the conflict or its resolution can exclude them.

VIDEO: Jehad Saftawi/IMEU

20 olive trees destroyed in the South Hebron Hills area of At Tuwani

13th January 2013 | Operation Dove | At Tuwani, Occupied Palestine

This morning Palestinians discovered 20 olive trees destroyed alongside bypass road 317 in the South Hebron Hills area of At Tuwani.

The olive tree groves belongs to the Al Amor family from At Tuwani and had been planted 34 years ago. At 9.35 am the owners, Operation Dove volunteers and B’tselem staff members gathered near the destroyed trees, waiting for the police. After one hour the Israeli police and army arrived to the area and spent four hours documenting the incident.

Members of the Al Amor family testified that another 10 olive trees were damaged in the same orchard only two months ago. This field is located alongside bypass road 317 on the way from Ma’on settlement to Avigayil outpost and is not visible from At Tuwani, thus rendering it easier for vandals to damage trees over the past few years in this area.

The number of Palestinian-owned trees uprooted and damaged in the South Hebron Hills area in the last five months stand at 195. Olive trees are an essential resource for the Palestinian community, and their damage causes serious economic loss.

Nevertheless the Palestinian communities of the South Hebron Hills area are still strongly involved using the nonviolence as a way to resist to the Israeli occupation.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Gaza fishermen suffer 85 percent income loss as Israeli siege, attacks continue

4th January 2014 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine

Small fishing boats, or hasakas, moored in the Gaza seaport. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson) — Small fishing boats, or *hasakat*, moored in the Gaza seaport. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

On 17 December, Palestinian fishermen and their supporters erected a tent — a traditional venue for protest, as well as celebration and mourning — inside the Gaza seaport.

“It was to highlight the situation, the crimes of the Israelis against fishermen here,” said Amjad al-Shrafi, treasurer of the General Union of Fishermen. “We wanted to send a message about the blockade against the fishermen and how we cannot fish freely.”

The protest, organized under the title Free the Holy Land Sea, ended two days later with the delivery of a letter to the nearby office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, demanding international protection for fishermen.

Over three days, hundreds of well-wishers visited a crowded tent decorated with banners and posters supporting fishermen. The organizations represented on its walls ranged from human rights centers to prisoner support groups.

Under fire

“One of our main goals was to push governments around the world to force Israel to give fishermen free lives and let us sail without any limits,” al-Shrafi said. “It’s our right to sail freely in our waters.”

“Another was to pressure the Israeli forces to release the boats and fishermen they have captured.”

Palestinian fishermen in coastal waters off the Gaza Strip frequently come under fire byIsraeli naval forces, which target their boats on both sides of a boundary imposed by Israel.

Israel deploys its gunships into Palestinian waters using an information technology infrastructure administered by Hewlett-Packard (“Technologies of control: The case of Hewlett-Packard,” Who Profits, December 2011).

Through its subsidiary, HP Israel, the US corporation won a contract to run the Israeli navy’s computer and communications network in August 2006 (“HP Israel wins navy IT outsourcing contract,” Globes, 14 August 2006).

The fishing area permitted by Israel, which doubled in size as part of the ceasefire agreement ending eight days of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and retaliatory fire by Palestinian resistance groups in November 2012, now officially reaches six nautical miles from the shore.

But fishermen say the Israeli navy often shoots at them and sometimes captures them and their boats well within the zone it ostensibly allows them.

Captured

“We were far from the prohibited zone, 500 meters away,” said Saddam Abu Warda, a 23-year-old fisherman whom the Israeli navy captured along with his 18-year-old brother Mahmoud around 9am on 10 November.

“They were shouting, ‘You must get out of here in five minutes.’ We had to cut the net to pull it out of the water. Then they started to fire bullets close to our hasaka [small boat]. As they came close to us, their boat looked like a big building with lights.”

The Abu Wardas’ small boat had no engine. “We tried to escape by paddling quickly,” Saddam Abu Warda said. “They forced us to take off our clothes and raise our hands. They were firing bullets in the air and in front of our hasaka. One soldier was shouting, ‘You have to leave your hasaka and get in the water.’ I was shocked. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know why.”

Finally, gunfire forced the brothers into the cold water. “They didn’t stop firing bullets over our heads,” Abu Warda said. “I was far from my brother. He started shouting, saying, ‘I am injured.’ He wasn’t able to keep swimming. I swam back to my brother to try and save him. His blood was [spilling] in the water. Then two small boats came close to us. They pulled my brother from the water. They didn’t take me.”

When Abu Warda reached the Israeli gunship, he lost consciousness after soldiers bound, hooded and kicked him. He awoke in a detention facility in Ashdod, a port in present-day Israel beside his brother Mahmoud, whose right abdomen was stitched by military physicians. The brothers said that Israeli bullets caused the wound.

During an interrogation after he awoke, an Israeli soldier tried to convince him otherwise. “I told him, ‘Three of your gunboats were around us. They were firing bullets. My brother’s blood was everywhere in the water. He was injured by your soldiers.’”

After a lengthy interrogation that continued both in Ashdod port and after their transfer to a detention center by the Erez crossing between Gaza and present-day Israel, Israeli forces released the Abu Wardas into the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun around 10pm — 13 hours after their capture. Their boat and its equipment remained behind.

“We have three hasakas in the Ashdod port,” Abu Warda said of his family’s prior losses to the Israeli navy.

Severe damage

The Abu Wardas’ experiences echo many more documented in a new report by thePalestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). The PCHR, which supported the Free the Holy Land Sea campaign, is translating the document — already published in Arabic — into English.

Over four years, from 1 September 2009 through 31 August 2013, the Israeli navy killed two fishermen, wounded 24, and captured 147, according to the report. The navy also seized 45 boats and destroyed or damaged 113 more.

The report also records the losses incurred by about thirty bombings of four fishing ports during Israel’s November 2012 attacks on the Gaza Strip, including damages to an additional 80 boats and destruction of a health clinic and a youth center used by fishermen.

“There was severe damage to different fishing facilities during the military offensive,” said Khalil Shaheen, director of PCHR’s economic and social rights unit.” At the ports in Gaza City, Middle Area, Khan Younis and Rafah, different facilities were targeted and destroyed.”

“The report also documents the impact of the total damage to fishermen and the fishing sector,” Shaheen added. “One of the main impacts was the loss of 85 percent of income in the fishing sector, as the result of access restrictions and the naval blockade.”

Casualties have continued to mount in the four months since the period covered by the report ended. The PCHR publishes regular reports on human rights abuses in Gaza. These reports indicate that Israel has shot at fishermen at least 37 times since September, as well as seizing six boats.

“I would like to thank all the solidarity campaigns who were involved in this action and show solidarity with Palestinian fishermen,” al-Shrafi said.

“We ask that the international community continue to pressure their governments, to ask for dignity and a free life for us.”

Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. He blogs at joecatron.wordpress.com and tweets @jncatron.

Five Years After the Cast Lead Operation: ‘Gaza Writes Back’

28th December 2013 | Arabic Literature (in English), M. Lynx Qualey | Cairo, Egypt

It was five years ago that Cast Lead began. Now a book of short stories, Gaza Writes Back, marks the anniversary. The book’s editor, Refaat Alareer, answers questions about the collection:

ArabLit: How did the idea for this collection come about? How did you put out the call for submissions? Did you tell the writers it was to commemorate Cast Lead?

Refaat Alareer: I’ve been teaching World Literature and Creative Writing at the Islamic University-Gaza (IUG), and at other Gaza training centres, ever since I finished my MA in Comparative Literature from UCL, UK in 2007. And I always had the idea of collecting the best pieces written by my students in a book. Going global became a necessity after the hateful Israeli Offensive of 2008-09. I met Helena Cobban in Gaza and threw the idea of a book of young talents into her lap, and later, thanks to Annie Robbins of Mondoweiss.net, Helena saw the potential in the project. In October 2012, Helena and I discussed a number of possible book projects and later decided a book of short fiction is the best place to start.

Since many of the writers are my own students (and friends), I contacted them and informed them of the idea of a book to mark the fifth anniversary of Cast Lead. We had a couple of fruitful workshops, and I took many of their suggestions into consideration. Later, I announced the project through Facebook, Twitter, local universities in Gaza, and personal contacts.

You should know that maybe only four stories were written in order to be submitted to the book. Many had already been written a year, two, or even three before I asked for submissions. But all pieces were written after the Cast Lead Operation.

I received tens of submissions (around 70!), and with the help of Sarah Ali, Sameeha Elwan, and Diana Ghazzawi, we managed, with difficulty, to narrow them down to 23 stories by 15 writers. Choosing the 23 stories was one of the toughest things I have ever done, because there were many more stories with strong potential.

AL: You say, in the introduction, that you wanted this collection to be “without the mediation or influences of translation or of non-Palestinian voices.” Why without translation? Are there particular effects of translation (on literature) that you’ve seen that you were trying to avoid?

RA: As much as I believe in the importance of translation, when it comes to literature I strongly believe many things get lost in translation, no matter how accurate. Therefore, our efforts were directed at improving the English creative writing skills. So that the writers think in English and express themselves in English. Also, the book comes to encourage and give a nudge to those who write in English, as that will enable them to write more and be in touch and in dialogue with the whole world. Maybe in the future we can work on a book of stories originally written in Arabic.

AL: Why young writers?

RA: Because they have a lot to say. Because they are doing most of the work these days. Because they are leading all the campaigns to make the world aware of the ills and pains Israeli occupation is bringing on Palestinians. Because young people have their worldviews and visions that are worthy of being heard. Because there are many more young Palestinians who write in English than old ones. And because the young have largely been marginalised from mainstream discussions.

AL: It’s interesting that so many of the young writers are women. Do you think this is particular to those who write in English?

RA: This is particular to those who write in English and in Arabic as well. In Palestine, we have more women joining universities than men, more women journalists than men, more women activists than men. Women are in many ways taking the lead, in writing, in activism, and in struggle.

AL: You quoted Sameeha Elwan, in the introduction, in saying that the Internet has changed the storytelling process among Palestinians (who have been fragmented since ’48). Will this collection somehow make use of the Internet? Will any of the stories appear online?

RA: Much of the support for the young writers came through the internet. They first started by posting their creative pieces in forums, and personal blogs, and Facebook, and then Mondoweiss, the Electronic Intifada, the Palestine Chronicle and other websites. The encouragement the writers received from people in Palestine and all over the world was a catalyst for more writing. That means without the internet, many of the pieces could have been forgotten or not written in the first place. Social media platforms have been the major battlefields in the recent years. Facebook pages, YouTube Videos, and Twitterstorms have brought awareness about the Israeli occupation and human rights violation and about the suffering of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Gaza, areas occupied in 1948 and the West Bank. Currently, we are very much depending on social media to promote the book and raise awareness about Palestine.

I think with permission from the publisher, certain extracts from the stories can appear online (some already did).

But other than that, we hope that some of the pieces can be made into films or short videos.

AL: One of the PalFest authors, who has taught workshops in both Gaza (by video link) and the West Bank, has said that — because of life, and life-and-death issues — it’s generally been difficult for talented young authors to follow through on writing projects. Do you find that’s true of young authors in Gaza?

RA: To some extent, when it comes to online courses or tutoring, it’s true. Imagine yourself not having electricity for most of the day! However, in the many courses I held in Gaza, there were a lot who joined and benefited from the creative writing sessions such as short story writing, poetry writing, and general creative-writing skills.

Israel is making it very difficult for Palestinians to live a decent life. Israel has caused every possible hindrance to prevent Palestinians from being. Still, that very same thing was the very cause that led many to write back. For many of us, writing is an act of resistance, but it is also an act of life, meaning writing happens no matter who we are and where we are. We write, therefore we exist.

AL: Most of the selections are very short. Some of them are powerful snapshots — the pain and embarrassment in Sameeha Elwan’s “Toothache in Gaza” and Muhammad Suliman’s “Bundles” — but they’re more like “flash fiction” than short stories. Did you ask for very-short pieces, or is this how the writers turned in their work?

RA: When the book was announced, I asked for “short stories/short fiction stories.” No word limit was imposed. The micro-stories, in my opinion, suit the atmosphere they came to life in and reflect many aspects of Palestinian life. The stories, by zooming so closely into a very precise moment, show how brief life, hope, and dreams under occupation can be. Even the abruptness that characterises some of the pieces tells of a promising story suddenly coming to an end because the main character is killed. Because of Israel. Because there is occupation. It is true many of the stories begin in medias res, but at the end no resolution is made, as the suffering, the pain, and the deprivation continue to linger, haunting readers for a long time after reading the story. In other words, the story still ends in medias res.

Writing longer pieces is something I started working on with a couple of the writers. Although this might require a lot of time, effort, and training, some told me that the idea of writing longer stories, even novels, is lurking in their minds. Hopefully, the attention of this anthology will receive will encourage them to write more and write longer pieces.

AL: What comes after Gaza Writes Back?

RA: I am hoping the stories will get the attention of film producers. I know at least a couple of the stories can be made into great movies, or at least short movies.

Helena Cobban and I have several plans for other book projects to follow. The focus will also be to bring young voices to forefront. At the same time we will work on translating the book into Arabic, French, Spanish, Malay, among other languages.