Category: In the Media

Gaza in Crisis: Interview With Mona El-Farra

Listen to show segment. Download MP3 of entire show. Watch 128k stream. Watch 256k stream. from Democracy Now, October 18th

Israel has ratcheted up threats of a massive ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. We go to Gaza to speak with physician and community activist Dr. Mona El-Farra.

Israel has ratcheted up threats of a massive ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops backed by tanks, helicopters and drones have already staged ground operations in parts of Gaza in yet another escalation in the ongoing assault on the Occupied Territories.

For the past four months, the Israeli military has led a wave of intense operations along the length of the Gaza Strip. It began after the capture of an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian militants on June 25th. The Israeli military said its operations were intended to free Corporal Shalit and to halt Qassam rocket fire. Early on the Israelis bombed Gaza’s only power plant and they have kept Gaza’s crossing points to Israel and Egypt closed for most of the time.

Since the start of the operation – codenamed Summer Rain – more than 250 Palestinians have been killed. One in five were children. According to The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which has investigated each case, the vast majority of the casualties are civilian.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian economy has ground to a halt. Unemployment levels stand at close to fifty percent and around eighty percent of households in Gaza are living in poverty. The crisis comes at a time when the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, are deadlocked in their efforts to form a national unity government.

Dr. Mona El-Farra is a physician and community activist living in northern Gaza. She runs a blog called From Gaza, with Love. She joins us on the line from Gaza.

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RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mona El-Farra is a physician and community activist who lives in northern Gaza. She runs a blog called “From Gaza, With Love.” She joins us on the phone from Gaza. Welcome to Democracy Now!

DR. MONA EL-FARRA: Hello, Amy, and hello to everybody. And thank you for interviewing me.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Can you start off by describing the situation today in Gaza?

DR. MONA EL-FARRA: Okay. The situation, the Israeli plane jetfighters are flying over Gaza since early hours of the morning, and it’s shame that the operation of re-incursion into Gaza is coming soon. The general mood of people are very, very low. People are feeling there’s no hope, there’s no vision for the future, especially that the political negotiation between Fatah and Hamas is deadlock. And the general situation is not promising. So people are very frustrated, feeling very low.

Then, some good news that we have heard, it might be news or rumors about the [inaudible] is coming in the next 48 hours. Even this good news doesn’t make us feel happy, because feeling this while the airplanes are flying over our heads and we are sitting every minute by the incursion and going back to what we experienced also the last three months. So the general mood of the population is not very good. And our Ramadan month is finishing and the heat is coming. The streets are nearly deserted. It is not — as these people are approaching the month — the feast, and it has a lot to do with the economical crisis that we are going through. This is in brief.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mona El-Farra, there were reports from Italian television station RAI that the Israeli military is facing accusations it’s used experimental weapons during recent attacks in Gaza. They’re reporting the weapons have led to abnormally serious physical injuries, including amputated limbs and severe burns. This is a report by the same journalist who reported on the use of phosphorus as an offensive weapon in Fallujah, the weapon believed to be similar to the U.S.-made Dense Inert Metal Explosive, or DIME. In addition to inflicting major shrapnel wounds, the weapon is believed to be highly carcinogenic and harmful to the environment. Do you have any information on this?

DR. MONA EL-FARRA: Actually, as physicians here in Gaza and our police in the ER rooms, because I am just a master surgeon, but what we have noticed in the general hospital in Gaza that the sort of weapon that has been used this time is different with what has been used two years ago during the incursion of Jabalia refugee camp, for example, and different parts of Gaza. So there’s difference in the sort of injuries. The injuries [inaudible] very lethal, destructive, destructive. It is very, very specific. And it seems to kill and hurt, to make handicapped. So that’s what we have noticed.

But to have tools, we don’t have the facilities to investigate what’s going on. We are isolated in Gaza. We don’t have the real facilities to say that it is such kind of weapons and it is — or it is international [inaudible] or whatever. So I can’t give you concrete information about this, but from our remarks, our notice that the increased number, increasing number of casualties and number of injured and the sort of [inaudible] of the injured is different from what we have noticed in the previous years.

AMY GOODMAN: UNICEF just came out with a report that says the number of Palestinian children killed this year is nearly double those killed in 2005. Suhaib Kadiah, a 13-year-old girl in Gaza became the 92nd Palestinian child to be killed when she was shot during an Israeli attack on Gaza. Overall, I think they’re saying Israel has killed more than 800 Palestinian children since the beginning of the Second Palestinian Intifada six years ago. What kind of information do you see on the ground in Gaza?

DR. MONA EL-FARRA: On the ground, more than 400 were killed in the last three months, and the number of children, more than 80 were killed. Not only children. I can say two-thirds of the people who died were civilians, entirely civilians who were just caught during the operation and have nothing to do with the goal of the Israeli occupying army. So the number of civilians that have been killed is increasing. And this is alarming. This is dangerous, too. That was what we have noticed. Entire families have been killed and vanished during these attacks to Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: You head the Rachel Corrie Center for Children, the children center in Gaza. In a few minutes, we’re going to talk with Rachel’s sister and father, who will join us here in the studio in New York. Can you talk about this center and why you’ve named it for Rachel Corrie?

DR. MONA EL-FARRA: The Union of Health Work Committees, this is the mother organization that founded this children’s center in Rafah refugee camp — the simple idea of the center was to give a place for the children of Rafah during the incursion and during those very hardship times they are facing, because [inaudible] this place to distract their attention from the war and what’s going around them. So by the time the center was finished, Rachel Corrie passed away and gave her life, sacrificing her life to defend the children of Rafah down in the south of Gaza Strip. So the Union of Health Work Committee, both directors of administration decided to call the center — to name it after Rachel Corrie to keep her memory alive, because she sacrificed her life, she lost her life while defending Rafah children and while standing [inaudible], supporting the position against the injustice that’s inflicting on Palestinian people living under occupation. This is the reason why we named the center this.

Another reason for naming the center, we wanted to be a focal point to keep the international solidarity movement going with Palestinian people through the center. So the children in the center can really — the center itself and the children can receive international solidarity groups, people who are supportive of the Palestinian cause to come to the center and meet and see the children. On another hand, the children can communicate with the world through the facilities in the center, like the internet — computer and internet, I mean — and so the children will not grow up hating the others. We want them to grow up knowing that there are still in the world place for people who respect justice and who are fighting to see the world full of justice, not hate and injustice.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, the infighting between Hamas and Fatah. On Sunday, Hamas accusing Fatah of accepting $40 million in aid from the Bush administration, as part of a U.S. effort to topple the Hamas-led government.

DR. MONA EL-FARRA: This is big problem here for us in Gaza. This is an internal fight between Hamas and Fatah, because this is a — this doesn’t make things improve. And besides the Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, the internal atmosphere is making us really very preoccupied. Everybody is occupied by these internal clashes between Fatah and Hamas and the mutual accusation between both. And after all, in my own opinion, that this is the outcome of occupation. This is outcome of occupation, what’s happening in Gaza. I don’t blame the occupation directly, but indirectly this is the outcome of our life under occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mona El-Farra, I want to thank you very much for being with us, speaking to us from northern Gaza. She runs the Rachel Corrie Children’s Center there. When we come back from break, we’ll be joined by Rachel Corrie’s father and sister to talk about a play that has finally come to New York.

AP: Israeli army “accused of attacking journalists”

Associated Press

The Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association on Thursday accused the IDF of “unprovoked violence against journalists” after two Palestinian journalists were beaten up and one of them detained in the West Bank.

“In both cases there is no evidence that either colleague was doing anything other than pursuing their journalistic duties,” the FPA said in a statement.

Emad Borat, a freelance cameraman for Reuters news agency and other groups, has remained in custody since he was detained while filming soldiers entering the Palestinian village of Bil’in on Oct. 6, said Shai Carmeli-Pollak, an [Israeli] film maker.

Bilin, located near the boundary with Israel, is the scene of weekly protests against the West Bank security barrier. Pollak said Borat was beaten up inside a military jeep after his detention and needed six stitches for a gash on his face.

A military judge has ordered Borat to be released, but he remains in custody while prosecutors appeal the order. The IDF has accused Borat of throwing stones at border police while filming, Pollak said.

Borat was the main photographer for Pollak’s documentary, “Bilin My Love,” which won best documentary at the recent Jerusalem Film Festival.

The FPA complaint also cited the case of Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a photographer for Agence France Presse. Ashtiyeh, 38, said an Israeli soldier chased and kicked him after he tried to take photographs of an Israeli checkpoint next to the West Bank city of Nablus.

The FPA, which represents foreign journalists in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said both cases raised “serious concerns about the treatment of journalists by members of the Israeli armed services.”

The IDF did not return calls seeking comment.

Haaretz: “Judge orders probe over Palestinian cameraman hurt in Bil’in”

by Meron Rapaport, October 10th

A military judge ordered to open an inquiry into an affair regarding a Palestinian cameraman who was wounded after soldiers arrested him during a demonstration against the separation fence in the village of Bil’in over the weekend.

Witnesses said that Border Police troops had beaten the cameraman, but the army says the man was hurt when a piece of communications equipment hit him in the back of the jeep he was being held in.

Cameraman Imad Bornat, himself a resident of Bil’in, has been documenting the protests in the village since they began around a year and a half ago.

The photographer works for Reuters, as well as other photography agencies, and his work was featured in the movie “Bil’in Habibti” directed by Shai Pollack, which won an award for documentaries at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

On Friday, Bornat was arrested during a protest on suspicions of assaulting Border Police troops and hurling rocks at them. According to the troops’ testimony in court, Bornat was holding his camera in one hand, while bombarding them with rocks using the other.

But military Judge Shlomo Katz decided to free the cameraman during a hearing over the affair. The cameraman’s release has been postponed until the prosecution can decide whether to contest the ruling or indict Bornat.

Bornat’s attorney denies all charges waged against the cameraman, and said the video footage he took will prove his innocence. The attorney added that Bornat was attacked by the troops. But the army says he was hurt when communications equipment fell on him while he was en route to the police station. Bornat was later taken to a hospital to receive medical attention.

The military judge said the cameraman still looked injured during the hearing, five days after he was arrested, raising doubt regarding the authenticity of the troops’ version of the events.

The judge added that the evidence presented to him does not clearly indicate how Bornat was injured, or how he could have been hurt by the radio equipment. Katz said he believes it is necessary to conduct a more thorough probe into the matter.

Director Pollack and artist David Reeb are set to write a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Wednesday, signed by dozens of artists, journalists and cultural figureheads protesting Bornat’s arrest.

According to the letter, “Bornat’s video footage shows the arbitrary and routine violence committed by Border Police and the army against the protesters, and especially against the residents of the village of Bil’in.”

The letter further condemns the army, saying, “it is clear that the army and the police have an interest in preventing him from filming.”

The Times: “Rabbi leads defence of Palestinian olive groves”

The Times of London, October 9th. by Ian Mackinnon

Editorial note: A reporter from The Times of London joined Palestinian farmers accompanied by ISM, IWPS and Rabbis for Human Rights volunteers for picking as recorded in this report on our site. His report, focusing on the Rabbis, was published in the Times and on their website, and is pasted below.

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The olives are stunted, the trees in poor condition. At the top of a ladder, stripping fruit from high branches, the Palestinian farmer Omar Karni is in his element, working his way up a dusty olive grove that has been in his family for generations.

For the first time in four years, the family has been able to harvest the crop. Last time Mr Karni tried, radical Jewish settlers set fire to the tinder-dry land and beat him as he fled.

“I’m so happy to be here,” he said, stretching to reach a branch in the relentless sun. “This is my land and if I can’t come here to farm it I feel incomplete. I must do this to keep the land in my family.”

Mr Karni, 58, a Muslim, can go about his business without threat largely because of a rabbi who has co-ordinated with the Israeli Army and police to be on the spot to provide protection. Rabbi Arik Ascherman peers through binoculars towards the Har Berakha settlement near Nablus, in the West Bank, for signs of trouble. Heavily armed Israeli police patrol through the trees and an army Humvee squats across the dirt track to deter unwanted visitors.

Rabbi Ascherman, co-director of Rabbis for Human Rights, will spend the six-week olive season rising at dawn with other volunteers to put his life on the line to protect Palestinian farmers from armed Jewish settlers. Without the Jewish cleric, the farmers would be fired upon or beaten, their harvest stolen and ancient trees — some dating from Roman times — felled with chainsaws.

“This whole issue of trying to prevent the olive harvest is the ongoing struggle to get Palestinians off the land,” the rabbi said. “But if we Jews are to survive in this land we must restore hope by being here to break down the stereotypes the Palestinians have of Israelis. This is the best single thing I can do to protect my two children.”

The rabbi and his fellow volunteers — some Israeli, some foreign — will help to harvest and to police groves in 30 West Bank villages that sit cheek-by-jowl with Jewish settlements and have become flashpoints.

Last year attacks rose sharply at harvest-time, with feelings running high over Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip. Thousands of olive trees were cut down, others damaged, crops stolen, and several Palestinian farmers suffered serious injury at the hands of settler mobs.

Gamilah Biso, an Arabic-speaking Jewish volunteer who was brought up in Damascus, realises that her presence and that of her colleagues is vital to ensure that the olives can be harvested from the West Bank’s ten million trees to produce the 36,000 tonnes of olive oil. That accounts for one fifth of Palestinian agriculture. “If we weren’t here the farmer and his family just wouldn’t be able to come,” Ms Biso said, deftly stripping the green olives from the branches. “It would be too easy for the settlers to shoot them.”

Victory in a two-year court case brought by the rabbis and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel may help to ease tensions. It has guaranteed the farmers access to their land and obliged thearmy to protect that right. The Army recently drove away settlers who had come to steal the olives from Mr Karni’s land — yet subsequently barred the family from their 12-acre grove because they had arrived before the agreed schedule. Mr Karni’s early appearance was driven by the desperation of current Palestinian circumstances. The harvest now offers a vital economic lifeline.

“We came to raise money for the Ramadan celebrations,” he said. “No one has any stable work these days. So the harvest has become very, very important to survive. We await the harvest like we await the rain.”

Haaretz: Israeli army “aims to keep out ‘escorts’ of Palestinian farmers during harvest”

Ha’aretz, October 9th. by Amira Hass

The Israel Defense Forces [sic] are demanding that Palestinian farmers not allow Israeli and foreign sympathizers to escort them during the olive harvest to places where military protection is needed against abusive settlers, Palestinian sources in the Nablus region told Haaretz.

An Israeli security source confirmed the report, saying that IDF officers have been influenced by statements of settlers, who say they are enraged during the harvest by the presence of Israeli leftists who act as provocateurs. A 2005 memo to soldiers from the Civil Administration regarding the olive-picking season states: “Involvement of various entities, Israeli and foreign, is expected, as an ‘aid’ to the Palestinians in the harvest and as a motive for creating provocations.”

On the other hand, the 2006 Olive Harvest Order issued by the Samaria Regional Brigade stated, under “Key lessons from the previous year”: “Working axis vis-a-vis leftist organizations: During the harvest season the left appeared largely as a coordinating force and for the most part offered no provocations. The best and most effective axis for maintaining communication is between the implementers [i.e., the olive-pickers – A.H.] and the organizations.”

The contradictory policy was evident as the harvest season began last week in the Nablus region. In the village of Burin, for example, Israeli [activist] escorts were prohibited, but they were permitted later in the week. In the village of Klil the army allowed women from an international solidarity group to be present during the picking. Last Tuesday, however, soldiers barred farmers from entering their property, necessitating the intercession by phone of activists from Rabbis for Human Rights.

Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman of RHR has for years organized groups of Israeli peace activists to escort farmers in some 30 West Bank villages, as protection against settler attacks.

The IDF Spokesman stated that the GOC Central Command had recently signed several orders requiring advance coordination to enter limited areas during the harvest period, but that most West Bank harvest areas are freely accessible to farmers and Israeli civilians. Regarding the incident last Tuesday, the IDF said that the Klil farmers left the area of their own volition after soldiers asked to check their ID because they had not coordinated their arrival in advance.