Category: In the Media - Page 31 - International Solidarity Movement

Setting a dangerous precedent: 16-year-old Ali Shamlawi faces 25 counts of attempted murder for alleged stone throwing

18th June 2013 | Mondoweiss, Katherine Flynn| Hares, Occupied Palestine

Three months ago today, in the early hours of March, 17 2013, Israeli soldiers appeared at 16-year- old Ali Shamlawi’s house in the West Bank village of Hares. They blindfolded him, handcuffed him and took him away. His arrest was one of a spate of arrests in March of this year which saw 19 boys, aged 16 and 17 years old, arrested for throwing stones which were alleged to have caused a traffic accident on Route 5, a large road which cuts through the West Bank to service illegal Israeli settlements.

Hares is a village of 4,000 people south of the city of Nablus in the West Bank. Illegal Israeli settlements – including Ariel, the second-largest settlement in the West Bank – have been built on agricultural land confiscated from Hares. The traffic accident in question occurred on March 14 when a car carrying a mother and her three daughters from Ariel crashed into the back of a truck on Route 5 near Hares, after the truck had braked suddenly. The youngest daughter was critically injured in the crash. The driver of the truck initially attributed the sudden breaking to a flat tire but later claimed he braked suddenly when stones hit his truck.

Locals who were at the scene of the accident moments after it occurred were interviewed by the International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) and reported that they did not see any youth in the vicinity. However in the weeks since the accident, 61 witnesses from surrounding illegal settlements have come forward claiming their cars were also damaged by stones thrown by Palestinian youth from the side of the road. These settlers claim that Palestinian boys were 5-10 metres from the side of the road but these allegations have never been verified by the extensive CCTV footage in the area.

Since the initial arrests, 14 of the Palestinian boys have been released. However, five boys, including Ali Shamlawi, remain in prison three months later. Along with the other boys, Ali is being charged with 25 separate counts of attempted murder (one for each individual stone he allegedly threw) and is facing 25 years to life imprisonment.

Last Thursday on June 13th, Ali was in court again for his sixth hearing. Having applied to attend the hearing in advance, I was informed the night before that permission had not been granted because it would be a closed hearing – something all too common in Israeli military courts. Ali’s lawyers have since confirmed that at the hearing his detention was extended to July 25th in order for the defense team to be able to consider all evidence being used against him.

Along with the 61 “witnesses” mentioned above, the prosecution’s evidence consists of confessions from the boys. The lawyers and NGOs working on the case insist that these confessions were forced under extreme duress and are therefore inadmissible. 16-year-old Ali was held in solitary confinement for two weeks after his arrest and denied access to a lawyer for the first few days. He was interrogated for up to 20 hours at a time and beaten. Until last week, he was also denied visitation from his family. Ali’s lawyers submitted a complaint on May 15th about the circumstances of his interrogation and torture but are still waiting to hear back from the military police investigation.

Interviews carried out by IWPS with some of the boys already released by Israel show further mistreatment of children in custody. One of the 19 boys arrested was hospitalised after being beaten by interrogators, while another reports being kept alone in a small cell where bright lights shone continuously and being threatened with harm to him and his family. Indeed, such allegations come on the heels of a February 2013 report by UNICEF which firmly concluded that “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the [Israeli] military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised throughout the process…”

It is not just the treatment of these children during interrogation that should raise questions. Despite being only 16 years old, Ali is being tried as an adult in Israeli military court; while illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank are subject to Israeli civil law, Palestinians living in the same area are subject to strict Israeli military law. Under this law, Palestinian youth can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for throwing stones at vehicles. Twenty years in prison for throwing stones would be considered harsh in even some of the world’s strictest regimes, but this case sets an even more dangerous precedent: the Israeli courts are charging these five boys not with stone-throwing but with attempted murder.

If the sentence is passed, this case could set a legal precedent which would allow the Israeli military to try any Palestinian youth with attempted murder for incidents of stone-throwing. While the evidence against the boys is tenuous at best (and downright illegal at worst), statistics on conviction rates in Israeli military courts do not bode well for the boys. According to a 2010 internal IDFreport, the military court system used to try Palestinians has a 99.7% conviction rate (In 2010, that meant only 25 full acquittals out of 9,542 cases).These highly troubling statistics expose the discrimination inherent in the Israeli judicial system when compared with similar statistics on settler attacks on Palestinians. A 2011 UN OCHA report revealed that over 90% of monitored complaints of settler violence filed by Palestinians with the Israeli police were closed without indictment.

With conviction rates of almost 100%, allegations of torture against children, and systematic discrimination against Palestinians, it is high time that Israel is held to account for the violations of international law endemic to its military detention and judicial systems.

For now, Ali must wait until July 25th to appear in court again, not knowing whether he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. This case has until now received little media attention. But for those of us who respect due process and human rights, it is time to speak up.

Addameer, IWPS and Defence for Children International are working with Ali’s lawyers on this case.

Mass protest aims to focus attention on Jerusalem

16th June 2013 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron and Patrick Strickland | Occupied Palestine

Activists demonstrated internationally on Friday as part of efforts to focus attention on Israel’s aggression against Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Global March to Jerusalem participants called for solidarity with political prisoners, an end to the occupation and for national unity. (Dylan Collins)

Known as the Global March to Jerusalem, the protests marked the 46th anniversary of theNaksa (setback) — Israel’s 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Syria’sGolan Heights, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Whereas the Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1982, the other territories remain under Israeli occupation.

The international mobilization followed the first Global March to Jerusalem on 30 March — the date marking Land Day, commemorating Israel’s killing of six Palestinian citizens in 1976 — last year.

“Clear vision”

“Gaza deserves all the support we can give,” said Zaher Birawi, Global March to Jerusalem’s international committee member and spokesperson. Birawi arrived in Gaza last week with the aid convoy Miles of Smiles 21’s international delegation for the event. “But it should be in the context of fighting the occupation, with a clear vision toward Jerusalem.”

Birawi, who is a London-based television producer from Asira al-Shamaliya in the West Bank, added, “Gaza alone is not the issue … Jerusalem, and the whole occupation, is the issue.”

While associated with Islamic movements, primarily in Palestine and other Arab countries, the event does not restrict its appeal or participation, Birawi said. Jerusalem, he said, “is not a Palestinian duty only. It is for Palestinians in a political context, maybe. But in a cultural and religious context, Palestinians are not the owners of the city. It is for all people and all religions, and should be protected by the whole world.”

This year’s march came amid rising tensions between Jerusalem Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces. Israeli soldiers and settlers have repeatedly invaded the al-Haram al-Sharif complex, which contains the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.

And a 4 May attack by Israeli police on worshipers celebrating Holy Saturday outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre prompted a rare public rebuke by the heads of Christian churches in Jerusalem (“A statement regarding police measures on Holy Saturday,” Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 13 May 2013).

Israel’s repressive measures don’t only affect Palestinians’ freedom to worship in Jerusalem. Israeli evictions of Palestinians and construction of new settlements and their infrastructure, as well as economic measures targeting Palestinians, continue. “The main reason for these projects is to actually cut off Jerusalem from the West Bank and make a connection between the Maale Adumim settlement and Jerusalem,” The Electronic Intifada contributor Maath Musleh said in March.

The movement urging boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel has targeted many of the companies that support Israel’s occupation and settlement of Palestinian land in Jerusalem. Some, like the French corporation Veolia, have suffered painful losses as a result. Others, such as the British-Danish security company G4S, face growing campaigns.

In Jerusalem, nearly a hundred Palestinians, accompanied by a handful of international activists, assembled at the Damascus Gate in the Old City following Friday prayers last week.

“One homeland”

Although the demonstration was peaceful, a larget contingent of Israeli police quickly moved to block exits in the Damascus Gate area.

Demonstrators of all ages were draped in Palestinian flags, and chants were led by a group of older women. They called for solidarity with political prisoners, an end to the occupation and for national unity. “One homeland from Gaza to the West Bank,” several chanted.

As the march began, Israeli officers on horseback cut the line in half. Dozens of police in riot gear immediately poured into the area.

Before the march could reach some 50 meters, the police officers attacked several protesters and bystanders alike. A female foreign national was snatched up, handcuffed and stuffed in the back of a police car, though it was not clear if she was part of the demonstration.

In one instance, an Israeli officer pushed a Palestinian photojournalist to the ground. Once he hit the pavement, he was kicked several times by officers until fellow journalists and demonstrators helped lift him up and drag him to safety.

Making no distinctions, officers on horses repeatedly charged in the direction of civilian bystanders, press and Palestinian medical services.

Seventeen-year-old Muath Abu Irshaid was arrested for “taking part in an unlicensed demonstration,” according to Raja Eghbariya of the secular Palestinian nationalist movement Abna al-Balad, which sent a bus of participants to Jerusalem.

In the northern Gaza Strip, a large demonstration was held at the Erez checkpoint in Beit Hanoun at the boundary with Israel. Buses from as far south as Rafah — on Gaza’s border with Egypt — streamed into the protest site after Friday prayers as protestors mingled on a road stretching from a stage near the closed crossing.

“The whole world must learn about the settlements in Jerusalem,” said government worker Mahmoud Kamel, who attended the march with his eight-year-old son Obeida. “This is the first thing. There are no reasons for the policies against civilians in Jerusalem. And they are taking place on land that has been ours since before our grandfathers and grandmothers.”

In Beit Hanoun, members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held the majority of partisan flags and signs. Members of other factions also participated, albeit in smaller numbers.

“We want peace, freedom and security,” said Mahmoud Rouka, a Palestinian Democratic Union (FIDA) activist. “We want to be able to travel across our own country. The Global March to Jerusalem is a time for Palestinian people here, in the West Bank, in ‘48 [present-day Israel], and in other countries around Palestine to look toward Jerusalem.”

Palestine Liberation Organization member parties, including Fatah, endorsed the Beit Hanoun gathering but their members kept a low profile during it. In the West Bank, Fatah-affiliated media announced and reported local events.

Fear

Organizers suggested that Fatah’s increased participation this year may have stemmed from the success of last year’s march, as well as expectations of large protests inAlexandria and Cairo, where Egypt’s governing Muslim Brotherhood mobilized alongside the al-Asala, al-Nour, and al-Wasat political parties.

Compared to last year, the turnout was notably smaller in Jerusalem. Eghbariya said that “some activists, political parties, and even the Islamic movement [in Israel] declined to participate because of a rumor that the event was organized by Hamas and the fear that Israel would respond harshly.”

Dr. Sarah Marusek, a Global March to Jerusalem international committee member and spokesperson from Brooklyn, New York, who also arrived in Gaza with Miles of Smiles 21, confirmed these concerns. “There was a lot of fear to organize in Jerusalem — it’s very difficult right now, because there have been so many arrests in Jerusalem,” she said. “Many of the student leaders who were working with us before are now in Israeli prison. This political situation has made it hard to mobilize.”

One of the organizers of the West Bank events last year, according to Marusek, wasHassan Karajah, the 28-year-old youth coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign who was arrested by Israel in January.

Marusek added that smaller numbers across the region stemmed from organizers’ late start planning this year’s events, due to the conflict in Syria.

“Daily aggression”

Tamer Khalefa, a local organizer of the Global March to Jerusalem, said the march would be staged again next year. “It’s important to mark the anniversary not just because of daily aggression at al-Aqsa [mosque] but also because of the general situation in Jerusalem,” he said. “This includes home demolitions, anti-Arab discrimination, land theft and all human rights violations.”

Clashes between protesters and the Israeli military also occurred across the West Bank, particularly in areas near Bethlehem and Ramallah.

In Bilin, a village featured in the acclaimed 5 Broken Cameras documentary film, Palestinian, Israeli and international activists were attacked by Israeli forces who fired rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and stun grenades near Israel’s wall in the West Bank.

In Kafr Qaddoum, situated between Nablus and Qalqilya, dozens reportedly suffered tear gas inhalation (“Clashes across West Bank as Palestinians mark war anniversary,” Maan News, 7 June 2013).

Other Global March to Jerusalem events occurred in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mauritania, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yemen, according to the march’s organizers.

“Coordinating a global movement is really difficult,” Marusek said. “But it’s really inspiring.”

Contacts established during the 2012 Global March to Jerusalem made it easier to mobilize quickly this year, she said. “This is our second GMJ, so we had already created a structure of networks and relationships. We already had key contacts in place. We have national committees in Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank.”

“We try to choose people who can work with all the parties” as local coordinators in the Middle East, she said. “It’s an international movement, but it’s also very much Palestinian-led. It can be a struggle working with Europeans and North Americans who are used to working on projects that are more activist-led.”

“We are a peaceful movement, and we expect Israel’s response to be violent,” Marusek said. “But nonviolence is the path we chose.”

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, blogs at joecatron.wordpress.com and can be followed on Twitter @jncatron.

Patrick O. Strickland is a freelance journalist whose writing has appeared in Al Jazeera English, Al Akhbar English, The Electronic Intifada, Middle East Monitor, Palestine Monitor, and others. Follow him on Twitter @pstrickland.

Israel bars children over eight from visiting fathers in prison

15th June 2013 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine

On 20 May, Obeida Shamali visited his father, Ahmad Abd Alraheem Shamali, in Israel’s Nafha prison. It was the first time they had seen each other since Israeli forces captured Ahmad in August 2008.

Palestinian children in Gaza hold a protest outside the International Committee of the Red Cross, demanding the release of their relatives detained by Israel. (Joe Catron)

“I was very happy,” the seven-year-old said. He was sitting under a picture of his father in his family’s house in Gaza City’s al-Shajaiyeh neighborhood. “Before it, I imagined how his face would look when I met him, because I hadn’t seen him for such a long time.”

A fighter with Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Ahmad has been sentenced to 18 years in prison by an Israeli military court.

Like hundreds of local children, Obeida had been unable to visit his father for years. In June 2007, a year before capturing his father, Israel banned all visits to Palestinian detainees by families from the Gaza Strip. To end a mass hunger strike in its prisons, it eased this restriction in May last year. Israel promised to allow visits by parents and spouses, starting two months later.

Promise broken

But children of detainees remained unable to visit their incarcerated parents for almost another year. Only last month, on 6 May, did Israel allow seven children — all younger than eight years old — to accompany 54 other members of prisoners’ families through the Erez checkpoint, which separates Gaza from present-day Israel. Some 33 children have now joined four prison visits, according to Dibeh Fakhr, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which coordinates family visits to detainees with the Israeli authorities.

A recent report on the policy by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem described the current visitation regime. “Visits are permitted very infrequently, only once a week on Mondays, and then only at one prison facility at a time: Nafha, Ramon and Eshel (Dekel),” according to the group. “As a result, each eligible inmate receives a visit once every three or four months. In contrast, inmates from Israel or from the West Bank who are held on criminal or security grounds may receive visits once every two weeks” (“Israel prohibits Gazan children from visiting imprisoned fathers,” 23 May 2013).

“We were all flying with happiness,” Najah Shamali, Ahmad’s mother and Obeida’s grandmother, said about the news that their entire family would be able to visit Ahmad for the first time. “The whole family celebrated. Everyone obsessed about the visit and could hardly wait for it to come.”

“No justification”

But the visit might have been Obeida’s last. Israel’s new policy still bars Gaza Strip children aged eight or older from visiting their detained parents. And Obeida’s eighth birthday — on 10 July — will almost certainly come before his family’s next visit.

“These policies show that the main aim of the Israeli prison system is to destroy the well-being of prisoners,” Rifat Kassis, the director of Defence for Children International — Palestine Section, said. “There is no justification for imposing these restrictions on Palestinian children from communicating and visiting their fathers in Israeli prisons. Even the security justification Israel uses to justify its policies are not in line with its human rights obligations and cannot stand.”

According to Kassis, Israel’s restrictions on family visits violate not only its responsibilities under international law, but also its own written regulations. “Denying political prisoners, especially those who are from the Gaza Strip, from their visitation rights for prolonged periods of time and imposing restrictions on them when they enjoy this right, including putting limitations and restrictions on who is eligible to visit them, is a form of collective punishment,” he said.

“The right of prisoners to receive visitors, especially near relatives, at regular intervals and as frequently as possible is recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

“These practices are not in conformity with the Israeli Prison Service instructions related to the right of visitation of prisoners. The IPS instructions reads that the prisoners have the right to receive family visits after three months of imprisonment, once every two weeks.”

At the end of April, Israel held 511 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, according to B’Tselem. Many are detained for lengthy sentences. “Most of their children are [older than] eight years,” said Osama Wahidi, a spokesman for the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based group for current and former detainees. “Very few are younger.”

The Hussam Association campaigns around issues of family visitation, issuing statements and holding rallies at the ICRC. Many of its activities, Wahidi said, aim to draw the attention of international media and human rights organizations.

“Their positions are very bad,” he said. “When [Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit was detained by the Palestinian resistance here in Gaza, every human rights organization talked about him. At the same time, most of them, and the international media, never mentioned Palestinian detainees. But they demanded that Shalit should be released. He was a soldier; he was holding a weapon; he was targeting Palestinian civilians.”

“We don’t have a magic wand to release all the detainees. That’s why we are trying to find ways to talk about the suffering of detainees, their families, and their children. We don’t have any other way.”

“Above the law”

At a weekly sit-in by detainees’ families and supporters at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), several detainees’ children shared their experiences of the visitation policy.

“I send him voice messages through a radio station, and written messages through the ICRC,” said Nisma al-Aqraa, the 15-year-old daughter of Mahed Faraj al-Aqraa. She has not seen her father, a fighter for the Popular Resistance Committees’ al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, since his capture by Israeli forces in July 2007. Categorized as a “permanent sick detainee” in the Ramleh prison hospital, where he is serving three life sentences, both of his legs have been amputated.

“I saw him behind a glass barrier,” Hamze Helles complained. “I couldn’t go inside.” Hamze, who had just turned eight when Israel’s policy shifted on 6 May, was able to visit his father Majed Khalil Helles, a fighter for Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades sentenced to five years, in Nafha prison on 20 May, through an apparent administrative oversight. It was Hamze’s first visit since his father’s capture by Israeli forces in August 2008.

“It doesn’t make any sense to deprive a small child who will never cause any harm to Israel,” Wahidi said. “It’s not logical. But Israel doesn’t care about its reputation. It feels like it is a state above the law, that no one can hold it accountable for its crimes. Nobody in the international community has shown otherwise.”

‘This time we were not forced to swim naked in the sea’: Gaza fishermen left jobless after illegal arrest in Palestinian waters

1st June 2013 | Mondoweiss, Petra Stastna | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

A young Palestinian fisherman was arrested together with his brother within Palestinian waters on 19 May 2013 by the Israeli navy and released the following day. Their boat and all equipment were confiscated by the Israelis, leaving them with no means to make a living. This is another serious blow to the livelihoods of individual Palestinians whose lives depend on fishing, not to mention the whole population, which has been for years subject to siege as collective punishment, illegal under international law.

The interview was facilitated by and took place in the office of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in Gaza City. Sa’d Zaida, Senior Manager at UAWC, translated from Arabic to English. Editing and titles by the author.

Israeli military harassing Palestinian fishermen (Photo by Rosa Schiano/Civil Peace Service Gaza)

My name is Mahmoud Zayed. I am 25 years old. I am a fishermen and live with my family in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Last Sunday, 19 May 2013, my brother Khaled (24) and I went fishing at about 5:30 pm. We have a row boat, ahasaka, which accommodates two people. We stayed in the Beit Lahiya area near the beach. At around 9:00 pm we were sailing about 1.4 km (0.8 nautical miles) from the beach. A number of other boats were near us. Suddenly, two Israeli ninja boats (zodiac) approached us and started to shoot at us.

“Confrontation”

There were perhaps five soldiers on each boat. We tried to escape the attack but it increased. We shouted at the soldiers: “We want to go home. We want to go to the Gaza beach.” Yet the army circled our boat, creating huge waves. Water was in our faces and everywhere. One of the waves sent us into the sea. But we got aboard again. Khaled fell on the floor. He was exhausted and feeling sick. But still we tried to defend our boat by sticking out our oars to prevent the navy boat from getting close. One of the Israeli boats tried to catch our boat by throwing a rope over a pole. Twice they succeeded, but we immediately removed the rope. [Mahmoud and all other fishermen sitting in the same room smile.]

New colors of detainee clothes

In the end the army caught our boat. According to Israeli regulations, we were allowed to go fishing up to six km (three nm). The Israeli navy attacked us at 1.4 km (0.8 nm), but by the time they caught us we were at one km (0.5 nm). The attack lasted for more than an hour. When they caught our boat, they did not ask us to take off our clothes and swim towards them, as is the usual procedure. This time we were arrested directly on the boat, so we did not have to swim without clothes. Two soldiers took me and carried me to the small navy boat. My brother Khaled was exhausted and sick. Two other soldiers carried him. On the small boat they told us to take off our clothes. They gave us yellow t-shirt and blue trousers …This must be a new fashion, because the navy used to give the arrested fishermen green uniforms, then black ones, so now it’s yellow and blue. They are following fashion, that’s why they change the uniforms for us. [The fishermen laugh.]

Handcuffed all night in Ashdod

The soldiers covered my eyes, handcuffed me and carried me and my brother to the big navy boat. There they asked our names, ID number and boat number. We said we did not know the numbers by heart. After one hour we arrived at Ashdod sea port. The Israelis brought a doctor who inspected Khaled and gave him an injection. They asked our names and ID. They took photos of us and noted our phone numbers. Then they put us into a room, still blindfolded and handcuffed. I asked that they take away the handcuffs, but we spent the night handcuffed tightly. In the morning, the Israeli internal security interrogated me, showed me a map and asked about places I know on the shore. They asked about Sudania (the point where the fishermen entered the sea directly) and about a water pump in Sudania. They showed me the police station.

Everything confiscated, even 100 NIS from my pocket

After the investigation I asked about my boat and confiscated nets, but they said I must talk to a Palestinian lawyer. (But they know very well that fishermen do not have money to pay a lawyer or court costs.) They took me blindfolded and handcuffed back to the room. The investigation took place at around 8.30 am and lasted for 30 or 45 minutes. It was conducted in Hebrew with translation into Arabic. The translator did not speak with a Palestinian accent. They investigated only me, not Khaled. Fifteen minutes later they tied our legs with iron cuffs. Then they put us into a police car and took us to Erez. This was around 11:00 am on Monday morning, May 20. We were without our boat, nets and all equipment. What’s more, I had 100 NIS in my pocket. I got it for the fish I had caught the other day. They took it, too. We weren’t allowed to talk to our family until we got back home, not during the arrest.

They know every detail about us, but still they arrest us and intimidate us

What is strange about this is that, during the interrogation, they asked me: “Your brother was on another boat, why was he in the hasaka?” It’s true that Khaled usually goes fishing with another boat. But after he finished his work he came to help me. This shows that they have been observing us very closely, they know everything about us. How they follow this, how they trace this, we don’t know. But this is what happened… Why did they arrest us and confiscate everything? I think because my brother joined me on the boat.

Jobless

Our family depends on fishing. We are six brothers and a sister, altogether 13 members in the family. I have a son. Khaled also has a son. In the family we had one hasaka, which is now confiscated. Our father and another brother also have a boat, but it’s for their use. My hasaka was the only means of making a living for me. I will be unemployed until I can get a new boat. I cannot borrow someone else’s boat. What would happen if soldiers confiscated it again? The hasaka I had cost 3,300 NIS ($900). The nets and equipment cost even more. On Saturday, I bought nets for 2,000 NIS. They were brand new and I lost them just one day after buying them.

Six miles as a drop in the ocean

How do we feel about the extension of the fishing range from three to six nm? It helps a little bit. However, if we look at the economic side of it, there is no change at all. It is okay for sardines, which are seasonal, but it is almost the end of the sardine season now. For other fish it does not change anything. “Natural fishing” starts only after eight nm, where there is what we call a “line of rocks”. Anything less offers only a seasonal benefit. What’s more, it is forbidden to fish at six nm, as this is where the fish eggs are. …At three to six nm there is only “ramel”, ground, soil. There are sardines at six nm. If you are lucky, you will also get some other fish. It gets better after six miles, but the good area starts at eight miles. …The dangerous thing after the November 2012 ceasefire is that by allowing us to fish up to six nm, this might be designed as the maximum we will ever be allowed to go to. It’s a kind of collective punishment. Israel needs neither arguments nor rockets. They punish us without these things.

A message to the world

We want our boat and nets back. We want Israelis to leave us alone, to live peacefully and give us the right to fish anywhere.

Background info

The attack by the Israeli navy on Palestinian fishermen happened within the three nm limit (precisely at 0.8 nm), which the Israeli side would justify as a “military necessity”. Under the “military necessity” would also fall the confiscation of a boat and nets. The Oslo Agreement of 1994 designated Palestinian waters as 20 nm. This number has been shrinking ever since: In 2002 it was officially lowered to 12 nm in the Bertini Agreement. Following the disengagement, Israel reduced the fishing area even more, and since the capture of the soldier Gilad Shalit, on June 25, 2006, fishermen have not been allowed further than three nautical miles from shore. Thus Palestinians have been denied access to 85% of their sea, to which they are legally entitled, according to the Oslo Agreement. Following the ceasefire in November 2012 after the Pillar of Defense attack, the limit moved up to six nm again. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy continued attacking fishermen within this limit. In March 2013 the three nm limit was again imposed, after some rockets were fired from Gaza towards the south of Israel. On Tuesday, May 21, Israel extended the fishing range back to six nm, as a gesture of “goodwill” during US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Tel Aviv, many say. Fishing provides a livelihood to many families and is an important source of food for residents of the Gaza Strip. Waters along the Gaza coast have long been overfished and many human rights organizations, such as the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and B’Tselem, call for restoring the 20 nautical mile limit as stipulated in the interim Oslo Agreements almost 20 years ago.

About Petra Stastna

Petra Stastna comes from the Czech Republic where she has been active in various solidarity movements, including the struggle for justice and freedom for Palestine. She is currently in Gaza.

Activist dares imagine a one-state solution

By Patrick Cooke

2nd April 2013 | The Times of Malta

The snow that fell on the West Bank village of Urif on January 10 was the heaviest in years, enticing delighted children out of their homes. But snow was not the only thing to descend on the village that morning.

As the children threw snowballs, dozens of Israeli settlers came down from the hilltop settlement of Yizhar, brandishing guns, stones and even a sword.

What happened next was witnessed by Maltese activist Andre Callus, 26, who was in the Nablus region with the International Solidarity Movement, a non-violent group “committed to resisting the Israeli apartheid in Palestine”.

He showed The Times a video of the clashes in the village that day, filmed by the ISM.

A Palestinian can be seen lying on the ground, shot and injured by a live bullet fired by settlers or the Israel Defence Forces that protect them.

Members of the army can later be seen throwing a sound bomb to disperse international activists who appeared to be asking them to keep the settlers away from the village.

“This was an almost daily occurrence in Urif; sometimes settlers’ attacks would happen three times a day,” Mr Callus said.

The situation in this area hit the headlines in the past days when US President Barack Obama made his first visit to Israel and the West Bank since assuming office in 2009.

Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, occupied by Israel since they were captured in the 1967 Six Day War, are widely considered to contravene the Fourth Geneva Convention, although Israel rejects this. Their existence on land recognised as Palestinian territory by the UN is seen as one of the obstacles to a viable two-state solution to the conflict.

In the West Bank from October to January, Mr Callus soon got used to the weary rhythm of violence around settlements which is provoked, he says, by armed settlers entering villages and wilfully damaging property.

“There used to always be a settlers’ guard with them who was famous for having killed people.”

Why? “Because they think the land is theirs, given to them by God.”

Palestinian youths would throw insults and stones in response and the army would come down from the settlements shooting tear gas.

If they did not disperse, the army would fire rubber bullets and, sometimes, live bullets, Mr Callus said.

“I saw 15 Palestinians injured by live bullets in the time I was there.”

As an ISM volunteer, Mr Callus said his main duties were to witness and report events on the ground and to deter or, at least, lessen the extent of violence.

“Maybe if there is a 50 per cent chance of the army using live bullets, the presence of internationals will make it a 30 per cent chance.”

ISM volunteers would only go somewhere if their presence was requested by Palestinians.

The dreadlocked Mr Callus has a well-publicised history of direct action in Malta, particularly against racism.

Although his actions have not always endeared him to conservatives, he is a well-read, highly motivated and articulate individual who dedicates much of his time to fighting perceived injustices.

Mr Callus was unequivocal in describing the situation in the West Bank as “apartheid”. He cited settler-only roads, humiliating checkpoints for Palestinians, harassment from settlers and the army, widespread arrests and the use of military courts as ample evidence of this.

“Settlers are not renegades that Israel has no control over. They are protected by the Israeli Defence Forces. They are actively encouraged to live there by the Israeli Government,” Mr Callus said.

On the other hand, Israel places strict conditions on buildings by Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and demolishes structures that violate these conditions.

According to the UN, 599 such structures were demolished last year, displacing 886 Palestinians, more than half of them children.

“It is a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing,” according to Mr Callus.

For Mr Callus, it is not a conflict between equal sides with equal grievances.

“It’s about occupation, apartheid and the stealing of land. The cause of the conflict is not the conflict itself. The reasons almost exclusively lie in Israeli oppression of Palestinians,” he said.

The most reasonable solution to the current situation would be one secular, democratic state for both Israelis and Palestinians, in Mr Callus’s opinion.

With more than 600,000 settlers now living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Mr Callus does not think a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders is viable, although he accepts this could change.

“Right now, the idea of one secular, democratic state is really difficult to imagine, but it is even harder for me to imagine a two-state solution. Look what happened with South Africa and apartheid – whites once oppressed blacks but now they live side by side.”

Mr Callus wanted to make it clear that he has nothing against the Israeli people.

“What happened has happened and the Israeli Jews have a right to stay there and live in peace. But it is racist to say this land is only for Jews.”

Scenes from the West Bank provided by the Palestine Solidarity Movement