For twenty years now the international donor community has financially supported Palestinian institution-building, infrastructure development, the economy, public employees’ salaries, health and education, social welfare, the police, electricity production, private credit guarantees, and the bigger part of the civil society organizations with regards to democracy promotion, human rights, tolerance, women rights etc.
Peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state have been the declared goals of all the support. But actual results are the fragmentation and pacification of the Palestinian people.
This documentary film, directed by Mariam Shahin and George Azar, and funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, features Palestinian criticism of this externally funded “development”.
During the weekly non-violent protest in the village of an-Nabi Saleh on Friday several injuries were reported including that of a French citizen who was struck in the neck by an Israeli projectile.
The young woman, reported to be named Amessi, was struck in the neck, initially thought to be by a tear gas canister, but later reported to be a rubber coated steel bullet. As of yet reports remain conflicted.The young woman was cut by the shot and lead to bleeding from the wound.
Reports state that the young woman has been transfered to hospital where she is stable.
Israeli military major, Peter Lerner, has claimed via his Twitter account that the young woman was struck by Palestinians throwing stones.
Furthermore, it was reported by activists at the scene and by the Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee that Nariman Tamimi attempted to film the young woman’s injuries, but was assaulted by Israeli soldiers.
In addition to the injury sustained by Amessi, another international activist was struck in the waist by a tear gas canister. The young man, reportedly, has extensive bruising to the area.
In total residents of the village have reported 13 injuries in an-Nabi Saleh, not including those suffering ill effects from tear gas inhalation.
On December 9th 2011 village resident, Mustafa Tamimi was killed when military personnel shot out of the back of their armed jeep, striking Tamimi in the face with a tear gas canister.
Tamimi succumbed to his wounds.
The firing of high velocity tear gas canisters directly at protestors violates both international law regulating the use of so called non lethal munitions, and Israeli domestic law, yet several activists, both Palestinian and international, have been killed and severely injured by direct shots from tear gas canisters.
In April 2009, Basem Abu Rahme was killed in the village of
Bil’in when shot in the chest with a tear gas canister, and U.S. citizen Tristen Anderson was left disabled when shot in the head by a canister in March 2009.
Anderson was taken to a hospital in Tel Aviv where he underwent brain surgery, having a portion of his frontal lobe and fragments of shattered bone removed.
Updated from:
BREAKING: Woman Shot in Head by Israeli Military in Nabi Saleh
Friday February 03, 2012 16:11 by Circarre Parrhesia – IMEMC News
Activists in the village of an-Nabi Saleh are reporting on Friday that a woman has been shot in the head by a tear gas canister fired by the Israeli military.
Resident of the village Linah al-Saafin stated on her Twitter account that a young woman was shot in the face by the Israeli military, which was followed by information from Deema al-Saafin that the young woman was shot by the military with a tear gas canister and then taken from the scene by the military.
Activists based in the villages that hold non-violent protests regularly update followers as to the events of the protest via their accounts on social networking platforms such as Twitter.
On December 9th 2011 village resident, Mustafa Tamimi was killed in a similar incident when military personnel shot out of the back of their armed jeep, striking Tamimi in the face with a tear gas canister.
Tamimi succumbed to his wounds.
The firing of high velocity tear gas canisters directly at protestors violates both international law regulating the use of so called non lethal munitions, and Israeli domestic law, yet several activists, both Palestinian and international, have been killed and severely injured by direct shots from tear gas canisters.
In April 2009, Basem Abu Rahme was killed in the village of Bil’in when shot in the chest with a tear gas canister, and U.S. citizen Tristen Anderson was left disabled when shot in the head by a canister in March 2009.
Anderson was taken to a hospital in Tel Aviv where he underwent brain surgery, and had to have a portion of his frontal lobe and fragments of shattered bone removed.
In a hazy room, clouded with cigarette smoke and steam from hot syrup-sweat tea, residents of Kafr ad-Dik and its neighboring villages, along with Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists, excitedly gathered together waiting for the midday prayer to finish. The twenty-seventh of January marked the fourth Friday during which the village of Kafr ad-Dik has staged a nonviolent protest against the annexation of its agricultural land by the Israeli Occupation Authority (IOA).
The village of Kafr ad-Dik, and the greater Salfit District, is located on top of the largest water table in the West Bank, thus providing it with some of the most fertile land in the region. Home to generations upon generations of farmers, Kafr ad-Dik, and the neighboring villages of Rafat, Balut, and Bruqin, have had the majority of their agricultural land stripped away from them in the last ten years by the IOA. In turn unemployment and poverty rates in the farming-based community have skyrocketed.
In a village of which 99% of the inhabitants are olive farmers, the IOA’s annexation of the majority Kafr ad-Dik’s groves has been devastating.
Approximately 4,000 dunams of vital agricultural land, shared by the four villages, has been appropriated by the IOA over the past ten years. Last month, the IOA significantly increased its total of annexed land in the area when it earmarked an additional 1,000 dunums for the alleged expansion of the nearby illegal Israeli outost, Ale Zahav. Kafr ad-Dik residents, however, are convinced this latest annexation of land will be allocated to the construction of an entirely new outpost.
Left with no land to farm, and consequently no source of income, Kafr ad-Dik’s farmers have been forced to either rent out small plots from farmers who still have access to their lands in neighboring villages, or work their own land, now owned by the illegal Israeli settlements, for a paltry wage of around $13 a day.
Popular resistance, in the form of weekly nonviolent marches and demonstrations, has become increasingly commonplace in many West Bank villages since the beginning of the IOA’s construction of the Separation Wall and its subsequent seizure of Palestinian land. Villages such as Bil’in, Ni’lin and, more recently, Nabi Saleh have been the vanguard of the West Banks popular resistance movement over the last few years, with the media giving little to no focus to villages outside the spotlight.
As illegal Israeli settlements continue their unhindered expansion with impunity, robbing Palestinians of their land and livelihood on a daily basis, similar popular resistance demonstrations are popping up in villages all over the West Bank. In order for the new popular resistance efforts to be effective, it is imperative that media sources lend their ears more equitably to the growing number of villages cooperatively combating the occupation.
Nasfar Qufesh, the coordinator for the Popular Committee in the Salfit District, is insistent upon the fact that widespread, disciplined popular nonviolent resistance, represents the strongest means by which West Bank villages can resist the occupation. He says the aim of popular resistance is to, “create awareness in western countries, particularly America, of how, and for what purposes, their hard earned tax money is used.”
The Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) blatant use of excessive force during the weekly nonviolent protests throughout the West Bank, via mass amounts of tear gas, rubber bullets, sound grenades, and live ammunition, is an excellent example of American tax dollars hard at work. The US furnishes Israel with over three billion dollars a year in military aid alone, most of which is made up of non-repayable grants.
Although still in its nascent stages, the popular resistance in Kafr ad-Dik is growing. Community leaders predict similar movements to fan out across West Bank villages as a main method of confronting the occupation and its confiscation of their land.
Israeli forces delivered home demolition notices to two Palestinian homeowners in al-Ma’sara, a village south of Bethlehem, under the pretext that they were built without a permit in an area under full Israel control, said head of the village council Samir Zawahra on Saturday.
He said Israeli soldiers placed the notices near the two houses, which were in their final stage of construction.
Zawahra accused the Israeli authorities of plotting to empty the area of its Palestinian residents in order to take over the land for the benefit of nearby settlements.
He said the Israeli escalation comes in the wake of the weekly non-violent demonstration in the village to protest settlement expansion and the construction of the Apartheid Wall on village land.
Click here for more images - (c) Anne Paq/Activestills.org, Arab al Jahalin, Anata, 26.01.2012
How do you continue your life after your home had been demolished? How do you cope with the uncertainty of having a roof for your children and protect them from the cold and rain?
On the 23rd January, 6 homes of the community of the Arab al Jahalin, members of the biggest Bedouin tribe in the West Bank, in Anata were demolished in the middle of the night leaving more than 50 people homeless, many of them children. More demolitions are coming: more than 2,000 members of the Arab al Jahalin, who are scattered mostly around Jerusalem are threatened with forced displacement; one of the locations “proposed” by the Israeli authorities is a garbage dump in El Azzariya.
I visited the community two days after the demolition. The children and women were helplessly sitting around. The personal belongings were all scattered around. The men were trying to pick up the pieces of their homes and lives and already were starting building up a new home out of woods and tins. Some tents were provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) but there is not enough to protect from the rain and cold.
The next day I went back. All the people were busy cleaning and rebuilding. Some volunteers- Palestinians, Israelis and internationals were here helping out. People were not sitting around being miserable, they were up in their feet, rebuilding. This is what Palestinians do, whatever Israel destroys, they get up on their feet and rebuild. Children were also participating, moving the stones around, the women were also cleaning and sorting out the furniture. One home was just finished. More woods structure arrived and we started to erect a second house after a beautiful lunch. Smiles were seen all around, children laughed with the volunteers. A broken bike was still being used by the children, they were carrying it around but could not get on it. I guess they were just pretending that they did not notice it was broken. But can they also pretend that their homes were not demolished?
These children were just so amazing. Today it is raining and I cannot stop thinking about them. I know they are strong, I know they pick up the piece and just go on living, not thinking one minute of leaving despite the fact that they know the Israelis will come back.
“To exist is to resist”, and the reverse is also so true: “to resist is to exist”. For sure they do: by refusing to be intimidated and thrown into a garbage dump, by rebuilding and not giving up one inch, they become part of the invisible unarmed and resolute army that is standing up against the oppressive regime that is attempting to silently ethnically cleansed them.
They are strong but they should not be alone in their fight. Direct help is needed to ensure they rebuild what they need, more political pressure and actions are also needed to raise awareness about forced displacement. If the international community do not act now, this slow ethnic cleansing is likely to increase in the next months.
