2nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Five former Palestinian detainees freed overnight Wednesday in the Gaza Strip have received a resounding welcome.
Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni greets a supporter. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Their families have erected celebration tents outside each of their homes to receive supporters and delegations.
A celebration tent. (Photo by Gal·la López)
On Thursday afternoon, an overflowing bus carried several dozen well-wishers between them, from farmlands outside Khan Younis to the Shati (“Beach”) refugee camp on the coast of Gaza City.
Supporters of the freed detainees ride a bus between celebration tents. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Detainees’ families and other participants in a weekly protest, held on Mondays at Gaza’s International Committee of the Red Cross office to support Palestinian prisoners, joined the trip.
Omar Issa Rajab Massoud greets Um Ibrahim Baroud, a co-founder of Gaza’s Monday protest for detainees, and other supporters. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi, one of the freed detainees, told supporters he hoped the release would “stress the need for the prisoners’ issue to be given greater priority at all levels, locally, regionally and internationally.”
A young man walks past posters celebrating the release of Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi. (Photo by Gal·la López)
In a statement, the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based society of current and former detainees which organized the tour, said “that the joy of the Palestinian people will be complete only with the freedom of all prisoners, led by patients, children, women and administrative detainees.”
A celebration tent erected for Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni. (Photo by Gal·la López)
A celebration tent erected for Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni greets supporters. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Supporters of the freed detainees walk to a celebration tent. (Photo by Gal·la López)
A celebration tent. (Photo by Gal·la López)
A welcoming line greets supporters at a celebration tent. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Yousef Awwad Mohammad Masalhiya greets supporters. (Photo by Gal·la López)
A young man laughs in a celebration tent for Yousef Awwad Mohammad Masalhiya. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Supporters carry a banner celebrating the release of detainees. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Hazem Qassem Taher Shubeir greets a supporter. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Hazem Qassem Taher Shubeir poses with members of his family and supporters. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Omar Issa Rajab Massoud greets Um Ibrahim Baroud, a co-founder of Gaza’s Monday protest for detainees. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Flags and banners celebrate the release of Omar Issa Rajab Massoud. (Photo by Gal·la López)
Omar Issa Rajab Massoud greets a supporter. (Photo by Gal·la López)
2nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
Israeli forces fired tear gas to disperse a march in the “buffer zone” east of Gaza City, by the Nahal Oz checkpoint, on Friday afternoon.
The demonstration, which began at Shujaya square in the city after Friday prayers, was organized by the Intifada Youth Coalition to protest today’s anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
In the 2 November 1917 letter, Arthur James Balfour, foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, then occupying Palestine, told Walter Rothschild, a leader in the British Zionist movement, that the British government “view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”
(Photo by Joe Catron)
“We went to the buffer zone to tell the occupation that this date is unforgettable after 96 years,” said Majed Abusalama, a Coalition spokesman.
“Every generation that comes will remember it again, and remember every Israeli crime against unarmed Palestinians. Yes, it is our land, the buffer zone is for Palestinians, and we should farm it.”
Demonstrators overcome by the effects of tear gas were treated by Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances waiting outside the “buffer zone.”
(Photo by Joe Catron)
“The Israeli response to our unarmed protest appeared from the start, when we were about 800 meters away from the fence,” Abusalama said. “They shot tear gas directly at us.”
Protesters kept trying to reach the checkpoint, which Israel closed at the beginning of 2010, retreating only after several hours of tear-gas fire.
The event followed a 27 September march organized by the Coalition to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of the second Intifada and protest Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied east Jerusalem.
30th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
As part of the resumption of negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, 26 Palestinian prisoners were released overnight Wednesday from Ofer prison in Israel. Five were transferred to the Gaza Strip via the Erez checkpoint in Beit Hanoun. This was the second of four planned releases of a total of 104 Palestinian prisoners, nearly all imprisoned before the beginning of the Oslo system in 1994. The 26 released in this round have been detained from 19 to 28 years, and are between 38 and 58 years old. But they could have regained their freedom long ago. As part of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum in 1999, all Palestinians captured and sentenced before Oslo should have been freed.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
The five men returning to the Gaza Strip were hailed as heroes for their resistance against the occupation by the 400-500 Palestinians gathered at Erez to greet them. The scene in Israel, however, was entirely different. On Monday, thousands gathered outside Ofer prison to protest against plans to release the 26 prisoners, all but two sentenced to life.
Even within Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, there have been strong disagreements about the release. The Jewish Home party, an ultra-right coalition member, unsuccessfully proposed legislation to bar future releases. Its leader, Naftali Bennett, criticized Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni, one of the negotiators, in strong terms, saying that stopping the release of Palestinian prisoners was far more important than than Livni’s continued presence in the cabinet. Less extremist elements within the coalition said that Netanyahu could have prevented the release by accepting a freeze on the construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank, or negotiations based on its boundaries as the borders of a future Palestinian state. This is a view shared by opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich, who claimed that Netanyahu’s Likud prefers to release prisoners than freeze settlement construction.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
A freeze on the construction of new settlements and the expansion of existing ones, all illegal under international law, has always been a demand of Palestinians to continue negotiations. It was Israel’s refusal to meet this requirement that crashed the talks 2010, and only after the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s mediation were the parties were able to return to the negotiating table. But Netanyahu has already stated that permission will be given for more settlements. It is speculated that this will include between 1,200 and 1,700 units of settler housing. How this will affect the negotiations remains to be seen.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
A spokesman for the Hamas-led government in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, accused the Israeli government of using the release of prisoners as a smokescreen for house demolitions, the construction of the wall, changing the status of Jerusalem, obstructing the right of return, and seizing even more Palestinian land. Hamas is not part of the negotiations. Barhoum’s claim expresses what many believe, that Israel hopes to change the focus of the negotiations. A resolution giving Israel the opportunity to expand settlements on occupied territory is an agreement between a pacified Palestinian authority and an occupying power. With the announcement escalated settlement expansion, the Netanyahu government has proven what it wants out of the talks.
29th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Families and supporters of Palestinian detainees held by Israel celebrated tonight’s promised release of 26 prisoners during a weekly sit-in Monday morning.
The regular event, which began in 1995, brings comrades, friends and relatives of Palestinian prisoners together in the courtyard of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Gaza City office.
“I and my family can’t believe Hazem is going to be released,” Taiseer Qassem Shubeir said after the event.
Shubeir is the brother of of Hazem Qassem Taher Shubeir, one five prisoners from the Gaza Strip scheduled for release.
“We had lost hope,” Shubeir said. “Now all the Israelis’ excuses have been broken. We are unbelievably happy, and the whole family is waiting nervously.”
The expected release of 26 detainees follows an earlier release that also included 26 prisoners, with 14 from the Gaza Strip, on 14 August.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Rallies have been planned to the five Gaza Strip detainees, both on their arrival at the Erez checkpoint in Beit Hanoun, expected around midnight, and later in their cities and neighborhoods.
“Families and supporters of the detainees will go to Erez,” said Osama al-Wuhaidi, a spokesman for the Hussam Association, a Gaza-based society of current and former Palestinian detainees. “After seven o’clock, people will start gathering by the checkpoint.”
“Everybody in Khan Younis is already celebrating,” said Shubeir. “I feel like Hazem is the son not only of our family, but of the whole Palestinian people.”
The Israeli government has said that the releases, part of its current negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), will free 104 detainees over nine months of talks.
These will include all Palestinians detained before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 and charged by Israeli with offenses before the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, according to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
Israel first agreed to release these prisoners in its 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum with the PLO.
29th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On the morning of Monday, 28 October, the Israeli air forces bombed agricultural land in the north of Gaza City.
The airstrike took place at 9:25 am. An F-16 fighter jet bombed an area planted with olive trees on Mukhabarat Street, near Soudanya.
The bombing created a huge crater. The land belongs to the Shohaber family, which produces oil from the olive trees. The family also owns a trucking company that transports materials from the Karem Shalom checkpoint into the Gaza Strip.
Hazem Shohaber, owner of the land, told me his house was damaged in the bombing. His family has only lived in the new home for three months.
“I was sitting behind the wall around the yard when the bombing took place,” Hazem said. “I was shocked. I was not able to do anything. Thank God my children were not on the land. They were in school. They usually play here.”
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Hazem has three sons and three young daughters who were in school at the time of the bombing. The explosion cracked the walls of his house. All its windows, as well as those of adjacent buildings, shattered.
A few meters away from the bomb site is a primary school for girls.
“The girls were in class,” Hazem said. “They fled. The situation was terrible. Teachers could not calm them. The ambulances came. Everyone feared that children had died in the explosion.”
A few meters away from the bomb site is a primary school for girls.
“The girls were in class,” Hazem said. “They fled. The situation was terrible. Teachers could not calm them. The ambulances came. Everyone feared that children had died in the explosion .”
Hazem’s wife offers a cup of coffee. His daughter, Farah, age six, hides under the table, looking shocked. Who knows how many other children will do the same today?
The ceasefire of 21 November 2012 established that the Israeli military forces should “refrain from hitting residents in areas along the border” and “cease hostilities in the Gaza Strip by land, by sea and by air, including raids and targeted killings.”
But Israeli military attacks by land and sea have followed from the day after the ceasefire,, and Israeli warplanes constantly fly over the Gaza Strip. In areas by the Israel-imposed “buffer zone,”Israeli forces have killed seven civilians since the end of the “Pillar of Defense” military offensive. At least 124 others have been wounded.
These attacks against the civilian population of Gaza continue, but are met only with silence by the international community.
