On Friday, the 27th of March at 1.30pm, Aqraba village, southeast of the city of Nablus, will hold a festival of popular resistance in response to recent house demolition orders issued by Israeli authorities.
The festival will take place in the Aqraba high school.
Aqraba village was given demolition orders last month for 15 structures, including homes, barns, a mosque and a water well. These structures are situated on the outskirts of the township, in an area known as Khirbit Al Taweel.
Israeli authorities want to displace the residents of Khirbit Al Taweel, which is located in Area C, under direct Israeli military control. The Israeli military has informed the owners of the 15 structures that they have until the 26th of March to evacuate their homes.
The festival, organized by the Aqraba municipality, the Agricultural Popular Committees, and the Local Council for Popular Resistance, will draw attention to the recent rise in home evictions and demolitions orders throughout Palestine.
A resident of Shiekh Jarrah, a neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem facing mass evictions, will speak about the shared struggle Palestinian communities face under Israeli occupation policies.
Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem: Israeli police violently disbanded an event held in conjunction with the Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture festival in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem.
At least seven people, including one American and one Danish solidarity activist, have been arrested. One middle–aged Palestinian resident was thrown into a police car with severe bleeding to her head and nose after being roughly handled by police.
Mrs abu Khdeir being violently arrested outside of the protest tent
Om Kamel al Kurd, Shekrimah, Sabrishraed, Salahshjamil, Hamamibishop Attallah Hanna just before the start of the ceremony for Al Quds, the capital of arab culture
Sh Raed Salah praying with residents after Israeli forces tried to destroy the protest tent
Around twenty policemen arrived at the protest tent in Sheikh Jarrah, which was erected to protest the evictions of Palestinian residents in the neighborhood. House evictions and demolition orders number in the hundreds in areas of occupied East Jerusalem, including Silwan and Shu’fat refugee camp.
In November 2008, the al-Kurd family was evicted from their home, and 27 more housing units in the neighborhood also face eviction. The Sheikh Jarrah community has created a tent to protest these pending evictions and to demand that the al-Kurd family be allowed to return to their house. Organizers of the banned Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture festival attempted to hold an event at the tent as part of a year of celebration of Arab culture.
The police began beating the crowd, most of whom consisted of male residents of the neighborhood as they were praying outside of the tent. At this time, at least seven people, including three female community residents and the two solidarity activists, were dragged off and put into police cars.
Israeli Authorities have banned the festival from taking place in occupied East Jerusalem, which started on the 21st of March. At least 20 organizers have been arrested for attempting to celebrate Arab culture in the city of Jerusalem over the past two days.
We were back at Faraheen this morning accompanying farmers again, eying the jeeps driving along the Israeli border while our farmers removed the irrigation pipes from one of the fields we have visited regularly. Since Mohammed was shot in the leg, the farmer here has decided to give up on this field, its convenient well, and its half-grown parsley crop – 200,000 shekels worth – in case of further injury or death of harvesters. It was a quiet morning, thank goodness.
Giving up on irrigating parsley too dangerous to pick
Art from children at the Al Amal Centre, Khan Younis
Tristan is conscious and was breathing on his own until he caught pneumonia. He has a long way to go and it’s not known what will be ahead – for sure, more surgery, including on his damaged right eye.
A second time this week we spotted an Israeli gun boat traveling at 3 miles from the shoreline, all the way from near Deir al Balah to Gaza city (it kept pace with our shared taxi) as fishermen were out trying to get in a catch in, and inevitably the next day we heard that a fisherman had been shot; Deeb Al Ankaa who we understand to now be in Kamal Odwan hospital.
I met a great Manchester guy this week, Dr Sohail of Medical International Surgical Team (MIST) who has come here to do good work with peoples’ bones, for example working with amputees who have had limbs removed at a high point, to enable the otherwise impossible attachment of prosthetic limbs (if Israel lets the prosthetics through the border, which apparently is another problem of the siege…).
Thinking about bones, I immediately thought of Wafa. After wincing at the picture of her in hospital the day after soldiers shot out her kneecap, Dr Sohail said “I’m a kneecap man!” and told me a series of incomprehensible surgical things he might be able to do to give her back some movement. We rang her family today while standing in the Faraheen field (it’s a good time to get your phone-calling done) to say that Dr Sohail will see her in June if I go and take a photo of her medical records for him beforehand.
Dr Sohail spoke of the several limitations medical people are under here – mostly no access to the latest equipment – if any gets in, no access to training on how to use it – and of course very little of the ongoing training amongst their international peers that people doing tricky surgical things need to have.
In the last days there have been renewed calls for an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes in Gaza, including for example “white flag killings” by Israeli soldiers. One of the big problems in the way is that during the attacks there were no forensic pathologists in Gaza trained to a level that would meet the requirements. (They are trying to send some people outside for training now, ready for the next time…) A second big problem is that when the International Criminal Court representatives tried to get in through Rafah to investigate the situation, Egypt refused to let them through, so they missed the February 8 deadline for submitting evidence.
And it was never going to be easy. Here is an example. One of the Al Quds Red Crescent medics talked about getting through to some of the surviving Samouni kids trapped with dead adults, on the first Red Cross/Red Crescent evacuation permitted by Israel. He said the kids (who they found in circumstances that left some of the medics who reached them, traumatised themselves) said the adults had been shot, and they had covered over the bodies themselves.
The medics knew it was important to try to take the adults’ bodies out, but the children were starving, dehydrated, and in a state of collapse. Since Israel had not permitted the medics to take ambulances, and several miles had to be covered, the medics found a donkey cart for the children. The Red Cross asked Israel to be allowed to take a donkey to pull the cart, but Israel said no.
My medic friend says: “We put the children on the donkey cart and pulled it ourselves, hurrying to get out before 4pm which was the deadline for the evacuation. And there was no room for the bodies. So a lot of time passed before those bodies could be retrieved, and while we have the verbal testimony of the children, we don’t have an early medical assessment of the adults bodies.”
I was called in to PressTV to give an interview today about what I witnessed myself, and it turned out this is because Israeli soldiers have themselves started to admit some of what went on, in the Israeli press today. This has been covered by the TimesOnline, and the International Middle East Media Centre. It includes an anonymous solider who ’says that he was told “we should kill everyone there (Gaza). Everyone there is a terrorist.”‘
8am, Thursday 19th March 2009: Seven international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) will be accompanying Palestinian farmers in Al Basan Kabira, Al Faraheen, East of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.
HRWs from Britain, Australia and Canada will be accompanying farmers on their lands 500m from the ‘Green Line’ as they attempt to retrieve irrigation pipes.
Palestinian farmers have been repeatedly been shot at by Israeli forces while working on their agricultural lands within 1km from the ‘Green Line’.
On the 18th February 2009 international HRWs witnessed the shooting of 20 year old Mohammad Il Ibrahim by Israeli forces. Mohammad was shot in the leg as he was loading parsley onto a truck approximately 550m from the Green Line. The farmers and internationals had been working for two hours in full view of the Israeli forces and were leaving the area at the time of shooting.
Mohammed al-Buraim is the fourth Palestinian farmer to be shot by Israeli forces in the ‘buffer zone’ in the last two months. Two of the four farmers shot died from their wounds.
On the 18th January 2009, 24 year old Maher Abu Rajileh from the village of Khoza’a was killed by Israeli forces while working his agricultural lands 400m from the Green Line. On the 27th January, Anwar al Buraim was shot in the neck by Israeli forces.
On 20 January, Israeli soldiers shot Waleed al-Astal (42) of Al Qarara (near Khan Younis) in his right foot.
On this day six years ago, Rachel Corrie was killed by Israeli soldiers in Rafah, Gaza. By now the story is well known: Rachel, standing in front of the home of a doctor and his family in hopes of preventing a demolition, was run over by an armored bulldozer, a Caterpillar D9. After six years of promises from elected leaders, no independent investigation of her death has been conducted.
In the years since her death, Rachel’s memory has inspired countless people to take action in their own communities on behalf of the Palestinian cause. Songs have been written, plays performed, and books published about Rachel and her legacy. Her family has traveled the world talking about Rachel and about Palestinians’ rights, a cause to which she was so passionately committed.
The Corrie family returned to Gaza for this anniversary and to see the devastation created by the recent Israeli attacks. They found open arms and welcoming hearts. Rachel has become a part of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, part of it’s history of painful losses.
The anniversary, this year as in those past, is marred by fresh violence. Just days ago, an ISM volunteer was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers after a nonviolent demonstration in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. Tristan Anderson lays in the intensive care unit of a hospital with an unknown future. His brutal injury has received worldwide attention, as did Rachel’s death. What does not receive the same attention are the Palestinians who are injured or killed on a daily basis. Today, on the sixth anniversary of Rachel’s death, Ayaat al-Ja’bari, age 24, was injured as she made her way home in Hebron. Since July 2008, four unarmed demonstrators aged 10 to 22, were killed by Israeli forces in Ni’lin. Just over a month ago, the Israeli military killed over 1300 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, many of them women and children.
On this year’s anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s killing, the International Solidarity Movement wishes to express our humble gratitude to the thousands of people who have volunteered with us over the last eight years, and to those who have supported our work emotionally and financially; devoting their time and energy to Palestinian non-violent resistance.
As we all continue to work for an end to the occupation, please join us in wishing Tristan a full recovery, and for Palestine, freedom at long last.
