The family of English peace activist Tom Hurndall is experiencing the cold comfort of justice at last. Hurndall, 22, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper in Rafah about two years ago while moving Palestinian children out of the line of fire. He remained in a coma for nine months before he died.
Read the rest in Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
by Khaled Nasrallah
If you asked me about the withdraw from Gaza, I would tell you that sure, it’s a step ahead. That is, if it really is something that is a start toward real peace. Is it? Real peace is something we’ve not yet seen. We are tired of the images on television depicting this current unreal peace, which is not connected to the daily life of people here.
We also are tired of peace plans which are created only with the benefit of one party in mind, instead of both parties.
We still need a real peace plan. We need a real withdrawal that will give us the authority to control our lives independently. This “disengagement” isn’t it. Israel will continue to control our borders though third parties, control our airspace and access to the sea. we’ll still need to get Israeli permission even to dig water wells.
So you if you look at Israel’s evacuation in this way, you can see that it’s an incomplete solution that will keep the seeds of instability in place for another five to eight years.
So, the question is, who benefits most from this sort of plan, and why are international powers supporting a plan that has such a short life.
We must also remember the crisis happening on the other side of Palestine, in the West Bank. While we do not know what the future holds, we worry that under this plan Palestinians will lose the West Bank and Jerusalem, and whether this incomplete withdrawal from Gaza will mean many more years of continued occupation.
Khaled Nasrallah lived in the house in Rafah, located in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border, where ISM activist Rachel Corrie was killed by a soldier driving a bulldozer to destroy the Nasrallah family’s home on March 16, 2003.
Villagers set fire to some of their own olive trees to send a message to settlers that even if they get the land, they won’t get the agriculture that Palestinian families have spent generations cultivating.
By Sarita
Friday, August 12
Over 500 villagers from Azzoun demonstrated Friday, August 12, to protest the second stage of the construction of the Apartheid Wall which will confiscate 1200 dunums (about 300 acres) of land on the eastern side of their village.
The demonstrators set fire to their own olive groves as a message to the settlers of Karmeh Shimron, situated on the hilltop directly above their lands, that the Israelis cannot take the trees even if they steal the land. The villagers of Azzoun have already lost 12,000 dunums of fertile land, once abundant with fruits and vegetables, to the Wall, already finished on the western side of the town. The Annexation Wall itself occupies 250 dumuns of land. Azzoun has 10,000 dunums left for the 8,500 people that remain in the village after the wars of 1948 and 1967.
Villagers stop to pray on their land as soliders shoot and launch tear gas canisters in the area. Nine people were injured in the demonstration.
The village has recently obtained a copy of the Israeli government maps which prove that the confiscation of land is for settlement expansion, exposing a plan to build a settler only by-pass which will link the nearby settlements of Itsofin and Ma’ale Shamoron. Additionally, the Israeli government plans to close the main road leading to Nablus, forcing villagers to travel a longer distance and to pay more money for transportation.
Soldiers take aim at civilian demonstrators who are trying to protect their land from the wall and settlement expansion.
Dozens of Israeli soldiers began shooting tear gas and rubber-coated
bullets, targeting the villagers’ at head level. Nine youth were shot, in
the head, neck and upper back. Sixteen year old Siad Sayel Ali Swedan
remains unconscious in a Nablus hospital. In a phone conversion between
the Mayor of Azzoun and the Military Commander Shannan, known throughout the region for his brutality, the commander said that his soldiers felt threatened by the youth. The Mayor then asked if any soldiers were hurt, since 9 Palestinians had been injured in the demonstration. The commander threatened that to impose curfew on Azzoun, and hung up. Soldiers took up a position on the hilltop near the settlement. Fifteen
ISM and IWPS internationals joined the demonstrators dispersed throughout the olive grove and moved towards the hilltop.
The constant shooting by the army pushed the demonstrators to the bottom of the hill, and the internationals found themselves surrounded. After demanding that the Israeli soldiers stop firing at the villagers, the internationals asked to speak with the General Command. The internationals spoke with Commander Shannan to request a ceasefire to allow for safe passage to return to the bottom of the hill to join the villagers. The shooting resumed quickly, and the villagers organized a mass prayer in the midst of the tear gas and smoke. After several hours of shooting, a fire truck came to extinguish the spreading flames.
ISM volunteers negotiatiate a five-minute ceasefire with soldiers to allow Palestinians time to leave before they continue to shoot at stone-throwing youths.
The villagers of Azzoun are prepared to fight for their land and freedom,
and are organizing more protest in the upcoming weeks to expose Israel’s “disengagement” policy for the fraud that it is.
Justice is difficult to come by in the middle of an illegal military occupation. For some, with the legal and financial resources and freedom to pursue it, there is a slim chance that they might see some limited response. For many others, though, the chance to have the wrongs committed against them addressed will never come.
A little over two years after he killed British Peace activist Tom Hurndall in Gaza, Ex-sergeant Taysir Hayb was sentenced today to eight years in prison by a military court.
Tom was one of hundreds of civilians killed in Rafah alone in the past four years. He was shot while trying to get children out of the line of Israeli army gunfire. As he bent down to pick up a young boy, he was shot in the head by Taysir.
Taysir received even years for manslaughter and one year for obstruction of justice. Outside of manslaughter, he was found guilty of obstruction of justice, incitement to false testimony, false testimony and improper conduct
Tom’s sister, Sophie Hurndall pointed out to the BBC that “It’s a huge landmark, it’s a milestone, it’s the first time that a soldier’s been convicted of manslaughter since the first Intifada and it’s obviously been a long time coming.”
While it is a positive sign that an occupation soldier was held accountable for his actions, it took two years for it to happen, and many other equally horrible deeds have gone uninvestigated.
We should not forget what has happened to Rachel Corrie and Brian Avery. Brian still seeks answers about the bullet that scarred his face for life, and Rachel’s family continually are denied access to a fair and independent investigation into her death. In fact, they still do not know the identity of driver of the bulldozer that ran her over as she stood to protect a home in Rafah, the same Gaza community where Tom was shot.
Most importantly, though, are the thousands of Palestinians denied access to investigations into the deaths and injuries of their loved ones as a result of the inhumanity that Israel’s occupation inflicts on a daily basis.
According to Haaretz reporter Gideon Alon, he Defense and Justice ministries have crafted “significant amendments in the ‘intifada law,’ and to add a retroactive paragraph. The purpose of the proposed amendment is to forbid damage claims for events that occurred after the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000, in any but exceptional cases.”
Deputy Attorney General Sarit Dana mentioned in one of the meetings recently held on the subject by the Knesset Constitution Committee that “there is no need to elaborate on the fact that the situation in Israel changed in September 2000. Israel is dealing with a new conflict situation, with which it was not previously familiar. The general provision of the law is that a resident of a conflict zone does not have a right to compensation from Israel for an operation that was carried out by the security forces in the area.”
“The Intifada Law,” passed a Knesset reading in July by a 54-15 margin.
“The State of Israel will not put up with attempts to make it responsible for damage incurred by civilians during a military operation in a war zone” Knesset Constitution Committee Chairman Michael Eitan was reported as saying.
Not much has been heard about arguments against the “Intifada law,” Haaretz reports: “Orna Cohen of Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and attorney Dan Yakir, the legal adviser of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), came out sharply against the amendment to the law. Cohen said that ‘this bill severely violates constitutional rights that are anchored in Israeli law. It also violates Israel’s commitments, and the instructions that apply according to international law. Article 4 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights states that even in a state of emergency, a country cannot discriminate. ‘Attorney Yakir added that ‘the proposed wording reflects the schizophrenia of the Justice Ministry. This is an unethical and illegal proposal, which is designed not only to block claims by Palestinians to receive compensation for damage caused to them, but also to leave the Israel Defense Forces without any monitoring of its activities.”
As Human Rights Watch state in their recent report, “Promoting Impunity, The Israeli Military’s Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing”, “Pressure for a proper investigation rises every time a high-profile killing takes place, but Israeli authorities have taken no serious steps to improve the accountability of the armed forces, create an independent investigation system, or reform the military justice system.”
According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 3,265 Palestinians have been killed between the beginning of the intifada and the end of July 8, 2005, by Israeli soldiers. 652 of those have been minors.
According to Human Rights Watch, “The number of official investigations into alleged wrongful use of lethal force equals just two percent of the total number killed and only 15 percent of the number of children killed, despite the fact that many deaths occurred in non-combat circumstances and the extreme unlikelihood that many of the children killed were legitimate targets.”
For Tom’s killer to be sentenced, his family had to work diligently for two years through a tough, complex legal system. Palestinians don’t have access to this system when it comes to fighting for justice against the tidal wave of abuses they are subjected to each and every day.
by Nijmie of the International Women’s Peace Service
Ariel settlement – the strategy then and now
The settlement of Ariel was established in 1978. Its founding population of forty settlers has burgeoned due to its strategic location (close to Tel Aviv and approximately in the middle of the West Bank) and generous government aid to a present population of almost 20,000. Over the years Ariel has been built on land expropriated from nearby Palestinian villages and towns including Salfit, Yasouf, Iskaka, Marda, Hares, and Kifl Hares. The built up area of the settlement covers about 750 acres (3,000 dumans), but its municipal boundaries (areas slated for expansion) cover an additional 2,700 acres (10,800 dunams). It is situated (at its furthest point East) approximately 22 km inside the Green Line, adjacent to the intersection of Israeli bypass roads #60 (which crosses the West Bank from North to South and #5 (the ‘trans-Samaria’ highway).
Ariel is the first reported case of colonizing efforts in the Salfit district, which at the present time has a 1:1 ratio of Israeli settlers to Palestinian residents. The Salfit district has become an extremely important location for Israeli settlement policy, and now Israeli settlements (24) outnumber Palestinian villages (22) and cover almost 10% of the land area of Salfit. Ariel settlement is the most well known and largest of the Salfit settlements, and with its own college, municipal court, and police station, has long been thought of within Israeli society as just another ‘town’, rather than a settlement in the West Bank. Some of the factors that help to explain Ariel’s significance within Israeli settlement policy include the abundance of water and agricultural resources in the Salfit district (known as the breadbasket of the West Bank). Additionally, a major ‘Israeli population center’ in the geographical heart of the West Bank ultimately acts as a ‘fact on the ground’, cementing Israel’s control of the area and acting as an impediment to Palestinian territorial contiguity.
Impact of Ariel on surrounding Palestinian communities
The presence of Ariel has effectively limited the development of the town of Salfit (pop. 10,000), which serves as the ‘urban center’ for the entire district. The location of Ariel forms a physical barrier for most of the residents of the district who (since the year 2000) must travel around the entire length of the settlement’s municipal boundary to reach Salfit. Palestinian residents from Haris, Kifl Hares, Deir Istiya, Mas’ha, Biddya, Sarta, Deir Ballut, Azzawiya, Qira, Marda, Zeita and Zeita-Jemai’in must travel a minimum of an additional 15 kilometers. Additionally, Ariel’s massive land area prevents the town of Salfit from being able to expand and younger residents therefore have a disincentive to remain once they are old enough to begin having families. The presence of Ariel, it’s large municipal area, surrounding bypass roads, and security apparatus effectively contribute to the underdevelopment of the entire Salfit district by limiting access to most Palestinian residents to the cultural, economic, and municipal resources of Salfit town.
The Ariel Finger
In June 2004 land razing began on the lands of Salfit and Iskaka (another village contiguous with the Ariel boundary). This 9 km section of the work is slated to confiscate approximately 6,243 acres (24,972 dunams) from Haris, Kifl Hares, Marda, Iskaka and Salfit, with over 800 acres isolated from the village of Marda alone. Appeals raised in the Israeli High Court temporarily halted the work but it was resumed again on January 24th, 2005. On February 10th 2005, the Supreme Court issued a ‘temporary injunction’ that again halted the work, but that decision was again reversed on May 16 and work has begun afresh.
As Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has recently noted, it is no coincidence that the Sharon government is giving orders to speed up construction of the segregation wall while media attention is focused on the ‘disengagement’. Effectively, in exchange Gaza’s four kilometers, hundreds more will be confiscated inside the West Bank for the construction of the segregation wall. Publicly the Gaza pullout is being hailed as an important step toward a peaceful resolution, however the irrevocable effects of the separation wall are a direct contradiction to this. The Ariel finger, due to its drastic nature has even prompted criticism from the U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher criticized this section in June 2004, saying that it would make Palestinian life more difficult and undermine any remaining chances for Palestinian statehood.
Palestinian Response
In addition to taking their case to the courts, Palestinian residents from the Salfit district have organized popular resistance to the building of the wall. The necessity for grassroots resistance is clear since even the condemnation of the international community, as expressed through the ruling of the International Court of Justice (July 2004) has not succeeded in putting pressure on Israel to stop construction of the wall. The ruling stated that the segregation wall is illegal and must be dismantled, and any damages done must be compensated. The plan for the ‘Ariel finger’ is perhaps one of the most glaring examples of violations of human rights and the environment to date in the building of the segregation wall. Grassroots mobilizations have materialized from effected villages, and assisted by Israeli and international activists, Palestinians have sought to lay claim to their lands and prevent further destruction of their property and livelihoods. Over fifty nonviolent actions have taken place in the Salfit district over the last year in opposition to the wall. Whether direct actions intended to prevent work from taking place, or symbolic actions designed to deliver a message through media attention, the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Salfit has helped to organize a population that is frustrated from over two decades of being forced to adjust to the negative impacts of the presence of Ariel settlement.
Marda: Resistance and Uncertainty
One of the villages most directly affected by the presence of Ariel is Marda (pop. 2,000) which is situated directly to the North, with settler Highway #5 forming the other boundary for the village’s built up area. Marda village has suffered a long history of abuse because of the presence of Ariel settlement on the hill above it. Land confiscation, uprooted trees, settler violence, and the effects of pollution from the waste of the settlement are all unfortunate consequences that the residents of Marda have had to contend with.
Much of Marda’s agricultural land has been expropriated for Ariel settlement and the bypass road. Farmers from Marda still have pockets of cultivated land within the settlement which have effectively been annexed to the settlement. Additionally, cultivated land that abuts Ariel’s municipal boundaries is dangerous for farmers to reach, and international accompaniment is often requested in these areas. Therefore the mere proximity to the settlement renders additional hundreds of acres of cultivated land inaccessible to Palestinian farmers who are dependent on this land for the livelihood of their families. Waste water created by the settlement has contaminated the underground water resources of the entire district, and in the case of Marda, Ariel’s trash heap is perched precariously on a hill overlooking the village.
Since the destruction began on June 1, cutting a swathe across the length of the hill above the village and below Ariel, at least 1,000 olive trees owned by farming families in Marda have already been uprooted. When the work began, farmers, accompanied by International and Israeli activists, attempted to reach the affected lands several times to assess the extent of the damage and to try to intervene to prevent work from continuing. However, these nonviolent activities were met with gunfire from private security guards, and later tear gas and sound bombs from the army. During the peaceful protests that followed (conducted primarily in the village) the army has continued to respond with violence and the village has had to suffer from periodic invasions and curfews as a result.
Resistance is made all the more difficult by the fact that Marda’s land beneath Ariel settlement is on a steep hill, making it very threatening for anyone to approach the work. Due to the intense repression by the army, farmers have largely ceased to try to reach the bulldozers. Peaceful demonstrations have continued, organized by the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Salfit, but they are primarily located within the village and do not attempt to interrupt the work of the bulldozers.
Marda: Personal Profiles
The small village of Marda is unique in that many of its residents have lived outside the West Bank in Venezuela and are bilingual in Spanish and Arabic. Like the rest of Salfit, agriculture is both a source of income as well as part of the Palestinian cultural fabric. Every family has some land in the proximity of the village and includes family members who are full time farmers. Because Marda residents have been living in the shadow of Ariel settlement for so long, many have the sense that ‘Ariel gets what it wants’. Coupled with the danger of attempting to intervene in the work, the situation leaves village residents extremely worried about their future, while simultaneously doubtful about the possibility of preventing the completion of the Ariel finger.
Abu Samih is a farmer from Marda who spent 10 years going back and forth between his village and Chicago. Shortly after September 11 as he arrived in O’Hare airport, he was detained by the INS for thirty days. Planning on applying for political asylum, he decided to return to his home rather than spending time in detention indefinitely. Abu Samih has 55 dunams (about 12 acres) of olive trees that are located inside Ariel’s settlement boundary that he cannot access. For Abu Samih, the presence of Ariel settlement acts as a ‘cancer in the body’ eating away at agricultural land and disrupting the livelihoods of all of the residents of Marda. Still, he is committed to non-violence, and doesn’t believe in harming anyone. With five children total, and two studying at university, Abu Samih is very concerned about the future survival of his family if the Ariel finger is completed. He sees a dire vision of de facto ‘transfer’ for the residents of Marda.
Jamila is the eldest daughter of Abu Samih and speaks excellent English. Like her father, Jamila is not optimistic about the future of the village. If the International Court of Justice Ruling means nothing, it is hard for Jamila to imagine what the simple farmers of Marda can do to change their fate. Her wish is to finish her education and get a good job. Despite her worries, Jamila relies on cultural wisdom which says that no matter how bad things get, there is always a possibility that they will get better. She has been profoundly impacted by interactions with Israeli activists who have come to the village to support the nonviolent demonstrations. “When I sit and talk with these Israelis I feel that in that moment I can transcend history,” she remarks. “I do not hate Israeli people”.
During the Palestinian olive harvest of 2001, Um Amir’s husband Abu Amir was harvesting olives about 3km from the center of the village, on Marda’s land close to Ariel settlement. Suddenly he heard barking dogs and looked around only to see guard dogs from settlement security running toward him. Abu Amir began to run in the direction of the village, trying to escape the dogs. At the edge of the village, Abu Amir collapsed of a heart attack, and died. Um Amir and her seven children lost their father as well as all of their land because of Ariel settlement. They had 20 dunams (5 acres) of olive trees as well as the same amount of land not cultivated with trees that was confiscated in the building of the settlement. She has lost income from the loss of her land as well as the loss of her husband, who used to work in Israel as a metal worker. She is also not optimistic about stopping the Ariel finger.
Abu Hassan is the head of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in the Salfit District. Prompted by the negative impacts of the occupation and settlement policy, he and others from Marda initiated a permaculture and sustainable agriculture center in the village that opened its doors in November of 1993. Based on the idea of ‘local resources for local needs’, the center was designed to support farmers to maintain their self-sufficiency despite confiscation of their lands. The center, funded by organizations in Germany, Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Holland and Australia, became a regional hub of training and rural development. Over three hundred varieties of native seeds were cultivated and preserved, and farmers were trained in composting and the use of organic pesticides. Agricultural roads were opened, plants and trees distributed, training courses in irrigation and grey water recycling were conducted. Agricultural engineers from universities all over the West Bank came to Marda to do additional training. The center also provided training courses for women including computer and English language skills. The success of the center and its ability to provide a measure of self-sufficiency for the local population sparked the ire of the occupation forces, including the settler population and the army. On November 8, 2000, at 5:00 a.m., after seven years of successful work, Israeli soldiers invaded and attacked the center. They destroyed the nursery, the seed bank, the computers and all of the files. Some of the activities of the center continue, but they still have not rebuilt the site which is a broken-down shell of its former self and a testament to the vulnerability of Marda, sandwiched between Ariel settlement and the bypass road #5.
IWPS is a team of international women working on a project of third party nonviolent intervention in the Salfit district of the West Bank. Living and working here 24 hours a day allows us to witness the effects of the occupation firsthand. Beyond the reach of the media and even Israeli activists, we are in a unique position to be able to document the daily realities of life for the residents of this district, with respect to freedom of movement, the economy, the construction of the wall, settlement expansion, pollution, and other aspects of the occupation. IWPS is available to lead tours of journalists who are interested in this region.
