Hundreds of women in the region to participate in the International Women in Black Conference in Jerusalem will travel today to the village of Bil’in to participate with village women in a vigil against construction of Israel’s illegal annexation wall that will cut 60 percent of Bil’in’s farmland from its people so that nearby settlers can take over the land.
An expected 450 women from the Women in Black conference are expected to go to village for the vigil, where they will be joined by about 100 Bil’in women and another 100 Palestinian women from around the area. Chances are that this demonstration will have a vastly different result from the typical actions there, where nonviolent demonstrators are often met with brutality at the hands of Israeli soldiers as they attempt to access their own land.
The group will first be given a tour of the area, and take a look at the props used in Bil’in’s Friday actions, and then walk in silence toward the wall.
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.
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.
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.
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.