17th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine
Update 21th July: Mahmoud Tamimi was released from hospital and needs to stay at home to complete his recovery.
Update 19th July:Mahmoud Tamimi is still recovering at the hospital. The injury in his leg is still open due to artery bleeding and will require stitches today.
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On Tuesday, clashes between residents of Nabi Saleh and Israeli forces resulted in one boy injured with a rubber coated steel bullet in the leg and a man injured with live ammunition, also in the leg. The latter underwent surgery and is still recovering at Ramallah hospital.
Mahmoud Tamimi being carried away after he was shot (Photo by Tamimi Press)
Yesterday in the evening, just before Iftar (breaking of the fast), confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinian youths from Nabi Saleh erupted. Israeli forces shot tear gas canisters, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition at villagers, resulting in two people injured.
Mahmoud Tamimi, 22 years old, was shot with a live ammunition bullet in the leg when he was trying to help Mohammad Tamimi, 10 years old, who had been shot with a rubber coated steel bullet in the leg while standing on the hill side where the confrontations were taking place.
After he was shot, Israeli soldiers prevented villagers from aiding Mahmoud and evacuating him to hospital. Bilal Tamimi, a villager who went to the scene to document what was happening, was beaten up and had his camera broken by Israeli soldiers.
Mohammad and Mahmoud were eventually taken to Ramallah hospital. Mahmoud underwent surgery and is still at the hospital while Mohammad was released yesterday and is currently recovering at home.
The village of Nabi Saleh has been demonstrating against the theft of their natural spring and the occupation since December 2009. Israeli forces violently suppress the weekly Friday protests by shooting tear gas canisters, skunk water, sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets and even live ammunition at protesters. Two people have been killed, Mustafa and Rushdi Tamimi, and many others severely injured. Bassem Tamimi, Mohammad’s father, has spent 17 months in Israeli jails, merely for being a prominent activist at the protests. Nariman Tamimi, his wife and Mohammad’s mother, was arrested at a demonstration on the 28th of June. She spent three days in jail and was accused of entering a closed military zone. Nariman is currently on partial house arrest on Fridays and has the next military court hearing in September.
Israeli soldiers preventing people from aiding Mahmoud Tamimi after he was shot (Photo by Tamimi Press)Mahmoud Tamimi receiving medical aid before being evacuated by ambulance (Photo by Tamimi Press)
18th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Haifa
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist. He is currently a professor at the University of Exeter (UK) and is well known for being one of the Israeli “new historians” – re-writing the Zionist narrative of the Palestinian Israeli situation. He has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He has also supported the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.
Activists from the International Solidarity Movement had the opportunity to talk to Professor Pappé about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli politics and society and the role of the international community and solidarity activists in Palestine, resulting in a three part series of interviews which will be released on the ISM website in the coming weeks.
This is the final section; the role international community and solidarity activism in Palestine. Find part one on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine here and part two on Israeli society and politics here.
International Solidarity Movement: If, as you said in the previous interview (Israeli politics & society), support from the European Union (EU) and the USA is not going to stop, what could the international community do or what should change in order to force Israel to implement and respect international standards?
Ilan Pappé: We need a European spring. In the sense that we all know that if the European political leaders would only reflect what the European people want, the policy of European countries would be much tougher on Israel. Today, governments do not reflect what the people want or think. So the question is how do we transfer the pro-Palestinian sentiments of the people of Europe to the governments of Europe. By the way, this situation is the same in the USA.
I don’t think that Americans are more pro-Palestinian than Europeans, but they are starting to have enough of Israel and they would like the USA to concentrate on their own growing internal issues. But again, political leaders do not represent this wish. We had the same problem in South Africa; it took 21 years for the first European civil act against South African apartheid, which came in the form of economic sanctions. So it’s a very long process. What the international community must do is find ways of convincing their political leaders that it is both ethically and politically better to adopt a much tougher policy against the illegal Israeli occupation. The EU is a good example here because they have strong connections and relations with Israel, they essentially treat them like a member of the EU. When the boycott campaign started, it was the EU who first tried to get Israel to act in a different manner. That was just a small beginning, there is still a lot to be done, but for me, this is the right direction: a process from below towards the political elites.
ISM: There are many European politicians that would like Israel to be a member of the EU. Do you think this is possible, and if so, what will that lead to?
IP: Maybe is a good idea because then Israel would need to change its entire governmental policy, which is currently violating many EU laws. On the other hand, that could be a problem because it may just lead the different governments of the EU to accept Israel’s cruelty and violations. I still think that the best strategy is to explain to these pro-Israel politicians that history will judge them really badly because of their positions. The problem is that politicians don’t have the tendency to look beyond tomorrow. The only way is to explain to them that when this situation changes (in our case, when the occupation ends and when Palestine will be free), they will be on the wrong side in the history books, because they were the politicians that were supporting a state of apartheid.
It is similar for those politicians who were supporting Benito Mussolini. If politicians feel comfortable with being on the wrong side, that’s okay. But if they want to be portrayed in the history books as people who were working for peace and justice, they need to change their positions and friendships before it is too late. Israel has been kept alive because it serves a lot of strategic and military functions for the West, not because of its morality. Reality isn’t how the Christian Zionists see the world; thinking that Israel should be supported because it represents some kind of moral value. This kind of support has been overcome today, and this is also thanks to the work of the BDS campaign, it is one of the few victories we had.
ISM: In which way is international solidarity useful? What is or what should be the role of international activists in Palestine?
IP: I think that international aid, which is a bit different from solidarity movements, is often problematic. On one hand, it allows the Palestinians some level of existence, but on the other it kind of pays for the occupation and for Israel’s mistakes and violations. But the International Solidarity Movement is different: it is not about money but about people coming to help other people. As long as this injustice is happening, I think it is really important that ISM keep coming. All international activists that come to Palestine should be VIP’s. I mean they should Visit, they should Inform and they should Protest. ISM is doing all these three together, but maybe sometimes one less than another, because of particular circumstances or because of the lack of resources, and this is a pity. I think it’s essential to do them all together.
I think that ISM’s main role is to be the ISM’ers of the outside world. I once visited the Basque country, and I noticed that there was a distance between ISM and the boycott movement there, which is a shame because they should definitely work together. What ISM sees in Palestine is the result of the BDS movement’s work outside Palestine, and it works. It is not only about solidarity on the ground, which is very important, but also solidarity from outside.
You cannot replace the liberation movement – the Palestinians have to liberate themselves, nobody can help them with that, not even I, but we can and we must show solidarity with their liberation. This solidarity can be shown on the ground, but mostly by acting in the country that activists come from. It is about finding the right balance. I remember one of the first ISM groups that came to Jenin, after the terrible massacre of 2002. The fact that somebody came, was interested and sympathetic and supportive, meant a lot to the people.
We can see how much effort the Israelis are putting into preventing you from coming here, and I think that’s a good indication – proof that you are doing something right. I would be worried if tomorrow Israel said all ISMers are welcome – that would mean you’re not doing something right.
Protest against the construction of the wall in Al Walaja
ISM: What about the BDS campaign, do you think that an academic and cultural boycott could be an effective instrument against the Israeli occupation?
IP: I was always a great supporter of the BDS movement. As it did in South Africa, it will also play an important role in changing the reality on the ground here. But it is a long process and we need to be patient.
In the case of Israel, the academic and cultural boycott is particularly important, because Israel sees itself as a European and democratic country in the middle of the Arab world. ‘European’ not because of the economic relations it has with Europe, or because it sells tomatoes in Holland – among others it also has strong economic relations with China, Russia and Africa – but because it is part of the European cultural and academic elite. If European academic and cultural institutions say that they do not want to work with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s behaviour, I think it would send a very strong message.
The cultural and academic boycott (unlike the economic one, which only affects the occupied territories) makes a huge and direct impact on Israeli society, and it is only when that happens that Israelis will talk about what is happening in Palestine. For example, the only time that the Israeli press – and sometimes international media as well – talks about the occupation is when someone like Stephen Hawking says he is going to boycott an event organized by Israeli personalities. Before the spread of the boycott movement, it was only when there were bomb attacks in Israel that Israelis remembered that there is an occupation. Now this issue is brought up more regularly, when a famous pop group or author refuses to come, or when an important university in the USA says that they do not want to work with Israeli universities. This type of boycott is really important, and it is the main thing that the international community can do.
Pro-Palestinian activists hold a boycott protest during a football match between Scotland and Israel
International solidarity movements sometimes think that they should have an opinion regarding, for example, the one-state or two-state solutions, but this is actually not their business. It is up to the Palestinians and Israelis to decide how they are going to live. What international movements can do is to create the conditions for a reasonable dialogue. But we need to end the occupation before starting to speak about peace. The Israeli trick has for many years been to try to convince the world that peace will end the occupation. But we know that actually this goes the other way around: we end the occupation and then we will start to talk about peace. I think that ISM, the BDS movement and the Palestinian solidarity movements are all grassroots organizations that do not accept the Israeli diktat “Peace will end the occupation”. These organizations are not part of the peace talks but instead they work on ending the occupation and the apartheid.
ISM: What would you say to people that believe that cultural and sport events should not be politicized?
IP: Well, it was very effective in the case of South Africa. In fact white South Africans only began to think about apartheid when the big sports teams of South Africa were not invited to international sporting events. Moreover, I think that sport is political. For example, Israel is going to host the UEFA Under-21 football tournament, and the Palestinian football team has not been invited. Palestinian players from Gaza will not even be able to go to Israel and see the tournament. Sport is political if it is not free for everyone to participate.
Academia as well is clearly political. Israeli academics, when they are abroad, think they are Israel’s ambassadors. Synagogues abroad see themselves as Israel’s embassies. When Israeli academics see themselves as ambassadors, and represent something that most decent people abroad will see as unacceptable, then people have the right to show their rejection.
And nobody tells these people that they represent Israel, they say it themselves. There was a big debate in the Basque country about the Israeli singer Noah – whether people should boycott her concert or not. People went to her website and saw she had written that she represents Israel on her tour. So she wasn’t coming just as a singer, but as a representative of Israel. We are in 2013 and if you say that, it means you represent what Israel represents, and what Israel is doing today. Therefore you are a legitimate target of the boycott.
This is the last of a three part interview series: Ilan Pappé in conversation with the International Solidarity Movement.
11th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement | Haifa
Ilan Pappé is an Israeli academic and activist. He is currently a professor at the University of Exeter (UK) and is well known for being one of the Israeli “new historians” – re-writing the Zionist narrative of the Palestinian Israeli situation. He has publicly spoken out against Israel’s policies of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and condemned the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime. He has also supported the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, calling for the international community to take action against Israel’s Zionist policies.
Activists from the International Solidarity Movement had the opportunity to talk to Professor Pappé about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli politics and society and the role of the international community and solidarity activists in Palestine, resulting in a three part series of interviews which will be released on the ISM website in the coming weeks.
This is the second section; Israeli politics and society. Find part one on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine here.
International Solidarity Movement: We were following the last Israeli elections and we were surprised to see that there was no actual talk about Palestine, it was all basically about internal issues. Then after the elections, Netanyahu commented about extending the settlements. What do you think about this?
Ilan Pappé: Your observation is correct. Israeli voters think that the problem of the West Bank has been solved, so they think there is no need to either talk about it, or come up with solutions. You propose a solution as an idea for an election only if you think there is a problem, which they think is not the case here. They think that what we have is good for Palestinians and good for Israelis. They think that the world is stupidly trying to create a problem that is not there, and is trying to be involved where there is no need to be. They think that even if there are still missiles coming from Gaza, Israel has a strong army that will answer back. So, if you speak with Israelis in the subway, they will tell you that there is not a problem between Israel and Palestine.
The only thing that makes Israelis think about Palestine is when the boycott campaign is successful, like what happened recently with Stephen Hawking. Do you know what the problem is? 95% of Israelis don’t even want to go to the West Bank, so they don’t know what is really happening. Or they know what is happening only from their children who are serving as soldiers. But their children don’t tell them about the checkpoints, the arrests from homes and all the other awful things. Israelis could know if they wanted to – they have the internet – but they don’t want to. For example in Tivon, my neighbourhood, everybody votes for the left, but if you ask them if they have ever seen a checkpoint or the apartheid wall, or if any one of them wants to go to the West Bank and see what the soldiers and settlers are doing, they will say no. They’ll tell you that’s not their problem. They have other problems – standard of living, house prices, the new car, the education of their children etc.
ISM: Yair Lapid, the head of the Ministry of Finance of the new coalition government, stated on 20th May that Israel is not going to stop the colonization of the West Bank or end subsidies for illegal settlers, which in fact will not only continue but increase. Do you think that any switch of parties in power could truly make an impact on this situation?
Halamish settlement, built on Nabi Saleh’s land (Photo by ISM)
IP: No. We haven’t had any party or leader different from the others, including Rabin, who became a hero after he was shot. Israelis like Lapid are always busy implementing policies so that the land has no Palestinians – so in this sense Lapid is just continuing what everyone before him was doing. The problem they have is not technical – they know how to do it, they have a script. They do not build new settlements, but they allow the natural growth of the current settlements, while Palestinians are not allowed natural growth. Then they say they’re not building a new settlement, but need to build a new neighbourhood because the settlement population has grown. So you can see from this that they do not have any technical problem, it’s more that they maintain this funny dialogue with the world: “You know that we are colonizing, you know that we are ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, you know that we are keeping them in prison, but still we are playing this game where we are speaking about a peace process.”
The only problem that Israel has – although within 10 years I unfortunately don’t believe it will be a problem anymore, unless we change something – is that they still think that what they’re doing will never be accepted by the world, so they think they need to find a new language for what they’re doing. But practically on the ground I don’t think there has been one day since 1967 that something was not built by the Israelis in the West Bank, whether it’s a house or a flat or a road or a balcony, it goes on and it will continue.
Israel knows that the EU and the USA will not stop supporting them, and they’re right. So they will talk about stopping colonization, but they will not actually stop it. This is something to worry about because that’s the reality. Lapid comes from the new generation of politicians and I think that when you are new in politics you say a bit more openly what you are doing. Then, like Silvio Berlusconi, when you have another term, you stop saying what you are actually doing. So, if Lapid were to become Prime Minister, he would stop saying what he’s doing, he’d say, “we are not building, we are just fabricating.”
Today, there is no hope for a change from within the Israeli political system. This system is just going to get more and more right wing, and less and less willing to change Israel’s unilateral policies.
ISM: There is this new far-right party “The Jewish Home” that just entered the government following the recent elections, with leader Naftali Bennet, who became Minister of Religious Services and Industry, Trade and Labour. What kind of change will that bring?
IP: He is a very clever man, he comes from a settlement, and his main agenda is to strengthen the connection between the settlements and Israel. This was not openly his agenda during the elections. At that time he was talking to young Israelis in Tel Aviv about how nice it is to be Israeli, and saying that he would bring back pride in being Israeli – and it actually worked, they liked him. It was all about this idea of the ‘great nation’. And he added Judaism to this – saying it is not just good to be Israeli, but to be a Jewish Israeli. He is young, he was in the army, he was a military hero and a successful businessman. But he is not so different from Lapid, they live the same way – “it doesn’t matter whether you are from a settlement or from Tel Aviv, we are all from Israel”.
ISM: Do you think that the settlers will have more impact on Israeli politics because of Bennet’s success?
IP: Yes, I think so, but this is not so important. It doesn’t matter if you are from a settlement or from Tel Aviv, or if you are on the right or on the left. The basic Israeli ideology – Zionism – is the problem. I think that as long as Zionism is regarded as an ideal concept, the same policies will continue. If Israel has a more right-wing government – for example Netanyahu’s government compared to the Barak government – then the differences are small. You just have a few more checkpoints and a bit more brutality. But I think in the end it’s really just the same. What matters is not the government of Israel, but how much the Palestinians are willing to accept. If they are willing to accept the current reality, then Israel will allow them to work within Israel, remove some of the checkpoints, give them some more autonomy. But the moment Palestinians show some form of resistance, Israel is going to repress them brutally. Everything is about how much Palestinians accept the Israeli diktat.
ISM: You previously said that there is no more hope for a change at the political level in Israel. But on the other side, in what way do you view today’s Israeli citizens’ commitment against the occupation? How important is it that the present and future Israeli society challenges this form of colonization?
IP: I think that the forces that oppose the occupation are very small, but there have been two positive developments. First of all, the rejection of the occupation is growing and secondly, it is led by the new generation, not like before. This is an essential element. But, pressure from the international community and the Palestinian resistance will be the main factors that will bring down the occupation. One day, when we will need to rebuild a new society, it will be much better to know that there were many Jewish people who were fighting against the occupation. When the occupation ends and takes its apartheid with it, I am sure that a lot of Jewish people will say that they were against it, like the white South Africans said at the end of their apartheid system, but everybody knows that it was not the case during that period. It is good to see that this wave is growing every day. Nonetheless, a lot of Israelis, they still don’t know that there is a military occupation! For the future it is essential that this view changes, and it is changing.
Israeli activists protesting the Gaza massacre in 2008-2009 (Photo by Activestills)
ISM: Young Israeli people often feel criticized when they travel abroad. Do you think that this criticism has an impact or influence on Israeli society?
IP: Yes, I think it’s good to criticize young Israelis abroad. Some of them have actually changed because of that, no doubt about it. There’s a wonderful YouTube clip which shows what happens to young Israelis abroad. The Israeli military used to show this clip about young Israelis going abroad, to India. It was a clip especially against the refuseniks – people who refuse to serve in the army. In the clip they’re all sitting with young nice Indian girls, then some young Europeans come along and ask the Israelis what they did in the army. One speaks about the time he was a commander and about how cool it was to be in the army, and the Europeans look at him amazed, like he’s a hero. Meanwhile, the refusenik seems ashamed, looking down, without saying anything, basically really uncomfortable because he didn’t serve in the army. So this Israeli anti-apartheid organization made a counter-video, with the same setting, but instead of being soldiers they were Israeli activists, and the ashamed person was the one who served in the army, he was the one feeling really uncomfortable.
Now in 2013, some young people do not buy the whole story of anti-Semitism. They meet people abroad of the same age who know about the occupation, and where older people might just say that the people are neo-Nazis or something, young people are more likely to see the difference between being against the occupation and being anti-Semitic. This is an important new development, which I have seen with my own eyes.
ISM: What are the long term effects, social and psychological, on Israeli youth because of military conscription?
IP: Military conscription frames your mind. It makes you see human beings through a rifle and therefore you dehumanize them. It makes you very insensitive to suffering of others and at the same time makes you very racist. It also makes you limited in the way you can think about new options in life, because power obscures your mind. In any kind of situation you will think that the only way out from a state of affairs is the use of force. This has very negative effects on Israeli youth and it is clearly just part of the heavy indoctrination they face throughout life.
Young Israelis do not often speak about the psychological problems that come afterwards. I went to the psychiatric department in Israel and the vast majority of people are young Israelis who served in the army. This is a secret in Israel, nobody talks about it. Two days ago a young boy who just finished his military service went into a bank that refused to give him a loan. He ended up shooting four people to death. This is just one example of the impact and effects of military conscription and militarization on the Israeli society.
ISM: How does it feel to live in Israel and at the same time be against the state? What are the consequences?
IP: It’s a fact that there are not many cases like mine and I pay a price for my position. So far, people like me pay a price not in the sense that the government is chasing them, it is different from other countries. Israel is such a racist state that it won’t do that to Jewish people. What they do instead, is to encourage society to punish you. The fact that I had to leave Haifa University is the result of this. They aim at the place where you work. For example, we had 4 brave former pilots that refused to serve in occupied Palestine because of what Israel was doing there – they were forced to leave their jobs outside of the military.
So, the public sphere or even your family or your friends make you pay a price, because you are considered a traitor. The reward you get is that you feel better about yourself and when you go abroad, people respect you. This, I hope, will encourage people to pay the price. If the Palestinians did what some Israelis are doing, they would just find themselves in jail. The Jewish people will maybe lose their job, be insulted, be hated by their neighbours, students. It is a long but really important process.
ISM: Howdid they kick you out from Haifa University?
IP: What they did is something called a special university court. They wanted to judge me as a traitor and kick me out of the university. This resulted in an international outrage because luckily, I was already well known at this time in the academic world, so they couldn’t go through the court process. What they did instead was to make it impossible for me to teach: they stopped my teaching allowances, they persecuted my PhD students, they gave me small classes, they told everyone at the university not to sit with me, not to speak to me. It was the director who gave the “orders”. He told to the other teachers that they would put their own career at risk if they violated these rules. They never formally fired me but I decided that that was enough, so I left.
Today there are many similar cases throughout Israel but speaking out against Israeli policies as an academic has now become more difficult than before, since in 2012 a new law was passed in the Knesset. This law says that if you are an Israeli academic and you support openly the academic boycott of Israel or you speak against Israel’s policies and actions, they have to fire you or you could even be arrested. After all, a large number of Israeli academics against the occupation created the “Israeli Academic Committee for Boycott”. These people are suffering and will never be able to become professors or further their academic careers – but more importantly I think that they feel better than the others. After this draconian law was passed, even more people decided to speak openly against the Israeli occupation or apartheid and for now, nobody has actually been arrested. How can Israel speak about democracy when our supposed freedom of speech is being violated so clearly.
This is the second of a three part interview series: Ilan Pappé in conversation with the International Solidarity Movement. Look out for the final part on the role of the international community and solidarity activism next week.
Parents of US Activist Critically Wounded Following West Bank Protest Appeal to High Court of Israel: The Police Investigation was Shockingly Negligent – Demand a Serious, Professional Investigation into the Shooting of their Son.
Tristan Anderson (41, of Oakland, CA) was severely wounded after having been shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas grenade* (made in the USA) fired by Israeli Border Police following a protest in the West Bank Village of Ni’lin, resulting in severe permanent brain damage and paralysis to half his body.
Tristan Anderson with his parents
Attorneys for Anderson’s family, along with Israeli NGO Yesh Din, will appear before the Israeli High Court of Justice on Wednesday, JULY 10. The petition challenges the investigation that they claim was blatantly inadequate, with the identity of the shooter still being actively withheld to this day.
“Tristan will live the rest of his life with serious mental and physical limitations and chronic pain. This has devastated his life and profoundly affected our family forever,” said Nancy Anderson, Tristan’s mother.
No criminal charges have been brought against any police or military personnel involved in the 2009 shooting of their son. Video evidence uncovered during the course of an ongoing civil lawsuit (trial begins November 10, 2013 in Jerusalem for the civil suit) raises further questions on the credibility of State witnesses, who in contradiction to sworn testimony, are clearly seen shooting tear gas directly at protesters from close range in the video, which was taken earlier that day. The video also raises serious questions relating to the true locations of the various squads of Border Police present at the time of the shooting, with investigators opting only to question those squads that were on the other side of the town at the time the shooting occurred, while failing to question the squad that was stationed on the nearby hill where activist witnesses say the shots came from. As well, investigators failed to visit the scene of the shooting and made no attempts to collect physical evidence.
See “Aftermath of the shooting of Tristan Anderson Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for further video.
Michael Sfard and Emily Schaeffer, attorneys for the Anderson family commented:
“The astonishing negligence of this investigation and of the prosecutorial team that monitored its outcome is unacceptable, but it epitomizes Israel’s culture of impunity. Tristan’s case is actually not rare; it represents hundreds of other cases of Palestinian victims whose investigations have also failed.”
Tristan joined the ranks of scores of other protesters who have been seriously injured or killed during demonstrations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in recent years. On March 13, 2009 he was in Ni’alin demonstrating against the annexation of village lands to build the controversial “Separation Wall” when he was shot. Witnesses insist there was no stone throwing in his immediate surroundings at the time when he was shot, and that the shooting was “unexpected and unprovoked”.
“Tristan’s shooting is part of a pattern of deadly violence being used against protesters in the Occupied Territories, who are not recognized as having a fundamental right to political self-determination,” said Gabrielle Silverman, Tristan’s girlfriend, and a witness to his shooting. “We need real accountability and a high standard of human rights, but instead what we get is the military running cover for their soldiers.”
The family of Tristan Anderson is calling the investigation “a cover up and a sham”.
*Tristan Anderson was shot with a High Velocity Tear Gas grenade- sometimes also called “Extended Range Tear Gas”- which is manufactured by Combined Systems Inc in Jamestown, Pennsylvania.
6th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
In the early hours of the morning of Sunday June 30th 2013, Sharif Arafat, a 30-year-old Palestinian fisherman, was injured on a fishing boat off the coast of Soudania, North of the Gaza Strip.
Sharif Arafat (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
The captain of the boat, Nafiz At Habeel, reported that during the night the strong wind had pushed the vessel about 6 miles from the coast of Soudania. Around midnight an Israeli military navy ship approached and then retreated. In the early hours of the morning, at around 3:30am to 4:00am, the fishermen threw their nets into the sea. Once again, an Israeli navy ship approached the fishing boat and this time started shooting. Nafiz told us that the fishermen tried to hide in order to avoid the bullets, while Sharif Arafat ran to the side where the fishing nets were. Sharif, an inexperienced fisherman, did not know how to escape in the event of gunshots by the army. One of the nets became caught up around his leg.
“Sharif was terrified, his ankle was trapped”, Nafiz said. As he couldn’t swim, Sharif clung to the boat as not to fall into the water, while the nets pulled him down. His ankle was severely fractured and broken and he fell into the water. Nafiz told us that he had tried to pull in the nets with the engine. “These nets float – I cried at Sharif to cling to a ball of the fishing net”, said Nafiz. Sharif was then pulled on board and taken to the port of Gaza City on a ‘hasaka’, a small boat that usually accompanies the vessels.
During the incident the fishermen had relit the lights of the boats, which usually go off when they cast their nets. The Israeli navy has since moved away, probably because the soldiers had realized that something serious had happened.
We met Sharif Arafat at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where he was hospitalized following the accident. The hospital report states that Sharif had a partially amputated right ankle due to trauma.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Sharif Arafat is not a professional fisherman. “I went fishing only because of the economic situation, I cannot even swim”, said Sharif, who had begun to fish only 5 months earlier. Sharif is married, has one child and his wife is pregnant with a second child.
Sharif was frightened by the idea that his foot could be amputated. His brother Alaa, next to him in the hospital, was in tears. The same evening Sharif was transferred urgently to a hospital in Israel to be operated on, thanks to the intervention of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights who called for an acceleration of the procedures such was the emergency. In the Gaza Strip such surgery was not available.
We are still waiting for news on the conditions of Sharif Arafat.
Background
Israel has progressively imposed restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical miles established under the agreements of Jericho in 1994 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), have been reduced to 12 miles under the Bertini Agreement in 2002. In 2006, the area allowed for fishing was reduced to 6 nautical miles from the coast. Following the Israeli military offensive “Cast Lead” (2008-2009) Israel has imposed a limit of 3 nautical miles from the coast, preventing Palestinians from access to 85% of the water to which they are entitled according to the Jericho agreements of 1994.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Under the agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinian resistance after the Israeli military offensive in November 2012, “Pillar of Defense,” they consented that Gazan fishermen can again fish up to 6 nautical miles from the coast. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy has not stopped attacks on Gaza fishermen, even within this limit. In March 2013, Israel imposed once again a limit of 3 nautical miles from the coast, saying that the decision had been taken following the sending of some Palestinian rockets towards Israel. On Wednesday 22nd May, the Israeli military authorities announced through some media outlets the decision to extend the limit again to 6 nautical miles from the coast.
We join the call of the fishermen and ask our governments to press Israel to stop attacking and arresting Palestinian fishermen and to allow them to fish freely.
