2nd April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Bi’lin, occupied Palestine
On 1st April 2016, the village of Bi’lin marked the 40th anniversary of Palestine’s Land Day during their weekly nonviolent Friday demonstration. Israeli forces attacked the peaceful demonstrators with a wide range of weaponry.
The protesters marched towards the illegal apartheid wall separating the village from over a thousand dunams of its agricultural land, where now one of the many illegal Israeli settlements, Modi’in Illit, is located. In their weekly nonviolent demonstrations, the villagers, together with international activists, protest against the illegal Israeli land theft and occupation.
April 1 demonstration in Bil’in
Israeli forces attacked the peaceful protestors with rubber-coated steel bullets, different tear gas canisters and stun grenades. Many trees in the village’s fields caught fire due to the falling tear gas. Recently, Israeli forces have returned to the use of dangerous, hard-tipped, potentially deadly long-range tear gas canisters against demonstrators throughout the occupied West Bank. It was one of this type of tear gas canisters that in April 2009 caused the death of Bassam Abu Rahme in Bi’lin, when Israeli forces shot him directly in the chest from close range.
New weapons being used by occupation forces against nonviolent demonstrators in the West Bank
Children and residents in houses inside the village suffered the effects of excessive tear gas inhalation due the use of these long-range tear gas canisters, which automatically target innocent civilians not even participating in the protest.
1st April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Nabi Salih, West Bank, Occupied Palestine
On Friday 1st April, Palestinians from the town of Nabi Salih, along with international and Israeli activists, marched together in solidarity to protest the illegal Israeli settlement of Hamalish that has been built on and expanded over time on Palestinian land.
The march started shortly after the noon prayer, around 1:30pm, activists gathered near the entry point of the town. From here they set off and made their way peacefully down the hillside to the main road, at which point they were met by volleys of tear gas by the awaiting Israeli forces.
A young girl being interviewed prior to the demonstration
With sporadic wind changes the initial tear gas spread quickly and caused the demonstrators to be hit hard, feeling strong effects from the gas. Once the first rounds of gas had cleared the demonstrators re-grouped and made their way to the natural spring that was once part of Palestinian land but has been overtaken by settlers and deemed a closed military zone since, allowing only the army and the illegal settlers to use it whilst barring Palestinians from the area.
“I’ve never felt tear gas so badly before, the winds just made it unbearable. I felt as if I was going to pass out…” – Activist on the scene
Once the spring was reached, the activists, led by females from the town of Nabi Salih began to plant small olive trees on land that is rightfully theirs in a peaceful form of resistance to the occupation. This was cut short by the boarder police soldiers who physically grabbed and pushed the women away, throwing tear gas and stun grenades at them also.
More occupation soldiers arrived within minutes, during this time there were copious amounts of tear gas thrown and over twenty stun grenades dropped at the feet and thrown directly at the demonstrators. The soldiers pushed demonstrators back over the road from the direction in which they came, using more force and even using pepper spray directly in the faces of activists.
Demonstrators and soldiers stand offA soldier about to begin pepper spraying demonstrators
Once the soldiers had pushed the demonstrators halfway up the hillside the aggression eased off temporarily. From here the demonstrators remained and began to sing songs peacefully while Israeli demonstrators spoke in Hebrew with the soldiers, questioning their morality in defending the illegally occupied lands.
Demonstrators standing defiant in the face of the occupying forces
The demonstrators started to make their way back to the town of Nabi Salih about an hour after it had begun, this did not stop the soldiers from continuing their excessive use of force and harassment as they fired volley after volley of tear gas at the demonstrators who were leaving peacefully.
The soldiers also began firing the extremely dangerous, and sometimes lethal, long range tear gas canisters. The canisters break into three parts during flight and are virtually undetectable. During flight, for the first three to four hundred meters they leave no gas trail making it hard for anyone to detect where they are coming from. The canisters flew past the heads of demonstrators who were leaving, this being extremely dangerous as they were quite often not looking in the direction from which the tear gas canisters were coming and weren’t expecting any more aggression from the Israeli forces.
Tear gas rains down on Nabi Salih while behind sits the illegal Halamish settlement
“I heard a whistle and then a smash, the canister exploded into fragments on a rock right next to me” – Activist on the scene
Thankfully no people where injured during the demonstration but with continued and excessive use of the long range tear gas canisters, it may only be a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed unless the occupying forces refrain from using such a weapon.
1st April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Ni’lin, occupied Palestine
On 1st April, the weekly non-violent protest in Ni’lin village commemorated the Palestinian Land Day – and was, as every week, attacked by Israeli forces with endless rounds of tear gas, including long-range tear gas canisters that mainly targeted civilians.
The demonstrators, as every week, set off to march towards the illegal apartheid wall that separates them from the majority of the villages land, after noon-prayer. Behind the apartheid-wall, on land that belongs to the village of Ni’lin, where one of the many illegal Israeli settlements is located. In protest against this land-theft through the apartheid wall and the Israeli forces weekly excessive force and targeting of innocent civilians, the villagers protest every Friday.
Israeli forces, that were ready and waiting for demonstrators before the prayer had finished, were located very close towards the villages centre, thus preventing them from even approaching anywhere near the illegal apartheid wall. In a clear example of excessive force, Israeli forces inundated not only the protestors, but the whole village with endless rounds of tear gas. Five persons required medical care due to excessive tear gas inhalation. Both a bakery and the mosque were targeted with tear gas this week.
Tear gas canister inside the bakery
This use of excessive force in Ni’lin is not directed against the protestors, but targets innocent and completely uninvolved civilians. In the recent weeks, Israeli forces’ use of excessive force when targeting civilians in Ni’lin became obvious with private homes and a public park with playground repeatedly the main target of Israeli forces attack on the villagers of Ni’lin.
Additionally, Israeli forces have re-introduced the use of the dangerous and potentially deadly long-range tear gas canisters that can cover an area of more than 500 meters and due to the extremely hard black-tip not only break through windows and walls, but also severely injure and kill any civilian hit.
Long-range tear gas canister that has been shot at Palestinians in demonstrations all over the occupied West Bank
1st April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine
A new report from Corporate Watch outlines exactly how the food grown in the illegal settlements of Palestine gets to our plates in Britain. This final summary looks at what we in Britain can do to support the boycott called for by Palestinians.
Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers are asking us to boycott not only produce which we think was produced in the occupied territories, but to boycott all produce exported by Israeli export companies who benefit from economic conditions and exploitation in Gaza and the West Bank, particularly as ambiguous labeling can make it difficult to distinguish where exactly products originated.
BDS activists demonstrate outside Sainsbury’s in Brighton. Photos provided by Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign
These companies include Arava, Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Carmel Agrexco, and Edom and Valley Grown Salads. They export products such as peppers, tomatoes, onions, chillies, grapes, strawberries, avocadoes, figs, dates, aubergines, and herbs, and these foods end up at all the main supermarkets in the UK. They may be labelled as coming from Israel (wrongly, when produced in the occupied territories), Palestine, Jordan Valley, and even allegedly, Saudi Arabia.
In 2009, after intense pressure from campaigners, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) issued new guidelines regarding the labelling of products being imported from the West Bank: ‘the Government considers that traders would be misleading consumers and would therefore almost certainly be committing an offence if they were to declare produce from the OPT, including from the West Bank, as “Produce of Israel”.’
UK supermarkets now say they label such produce as “West Bank” but labels indicating produce of Israel remain common.
What can you do in the UK?
Read the full report for more detailed advice
Boycott Israeli goods altogether (read the label and also check for barcodes beginning 729)
Apply pressure to your local supermarket and its national office to stop using companies that benefit from illegal land seizure, appalling employment practices and child labour (this is a Fair Trade issue too).
30th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine
A new report from Corporate Watch outlines exactly how the food grown in the illegal settlements of Palestine gets to our plates in Britain, and what we (in Britain) can do about it. In this second summary report we look at what is happening in the Jordan Valley.
Much Jordan Valley produce is marketed as organic but is certainly not grown fairly
Israeli agricultural companies operate on land in the Jordan Valley taken from Palestinians by force. This leaves Palestinians there with few options but to work for the illegal settlements on land which was once Palestinian, and sometimes land which was once theirs. The research conducted in 2013 found that companies pay well below minimum wage, with workers being paid between £12.60 and £14.50 a day. They found evidence of children as young as ten being employed. There are often no written contracts, or contracts are in Hebrew only, there is no sick pay, no health insurance, no holiday pay, few health and safety precautions. Trade unions are not permitted. Some workers leave at 3 am to get through checkpoints to work and others sleep in barrack like accommodation, illegal under Israeli law.
Support for a boycott is widespread: ‘They are working on stolen land, using water that they have stolen from us. If the boycott campaign damages these companies then the settlers will leave our land’ says Fares from Beit Harava. ‘We support the boycott even if we lose our work. We might lose our jobs but we will get back our land. We will be able to work without being treated as slaves,’ agrees Zaid from Beqa’ot. (Names have been changed.)
