19 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Ten Palestinian volunteers harvested wheat in Gaza’s northern no-go zone on Wednesday, May 16, only 350 meters from where the Israeli Apartheid wall encircles the Gaza Strip. Two weeks ago the barley was cut and gathered and on Wednesday, volunteers loaded the harvest onto donkey carts to transport it for sorting, in the face of Apache helicopters, tanks, and F-16 fighter jets.
Palestinian farmers harvesting barley near the no-go zone in Gaza despite risk of Israeli army attack.
The work began at approximately 8:45am in northern Beit Hanoun, and immediately an Israeli tank became visible on a distant hill. A few minutes later, a helicopter circled above and would remain there for three hours. At 9:10, a number of jeeps patrolled the border and by 11:30, one of the Israeli outposts fired 8 shots at a point slightly further than the farmland. Over the next hour, a total of around 30 shots were fired from the same outpost.
The volunteers offered to help the owner to farm his land, due to its proximity to the Apartheid Wall. A distance of 300 meters to the border is considered the ‘no-go zone’, in which the Israeli Government prohibits farming. Even farmers outside the no-go zone, however, come under regular fire simply for their proximity to the Wall. Volunteers from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative team farmed for six hours, joined by International Solidarity Movement volunteers.
The team of volunteers successfully finished transporting the barley despite the military presence.
Hama Waqum is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement.
19 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
A Palestinian man was arrested at Ni’lin checkpoint on Tuesday, April 15 during a Nakba Day demonstration. The procession successfully crossed the checkpoint which separates the West Bank from Palestinian territories seized in 1948. They were violently forced back by occupation soldiers and police. A Palestinian woman and an international woman were also detained but released that same afternoon.
During the morning rush hour, several dozen Palestinians and solidarity activists took the Israeli army by surprise and walked through Ni’lin checkpoint. The procession stated their intention to return to their homes in the territories occupied by Israel in 1948 and each presented a placard reading, “permission to enter Palestine: inevitable return,” and bearing the names of Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948.
Additional Israeli soldiers and police quickly arrived and began attacking the group, shoving and kicking them backwards. Some soldiers used the body of their M16 rifles to hit the procession. During this time soldiers detained three people. Two women were quickly released, but Nabi Saleh resident Naji al Tamimi remains held by Israeli authorities. Israeli soldiers arbitrarily targeted Tamimi, who was peacefully chanting at the time of his arrest. There is a likelihood he was targeted due to his long history of involvement in the peaceful popular struggle against the Israeli occupation.
The approximately 4 million Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are barred from entering 1948 Palestine, including the holy city of Jerusalem, without rarely-granted permits from Israel. The Ni’lin checkpoint is one of 26 checkpoints which separate the West Bank from the territory which Israel officially considers its own. Of these twenty-six checkpoints, only nine are located on the 1948 “green line”, which is internationally recognized as the basis for the western border of a future Palestinian state. The remaining checkpoints, including the Ni’lin checkpoint, are located at gaps in the Apartheid Wall at places where the wall appropriates Palestinian land. Ni’lin village has achieved international recognition for the tenacity of its nonviolent resistance against the Apartheid Wall in the face of tremendous violence on the part of the Israeli occupation authorities.
The May 15thdemonstration was called by grassroots organizers to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, or Catastrophe. In 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and villages following the declaration of the state of Israel. The right of return for the current 4.25 million refugees worldwide is an internationally recognized right and one of the demands of the international Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Ling Lewis is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
9 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The 9th May marks the 22nd day of the Palestinian prisoners mass hunger strike. Today as with every day, the prisoners’ families and friends met at Nablus Prisoners’ tent in a show of solidarity, paying respect to their sons, brothers, daughters and sisters suffering in Israeli prisons in conditions which constantly violate international laws.
Said al Kabi, 54, is just one father whose anguish is worn on his worried face. He has suffered greatly, lost many family members and both of his legs to the illegal Israeli occupation. His son, Jawad al Kabi, 26, is sentenced to 13 years in prison and has now served six of them. Said lost both his legs in 1967. One morning whilst going out in his tractor to farm his land as usual, Said turned down a dirt road and hit a land mine left by the Israeli army.
In 1984 a demonstration in Balata Refugee Camp claimed the life of Said’s mother. The demonstration was to resist the occupation but tragically Said’s mother was shot in the heart and died immediately. Ten years later, in 1994, Said’s brother was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, also in Balata Refugee Camp.
Said has two cousins and a twenty year old nephew suffering in Israeli prisons, their sentences adding up to a depressing 37 years and four life sentences. His family’s misery is wholly representative of the thousands of the absent mothers, fathers, daughters and brothers of Palestine who sit waiting in Israeli prisons for some sort of justice.
All of Said’s incarcerated relatives began their struggle in the mass hunger strike which has now reached a tragic world record. The prisoners, their families and human rights supporters all over the world are uttering the same demands for these prisoners: the right to be treated according to international and humanitarian laws.
The Israeli Shalit law in which Palestinians are sentenced under violates international law in many ways. Some of the violations are:
Prisoners are kept in small rooms with a strong light on 24 hours seven days a week
Prisoners are kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to meet or interact with other prisoners
People from Gaza can not visit their relatives in Israeli prisons
Prisoners are denied the right to continue their studies.
Prisoners are forbidden to watch TV, can not read newspapers or books
“The message sent to the world from the prisoners are very simple and clear” Said says, “Death and dignity or give us our demands to be treated according to International laws”
Unfortunately, Said’s tragic story is not unique. For almost every person present in Nablus’ Prisoners tent there is a long story of suffering and longing for freedom. The photographs and posters of absent family members duplicate on the walls of the tent each day, now spilling out into the street as the situation becomes more desperate. As one prisoner moves into his 72nd day of hunger strike, the deterioration of his health will cause reactions across Palestine and hopefully the world, forcing Israel to recognize Prisoners rights in accordance with International law.
Alex is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
8 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On Monday, May 7 in the southern West Bank village of Idhna, Mohamed Temezi was busy working on his caravan home. Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arrived unexpectedly and subjected him and his wife Faizah Temezi to a 3 hour ordeal in which they were detained, and beaten. Their new home was threatened with demolition.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) provided the caravan for the Temezi family. They have experienced house demolitions on two previous occasions by the IOF. The first demolition was in 1989 and the second 5 months ago in December 2011. Both took place in the West Bank village of Idhna. Prior to the arrival of the caravan, Mohamed, Faiza, and their son had been living in a tent.
Now the Temezi family may be facing the loss of a third home. Israel issued a demolition order for their caravan dated May 29, 2012.
Currently, Mohamed is subject to weekly visits by the IOF, threatening that if he does not cease building his home that they will forcibly confiscate it. Mohamed tells the IOF that he will rebuild his home if it is destroyed. Their reply, says Mohamed, is that they will simply demolish it again.
The Temezi family complain of regular harassment and taunting during the weekly Israeli army raids.
On Monday, 8 soldiers arrived at Mohamed’s caravan site and threatened him with arrest if he continued to build. Mohamed refused to comply and was detained alongside his wife, inside the caravan.
During the detention, they were both physically and verbally assaulted. Mohamed was struck by a soldier’s personal radio on his scalp on various occasions while being verbally assaulted. At one point, Faizah attempted to safeguard their electric motor which Israeli soldiers were attempting to confiscate. IOF responded by wrapping cable wire around her neck and forcefully pushing her head into the wall.
As the violent behaviour continued, the Israeli soldiers seized all remaining tools in the house as well as 300 metres of cable which the family required for electricity. There has been no electricity in the house since.
After 3 hours, as soldiers left, they again threatened Mohamed of the consequences of continuing his work. The equipment the IOF stole from Mohamed is valued at some 7000 NIS (approximately 1420 Euros or 1830 USD). Among the equipments seized are those required for access to the sewage system.
This is the first time that OCHA has supplied displaced Palestinians with caravans. The project has also assisted three other families in the valley of Idhna. OCHA also supplied Mohamed with two workers and 41,000 NIS for equipment to construct access to basic amenities such as water and electricity.
OCHA have been informed about the incident, however action has not been taken.
Mohamed has been held under administrative detention (no trial, no charge) on 7 occasions for a total of almost four years. The Temezi family say they fear this visit was not the last, and that they do not want to lose their home a third time. This unwanted prospect may become reality on May 29.
Sunny is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed)
7 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
When Ali Awad visited his orchard on Friday morning before the midday prayer he noticed nothing out of the usual. But eight hours later, when he returned to his land in order to gather grape leaves to sell in the local market, he was shocked to find that his trees had been poisoned. The grape leaves, which Ali depends on substantially for income, had died and shriveled up, making them impossible to sell. Twelve peach trees belonging to Ali’s neighbor were also destroyed.
Ali’s three dunums of farm land, where 28 grape trees have been growing for over 30 years, are directly adjacent to the barbed wire fence which separates the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar from the illegal Zionist settlement of Karmei Tsur.
Horrified and dismayed, Ali called his brother, Muhammad, to come and take pictures of the destruction. Before Muhammad could take any pictures, Israeli Occupation Forces and two older settlers arrived and began to hassle the two brothers, threatening to confiscate Muhammad’s camera. The settlers, one of whom is the mayor of Karmei Tsur, told Ali that his plants were accidentally sprayed with pesticides when Karmei Tsur farmers attempted to destroy the weeds on their land earlier in the day. Ali’s grape trees are located at least ten meters away from the settler’s field, opposite a fence and settlement road.
Ali, whose wheat crop was burned during the night by settlers last year just before harvest time, does not believe that the destruction of his trees was an accident.
“Its not unintentional, like they say, they mean to do this,” he said. “They want me to leave my land. My presence is an obstacle to the expansion of the settlement.”
But Ali, whose family has already lost several dunums of their ancestral land to the illegal settlement, steadfastly refuses to leave.
“I have deeds going back to Turkish times, why should I leave? The land is for me, for my family, not for the settlers.”
According to the Israeli organization Peace Now, Karmei Tsur is built on 27% privately owned Palestinian land. The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids the construction of settlements in occupied territory.
Joseph is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
