15 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On February 14, 2012, in the small village of Twael of the Aqraba district, southeast of Nablus in the Jordan Valley, the home of the Bunni Jaber family was destroyed by an Israeli backhoe protected by 20 soldiers in four military vehicles. Two men from the family were arrested – Ayman Bunni Jaber, aged 36, and Rafie Bunni Jaber, aged 30. The family’s tractor was also confiscated by the Israeli authorities.
The Bunni Jaber house was located along the green, rocky hills that dominate the landscape here, built from cloth, plastic sheeting, wire mesh, stones, and dirt. There are four children in the Bunni Jaber family, ranging from toddlers to adolescents. The family are herders, with flocks of sheep and goat, and the arbitrary confiscation of their tractor presents a serious challenge for the family’s livelihood.
Click here for more photos - Photos courtesy of Rana Hamadan, 2012
The reason given for the demolition was the house’s construction without a permit in Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military control. The land belongs to the municipality of Aqraba, and is used for agriculture and herding. Obtaining a construction permit in Area C is a near impossibility for Palestinians. According to the UN agency OCHA, 96 percent of request for building permits in the Jordan Valley between 2000 and 2006 were denied. Nineteen of the 22 houses in the area have received demolition orders, as has the local mosque. Many of these have been demolished, some multiple times after reconstruction by their owners.
By longstanding local custom and law, houses without concrete or foundations like that of the Bunni Jaber family, do not require a building permit. Eighty percent of the land in Aqraba has been confiscated by the Israeli Army under the auspices of its use as “training grounds,” even though land seized is in fact stolen by illegal Israeli settlements. The villagers have resisted through various means, including a one-day hunger strike.
Satu and John are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).
The attack resulted in Ghanem spending 36 hours in the Intensive Care Unit and a subsequent 11 days in the hospital. No effort has been made to investigate this attack by Israelis or illegal settlers from Yitzhar settlment, where the attackers are based.
Ghanem and her family will be left recovering from the physical and emotional trauma suffered, whilst remaining aware that at any moment, they or someone they know could be the victim of a similar attack, with potentially the consequences being even more severe.
Although clearly still weak, Mrs. Ghanem was far from beaten, and although there remain significant health issues as a consequence of her attack, when asked how she felt as she lay on her hospital bed flanked by loved ones, Mrs. Ghanem responded, “Better, thank God.”
According Ghanem’s son, Fares it is his brother-in-law and driver of the car, who is finding it most difficult to recover, emotionally that is. Fares Muhammed Ibrahim explained that his brother-in-law feels “guilty” and “responsible” for this incident and has not “shaved” since the attack. Clearly the affects of attacks such as these extend far beyond the physical injuries sustained and can take much longer to recover.
It is without question that Ghanem, her family, and Palestinians in general will continue to resist, whether it be through hunger strikes, weekly protests, refusing to relinquish their rights to live and work on their land, or in this case simply driving along the road to visit your daughter.
Fransisco Reeves is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
Since the arrival of the Golani Brigade in Hebron on December 27th, international accompaniment organizations (Christian Peacemaker Teams, International Solidarity Movement, and others) have documented an increase in the number of serious human rights violations against the Palestinian people, particularly youth and children in the Old City and Tel Rumeida.
All recorded incidences have been documented through first-hand observation and/or the victims’ testimony. The following report demonstrates a sharp increase in harassment, violence, and human rights violations by the Israeli military towards the Palestinian population of Hebron. Contrary to given justifications, none of those involved were observed to voice or pose any threat to the soldiers. As the Golani Brigade is expected to remain in Hebron another two to five months, members of these international observer organizations fear that such abuses will escalate and make life unbearable for the Palestinians living under occupation in Hebron.
2.Incidences in which Golani soldiers arbitrarily detained Palestinians and/or denied them access to roads or walkways.
Wednesday, December 28th: A Golani soldier prevented several members of the Youth Against Settlements organization from walking down a path from their center towards their homes. The soldier claimed that this prevention was because settlers were walking up the path, though none were seen, and further explained, “They must wait when anyone walks past. Even if a dog walks, they must wait.”
Friday, January 6th: A soldier stopped a 19 year-old resident of Shuhada Street and ordered him to show what was in his boots, unzip his jacket, and put his face and hands against the wall. When the soldier began to hit the man, a neighbor and internationals observers began to film, after which the soldier stopped, but detained the man and his neighbor another 15 minutes. The youth said the same soldier had stopped him to check his ID four times in one week.
Saturday, January 7th: Golani soldiers held a Palestinian for over three hours at Checkpoint 56. The soldier explained that he was detaining the man because “he did not like him.” The two soldiers at the check point continuously reminded the Palestinian man of his detainment by asking him, “How long have you been here?” and forced him to urinate where he stood rather than allowing him to leave.
Tuesday, January 17th: Golani patrolled through the busy Palestinian market in H1 at midday. As they marched, they forced everyone to stand aside and randomly stopped two Palestinian men to check their identifications. A younger man had to stand with his hands raised high on the wall for six minutes to check his ID.
Monday, January 23rd: Golani enter into H1 to search cars in Haret i-Sheik.
Monday, January 23rd: Golani denied a Palestinian man access to return to his home in the Old City because they said entrance was closed after 9 pm. Internationals observed for 40 minutes, as the soldiers denied him access at multiple checkpoints, forcing him to walk back and forth carrying a heavy sack. The soldiers insisted it was the man’s own fault, but finally appeared to relent and took the man on an alternative route.
Tuesday, January 24th: Golani soldiers stopped the Abu Aisha family at Gilbert Checkpoint as they were on their way home and refused to allow them through the checkpoint. They did not tell the family why they were not allowed to pass. After some time, they told the family to take a much longer route home, which they did.
Tuesday, January 24th: Soldiers at Checkpoint 56 harassed Palestinians leaving H2 by “playing” with the electric doors of the container box. After people entered the structure, soldiers closed all the doors simultaneously, trapping them inside, and then opened and closed an exit repeatedly. Finally the soldiers opened the door from which the people had entered, forcing them back out the way they had come.
Monday, January 30th: Golani soldiers held a man outside in very cold rain for one hour because he was fixing the satellite on the roof of his house in Tel Rumeida. They told him that they had seen him on his roof through a camera, and that in the future he would need special permission to be there.
14 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
There is a place where a ground-level concrete line runs beside a country road through olive orchards, grape vines, blossoming almond trees, and homes—all Palestinian. This is the projected path of a new segment of Israeli Apartheid Wall through Al-Ma’sara, a small village 13 km south of Bethlehem in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since 2006, protesters have held weekly demonstrations opposing the Wall’s construction—which was halted in 2009, possibly due to financial constraints. But attacks on Palestinian homes and infrastructure are on the rise, and plans have been announced to renew construction in the near future. One of the few remaining obstacles to the Wall’s extension is the Taqatqa house, a private home in the path of the wall extension, that has become the target of settler attacks and vandalism. In coming weeks the people of Al-Ma’sara, together with Palestinian, International, and Israeli solidarity activists, will converge on the house to restore it and transform it into a center for resistance against the Wall and settlement land theft.
There are many things about this house that recommend it as a site of popular resistance to the next phase of Wall construction.
Located in a fertile valley, the property remains a viable agricultural space in spite of attacks, intimidation and settlement expansion. Where apricot and olive trees were once cut, the family planted grape vines and vegetables. Neighbors said that when Khader Tayatqa, late father of the building’s current owner, suffered a fatal heart attack, it was due to the stress of attacks on his land and family. Nearby lie other properties in contention, including a hill belonging to Raed Taqatqa, who has made his continued presence also into an act of resistance, in spite of determined efforts of Israeli violence to drive him off his land.
After Raed refused to sell, Israeli soldiers removed supporting rocks from beneath his caravan to build a roadblock, damaging it irreparably “by accident.” His home destroyed, Raed built a makeshift structure of cardboard and found materials, which was leveled by settlers.
Such vigilante attacks on Palestinians who resist, on the parts of settlers and Israeli soldiers both, are common—such as an attack on the village of Burin last week.
Along with a favorable location, is the building’s history. Built in 1960, before Israel captured the West Bank and lay claim to its lands, the home is ‘legal’ even under Israel’s stringent permitting system, prejudiced such that Palestinian homes are often demolished using red herring justifications for their ‘illegality.’ As long as repairs only restore and add no additions, demolition of the building cannot be legally supported by the Israeli state. There is also already a history of resistance at this site, where years of weekly demonstrations and a Land Day demonstration have impacted the Wall planning process, such that far less land would be walled off from Al-Ma’sara than from neighboring or similar communities.
House at the Seam – Click here for more photos
The most serious threat now is from settler and soldier attacks which, like those on Raed’s property, are intended to damage the building and discourage resistance. Thus far, while settlers have stolen a door, some electrical wiring and a transformer, the house needs few repairs before it can be inhabited and used for events. As long as it is inhabited, it cannot be taken by the antiquated Ottoman land laws—another tool used to rescind Palestinians’ property rights after they are driven off their land.
“This [house] is a real strong point,” says Mahmoud Zwahre, an organizer from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee and resident of Al-Ma’sara.“Legally, if we are able to keep this house we are able to keep the land.”
The bizarre set of circumstances that have made Al-Ma’sara, a rural village of about 900, one of the front lines in the battle against Israeli expansionism are sadly familiar to most Palestinians and their international and Israeli supporters. Although the village lies roughly 10 kilometers west of the 1948 “Green Line” (the only internationally recognized ‘border’ between Israel and Palestine) the massive “Gush Etzion block” of seven Israeli settlements (pop. 60,000) lies nearby, products of Israeli’s campaign to produce illegal “facts on the ground.”
These ‘facts,’ in turn are used to justify giving the Israeli military full control of most of the village’s lands and the annexation of thousands of dunums of land via planned Wall construction.
Not only would the wall’s route cut off 3500 dunums of Palestinian lands in Al-Ma’sara and limit access to services in larger communities, but it would also cut off the village’s water access and the primary routes between Hebron, Bethlehem, and Ramallah—three of the largest cities of the West Bank.
Any one of these developments would hit Al-Ma’sara and surrounding villages hard, but together they are intolerable and demoralizing. Even though there is no barrier or construction currently underway, some Palestinian farmers have chosen to stay off lands east of the Wall’s projected path, fearful of settler and military attacks. Others, however, have decided to resist—using the Tayatqa house as a focal point.
When asked what his vision for the house is, Zwahre describes a vibrant social and information center, with Palestinian flags flying and walls painted red, green, white and black. From terraces, he imagines people sitting to drink tea and looking across olive groves and fruit orchards. Farmers avoiding their land below the settlements for fear of attacks by settlers would feel safe working on it. But, he adds, that is just his vision, and it is for all those involved in the development of the center to create it.
The Popular Committees have issued a call for supporters to join them in making this center a reality. They can be contacted at www.popularstruggle.org. Weekly protests against Wall construction are held Fridays at noon, starting from the Al-Ma’sara city center.
Aaron is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
Yassar Salah (Photo: Joe Catron) - Click here for more images
As hundreds of Palestinians rallied in Gaza today to demand that Israel release Palestinian administrative detainee Khader Adnan, Yassar Salah, a 17-year veteran of Israel’s prison system, spoke about Adnan’s 60-day hunger strike and his own reasons for joining it.
“We are on hunger strike to show our sympathy and solidarity with Sheikh Khader Adnan, who is battling to overcome Israel’s system of administrative detention,” he told me in the protest tent outside Gaza’s International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) compound.
“Khader Adnan is fighting a just battle,” he said. “For that reason, he is continuing his struggle without paying attention to his own suffering. Losing his health, or even his life, doesn’t matter as much as ending injustice. Adnan is a hero. Freedom has a price, and he is paying the price of his freedom.”
Salah, who launched his hunger strike with ten other Gaza Strip residents on February 11, has taken similar actions before. “I hunger struck in prison several times, for 15, 18, and 20 days,” he said. “This is nothing new for me. I assure you that in this battle, we fight with our wills, not our bodies. By our hunger, by our pains, we are achieving our goals.”
Gaza protest in solidarity with Khader Adnan. (Photo: Joe Catron) - Click here for more images
“The Israelis humiliate their prisoners,” he told me when I asked about his years in detention. “They prevent us from continuing our education, or meeting out attorneys. Many prisoners are prevented from receiving family visits. Some are even isolated from their fellow prisoners. Prisoners are kept in cells alone for months, or even years, without any contact with the outside world. Sometimes guards entered our rooms in the middle of the night, searching for nothing, only to torment us.”
What did he and his fellow hunger strikers hope to accomplish, I asked him? “People here are showing sympathy and solidarity with Khader and his struggle,” he replied. “But the levels of sympathy and solidarity are not enough. We want more, among our people and outside.”
What kind of sympathy and solidarity? “They can organize sit-ins, maybe something athletic, or artistic, or political,” he said. “We want to see a variety of activities to express the message of Khader and the Palestinian people. The most important thing is for people to adopt his case as their own. The world must take action to stop his shameful treatment.”
(Photo: Joe Catron) - Click here for more images
Joe Catron is an international solidarity activist and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) organizer in Gaza, Palestine. Heblogsandtweets.
