18 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Following last week’s violence in the village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah, international observers and activists were today denied entry into the village by Israeli soldiers. The soldiers said that the entire village was a closed military zone and provided paperwork that seemed to support their claim. The internationals were followed and harassed by the Israel military as they attempted to leave the village.
Every Friday the village of Nabi Saleh organizes a march to protest the 2009 confiscation of an important water source by the Israelis. Last week Abu Hussam Tamimi suffered injuries after being shot in the face at close range by Israeli soldiers, in violation of international law. Also last week an 11 year old boy from the village suffered rib injuries from a “rubber bullet”*
Five international activists from the International Solidarity Movement were denied entry to the village while attempting to document this weeks protest. After leaving the main entrance to the village the activists were followed by military jeeps and harassed by soldiers.
When it became clear that any entry to the village was impossible, the activists tried to obtain transportation back to Ramallah. The Israeli military prevented taxis and services to stop to pick them up.
The video below shows activists asking soldiers to allow them to travel back to Ramallah. After approximately two hours the activists were able to find transportation out of the area. The van was followed by an Israeli military vehicle for several kilometers.
Last week an ISM activists was detained for several hours after being arrested in Kufr Qaddoum while photographing the weekly protest there. He was falsely accused of throwing stones and was physically abused by the Israelis. He was released later that night.
* Israel commonly uses the term “rubber bullets” when describing round steel bullets with a thin rubber coating
Wahed Rejol is an activist with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
17 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
“The Israelis hope that that the young people leave, the old people die, and then they can confiscate the land and the houses” says Sami, an activist working in Al Baqa’a, a windswept valley situated a few kilometers east of Hebron.
Atta and Rodni Jaber at their house in Al-Baqa'a, near Hebron
The Jaber family’s experiences of living in Al Baqa’a are similar to many other Palestinians in the area, in that their ordinary family faces extraordinary pressure on a daily basis from the Israeli military and nearby settlers.
Rodni Jaber is the mother of three daughters and a son. Dressed in a bright pink jumper and a floral headscarf, she is cheerfully voluble and keen to tell her family’s story.
“We have had our house demolished twice, this our third house on the land. We lived in a tent for six months and after that we got a court decision to live in this area within 150sqm, so we started to build this home.”
Rodni and Atta Jaber work as farmers growing grapes, raspberries and tomatoes in the milder months and radishes and turnips in the winter. Neat lines of cauliflower grow next to their stone house situated halfway up the hillside facing west towards Al Bwayre and the illegal Israeli settlements and outposts of Al Bwayre mountain.
The family owns 31 dunums of land (1 dunum = 1000 msq). Despite having papers dating from the era of the Ottoman Empire proving that the family owns the land, their house still has a demolition order in place.
“We went to the court, and we have a postponement by the Israeli military to destroy this house” says Rodni. “We are not here legally – by Israeli law – but they let us live here for the moment.”
Around 900 Palestinians live in Al Baqa’a valley. Many of the houses in the area are subject to demolition orders as the Israeli authorities and the settlers attempt to make life impossible for the Palestinians in the area to expand Israeli settlements. Local residents and activists claim to have in their possession a map on which red lines outline areas in Al Bwayre and Al Baqa’a valley that have been designated by Israeli engineers as places for the construction of 500 new housing units for Israeli settlers. Much of the land is currently inhabited by Palestinians and will need to be cleared to make way for the proposed development.
In addition to experiencing house demolitions and harassment from the military, the Jaber family has been subjected to repeated attacks by Israeli settlers from nearby Al Bwayre and Qiryat Arba settlements and various outposts.
The Jaber family's house in Al-Baqa'a Valley
The family’s house and land was attacked by settlers around a month ago. The Israeli military arrived in jeeps but declined to intervene as the settlers attempted to set fire to the house. Rodni Jaber explains:
The soldiers were there just to protect the settlers. The settlers told us to leave the house and said ‘this is our land’ . They even began to complain to the soldiers asking them to kick us out of the house saying that ‘the land is for Abraham and not for them’, putting pressure on the soldiers…They [the settlers] tried to burn the house and I began to push them to stop, I even called the Israeli police to come and see what the settlers were doing. All the family fled as we were afraid of being burned in the house.
They failed to set fire to the house. This was just one incident in a long line of attacks on the family over the years; “I lost a baby [because I was attacked by settlers]. I was 4 months pregnant at that time and they attacked me and I lost it. I have been attacked many times by the settlers and I have been in hospital many times.
Nine or ten years ago an ‘operation’ happened on the highway here by the Palestinian resistance against the settlers. After that, the settlers gathered in Qiryat Arba and came here. They broke the door, entered the house and burned it…I left without shoes and wearing my pajamas. The settlers kicked my family out for three days….The soldiers then occupied the house for 40 days. We got a high court decision to return – when we came back to the house everything was broken. At that time settlers also went to my brother’s family [who lives near the house] and they shot him in the stomach – he survived but he has a plastic stomach now.
Al Baqa’a residents live under full Israeli civil and military control in Area C, so how do they protect themselves when the soldiers stand-by and facilitate settler attacks on the family?
Rodni stated that “The chief of police has been to the area and said ‘If something happens just call me’. We got a paper from the DCO (District Coordination Offices) saying that the Israeli soldiers have to protect this house. We got this when we were attacked in 2001. But they don’t do anything – it’s just paper…Most of the Palestinian people in this area are from my family so we try to protect each other. If they attack a house they try to go to the house to protect it.”
A cousin of the family was attacked last week as he rode a donkey in the valley; settlers hit him on the head with metal piping. He was hospitalized and his wounds were stitched up, luckily he was not badly injured.
How does the family cope with the psychological pressures of the constant threat of attack? Rodni smiled and stated, ” I am very strong…and if something happens I think ‘Al Hamdillilah’ (By the blessings of God).
If the family’s experiences are often terrifying and brutal, they are also occasionally absurd. In 1998 Rodni’s son Raja’ was born. A few days after his birth, settlers attacked the house; one settler made a complaint to the police that someone called ‘Raja’ had put a knife to his chest, threatening to kill him.
“After that [several days later] the soldiers came to arrest my son – who was 40 days old” said Rodni. “They heard about my son ‘Raja’ and they came and asked ‘where is Raja’. I showed him my son who was 40 days old, I showed them his birth certificate because they didn’t believe he was Raja’.” But the incident did not stop there as Rodni said, ”
They said that Raja’ should come to the court – at the age of 50 days I had to take him to court. They said ‘where is the defendant Raja’ I showed them my son… the judge ruled that when he reaches 16 years old he will have to come to back to court!”
Surely when the case comes to court and it becomes apparent that Raja could not even sit up or support the weight of his own head at that time of the incident, let alone threaten to harm anyone, the situation will go beyond parody. Rodni laughs and agrees it will be extremely embarrassing for the Israelis but the ruling still stands; Raja is 12 years old now and in four years time he will have to go to court and explain his role in the incident.
As Rodni talks, her husband Atta returns from work, wearing a woolen hat against the Autumn chill. He talks eloquently about Palestinian history and recounts his memories of Al Baqa’a Valley during the Six Day War in 1967.
“I was five years old when they occupied the West Bank, I still remember that day. The Israelis bombed the people and the Jordanian army here and they killed maybe 150 people in that time. Everybody had put white keffiyehs out as white flags to show that this is a peaceful area.”
A ruined house destroyed by the Israeli military in Al-Baqa'a Valley
As well as talking about the area’s history and the threat from settlers and the Israeli military, Atta described the mundane challenges of daily life in Al Baqa’a valley.
” We have a lot of problems in this area; there are no schools to send our children, we don’t have any clinics or hospitals. We don’t have water – the settlers have water 24 hours a day. We connected pipes to the settlement after we had submitted a lot of applications with the Israeli administration and water companies. In 1998 we applied to the company to have water but Israel prevented this. Under the Geneva Conventions it says that you are responsible for those that you occupy, but they want to transfer us from this area even though we have been the owners of the land for hundreds of years.”
Atta and Rodni refuse to be daunted by the problems they face. When asked about what the future holds for their family, Atta evades directly answering the question and replied in broader terms.
“It is not just my future, it is about all Palestinians’ future. Their tragedy and suffering becomes greater everyday.”
Alistair George is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
16 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Photo: Hama Waqum - Click here for more images
Twenty three years ago today the Palestinian declaration of independence was released. Written by Mahmoud Darwish, and unveiled to the world by Yasser Arafat in Algiers where he was living in exile like millions of other Palestinians. Today, in Beit Hanoun, we, the Local Committee of Beit Hanoun, the International Solidarity Movement, and local citizens of Beit Hanoun marched into the no go zone just as we have done every Tuesday for the last three years.
We gathered on the road beside the Agricultural College, raised Palestinian flags, and started to sing as we marched. We were about fifty strong. Men and women, Palestinians and Internationals, marched together to celebrate independence. As we crested the hill that lies on the border of the no go zone the person next to me commented how nice it was that the flag that we had placed in the no go zone was still there, the previous flag had been used by Israeli soldiers for target practice, we had found it laying in the dirt, it’s staff smashed by a bullet. Our flag was still there, the flag that has been flying in the face of Israeli bullets for sixty three years, through the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, the Intifada’s, the flag still flies.
We marched into the no go zone, this area of life transformed into a place of death. The scarred earth that so little is allowed to live in, ripped up every couple of months by IDF bulldozers. Beyond our flag is giant concrete fence lined with towers full of guns. Above us a giant white balloon to watch our every move. Demonstrations in Gaza are not met my soldiers with batons, or tear gas, or even rubber bullets, they are met with live fire, sometimes with tank shells.
We paused by a giant concrete block that we had painted with the Palestinian flag in an earlier demonstration. Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun climbed onto the block to speak. He vowed that the Palestinian people “continue the popular resistance and the struggle, until the end of the Occupation and the Palestinians gained their freedom and independence.” His message to the world was that “we invite you to work with us in the struggle for freedom in Palestine. Free people of the world must reject political blackmail and bribes from Israel and America as we recently saw in the United Nations.” His speech was followed by a release of balloons into the no go zone and debka dancing.
Palestine is still not free, the Occupation continues. Declarations of Independence are not reserved for peoples that are already free; they are statements of desire, of hope. The United States released its Declaration of Independence only one year into its war for independence, fighting would continue for another three years. Palestine released its declaration of Independence one year into the first Intifada. The struggle has continued for twenty three more years, it will continue until victory.
15 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Earlier today, 7 Palestinian activists were arrested as part of the Freedom Rides attempt to board segregated buses going from the West Bank into occupied East Jerusalem.
Freedom Riders - Click for more images
Palestinians, Israelis and ISM activists waited at a bus stop outside the illegal settlement of Psagot, while four settler buses pulled up and drove away, refusing to open their doors. Israeli police and occupation army surrounded the activists, while a group of settlers massed to observe. Finally, a bus took the activists aboard, and the bus made its way to Hizmeh checkpoint, trailed by army jeeps and police vehicles.
At Hizmeh checkpoint, occupation forces stopped the bus, refusing to allow it to pass. During this time, border police attempted to enter the back of the bus and violently drag one Palestinian off the bus. When both attempts failed, border police commandeered the bus, and forced it to park by the side of the checkpoint.
After about half an hour, border police entered the bus, and forcibly dragged the six Palestinian Freedom
Riders off of the bus. “When they pulled them out of the bus, it was not gentle,” said ISM activist Crystal. “A girl next to me was almost crying.” Activist and lawyer Huwaida Arraf was rendered unconscious by the forcible removal.
The Palestinian activists were arrested and taken to Atarot prison, on the grounds that they had entered Jerusalem illegally.
Later that night, ISM activists held a demonstration outside of Atarot, demanding that occupation forces release the prisoners.
“I felt like I was witnessing history,” said ISM activist Wajed.
Ben Lorber is an activist with International Solidarity Movement and writer with Alternative Information Center.
15 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
This morning, on Tuesday 15th November, national day of Palestine, three houses in Al Qasab near Jericho were destroyed by the Israeli military.
During the early morning, between two and three hundred Israeli soldiers entered Al Qasab with bulldozers and destroyed the houses. The village is in Area C; under full Israeli administrative and military control.
The Fakhori family had some time to move some furniture and belongings outside before their house was destroyed as they were present when the Israeli military arrived. The two other families were absent and didn’t have the chance to salvage any possessions. They returned to find their homes reduced to rubble, with all their belongings inside.
No one in the village was informed of the reason for the demolition and no prior warning or legal order was delivered. One of houses was built just two years ago and the family had a permit to build from the Israeli administration.
The three families must now find a roof to cover their heads tonight. One family is able to move in to his father’s house, but it is not known what the others will do. Naturally, the victims are distraught. They asked us ‘Who will pay for this?’ but they are under no illusions; they know that neither the Israelis or the Palestinian authorities will provide them with any help.
Guillaume and William are volunteers with International Solidarity Movement (names have been changed).
