Category: Reports

Gaza summer camp teaches service, struggle

6 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Vittorio Arrigoni – Stay Human summer camp
Vittorio Arrigoni – Stay Human summer camp

At Vittorio’s funeral in Gaza the crowds chanted “Viktor is with the fisherman, Viktor is with the farmers”, Vittorio is still with the people of Gaza. He lives on in their hearts. He has been honored with a football tournament in Rafah, with a street in Gaza, with a school in the Jordan Valley, but I think that perhaps the honor that would be closest to his heart is the Vittorio Arrigoni – Stay Human summer camp in Beit Hanoun. Vittorio had worked in Beit Hanoun his entire time in Gaza. Riding in ambulances during Operation Cast Lead and supporting the weekly demonstrations against the buffer zone since then. The Fursan Al Ghad Youth Center honored him by naming their summer camp in his honor, the Vittorio Arrigoni – Stay Human summer camp.

Fursan Al Ghad is a small center, just a small three room building, a courtyard, and a van. It is a center with big goals though. It seeks not only to provide the children with a safe space for summer fun, but to remind them that they are part of something bigger than themselves. The children not only participate in art and music programs, but they also perform community service and protest the occupation.

The Vittorio Arrigoni – Stay Human camp opened in mid-June. It serves sixty children from age eight to fifteen. Sixty children in one small building.  Every morning the children stream in at nine A.M. Soon the entire building is alive with singing dancing children. Like Vittorio, the teachers at Fursan Al Ghad love to sing, Bella Ciao, Inadakoom, traditional Palestinian songs. The children love to both sing and dance debka. Many of them are surprisingly good, eight year old Fred Astairs.

The children also do art projects, both in the classrooms and outside. The wall across from Fursan Al Ghad is now covered in a beautiful new mural. The most beautiful project though, was building kites. A dozen amazing kites with beautiful geometric designs. The kites had long tails made from old homework cut into strips, perhaps to celebrate the end of the school year. On the kites the children wrote messages, messages like “the children of Gaza deserve freedom” and “end the siege”. We went out to the hills east of Beit Hanoun, on a beautiful Tuesday morning to fly the kites. The wind was brisk, the air was beautiful, the kites soared into the air. After admiring them for a while, the strings were cut, the kites sailed across the wall towards Sderot, hopefully the messages carried by the kites will be read and understood.

Kids being kids, the camp also provides games and sports. Days were organized to play football, basketball, volleyball and jump rope. The children participated in a 1k race; the five winners received t shirts. There was even a trip to the beach so the children could go swimming. That was, obviously, a very popular day for the children. Going to the beach is one of the few trips that children can take in Gaza; the siege prevents them from leaving, even from going to the West Bank or Jerusalem.

The children also learned about being part of a community. One day was devoted to cleaning the streets of Beit Hanoun. Sixty hands makes light work. They left a mural across from Fursan Al Ghad for everyone to appreciate.

Perhaps the best day though, was the last day. The children went to club where they could ride horses and camels. After being entertained for a few hours of singing dancing clowns, the horses were brought out. The children were entranced. Even the ones that were afraid couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ride the horses. They also enjoyed seeing their teachers ride horses, some for the first time. After they were finished riding horses the children came to the port of Gaza. At the port, they boarded boats, and went to sea, some for the first time. They did this in memory of Vik, who loved the sea, and loved the fishermen that worked there.

Fursan al Ghad strove to not only provide the children with fun things to do over the summer, but to show the children that they can have a positive effect on their community, to help them find their voice in the struggle for freedom and justice. Fursan Al Ghad remembered not only the music of Vik, not only Bella Ciao, but also that struggle was part of Vik. The children not only sang, like Vik, they raised their voices against the occupation. For this, thank you Fursan Al Ghad, for remembering all of Vik.

Iraq Burin Raided

6 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

More than 300 Israeli soldiers raided the village Iraq Burin at approximately 10:30pm to 5am commencing on the 5th July. Soldiers accompanied by dogs forcefully entered all 150 houses within the village. The searches commenced with the families and children having to wait outside for further instructions. Two males (15 and 23) were arrested and multiple boys were taken to a local school to be questioned and photographed for future Israeli intelligence at demonstrations. During the raids the houses were turned upside down and many possessions and windows were broken. Several gates were kicked in. The memorial stone of a man killed by settlers within the village during the illegal occupation was deliberately rammed by an Israeli jeep and broken in to several pieces. Weapons were not only used to threaten Palestinians but also as hammers withing the properties.

The catalyst of this raid seems to be the demonstrations that are held locally every Saturday on occupied land. The Palestinians have been warned that future demonstrations will result in more raids in Iraq Burin. Palestinians and international activists will however continue to demonstrate. This will be increasingly dangerous for Palestinians in the village due to the information and pictures obtained during these raids.

Iraq Burin is a small village 8 km southwest of Nablus. The illegal settlement of Bracha is located approximately one mile southeast of the village, and is situated on around 100 dunams (25 acres) of village land, as well as more land from surrounding villages. In addition to the settlement itself, the land surrounding it is off-limits to the farmers who are prevented from accessing it due to its close proximity to the settlement, leaving them with less land to graze their sheep and harvest from.

CPT: Israeli Army Destroys 9 Water Tanks in Palestinian Village

6 July 2011 | Christian Peacemaker Team, Hebron

Late Tuesday morning, around 11:30, a convoy of Israeli Army, civil administration, and border police arrived in the Palestinian village of Amniyr accompanying a flat bed truck with a front end loader and a backhoe. Israeli settlers having a picnic at the settlement outpost next to the Susiya archaeological site looked on as the army destroyed nine large tanks of water and a tent.

Amniyr is a small village of 11 families in the South Hebron Hills, just northeast of the Palestinian village of Susiya and the Israeli settlement of the same name. The village of shepherds and farmers, like most villages in the area, is totally dependent in the summer on tanks of water.

Nor does that water come cheap. Costs of transportation, due to the poor infrastructure in the area – Palestinians are normally not permitted to build roads in Area C of the West Bank and have restricted access to Israeli roads – mean the cost of water is much higher than normal. A cubic meter of water in the nearby town of Yatta costs 6 shekels. In Amniyr it cost 35. The tanks themselves cost 1000 shekels each, and each tank held 2 cubic meters of water, yielding a total of over 10,000 shekels in damage, which for many in the area is equivalent to a half year’s work.

This is the fifth demolition in Amniyr in the last year, according to village residents and Nasser Nawaja, a B’Tselem worker. One month ago the army destroyed 11 houses and two cisterns full of water. The cisterns had also been destroyed 5 months ago and rebuilt with the help of Israeli activists from Ta’ayush. The ruins of houses from previous demolitions are still present; broken stones and twisted metal. Located just south of the archaeological site of old Susiya, the Israeli government claims it is state land.

Ten of the families now sleep in Yatta and come during the day to tend to their olive and almond trees as they have no place to sleep and no water. One couple though has refused to move. Mohammed Hussain Jabour and his wife Zaffra refuse to leave. The morning after the demolition they were making tea on an open fire next to their tent. “I’ve been here with my father and our sheep since I was a little boy,” he said, with visible indignation. “Now I’m an old man. And now Israel tells me I can’t be here. I’m not leaving.”

“What are we supposed to do?” his wife Zaffra asked. “What will we drink? We can’t live without water.”

The demolition comes on the heels of the demolition of 6 tent homes and a toilet in the village of Bir al Eid, just two kilometers to the south, two weeks ago. Both incidents are the latest in a long history of demolitions of Palestinian homes and buildings in the area by the Israeli army, affecting both these villages and the villages of Susiya and nearby Imneizel.

12 people left homeless in Khallet Sakariya

5 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

At 6 am this morning the Israeli military demolished a water cistern and one house containing 12 persons, 6 of whom are children, in Khallet Sakariya. The military arrived with 13 cars and more than 55 soldiers as well as a bulldozer. The family had not received a warning of the demolition. The children living in the house were deeply traumatized by the event and one was taken to the hospital. The family is now forced to live on the grounds of their demolished house or in nearby caves, with little access to water and no access to electricity.

The house was one year old and the community had appealed its demolition order in court. Usually it takes five years before the appeal is handled and demolition can occur,” a UN official claims. The “legal grounds” for the unexpected demolition are unclear.

The house was on the edge of a valley close to the illegal settlement Allon Shevut. In the area around Khallet Sakariya there are four villages surrounded by illegal settlements. According to one of the villagers the village is exposed to daily harassment by the settlers. On the night between the 26th and 27th of June a farmer got crops of up to 10 000 shekels worth destroyed by the settlers, as well as a stenciled message of “Kill the Arabs” written on her land. The old woman had farmed the land for three years and this was the first time she got any product from it.

Kufr Qaddoum peacefully demonstrates after 6 year wait

3 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

A line of military jeep squads confronts activists in Kufr Qaddoum

The popular committee, or local council, of Kufr Qaddoum  requested the attendance of ISM volunteers at their first demonstration in the village after more than six years of protracted legal arguments before the notoriously one-sided Israeli High Court. The attempts to gain justice through legal recourse were motivated by a unilateral Israeli decision in 2003 to block the main arterial road linking Kufr Qaddoum with Nablus.

A number of ISM representatives had visited the village in the days running up to the planned protest, to discuss with the popular committee the specific problems they were having with the Israeli occupying forces and the possible ways in which the ISM could be of use.

Abdul Ra’ouf Hamsa, a representative of the local council, and his assistant, Saqer Obwed, had explained to the ISM forward party that the main problem confronting the village was the loss of this key road – which up until 2003 had been the principle means of access to Kufr Qaddoum from Nablus – a journey of only 15 minutes now closer to forty.

The road was initially obstructed (without explanation) by members of a local illegal Israeli settlement at Qadumim, but responsibility for the occupation of the road quickly became a matter requiring the repressive potential of the Israeli armed forces, together with the notoriously brutal border police force.

For the past eight years the villagers have been utilizing other routes to travel to and from Nablus. As a result, their expenses have increased markedly and their lives have become significantly more difficult. As is usually in the case of incidents of this kind,  it is the most vulnerable who suffer first and most. The cost of transportation has increased for students studying daily in Nablus, and the chances of serious injury or death have also increased with a long and circumspect route to Nablus hospital. Two Palestinians have died in recent years after failing to reach the hospital in time.

Hamsa explained to the prelimanary ISM delegation that they used to organize demonstrations against the blockade of the road more than six years previously, but were forced to stop when they decided to take the issue to the Israeli High Court.

Just 8 months ago after awaiting the court decision for many years, the popular committee of Kufr Qaddoum received a rare ruling in their favor , allowing them legal access to this vital stretch of road. Despite the court’s decision in their favor, the court simultaneously ruled that the villagers could not use the road until 2012 after claims of the road not being “suitable” or “safe” were made by the Israeli’s.

Thus the establishment of a weekly non-violent demonstration was agreed upon and international observers and participants from the ISM were requested. With Israel demonstrating a complete lack of will in granting the villagers their rights, it was decided by the popular committee that peaceful demonstrations were the only viable option left to them.

A series of cars and pickup trucks worked in tandem to help transport international peace activists past the Israeli checkpoint denying entry to the village. The villagers and international activists gathered in the village and began their march down the road towards Nablus and the awaiting Israeli border police and military forces.

Upon arriving at the Israeli checkpoint, and after initial attempts to negotiate access to the road, peaceful demonstrators were confronted by shield-wielding border police used to confront and repress the front row of the crowd, now halted by Israeli occupying forces. After the arrival of the border police, the peaceful demonstration was swiftly dispersed with stun grenades and tear gas.

Large swathes of the surrounding land belonging to the villagers was soon engulfed in flames as the callous use of flash-bangs ignited the grass and trees, dry in the summer time. A number of Palestinians veinly attempted to put out the spreading fires with branchs and their feet. To no effect. A number of bee hives owned by the villagers were destroyed whilst most were rescued by the frantic attempts of local people.

A number of Palestinians were transported away by ambulance after suffering the effects of tear gas inhalation, including a number of elderly men and young boys. After half an hour or so of further negotiation from the village elders, both Israeli occupying forces and the Palestinian demonstrators withdrew back down the road in opposite directions.

Kufr Qaddoum is located to the north of Nablus, with a population of approx 3,500 inhabitants. More than half of the village’s  land – about 11,800 dunams (one dunam equals 1000sq meters) – is situated in area C; which means that the Palestinians must be given permission to work there from the Israeli District Coordinating Office. The villagers from Kafr Qaddum have often complained about harassment and violence from the nearby illegal settlement of Qadumim, built in 1976.