Category: Reports

Demonstration in Beit Hanoun

21 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

At 11 A.M. this morning we gathered for the weekly demonstration against the occupation in Beit Hanoun.  This demonstration was different from the other demonstrations though.  Today, a troupe of young girls were joining us.  The girls were part of the Vittorio Arrigoni summer camp that had been organized by the Forsan Al Ghad center in Beit Hanoun.  Earlier in the morning the children had learned to sing Bella Ciao and had a 1K race.  The five fastest children were awarded t shirts as prizes.  The summer camp aims not only to provide a happy refuge for the children, but also to impress upon them the importance of being active, of giving back to their communities.  The camp hopes to inspire the campers through the life of Vittorio, with his devotion to standing in solidarity with the oppressed.  When Vittorio was alive he was a regular at the demonstrations in Beit Hanoun, every Tuesday he would march into the buffer zone to protest the injustice of the occupation.

Today, we gathered, maybe 50 people, the girls holding a giant Palestinian flag over their heads, the rest of us carrying our own Palestinian flags.  Bella Ciao played over a loudspeaker, the girls sang along.  After Bella Ciao we chanted, against the occupation, for justice, in memory of Vittorio.  As always, the closer we got to the buffer zone the more tense everyone became, a jackhammer started work in the distance, everyone flinched, looked around. Everyone was worried that for some unknown reason that the Israeli’s had decided to start shoting even earlier than usual.  Two weeks ago one of the young men in the march was injured by shrapnel from an Israeli shell, since then, everyone is tenser, more worried as we approach the buffer zone.  After realizing that it was just a jackhammer, people relaxed a bit, we continued on, to the edge of the buffer zone.

Usually, we go into the buffer zone, not today.  We stopped at the edge of the buffer zone; the children looked into the distance, into the land from which their grandfathers had been expelled in 1948, at the horrible ugly wall which Israel has erected to keep them from returning to their homes.  We sang, we chanted, Sabur gave a short speech, but we did not press on into the buffer zone, it is too dangerous to take the children there.  It is enough that the Israeli soldiers saw us, that they saw the children of the men their grandfathers had expelled from their homes, and that we raised our voices against injustice.

Israel deports Spanish aid worker

21 June 2011 | Civil Peace Service Gaza

Ignacio Garcia-Pedraza, a Spanish PSCC worker and Al Quds University trainer, 36 years old and living in Madrid, has been informed this morning at 9:00 a.m. by the Israeli Ben Gurion airport authorities that he had been denied the entry into Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt). After a long interrogation, he was informed that he would be repatriated to Spain due to security reasons. Until the deportation is completed, Ignacio Garcia will have to stay at the Detention Center of Ben Gurion Airport.

Ignacio Garcia-Pedraza has stated from that same center that: “this deportation is a clear evidence of the persecution against aid workers and human rights defenders. Israel uses its occupation over the Palestinian territory in order to deny the entry of human rights defenders who wish to work in this territory and, at the same time, bear witness to the violations against International Law. I think it is time for the Spanish authorities to defend Spanish aid workers and nationals and not to let them be politically persecuted by the state of Israel”.

The Israeli authorities hinder systematically the work of different international humanitarian and development aid organizations, impeding the access of their staff to the oPt, or denying the required working visas. With these practices, the state of Israel is violating different international treaties such as the IV Geneva Convention. Last January, airport authorities deported the Spanish aid worker Marcel Masferrer, holder of an Israeli working visa, also due to security reasons that were not clarified. In addition to him, a well known Spanish clown, Ivan Prado, was denied the entry in 2010.

These increasing difficulties were addressed to the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trinidad Jimenez, by Ignacio Garcia himself during a meeting held between her and Spanish aid and humanitarian workers in February 2011. On behalf of several NGOs, Mr. Garcia briefed the Minister on the legal persecution for political purposes being carried out by Israel against Spanish and other foreign aid and humanitarian workers.

RESUME OF IGNACIO GARCIA-PEDRAZA

University graduate on Mathematics, he has a wide experience on International Aid in different countries. Ignacio Garcia-Pedraza has traveled in many occasions to Israel and the oPt since March 2009 as a consultant and evaluation expert on Spanish funded international development aid projects for several NGOs.

This time, his entry to Israel and oPt came within the framework of his duties as University Teacher and Coordinator of the Diploma on Public International Law and Non Violent Conflict Transformation, offered by Al Quds University (Jerusalem), the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee and the Spanish NGO NOVA. This activity was partially funded by the Spanish Cooperation (AECID).

Ignacio Garcia was planning also to work as a consultant and evaluation expert for the project CPSGAZA. This project has launched an international mission to monitor Human Rights on board of the boat “El Oliva”, which through its sailing within the Gaza territorial waters informs diplomatic missions and NGOs on the frequent attacks from the Israeli navy against Palestinian fishermen. It also exposes the Israeli ban on these fishermen to work within the water limits that, according to international law, should be under the authority of the Palestinian National Authority.

CPSGAZA is a mission endorsed by 82 Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations, which has been explicitly supported by 600 people, among them the Former Deputy President of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini, or the Jerusalem city council member, Meir Margalit.

Ignacio Garcia is right now under detention in the Deportation Center at Ben Gurion Airport, waiting for the Israeli authorities to repatriate him. He is expected to arrive to Spain tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday 22nd June, without detailing neither the flight number nor the city of arrival.

Two fishing boats shot off Gaza coast

21 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

At around 9am on June 21, two fishing boats were attacked by the Israeli Navy, with bullets piercing both engines, rendering them unusable.

The first boat was shot at in the motor, at the rear end and, when the 4-man crew took cover at the front of the boat, away from the shots directed at the motor, the front of the boat was fired upon.

Yaser Baker is one of the four fishermen who were aboard the first boat which was shot. “We were at around two and a half miles out to sea when they shot at our engine and it broke. We stopped the boat and all moved to the front, away from the engine so that we wouldn’t get hit. Then they shot at the front, right at us, the bullets just missing our bodies and one landed right by my leg.”

A second boat, manned by Mohammed Bakri Sabir came to assist the first, but was also attacked, both in the engine and the front of the boat, where the crew was taking cover.

Aboard the second boat were three fishermen and two of their children, aged nine and ten years old.

The boats managed to escape when around twenty other local fishing boats surrounded them and escorted them back to shore as the nine-year-old feigned an injury.  “He had to play dead,” Baker explained, “it was the only way we could get them to stop firing.”

67 people displaced following demolition of Bedouin village by Israeli army

20 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

A Bedouin girl plays amongst possessions scattered by the Israeli Occupational Forces

On June 20th at 7am a Bedouin village, south of Hebron in Khirbet Bir al’Idd was struck down with Israeli bulldozers destroying seven tin homes and several other sheds and tents. The Israeli army and border police arrived to demolish the homes claiming the area was classified as a closed military zone because of “illegal” building taking place.

There was no warning of the demolition in advance. Following the destruction of the village,  67 people were left homeless and displaced, including a large number of children. They also confiscated many possessions including mattresses and pillows. The mobile water source was damaged as were electricity wires. The toilet was also completely was destroyed.

Villagers reported that the Israeli army threatened that they would return in three days to take down the remaining animal tents and check no rebuilding had occurred. The army apparently told the villagers they should live in natural caves, awaiting a court order on land ownership and whether they can reconstruct the village.

Presence with a splash of tea is recipe for detainment

19 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Deir Qaddis
Deir Qaddis

On Sunday June 19th, six International Solidarity Movement activists from the United Kingdom, United States, Brazil, Germany, and Sweden were illegally arrested by the Israeli military after attending a demonstration against the construction on confiscated land belonging to the Palestinian village, Deir Qaddis.

Apart from numerous Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists, many children and elderly villagers participated. The demonstrators marched through the village waving flags and chanting slogans. Some of the demonstrators formed a road blockade with rocks on the confiscated land.

The Israeli military arrived shortly after and responded with volleys of tear gas, aimed directly at demonstrators. The tear gas canisters set alight the grass around them, causing a fire which spread for hundreds of meters throughout the hills.

After the Israeli military had left the area, the demonstrators returned to the village. The military subsequently invaded the village following the demonstrations. The internationals were resting in a Palestinian home drinking tea. Upon noticing army infringement upon the village, the international volunteers walked onto the road to see where the army was, hoping that their presence as internationals would deter the soldiers from attacking the village. Yet the commanding officer ran down the hill, with about 15 soldiers behind him, pointed his gun directly at the volunteers, and said violently, “If you move, I will shoot.”

While under arrest the soldiers proceeded to teargas the village below, and as they did so, the wind carried the teargas across to the international volunteers. As they tried to treat themselves with onions and alcohol wipes, items commonly used to deter the affects of tear gas, the soldiers shouted that tear gas was “part of the Israeli experience.”

Then the soldiers forced them to walk in convoy formation.

“We walked with a soldier in front of us, behind, and one on either side with guns, shouting at us and using intimidation techniques, forcing us to walk like prisoners,” said one volunteer.

She continued to describe her experience as they were taken away from the village. “We walked for approximately 15 minutes in the heat and sun along the road until we were outside the illegal Israeli settlement of Nil’ in. When we repeatedly stated that we did not believe our presence in the village was illegal, or that the arrest was legal, the soldiers responded with the same aggressive responses that we ‘should know the law of the country that we are in, meaning Israel. They then made us get into an armoured jeep, where we were forced to sit in silence before blindfolding us, for the acclaimed reason that we were ‘not allowed to see the settlement’ through which we were passing,” she said.

During the first six hours of detention, the activists were kept in an armored military truck, being blindfolded for approximately one hour. After more than ten hours in detention,  the activists were forced to stay awake and were given one piece of bread and water. The arresting officer was the Hebrew/English translator during each activist’s interrogation, having testified against them just hours before. He talked over the activists as they gave their testimony, accused the activists of lying and cut one activist off before she could finish her testimony. They were released 17 hours later, after signing a condition stating they will not participate in demonstrations in Deir Qaddis, Bi’lin and Ni’lin.

The activists were charged with participating in an illegal demonstration despite the fact that the demonstration took place on Palestinian land and therefore can not be declared illegal under both Israeli and international law.