10 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
The Israeli army fired on 50 Palestinian and international activists protesting the Israeli-enforced closure of the “buffer zone” at Erez Crossing in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip today.
The demonstration, organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, was joined by activists from the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip.
Led by farmers and other Beit Hanoun community members, it was forced to withdraw by machine-gun fire after nearing the Israeli wall and its gun towers at 11:45 am.
As protesters retreated, bullets struck the ground around them.
“We are fighting for our rights. This is peaceful, popular resistance,” said Saber Al Zaaneen, Beit Hanoun Local Initiative coordinator. “They opened fire directly at the demonstrators. Thank God no one was injured. This shows the aggressive way Israelis deal with these demonstrations.”
The illegal “buffer zone” was originally established 50 meters into the Gaza Strip, according to the Oslo Accords, and has been unilaterally increased by Israel since then.
Now reaching 300 meters according to Israel, and often stretching up to 2 kilometers in practice, it prevents Gaza Strip residents from accessing large portions of their coastal territory, including 30-40% of its farmland, without grave danger.
Yesterday afternoon, 24 year old Abdalah Aadus from the village of Iraq Burin was taken to hospital after being shot in the side by a teargas canister which was fired from close range. Abdalah had been participating in a demonstration against the theft of his village’s agricultural land by settlers.
At 15.00, approximately 40 villagers from Iraq Burin gathered and started walking from the village towards their land which is situated close to the illegal Bracha settlement. The demonstrators carried Palestinian flags which they planted on their agricultural land. After 30 minutes 20 Israeli soldiers and 1 security guard from the illegal settlement showed up and responded by shooting rubber-coated steel bullets, teargas canisters and sound bombs directly at the demonstrators from a close range. One of the soldiers also threatened the demonstrators by saying that the army would return to the village that night and arrest them all. During the demonstration Abdalah was shot in his side and taken to the hospital. Fortunately he was not severely injured and was able to leave the hospital later the same day.
Last year the villagers of Iraq Burin held weekly demonstrations against the theft of their land by the settlers. The Israeli military responded to the protests with great violence, firing tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets directly at the protesters. In March 2010 Mohammed Qadous 16, and Asaud Qadous, 19, were killed by Israeli forces during one of the non-violent demonstration. After the tragic incident the villagers decided to stop the demonstrations, as the price was just too high.
Iraq Burin is a village with 700 inhabitants located outside of Nablus, in the West Bank. The village is surrounded by the two illegal settlements of Bracha and Yizhar and their outposts. The settlers have so far stolen 4000 dunams of land from the village.
On Friday, May 6, the Israeli military declared the area of Amniyr, a Palestinian village south of Yatta, a closed military zone and chased away the families who own the land, after demolishing structures and trees on the land the day before. The demolitions at 5 a.m. on Thursday, May 5, when the military destroyed six shacks and uprooted 150 olive trees in Amniyr.
On Friday, the Palestinians of Amniyr had returned to the land and hung six tarps to create makeshift tents. The Israeli army issued a “closed military zone” order on the area at 9:00 a.m. At 2:00 p.m. seven military jeeps arrived, including police and border police. The commanders showed the order and gave the people one minute to leave.
Using sound bombs and tear gas, the soldiers and police forced off the land all the Palestinians present—about thirty adults, many of them elderly, and ten children—as well as accompanying internationals. One woman, Fatmi Mahmoud Jaboor, passed out due to the bombs and required medical attention. The Palestinian Red Cross evacuated her to the hospital, and she was dismissed in the evening.
Household belongings scattered after demolition
Soldiers threaten Palestinians with sound bomb
At 7 p.m. four military jeeps returned to Amniyr and destroyed the tarps and what had been left standing in the area.
This is the third time in ten weeks that the military has destroyed trees, tents, dwellings and other structures on the land of Amniyr, effectively demolishing the entire village and affecting six families. Although Amniyr is Palestinian-owned private property, Israel has declared it “state land” and prohibits the people of Amniyr from building any structures or using the land. A local Palestinian leader has told CPT that he believes Israel is trying to confiscate the land of Amniyr because of its proximity to the Israeli settlement of Susiya.
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30 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
“I dreamt of my wife last night, she said the day would have a surprise in store for me”. Nasser Abu Said (37) is pleased: an NGO has confirmed a 2000 dollar contribution to the construction of his new house. He often smiles, but his face is predominantly characterized with the traces of worries from his daily struggle for survival. I think how good it is to see him laugh, it reminds me of the happy family picture I saw of him with his wife and five children. That must have been shortly before last year’s atrocity which has caused for physical and psychological displacement of his family. On July 13th 2010, on a warm summer evening that the Abu Said family was enjoying outside, the Israeli Occupation Forces attacked them. “Five tank shells and a flechette shell”, Nasser told me, again, two days ago, with blank expression. The flechettes riddled the body of his wife, and while ambulances were prevented from entering the area, she died. Her five children, aged 3 to 12, watched her succumb and saw how her body grew lifeless.
In the evening of April 28th, Nasser was still cherishing his dream of his wife, whilelaying in the bedroom, when all of a sudden, the Israeli Occupation Forces attacked the house at 8:10 pm. Within five minutes, four shells were fired from a tank, stationed by an Israeli base by the border, 3 kilometers from the family house. The first one went straight through the bedroom wall, were Nasser was resting. The second and third shells passed through the corridor where three of his children were playing and the forth shell hit the bedroom a second time.
“It was dark, the electricity cut as soon as the attack began. I was afraid to move, even afraid to turn on the flashlight on my mobile. I was afraid that they would shell again if they would see any movement. But then I heard the cries of my children, calling out to me to get them out from under the rubble. I went into the corridor and saw Ala’ under the stones, but could only see Maisa’s hand sticking out from under the rubble”, says Nasser. “It was terrible. I didn’t know where my other children were and feared they had been killed.”
After approximately 40 minutes of utter fear, it turned out that Jaber (3),Baha (7) and Sadi (9) were outside with their grandparents and were physically ok.
“Ala’ saw how I was panicking and just answered that he was fine when I got him from under the rubble. It was only when the ambulances arrived that he told me of his injuries”, says Nasser.
Both Maisa and Ala’ had been injured by shrapnel and were taken to Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Baleh, together with Nassers’s brother, Mohammed Abu Said (43) and his wife Sana’. Mohammed has a crack in his skull, a swollen eye and his face is scratched, while Sana’ has shrapnel in her foot.
Five year old Maisa, is sitting barefoot in her pink track suit at the end of the hospital bed. She looks pale, but then I realize that she is covered in dust of the stones that fell on her when the shells crashed through the walls of her house. She puts on a courageous smile and shows me the shrapnel wound in her hand. She’s staying in the hospital overnight as she has trouble breathing. Next to her lies her eldest brother Ala’, who is suffering; his eyes flicker around nervously. His face cramps when the doctor pushes his belly softly. He tries to turn his face, but realizes there’s another wound in his neck and panics with tears in his eyes. His family members stand by in shock: “They are children! It’s outrageous!”
The Abu Said family house is situated in Johr Al-Dik’s farming land, exactly 340 meters from the border with Israel. Currently, 14 people live in the house: Nasser and his five children live on the second floor, with his parents, while his brother lives on the ground floor with his wife, two children and his sister. Other families have evacuated the area in the past decade, because of the danger, but the Abu Said family lacks resources to relocate to a safer area. Incursions with bulldozers and tanks take place every month, while gunfire is heard on an almost daily basis. These bullets pose a direct danger: in the past year, the house has been shot at on different occasions, the children have been trapped by gunfire while playing and their grandparents have been shot at while doing nothing more threatening than drinking coffee and tea by the house.
After his wife was killed, Nasser pitched a tent, a couple of hundred meters away from the house, hoping for it to be a safer haven for his traumatized children. During last month’s escalation, he moved back into the house, because how much protection can a tent offer against missiles and bombs? Once things grew calmer, he and his children spent their nights in the tents again. But they moved out again after the children had caught two big black scorpions by their beds.
Nasser has been lobbying different organizations to build him a new house, because he isafraid of a new Israeli assault. Some of his requests have been negatively answered, but most have disappeared in the NGO’s indigestible pile of bureaucracy. “Maybe they will help me now, now my house is destroyed. It’s just a shame that my wife had to be killed again; all of her belongings are destroyed in this attack. It’s very painful to lose the things she cherished.”
On Monday 25th the first brick was laid for a new school in the Jordan Valley.
Volunteers from the Jordan Valley Solidarity working with Ras Al Auja community members have been making mud bricks for the building during the last two weeks.
On Monday morning, during the much appreciated visit of Luisa Morgantini, the Italian Parliamentarian from the Communist Party, the Jericho Governor and a delegation of more than 50 Italian people, we officially inaugurated the building of the school which has been named “Vittorio Arrigoni” in memoriam of the Italian activist from ISM (International Solidarity Movement), murdered a few days ago in Gaza.
This school in Ras Al Auja will serve to educate more than 200 children who suffer from a lack of this service around. As Ras Al Auja is located in the Area C, building needs Israeli permission, but these permits either take a lot of years or are never given.
After an emotive moment full of hugs among the volunteers, all of them joined the work, adding one or more bricks to the walls of the school while singing the lyrics of traditional Bella Ciao or the Socialist International enforcing the rhythm and the spirit of this struggle for freedom.
Building a school in Area C, the school of “Vittorio”, means a step further in resistance.
