Women demonstrate in Gaza. Deep dissatisfaction with the Israeli policy of preventing access to the 300 metre belt along the border have resulted in a rise in number of weekly protests in Gaza and a significant increase in the number of people participating in them. This measure has made 30 percent of the best agricultural land of Gaza Strip off limits. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas of the world and farm land is already in short supply.
Farmers from the border areas have been particularly badly affected by the imposition of the ‘buffer zone’. Intimidation by the Israeli army patrolling the border, including shooting at farmers and bulldozing of the land, has resulted in the formation of a new organisation called Popular Campaign to Oppose the Buffer Zone.
The Popular Campaign has joined forces with the existing protests and in addition they have been organizing their own weekly protests in different areas alongside the border.
On Tuesday 9 March, the protesters form the Local Initiative Beit Hanoun were they were joined by farmers from the Popular Campaign, a large group of local women living in some of the most dangerous border areas and five ISM activists. This was the largest demonstration near the Erez crossing so far, with more than 150 participants. The marchers stopped about 50 meters away from the border wall near the previously erected Palestinian flag. For about an hour the the marchers held speeches and chanted demands for an end of the occupation and lifting of the siege.
Demonstration in Erez, 10 March 2010On the next day, Wednesday the 10th of March, the Popular Campaign held the first demonstration near the Karni crossing, which was until recently the main entry point for the goods allowed into Gaza. Local residents joined the demonstration together with approximately 200 protesters including the 5 ISMers and stayed one kilometer away from the border. They where confronted by a Israeli army jeep which was later joined by a second jeep and by what looked like a surveillance vehicle. Even though the demonstration was peaceful the soldiers fire several warning shots to keep marchers at bay. Fortunately no one was injured and about an hour after the demonstrators dispersed.
Both events have received excellent media coverage and were reported on Aljazeera, PRESS TV and on a local TV channels and well as in the local press.
The Israeli military today continued their attempts to repress the weekly demonstration in An Nabi Saleh. Following on from their near fatal shooting of a 14 year old boy a week ago, soldiers invaded the village within minutes of the demonstration starting, driving jeeps to within approximately 50 metres of the demonstrators and firing upon them with tear gas, percussion grenades, rubber bullets and rubber-coated steel bullets. nab
Despite the military resorting so rapidly to violence, the villagers, accompanied by Israeli and international activists, determinedly continued their attempts to reach the nearby springs that have been usurped by settlers from the illegal settlement of Hallamish. A number of demonstrators were able to get close to one of the springs before soldiers again fired upon them to force them to retreat. Demonstrators who remained within the village were fired upon from above by soldiers who had occupied the same house from which they shot the boy the previous week.
At least 12 Palestinians sustained injuries from Israeli weaponry, three of which are reported to be serious, including two head wounds. nab2
The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village resident’s olive trees by the Hallamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in the past month due to the settlers’ attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Hallamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since it’s establishment in 1977.
Soldiers watch as Palestinians and internationals rebuild the playground destroyed by Israeli Occupation Forces one week earlier.Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals met in Beit Jallah today to rebuild a playground that bulldozers destroyed last week while clearing the path to complete the wall near Bethlehem. 12 people armed only with pick axes and hoes, flattened out the bulldozer tracks and deep holes left from uprooted trees, reset two swing sets, and brought in sand by the bucket for the new playground. Young olive trees were replanted in place of the mature trees that were destroyed during the first days of uprooting last week. The playground is used by many of the neighborhood children, and the family who owns the land welcomes people to enjoy the shade next to their home in the heat of the summer. As people worked in the sun today, army jeeps made rounds on the road above the home, and stood watch from the road on the opposing side of the highway. One jeep came down to the playground, but people continued their work as soldiers took pictures and asked for the Palestinian participants identification cards.
Successfully rebuilt playground!Last week in Beit Jalla residents and activists held demonstrations, a roadblock, tree plantings, and meetings with Palestinian officials. This week the community waits for a court decision to see whether work on the wall will continue. On March 4th the Biet Jallah municipality obtained an order to stop work on the wall. Approximately 70 olive trees had already been uprooted buy this time, the septic system for a family was broken leaving raw sewage spewing out below their home, and a playground was bulldozed. If the wall is finished it will stand only several meters from some of the homes. As the municipality builds its legal defense, activists are preparing for future interventions in case that Israel continues the land theft.
Palestinians, Israelis and internationals protest the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem at a weekly demonstration.Today in the West Jerusalem Shalom court, activists gathered from around the world to support two Sheikh Jarrah families in their eviction trial only to learn that the trial will be postponed. Jewish settlers have occupied the front half of the family’s house since December 1st and today a hearing was scheduled regarding the remaining part of the house. No date for the next legal hearing was announced.
The lawyer bringing the eviction charges against the Palestinian families requested that the court cases for all houses in the neighborhood be heard by the same judge. Palestinians in the neighborhood stated that the settler’s lawyer hopes to find a judge more sympathetic to their cause to hear all cases.
According to the municipality the family was evicted from the front of the house because it was an addition built without a permit. Instead of demolishing the un-permitted addition or working to issue a legitimate permit, the family was forceed to pay a 70,000 shekel fine. In late 2009, after completing the fine, the family was forcefully evicted and the rooms were occupied by settlers.
Background on Sheikh Jarrah
Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.
So far, settlers took over houses of four Palestinian families, displacing around 60 residents, including 20 children. At present, settlers occupy all these houses and the whole area is patrolled by armed private security 24 hours a day. The evicted Palestinian families, some of whom have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular violent attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.
The Gawi family, for example, had their only shelter, a small tent built near their house, destroyed by the police and all their belongings stolen five times. In addition, the al-Kurd family has been forced to live in an extremely difficult situation, sharing the entrance gate and the backyard of their house with extremist settlers, who occupied a part of the al-Kurd home in December 2009. The settlers subject the Palestinian family to regular violent attacks and harassment, making their life a living hell.
The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to evict all Palestinians from the area and turn it into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.
Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.
Legal background
The eviction orders, issued by Israeli courts, are a result of claims made in 1967 by the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesseth Yisrael Association (who since sold their claim to the area to Nahalat Shimon) – settler organizations whose aim is to take over the whole area using falsified deeds for the land dating back to 1875. In 1972, these two settler organizations applied to have the land registered in their names with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA). Their claim to ownership was noted in the Land Registry; however, it was never made into an official registry of title. The first Palestinian property in the area was taken over at this time.
The case continued in the courts for another 37 years. Amongst other developments, the first lawyer of the Palestinian residents reached an agreement with the settler organizations in 1982 (without the knowledge or consent of the Palestinian families) in which he recognized the settlers’ ownership in return for granting the families the legal status of protected tenants. This affected 23 families and served as a basis for future court and eviction orders (including the al-Kurd family house take-over in December 2009), despite the immediate appeal filed by the families’ new lawyer. Furthermore, a Palestinian landowner, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, has legally challenged the settlers’ claims. In 1994 he presented documents certifying his ownership of the land to the courts, including tax receipts from 1927. In addition, the new lawyer of the Palestinian residents located a document, proving the land in Sheikh Jarrah had never been under Jewish ownership. The Israeli courts rejected these documents.
The first eviction orders were issued in 1999 based on the (still disputed) agreement from 1982 and, as a result, two Palestinian families (Hannoun and Gawi) were evicted in February 2002. After the 2006 Israeli Supreme Court finding that the settler committees’ ownership of the lands was uncertain, and the Lands Settlement officer of the court requesting that the ILA remove their names from the Lands Registrar, the Palestinian families returned back to their homes. The courts, however, failed to recognize new evidence presented to them and continued to issue eviction orders based on decisions from 1982 and 1999 respectively. Further evictions followed in November 2008 (Kamel al-Kurd family) and August 2009 (Hannoun and Gawi families for the second time). An uninhabited section of a house belonging to the al-Kurd family was taken over by settlers on 1 December 2009.
A group of Israeli settlers today destroyed a spring by the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan in the Salfit district. The settlers poured sand and cement into the spring, guarded by five armed members of the Israeli military.
Palestinians from the village were forced to watch helplessly as events unfolded, prevented by the soldiers from moving close to the spring or from filming what was happening. International Solidarity Movement volunteers were able to secretly film for a short time before the soldiers noticed, and made both Palestinians and Internationals leave, saying that the area was now designated as a Closed Military Zone.
Last Friday, a group of Palestinians and internationals spent the day clearing the area around the spring to make it more accessible from the village. This followed previous attacks from settlers on nearby springs and farmland, during which a child suffered serious head wounds, from which he is still recovering in hospital, and an elderly man had his arm and leg broken.
Locals intend to continue their attempts to keep the spring open, and to turn the area around it into a park for the use of the village.
Under international law, the settlement next to Qarawat Bani Hassan is illegal, as are all other settlements in the occupied West Bank.
