About five o’clock this morning, Israeli Special Forces invaded Balata refugee camp east of Nablus. It was an unusually quiet military incursion and a large number of Balata inhabitants did not even notice the Israeli army presence until a few children started throwing stones at jeeps stationed in key corners of the camp to cut off streets and alleyways. An Apache helicopter hovered overhead during the entire operation and other reinforcements in the form of Merkava tanks stood by outside the camp perimeter in case of widespread resistance.
Israeli forces followed 20-year old Mo’az Maseemi to his home and waited until he had closed the door behind him. When they knocked on the door, Mo’az asked who it was, to which one of the Israeli soldiers answered “Me!” in Arabic. Mo’az then opened the door, only to be faced with six assault rifles pointed at his head. Mo’az Maseemi, wanted by the Israeli military for some time, was taken away to an unknown location, without even being allowed time to put his shoes on. His 23-year old brother Mahmoud Maseemi, although not officially wanted, was also abducted from his home at gunpoint.
A third member of the Maseemi family was arrested by Israeli forces only ten days earlier. Israeli Special Forces operations are a common occurrence in Nablus. In the last month, 10 men have been arrested during nightly operations in the camp. Israel claims these men are to have been “wanted” by the Israeli military – always for undisclosed reasons and based on information from secret sources. Many of the people arrested in Palestine end up being held in administrative detention for years at a time, without charge or trial.
Every Friday for the past year and a half villagers from Bil’in, a small West Bank village near Ramallah, march with supporters toward the triple-layer fence separating them from their olive trees. They are always blocked by Israeli soldiers and border police, who typically escalate from tear gas and concussion grenades to water cannons, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and a variety of apparently experimental weapons. This weekly interaction gets a lot of important attention in the alternative press, but is mostly ignored by Western mainstream media.
Israeli media generally provide brief reports that mostly mirror the official view. Last Friday, though, I was able to see for myself how inaccurate those reports actually are.
According to the Jerusalem Post, this is what happened at the October 27th protest:
Two border policemen were lightly wounded on Friday during a violent protest by some 500 Palestinians, left wing Israelis and foreign activists against the construction of the security barrier in Bil’in. The protesters threw stones at security forces and attempted to damage the fence using ladders….
A short article in Ha’aretz was less one-sided but made it seem that the violence was even-handed. Both Israeli papers glossed over the actual sequence of events. (I’ve posted photos that demonstrate some of what follows.)
The group I’m traveling with this week — Jewish Voice for Peace — arrived in Bil’in at about 10:30 am. It looked like we were the first to arrive, before soldiers later set up roadblocks. Then others started arriving — journalism students from Norway, International Solidarity Movement people from all over, TV journalists, a busload of German Pax Christi members, and more and more Israelis from Tel Aviv and elsewhere, at least 200 or 250 of them according to organizers from Anarchists Against the Wall. The street was filled with people speaking Hebrew, surely an unusual sight in Occupied Palestine. For more than an hour the anti-Occupation activists talked in small groups, ate, took photos, were interviewed by journalists, and waited on the long bathrooom line. The weather was pleasant, the excitement contagious. There were a lot of smiles.
It wasn’t until 12:15, after the end of prayers at the mosque, that the village organizers started off the march. We walked in good spirits down the main street, toward the Separation Fence. On the way we passed at least two groups of Israeli soldiers standing beside clumps of trees on either side of the road. We had been told these soldiers would be there, waiting to attack demonstrators later on as they tried to make their way back to the village.
Unlike some other recent Friday Bil’in protests, this time the military let the march reach the fence. Those leading the march stopped at the tank blocking the way as the marchers came up behind. According to the times on my photos, this was about 12:28 pm. Most of us stood there facing the Israeli soldiers and border police who stood there facing us. On our side were the protestors and also the TV cameras and what seemed to be dozens of news photographers with Press clearly visible. The marchers’ goal, or course, was to cross the fence to reach village land on the other side, now reserved for the growing Jewish settlements built on the site. This is olive season, after all.
At the same time the march reached the fence, a small group of people mostly from Anarchists Against the Wall walked just south of the tank carrying a ladder, which they used to try to scale the fence. They did this calmly and openly, without weapons or violence of any kind. Several soldiers walked toward them on the other side of the fence and soon tossed a tear gas canister their way. This was the first use of violence — the first attempt to cause physical harm to another human being.
Fortunately, the wind cooperated and blew the gas further south away from everyone, and the 6 or 8 fence-breachers tried again, with the same tear gas result. The larger crowd both watched what was going on and began chanting at the soldiers on the tank, still mostly in a pretty good frame of mind. I thought at the time that the soldiers were trying not to escalate because of the heavy presence of international media. Tear-gassing elderly peace activists from Pax Christi would not be a good PR move. What they did instead was constantly photograph the big crowd while other soldiers/border police (I’m not sure how to tell the difference) kept tear gassing the slowly growing number of fence-climbers, some of whom by now had crossed over the first of the three fences.
This cat-and-mouse game went on until about 12:45 — half an hour after arriving at the fence. Most protestors remained in one large crowd. By this point a couple of dozen were using ladders to make it across the first fence. The military was using more and more tear gas, some of which was wafting north to the edge of the big crowd. I think there were concussion grenades used by now, but I’m not sure.
At that point, something flew over the heads of the soldiers from the northern side of the crowd. A couple of minutes later someone toward the back of the crowd threw a stone. I saw three protestors immediately rush up to him, one of them saying that this wasn’t what the protest was about. The guy reached down, picked up another stone, and threw it toward the soldiers.
Within maybe half a minute tear gas canisters and then concussion grenades came down throughout the crowd, and things got chaotic as we tried to escape the gas. Most of us moved to the side or back toward the village, but it quickly became impossible to retreat because the soldiers lobbed tear gas between us and the village. And they soon started tear gassing on the sides as well, so at times it was impossible to move in any direction, and of course also impossible to just stay where we were. I moved through the grove of olive trees, trying to avoid the road where an Israeli vehicle was now making its way lobbing tear gas (I think) into houses. According to my photos (some of which were pretty blurry at this point) this went on for about 25 minutes. But even as most of us reached the center of the village, stragglers came up with clouds of tear gas behind them.
After all this activity — the peaceful symbolic and nonviolent direct actions and the extraordinarily excessive response to a couple of thrown stones — when most of the demonstrators were back in the village hanging out in front of the grocery, young villagers back at the fence were throwing more stones at the soldiers. Others told me this was the weekly ritual. The soldiers know that eventually someone will throw a stone — that’s their apparent signal to respond with excessive violence against everyone, if they haven’t done so already — and they know that after the peaceful march ends there will be more stone throwing, which the soldiers respond to with rubber bullets and, as on Friday according to some reports, real bullets as well.
What was different yesterday was only that the soldiers waited for the first stone to be thrown before extending their attack. When there’s less media, they increasingly attack before the nonviolent marchers even reach the fence.
Back at the street in front of the grocery, I saw one man whose face was hit with a concussion grenade. One of our own group members was right next to another exploding grenade that left him with a bruised toe and a lot of pain. I was lucky to just get tear gassed, which never got so thick that I couldn’t breathe at all, though it wasn’t much fun. Tastes awful.
Given the sequence of events, it seems clear the mainstream media completely distort what actually occurs. In Israel that’s not surprising, perhaps. For the Jerusalem Post to report that yesterday there was a violent 500-person protest can only be intentionally dishonest. Even Haaretz’s effort to be evenhanded feeds the dangerously inaccurate image that Palestinians and their supporters are inevitably violent.
The long multi-pronged effort at Bil’in to prevent the taking of village land for the use of growing Israeli settlements offers a variety of lessons for the course I’ll teach next month on Psychology, Law, and Justice at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel, and then again in December when I work with students and faculty at Birzeit University in Ramallah. I expect to find a variety of conflicting perceptions on both sides of this very complex divide.
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Dennis Fox, Emeritus Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield, reports on his visit to Israel and the West Bank on his blog.
Our Palestinian neighbour, H, lives only 2 metres away from the Tel Rumeida settlement. On Wednesday night he came over to explain to the internationals living in Tel Rumeida the situation as they had offered to help him with an olive harvest. H has experienced continual harassment from the settlers who want to force him out and occupy his house and land. They have put razor wire across a path so that he cannot access a safer way to his home and have built their own steps down onto this land so that they can work it themselves. One of the main people responsible for this is a woman who recently moved to the Tel Rumeida settlement after having been evicted from the settlements in Gaza.
Under Israeli law, if a Palestinian does not work his land for 3 years it is forfeited to the state who are then free to dispose of it as they see fit, including giving it to settlers. This was why it was so very important that the land be accessed. Extra people from the International Solidarity Movement, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Tel Rumeida Project, Rabbis for Human Rights, International Women’s Peace Service and photographers from B’Tselem all agreed to come to Tel Rumeida to help with this potentially very dangerous operation to allow H to access this land. Picking the olives was not the main objective: the most important goal was to access the land and have proof that Palestinians have worked on it.
H has a High Court order saying that Palestinians must be allowed to access and work his land. It also says that the army and police must protect them while he does so. The army agreed to allow this to happen at 13.30.
Before this planned operation, in the late morning, one international went to the start of the track from the Palestinian man’s house which leads to his olive trees. This track has been blocked by razor wire put there by the Tel Rumeida settlers to stop him accessing his own land. After a few minutes, the international was spotted by a settler woman, who started to throw rocks down at her. The settler woman was later joined by two other settler women, who also threw rocks down at the international, some of them very large. A soldier went up to the settlers at one point but did not take action about their violence and at one point he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one of the settler women as she threw large rocks at the international. One of the settler women was also observed gathering rocks in a blue bucket, presumably to throw at the international later and also attacked the international with a large stick and insulted and shouted at her.
Another international then approached the track and the olive trees from the Tel Rumeida road and shouted loudly at the women to stop throwing stones at the international. A woman settler then came up to her very aggressively and told her to go away. When the international refused and told the settler that it wasn’t the settler’s land to be on, the settler demanded to see the international’s passport. The international refused to do this, and asked what the settler’s religion had to say about throwing stones at people and trying to steal their land. The settler shouted that it was the international and her religion who were responsible for the Holocaust. When challenged by the international to explain this, the settler started aggressively pushing the international down the hill away from the settlement. At one point another settler woman joined her, and both pushed and assaulted the international, at one point bending the international’s fingers back to make her let go of a wire fence she was holding onto. At this point the police arrived, but instead of attempting to restrain the attacking settler women, they removed the international down the hill, but not before a settler woman spat once in the international’s face and once in her hair. The police, and the two soldiers present, took no action about any of this.
Other internationals had filmed the stone throwing and assaults but although they showed this clear footage to the police, the police insisted that they could not take any immediate action but that the internationals would have to go to Kiryat Arba police station in order to make a complaint, a constant refrain, despite the fact that they are legally supposed to take complaints at the scene of a crime and make arrests immediately. One of the policemen said that he knew one of the settler women because she had assaulted many people in the past. However they took no action.
At 1pm the international’s gathered at H’s house. A large group from Belgium were there doing a tour of the West Bank and H was explaining to them his situation. At 1.40 H led the whole group onto the land around the razor wire. They began to pick olives and to dig the ground around the trees. One group worked at clearing the razor wire from the path and clearing away the vines so that the path was open again.
10 minutes after the Palestinians entered the land, settlers came down the staircase from the settlement. They sat or stood under the olive trees reading the Torah. Soldiers were at the top by the settlement. Three women came down, one with a baby on her hip. They began to shout, saying that this is their land. H has documents to prove Palestinian ownership of the land. When the woman was asked to produce her papers she said the Bible gave her ownership of this land. She very recently moved to Tel Rumeida having been evicted from Gaza. Soldiers came down onto the land and stood among the crowd instead of removing the settlers.
A settler then began shouting at Issa, a Palestinian man who joined the olive harvest, telling him not to work the land and the suddenly hit Issa very hard on the left cheek.
Instead of stopping the settlers’ attacks and removing them, the soldiers ordered all the internationals to leave the land. H asked the internationals to leave for a few minutes. As the internationals were leaving, a settler youth jumped from a wall to attack them. A soldier picked him up, using a Hebrew term of endearment, and moved him away.
Eventually, after a lot of arguing with the soldiers all the internationals left the land. The settlers went back up the stairs and the Palestinians returned to work on their own, the children climbing the trees and the adults picking the olives.
Ten minutes later the three settler women came back down to the land and began to shout at H and the Palestinians. They seemed very aggressive. A settler woman holding a baby attacked H’s 13 year old niece, kicking her. H then called for the internationals to come back which they did.
Again, the soldiers focused on removing the internationals, trying to get them to leave the land, but they refused unless the settlers were removed out of fear for the Palestinians’ safety. The soldiers refused to remove the settlers and the police did not get involved. The internationals all sat down in a group. The settler women were walking around and throwing water from bottles onto various people. One international woman with a video camera was drenched.
The same settler youth from the earlier attack, again jumped off the wall, this time directly onto an international cameraman who the settler began kicking and hitting profusely. After falling off the cameraman, the settler youth ran after him down the path, trying to attack him again. The settler youth was again picked up and removed by a soldier who shook the youth’s hand as he was carrying him away.
H asked all internationals to return to his house and he decided to stay off the land for a few minutes until the situation calmed down. He returned repeatedly to the land throughout the afternoon with his family and other Palestinians and they continued to work the land and pick the olives.
Although he was not able to do all the work he wanted to H was very happy at the end of the day. He has achieved his main objective of asserting his right to work the land and has video proof that this has happened. There is also video evidence of settlers trespassing and assaulting a Palestinian as he attempted to work the land. There will be a court case to charge the settler with assault and this will bring additional pressure about the ongoing theft of Palestinian land.
Friday 27th October
Nine HRWs (two from TRP, two from ISM, four from CPT, one from IWPS) – met a Palestinian at the Siyaj family’s home at 8am. By 9am the family members started to arrive with the materials to begin the olive harvest; the HRWs and a fluctuating number of Palestinians ranging from two to eight including children and young men, began harvesting olives from the two trees closest to the home but furthest from the settlement and military outpost. The first few hours were peaceful and productive: some people helped knock olives out of the tree with sticks and others gathered the olives from the catch-blankets below. The trees seemed to have an endless amount of olives which were piled in large woven plastic bags. At approximately 10am, just as soon as some Siyaj family members offered everyone tea and Eid cakes and people began to relax from their work, a stone was thrown by a young male settler (age 18-25). He lingered on the side of the house closest to the settlement until multiple HRWs turned on their video cameras and four or five soldiers arrived, at which point he retreated to the settlement. Paying no attention to the settler, the soldiers walked straight towards the Palestinian men near the olive trees; HRWs followed with cameras. A Palestinian presented “The Right to Access Agricultural Lands” document to the soldiers, who agreed to speak with a Palestinian once the HRWs turned off their video cameras. After reading the document they said we could continue harvesting as we were, as long as we did not film, so the harvesting proceeded. The soldiers stayed nearby and were soon joined by a few police who did not approach the harvesting group.
At approximately 11:30am another HRW arrived and was directed to help the Abu Heikel family with their harvest. Not long after the HRW left for the Au Heikel home, several soldiers left the area and moved towards the home; one HRW followed. At the house, the soldiers initially told the family they would have to stop harvesting as they were in a closed military zone. Soldiers were shown the order of the Israeli High Court guaranteeing Palestinians access to their land and requiring the army to protect this right, but still attempted to stop the harvesting. HRWs made phone called to the Israeli DCO (District Co-ordination Office), and some moments later further soldiers arrived and spoke to their colleagues, after which time the family were able to continue harvesting for the rest of the day, with HRWs, soldiers and at times Police and Border Police present. There were no incidents involving settlers.
At the Siyaj home, the harvesting continued smoothly until the group completed the harvesting of the first two trees and moved to the side of the house closer to the settlement to begin harvesting two more trees. Again, the harvesting began peacefully and productively – people were enjoying the work and there was much laughter. Sometime around 1:30pm another settler threw a stone: this time it was a boy (age 10-13) who threw the stone from the settlement yard and was captured on film (see attached photographs A and B). The HRW who photographed the boy was in the tree harvesting olives so he shouted to the special police as two other HRWs grabbed their video cameras. The special police and local police slowly came to where the HRW stood with two Palestinian men who were reviewing the photographs. The police recognized Baruch Marzel and the boy from the photograph and went to the settlement, presumably to speak to them, but the results of this are unknown.
Two special police men stayed at the house and observed from the porch as the group continued to harvest olives. Abu Siyaj brought pita bread with cheese to all the people harvesting olives, which now consisted of four HRWs and six to eight Palestinians, mostly children and teenagers. The harvesting continued uninterrupted until just before 4pm, as we began to pack up the catch-blankets, when the HRWs in the trees noticed the settler children in their yard with a bucket which had been used the day before to hold stones for throwing. The HRWs drew this to the attention of the police on the porch, who then stepped off the porch onto the stairs where they were visible to the children who seemed to change their posture slightly once they saw them. A man joined the children and after standing around for five minutes or so, walked back towards the home with the children at hand. The children remained outside, waving and staring at the HRWs in the trees, and began climbing a tree. After 10 minutes are so, three settler boys came down the path and picked olives from a Siyaj family tree while the police stood nearby, doing nothing in response to their actions. The HRWs remained in the trees with cameras on and photographed as the family finished packing up to leave. Everyone departed without problems.
Saturday 28th October
Today was rainy and cold and perhaps less active because of it. When the two international arrived on Shuhada street the Police jeep was at checkpoint 56 and police were asking young Palestinian men for identification after they came through the checkpoint. They briefly stopped four men before driving away shortly after noon. At 3 pm a young male settler (age 14 – 18) walked by two HRWs and attempted to spit at them, but spit on himself instead. A few minutes later a young Palestinian boy (age 5-9) who we see often on Shuhada street walked by alone, holding a plastic bag. He was much less cheerful than usual, and did not stop when the HRW said hello. He walked on with a very serious look on his face, and the HRWs walked slowly behind as he walked towards the Qurtuba School steps. When he came close to the stairs, he picked up his pace and ran around the corner before the HRWs made it to the corner, and before they did, the boy ran back onto the street chased by five to seven settler boys. The HRWs went towards the settlers with a camera and the soldier walked from his post into the street. The settlers just lingered and made faces until walking back towards the settlement. The HRWs asked the boy if he wanted them to walk with him – he looked very frustrated and said no, even when asked by TIPH – he explained that he wanted to walk around the long way. Later, the HRWs saw him without the bag; hopefully he delivered it successfully.
At 3:30pm two young settler women (ages 14-18) had a verbal confrontation with an older Palestinian woman. The HRWs ran towards them shouting at the soldier and the soldier walked to them just as the settlers left the woman alone. At 4:45 two young settler men and a Palestinian man began a verbal confrontation that looked as though it could become physical but a soldier from checkpoint 56 walked to them and broke it up. The settlers and the Palestinian walked away, both still saying things loudly to each other. The same soldier then proceeded to make the checkpoint more pleasant by throwing stones into the puddle and then placing cardboard on top so the Palestinians would not have to walk in the mud. The HRWs said thank you as they left the street and headed home.
The Al Azzeh family suffered further deprivation today. Probably during the night, their water pipes were smashed where they pass, on the road, by the Tel Rumeida. This is the fifth time that the pipes have been cut, within the last 2 months. In this time no one has been arrested for this offence. This has occurred even though the Israeli command has cameras covering the area. Israeli soldiers constantly restrict Palestinian and International movement in the locality of the Tel Rumeida settlement. They justify this because of the proximity of the military base. In spite of this, the DCO claim that a cut water pipe, in a location to which Palestinians and Internationals do not have access, is not their responsibility. Cut razor wire on Palestinian land is however! As happened yesterday, the wire must be replaced by bare handed Palestinians under threat of arrest! Israeli settlers or soldiers, who destroy part of the water pipe, are allowed freedom do repeat their offense time and time again.
Wednesday 25th October: With Eid celebrations complete, the annual olive harvest continued today in villages across the West bank. In the village of Salim near to Nablus city, volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement were invited by local Palestinians to help with the harvesting of their olives in the groves close to the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh.
On the approach to the olive groves, villagers were stopped by soldiers of the Israeli occupation forces. They were controlling the gate through which Palestinians must go to cross the settler-only roads, which stand between their village and their land agricultural land. After requiring the villagers to show their IDs, the Palestinian villagers continued their journey on to the olive groves.
Salim’s olive groves are situated in the beautiful valleys to the east of Nablus, commanding stunning views of the city and on a clear day, the hills of Jordan. However, this local environment has been marred by the sprawl of Israeli settlements, and colonial outposts on the hilltops surrounding the olive groves (all structures Israel builds in the occupied territories in order to house its civilian population are illegal under international law). In the course of the construction of these illegal settlements and settler-only apartheid roads, some 80 dunnums of land have been confiscated by the Israeli army from Salim.
One Palestinian family from the village told volunteers how they had had 350 olive trees, which had been destroyed last year by settlers. They also indicated the loss of large areas of fertile land which they were no longer able to access due to the continued construction of the illegal settlements and settler-only roads. The lands had been previously used for growing cereals and vegetables. This land now lies unused – a vexatious waste of natural resources and a serious blow to the economy of Salim.
Olive picking in Salim today progressed without serious incident, and in spite of the numerous obstacles put in the way of the villagers by the Israeli army and the continued colonisation of their land, villages were in good spirits. However, as volunteers were returning to the village, reports were coming in of a violent settler attack on Palestinians, also out picking olives on their land in a village west of Nablus. With several weeks of the olive harvest to go in the occupied west bank, it remains to be seen whether or not settlers and soldiers will continue the violence, intimidation and theft that have marred the olive harvest of 2006 so far.
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“This is not peace!” – Olive Harvesters in Awarta Face Obstacles from Settlers and Soldiers
Friday 27th October: Sitting in the shade of an olive tree, drinking tea out of a thermos, it is easy to forget where you are. Walking among a throng of chatty, giggly children in a stunningly beautiful valley framed by gently rolling mountains, you could be forgiven for letting your guard down for a moment. That is, until a military jeep comes careening down the road at 100km/h and an 8-year old Palestinian boy hangs out of the window of a car driving toward it – his face distorted and feigning terror, screaming at the top of his voice. Then you are reminded that this is Awarta, a village south of Nablus city and adjacent to the ever expanding and notoriously violent Israeli settlement of Itamar, and that the calm moments always precede a storm.
Awarta’s olive groves are located between the Palestinian village and the Israeli settlement, the latter’s caravan and watchtower outposts spread out on hilltops in every direction. A dirt path leading up to the gate in the outer perimeter settlement fence divides the land directly facing the settlement into east and west, while a tarmac road leads deeper into the groves in the south-west. All of the land is under direct threat from Israeli colonist attacks and Itamar has recently erected a second perimeter fence around its original border, thus confiscating even more fertile land and further decimating Awarta’s olive harvest.
The Palestinian villagers are now afraid of even approaching the fence to pick olives from the trees. “If we go within 50m of the fence, the settlers go mad. They will cut down more of our trees and pollute our water. This is what they always do”, says one anonymously speaking villager with land adjacent to, and on the far side of the barrier. In light of these obvious risks, the harvesters’ resolve to pick every last olive this year is especially impressive. Even if the Israeli army decide not to protect the Palestinians villagers in accordance to the Israeli High Court decision taken earlier this year, where it was stipulated that Palestinian farmers have a right to enter and work their land, with or without DCO* permission, and that the military commander in the area must defend this right. In the past, the Israeli army have often opted for declaring Palestinian land that deem likely to be target by Israeli colonists “closed military zones.” They have justified this by saying that the law is aimed to protect the Palestinian residents, but has in reality, saved them from any real confrontation with Israeli colonists, while at the same time often preventing Palestinians from farming their olives. The court ruling clearly says that this is no longer allowed and that territorial closure is subject to a number of strict preconditions.
This decision is important to many Palestinian farmers. It provides them with a legal weapon to use in fighting for their rights to their land. Apart from land in “red zones,” which are not subject to such rapid changes as “closed military zones,” and can be checked on military maps, all farmers should in theory be unhindered and protected in working their land and harvesting their olives this season. The result on the ground in Awarta has been that a large number of military vehicles carrying soldiers and police patrol the area during the day, driving back and forth and occasionally stopping in certain areas. This is truly a schizophrenic experience for many of the villagers. Accustomed to avoiding any contact with the Israeli military, they are now forced to rely on them for protection against Israeli colonists. Old habits die hard and the children still squeal “jeish” (“army” in Arabic) and move closer to their parents whenever a jeep speeds by.
As was clearly illustrated yesterday, scepticism as to the military’s motives is warranted. A family of olive pickers was chased away by Israeli soldiers while attempting to harvest on land near one of the outposts west of the dirt path. Colonists from Itamar claim that this land has been sold to them, while the Palestinian owners dismiss this as malicious lies and carry with them deeds to the 187 dunums concerned. Their work on the land having been brutally interrupted, the family has now contacted the DCO in Nablus, requesting that they act as arbitrator between the disputees and offer protection to the family during the harvest. “We are expecting a reply from them on Tuesday, but will go to harvest our olives regardless of their decision”, says one of the family’s adult sons.
It is also clear that the Israeli military has a very limited capacity and/or will to prevent colonists’ attacks on Palestinians. The day before yesterday, two armed colonists from Tel Hayim wandered down the mountain at around four o’clock in the afternoon to threaten olive pickers and force them to leave their land. The military were at that time not present in that particular area of the massive expanse of olive groves. It also seems that no measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again.
Apart from the impracticalities of military protection, it is clearly not a politically or morally viable solution. The pretense that the Israeli military forces are maintaining a presence on the land “on the people’s orders” as one police officer put it, is just that – a pretense. The situation is better summed up in the words of a hard-pressed Awarta farmer, eager to finish the work as soon as possible: “We are happy the soldiers are here because the settlers may not come then. But this is not a solution. We, the Palestinians, want peace. And peace is not having soldiers shoot at our children one day and then wishing us a good day’s olive harvest the next.”
Awarta will continue its struggle for a good harvest and international supporters are more than welcome to join in. For a practical and powerful act of solidarity, come to Palestine. Harvesting is resisting!
* DCO: District Co-ordination Office. Formerly joint Israeli Palestinian institutions for the administration of civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Palestinian Authority was kicked out at the start of the second intifada. DCOs are affectively the civil administration wing of the Israeli military.
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Beit Iba Overcomes Obstacles from the Israeli Army to Harvest Olives
Friday 27th October: Today, olive harvesting continued at Beit Iba. Villagers, including their 82-year-old grandmother and volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement and the International Women’s Peace Service, spent much of the day picking olives close to the Israeli army’s checkpoint at Beit Iba, to the Northwest of Nablus city. This site is also close to olive groves where villagers have been repeatedly driven off their land by the Israeli occupation forces in recent weeks. Today’s picking continued peacefully, and a large quantity of olives were harvested in between rain showers and lunch breaks (where international volunteers were invited to sample amazing homemade humous, cheese and bread brought by the villagers). However, harvesting could only begin once villagers had been given permission to enter their land by the Israeli occupation forces, and to do so, villagers had to climb over rolls of razor wire which were installed by the Israeli army a month ago. Children and a man with an amputated leg were among those who had to negotiate this obstacle. The Israeli occupation forces also told villagers that no vehicles could be brought close to the olive grove, thus making it difficult for the sacks of olives to be taken from the site. Despite these obstacles, and intermittent rain, villagers and volunteers persevered, and remain determined not to be denied access to their land.
Palestinian farmers were today harvesting olives on their land between the quarry at Huwarra checkpoint and Berakhya settlement. A Palestinian house stands uninhabited in the middle of this area, casting a desolate shadow over the settler bus stop on the road below. The man who used to live there is longing for the day when he can move back to his home but remains pessimistic. The entire land has remained untouched for over 6 years, as Israeli colonists always threaten any Palestinians who dare to even approach it.
Today, however, a family of farmers from Burin decided to brave the Berakhya settlers and set off early this morning to harvest their olive trees. At twelve o’clock, six Israeli colonist men trespassed onto the land and, wielding a knife, proceeded to threaten the Ghazzal family, shouting at them to leave the land immediately. In front of their children, the father and mother were pushed and pulled around by colonists and beaten on the arms and chest.
A volunteer from Rabbis for Human Rights, Zachariah Sadea, was contacted. Upon arrival at the scene at around half past one, he immediately contacted the DCO in Nablus. Frightened by this, the Israeli colonists finally left the land, only to go to the police station in Huwarra military base in order to file a complaint against the family’s 18-year old son, Fatih Ghazzal. Claiming that Fatih had beaten, or threatened to beat up the Israeli colonists, they demanded that he be arrested.
At three o’clock, two Israeli soldiers drove up to the land where the family were harvesting; still recovering from the shock of the colonist attack. The soldiers arrested Fatih, beating him severely over the head as they did so. Zachariah Sadea, explaining to the soldiers that Fatih had not beaten the colonists but in fact had been attacked by them, attempted to physically prevent the arrest and was then also beaten by the soldiers.
Devastated by the kidnapping of Fatih, the family carried the day’s harvest down to the checkpoint to wait for their beloved son and brother. As the rain poured down and friends of the family stopped to commiserate with them before passing through the checkpoint, Fatih was transported from Huwarra to the Ariel colony police station. Finally, the family left the checkpoint, hauling the sacks of olives onto their backs and piling into a taxi in teary-eyed silence.
The RHR volunteer will, as an eye-witness to the colonist attack, testify against their blatantly false accusations. The prospects of success are, however, bleak since a senior military commander is now claiming to have witnessed Fatih’s attack on the colonists, even though he was stationed on the other side of the hill at the time. Fatih is currently still being held at Ariel, awaiting legal assistance from Yesh Din.
