29th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
On 29th August 2016 Israeli forces at Salaymeh checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), fired rounds of tear gas as school-children attempted to make their way home through the highly militarised checkpoint.
The Salaymeh checkpoint, for many school-children, is one of the unavoidable checkpoints on the daily way to school and back home. At the highly militarised structures, the children attending schools and kindergartens in the area, are subject to bag-searches, harassment, questioning and detention by the Israeli forces.
On Monday, the second day of school after the 3-month summer holidays, as children were starting to pour out of the schools around noon, Israeli forces threw a stun grenade towards a group of children. Instead, it landed right in front of a girl quietly making her way towards the checkpoint on her way home. Scared by the stun grenade flying towards her and the lound boom of the explosion she ran away in the opposite direction in tears. In the meantime, at the checkpoint, children were repeatedly yelled at ‘to wait’ as Israeli forces refused to open the gate for them to go through the checkpoint in order to reach the other side. Israeli forces were heard yelling at children several times, and ordered a few boys to show them their hands in order to ‘prove’ stone-throwing if they are having dirty hands.
Children running away from the tear gas shot by Israeli Forces
Just a little later, Israeli forces fired rounds of tear gas in the direction of the schools, thus collectivly punishing not only all the school-children, but the whole neighborhood. As the tear gas canisters spread their supposedly ‘less-lethal’ gas and covered the area with the poisonous gas, some children escaped the clouds crying with their eyes red from the gas and coughing when choking on the gas.
This kind of excessive force and collective punishment by the Israeli forces, is just one aspect of the Israeli military occupation these school-children are forced to endure on a daily basis.
27th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Umm al-Kheir, south Hebron, occupied Palestine
The villagers of Umm Al Khair look out at the remains of their EU-funded community center that now lies as rubble. Villagers tell of it as a place where they watched football, did education trainings, community meetings and how it would soon become a kindergarten. The destruction has come as no surprise however, since this is the third set of demolitions in Umm al Khair since the start of the year, with over 15 structures being demolished in a town of just 150 people.
The rate of house demolitions in the West Bank is at the highest it has been in 10 years, with more demolitions in the first 4 months of 2016 than the whole of 2015. As illegal settlements continue to expand Palestinians, especially in the south Hebron hills, are more at risk than ever of losing their homes. Despite condemning the demolitions the EU has not taken any action concerning the 74 million dollars worth of EU projects destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. As the town looks for aid to rebuild its fallen buildings the question is if the EU will continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s destruction of their projects including schools, playgrounds and housing that have all fallen under demolition orders.
Both Umm al Khair and Susiya are in the process of court hearings to get permits for their buildings, but this hasn’t stopped the demolitions during the court process. Their only hope is the decision of the court to give villages the right to exist and permits for their housing, but currently it seems unlikely this will happen. We can only hope that pressure from the international community and opposition from inside Palestine will lead to the villages survival.
photo following the April demolitions in Umm al Khair Photo credits: Mairéad Nic Gabhann
19th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Kafr Qaddum, occupied Palestine
The people of Kafr Qaddum again tried protesting against the illegal Israeli military takeover of their village road, by attempting to march on it. Anticipating a demonstration, the Israeli Army and Border Police and Army moved into the village before the demonstration started. Border Police and Army soldiers blocked the way to the road to which people were planning to march, as well as set up snipers on the hills near the village.
Clashes broke out between them and Palestinian young men and youth, and the military fired rubber coated steel bullets.
After the demonstration began, people attempted to march to the main road, but the Border Police stood in the way and blocked the procession. Clashes then started again between them and the shebab, and they lasted for several hours.
The soldiers, in addition to rubber coated steel bullets, also fired high velocity teargas cannisters. Fired at a rapid speed and often aimed directly at people, they have maimed and killed in the past.
A military bulldozer was also brought in to try to extinguish burning tires that were set alight by some of the shebab. People began throwing rocks at it, and in response a stun grenade was thrown.
Despite the length and intensity of the clashes, fortunately no one was badly hurt or killed.
The struggle to regain the road, and to end the occupation that robs Palestinians in the village and elsewhere in the West Bank of their dignity and lives, continues.
Muhammad, a 15 year old boy, who was shot in the stomach by Israeli soldiers during clashes in early July.Palestinian villagers in Kufr Kaddum confront the Israeli ArmyIsraeli Border Police in Kufr Kaddum, ready to fire on the demonstrators.
Israeli military fires high velocity teargas cannisters in Kufr Kaddum.
12th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
This Friday, like every other Friday, was a day that many Palestinian Muslims go to the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to worship. It was also yet another day that the Israeli Army and Border Police chose to harass the people.
In the morning, we met shopkeepers who pointed out to us that the metal grates that had been installed in the market on the request of the Palestinians to protect the shopkeepers below from Israeli settlers who sometimes throw things down at them, had been removed by the Army. They did so for alleged security reasons, but the removal of the grates makes the shopkeepers vulnerable to increased harassment.
As people were going to pray, the Border Police were stopping many young men and ordering them to produce their identification and in some cases also empty their pockets. Sometimes they searched people one-by-one, forcing others to wait. One man was denied entry and forced to go back. The Border Police officers often spoke in a loud tone to the people, and forced some to stand against the wall.
Later that day, a group of Israeli soldiers were going on a patrol in the Souq. They entered three homes, not asking for permission from the families. When asked what they are doing, entering homes of Palestinians, they replied to the activists “it is none of your business” and also “we are doing our job”.
Such actions are nothing new in the patterns of harassment faced by Palestinians in Hebron at the hands of the Israeli Border Police and Army.
Israeli soldiers force Palestinian men to stand against the wall as they try to go to the mosque.
A metal grill that was installed to protect Palestinians from the Israeli settlers had been removed by the Israeli Army.Israeli soldiers enter a Palestinian home, one of the three they invaded that day.
Israeli Border Police harass Palestinians as on their way to pray in the mosque.
7th August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza-team | occupied Palestine
As every year during the summer, the water shortage in the Gaza Strip is accentuated. At the same time, the energy shortage caused by the blockade prevents engines and water pumps from pushing it from wells and tanks to houses and farming fields.
The Beach Camp is one of the more densely populated areas of Gaza and therefore one of the most affected by water scarcity. In addition, because of its location, directly on the seafront, its aquifers are some of the most affected by the infiltration of seawater and wastewater.
We collected several testimonies of people affected by this problem in order to discuss them with the engineer Monther Shoblak, General Director of the Palestinian National Authority Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU).
The first testimony is that of Azzam Miflah El Sheikh Khalil, who says “the water comes only once every three days, and just for a few hours, which is not enough [to fill the tanks]. People can’t imagine how we are suffering because of the lack of water. In addition, there is no difference between the water from our wells and the sea water… The main problem is that when there is electricity there’s no running water and when there is running water there’s no electricity . The only solution we have is to buy a generator to produce electricity when there’s water, but who can buy it if there is no work?”
Azzam El Sheikh Khalil
In the next block lives the Mokhtar Kamal Abu Riela, who stressed the same problem, “when there’s water there’s no electricity, and vice versa. Maybe once every four or five days we have water and electricity at the same time for a few hours. Every day we buy gasoline to run the generator the hours when there’s running water, but the economic situation of the people is very precarious and not everyone can spend 20 NIS a day on gas just to have water in the tanks. We spend more on gasoline than in electricity or water itself”.
We asked the Mokhtar if he remembers when that problem began “ten years ago or so, with the blockade”.
Finally Im Majed Miqdad explained the difficulties she and her large family are faced with in their day to day life due to water scarcity “there’s people who build underground tanks [as those can be filled without bombs] or who buy a generator operated with gasoline. But not everyone can afford these things. I’m one of those people who can not pay NIS 20-30 a day in gasoline to run the generator. Today, for example, in my home and in the homes of my four sons and their families we don’t have a drop of water, the four tanks are empty. We are waiting until running water and electricity will coincide in order to fill them. The situation is very hard, we have no water, we have no electricity, we have no work … If water and electricity would coincide at least three hours a day it would be enough to fill the tanks enough to spend the day. People must understand that when there is no water you can not use the bathroom, you can not take a shower, you can not clean the dishes, the house, the clothes … And here the families have five, six, ten members … we are not just two or three people in each house”.
Im Majed Miqdad, who is often left without water supply
Given the frequent complaints of the population the first thing that the engineer Monther Shoblak wants to explain is that the failures in the water supply are due to the power cuts and therefore they can’t control them. “It is impossible for us to match the running water with the electricity, as to carry water from one area to the other, motors and pumps are needed and those can’t operate without electricity. We can’t control it because we don’t know which bomb will fail and when”.
Mokhtar Kamal Abu Riela
However, he explains, the water problem in the Gaza Strip is more serious than that. “Indeed there is an over-exploitation of the aquifer in the Gaza Strip. This is because the coastal aquifer, which runs from Sinai to Yaffa and that is the only source of water available today in the Gaza Strip, has been nurtured historically by rainwater and by the water from the mountains of Al Khalil (Hebron) and the Naqab. However, for decades our neighbors [the zionists] have been building dams that prevent the water from following its natural course to Gaza, leaving rainwater as the sole source of the coastal aquifer. These dams are illegal, since they involve a violation of the conventional agreements on transboundary water sources. “
Because of these illegal practices of the zionist entity “the production capacity of Gaza’s aquifer has dropped to 55 million cubic meters a year. While the water demand of the Strip is 200 million cubic meters a year”.
This overexploitation is decreasing to an alarming point the level of the aquifer, causing seawater to seep and fill that vacuum, mixing with the fresh water and contaminating the aquifer. Additionally to this chloride contamination caused by seawater seeping into the aquifer, the water is contaminated by nitrates from leaking sewage and fertilizers. “These are more dangerous than chlorides, as they can’t be detected by smell or taste”.
The successive attacks on the Gaza Strip have severely affected the sewage systems and destroyed thousands of septic tanks, causing in many cases wastewater to end up in the acquifer.
In addition, due to the lack of resources of local authorities only 72% of Gaza is ecquiped with sewage systems, the rest depends on septic tanks that are built without supervision. “The occupation never provided the necessary services, such as mandated by international law. They didn’t build enough plants for wastewater treatment in order to protect the environment. If we look at the objective data it seems that their intention was just the opposite. These plants shouldn’t be built in sandy areas, to avoid leaks, and should have an exit to the sea to prevent overflow in case of emergency. However they built the main one in Beit Lahia, the sandiest area in Gaza and without exit to the sea. So when there is an overflow, which is quite common, wastewater inevitably ends up in the acquifer and contaminating farmlands in the area”.
Gaza water supplies
At the same time several cases of viral meningitis arose all along the Gaza Strip, with some mortal cases. Those seem to be caused by wastewater contamination. This situation has forced the local authorities to close many swimingpools and advice the people not to swim in the sea during the next weeks.
