27th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gal·la | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Charlie Andreasson, a member of Ship to Gaza Sweden, explains the new Gaza Ark project of this year 2013. The several unsuccessful attempts to break the siege on Gaza, imposed by Israel, from the outside to the inside made the activists think about this project which is based on breaking the siege from within. We wish all the best in this time. Free Palestine!
20th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Azzun Atma, Occupied Palestine
UPDATE 21th June: This morning, the 21st of June villagers from Azzun Atma gathered at the school where construction for the new wall started three days earlier. The villagers performed midday prayers together before marching around the school on to the land that bulldozers had worked on. They then hung Palestinian flags on the mesh barbed fence standing between the school land and the settlement of Sha’are Tiqva to signal their definance to the latest of a continuing policy of land theft, encroachment, isolation and deprivation of their lives by the Israeli occupation forces.
*******
On the 18th of June, two bulldozers arrived with Israeli forces in the village of Azzun Atma, southeast of Qalqilya, and began to work on the land behind the village’s school, to what is believed to be the construction of the new wall.
Accompanying the bulldozers to the village was the Israeli army and border police, including the local Israeli army commander who said the action was based on a High Court decision by the Israeli government. He said it was in order to protect their citizens, and if anybody tried to stop the construction, they would then close the gate to the village, the only way in and out.
Two weeks prior to this, the Israeli army put up signs stating that this is where the construction of the new wall would begin. The villagers fear that this new construction is being done in order to replace the current two metre barbed mesh fence that surrounds the village from all sides and separates it from the settlements nearby, with the concrete wall. The wall’s existence and constant deviation from the Green Line is justified by the Israeli authorities by citing security concerns for its citizens, in this case the illegal settler colonisers in the area.
Azzun Atma is located two kilometres east of the Green Line and encompassed on three sides by the current wall, constructed in 2002, which leaves the village within a settlement block and separates it from the rest of the West Bank. The only way in and out of the village is through a military checkpoint with a small gate. The village is thus stranded in the “seam zone” between the Green Line and the wall, surrounded by settlements, placing it under full Israeli military control. There is another checkpoint into the other side of the Green Line that people with work permits may cross, though there is a constant threat of the gate being closed and work permits being denied. Access to and from the village, therefore, is dictated by the Israeli military.
Palestinians living in the “seam zone” require permanent resident permits from the Israeli authorities to live in their own homes and work on their land. There are often few health and education services available in the “seam zone”, and those living inside it have to rely on checkpoints being open to reach workplaces and essential services.
The school where the construction is taking place has provided education for 300 children in Azzun Atma and a neighbouring village since 1966. Every day, the current wall and checkpoint restricts the freedom of movement of teachers and students. The school has so far lost one dunum of land to the wall and the septic system faces demolition orders.
When the second wall is constructed, Azzun Atma will be isolated from the rest of the West Bank by the already existing wall (see the red line on the map) and the new wall which will further close off the village from the settlement block and the rest of the West Bank (see the black line on the map).
In 1982, the Israeli authorities established two illegal settlements: Oranit to the northwest and Sha’are Tiqva to the northeast of Azzun Atma. The settlements have expanded over the years, and more than 2500 dunums of the village’s land have been stolen by them. Sha’are Tiqva now comes within metres of Azzun Atma, and since 2005, villagers have been subject to verbal harassment from settlers. The wall, though purported to be a security measure, is essentially another way for the Israeli government to steal land from their Palestinian owners and isolate villages and cities from each other, turning them into easily controllable cantons.
Isolating people and making daily life as hard as possible under occupation is a tactic used by the Israeli authorities to force villagers to leave their land and homes. However, residents of Azzun Atma remain steadfast in their land and will continue to resist the land theft, isolation and deprivation of their lives by organising protests.
17th June 2013 | International Women’s Peace Service | Asira al Qibliya , Occupied Palestine
UPDATE 19th June: Settlers from the illegal settlement of Yizhar again attacked the water reservoir project in Asira. At 4pm on the 19th of June fifty settlers, accompanied by over thirty Israeli soldiers trespassed onto village land and attacked locals working on the site. The workers left the project immediately, but the settlers and army remained in the area until 8pm. The army threatened to arrest concerned locals and international activists, stating that the area was now a closed military zone. Tear gas was shot at villagers who stood observing the scene. A number of villagers have noted an increased military presence around the village, with training exercises taking place nearby the past three mornings.
UPDATE 18th June: The illegal settler continue their attacks on the village of Asira. Yesterday (18 June) they burnt the power/electricity switch box of the water reservoir project. Apart from the immediate labour and financial costs, such criminalities aim to further block Palestinian access to their water.
*******
In the evening of Sunday 16 June, a gang of illegal settler colonisers, accompanied by some 30 Israeli soldiers, attacked the small group of Palestinian men who were working on a water project in the village of Asira, south of Nablus. The settlers threw stones while the army threw stun grenades and fired tear gas at the workers and the villagers who had gathered at the site to protect them. The attackers then told the workers that they “must leave the area”.
Such criminal activities against the workers are committed almost daily in Asira. Even despite the fact that the project they are working on – building a water reservoir and a pipe to connect the surrounding villages of Madama, Burin, and Asira, to a water source – has a building permit, they are not allowed to do their work uninterrupted by violence from the illegal settler colonisers and the Israeli army, who have also destroyed some 100 pipes originally bought for the project.
Asira [al Qibliya] is an ancient village with the current population of 3,500. West of the village Roman ruins are still visible; before the Romans the territory was inhabited by the Phoenicians and the Canaanites.
Tradition has it that at the beginning of spring, the villagers of Asira would gather for celebrations on a hill close to the village, which according to Islam is a holy site. Among other festivities, they would play with brightly coloured eggs: one who cracks an egg against another’s, wins.
In mid-1980s, the illegal settler colony of Yitzhar was established on that very hilltop. That was the end of the Palestinian spring celebrations, and the beginning of Asira’s land and, crucially, water theft. Before the colony, the area was the locals’ breadbasket, thanks largely to its generous water resources. The nearby natural spring used to be Asira’s main source of water; the illegal settler colony, backed up by the Israeli government and the army, has completely blocked Palestinian access to the spring. Since then, villagers are forced to rely on water tanks; one such tank costs NIS 130 (US $36) in a place where unemployment is high; it is enough for a family for only a week. In this context, water theft is yet another method intended to drive the indigenous population off their land.
Residents of the illegal Israeli settler colony of Yitzhar are considered to be among the most violent in occupied Palestine; they physically attack Palestinian villagers (oftentimes children), set their land and property on fire, destroy houses, and cut or burn olive trees together with other vital sources of livelihood. “[The illegal settler colony of Yitzhar] is like a cancer in the heart of this area,” a local resident told IWPS. “… And in our hearts.”
19th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Israeli settlers in the Wadi al-Hussein valley neighborhood of occupied Khalil (Hebron) have begun building a new road on land owned by a Palestinian family. The road will be around four meters wide and lead to the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba which is above the valley. When completed it will split two olive groves.
The work on the new road began at around 11am as settlers arrived, accompanied by bulldozers and Israeli soldiers and police. Initially, the settlers made a tent and planted their flag, as if doing that could overturn generations of Palestinian ownership of this plot of land. Soldiers also blocked off a portion of the main road and bulldozers dug holes in the ground. A truck full of Israeli recording equipment has also been present on the scene.
The family who own the land were outside watching this happen. Israeli colonizers tried to build this road three weeks ago, claiming they had a court order authorizing it, but were met by widespread resistance and were unable to provide a copy of the court order. See details here. Building continued for the following days.
15th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Qusra, Occupied Palestine
The night of Saturday, 15 June, Israeli settlers continued a tradition of violence and harassment against the Palestinian village of Qusra.
Late at night, settlers from Esh Kodesh, the nearby settlement, trespassed upon Palestinian private property, damaged five olive trees, destroyed part of a building and took two support poles from it. Several olive trees had trunks completely severed and some had branches cut off. Twenty such buildings, which serve agricultural purposes, were donated by a foreign European government to Qusra in May 2013. Because the houses are located in Area C (under complete Israeli military and civil control), they were declared illegal by Israeli authorities last week. A legal decision regarding their demolition is set to be decided in an Israeli court on an unknown date.
Qusra, a Palestinian village in Nablus Governorate of approximately 4,500 people that is hundreds if not thousands of years old, is no stranger to settler violence and harassment. The most infamous incidences of settler violence in Qusra occurred in September 2011, when a mosque in Qusra was vandalized and targeted for arson by extremist Israeli settlers, gaining international attention. Later the same month, a group of settlers invaded the village and when they met resistance, Israeli soldiers intervened, shooting and killing Essam Badran, a 35-year-old Palestinian man.
Last February, several people from Qusra were injured and hospitalised following a settler attack in the village. A sixteen year-old boy was shot in the forehead with a rubber coated steel bullet by soldiers and had to go through surgery. Additionally, Helmi Abdul Azeez Hassan (26) was shot with live ammunition in the chest by settlers and spent nine days unconscious in Hadassa hospital in Israel.
Despite all this, the people of Qusra will continue to resist settler harassment and violence and have plans to build a school and mosque in honor of the martyr Essam.
