International Solidarity Movement - Page 132 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Call to action: Olive Harvest 2016

9th September 2016 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine

At a time of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, the International Solidarity Movement is issuing an urgent call for volunteers to participate in the 2016 olive-harvest on the invitation of Palestinian communities.

The olive tree, a national symbol for Palestinians, is an affirmation of Palestinians historical connection to their lands. Israeli Forces and settlers have tried in numerous occasions to disrupt this special relationsship between the Palestinians and this thousand-year old crop. Thousands of olive trees have been bulldozed, uprooted and burned by Israeli settlers and the military, but Palestinians farmers refuse to be intimidated – under the Israeli occupation harvesting has become more than a source of livelihood; it has become a form of resistance.

Despite efforts by Israeli settlers and soldiers to prevent them from accessing their land, Palestinian communities have remained steadfast in refusing to give up their olive harvest.

Palestinian farmer and internationals discussing picking permit with Israeli forces.

In solidarity with Palestinians farmers, ISM volunteers help with the olive harvest each year. If you join ISM over the olive harvest you will work with other ISM’ers in Palestinian olive groves especially exposed to violence and harassment from Israeli settlers and military. Our presence can make a big difference. It has been proven in the past to deter the number and severity of attacks as well as harassment, hence supporting the Palestinians universal right to be and work on their lands. International solidarity activists engage in non-violent intervention and documentation and this practical support enables many families to pick their olives. In addition, The olive harvest also provides a wonderful opportunity to spend time with Palestinian families in their olive groves and homes, there is nothing like sipping tea under a olive tree after a long days work.

The harvest will begin in start-October and run until mid-November. We request a minimum 2 week commitment from volunteers but stress that long-termers are needed as well. We kindly ask that volunteers start arriving in the first week of October, so we are prepared when the harvest begins.

Training

The ISM will be holding mandatory two day training sessions which will run weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please contact palreports@gmail.com for further information.

Ongoing campaigns

In addition to the olive harvest, there will be opportunities to participate in grass-roots, non-violent resistance in Palestine.

ISM maintains a constant presence in Hebron, where settler harassment and violence is a regular occurrence. Lately, Israeli army violence has escalated for Palestinians living in proximity to the illegal inner-city settlement. Israeli forces have used the Palestinian neighborhoods for military training. Harassment, humiliations and violence is an almost daily occurrence. A valuable part of the ISM’s work in Hebron is to monitor checkpoints near Palestinian schools. In the morning and afternoon schoolchildren have to pass through the checkpoints, which often lead to violent situations. From time to time young Palestinian boys throw stones on the occupying forces, which leads to collective punishment by the Israeli Forces as they lob dozens of teargas canisters and stun grenades, onto the schoolchildren. ISM is present at these checkpoints to document these extremely violent responses to boys throwing pepples, and to serve as an protective presence.

ISM also has an apartment in Nablus from where we work on a number of projects including resisting demolitions in various villages, and supporting Palestinians resisting settler theft of their lands. In addition to these activities, we participate in the weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum, where protesters face excessive force by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

Come! Bear witness to the suffering, courage and generosity of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.

Experiencing the situation for yourself is vital to adequately convey the reality of life in Palestine to your home communities and to re-frame the debate in a way that will expose Israel’s apartheid policies; creeping ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem as well as collective punishment and genocidal practices in Gaza.

In Solidarity,

ISM Palestine

Letter of affirmation to Black Lives Matter

The world watches as Black and Brown bodies continue to be gunned down by a racialized, hyper-militarized US police force. And we are indignant.

We affirm Palestinian solidarity with Black liberation and support their struggle for the swift and long absent application of justice against police officers who commit heinous, extrajudicial murders of Black people and the systems that create and overpower policing systems.

We affirm Palestinian solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives as they protest in the streets against the rising count of marginalized bodies at the hands of police who kill with impunity. We further call for a complete disinvestment in weapons and the business of war and in investment in human rights of Black, Brown, indigenous and Palestinian people anywhere on this planet.

We affirm Palestinian solidarity with the families of the victims of racist police violence and with the communities that struggle to rebuild after these murders.

As Palestinians continue to live under and resist the Israeli occupation, siege, and racial violence by an army that trains the US police force, border control, and homeland security agencies, we affirm our intersectionality and our common struggle with The Movement for Black Lives.

We who believe in Freedom will not rest.

Palestinian solidarity with Black liberation.

Your struggle is our struggle
‪#‎SayTheirNames‬ #‎BlackLivesMatter‬ #NoDAPL

In solidarity

The Nabi Saleh committee against the wall and settlements
African community old city Jerusalem
The Bil’in committee against the wall and settlements
The Hebron Defence Committee
International Solidarity Movement Palestine
The One democratic state group – Gaza
Palestinian student campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel
Youth against Settlements

First day in Al-Khalil

6th September 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Today was my first full day as an ISM’er in Al-Khalil (Hebron).

A regular part of our work is to monitor Israeli checkpoints beside schools in the mornings since the teachers ask for an international presence. Often there can be problems with violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian children. Another reason ISM is there, is to count the number of school children using the checkpoint, to see how many children are suffering from this daily stress, which sadly, is part of normal life under the occupation. The data we collect is passed on to NGOs who collects data on children in the whole of Palestine. It is necessary for children living in the H2 area to pass through this checkpoint to reach their school. The Palestinian children are often subjected to intimidation and harassment as they are searched in claustrophobic rooms within the highly militarized structures. This morning i was monitoring Qeitun checkpoint with two other ISM’ers.

Around 120 children, mostly boys, passed through the checkpoint in the first half an hour. There were clearly armed Israeli solders stationed in heavily armored towers overlooking the checkpoint, creating an intimidating atmosphere. There was an older Palestinian man encouraging the children to go through the checkpoint as a few of them were nervously waiting in front of them. In the midst of our counting of children we heard shouting from around the corner and saw a group of Palestinian children being chased by heavily armed Israeli border police, although we were in H1, out of Israeli jurisdiction. A few of the children thew stones towards the invading border police and before we knew what happened a soldier lobbed a stun grenade directly at the children. This grenade exploded a few metres in front of the children standing at an entrance to a junior school. I was down the street but the loud noise really reverberated through my body and sent my heart racing. It was the first time I had experienced this kind of weapon and moments after, I was still terrified. The grenade sent the children fleeing in all directions and one of them dropped his school bag. An Israeli soldier stole his bag and took it with him. As he walked past us an ISM activist asked him “why have you taken his school bag?’, the soldier muttered “to check it”. Of course this was a lie as they did not open it and I found it infuriating that heavily armed, grown men would steal the school bag of a child as some sort of immature intimidation technique.

Some minutes later few stones were thrown from the top of a building, neither us or the Israeli border police could see who was throwing them, but the border police responded with yet more stun grenades. One of the soldiers was incompetently rushing to throw so many that he missed one and it bounced off the building towards him- and it sent him scampering away. By this point there were very few children left in the street and they were hundreds of meters away from the checkpoint. But the altercation had clearly infuriated the border police and they began launching scores of tear gas canisters down the street at the remaining children. We were ushered inside a school by some teachers as we were very close to where the canisters landed. It was terrifying to hear the loud pop of the canisters launching and not knowing if they were about to land on top of you. They are heavy steel cylinders and a direct hit, especially on your head, would do some serious damage- never mind the gas that stops the children breathing and burns their eyes. In all we counted at least 6 stun grenades and 16 tear gas canisters used by the Israeli border police against the unarmed Palestinian school children. The teachers in the school told us that this was a regular occurrence and asked how they could teach students with this going on as it not only disrupts lessons and scares children in the school, but it also stops many children from attending in the first place.

It is clear to me that the soldier’s actions were not in self defense, as they had heavily defended battlements in which to remain in. Instead they choose to escalate the violence by attacking the children in order to assert their dominance and intimidate the children. My experiences of Al-Khalil thus far have proven that the occupation and militarization of large parts of the city are not for the purposes of ‘security’, as the Palestinians here are friendly and welcoming to all religions and everyone. Instead the soldiers aim to harass Palestinians and disrupt their way of life as much as they can, meaning that a normal childhood and opportunity to focus on their education is impossible.

By ISM-activist; “Hugh”

video: Border Police steals Palestinians schoolbag

Israeli attacks on Gaza farmers

3rd September 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Khan Younis, occupied Palestine

According to the Council for European Palestinian Relations the Palestinian agricultural sector’s contribution to the GDP dropped between 1993 (Oslo Accords) and 2009 from 13% to 4.8%, due to the illegal practices of the zionist entity, such as land theft, confiscation of water resources and control over exports.

During the successive aggressions against the coastal enclave, military bulldozers and Israeli tanks razed thousands of hectares of agricultural land, uprooting fruit trees and olive groves, destroying greenhouses and water wells in addition to bombing agricultural infrastructre with drones and warplanes. However, in Gaza, periods between wars are not much more peaceful for the peasants, as farmers from Khan Younis governorate, one of the most attacked by snipers and Israeli bulldozers can testify: “There is hardly any water and the water we have is salty. The option is to buy fresh water, but besides being too expensive its supply is almost nonexistent, we have only about 8 hours of electricity a day … how can we work, without electricity or water?”

Farmer showing gas canister that was shot by Israeli forces against his tractor

Mohamed A. T. adds, “We’re finally paying the zionists for the water that they rob us! But what choice do we have if our wells are salty and in many areas (within the so-called Buffer Zone) we are not even allowed to build wells. “

Additionally to the problem with water and electricity there are constant attacks on farmers by Israeli snipers and periodic incursions of military bulldozers to raze agricultural land. “My lands are relatively close to the fence, so I can not set foot in them between 6 pm and 6 am without getting shot at. What I can do if the electricity does not come before 6 pm? I have to leave my land without watering, risking the loss of the crop”.

Israeli sniper shooting against the farmers

Another obstacle that farmers in Gaza must overcome is the blockade, which prevents the entry of fertilizers and pesticides, increasing even more production costs and reducing, even more, productivity. “The blockade also prevents us from exporting, even to the West Bank. All these problems are destroying the economy of the peasants … we are all in debt. We all have debts with the municipality, with the water company, the electricity company. The lack of water and electricity is the final blow that’s killing us”.

After the latest massive attacks, Gaza’s farmers are afraid to re-invest in their land, as they know that in a future aggression these will be targeted again by the Israeli army. “Gaza survives thanks to charity… that’s the truth. It ‘s what our enemy wants for us. We hope that the people from Europe, America, Asia… listens to us and help us to end the blockade. Why they target peasants? We’re just normal people. Don’t we have the right to live in peace?”

Military bulldozers destroying agricultural land

Achieving education under occupation

31st August 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

The 28th of August 2016, a new school year in occupied Palestine has started after a 3-month summer holiday. In the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestinian children living in the H2-area, under full Israeli military control, are posed with a maze of checkpoints they have to navigate through back and forth from school.

In the area near the Ibrahimi mosque, a cluster of schools is located past the newly-‘renovated’ Salaymeh and Queitun checkpoints. In the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, that was formerly a closed military zone for several months, in addition to the checkpoints there’s a staircase closed by the Israeli forces and the ever-present threat of attacks, carried out by settlers from the nearby illegal settlements. These three checkpoints share the new layout of highly militarized and fenced off checkpoints. Usually only one person at a time is allowed to access the ‘box’ where ID-checks, bag-searches, questioning and humiliation takes place. Any other person trying to pass the checkpoint in the meantime is forced to wait behind a locked turnstile, that Israeli forces arbitrarily decide to keep locked to make people wait for an unknown amount of time.

Children forced to persuade soldiers to open the checkpoint-gate at Shuhada checkpoint

Around the Salaymeh and Queitun checkpoints, students, teachers and residents of the area additionally face tear gas that Israeli forces shoot from their comfort-zones at the checkpoints, often straight towards the schools. This form of collective punishment affects not only all the schools, but the whole neighborhood, when tear gas clouds linger in the streets. On Monday afternoon, when kids made their way home from school through Salaymeh checkpoint, Israeli forces shot a total of 10 tear gas canisters towards a group of boys throwing pebbles at the highly militarized and barricaded checkpoint, leaving many students choking from the supposedly ‘less-lethal’ gas. Wednesday morning, at Queitun checkpoint, 4 tear gas canisters were fired by the Israeli forces, at least one of which was directed horizontally at the children – in direct contradiction to instructions to shoot the ‘less-lethal’ gas in an arch over the head of persons in order to avoid serious injury and death of persons. Shooting in a straight line at the children, Israeli forces deliberately risk to hit a child with these extremely fast and thus dangerous canisters, that already have caused serious injuries and death of Palestinians in occupied Palestine.

Children running away from tear gas shot by Israeli Forces at Salaymeh checkpoint

On Thursday, Israeli forces locked the Ibrahimi Mosque checkpoint, entirely denying students and teachers passing in any direction access to their schools, without prior notice.

This is only the first week of school for children in Palestine, but Israeli forces are already using their routine harassment, intimidation and possibly deadly violence against children resisting this illegal and vicious occupation by the simple fact that despite the increasing efforts of the Israeli forces to make them disappear, they strive to achieve a good education.