International Solidarity Movement

by Lilly

Six hours. This is how long Palestinians have to wait before they can pass the “terminal” at Tarqumia in the West Bank, which leads either into Israel or, eventually on to the Gaza Strip. The soldiers at the checkpoint deny this. “All they need is permission from the District Coordination Office (DCO, the civil administration wing of the Israeli military in the occupied Palestinian territories) and ID-papers and they’ll get through in one minute,” says Schlomo, who is the commander at the checkpoint.

Already at three o’clock in the morning the Palestinian workers arrive at the checkpoint. At best they can pass at nine into Israel with their goods, or onto Gaza via Erez or Karni, the two possible crossings into the Strip.

Those who want to visit family members who are imprisoned in Israel also come to the checkpoint. Most of Israel’s prisons are in Negev desert in the south and no matter where you live in the West Bank, you have to pass through the checkpoint in Tarqumia. At five in the morning the visitors arrive. It is not until twelve midday that they can continue to visit their loved ones after submitting to humiliating security procedures and routine strip searches.

“It’s a lie,” says Hasan, one of the soldiers, but changes his mind as soon as he sees us writing. Symbolically he holds his hand in front of his mouth and then says that it’s not a lie at all, and that he cannot speak about this matter. His colleague Schlomo says, “All that’s necessary is permission from DCO and ID-papers and they’ll get through in one minute.”

Permission is needed from the DCO, to be able to visit the prisons. The families have to wait several months before permission is granted. Unsurprisingly, the information given to us by Palestinians about their experience at the checkpoint conflicts with the soldier’s version.

“Two days ago I saw a person who had been handcuffed, both hand and foot. They forced him to lie with his head on the ground and with his mouth open and then forced a gun in his mouth,” says Asam, who owns a car repair shop nearby.

The checkpoint was built ten years ago and was then called as such. It was expanded two years ago into a more developed control system, and the Occupation Forces started referring to it as a “terminal”. Now, Israel has new ideas for how the “terminal” should function, which in practice means Palestinians will have to wait at the checkpoint for three days before they can go through. A system like that would be devastating for the Palestinian economy, which already is almost non-existent.

In the town Idhna, a couple of kilometers from Tarqumia, 17,000 out of a total of 36,000 dunums have already been confiscated. 2,100 people live in Idhna and they are completely dependent on their land to survive. In 2005, 3000 dunums were stolen from the village when Israel started to build the wall. On the other side of the wall there are 7000 olive trees that belong to the citizens of Idhna. They can’t get to their land. Fifty wells have been either destroyed or made inaccessible at the same time as the wall was being built. The wells are on land behind the wall.

Five thousand dunums have already been stolen to establish a “buffer zone” in front of the wall. Buffer zones are established to make sure Palestinians will not be able to get close to the wall. The remaining 9000 dunums are behind the wall.

“Missiles have not been stopped by the wall. We are no fools. We know the wall is being built by Israel because they want to steal our land and transfer the people that live here,” says Jamal, the mayor of Idhna. Twenty families have ended up on the other side of the wall. Contact with the village is difficult. “It will get worse when the wall is finished. To get to their houses, they have to ride on donkeys. There are no roads to where they live anymore. They have been destroyed by Israel,” Jamal continues. The families are being threatened with house demolitions if they refuse to move off their land.

There have been one hundred deaths in Idhna since 1956, as a result of attacks by both Israeli army and settlers. Many people have been injured, but despite the difficult situation, Jamal only wants the occupation to end and for Palestinians to be able to live in freedom.

“We want peace between Palestinians and Israelis. We don’t want people to die.”

Notes

• Four dunums equals one acre, and can also be quantified as 1,000 meters squared.
• Checkpoints take many forms, and can be either permanent, partial (an established checkpoint operating periodically) or ‘flying’ (temporary roadblocks enforced by one or two Israeli military jeeps). At a checkpoint, Israeli soldiers check Palestinian ID papers against lists of “wanted” persons, and search cars, packages and persons. Checkpoints have been established so that Israel can control Palestinian movement within the West Bank and at the borders of the Gaza Strip.
• “Terminals” are a more recent phenomenon and amount to an attempt by Israel to unilaterally enforce permanent borders. They are essentially upgraded checkpoints, built to look like international border crossings or airport terminals. They are sometimes placed near the internationally recognised Green Line border, but more often they encroach on Palestinain territory as in this case between Tarqumia and Israel. One of the most notorious of these new “terminals”, Qalandia checkpoint actually divides Palestinian Jerusalem from Palestinian Ramallah. There is a similar checkpoint on the way to Bethlehem from Ramallah. The Occupation authorities claim this change was to make life easier for the Palestinians passing through the new “terminals”, and point to extra lanes and better facilities added to what were once shoddy structures. But in practice, the extra lanes are rarely opened and the better facilities simply allow for better crowd control and serve to distance the soldiers from the human face of their victims. Through the more permanent nature of these structures Israel is seeking to create “facts on the ground”, driving out all hope of a two state solution.
• District Coordination Office, DCO – Created as a result of the Oslo Accords and originally consisting of both Israeli authorities and Palestinian Authority representatives. At the start of the Al-Aqsa intifada, Israel kicked out the PA. The DCOs are now essentially no different from the old, notorious Civil Administration wing of the Israeli Occupation Forces.

by Palestine Solidarity Project

On September 21, 2006, in the village of Al-Jab’a, Palestinian and international activists partially removed an earth mound roadblock that separates the Palestinian village of Al-Jab’a from the Palestinian village of Surif.

In 2002, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) created the illegal roadblock to prevent the villagers of Surif and the villagers of Al’Jab’a from commuting back and forth by car. The roadblock consists of dirt, large stones, at least five massive boulders, and more than nine 2-5 ton concrete slabs and blocks. Presently, Palestinians seeking to reach their village from the neighboring village are forced to approach the barrier by car, unload their goods and crops over the roadblock, and repack them into a car located on the other side of the barrier. While this restriction is extremely difficult to navigate, there are multiple other problems. The barrier is built at the junction of a Palestinian road and a settler-only road leading towards the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, and in the opposite direction towards Bethlehem, Hebron or Jerusalem. This road leads towards many colonial settlements, and it is partially for this reason that Palestinians are prevented from crossing it via car.

Not only does the earth mound roadblock prevent Palestinians from traveling within the occupied West Bank, and farmers from transporting their crops from field to market, it also prevents local students from attending secondary school. Daily, students from the village of Jab’a must travel to Surif to study. They must make this long journey by foot because the roadblock prevents buses and service taxis from crossing the settler road to the adjacent village. In Jab’a, the school serves students until around age 11. When the students reach twelve years of age, they must go to the older children’s’ school in Surif. With the road block in place, this simple journey is grueling and slow.

Because of these crimes committed by the Occupation, the villagers of Jab’a and Surif, joined with international activists to demonstrate in front of the road block, on the shoulder of the settler-only road. The demonstrators marched from the village of Al-Jab’a holding signs reading, “I Dream of Freedom for My Children,” “Settlers Create Apartheid,” and “You Steal Freedom.” Upon reaching the roadblock, demonstrators held the signs for the view of passing settler cars, and, others began to remove the roadblock with shovels and their hands. The demonstrators used the shovels to carry away the dirt and used their hands to move the rocks. Using a metal pipe as a lever, the demonstrators were able to remove one concrete slab prior to the arrival of IOF soldiers and border police.

After approximately 45 minutes, IOF border police and soldiers arrived. Within minutes of the arrival of the first armored police jeep, it was joined by two armored military jeeps. In total, two border police and more than eight soldiers took positions to monitor the action. After a few minutes they approached the demonstrators with a statement written in Hebrew and two maps marked in pen, also in Hebrew. They explained that the road, the roadblock and the adjacent villages were “closed military zones,” and that internationals were not allowed to be present. After some questioning, this answer changed, and the activists were told that both Palestinians and internationals were not permitted to be present near the roadblock or the road. The soldiers informed the peaceful crowd that if they did not leave immediately, they would be arrested. After listening to the IOF’s threats, the demonstrators returned to work removing the roadblock. During this exchange with the IOF, several cars carrying colonist settlers stopped to shout insults or to inquire about the situation. Throughout the action, many settlers slowed to read the signs, and to occasionally shout profanities at the non-violent demonstrators.

After partially removing the roadblock, the Palestinian village committee decided to disperse and return to the village and the Palestinians and internationals marched back up to Al-Jab’a. This is the first direct action to be undertaken jointly by the Surif and Al-Jab’a local committees and PSP. In the future, the demonstrators hope to return to the roadblock and further open the road, allowing for the free passage of Palestinians from village to village.

For more information on the Palestine Solidarity Project, please contact palestine_project@yahoo.com or visit the website at: palestinesolidarityproject.wordpress.com

by Palestine Solidarity Project

On September 20, 2006, in the village of Beit Ommar, activists with the Palestine Solidarity Project visited the farmland of Abu Jaber and his brother Abu Sameer. This is the third time that activists with the Project have met with the farmers to document damage done to their land by nearby Israeli colonial settlers.

Three months ago, international activists began meeting with Abu Jaber and Abu Sameer, though attacks on their land date back many years. These activists previously visited the farmers in July and August of this year. On September 15th 2006, five days prior to PSP’s visit, Abu Jaber and Abu Sameer’s land was once again attacked by settlers from Bat Ayin. These attacks have become more frequent as the olive harvest approaches, and presently, the land is attacked nearly twice per week.

Typically, when the settlers come to the land, they cut olive and plum trees, and grape vines. They uproot trees from the earth and throw stakes and plants into nearby bushes. Olives, plums and grapes are picked from the trees and stolen, while some crops are thrown to the ground to decay in the sun or to be eaten by illegally grazing settler livestock.

While at the activist’s last visit similar destruction was photographed, videotaped and documented, on this visit, the damage had increased. More plants had been destroyed, more crops had been stolen and more of the farming infrastructure had been removed and mangled.

For several years prior to the attacks in 2006, Abu Jaber and Abu Sameer have been attempting to litigate against this problem through the Palestinian Land Defense Committee, which joins Israeli and Palestinian lawyers to aid farmers in trouble. As of now, this attempt to seek justice through the Israeli court system has been fruitless. This experience is common for Palestinians seeking to have their grievances addressed through the legal system of the Occupation. The nature of the Occupation creates parallel and unequal legal systems for Palestinians and Israelis seeking to solve their problems through the court. Had Abu Jaber attacked the farm land of the Bat Ayin settlement, the Apartheid court system would have likely fined and imprisoned him, though when the situation is reversed, nothing happens and the racist nature of the Occupation courts is made apparent.

For more information on the Palestine Solidarity Project, please contact palestine_project@yahoo.com or visit the website at: palestinesolidarityproject.wordpress.com