Jane’s Journal

Jane’s Journal

Demonstration
I came back from Hebron to go to the Bil’in demo which happens every week on Fridays. Last Friday a delegation of foreign diplomats from about 8 European countries visited Bil’in and met with the Popular Committee. Apparently they observed the demonstration but I didn’t see them. Some people felt the Israeli soldiers were on their best behaviour because of this. This didn’t stop them arresting 3 Israeli’s, 1 foreign journalist and Harrison from ISM, hitting another journalist in the back of the neck with a rubber bullet and injuring two Gush Shalom peace campaigners from bits flying off sound bombs and stun grenades. It didn’t stop the soldiers gripping their clubs like they were ready to beat the shit out of you but perhaps it did stop them doing it. I’m more scared of the clubs than the rubber bullets. The Israeli activists were arrested for being in a closed military zone and damaging Israeli Defence Force (IDF) property. The military can decide anywhere in the West Bank is a closed military zone and invariably do when there’s a demonstration. At the Bil’in demo’s people often bang the metal rail of the wall/annexation fence with stones which makes a loud ringing tone. This can lead to the accusation of damaging IDF property. It’s so kafkaesque in the context of the damage to the land caused by the fence that looks like an enormous scar across the beautiful landscape and the damage to people caused by the soldiers brutality. After Harrison was arrested he was accused of attacking the soldiers. Again a very common accusation when the Israeli Police or military get their hands, clubs, boots on a Palestinian or international. All were realeased later that day. Harrison signed a paper that means he can’t go near the wall/annexation fence at Bil’in for 15 days.

The villagers processed to the wall/annexation fence carrying a large metal pot, empty of food, with a child in it. This symbolised the hunger Palestinians are experiencing caused both by the annexation fence and the with holding of tax revenue since the election of Hamas. Lack of food and money caused by the annexation of their land which falls on the other side of the wall/fence on which villagers grow olive trees, graze sheep and goats, plant vegetables, gather wild herbs and wood. Lack of work and money caused by the wall/annexation fence being another huge barrier to travelling to work and the transportation of goods and materials from place to place. The wall is a malevolent tool for wrecking what’s left of the Palestinian economy. Baraket told me he has a permit for working in Israel but since the demonstrations started in Bil’in he hasn’t risked using it. This is because it’s very likely that when passing into Israel and showing his permit, a soldier will confiscate his permit as punishment for the protests. His permit lasts till 2009 and he’s thinking it will be better to keep hold of it for possible use in the years to come. At the moment he has work 1 or 2 days a week. Mohammed Khatib and his brothers explained that economic aid is only available for short term projects. There’s even a US Aid project that doesn’t pay wages but just gives people food in return for their labour. No one will fund a self sustaining project that will provide long term jobs. People in Bil’in are living day to day.

The people of Bil’in say they are facing another wall that is causing hunger, the International Community threatening to withdraw aid and allowing Israel to with hold Palestinian taxes. Did you know that Palestinians pay VAT on things they buy in shops in the occupied territories and road taxes to Israel. A percentage of this has to be returned to the Palestinian Authority by international agreement. It’s this money that Israel is refusing to release since the election of Hamas. It’s Palestinian money, paid by Palestinians, in Palestinian occupied territories.

On the moring of the demonstration the Israeli’s closed the gate at the wall/fence which now prevents Palestinian vehicals driving to the outpost. During the demonstration villagers tried to construct a bridge of peace over the closed gate that was seperating the two people, the Palestinians and the Israelis. When Israel builds a wall, Bil’in will build a bridge.

Drowning

Today is not the first of the rain. Three nights ago it absolutely poured down, Thunder rolled across the countryside, lightening flashed in the window of the hut at the outpost. I kept waking up with a start, thinking the soldiers had come and the flash of light was the hummers headlights. As the rain stopped, Ashraf, Chris and I didn’t realise that the construction of the wall/fence had caused a damning effect, leading to the river in the valley rising and then swooshing over the bridge on the Palestinian road carrying away 2 brothers in their car. One brother was found alive and taken to hospital. The other brother Eyad Taha’s dead body was found entangled in the wire mesh of the wall/fence, half a mile downstream. His body was eventually recovered from the water, his body was carried back the half mile to the ambulance, his arms and hands jutting out from his body.

I need to head back to the Bil’in Outpost now. More later…

Everyday resistance

by: Alys a member of IWPS (The International Womens Peace Service) Prologue By ISM media

Palestinian child in Tel Rumeida

Hebron, a city in the southern part of the West Bank, is unique in that the settlements, inhabited by fanatical Zionists, are located right within Palestinian neighborhoods. The proximity of the settlements and the often violent and abusive behavior of the settlers, makes life extremely difficult for the Palestinians whose homes now fall into H2, the Israeli-controlled area.

The population of Tel Rumeida settlement, along with the three other settlements located in the Old City (Beit Hadassa, Avraham Avinu and Beit Romano), totals around 500, yet results in approximately 4,000 soldiers being stationed there. The daily lives of Palestinians are severely disrupted by both the settlers and the military.

Tel Rumeida settlement, which began in 1984 with six mobile homes/caravans occupying Palestinian land, has continued to expand, with the settlers using any means necessary in their attempts to drive the Palestinians away from their homes and land. In 1998 the Israeli government officially approved the settlement and in 2001 the Israeli Defence Ministry gave a permit to build 16 housing units. Without the support — financial and military — of the Israeli government, it would be hard, if not impossible, for the settlement to continue.

The settlers are extremely hostile, on many occasions violent and abusive. The forms of violence include throwing stones and rocks, spitting and physically attacking Palestinians, sometimes resulting in broken bones. The settlers are free to wander the streets with guns slung over their backs. Their armed presence and near impunity before the law means they wield great power.

For the Palestinian families whose homes are now spitting distance — literally — from the settlements, their refusal to move, to be driven out, is a daily form of resistance. It is a resistance which takes courage,determination, and strength.

Shabbat. A beautiful spring day. Two teenage boys walking casually down the deserted main street. In another place, in another life, maybe a different story. But here they are armed settlers. Teenage boys, indoctrinated with fanatical religious beliefs, guns slung over their backs. A street that had formally been a thriving, bustling market. Now not a single shop remains open and only a handful of Palestinian families remain living there.

And for the Palestinians there is much to negotiate. For the families who now have the settlers living right next to them, on their land, even leaving the house is an ordeal. Not only risking being attacked, spat at, verbally abused, but also some are no longer free to walk down the street to reach their house.

Three small girls on their way home from school help each other climb over razor wire which blocks their way home. No longer able to walk down the street, the only route left to them — a narrow, rough track cut into the hills — is now blocked by razor wire.

I was shocked walking through the deserted Old City, once a thriving Palestinian market area, now a ghost of its former self. Wire meshing above my head. A net strung across the alleyway to catch the rubbish thrown by the settlers — toilet paper, rotting vegetables, lumps of concrete.

The journey to school not only involves negotiating the checkpoints, but also the settlers. Internationals are involved in the ‘school patrols,’ strategically positioned along the route to school (and indeed some remaining in the school itself) intervening when necessary. Getting between the settlers and the Palestinian children they are throwing stones at. Hopefully helping the journey to school be less of an ordeal. And throughout the afternoon being a visible presence on the streets, complete with video cameras. The camera not only documenting, but also acting as a deterrent.

H2, the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron, is an intense, crazy place. Resistance takes many forms. Refusing to be driven from your home is an act of resistance. Playing football in the street, laughing, having even a fraction of trust in strangers — all these are forms of resistance. I was touched by the strength of the Palestinians as they sought to maintain their day to day lives
and humanity in the face of such hostility and insanity.

Prologue:
On Saturday the 1st of April, Silvana Hogg a Swiss human rights worker with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was assaulted by an Israeli settler in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. This follows on from the previous Saturday when Brian Morgan, an America human rights worker with the Tel Rumeida Project, was attacked by a mob of 20 Jewish settlers while a nearby Israeli soldier ignored repeated pleas for help. Bith required stiches to the head.

Silvana was accompanying Palestinian school children on their way home when the attack happened about 5 meters from a small Israeli army outpost. Three eyewitnesses to the assault went into the Israeli police station wwith a photograph of the settler ofeender and made statements. Silvana herself went to make a statement the next day. The Police are yet to get back to Silvana about the attack.

Both Silvana and Brian regularly work in the Tel Rumeida area accompanying Palestinian school children on the their way to and from classes so that there is less chance that the children will be attacked by the settlers. Attacks on Palestinians and internationals increase on the Sabbath and on holidays when settler youths are not in school and when religious settlers can not use their cars and have to walk home, often harassing Palestinians as they go.

Three Palestinian non-violent actions this Friday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Villagers of Bil’in will hold a demonstration against the wall which annexes village land into the Modi’in Elite settlement.

In Beit Sira villagers will hold a demonstration against the annexation barrier that will mean the loss of land to the Makabim settlement.

Both Bil’in and Beit Sira demonstrations will start after midday prayers, heading off from the villages mosques.

This Friday Salem villagers will be joined by Israeli and international human rights activists, to try to complete the plowing near Scully’s Farm in an attempt to avoid the recent heavy settler violence that the villagers have been the victims of.

Last Shabbat(Sabbath) Salem villager Saber Shtaya was taken to hospital after being brutally attacked by settlers.

For more information call:
Beit Sira -Mansur 0545420464
Bil’in – Abdullah 0547-258-210
Salem –Arik Ascherman (Rabbis for Human Rights) 050-5607034
ISM media office at 02-2971824

Activist’s Journal

Wednesday was a quiet day in which I caught up with sleep lost to jetlag and fixed my email setup. On Thursday there was a demo in Beit Sira that we went to. It was Land Day, which commemorates a 1976 uprising of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The idea was to plant trees in the land of the village. This was unsuccessful because of the fully tooled up riot squad of Israeli soldiers that blocked our path. The most mild of pushing on their huge plexi-glass shields led to a full-on battering session.

Friday, of course, was the regular Bil’in demonstration. It was great to be back! Spirits were high and there was a good attendance. The Israeli anarchists were there in force as always. Also there were a lot of folk from Gush Shalom this week. The village committee’s plan was to use a large metal frame as a ramp to be able to get over the gate in the fence. A good attempt was made at this, but the soldiers were particularly nasty this week and lashed out almost immediately to stop this bridge building attempt. Can’t let the Palestinians into their own land now can we? The usual beatings and usage of “less lethal” weaponry on unarmed demonstrators ensued.

That night, myself along with two others from ISM stayed overnight in the Bil’in outpost, which was fun. It was a nice camping trip – it’s good to be outdoors in the fresh air! We sat around the fire with guys from the village, learned some Arabic and drank loads of sweet tea. About 7 in the morning we were woken up by the sound of an off-road vehicle pulling away. M. had seen them and said that it was soldiers who peeked in the door of the outpost to watch us sleeping. Furthermore they had apparently done the same thing three times that night!

Raining outside, though weather was warm yesterday. Training for new ISM folk tomorrow.

Must sleep. Bed soon.

***
The ISM training was yesterday and today. We had about eight new recruits, so it was a pretty good weekend session. At the end of today, we were planning how to spread ourselves around the regions that ISM covers and there was a really good vibe. We have some good activists here now and I am feeling more confident. The majority of us here now are British, I think. Mansour jokes that it is a British occupation of ISM (like there used to be a Swedish occupation).

This morning we went to a legal training session organised by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israeli (PCATI). It was a very useful and interesting session, and folk from ISM (including the new trainees), IWPS, the Tel Rumeida Project and CPT were there amongst others. Two Israeli lawyers gave us briefings on how Israeli military law applies to Palestinians in the occupied territories (the first session) and the rights of us as internationals in the occupied territories (the second session). The two lawyers are brilliant, committed people and they do loads of work for Palestinians and international activists like us supporting them. The main point that came across was that although Israel claims to uphold a fair, equal rule of law that governs the Palestinians in the occupied territories, in reality the military is the law and what they say goes. The Palestinians are subject to a whole slew of military orders, which are only written in Hebrew and are hard for the public to access. It’s a really nightmarish system. And it is an apartheid system too, because the Jewish settlers who live in the occupied territories are not subject to these military orders, rather they are governed by regular Israeli law which is far more lenient and accountable. Just one example of this – Israelis (and internationals) arrested in the occupied territories have to be brought before a judge for the initial hearing within 24 hours, but Palestinians will not see a judge for eight days. Furthermore, since this judge is a uniformed military officer, this hearing is simply a formality in which one part of the military asks another part of the military to extend the arrest. There are lots of examples of things like this, but the whole thing amounts to a system of apartheid, whose main aim is to ultimately to make the Palestinians leave their homes.

I might go to Hebron at some point this week to help the Tel Rumeida Project, as the folk there are very tired by the sound of it.

Must do laundry now.

Family of shot journalist accuse Israel

Vikram Dodd
Tuesday April 4, 2006
The Guardian

The family of a British cameraman shot dead by an Israeli soldier claimed yesterday that both the Foreign Office and the Israeli authorities had obstructed their search for justice. James Miller, 34, was killed by a single shot while making a documentary in the Gaza strip about Palestinian children.

At an inquest opening yesterday in London, TV producer Daniel Edge told how he was with Mr Miller on May 2 2003, and described his desperate attempts to save the cameraman. The four-strong TV crew were on their final day of filming. Clutching a white flag with a torch shone on to it, they had approached the Israeli soldiers, calling out: “Hello, we’re British journalists.” Shots were fired, and Mr Miller fell, fatally wounded. Mr Edge told the inquest how he had begged the soldiers for help for his friend.

The jury of five women and five men heard that Mr Miller, reporter Saira Shah, and interpreter Abdul Rahman Abdullah were fired upon as they approached the soldiers on foot to ask to leave the dangerous area where they had been filming. They had spent 16 days in the Gaza Strip on a documentary for US network HBO about Palestinian children in the Rafah refugee camp. It had been the first visit to Palestine for Mr Miller, who came from Braunton in Devon.

On the night, the crew left their equipment in a nearby Palestinian house as the trio walked, in flak jackets and helmets, towards members of the Israeli Defence Force in their armoured personnel carrier, or APC. Mr Edge, from Badby, Northamptonshire, was standing yards away, on the house veranda. Mr Miller was shining a torch on to a white flag held by Mr Abdullah when the IDF opened fire. On the second shot, Mr Miller was hit in the front of his neck; fragments of bullet were later found embedded in his blue flak jacket.

In an emotional state giving evidence at St Pancras coroner’s court, Mr Edge said: “I heard Abdul shouting, it seemed he was crying in pain – I thought he had been shot in the arms or legs. I heard Saira shouting ‘He’s injured, he’s injured, please don’t shoot’. And then I heard Abdul shouting ‘He’s injured’. It was at that point I realised James had been shot, possibly badly injured, because he was silent.”

Following the death, the Miller family were determined any local postmortem should be attended by an independent expert, such as a Home Office pathologist. In written evidence one of Mr Miller’s sisters alleged the British ambassador, Sherrard Cowper-Coles, told her it would be a waste of money to have a British pathologist – even though the family wanted to ascertain the nature of the wound, and gather other forensic evidence. According to a contemporaneous note of the phone conversation made by Anne Waddington, a barrister, he was dismissive: “I asked what was his reluctance … He said it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Mrs Waddington, whose father-in-law is the former Tory home secretary David Waddington, told the inquest another British official, Piers Cazalet, also asked the family to drop the demand : “He told me it would be obstructive and cause a delay [if I protested].” She went on: “There was extreme pressure on us, and on Sophy [Mr Miller’s widow], within hours of her husband being killed, to agree to a postmortem without any independent observer.” Mrs Miller told the jury Israel had tried to “grind down” the family with delays and broken promises “in the hope that we wouldn’t go on”.

In court Mrs Miller named the soldier she believed killed her husband as a first lieutenant who fired from the APC 100 metres away from Mr Miller.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1746346,00.html