I Wish You Knew

by Hannah

I’ve been meaning to write for days. I’ve been meaning to sit down, have a free moment, compose my thoughts, figure out how to translate my experiences into something understandable to a world where injustice is not quite as daily, quite as random, quite as violent. I wish I could just say “There was curfew in Marda today” and that you all would understand. That you would know without my telling you that that meant Israeli army jeeps were driving through the village at 5:30 am (and for many, many, many hours after that), that they were throwing sound bombs and tear gas, and shooting rubber-coated bullets randomly, that there was a complete atmosphere of fear. I wish you would know that when three international observers arrived, we were kept out of the village by army, detained by border police, and threatened with arrest. That we were told we could only enter if we were press, but then when the press arrived they weren’t allowed in either.

I wish you would know that a boy’s id was taken from his home and he was told to come to the next village to pick it up, but that his father wouldn’t send him because he was afraid his son would be killed. Or that a young man was arrested and his family couldn’t locate him all day (they now know he’s in Qedumim settlement / detention center). Or that each time soldiers were asked for justification of their actions, they would say, “it’s closed because we say so. This is our territory.” I wish more than anything that you could know everything that is behind this statement, every way in which it manifests itself, every way in which the world completely ignores what is happening here.

I wish I could trust that the media would tell you that a group of disabled palestinians (in wheelchairs and on crutches, many blind people, etc.) were shot at with tear gas by the army at a demonstration today in Bil’in before they got anywhere near their destination (which was on their land).

I can’t even remember what is usual and not anymore. I am not surprised by things. I am only angry. And resentful. And even hateful sometimes. I don’t know how to change this. I don’t know how to get away. I don’t think anyone should be able to get away, not when others can’t. And yet how can I think clearly? Saturday was a wonderful demonstration in Marda, although even as I say that I think about the hundred or so soldiers who lunged towards the crowd – but they only beat a couple people, only arrested a couple Israelis, and only temporarily. Only Sunday we tried to accompany farmers to their land and were shot at by a private security company that guards wall work. Monday we tried again to accompany farmers to their land, and this time were met by hundreds of soldiers who began firing tear gas before they could even tell who was there. 200 rounds of tear gas. Before they could even see us. It’s better, of course, in the grand moral scheme of the world, that no distinction be made between Palestinian farmers and International peace workers. But it’s scary. It’s confusing. And of course, the result should be that we are all treated as human, not that we are all treated as expendable.

There’s a newly involved Israeli who has come to a couple demos recently. The other day we were standing in Marda looking up to the top of the hill with the bulldozers, and she said, “this is just crazy. They’re just taking someone else’s land.” As a taxi driver noted a few days ago, “if I don’t like my neighbours and want to build a fence to separate us, I’d build it on my yard, not my neighbour’s.” Even more simply, after I explained to a new IWPS volunteer yesterday a few of the happenings of the past couple days, she said, “now that’s not nice.” And still, I can’t even bring myself to think any of this. Because I am not surprised anymore. Only angry.

I was in west Jerusalem for about an hour today, walking down the street looking at the half-naked teenagers with their orange ribbons in solidarity with the settlers of gush katif, and I just thought, “you have no idea.” If Palestinians could see this, I thought, I’m not sure they would be quite as patient as they are. Although they probably already know. They’re probably already so used to this, more used to this than I am, that nothing fazes them at all. Some have a patience that I can’t always quite fathom (“this too shall pass”), and others just use avoidance (“if I stay in my home and don’t let my kids out then everything will be tolerable”).

I am going to sleep in Marda now, going to be a presence in case the army returns.

I will send this only so you have a little bit of news from here. Realize not all the pain in the world is here. This is only my little corner. And I do only what I can. We all do. And it’s never enough. Never ever enough.

With sadness and anger,
Hannah

Stink bombs and the Scream: Bil’in

Palestinians from Bil’in taped their hands together to express their intention to hold a non-violent demonstration. As they marched out of the village soldiers laid barbed wire along the path. A van with a load speaker on it then appeared behind the barb wire and let out a loud high pitch that caused the crowd to disperse. Palestinian youth threw stones at the van and soldiers entered the village throwing tear gas and shooting rubber coated metal bullets. Some of the Palestinians wearing pink plastic gloves threw plastic balloons filled with water and chicken feces.

Villagers mounted bulldozer in AL Ramadin

The people of the village of Al Ramadin in South Hebron staged a protest two days ago against the Israeli annexation wall. The wall is being built on land stolen from the village and will cut the population off from all except 12% of the West Bank.

On Wednesday around 200 villagers assembled and marched along the main road that leads to the wall construction site. When confronted by a large group of Israeli soldiers, the villagers veered off the road and headed over the hills to the work site. Israeli occupation forces fired live ammunition in the air, but, undeterred, the villagers got over the hill and reached the bulldozer which was plowing destruction for the path of the wall.

The villagers mounted the bulldozer, chanting and waving flags. After being dispersed by a combination of sound bombs and rubber bullets, the villagers prayed beside the bulldozer before dispersing. One journalist and one Palestinian were injured. Two Palestinians were detained and later released.

On Friday at 11:00 AM the village will again attempt to stop the construction of the Wall on their land.

Large military force secures destruction of olive trees

By Alison

For photos of today’s demonstration see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95353139@N00

At 7 am this morning, I joined a group of Palestinian villagers, Israelis, and internationals in the centre of Marda. We intended to go to the land where over a thousand olive trees have been cut to make way for the Apartheid Barrier in the last few days. Hundreds of border police were waiting for us on the villagers land. As we approached the land, the border police immediately started shooting tear gas and did not stop. Around 200 canisters of tear gas were shot over the next two hours. Two villagers were hit directly by gas canisters one of them required hospitalization. About twenty Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation.

No Wall work was happening at first, but the farmers quickly noticed that a bulldozer had begun to uproot trees near the top of the hill east of where we were standing. The group walked towards the olive trees and was immediately met by tear gas. Soldiers fired approximately 200 canisters of tear gas in the next two hours, hitting two Palestinians directly. One farmer was taken to Rafidiya hospital and two Red Crescent ambulances treated 20 Palestinians.

As the clouds of teargas began to disperse and some Palestinian men put out a fire that was caused by the gas, two military vehicles drove into the community. We walked back to the village at this point, scared that they might be coming to arrest villagers (as they did yesterday in Beit Surik). In the village there was a confrontation between the soldiers, and the Palestinians and other demonstrators. Some Palestinians threw some stones from the top of the house that the soldiers were very close to. The soldiers got out of their jeeps with guns in hand, and shot tear gas into some of the homes, filled with women and children.

One older woman had been affected harshly by the tear gas, and was trying everything she could think of to relieve the pain. It made me so angry to see these women trying to deal with the tear gas that the soldiers shot into their homes. The women were scared, especially when the soldiers shot several sound bombs in addition to the tear gas. Two soldiers eventually came into one house looking for the boys who were throwing the stones, but they did not find anyone to arrest.

Farmers stop tree-cutting in Marda for three hours

by Hannah

At 11:00 this morning, Nasfat called to tell me that Israeli workers were back today with their chainsaws, cutting trees in the village of Marda to make way for the path of the “Ariel loop” of the Annexation Wall, whose easternmost point is 22 kilometers from the Green Line. I rushed to Marda and found villagers waiting. They would go up to their land in a few minutes, they told me. One of the village leaders announced the news through the mosque’s loudspeakers, which could clearly be heard by every villager in Marda and most likely every soldier and police officer in Ariel.

When we started up the hill around 12:30, I was the only person not from Marda. Press were on their way, we were told, as was another international, but the villagers wanted to wait no longer. About 20 adult men and I started up the hill, and we were quickly followed by about 30 boys who ignored their elders’ order to stay below. We made our way towards the cut trees, and shortly before arriving, security guards and soldiers, whom most of us still could not see over the terraces and through the olive trees, began yelling at us not to come any further. When villagers advanced, one of the security guards fired a shot towards the ground directly in front of the crowd. I started to yell in English, telling them to stop, and when I finally got in view of the guards, the one who had shot pointed his gun at me and yelled, “Do not move!” I asked several times, “Can we talk to you?” Each time the response was, “Do not move!”

I surveyed the situation. There were two security guards and two soldiers in front of us, and a lot of kids behind us. I was afraid the kids might lose their patience and begin to throw stones, at which point the authorities most certainly would have lost whatever patience they had and use the only weapons they had with them: guns with live ammunition.

I was happy to hear that the Israeli workers with their chainsaws had left the area quickly upon our arrival, which was the same thing that happened on Thursday when we confronted them.

The standoff continued for a while, but not without its intense moments. Soldiers continued to arrive, and each time people tried to step forward, soldiers and guards threatened us further with shouts, guns pointed, and newly arrived tear gas canisters in hand. I had never been so relieved to see the small orange plastic containers that house the tear gas. Hopefully, I thought, their first choice of weapon now will be the gas and not the bullet.

I calmed down even more when four journalists arrived at the scene although their presence gave the boys more courage, and they began to inch forward and to chant, “Hayalim LaBayta” (“Soldiers, go home” in Hebrew). Soldiers forced them back, telling them they would only speak to a village spokesperson if everyone else stood behind a certain tree about 200 meters away. I insisted on staying near the front with “Ahmed,” though I wasn’t as smart as he was about not sharing his real name with soldiers. I figured they would find out who I was anyway, since the boys kept calling me by name. So when the soldier who was negotiating with Ahmed asked my name, and responded to my inquiry into his name (Amit), I told him, “I’m Hannah.” I’m not sure it changed the situation much, other then that the rest of the afternoon I heard shouts of “Hannah, come here” and “Hannah, go down” rather then, “Hey you, come here,” or “You with the bandanna, go down.” When he threatened to arrest me, I told him, “You can’t arrest me; you’re a soldier, not a policeman.”

We walked back and forth – east and west – a few times, to make sure workers had not returned, and to do our best to count the number of trees that had been cut today (people estimate 300 or 350, bringing the total number in the past few days to over 800). At one point the work had resumed in the west, so we made our way through the terraces as quickly as possible. When Ahmed began to advance towards the man with the chainsaw, the same guard who had shot at us earlier pushed and hit Ahmed on his arm and leg with the butt of his gun. I saw the pushing from a distance, but didn’t arrive in time to take pictures of the beating. I photographed the bruises that had already formed about a half hour later.

Suddenly we heard a loud explosion, followed by its own echo, coming from Marda; several jeeps had arrived inside the village and were throwing sound bombs, presumably as punishment for the impromptu demonstration. They left quickly, as far as we could tell from above, and we stayed on the land.

Farmers were frustrated that no soldier would claim responsibility for the situation or for the other soldiers’ or guards’ behavior, so there was no person to speak or negotiate with. Amit, who seemed to be the one with the most power and was engaging in half-hearted negotiations, kept saying that someone higher would be arriving soon. Finally Gilad, a man from the DCO who speaks fluent Arabic, arrived and began negotiations with the villagers.

By the end, close to 3:00, Gilad had promised that the work would stop for the day and that the army’s lawyer and the village’s lawyer would have a meeting tomorrow morning to decide how to proceed. Ahmed pointed out to Gilad the security guard who had hit him, to which the guard responded by picking up a chainsaw himself (from where, I don’t know) and threatening to chop more trees. We started on our last trip walking west to gather the rest of the crowd, and when we arrived Amit asked me to come forward to speak with him. I refused, and he asked me for my passport. When I refused to show it to him, a policeman stepped out from behind him and said, “Come here.” I started to walk away, through a crowd of Palestinians who were waving me through and saying, “Don’t worry, we won’t let them take you.” The police and soldiers started after me, but only for a few meters. I continued to go down and they didn’t follow. I felt slightly guilty about being part of the first group to go down, but the other international was still up there, and the rest of the group followed a couple minutes later anyway.

About a half hour after we returned to the village, the work resumed. The army had broken its promise, and workers were cutting trees. We saw clearly through binoculars that a line of about 15 soldiers had lined up directly below two workers, and other soldiers were scattered throughout the groves. People talked about going back up again, but decided they didn’t have enough people. They hoped the workers would go home soon (it was after 4), and the farmers decided to save their energies until tomorrow morning, when they will attempt to arrive on their land early enough to stop the destruction before it starts.

Just when we thought the day was over, we found out that an army bulldozer was near the center entrance to Marda, on the main settler highway #505 (the one that we successfully blocked for some time during a demonstration yesterday!). We were afraid they would cut trees as punishment for the nonviolent resistance of the past couple days, but as we watched the bulldozer moving rocks and dirt, we noticed it was only putting up another roadblock at the entrance to the road that is already closed with an army roadblock. We were perplexed, wondering if they would then move on to the only open entrance of Marda. They didn’t. As far as I know, the sole purpose of that bulldozer was to close an already-closed road.

So here we are at the end of the day. 300 more trees cut. Presumably it could have been twice that many had we not gone to the land. Marda is a strong village, with determined people. Tomorrow morning they will go back and try to protect their land.