Peaceful tree planting attacked by settlers and soldiers, two hospitalised and one arrested

1st April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

On March 31st around 40 Palestinian children and adults gathered in Hebron near Qurtuba school, a Palestinian school in the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida, to plant trees in commemoration of Palestine’s Land Day. Israeli extremist settlers from the illegal settlements in Al-Khalil (Hebron) attacked them as Israeli forces stood by, threatening to arrest the Palestinians and international volunteers while doing nothing to stop the settlers’ violence. Settlers pushed a 13-year-old girl down the stairs leading up to the school, and soldiers injured a 48-year-old man with a back condition; both were hospitalised. Israeli soldiers also arrested Jenny, a 24-year-old German solidarity activist, while she was filming the action.

hebron land day 1
Palestinians gathered to plant trees in Tel Rumeida in an event marking Land Day

Military harassment began even before activists had reached the planting site. Jenny, the German activist later arrested at the demonstration, recalled the difficulty of getting the trees to the site: “Half of the trees had already gone through the checkpoint when Israeli soldiers decided that, as one officer put it, ‘trees are sensitive items’ and that the children carrying them would not be allowed through.”

“It was a very peaceful action,” she recalled. “Small children were planting trees near the school in Tel Rumeida.  Everything was calm until Anat Cohen (a notoriously violent extremist settler) turned up; she began taking down the Palestinian flags demonstrators had put up on the fence beside the tree planting site, then randomly attacking Palestinians and international volunteers.”

kids planting trees khalil land day wm
Young children planting trees beside Qurtuba primary school

Extremist settlers pushed a 13-year-old Palestinian girl down the stairs close to the tree planting site. She was taken to the hospital half an hour later. Israeli soldiers harassed her friends and told them they were not allowed to sit beside her. A 48-year-old Palestinian man who had just undergone surgery on his spine was pushed violently by Israeli forces, despite the fact that soldiers were told several times that the he suffered from severe damage to his back. When they continued to shove him against a wall, he collapsed and lost consciousness for several minutes, and was taken to a hospital via ambulance.

khalil land day on the ground
Soldiers and onlookers gathered around Palestinian man after he fell unconscious after being shoved by soldiers
khalil land day ambulance
Injured Palestinian being taken via stretcher to the ambulance, as a settler in the foreground watches the scene

Settlers and soldiers continued harassing people; settlers accused many of being nazis, swearing at and insulting the demonstrators. Palestinians looking out from their houses were told to step away from their front door. When internationals tried to document the situation, they were met with yelling and pushing from Israeli soldiers as well as settlers.

henry
Israeli soldiers at the tree planting demonstration in Hebron

Amanda, an ISM volunteer present at the scene, recalled what she experienced at the hands of settlers and soldiers. “I was being attacked from all sides. A soldier shouted at me, brandishing handcuffs at me and threatening to arrest me even as a settler woman physically assaulted me. She stepped on my feet, kicked at my legs and punched me in the stomach, calling me a nazi and a[n extremely vulgar word for prostitute].”

Jenny spoke of her arrest, based on spurious testimony by the settler woman. “At the police station I was accused of attacking Anat Cohen. While I was filming her and the soldiers earlier as soldiers forced back the Palestinian group, she grabbed my hand and attempted to take my camera. I told soldiers at the time that she attacked me, but they paid no attention. They grabbed me and violently pulled me away from where I was documenting the tree planting.” Israeli soldiers took her to the military base on Shuhada street before transferring her to the Israeli police, who interrogated her and held her at the police station before releasing her early that same evening, after about five hours in custody. She has been temporarily barred from the city of Hebron.

“As people were leaving I saw soldiers trampling all over the area,” an ISM volunteer recalled. “I doubt that the trees survived.” Tuesday’s action was the third time in the last few months that Palestinians gathered near the school to plant trees on their land in Tel Rumeida. Three weeks ago olive trees were planted in the same area, but zionist settlers uprooted and stole them.

Later in the afternoon a Palestinian funeral, in the nearby Muslim cemetery, was disrupted by settler children who taunted the mourners.

Last summer’s Israeli aggression is sending Gaza back to the Middle Ages

31st March | Miguel Hernández | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Zionist colonisers destroy the tools for self-sufficiency of Palestinians in Gaza

Months after the last massive Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, thanks to the social and independent media, everyone has read news and seen pictures of the attacks from the zionist regime against residential buildings, United Nations shelter-schools, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, churches and thousands of family homes.

However, little has been said about the almost complete destruction of Gaza’s industry and economy. As the Israeli Minister of Interior Eli Yishai said, the objective of the last operation was to “send Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all of its infrastructure.” One of the more terrible blows committed towards this end has been the total destruction of the Beit Hanoun industrial area.

Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 15.05.00
Factory for construction materials bombed by Israel last summer, in the Industrial Area of Beit Hanoun – photo by Miguel Hernández

There were around 50 factories in Beit Hanoun, from which only three have been able to resume work seven months after the end of the assault.

Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 15.05.10
This factory for canned foods was also attacked – photo by Miguel Hernández

The factories in this industrial area provided work for 25% to 30% of Gaza’s population. Among the destroyed factories are those for paper, construction materials, clothing, medical equipment, plastic products, food and livestock products.

Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 15.05.28
Owner of the Afanah company presented photos of some of the 800 cows killed by Israeli attacks – photo by Miguel Hernández

The agricultural industry has also been wounded by Israel’s summer attacks on Gaza. The owner of the Afanah Company showed us the pictures of his 800 cows killed by Israeli attacks during the last war on Gaza. Each cow was going to feed 7 families during the Eid holiday. Besides losing all his cows, Israel also destroyed the four fridges of the company, which contained 400 tons of meat.

Abu Fakhri Abu Ghais, from Beit Hanoun, explained how during the last massacre Israel killed his 17 sheep, and all his sons’ sheep, they destroyed all his farming equipment, worth over 15,000 US dollars. Israeli forces also destroyed the pumps for extracting the groundwater and the 20 tons of reserve of wheat seeds that Abu Fakhri had stored for the current year. The occupation also demolished the cabling that brought electricity to his village, Abu Safiya. He and his family now live in a tent without water or electricity, as his home was also destroyed.

Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 15.05.37
Abu Fakhri stands next to the remains of one of his seeding machines; the price of this machine is 10,000$ – photo by Miguel Hernández

He and his family now live in a tent without water or electricity, as his home was also destroyed. Given the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, the struggling government of Hamas informed him that they don’t know when they’ll be able to restore the power supply, as they do not have available wire that is long enough.

In a Bedouin village located at the North of Beit Lahia, Hassan Sharadkha invited the author and his companions for a cup of tea in the wood cabin that he has built next to the rubble of his home.  He showed us the pictures of everything he lost during the last summer at the hands of the Zionist occupation forces: 32 dunums of fruit and olive trees, 27 sheep and their stable, 2 cows, a 200 chicken farm, a horse, the water pump and the car he had just bought.

His older son, an electric engineer, was made unemployed because the solar panel company he worked for has also been bombed.

Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 15.05.48
Hassan Sharadkha and one of his grandsons show us the ruins of his home. He lived in this 4 story house with three of his sons and their families – photo by Miguel Hernández

Ninety per cent of the Palestinian farmers in Gaza live in similar or worse circumstances.

Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 15.05.58
Tractors and other farming equipment were clear targets for Israel during its last operation against the Gaza Strip – photo by Miguel Hernández

These attacks – against factories, farms, farming equipment and homes – were not by chance or accidental. These attacks demonstrate once again that the target of the genocidal Israeli colonialism is the Palestinian people itself, and that the war that has been waging the last 66 years, under cover of Europe and the US, is against a nation, Palestine, that they seek to wipe off the map.

Big turn out and high spirits at Wadi Fukin Land Day olive tree planting and protest

31th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, al Khalil Team | Wadi Fukin, Occupied Palestine

On Monday March 30th about two hundred people commemorated Land Day in the village of Wadi Fukin. The protest, which involved planting olive trees was a response to Israeli theft of village land.

Land Day protest marching in the streets of Wadi Fukin
Land Day protest marching in the streets of Wadi Fukin.

After midday prayer around two hundred Palestinians and internationals gathered in the village of Wadi Fukin to commemorate Land Day and support the villagers struggle against the illegal Israeli expropriation of their lands. People from Wadi Fukin, neighbouring villages and internationals started their march towards the green line carrying Palestinian flags, digging tools, playing music and singing, to where the settlement of Beitar Illit is forcibly taking over Palestinian land in order to expand. The protest continued peacefully through the small streets of Wadi Fukin and just before going to the hill above the village every protester was given an olive tree to carry. Spirits were high as protesters climbed the village hill overshadowed by the settlement expansion site and began to take back Palestinian land by planting the trees.

A village caught between settlements and under extreme pressure
Wadi Fukin is in a valley sandwiched between the Green Line to the north-west and the fastest-growing illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, Beitar Illit. With around 80.000 inhabitants (as of 2014), Beitar Illit is part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc surrounding and cornering Wadi Fukin. In order to expand these settlements and steal even more land, the apartheid wall is being built on Palestinian land far inside the Green Line around this settlement bloc. Regular Friday demonstrations are held in Wadi Fukin protesting against this continuous illegal land grab.

200 people at Land Day protest in Wadi Fukin, Beitar Illit settlement block in the background
200 people at Land Day protest in Wadi Fukin, Beitar Illit settlement block in the background.

Military attacking unarmed Palestinians on their own land.
As Land Day protesters reached the Israeli construction site they managed to plant both olive trees and Palestinian flags directly on the site. While Palestinian flags and olive trees popped up on the ground, young Palestinian men and women also managed to take over and plant flags on the unmanned bulldozers and tractors parked there.

After about ten minutes on the site 4 military jeeps arrived with more than 40 soldiers and border police. The military attacked the protesters with tear gas and stun grenades and a police helicopter began circling the area and filming the protesters from the sky. As tear gas clouds drove the protesters from their lands and down the hill, soldiers began kicking down and destroying the newly planted olive trees and flags.

Soldiers and border police gassing protesters on their own land
Soldiers and border police gassing protesters on their own land.

Spirits kept high in spite of tear gassing
Though several people suffered from tear gas poisoning the protest continued on the hill between Wadi Fukin village and the settlement expansion on the Green Line. Alternately running from tear gas and planting trees, protesters managed to stay on the hill for an hour continuing to plant and protest.

As everyone returned to the village spirits remained high and the succesful event was celebrated with music, speeches and freshly made bread.

Olive tree and flag planting at Land Day protes, Wadi Fukin
Olive tree and flag planting at Land Day protes, Wadi Fukin.

Land Day – a historic day for fighting occupation and expropriation
Land Day marks the day of a general stike on March 30th in 1976. The strike was a response to the Israeli Government’s expropriation of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land. There were marches in Palestinian cities within present-day Israel from the Naqab to Galilee. Six unarmed Palestinians were killed, 100 wounded and hundreds more arrested. The Land Day was a turning point in the struggle against the occupation as it was the first mass mobilization by Palestinians within the borders of 1948 Israel.

Protests have been and will be continue to be going on all through the West Bank in the weeks surrounding Land Day.

Journal: Khuza’a, the farm life

31st March | Rina Andolini | Khuza’a, Occupied Palestine

This is what conversations in Gaza consist of: I asked, “When they are shooting, what’s the best thing to do?”

“Get down on the ground,” he answered, “and move away quick as you can.”

It was a stupid question; I knew the answer. I guess I was hoping for a response that would ensure 100% safety for the farmers, and for myself, but of course no such answer exists.

I am not an expert bullet dodger, if such a thing even exists. If you are a farmer here in Gaza, it is a good idea to become one, as the Israeli military is always shooting. Yet how do you actually avoid bullets? The truth is, you cannot. You just hope for the best.

On Saturday, March 28, the Israeli forces shot a lot at the farmers in Khuza’a. No one could know exactly where the shots were coming from; no one knew where they were aiming, or whether anyone would be hit. Thankfully, that day no one was hurt.

The Israeli military jeeps are clear to be seen, but many soldiers were also hiding in the watch towers and shooting from there. Israeli forces fired at least 25 to 30 shots in a span of two hours.

When the first shots were fired, the farmers moved back as much as possible; as soon the shooting stopped, they returned to the lands where they were working. Then you get used to it, and continue. Where in the world do you have to get used to being shot at while farming?

There were three of us: Miguel, Valeria, and myself. It is not enough. In twenty days, full farming season will begin in Gaza, and we will need to go out every morning. The farmers need more than just three internationals to document the violations committed by the Israeli occupation military at the borders.

What the farmers really need is to be able to work on their land in peace, without feeling threatened. They need to be able to work without risking losing their lives.

We were 50 meters away from the border when they shot at us that morning. The Israeli military can clearly see everything that is happening – farming, and nothing more. So why do they still shoot?

farmer khuza'a
Gazan farmer going about his work in Khuza’a – photo by Rina Andolini

Does the man in this photo look like he is doing anything but farming?

The following morning, the farmers will return.

Nabi Saleh Land Day Protest met with extreme violence and M16 live ammunition

30th March 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine

On the 28th of March 2015, close to 200 protesters from all over the West Bank gathered in Nabi Saleh to protest the occupation in commemoration of Land Day. The protest was met with extreme violence as the Army and Border Police fired large amounts of tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets as well as several rounds of M16 live ammunition at the protesters.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv7OnrZNnEw&feature=youtu.be

Video by Anarchists Against the Wall

On March 30th 1976 a general strike and marches were arranged all over Palestinian cities within present-day Israel from the Naqab to the Galilee. The actions were a response to the Israeli Government’s expropriation of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land. During the actions six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed, 100 wounded and hundreds more arrested. It was the first time since 1948 that the Palestinians within the borders Israel declared 1948 organised as a Palestinian national collective and the date is commemorated yearly with a series of protest all over Palestine. This year the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh marked Land Day on Saturday, the 28th of March.

Around 12 pm on Saturday, protesters from all over the West Bank, from Hebron to Kafr Qaddum, gathered in the village of Nabi Saleh. The demonstration was a local protest in commemoration of Land Day and of the two villagers Mustafa Tamimi and Rushdi Tamimi, who were murdered by the Israeli occupation soldiers.

unnamed-2
Poster displayed at the rally before the march, showing the two residents of Nabi Saleh who have been killed by Israeli forces since protests in the village began – photo by Tamimi Press https://www.facebook.com/Tamimipresspage

After midday prayer protesters made their way down a main road of Nabi Saleh chanting and singing. On the outskirts of the village nine army and border police jeeps was gathered and as the demonstrators approached the road the about 60 soldiers and police rained tear gas on the unarmed protesters. Several people suffered from severe tear gas inhalation as the military pushed them back into the village.

unnamed-4
Protesters chanting slogans against the occupation and marching down the road in Nabi Saleh, before the Israeli military opened fire with tear gas – photo by Tamimi Press

Undeterred by the initial choking barrage of tear gas, protesters marched towards the military once again, this time cutting across the farmland and fields outside the village. Many youths remaining on the hillside and threw stones and tear gas back towards the military.

Nabi Saleh2
Palestinian youth standing behind a wall of tear gas in Nabi Saleh. The illegal Israeli settlement of Hallamish is visible beyond the tear gas – photo by ISM

Israeli forces overpowered and arrested one unarmed Palestinian activist, as they continued to shoot tear gas up the into the hills. Israeli forces also threw stun grenades at unarmed Palestinians, international and Israeli activists. “They attacked me twice with stun grenades for no reason,” recalled one Palestinian photographer at the scene.

As the protest continued in the hills around Nabi Saleh protesters gathered again and threw back a large number of the tear gas canisters still being rained down on them by the army and border police. By resisting the tear gas and throwing the canisters back towards the military themselves the protesters managed to push the soldiers and police back down the hills towards the village gate. Here they took cover behind their jeeps, unable to disperse the demonstration.

unnamed-3
Photo by Tamimi Press

As the protest continued the soldiers began firing rubber coated metal bullets at the protesters who took cover behind stones and trees as the bullets jumped off the road between them. The bullets came repeatedly and several protesters were hit and carried from the scene.

As demonstrators ducked from the rubber coated steel bullets the sound of M16’s began to fill the air as soldiers fired towards Palestinian protesters, children, internationals and journalists on the hill with live ammunition. However, the protest continued for about half an our longer until the military got back in their jeeps and moved back towards the checkpoint at the outskirts of the village.

After most of the demonstrators had returned to the village, some gathered and continued the protest on a hillside in Nabi Saleh, above the valley where several soldiers had stood watching the protest. The Israeli forces once again opened fire with live ammunition. Fifteen M16 bullets ricocheted of the stones on the ground very close to the protesters, landing near children, women and a photographer but fortunately not hitting anyone.

The Land Day protests continue all over the West Bank throughout the week.