20th April 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team| Khan al-Luban, Occupied Palestine
On Monday 21 April 2014 two International Women’s Peace Service [IWPS] volunteers were playing uno [a card game] outside with two children of the Abu Jamal family in Khan al-Luban, close to the Nablus-Ramallah road. Their elder brother Jimmy was plastering the bathroom and their mother was inside doing house chores.
IWPS and ISM volunteers have kept a permanent presence in Khan al-Luban this past week, as the family has been the target of attacks by the Israeli military and Israeli settlers from the surrounding illegal settlements. The family has been especially worried since the father,was arrested last Wednesday. Their fears proved to be well founded.
Below is the eyewitness account by IWPS volunteers of yesterday’s events:
At 6:45pm an Israeli army jeep pulled in front of a building across the street from the family house, then backed out of the driveway and drove along the road towards the back of the house. We all went into the center area and shut the doors, but went outside to photograph what they were doing as the three Israeli soldiers got out of the jeep and started coming over the fence and onto the roof. We climbed to the roof area where they had come onto the property. They asked one of the human rights volunteers to show her passport but she refused.
Jimmy stayed inside because he thought they might be looking for him. One of the young sons talked to the soldiers on the roof and the army called for back up.
After the soldiers began shouting at the mother and her child, Jimmy came out to the roof area, no longer able to stay hidden. He told the soldiers that they were on his family’s property and that they should stop yelling at his mother and younger brothers.
The soldiers became belligerent and hit him with their hands. They then attempted to handcuff Jimmy, and dragged him partway across the roof; by that time the cuffs were fully on. At that point they knocked him down and hit him on the head with the back of a rifle. Jimmy was unconscious from that time on and appeared to convulse slightly. They continued to beat him after he collapsed.
We all yelled at them that he needed an ambulance and the mother attempted to get one; she also called the neighbours on the phone. Some passing cars pulled over and three Palestinian men came to try to help the family. The soldiers responded by throwing a stun grenade.
Two more jeeps arrived, bringing an additional 8-9 soldiers; one of the jeeps had a siren on, leading us to believe that it was an ambulance until it arrived. The soldiers were fully armed with rifles, tear gas, and stun grenades. One threw a stun grenade that landed on the roof, a few feet away from unconscious Jimmy and his hysterical mother. The ambulance that she had phoned also arrived. At this point several soldiers grabbed Jimmy, still unconscious, by his arms and legs, attempting to put him in one of their jeeps, however the emergency services and the other Palestinians were able to take over, and got him into the ambulance instead. The mother went with her son to Rafidiya hospital in Nablus. An army jeep followed the ambulance.
The soldiers arrested one of the Palestinians and took him away in the first jeep. Another stun grenade was thrown directly at those of us on the roof as the army drove away.
As of 9:30pm, Jimmy was awake and in stable condition, although x-rays showed that he suffered from several broken ribs and multiple fractures.
Ibrahim Jeradeh is the Gaza War Cemetery’s longtime caretaker. (Joe Catron)
On a recent, sunny afternoon, Kath Henwood, a Yorkshire paramedic volunteering in the Gaza Strip, walked through rows of headstones at the Gaza War Cemetery with a camera and notebook.
“My regular crewmate at work, in his spare time, researches World War II,” she said. “He’s really passionate about it.”
When Henwood learned of the cemetery, she said, “my first thought was to tell him about it.”
The cemetery, off Saladin street in northern Gaza City, is one of thousands maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), a consortium of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
It contains 3,691 graves, all but 474 of them for First World War troops from the Commonwealth of Nations. A further 210 are from the Second World War.
Others include Egyptian and Turkish soldiers, as well as Canadian United Nations peacekeepers.
Their memorials, from simple headstones to an imposing “cross of sacrifice” — a memorial found in numerous CWGC cemeteries — reflect their varied faiths: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and secular.
And the careful landscaping and quiet solitude around them make the cemetery an attractive destination for everyone from picnicking families to students looking for a place to study.
After she told him about it, Henwood’s colleague sent her a list of 19 graves, and asked that she photograph them.
Ibrahim Jeradeh, the cemetery’s longtime caretaker, helped her find them quickly.
Later, sitting on a marble bench in the shade of the cross of remembrance, he spoke about the cemetery and his life taking care of it.
“Killing is no good”
“War is war, and killing is killing,” he said, passing a hot cup of sugary tea. It was a theme to which he would return again and again.
“In my mind, war is no good. Killing is no good.”
Now 77, Jeradeh started working at the cemetery, then overseen by his father, when he was 20. He officially retired as its head gardener at 65, when his son Issam replaced him.
“I don’t know about politics,” he said of the changes that have affected the cemetery over nearly a century since its founding by British forces after the Third Battle of Gaza in 1917. “I know about the trees.”
But politics have rarely left Jeradeh or his trees alone for long.
Headstones destroyed
In 2006, Israeli troops bulldozed the cemetery’s perimeter wall and six of its headstones. Months later, an Israeli military helicopter fired its cannon at one of the large memorial stones.
“Two dozen other headstones have been pockmarked by shrapnel from Israeli artillery and several have been completely destroyed,” The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported (“Fury as Israelis damage war cemetery,” 13 November 2006).
During Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military offensive against the Gaza Strip in late 2008 and early 2009, Israeli forces bombarded the cemetery, striking it with at least five shells and singing its grass with white phosphorous (“Israel shelled UK war graves in Gaza,” The Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2009).
“We repaired it,” Jeradeh said. “All of it. Alhamdulillah [Thanks to God], it is like new.”
The Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip has also affected the cemetery. In February 2009, a year after Paul Price’s appointment as CWGC’s regional supervisor for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, he had yet to be allowed by Israel to enter Gaza (“Battle still rages where my great-uncle fell in Gaza back in 1917,” The Observer, 22 February 2009).
In May 2013, a year after a seemingly simple pump failure had left the cemetery’s grass and flowers parched, the CWGC said that finally replacing the pump “proved challenging” (“Gaza war cemetery returns to former green glory,” Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 30 May 2013).
Moshe Dayan sought to exhume the five Jewish graves in the Gaza War Cemetery. (Joe Catron)
Despite its foreign affiliations — which ultimately afforded it some protection — the cemetery has also been targeted by Israel culturally, as well as militarily.
Following Israel’s 1967 seizure of the Gaza Strip, Moshe Dayan, then Israeli defense minister, sought to exhume the cemetery’s five Jewish graves and take them to Israel.
The attempt came as Israeli forces looted thousands of historical artifacts, particularly Jewish ones, from their newly-occupied territories, an effort in which Dayan participated enthusiastically as both a military official and a private collector (“Stealing Palestine’s history,” This Week in Palestine, 1 October 2005).
“I refused,” Jeradeh said, his eyes bright. “I was young then. I told him, ‘Go to our office in London.’”
“No difference”
“They are buried here. How could he take them? The Jews here are Jews, not Israelis. There is no difference here between Jews, Muslims and Christians. They are all human.”
Surrounded by fields of grass and rows of colorful flowers and polished stones, the troubles of occupation and siege seemed as distant as Jeradeh’s clash with Dayan.
Maintaining the cemetery’s immaculate condition is hard work, Jeradeh said, even in retirement.
“This is the best, cleanest place in Gaza,” he said. “I work hard to keep it nice.”
Officially, since his mandatory retirement, Jeradeh has served as the cemetery’s night watchman. “I keep this place completely safe,” he said.
In practice, his work as a gardener has continued, if not at the same rate.
“I don’t buy plants,” he said. “I use the ones from my nursery. And I teach the people who work with me.”
“You see all that?” he asked, his arm sweeping across the cemetery. “My drawings.”
“I am always here. Where else should I go? Twenty-four hours a day.” Still, he acknowledged that his pace may have slowed. “Seventy-seven years is a long time.”
He also spends time with visiting family, including four sons and nine daughters. When asked how many grandchildren he had, he laughed.
“I don’t want to remember,” he said, gesturing at a group of small girls peering curiously from behind a row of headstones. “More than a hundred. But they live outside, in Gaza.”
“I like to study,” he added. “I read books on history, geography, horticulture, medicine, everything. I am always reading. And I like writing. Every day, I write what happened to me.”
When asked how long he has kept his journals, he laughed again. “I don’t remember. I have books like this,” he said, gesturing at the height of his shoulder.
“But I started when I was young, and continued day by day, year by year.”
“You are happy writing here,” he said, pointing to a notebook. “The head is clear for it.”
He showed his study, a detached building, behind the larger gardener’s quarters at the cemetery’s edge, equipped with a personal computer and filled with stacks of books and printed articles.
“The pencil is dangerous,” he said. “The man who succeeds in his life writes the facts.”
Returning to the lush greenery of the cemetery, he said, “I don’t feel any problems here … Any man, if he likes others, the others like him. If you do good for others, others do good for you.”
“Everybody knows that war is war, and killing is killing,” he repeated, gesturing again at the thousands of stones surrounded by his carefully-tended flowers.
“Now everything here is history. No one here hates anyone else.”
20th April 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team| Madama, Occupied Palestine
On Friday 18th April, during the night in the village of Madama, settlers from a nearby illegal settlement entered a Palestinian farm and sat fire to a newly built chicken house. The damage totaled $12,500 for the 3,500 chickens and their food, as well as $100,000 for the building itself. The Palestinian owner of the chicken house sold his car and some of his land in order to buy this costly farm, it is now completely destroyed.
The farmer described the day this incident occurred, stating how he finished his work and went home, passing two Israeli military jeeps on the road. When he returned to the farm at 4am on Friday, he found his chicken farm burnt to the ground, all 3,500 chicks dead. The fire was started near a window of the farm, most likely started with gasoline.
The owner said that he recently brought a lot of new chicks, and that he felt the attack was probably was planned. As a result of this attack the farmer now has no income.
The village of Madama has been continually attacked by settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Yizhar, as have the nearby villages of Burin and Assira. In Madama, the settlers have recently burned several cars, two houses, and several olive trees; vandalism on Palestinian property is unfortunately common.
19th April 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team| Qaryut, Occupied Palestine
The people of Qaryut began weekly demonstrations three weeks ago, due to the Israeli military’s decision to close the main road near to the village.
Yesterday, the 18th April, approximately 300 from the village, of which 100 were children, decided to come to the hill to pray rather than to march. Israeli soldiers arrived immediately, with one soldier yelling: “Go back home!” A resident of Qaryut responded; “Insh’allah [If God wills it], this is our home.”
The prayer began despite the provocative military presence on the hill, during the prayers Israeli soldiers surrounded the gathering, one solider removed a Palestinian flag from its place in the ground.
As prayers finished, one of the villagers declared to the army that it was their intention to leave the area, repeating over and over that they brought “a message of peace”.
However, within a few steps of the people’s return to the village, Israeli soldiers started shooting tear gas at their backs. Due to the rocky terrain, many were unable to get away from the tear gas that the soldiers continued to fire. 15 people had to be treated by paramedics due to several tear gas inhalation, however it was difficult to access those in need because of the difficult conditions underfoot. Stun grenades were also used extensively by the Israeli forces.
17th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Pesach, or Passover, started Monday 14th April and is a seven day long holiday where many zionist tourists and settlers from illegal settlements travel to al-Khalil (Hebron). Increased violence and attacks towards Palestinians occurs during many Jewish holidays. During the holiday, entry into historic Palestine (the current state of Israeli) is completely closed to Palestinians, even those with the correct permits.
Restriction of movement is also inflicted on the Palestinians living within al-Khalil itself, as checkpoints and many local shops are forced to close, while settlers and Zionist tourists go on ‘tours’ guarded by Israeli soldiers and border police. The amount of tourists in al-Khalil during these seven days is estimated to be approximately 7000 people.
Yesterday afternoon, Israeli forces closed the main road in the center of al-Khalil, in order to allow settlers access to the Tomb of Othniel Ben Knaz, which is located in H1. Thousands of Hebronites were hugely disrupted as the major Palestinian access road was blocked by a mobile barrier and then occupied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers.
Many Palestinians in the recent days have expressed anxiety over the escalating violence during the holiday. In al-Khalil there is normally one “settler tour” every Saturday, when settlers from the illegal settlements enter the souq (market) accompanied by soldiers. During the tours they often harass the shop owners and Palestinian souq visitors. During Pesach, and particularly today, Thursday the 17th, many groups of tourists and settlers have toured through the market.
The checkpoint between the souq and the mosque has been closed since yesterday morning, stopping the Muslim population from entering the mosque. The closing of the checkpoint also means that local children are forced to walk a much longer path to school.
The school children in al-Khalil have suffered this holiday in several ways. Due to the increased military presence of Israeli soldiers, schools have finished earlier, although the children have still been forced to pass through large groups of soldiers while leaving and entering their schools. This morning ISM witnessed children forming ‘chains’ to avoid being split up while passing the soldiers. One teacher from a local primary school stated that only 25% of the pupils has been present in school today. An ISMer noted: “We see the kids walk through these checkpoints every day, but it is obvious that they have been even more scared these past days.
Israeli soldiers close to a school in Hebron (photo by ISM)
In addition to Pesach today it is also Prisoners Day, which has been highlighted with demonstrations all across the West Bank. In al-Khalil, families was gathering outside the stadium to pray for their imprisoned loved ones. Many had brought pictures of their family members and friends, and the people of al-Khalil, together with many organisations and political parties, was there to show their support for the prisoners. An ISMer at the demo said: “There was a lot of different speakers, drums and music, and I think the participants in the demonstration shows how Palestinians unite in solidarity for the prisoners.”
In recent days, stun grenades have been echoing through the city, accompanied by rubber-coated steel bullets and much tear gas. For the past three days, clashes have broken out between Palestinian youths and the Israeli army, with young Palestinians throwing stones, while the Israeli military fires their weapons. At the moment ISM has no exact information about how many people were injured in the clashes, but today an ISMer was informed by a participant in the clashes that rubber-coated steel bullets injured five young people today.
