The weekly sit-in for Palestinian detainees in the ICRC’s Gaza courtyard. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
Every Monday, activists and relatives of political prisoners in Israeli jails attend a solidarity sit-in inside the courtyard of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza. The perseverance of these women and men, who have met here every week for eighteen years, is admirable, but this Monday was animated by a special hope.
Um Rami. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
Um Rami is waving a small Palestinian flag and holding a sign with a picture of a teenager. The teenager is Rami, her son. He was taken by the Zionist occupation forces 20 years ago, when he was 15 and a half years old, before the Oslo accords. After the prisoner exchange for Shalit, she was able to visit him in prison four times. Before, for twelve years, she had been forbidden to see him.
“He was a child,” she said. “They should not give them all these years. The judge was unfair! I had three other children after his arrest. None of them has been able to meet him in person. My daughter got married, had children, and even they have never met their uncle.”
According to Um Rami, he was arrested on the street near the illegal settlement of Kfar Darom. Two military jeeps stopped his car, took him, tied his wrists, blindfolded him and took him inside the colony. They sentenced him to life imprisonment on charges of stabbing a soldier of the Zionist occupation forces. The same occupation forces killed two of his brothers, two other sons of Um Rami, but no one has been given a life sentence for this.
(Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
But this Monday, there was an atmosphere of hope.
Um Rami is confident that her son will be released in a week, with the third group of Palestinian political prisoners Israel has agreed to free. Despite the accompanying expansion of settlements, and the fact that they should have been released years ago according to the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, this is good news for Um Rami.
“When the other two groups of prisoners were released, both times, a few days before, the neighbors told me that my son was on the list,” she said. “When the news turned out to be false, I fainted from sorrow.”
“But I went to the Erez to greet the freed prisoners, to bring solidarity to them and their families.”
Um Rami is active in the campaign for the release of Palestinian political prisoners. She participated in solidarity visits to the families of prisoners, was present at meetings of the UN to defend the prisoners’ cause, is also in contact with human rights centers.
Um Dia’a. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
Um Dia’a hopes that her son Dia’a will be released with the next group of prisoners. She does not know whether or not he is on the list, but, she says, he was arrested before many that have already been released, so he should be.
“My son was hiding in his sister’s house, but a spy told it to the occupation forces, so they surrounded the house,: she said. “They ransacked it, found him and took him away before they beat daughter’s family because they were hiding him.”
Dia’a was 16 years and 4 months old when he was detained 22 years ago. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. For seven years before Slahit exchange, his mother could not see him. After the exchange, Um Dia’a says she was only allowed to visit him three times.”In the meantime, I became the grandmother of 45 grandchildren,” she says. “None of them has ever been able to see his uncle.”
According to current agreements, the Zionist entity should release 104 prisoners detained before the Oslo Accords . The first two groups were released on August 13 and October 30. While these prisoners have been freed, dozens more were arrested. 4,996 currently remain in prison.
(Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are political prisoners because they are “guilty” of resistance against the occupation.
Their transfer from the Gaza Strip or West Bank to Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 violates the fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the occupying power from transferring persons out of an occupied territory.
145 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails held in administrative detention, without notification of any charges. Administrative detention orders are issued by Zionist military commanders for a period of six months, but may be renewed for an indefinite number of times.
Inside Israeli jails, torture is routinely practiced torture, children are detained, and family visits are often prevented.
17th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On Sunday, 15th December, a young Palestinian was injured by Israeli gunfire in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mohammed el-Shanbary, age 17, was harvesting potatoes. “I went to work at 9 am,” el-Shanbary said. “After about 30 minutes, the soldiers started shooting.”
He was working with the owner of the land and another person about 500 meters from the wall that separates the Gaza Strip from territory occupied by Israel in 1948.
El-Shanbary and his father Rafiq think the bullets were fired from control towers situated along the separation barrier, inside of which there are automatic machine guns.
A bullet wounded El-Shanbary in his left shinbone. After he fainted, the landowner called his father and asked him to summon an ambulance. The ambulance took him to Kamal Odwan hospital.
The bullet entered and exited, causing a fracture. El-Shanbary would have surgery 30 minutes after our visit. The doctor said they would insert a tibial fixation.
El-Shanbary started working in the area one month ago. The work depends on the harvest season.
His father does not have a stable job, leaving el-Shanbary and his 21-year-old brother to work to support a family of ten.
He can earn from 25 to 40 shekels per day, depending on how many crates of potatoes he collects. For each crate, he receives two shekels.
“Some time ago, they were shooting just to scare us, not directly at our bodies,” el-Shanbary said.
“We work just to buy bread for our family, and they hit us,” his father Rafiq added.
The ceasefire of 21st November 2012 established that Israeli occupation forces should “refrain from hitting residents in areas along the border” and “cease hostilities in the Gaza Strip by land, by sea and by air, including raids and targeted killings.”
However, Israeli military attacks by land and sea followed from the day after the ceasefire, and Israeli warplanes fly constantly over the Gaza Strip. Seven civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces since the end of their last major offensive, “Operation Pillar of Defense,” and more than 130 have been wounded.
These attacks on the Gaza Strip continue amid international silence.
16th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Silvia Todeschini and Henni | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Gaza’s bad weather has disrupted access lines and flooded whole areas. Thousands of families have been evacuated. Numerous injuries and two deaths have been reported. The Zionist siege and occupation contribute to aggravating the situation for tens of thousands of people.
The main route of access between the north and south of the Gaza Strip, called Saladin Street has been flooded, making travel very difficuly. A microbus running from Gaza to Rafah must be able to avoid deep pools of water by going from one lane to another, slowly and laboriously climbing over the hedge that separates them. Some cars are blocked because the water is high enough to disable their engines. Carts are pulled by donkeys, who walk with their feet in the water.
(Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
The neighborhood of Rafah where Khaled el- Sadi Alul lives is called el- Madakha. He lives with three wives, eleven sons and six daughters in a house that is cold and wet. You can see your own breath. The veil Khaled’s first wife wears seems to smoke because it is damp, and body heat causes its moisture to evaporate.
The woman is particularly sensitive to the cold, because she suffers from asthma and is diabetic. Khaled should also avoid low temperatures, because two weeks ago, pruning a tree, he fell down broke a rib. It puncture his lung, which required a surgery to drain the blood from it. Some of the windows and the roof of the house were destroyed during Israel’s “Operation Cast Leas” military offensive. The roof has been replaced with a sheet of corrugated material which costs little, but contains carcinogenic asbestos.
Khaled says that that at midnight between Thursday and Friday, everyone was at home asleep . They had heard rain, but it did not look heavy, and there was no electricity, so they were in darkness. Sleeping on the floor, they woke up because their mattress was wet. The water came five centimeters above the mattress. They called Civil Defense, but were told the whole Gaza Strip was in a flood emergency, so nothing could be done.
(Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
They called the 109. The municipality said it would send a car, but it never arrived. The water that had invaded was sewer. They had to place a pipe out of the home, to ensure that water poured into the yard. Then they had to make a hole in the wall that separates the garden from the space in front of the kitchen door, to let it drain, all in the dark and without power. “We spent horrible hours,” says Khaled ‘s first wife “In three hours we emptied the water that had accumulated in the house with buckets. You can still feel the smell!”
This family is just one example of what bad weather means here in Gaza, and certainly not the worst case. “We pray Allah to end the siege,” Khaled said. “If we had electricity, when something like this happens, at least we could see and understand what is going on.”
For five days, Khaled’s sons have not attended school because it is also flooded. Or perhaps it would be better to say that a lake has formed around it and the school seems to float in it, making it accessible only by boat. Even the football field in front of the school looks like a rectangular lake. A few days ago, water reached the first floors of the houses, and ten families, of a total of 70-80 people, were evacuated by boat through the first floor windows of their homes. Some were taken on Friday evening,, others Thursday morning, to a nearby school that serves as a shelter. But they are not isolated cases.
(Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
In the Jabalia refugee camp, which lies at a low point in the north of Gaza, a young man on the street reported that one man had died from the fatal mixture of broken electricity wires and water in the streets. Boys said that last year, three people and one horse were killed the same way: an electrical wire broke and fell into knee-high sewage water, which the wastewater plant and pumps couldn’t move out of city.
Yusuf Khela, manager of the Jabalia municipality, says that two projects have been underway. One project would pump water
directly to the to the wastewater plant further north without passing the sewage treatment plant in Jabalia. To manage this, it would be necessary to pump 3000qm3/h, but because of the fuel shortage, it is often difficult to manage these. The municipality installed two pumps in case one runs out of fuel, to guarantee at least some pumping of water.
(Photo by Silvia Todeschini)
Even if there is fuel, it will be expensive, costing 7 NIS per liter. To afford these, the government is even cutting employees’ salaries in order to fuel the pumps. If they stop working, the rain, salt and sewage water mixing together, particularly during the heaviest rain in decades, would first flood all of Jabalia camp.
A second project to manage the camp’s water problems is an infiltration system. Khela says that sometimes UNRWA gives money to cover the coast of fuel for Jabalia camp, if it is not stopped at the separation barrier.
Each year a large amount of NGOs and UN organisations give money in order to supply the fuel and the basic needs of Palestinian people. Unfortunately, it is often not used to meet these needs. Streets gets bigger, even if this means cutting parts from the surrounding houses. But projects like solutions for sewage water in Jabalia camp are set up only after deaths are reported.
Most houses are accessible only by stairs in order to prevent the entry of water. The poorest houses, covered only by thin metal roofs, suffer the most. Heavy winter storms often carry these makeshift roofs away. On 11th December, a young girl died in Khan Younis after one struck her in heavy winds.
16th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
Long beaches with white, soft sand. A swim in the warm and clear waters. Surfing. Water skiing. Diving among wrecks from Roman times. The allure of small rays’ silent flights, and the luck of seeing turtles and leaping dolphins. Beach cafes with plaited palm leaves as protection against the sun. Restaurants with seafood, caught in the golden light of dawn. Or historical walks among remains from the Roman, Persian or Ottoman eras. A quiet walk along the narrow streets, visits to markets, meetings with friendly, smiling people.The Gaza Strip, the Palestinian coastal enclave, has the potential for all of this, with one exception. The occupying power does not permit flight lands in to Gaza. They have even bombed the airport to prevent it. And they use military force to prevent every attempt to get here, or out, by boat. The fishermen risk their lives, their boats and gear, their livelihood, every day. The freshly caught fish or shellfish may never land on your plate. And bringing in materials to build those restaurants is highly uncertain.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
It could have been so beautiful here. It could have been so rich. But it is not allowed. And virtually no exports are, either. The economy is crippled. For a month and a half, the only electrical plant stood still, was there was no longer money for fuel. Six hours a day, eight if you’re lucky, there’s electricity supplied by the occupying power and Egypt. Perhaps it would be romantic to have a meal of seafood delicacies that were never delivered in a restaurant that could not be built by candlelight, but it would not be a place for students to do their homework. Or for those who have to wade through sewage when streets are flooded because there is no power for the water stations. A Venice of wastewater. The clear sea water has become turbid with wastewater that can not be purified. And the beaches as littered as the streets.
And I wonder: By what right do make these people an exception? Exceptions from human rights. From the right to fish in their own waters or farm their own land. From developing their economy. Perhaps this is what the outside world wants. Perhaps this is why the protests are so timid. And people here knows that the world has turned its back on what is happening. Still I meet friendly, smiling faces, people that wish me welcome in Gaza. It could have been so beautiful here. Long beaches with white, soft sand. Beach cafes with plaited palm leaves as protection against the sun. The potentials exist. All except one.
Israel effectively boycotts Gaza produce by not giving access to their own markets. (Photo by Desde Palestina)
The Gaza Strip, now in its seventh year of a comprehensive siege by Israel, has faced increased hardships since the 3 July coup in neighboring Egypt.
On 26 November, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the Palestinian enclave “is affected by one of the most serious energy crises in recent years, with potentially serious humanitarian ramifications” (“Gaza fuel crisis situation report”).
Electrical blackouts have increased to as long as 16 hours per day, while fuel scarcity has affected the operations of all 291 water and wastewater treatment facilities, causing multiple sewage spills. Local supplies of vital medicines are low or empty, and Israeli attacks on Palestinian fishermen and farmers continue.
Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper are the research team of Corporate Occupation, a project of Corporate Watch. Naming names, and going into detailed specifics, their blog documents the involvement of both international and Israeli companies in the illegal occupation of Palestine.
The Electronic Intifada contributor Joe Catron interviewed Anderson and Cooper on 5 December in Gaza City, shortly before the end of their visit.
Joe Catron: You’ve been in Gaza for four and a half weeks. What was the focus of your research?
Therezia Cooper: We wanted to research the impact of the siege, and the way Israel profits from it. Our research has been quite broad, and looked at all aspects of the strangulation of the economy and impacts the siege has on the ground. We’ve researched agriculture, exports from Gaza, the medical sector, prisoners, and effects of drone technology and other weaponry.
Tom Anderson: Separate from research, we also wanted to provide information from people in Gaza that will be useful in BDS campaigns around the world. Many solidarity activists have a lot of contacts in the West Bank because of the relative ease of access. We wanted to make connections with Gaza activists to better inform solidarity campaigns, specifically the BDS movement.
JC: What kinds of connections have you made with Gaza activists?
TA: We’ve been encouraged by meeting people and hearing of their enthusiasm for BDS as a strategy, and that they feel it’s an important part of their struggle against the occupation.
We’ve been asked to talk by many groups. We spoke about what the international BDS movement has been doing. People were eager to hear about successes. They were keen to have more feedback from the movement, more interaction and more Arabic materials on BDS.
TC: Having all these meetings and making connections has been one of the most fruitful parts of our trip. The movement is growing a lot through interactions over the Internet, but going to meet people, having real-life contact, and talking is very important.
JC: What new resources can BDS activists expect from your time here?
TA: We focused on a few different areas. One was military technology used against Palestinians. Israeli arms companies are world leaders in drone technology. They’ve developed that technology in the context of the occupation. Their expertise, and the technology they’re now trying to sell internationally, has been gained through war crimes and repression.
Israel has sold drone technology to up to 49 countries. The BDS movement needs to challenge Israel’s ability to profit from their experience oppressing the people of Palestine, impede their foreign sales of this technology, and target the offices and manufacturing facilities of [arms] companies like IAI [Israel Aerospace Industries] and Elbit, as well as their participation in international arms fairs.
We’ve done interviews with people on the receiving end of this Israeli drone technology here in Gaza, speaking to people whose houses have been targeted, and many who’ve lost family members to Israeli drone strikes.
Drones are now Israel’s weapon of choice against people in Gaza. Deaths from drone attacks exceeded those from other weapons during the last large-scale Israeli attack on Gaza, and were a large proportion in the previous one. We hope we we can provide resources to campaigners to target these companies’ abilities to make money out of experience they’ve gained supplying equipment used to commit war crimes.
TC: We’ve also spent a lot of time doing research that can be used by the campaign against a company called G4S, which provides security systems for Israeli prisons.
The campaign against G4S is possibly the fastest-growing BDS campaign in Europe, with a lot of groups working together to pressure G4S to withdraw from the contract they have with the Israeli Prison Service [IPS], among other things.
We interviewed prisoners who had a range of different experiences in Israeli prisons, and experienced a lot of different mistreatment, including prisoners who have given birth in prison, people who have been denied proper medical care and detainees who have been forcibly relocated from the West Bank.
Again, we think by coming here to hear the personal stories of people who have experienced the abuses of the IPS, we can benefit campaign work in the UK and around Europe. It’s hard for people in Gaza to boycott Israeli products, or have that kind of BDS campaign on the ground. But I think by telling stories of their experiences, they provide the backbone of the BDS movement and explain why it’s necessary, so we can work together to pressure these companies to end cooperation with Israel.
TA: G4S makes its money from large contracts with the public sector. That’s its weakness. People around the world can pressure the public authorities giving those tenders not to give contracts to G4S until it ends its contracts with the IPS and Israeli checkpoints, settlements and the [Israeli occupation authorities in the West Bank].
It’s a good target for BDS campaigns, because a public campaign to prevent G4S from obtaining one of these tenders can cost them millions of pounds.
“Economic warfare”
TC: One of the biggest challenges that we’ve become even more aware of since getting here, is how the solidarity movement can help Palestinians achieve some kind of independent economy in addition to BDS. The struggle of the Palestinian economy is evident in everything you see, on every level, in Gaza. At the moment, it’s very difficult to find a way to support Palestinian exports.
The devastating effects Israeli policies have on farmers are overwhelming them. Their main markets have been taken away. Even when they’re allowed to export tiny amounts of produce, they have no access to the local markets, in Israel and the West Bank, which used to sustain life in Gaza.
TA: That’s part of a policy of economic warfare. Elements of the siege that seek to control Palestinian exports go hand-in-hand with policies like the targeting of Palestinian farmersand fishermen. They’re intended to devastate the economy, but also to create a compliant economy that Israel can control, and from which it can profit.
Wherever we’ve talked about the boycott, they’ve asked us about ways the solidarity movement can support Palestinian exporters and help get Palestinian produce out of Gaza. That’s one area that could do with some creative thinking by the solidarity movement about how to support Palestinians by breaking the siege, by breaking Israeli control over Palestinian exports.
I think one reason the Israeli authorities allow a small amount of exports and cash crops from Gaza is to undermine the boycott movement, to say that Israeli companies are exporting Palestinian products, and therefore shouldn’t be boycotted. It’s imperative to think of ways to break restrictions on exporting Palestinian produce without benefiting Israeli companies and the Israeli economy.
TC: Even while Israel benefits from Gaza exports, they are effectively boycotting Gaza produce by not giving access to their own markets. That constitutes a boycott by Israel of all Gaza goods.
And of course, farmers here have no options. They have to live, and they have to try to export what they can. The people we’ve met have said they have no choice, but agree with the international boycott. The exports allowed now are so small, they don’t really make a difference. In order to actually benefit the Gaza economy, there needs to be some kind of autonomy for Gaza farmers, so they don’t have to rely exclusively on Israel and its companies.
Damaging restrictions
JC: You’ve mentioned Israel profiting from the siege several times. Can you say more about that?
TA: We’ve already mentioned two areas. One is Palestinian exports, which necessarily have to go through Israeli companies. We’ve also mentioned Israeli arms companies having a market for their products in the continuing aggression against people in Palestine, and a testing ground for products they can sell internationally.
The Kerem Shalom crossing is virtually the only point for goods to enter Gaza. The flow of those goods through Israel benefits the Israeli economy. Transport and marketing companies benefit from selling those goods and transporting them through the crossing.
Health workers have to buy products from outside. All the health workers’ organizations say they are supportive of the boycott of Israel and boycott Israeli products, except when they need them to protects lives and can’t buy them from anywhere else. However, all the drugs services care providers buy or are provided have to come through Israel, except for small amounts occasionally allowed as aid through the Rafah crossing.
Israeli companies benefit in the provision of these drugs, as well as transportation of them. Health workers who need to get equipment into Gaza, when they’re able to bring it, are sometimes required to wait for its delivery while security checks or other arbitrary delays are carried out. In the case of equipment coming from international sources, they’re required to pay for its storage.
The Gaza manufacturing industry is damaged by restrictions on the entry of certain raw materials. Again, that increases the necessity of reliance on products from outside, which necessarily have to come through Israel.
JC: What’s the state of the BDS movement in Gaza?
TC: The movement has a lot of potential. There are people working hard on it, and theacademic boycott seems particularly well-known. I think there’s a clear reason for that. Gaza is very isolated, and students are so often prevented from taking scholarships abroad.
There are a lot of young people, including at universities, who have a vague idea what’s been happening with the BDS movement, but want a way to feed into it and work more directly with people on the outside, as well as organizations that have been doing BDS work here.
But as we said before, we’ve sensed a lot of enthusiasm, especially from young people, and eagerness to work on BDS. Increased connections among all the people interested in BDS, and with BDS activists in the West Bank and abroad, would be a great next step.
TA: I think the role of international campaigners in doing that is to seek the mandate and voices of Palestinians in Gaza in taking BDS actions, to be led by Palestinians in Gaza, and to create better linkages between BDS campaigns and people under siege in Gaza.
For instance, the international campaign against the Prawer Plan would benefit from involvement and experience of the refugees here, as the ongoing forced expulsions in theNaqab are simply a continuation of the Nakba, which forced the refugees who now live in Gaza from their homes.
The organization which took control of the majority of land after the Nakba, which is instrumental in erasing any trace of the Palestinian history from the sites of forced expulsions, and which is currently planting forests on the lands of Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab, is the Jewish National Fund.
“Increased desperation”
JC: What has surprised you here?
TC: Reading about a situation is very different from actually experiencing it. In many ways, experiencing the situation is worse. We’ve come at a time when the border, and issues with fuel and electricity, are very bad. You can sense an increased desperation for a solution.
But like the West Bank, there’s the beauty of the place, the beauty of the sea, and the welcome you get from the people, who desperately want this kind of interaction with the world.
TA: The thing that struck me was the feeling of isolation, not just from the rest of the world, but from the rest of Palestine. Hearing about friends being tear-gassed by Israeli police in the Naqab, knowing that’s only a few miles away, in places we’ve been earlier this year, but feeling the extreme difficulty of meeting the people involved face to face, shows the isolation of people in Gaza struggling against the occupation.
I think the challenge for international solidarity activists is to not accept that isolation.
