25th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Bruqin, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday in the village of Bruqin, citizens found that approximately 10 olive trees had been severely damaged. The branches were cut with a saw and then pulled off by hand; this method can kill the tree if the damage is not immediately repaired.
The olive trees were 63-years-old and were planted in 1950. The trees’ owner relies solely on them for his livelihood. This is the first time since the occupation that he has been attacked. He has been frightened by the recent attack and fears for the future.
It is not known who damaged these trees, though villagers of Bruqin suspect that it was settlers from the illegal settlement of Bruchin. The villagers have had problems with Bruchin settlers in the past. Recently, a group of settlers fenced off a portion of Palestinian land, preventing the owner from accessing it. Settlers also built a settler-only road through a Palestinian olive grove.
The destroyed trees (photo by ISM).
The farmers have also had problems with the Ariel settlement. The factories in its industrial zone have built sewage pipes that lead directly to Palestinian land; this sewage pollutes the soil and harms the many olive trees planted there.
22nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
I was just going to make dinner when I realized the filtered water in my tank was almost done. Perhaps it would be enough if I used the last of my bottled water. But then I would have nothing to drink with my meal. And there would be no coffee, not after the food and not for breakfast. Glances at the tap, I considered diluting the filtered water with tapwater, in order to save time and to avoid having to walk two blocks to fill the tank. It was dark outside, and the shop with water might be closed.
Tapwater cannot be used for cooking, or should not be used for cooking. I avoid doing it anyway. I wash dishes in it, but do not use it to cook my rice. It’s salt. Saltwater penetrates the underground aquifier, which it is larger than the natural supply of fresh water can fill. But the seawater is not its only contaminant. According to the United Nation, chemicals and sewage also pollute it, which is not surprising when 90,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage gush out every day. Sewage, from the toilets, back in the taps. With water treatment plants, that works. But in Gaza, the problem is that there is not enough diesel to run the generators around the clock. And for those Israel has bombed, well, it also stops the import of replacement parts. Meanwhile seawater, chemicals and sewage increase in the water supply. By 2016, UN expects the water to become completely unusable. Only three years are left until then. And at 2020, no one they say, no one will be able to live here.
I open the fridge, hoping to find something that does not require water for cooking. I close it again. Maybe the store is open, but the cistern outside it is empty. It’s not just me who needs water. And some families have to spend as much as a third of their income on it. They must use the contaminated tapwater far more than I do. When I first came here, I used tapwater to brush my teeth. That was a mistake I will not repeat. But I rinse the toothbrush in it afterwards, shaking it carefully. I think that’s okay. A Swiss woman visiting Gaza asked if I drank the filtered water. It should be drinkable, but someone told me it is only filtered from salt. I do not want to find out how things are, do not want to know. I buy the more expensive bottled water. But I wash my clothes in water from the plumbing system, like everyone else here is forced to do. I wash my hands in it, my face. I take my showers in it, washing off my salty sweat with contaminated water, polluted not only by salt, like everyone else here must.
It becomes more polluted every year. The farmers have problems with it. It’s too salty for citrus seeds to germinate, and causes harvests to decline for the products that still grow. Tanker trucks drive to those who can afford to pay. Israel says it’s concerned, has plans to pull in a pipeline and talks about desalination plants, the same plants it keeps from entering. And I think about what will happen when the disaster strikes, when no one can live here, when everyone is forced to flee: a new Nakba, caused not by the force of arms but by the siege. Where can they go? Who is prepared to receive them? And what will happen then? Will Israel then will take over the empty land, this terra nullius, pumping in water, getting the desert to bloom? I hear it as an echo.
21st November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
The lack of electricity in the Gaza Strip is also creating an environmental crisis. Wastewater treatment facilities have stopped due to the lack of fuel. In the Zeitoun neighborhood, in the east of Gaza City, a sewage pumping station has stopped working due to the lack of electricity. The wastewater flooded the streets and houses in the neighborhood.
In the few hours when electricity is on, the water is again partially collected from the plant, leaving mud and putrid slime on which children walk to reach their homes. In some cases, inhabitants have built small bridges. In others, where this is not possible, people have to look for alternate routes through the neighborhood. When the system stops, sewage again starts to submerge the streets.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
At the entrance one building, residents had placed wooden boards to walk on until they reach the stairs. The building was partially evacuated, with only a few families remaining.
“We have lived here a month, and we would like to leave,” Nadia, a young mother, said shortly before the electricity cut. “We haven’t gone out for a week. My kids are sick. I needed to take them to the hospital to see what they had. The doctor told me they contracted an infection due to the dirty water. They had high fevers. Their temperature was over 40 degrees.” Nadia has three daughters and one son. During the night, they can’t sleep because of the stench of sewage. There are also insects and rats.
The waste water also flooded a farmland on which many olive trees are planted. If the emergency is not solved, the land will be irreversibly contaminated. The pumping station, which is used to transfer wastewater from the center to the south of Gaza City, was flooded.
Much of the fuel arrived in Gaza through the underground tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt, now almost totally destroyed by the Egyptian army. Israeli fuel, which is twice as much, costs too much for most in Gaza to afford.
The Energy Authority in Gaza had started to buy fuel from Israel through the Energy Authority in Ramallah, which exempted fuel purchases from taxes. But Ramallah Authority demanded the Gaza Authority pay taxes on the fuel due to the Palestinian Authority’s current financial crisis. The Energy Authority in Gaza, which cannot pay the costs, refused.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
The only power plant in the Gaza Strip can work for limited periods. In coming days, the supply of electricity is expected to be further reduced from six to four hours per day. “A disaster, a catastrophe,” children in the Zeitoun neighborhood repeated. Employees of the municipality worked with boots and gloves. Other wasterwater treatment facilities may stop if their generators also run out of fuel.
The humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip are deteriorating. The energy crisis affects all the daily needs of the population. Israel has kept the Gaza Strip under siege for over seven years, imposing restrictions on exports (almost zero) and imports of goods, fuel, building materials and other necessities, thus creating increases in unemployment, poverty and aid dependency.
21st November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Ya’bad, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday in the village of Ya’bad, a peaceful protest was violently repressed by Israeli forces through the use of tear gas canisters, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets. Demonstrators were directly targeted by Israeli soldiers, five Palestinians were injured and two were arrested.
Yesterday morning at approximately 10:00, six international activists from several solidarity organisations joined around 100 inhabitants of Ya’bad village in a peaceful march on a restricted road at the edge of the village. The event had been organized to protest against settler and soldier harassment. Illegal settlers recently cut down 67 olive trees in front of Israeli soldiers who did nothing to prevent their actions. Soldiers then later forbid Ya’bad residents access to the road that links Tulkarm to Jenin with no justification. Moreover, according to a source from the local municipality, the Israeli army often uses the village itself as a training ground for military maneuvers during the night.
The protest march started quietly, with a few speeches from the demonstrators to the media, in front of the ruined olive trees. Less than ten minutes later the first military jeep arrived, immediately giving the order that the protesters should leave the forbidden road. The demonstrators refused and continued their march.
Shortly after this, two other military jeeps and a larger military vehicle entered the village. After several minutes of the peaceful protest continuing, filmed by local media, the first stun grenades were thrown in the middle of the gathering, immediately followed by shots of tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steal bullets. Israeli forces were extremely aggressive in their attack, five Palestinians were injured after being shot with tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets, three of whom required hospital treatment.
While the demonstrators were taking care of the injured people, the Israeli soldiers took the opportunity to arrest two protesters with absolutely no legal justification.
Israeli forces continued their attack, forcing the demonstration back in to the village. As the villagers were returning to Ya’bad, the soldiers broke into a Palestinian home and took up position on the rooftop where they remained for a number of hours.
Despite the arrests and injuries from this this action, a Palestinian source confirmed the village deemed it a success, the demonstrators openly refused a direct order from the Israeli army and stayed peaceful in the face of violent aggression.
Israeli forces attempt to end the peaceful demonstration (photo by ISM).
21st November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Ammar Asad al-Sultan (left) and Mohsen Zayed. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On Sunday, 17th November 2013, two Palestinian fishermen were captured by Israeli naval forces, who also confiscated their boat, in Gaza waters.
Ammar Asad al-Sultan, age 19, and Mohsen Zayed, age 25, were on a small fishing boat, or hasaka, without an engine, about one mile off the coast of Soudanya in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces released them about 3:00 am the following day.
Ammar Asad al-Sultan lives in an area called Salatin, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“We went fishing at 5:00 pm,” he said there Tuesday. “Around 6.30 pm, an Israeli gunboat approached our boat and the Israeli soldiers opened fire into the water. We tried to quickly pull our nets in order to escape, but we could not.”
Without a motor, the two fishermen could not escape. “I’m 25, and I have never experienced something so terrifying in my life,” Moshen said. “I was afraid of losing my life.”
The Israeli soldiers forced the two fishermen to undress and jump into the water. “It was very cold,” Ammar said. “It was freezing. They told us to jump into the water and swim 30 meters towards the Israeli gunboat.”
On board, the Israeli soldiers brought the fishermen to the bow of the boat, cuffed their hands and feet, and covered their heads. A soldier asked them their names. The gunboat didn’t go directly to Ashdod, but moved south before doubling back and and reaching the Israeli port of Ashdod.
“In Ashdod, two soldiers took us to a small room,” Mohsen said. “They removed the handcuffs. Then, a military doctor checked our health, blood pressure and temperature. Then we were kept handcuffed again for about 30 minutes in a room, before they separated us and we were questioned individually. They removed the handcuffs and the hood from my head, and asked me about my family, my work, everything about my private life, how many children I had. Then an investigator asked me which political party I support. And he asked me how many brothers I have. ‘Eight,’ I replied. ‘You are a liar,’ he told me. ‘I’m not,’ I said. He insulted me and said, ‘You have nine brothers.’ I told him one of my brothers died when he was five years old, so I had not counted him.'”
After the interrogation, soldiers handcuffed the two fishermen, covered their heads and took them to another room. Ammar said soldier asked him to undress, then he checked his body with an explosive detector alarm able to detect weapons and even gunpowder. “The investigator, whose the name was Jamal, asked me why I was fishing in the forbidden area,” Ammar said. “Then he showed me a printed map and told me to mark my home. He asked me about my brothers and their work, and if I knew someone who works for Hamas. He said, ‘One of your brothers works for Hamas. We follow his steps every day.’ I told him that I don’t know anyone and my brother is not working for Hamas. The investigator told me, ‘I know everything happens in Gaza. We are watching at you. We could attach you, because your brother works with a terrorist organization.’ Then he told me to tell my brother to stay away from certain people because the whole family will be in danger if he is not be far away from them. The investigator repeated the same things 10 times. Then the soldiers handcuffed me.”
Two Palestinian fishermen paddle off the Gaza seaport. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
Israeli forces took the two fishermen to the Erez checkpoint before releasing them.
Their families depend on their fishing, they said. Without their boat, they don’t have any other means of subsistence.
Ammar’s father said this is the third time he lost his fishing nets. Israeli soldiers confiscated them, along with other boats. He went into debt to afford them.
“I call on the international community to allow us to live like people in the rest of the world outside Gaza,” he said. “I appeal the world to stop these crimes and help the fishermen of Gaza, especially the fishermen of the north of the Gaza Strip. Our children need clothes and shoes. Children do not know our problems. They do not understand why cannot have what they need. Now the winter is coming and I have no money to buy them new clothes.”
This is the second Israeli attack on Palestinian fishermen in only a week, as well as the second consecutive attack against fishermen on a boat without an engine one to two nautical miles off the northern coast of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forcesseem determined to prevent fishermen from accessing waters in the northern Gaza Strip. The actual limit imposed by Israel on waters north of Gaza is not six nautical miles, but one to two.
Background
Israel has progressively imposed restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical miles established under the Jericho agreements, between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1994, were reduced to 12 miles in the Bertini Agreement of 2002. In 2006, the area Israel allowed for fishing was reduced to six nautical miles from the coast. After its military offensive “Operation Cast Lead” (December 2008 – January 2009) Israel imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast, preventing Palestinians from accessing 85% of the water to which they are entitled under the Jericho agreements of 1994.
Under the ceasefire agreement reached by Israel and the Palestinian resistance after the Israeli military offensive “Operation Pillar of Defense” (November 2012), Israel agreed that Palestinian fishermen could again sail six nautical miles from the coast. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy has not stopped its attacks on fishermen, even within this limit. In March 2013, Israel once again imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast. On 22 May, Israeli military authorities announced a decision to extend the limit to six nautical miles again.
