Finding fish, but Israelis too

Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service

1 July 2009

At 6am on Jun. 16, Sadallah and his brother Abdel Hadi Sadallah, in their early twenties, went roughly 400 metres out to sea off the coast of Sudaniya in Gaza’s northwest. “We wanted to bring in nets we had left out the night before,” says Sadallah.

Their small fishing boat, known as a hassaka, was in Palestinian fishing waters when three Israeli navy boats approached the brothers.

“After they opened fire on us, we paddled about three kilometres west where a larger Israeli gunboat was waiting. When we were about 30 metres from the gunboat, Israeli soldiers ordered us to take off our clothes, jump into the water, and swim towards them.”

The gunboat, Sadallah said, moved half a kilometre away after the two fishermen had jumped into the water. “We swam for about 15 minutes to reach it,” he said. “Then they took us aboard and handcuffed and blindfolded us.” In illegal detention later in Israel’s Ashdod port, the two were interrogated, but not charged. They were released at the Erez crossing more than 14 hours after their abduction.

The Sadallahs’ hassaka remains in Ashdod, along with what Palestinian fishermen attest are an increasing number of their fishing vessels.

The hassaka will cost 4,000 shekels (about 1,000 dollars) to replace, double the normal price because of the siege on Gaza. The missing nets cost more: 6,000 shekels. “And fishing is our only source of income,” the now jobless Sadallah says.

Jihad Sultan, also from Sudaniya, spoke of his abduction by the Israeli navy a month earlier, on May 27.

“It’s the third time I was abducted,” he said. “The Israelis accused me of crossing into the ‘no-go zone’, but I didn’t.” In Ashdod, Sultan said he saw “a building filled with nets which I’m sure are stolen Palestinian nets.”

Zaki Taroush and his 17-year-old son Zayed were fishing 600 metres off the coast and 200 metres south of the closed zone the same day Sultan was abducted. They were likewise forced under the live fire of Israeli soldiers to paddle their hassaka west to a waiting Israeli gunboat where they underwent the same, standard, procedure: strip, swim, abduction, handcuffing and blindfolding.

In detention, they were accused of being in off-limits waters, in what is known as the ‘K’ zone. Tarroush had been abducted along with seven other fishermen just three months earlier, on Mar. 13, under similar circumstances, also losing his net when Israeli soldiers cut the ropes. Following that abduction, the Israelis kept his hassaka, returning it nearly two months later, the 150 shekels transport of which he had to pay.

Under the Oslo interim agreement, Palestinian fishermen were accorded a 20 nautical mile fishing limit, one which Israel has since repeatedly, unilaterally, downsized to as little as three miles.

In Sudaniya, Jihad Sultan explains his work on a beached, broken hassaka. “This was taken by the Israelis. When it was returned to us, it had been badly damaged. I’m certain it was dropped on cement,” he said, pointing to long splits in the wood. “It needs to be entirely rebuilt.”

One of the problems now, Sultan explained, is the lack of materials for repairing the boat. “It will cost nearly 3,500 just to repair the boat.” Fishing nets also are comprised of several unavailable or highly expensive parts.

“The steel bits on the netting cost 15 shekels a kilo, versus six shekels before the siege. But they are very hard to find now. Rope used to cost 20 shekels per 100 metres, but now it’s 50 shekels and completely unavailable. Sometimes it is brought through the tunnels, but the quality is poor. Even the buoys which hold the nets up are triple the price, at two shekels apiece, and can’t be found in Gaza.”

With so many parts unavailable in Gaza, Sultan said that to make a ‘new’ net fishermen sew together bits from old nets. To worsen matters, “when the Israeli soldiers don’t find any fishermen to arrest, they often cut or take our nets.”

On the beach near Sultan’s broken hassaka, Awad Assaida’s bullet-latticed hassaka sits unused, waiting for repairs. “I was in the boat when the Israelis attacked,” said Salim Naiman. “They shot at me for around 30 minutes, from all around me.” Naiman said that when the Israelis finally left, a Palestinian fishing launch nearby towed the boat to shore. Over 50 bullet holes punctured the sides, top and interior of the hassaka. The attacks are by no means limited to the northern areas, but occur all along Gaza’s coast. Nor are the attacks limited to recent times – they go at least a decade back. The Israeli navy’s policy of assault and intimidation has killed at least six fishermen in the last four years, including Hani Najjar, shot in the head by Israeli soldiers in October 2006 while fishing roughly 2.5 miles off the coast of Deir Al-Balah.

Since Jan. 18 this year when the assault on Gaza ended, five fishermen are known to have been wounded at sea, five more injured on the shore, more than 40 abducted, at least 17 boats taken, and dozens more damaged. Of the boats that have been returned, all have suffered damage or theft of equipment while in custody of the Israeli authorities.

Sultan believes one reason for the severe attacks on Palestinian fishermen is political. “The water near the ‘K’ area is rich in fish. The Israelis know this and don’t want Palestinian fishermen benefiting from it. It’s part of the siege.”

Farmers harassed in Khiriat Salama

30 June 2009

On Monday the 30th of June some farmers of the Khiriat Salama, a village about 15 km south west of Hebron, were prevented from working their land. They were forced to leave their olive groves by Israeli soldiers and got delivered a paper with a decision of an Israeli court that stated that from this day on they need a license to work their land. 25 families have their olive groves near the settlement of Nahal Negohot in a ‘C’ declared area (the small village of Salama with its 400 inhabitants is subdivided into A, B and C zones). Since this settlement has been established, the inhabitants of Salama village had to defend their land against its enlargement. For example in 2003, around 600 olive trees were burnt down and on some parts of the burned groves are now being cultivated by settlers.

In addition there are 11 families in area B and C who are threatened with eviction and demolition of their houses due to the lack of licenses to live there. Quit obviously they never will get one; people requested for these permits two years ago without any response, even through today.

Furthermore one family was prevented to move into their newly built house and was told by the IDF about an already existing demolition order.

The families of Khiriat Salama are now waiting the decision of DCO (District Coordination Office which is negotiating the interests of Israelis and Palestinians within the West Bank). In the case they should receive an unfavorable decision from the DCO they will try to make an appeal for a final judgment of an Israeli high court.

A typical case of daily live in the occupied territories: In the name of the security of Israeli settlers, life of Palestinian families is just getting impossible. This is just one of the impacts of colonialism.

Inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoner

30 June 2009

The 23 year old Palestinian women, Somod from Nablus, was recently released after having been imprisoned in Israel for four and a half years. Despite her young age, she suffered from inhumane treatment such as rape-threats, isolation, and denial of access to basic sanitation facilities. She went to court as many as 18 times before she was released.

The treatment in jail

Regardless of any crime that Somod might have been accused of, the treatment that she faced in the Israeli prisons cannot be legitimated.

“In jail they beat me badly, and I suffered under inhumane interrogation techniques. They threatened me by saying that they would ‘make me a woman’ if I refused to give them information. It was horrible. I was sent to many different places for interrogation, in many different prisons. Many times they did not even tell me where I was, or where I was going. They tried to make me sign conditions that I did not agree on, and they hit me in order for them to make me talk. But I feel that to give them such information would be like selling my home, my family. It would be the same as being a spy. So when I still refused to talk, they took me to an isolated room with only red lights for two days. I was later sent to Talmond prison where I was kept in isolation for 7 days”, Somod explains.

“In Talmond prison we were 11 women in a single room, with only 8 beds so that some had to sleep on the floor. There was only one small bathroom, which was full of insects, and even mice. There were no showers in the bathroom, only small buckets with water, and many times the prison authority cut the water while we were showering. It felt very humiliating. I was transferred to various different prisons, and in some of them they woke us up 7 times each night “in order to count us”, the prison authorities said. If some of us did not immediately rose up from bed and said “yes I am here”, the person was punished by being transferred in to an isolated room. Sometimes they even threw tear gas in the sleeping room were we slept, or cold water.”

Somod could not even enjoy a homecoming with her family. On her scheduled release date, she was told by the warden that she will be detained for an additional 6 months. When she asked why she could get no answer. Meanwhile her parents waited outside the jail for two days and were unable to get any explanation as to why their daughter was not being released. Four days after her scheduled release Somod was sent out of the prison with nothing. She found a man on the street that allowed her to borrow a phone. When she spoke to her father he could not believe his ears.

In the West Bank, suburb or settlement?

Howard Schneider | The Washington Post

29 June 2009

Chaim Hanfling knows a lot about this settlement’s population boom. Six of his 11 siblings have moved here from Jerusalem in recent years to take advantage of the lower land prices, and at age 29, he has added four children of his own.

Located just over the Green Line that marks the territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the booming ultra-Orthodox community, home to more than 41,000 people, shows why the settlement freeze demanded by the Obama administration is proving controversial for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and also why Palestinian officials are insisting on it.

Amid their gleaming, modern apartment buildings, with Tel Aviv visible on the horizon, residents say they have little in common with the people who have hauled mobile homes to hilltops in hopes of deepening Israel’s presence in the occupied West Bank. But they are having lots of babies — and they expect the bulldozers and cement mixers to keep supplying larger schools and more housing, a typically suburban demand that the country’s political leadership is finding hard to refuse.

“We don’t feel this is a settlement,” said Hanfling. “We’re in the middle of the country. It’s like Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan,” another Israeli city.

Across a nearby valley, residents of the Palestinian village of Bilin have watched in dismay as Modiin Illit has grown toward them and an Israeli barrier has snaked its way across their olive groves and pastureland. Two years ago, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the fence relocated, but nothing has happened. A weekly protest near the fence, joined by sympathetic Israelis and foreigners, has led to a steady stream of injuries, with protesters hit by Israeli fire and Israeli troops struck by rocks. One villager, Bassem Abu Rahmeh, died in April when a tear gas canister hit him in the chest.

“The court said, ‘Move the fence,’ so why is he dead?” villager Basel Mansour said as he surveyed the valley between Bilin and Modiin Illit from his rooftop. “Why hasn’t it been moved?”

Amid a dispute with the Obama administration over the future of West Bank settlements, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak left for the United States on Monday for talks with White House special envoy George J. Mitchell. Local news reports say he may propose a temporary construction freeze of perhaps three months, though Netanyahu’s office said it is committed to “normal life” proceeding.

Of the nearly 290,000 Israelis who live in West Bank settlements, nearly 40 percent reside in three areas — Modiin Illit, Betar Illit and Maale Adumim — where the impact of a settlement freeze would probably be felt most deeply.

Debate over West Bank settlements is separate from discussion of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their national capital. The Obama administration has also asked Israel to freeze construction in Jerusalem neighborhoods occupied after the 1967 war.

“The goal is to find common ground with the Americans,” said Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev. “Israel is willing to be creative and flexible.”

Palestinian officials said Monday that they will not restart peace talks with Israel until a full settlement freeze is declared.

A trip across the valley outside Modiin Illit shows why the settlements remain a central Palestinian concern.

When the Israeli barrier was built around Modiin Illit, it looped into Palestinian territory — too far, according to the Israeli Supreme Court, whose 2007 decision said that the route went farther than security needs required in order to make room for more building in the settlement.

Planned additions to the community have since been canceled by the Defense Ministry, which is in charge of construction in the West Bank. Israel Defense Forces Central Command spokesman Peter Lerner said the military has designed a new route for the fence that will return land to Bilin, but has not received funding.

The lack of an agreed-upon border, Palestinian officials and human rights groups said, figures into a variety of problems — such as the violence that flares regularly between Palestinians and settlers, as well as larger policy matters. The rights group B’Tselem said in a recent report that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority is taking clear responsibility for wastewater treatment in settlements or Palestinian towns and villages — putting local drinking water at risk.

Facing U.S. demands, Israel has said it will take no more land for settlement and has agreed to remove more than 20 unauthorized outposts. But even that has proved slow going. The government recently proposed dismantling the outpost of Migron, a settlement of about 40 families that is under legal challenge for being built on private Palestinian land, by expanding another settlement nearby.

“The individuals in outposts shouldn’t be rewarded” for building illegally, said Michael Sfard, an attorney for the group Peace Now who helped prepare a lawsuit against Migron.

In the City Hall of Modiin Illit, such struggles seem part of a different world. Pointing from a hillside to bulldozers busy in one part of town and graded sites ready for building in another, Mayor Yaakov Guterman said the city has 1,000 apartments under construction but is running out of room.

Modiin Illit can’t expand to the west, back over the Green Line, he said, because that is a designated Israeli forest area. He said the community should be allowed to spread to the surrounding valley because, in his view, Modiin Illit “will be on the Israeli side” of the border under any final peace deal.

Meanwhile, he said, local families are having dozens of new babies every week, a boom that a construction freeze would “strangle.”

“It’d be a death sentence,” he said.

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Israeli forces and settlers harass shepherd

29 June 2009

At 9am a group of 5 settlers from the Sussya settlement in the south Hebron hills, accompanied by a uniformed soldier, approached a young shepherd and his sheep. They came with a tractor and trailer and they divided the sheep into two groups and attempted to steal an estimated twenty sheep. The family of the boy saw what was happening and went to help, at this time they were verbally harassed and abused by the settlers.

They took photographs, shouted and swore at the Palestinians and internationals before separating from the tractor and trailer and walking back to the settlement and the tractor driving away as the army arrived. Two jeeps with 8-10 soldiers attended but made no attempt to stop the settlers from walking away despite being clearly visible and not far away. One further vehicle drove past the settlers on the road back to the settlement but did not stop.

The soldiers told the Palestinians that the shepherd had taken his animals to the settlement’s vineyard, however this was not true, the shepherd had stayed in the valley (on his land) the entire time. The road was blocked by the soldiers and their jeeps whilst the Palestinians and internationals were ordered to stay 2 metres away from the roadside. A local farmer phoned for the police and the young shepherd was taken to a police station whilst the two internationals were told they were under arrest and also taken to the same police station.