Tag: BDS - Page 11 - International Solidarity Movement

Urgent call from Gaza civil society: act now!

13th July 2014 | Gaza Civil Society, originally published here | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

We, Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip, call on conscientious people all over the world, to act, protest, and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.

With the world turning their backs on us once again, for the last four days we have in Gaza been left to face massacre after massacre. As you read these words over 120 Palestinians are dead now, including 25 children. Over 1000 have been injured including countless horrifying injuries that will limit lives forever – more than two thirds of the injured are women and children. We know for a fact that many more will not make it through the next day. Which of us will be next, as we lie awake from the sound of the carnage in our beds tonight? Will we be the next photo left in an unrecognizable state from Israel’s state of the art flesh tearing, limb stripping machinery of destruction?

We call for a final end to the crimes and oppression against us. We call for:

– Arms embargos on Israel, sanctions that would cut off the supply of weapons and military aid from Europe and the United States on which Israel depends to commit such war crimes;

– Suspension of all free trade and bilateral agreements with Israel such as the EU-Israel Association agreement;

– Boycott, divestment and sanctions, as called for by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Civil Society in 2005

Without pressure and isolation, the Israeli regime has proven time and time again that it will continue such massacres as we see around us now, and continue the decades of systematic ethnic cleansing, military occupation and apartheid policies.

We are writing this on Saturday night, again paralyzed in our homes as the bombs fall on us in Gaza. Who knows when the current attacks will end? For anyone over seven years old, permanently etched on our minds are the rivers of blood that ran through the Gaza streets when for over 3 weeks in 2009 over 1400 Palestinians were killed including over 330 children. White phosphorous and other chemical weapons were used in civilian areas and contaminating our land with a rise in cancers as a result. More recently 180 more were killed in the week-long attacks in late November 2012.

This time what? 200, 500, 5000? We ask: how many of our lives are dispensable enough until the world takes action? How much of our blood is sufficient? Before the Israeli bombings, a member of the Israeli Knesset Ayelet Shaked of the far-right Jewish Home party called for genocide of the Palestinian people. “They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes.” she said. “Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.” Right now nothing is beyond the murderous nature of the Israeli State, for we, a population that is mostly children, are all mere snakes to them

As said Omar Ghraib in Gaza, “It was heart shattering to see the pictures of little boys and girls viciously killed. Also how an elderly woman was killed while she was having her iftar at Maghreb prayer by bombing her house. She died holding the spoon in her hand, an image that will need a lot of time to leave my head.”

Entire houses are being targeted and entire families are being murdered. Early Thursday morning the entire Al-Hajj family was wiped out – the father Mahmoud, mother Bassema and five children. No warning, a family targeted and removed from life. Thursday night, the same again, no warning, 5 more dead including four from the Ghannam family, a woman and a seven year old child amongst them.

On Tuesday morning the Kaware family did get a phone call telling them their 3 storey house would be bombed. The family began to leave when a water tank was struck, but then returned with members of the community, who all came to the house to stand with them, people from all over the neighbourhood. The Israeli jets bombed the building with a roof full of people, knowing full well it was full of civilians. 7 people died immediately including 5 children under 13 years old. 25 more were injured, and 8 year old Seraj Abed al-Aal, succumbed to his injuries later that evening. Perhaps the family was trying to appeal to the Israeli regime’s humanity, surely they wouldn’t bomb the roof full of people. But as we watch families being torn apart around us, it’s clear that Israel’s actions have nothing to do with humanity.

Other places hit include a clearly marked media vehicle killing the independent journalist Hamed Shehab, injuring 8 others, a hit on a Red Crescent rescue vehicle and attacks on hospitals which caused evacuations and more injuries.

This latest session of Israeli barbarity is placed firmly in the context of Israel’s inhuman seven-year blockade that has cut off the main life-line of goods and people coming in and out of Gaza, resulting in the severe medical and food shortages being reported by all our hospitals and clinics right now. Cement to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed by Israeli attacks had been banned and many injured and ill people are still not being allowed to travel abroad to receive urgent medical treatment which has caused the deaths of over 600 sick patients.

As more news comes in, as Israeli leaders’ give promises of moving onto a next stage in brutality, we know there are more horrors yet to come. For this we call on you to not turn your backs on us. We call on you to stand up for justice and humanity and demonstrate and support the courageous men, women and children rooted in the Gaza Strip facing the darkest of times ahead. We insist on international action:

– Severance of diplomatic ties with Israel

– Trials for war crimes

– Immediate International protection of the civilians of Gaza

We call on you to join the growing international boycott, divestment and sanction campaign to hold this rogue state to account that is proving once again to be so violent and yet so unchallenged. Join the growing critical mass around the world with a commitment to the day when Palestinians do not have to grow up amidst this relentless murder and destruction by the Israeli regime. When we can move freely, when the siege is lifted, the occupation is over and the world’s Palestinian refugees are finally granted justice.

ACT NOW, before it is too late!

Signed by

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

University Teachers’ Association in Palestine

Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (Umbrella for 133 orgs)

General Union of Palestinian Women

Medical Democratic Assembly

General Union of Palestine Workers

General Union for Health Services Workers

General Union for Public Services Workers

General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers

General Union for Agricultural Workers

Union of Women’s Work Committees

Pal-Cinema (Palestine Cinema Forum)

Youth Herak Movement

Union of Women’s Struggle Committees

Union of Synergies—Women Unit

Union of Palestinian Women Committees

Women’s Studies Society

Working Woman’s Society

Press House

Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel

Gaza BDS Working Group

One Democratic State Group

Israel must be held accountable for its collective punishment of Palestinians

3rd July 2014 | Palestinian BDS National Committee | Ramallah, Occupied Palestine

– Palestinian organisations condemn Israeli operations in West Bank and Gaza as collective punishment
– Palestinians call for military embargo and boycott action

Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists have are urging governments and international civil society to take action to hold Israel to account for its continued collective punishment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza following the disappearance and death of three Israeli settlers.

Zaid Shuaibi, a spokesperson for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the civil society coalition that leads and supports the BDS movement, said:

“Israel’s on-going actions are designed to terrorise Palestinians and constitute collective punishment. Military violence, collective punishment and the deliberate targeting of civilians are endemic to Israel’s of decades old system of occupation, colonisation and apartheid.”

“Israel is able to act with utter impunity because of the military, economic and political support it receives from governments around the world. We call on international governments to impose a two-way arms embargo immediately and to suspend bilateral agreements until Israel fully complies with international law”.

“At a time when mainstream bodies such as the Bill Gates Foundation, the Presbyterian Church USA and the US United Methodist Church are divesting from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation, including G4S and Hewlett Packard, we call on people of conscience to intensify BDS pressure.”

Hundreds of military raids have been launched across the occupied West Bank since June 12, with more than 1000 private homes and refugee camps and the offices of civil society organisations ransacked.

At least 10 Palestinians have been killed and many more have been injured. More than 500 Palestinians have been detained and initial reports suggest that many of those arrested are held under administrative detention, a form of detention without charge or trial on secret evidence. The number of children held in Israeli jails has risen to 250. Israel has also imposed severe restrictions of movement.

On Wednesday, Israeli settlers kidnapped and killed a 16 year old from the Shuafat area of Palestinian East Jerusalem and Israeli soldiers attacked Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Palestinian organisations have detailed how Israel’s recent actions constitute collective punishment, a crime prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as customary international humanitarian law.

Israeli occupation forces have also targeted the campuses of Birzeit University near Ramallah and the Arab American University in Jenin, resulting in the detention and arrest of students and staff and greatly infringing the Palestinian right to education.

Samia Botmeh, a professor at Birzeit University and a steering committee member with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said:

“Israel’s latest violations against Palestinian universities are part of its long history of oppression aimed at Palestinian education. Closure of universities for periods stretching to years, murder and detention of students and professors, destruction of universities’ properties and labs as well as the banning of lists of books have been Israel’s systematic policies targeting Palestinian education.”

“It must be emphasized that throughout the decades of oppression, no Israeli university or association of Israeli academics has ever protested the sustained assaults on Palestinian universities. It is essential to intensify all forms of BDS, including the academic and cultural boycott, until Israel ends its violations of Palestinian rights.”

Israel has conducted at least 100 airstrikes or shellings of Gaza in recent days, including an intense bombing of dozens of sites in the early hours of Tuesday, further worsening the situation for Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under a brutal military siege for more than 7 years.

Haidar Eid, associate professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza and a PACBI steering committee member, said:

“We, residents of Gaza, have been unable to fathom how it is that official bodies of the international community tolerate blatant war crimes committed against the people of Gaza, in spite of thousands of reports by main-stream human rights organizations!”

“Is it farfetched to expect people of conscience to heed our call to boycott this intransigent, racist and militarized Israeli regime and the institutions that keep it thriving, the same way apartheid South Africa was boycotted until it crumbled?”

Ayah Abubasheer, a youth and BDS activist in Gaza, added:

“During the past few weeks, Israel has been violently and intensely launching a series of air strikes against the Gaza Strip. The population of the Gaza Strip continues to pay the price and bear the blaze of Israel’s polices.”

“Because collective punishment is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, we urge the international community to pressure Israel to end its all-out military assault aimed against the total population of Gaza, open Rafah crossing permanently and heed our call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions.”

Avoiding accountability: Life in Ramleh prison hospital

11th April 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Akram Salameh holds up a picture of himself in prison uniform, taken inside Ramleh prison hospital – Photo taken by Corporate Watch, Gaza City, November 2013

Corporate Watch has been investigating the companies involved in the Israeli prison system and interviewing ex-prisoners. This interview is part of a series of articles to be released over the coming months that we hope will serve as a resource for action against companies providing equipment and services to the Israeli Prison ‘Service’ (IPS).

Palestinian organisations are calling for action on 17 April, the international day of solidarity for Palestinian political prisoners, against G4S, a British-Danish multinational company working with the IPS, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major investor in G4S. Click here to find out more.

The Israeli police arrest Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and then transfer them to prisons and interrogation centres inside Israel’s 1948 borders, against the stipulations of the Geneva Conventions. According to the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organisation: “Palestinians from the OPT are currently held in a total of four interrogation centres, four military detention centres, and approximately 17 prisons. While the four military detention centres are located inside the OPT, all the interrogation centres and prisons—except for one prison, Ofer—are located within the 1948 borders of Israel, in violation of international humanitarian law. The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power’s territory are illegal under international law and constitute a war crime. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein” (Article 76).”

The Hussam Association, a Gaza based organisation of current and former Palestinian detainees states that there are currently 5,200 Palestinian prisoners in the 17 Israeli prisons. 200 of them are imprisoned in ‘administrative detention’ without charge. According to Addameer nine of them are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. 430 people from Gaza are currently in jail inside Israel’s 1948 borders. According to the Palestinian section of Defence for Children International there are currently 230 Palestinian children under the age of 18 in Israeli prisons. 36 of them are under the age of 16.

According to the Hussam Association there were nearly 1,200 sick detainees. 24 of them were suffering from cancer and 170 were in urgent need of surgery. Addameer estimates that since 2000, 17 Palestinians have died as a result of medical negligence and the organisation has documented 178 cases of medical neglect.

Corporate Watch interviewed Akram Salameh in November 2013 at the government’s Ministry of Detainees in Gaza City. He had been arrested in Gaza and imprisoned in Israel for over 20 years. He was released in October 2011 from Ketziot prison in the prisoner swap that exchanged 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for the release of the captured soldier, Gilad Shalit.

G4S has been providing services to the Ketziot prison since 2007.

Akram had been a student nurse before his arrest. During his imprisonment he worked for 13 years as a representative for sick inmates at Ramleh’s infamous prison hospital. He told Corporate Watch:

“Before I was arrested I was studying nursing in Khartoum in Sudan. I was arrested while returning from university, coming through the Rafah crossing [from Egypt into Gaza]. I was accused of being a fighter for the Hamas movement and a member of Hamas. They did not accuse me of involvement in any particular Hamas operation but my party membership was used against me. I was sentenced to 30 years. I spent 22 years in prison in total in Ramleh [Ramla], Nafha, Shikma [Ashkelon], and Ketziot [all prisons inside Israel’s 1948 borders, click here to see a map].”

According to Akram, far from providing care to people who need it, the hospital simply goes through the motions of looking after the prisoners: “Legally when you have a prison you should have a medical centre. So the hospital is a cover they use in the courts, a facade of legality. The IPS gives basic treatment but seeing a specialist or having an operation may take years.”

Akram gives the example of a prisoner named Moatassem Raddad who “has been waiting more than four years years for treatment for intestinal cancer.” According to Akram this is one of the ways that the IPS goes through the motions of providing care while withholding life saving treatment. Akram tells us that patients are put on the waiting lists for treatment but never receive it. Moatassem “was promised an operation five years ago” but was still waiting in November 2013.

“I was a prisoners’ representative in Ramleh from 1997–2011”, Akram said. “I lived in the prison hospital which is a part of Ramleh prison. I was a point of contact between the Israeli prison authorities and the prisoners and I helped with things like translation. There are over 1,000 sick Palestinian prisoners and the majority of them are imprisoned in Ramleh. There are many prisoners there who are completely paralysed. Ramleh prison hospital has a floor set aside for Palestinian political prisoners.

“Ramleh prison is reliant on cameras. Cameras are all over the place and they have replaced the soldiers who previously had a much bigger presence there. Since 1994 you hardly saw any soldiers at all. The modern technology makes it more difficult for prisoners: the cameras see everything and microphones record everything. To get back to my cell from where I worked as a representative I had to go through 22 automated doors. At each door you had to speak to a soldier through a speaker system. If a prisoner placed his hand over the camera lens to get some privacy he would be punished.

“The prison is supposed to be a hospital but if a prisoner needs medical help the cameras cannot help him. If someone needed help I had to get the soldier’s attention by waving at the camera but if he is not looking then what can I do? We had many martyrs because of this.

Doctors can ‘switch in a second’

“When the prison doctor takes a round of the building he is accompanied by soldiers. The doctors can switch in a second to become soldiers themselves. It is very easy for them to attack or oppress the sick prisoners. Some prisoners are paralysed and it is difficult for the soldiers to strip-search them so they are strip-searched by the doctors.”

Akram showed us pictures of several paralysed prisoners who were regularly strip-searched by the prison doctors.

‘Dual loyalty’

According to Addameer “primary obligation” of the prison doctors is “towards the State and the Israeli security apparatus, rather than the patient. Doctors working in detention and interrogation centres often fail to report incidents of torture and ill-treatment to the relevant legal authorities for fear of losing their jobs. Similarly, physical signs of torture and abuse are rarely reported in the detainees’ medical files, making it almost impossible for the victims to seek justice and compensation. Doctors also often advise Israeli Security Agency officers on the health condition of a detainee held under interrogation and as such, they become complicit in the practice of torture and physical and mental abuse.

There is no medical reason to conduct a strip search and in doing so doctors are doing the prison guards’ jobs for them. Conducting these strip searches of prisoners on behalf of the prison authorities makes doctors complicit in the imprisonment of Palestinian political prisoners in contravention of international law.

Prisoners released when close to death

According to Akram, “I think the IPS releases prisoners just before they die in order to avoid being held legally responsible for their deaths.” This was the case for Rabee Ali. Akram said: “I got to know Rabee because he was very ill and I used to support him by feeding him and taking him to the toilet.

Mukarram Abu Alouf from the government Ministry of Detainees holds up two pictures of Rabee Ali, one before he was arrested and one on the day he was released. Rabee died soon after his release – photo taken by Corporate Watch, Gaza City, November 2013

“He was shot in the back during his arrest and had developed blood poisoning.” The Independent Middle East Media Center reported in 2008 that Rabee was being denied medical attention. He was given early release due to his condition but died a week after.

Another prisoner, Ashraf abu Dhra had muscular dystrophy. He was arrested in 2006. His condition quickly deteriorated while he was in prison. Akram said: “Ashraf was brought to Ramleh after his interrogation. Before he was in prison he was having regular physiotherapy. The doctors in Ramleh refused to do anything for him apart from feed him, clothe him and take him to the toilet and his condition got worse and worse.”

Akram showed us a picture of Ashraf before he was imprisoned and an emaciated picture of him on the day of his release. Physicians for Human Rights filed a request to the Israeli District Court for Ashraf to receive physical therapy and this request was granted. However, the authorities at Ramleh refused to give Ashraf the therapy he needed, saying that it was unnecessary. According to Akram: “He was released three to four months ago after serving his sentence. After one week he fell into a coma. He died 40 days after his release.”

Take action

Palestinians hold a vigil to support prisoners in Israeli jails at the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza City – Photo taken by Corporate Watch in November 2013

In addition to the April 17 call for action action against G4S and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, action has also been called for against Hewlett Packard (HP), a US based company that provides IT services to the IPS. According to Who Profits? HP holds a contract worth tens of millions of shekels to provide printers and maintenance of HP systems and central servers until 2016.

There is also an international call for action in solidarity with the Hares boys – five Palestinian teenagers from the village of Hares in the West Bank. They are currently imprisoned and are facing life sentences for attempted murder for allegedly causing a car accident by throwing stones onto a settler road. The boys deny any such charge and are reporting torture during interrogation. Click here for more information.

Another way to act in solidarity with sick prisoners is to support calls for the Israeli Medical Association’s expulsion from the World Medical Association over its complicity in Israeli militarism and apartheid. For more details see www.boycottima.org.

Click here for a full list of companies that holds contracts with the IPS.

Click here for details of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day events in London and Manchester.

BDS: Bill Gates slammed over links to Israel prison torture

Addameer and Palestinian BDS National Committee

Palestinian human rights organisations have criticised Bill Gates after it emerged that his charitable foundation is heavily invested in G4S, a private security company that helps Israel run prisons at which Palestinian political prisoners are held without trial and subjected to torture.

In an open letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published today, Palestinian human rights groups argued that the foundation was undermining international law and its stated commitment to human rights with its $170m investment in the company that makes it one of the company’s biggest shareholders.

British security company G4S has a contract with the Israeli Prison Service to run and install security and management systems at six prisons Palestinian political prisoners, including children, are routinely subjected to torture, according to human rights organisations.

“It is completely unacceptable for a charitable foundation to be investing in a company that participates in gross human rights violations against Palestinian political prisoners. The Gates Foundation talks about every life having equal value, but what about the political prisoners, are their lives not of equal value?” said Sahar Francis, director of Palestinian prisoner and advocacy organisation Addameer.

More than 500 children are ‘are arrested, detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military detention system each year’, according to Defence for Children International – Palestine. Three out of every four of child detainees face physical violence during detention and interrogation, much of which takes place in facilities G4S helps to operate.

Palestinian student and father-of-two Arafat Jaradat died in custody last year after being tortured in Megiddo Prison, a facility that G4S helps to operate.

“Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, why does his charity have to fund itself by profiting from the torture of children and the use of detention without trial?” Francis added.

Israel illegally transfers prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territories to inside Israel despite this being prohibited by Article 76 of the Geneva Convention. Campaigners argue that G4S is complicit in this violation of international law.

A petition that has been backed by 20 Palestinian organisations and more than 100 organisations from across the world has also been launched today.

G4S has already lost contracts worth millions of dollars as trade unions and universities and other public bodies in Europe and South Africa cancel their contracts over concerns about the firm’s role in Israel’s prison system.

Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson was embroiled in controversy and was eventually forced into resigning her role as an Oxfam ambassador earlier this year after she endorsed SodaStream, an Israeli company that manufactures drinks machines in an illegal Israeli settlement. Celebrities including Pink Flyod’s Roger Waters, Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja and Maxi Jazz from Faithless have backed a cultural boycott of Israel.

In April 2012, more than 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners went on hunger strike to protest conditions in Israel’s jails and the use of administrative detention, a form of detention without trial. There are currently three prisoners who remain on hunger strike, two of whom have gone without food for almost 80 days.

Palestinian human rights groups say that Israel uses mass incarceration to dissuade Palestinians from protesting against Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies. Israeli military orders make a whole range of activities illegal, including joining a political party or organising a demonstration.

There are more than 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails, including 183 children and 175 held under administrative detention, a form of detention without trial that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely.

Click here to sign the petition.

“Soldiers opened fire at our boat and engine. We were about to sink”

21st March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

On Tuesday, 11th March, Israeli naval forces arrested two Palestinian fishermen and confiscated their fishing boat off the coast of Gaza City.

The two cousins, Shabaan Abu Ryala (33) and Jihad Abu Ryala (24), both from al-Shati (“Beach”) refugee camp, went to fish at 7:00 am.

“At about 2:00 pm, Israeli vessels approached our boat and soldiers started shooting,” Jihad said. “We were about four miles offshore. We tried to escape. Soldiers opened fire at our boat and engine. We were about to sink. Our boat was destroyed.”

The two fishermen had tried to escape, and were returning to the coast, when they were forced to stop and were detained about two and a half miles off the coast of Gaza City.

Members of the International Solidarity Movement watched their detention from a building in Gaza City. A video shows two Israeli gunboats towing the fishing boat after its capture.

“A soldier ordered me to go to the front of the boat, take off my clothes, dive and climb aboard their ship, which was a few meters away from our boat,” Jihad said. “I was not willing to take off my clothes, but they shouted for me to do so. My cousin Shabaan was trying to convince me to listen to the Israeli soldiers.

“So I undressed and dived into the sea. I felt cold and swam back to my boat, but the soldiers started shooting and telling me, ‘come on the ship.’ One of the Israeli gunboats was close to our boat, but the soldiers told us to swim to the other gunboat that was distant from us.

“I decided to swim. When I reached the ship, the soldiers pulled me on board. They made me wear a pair of trousers. I was handcuffed with my hands behind my back, blindfolded and hooded.”

Jihad’s family showed the trousers, fleece and slippers the army gave the two fishermen.

“They took our boat, worth $12,000 and gave us a tracksuit worth less than 20 shekels,” a member of the family said.

As the Israeli gunboats headed to the Israeli port of Ashdod, the soldiers asked the two fishermen for general information, their name and ID number. “I don’t remember the number of my identity card,” Jihad said. “I told the soldier, who then used force on me. He was trying to get information from me. Then another soldier said, ‘Leave him.’”

At the port of Ashdod, soldiers removed the bandages from the eyes of the fishermen and freed them from their handcuffs to allow them to leave the ship. The fishermen were given sweatshirts and slippers.

“We were hooded and handcuffed again,” Jihad said. “We were then taken to a small room where soldiers freed us from handcuffs and bandages. A female army doctor checked our health condition and blood pressure. When she finished, we were handcuffed and blindfolded again.

“We were left alone for about twenty minutes. Then a detective came to interrogate me. During the investigation, they took the bandages off my eyes while my cousin was still blindfolded. The investigator asked me the names of my family members, from the smallest to the eldest. He asked me who my friends are. Then I was blindfolded and handcuffed.

“I was taken to another room, where I stayed for about an hour. Later a detective came and asked me, ‘Can you tell me how the soldiers treated you on board the ship?’ then, he ‘Do you remember the identification number of the ships that fired on your boat?’ I said yes and I gave him the identification numbers. Then they left me alone for about four hours.

“Then a soldier came, freed me from handcuffs, hit me hard in my back and said I could go home.”

The two fishermen were transported to Erez and crossed into the Gaza Strip around midnight.

In addition to the fishing boat, the two fishermen lost two GPS units and a telephone on the fishing boat.

Jihad had already been arrested by the Israeli navy once in 2008. His cousin Shabaan was arrested for the third time.

A fisherman said that since 2010, Israel has not returned any of the small fishing boats it has confiscated.

Jihad has two young children and has been a fisherman since he was ten. His family is a family of fishermen.

Thirty-one people from Jihad and Shabaan’s families depended on the confiscated fishing boat. It was their only source of livelihood. Jihad’s family owns another small boat, without a motor and slightly damaged.

“Neither of them worked,” Shabaan’s father said. “There is no hope for them.”

Al-Shati refugee camp was dark. For a few days, the Gaza Strip had only six hours of electricity daily due to the lack of fuel. The power went off around 6:30 pm, when the ISM’s meeting with the fishermen ended.

In the camp, a strong smell came from sewage flowing along the asphalt. Some children played on roller skates. One of them fell in the darkness, but he stood up immediately. They smiled when a group greeted them.

Looking at the sea on my right, I watched the lights of the fishing boats and the helplessness that I felt during our meeting mingled with anger.

“The situation here is getting worse and worse,” a Palestinian said.

Here people continue living thanks to donations and meager food parcels. “The refugees,” victims of a double injustice, still dream of returning to their lands and hand down their history and their right of return from generation to generation.

The Israeli army perpetuates its daily violations in the light of day. For many years, thousands of reports have denounced these violations with no result. No international power intervenes to stop Israeli forces, no international body sanctions Israel. For this reason, Israeli naval forces continue entering into Gaza seas, in which they impose an illegal blockade, and do what they want.

Sometimes, fishermen who have been attacked ask what can they get through reports like this. How can we answer? Sometimes we tell them that the reports are helpful in order to raise awareness among people. But in practice, if our institutions will not take action against the Israeli government, nothing will change. BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel is a good response to Israeli violations.

Although officially the limit imposed by Israel on Gaza waters is six nautical miles off the Palestinian coast, Israeli naval forces impose a limit of one or two miles in the waters to the north of Gaza Strip. The limit is shrinking even in the waters in the south of the Gaza Strip, especially off the coast of Rafah.

These continuous attacks against Gaza fishermen undermine their ability to subsistence and constitute a violation of international humanitarian law.

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.