Tag: BDS

Local Israel boycott part of Gaza’s “resistance mentality”

8th March 2014 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine

Israeli restrictions on Gaza’s fishermen are an example of apartheid, say activists.
Israeli restrictions on Gaza’s fishermen are an example of apartheid, say activists.

Agricultural organizations in the Gaza Strip are working with academic and other civil society groups to prepare for Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).

Local events, as part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, will run from Sunday, 9 March through Thursday, 13 March in the besieged coastal enclave.

“On the last day, I can guarantee we’ll have a good activity,” said Saad Ziada, field coordinator with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the Gaza Strip and its representative on the local IAW preparatory committee. “I expect 600-700 people will participate, at least.”

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees will organize the last of this year’s local events, a gathering for farmers and fishermen in the Gaza seaport on 13 March.

“Why in the Gaza port?” Ziada said. “Because Palestinian fishermen are prevented from entering and using our sea for their resources. At the same time, Israelis freely use the sea, which is our sea. This is a clear example of Israel’s discrimination and apartheid policies.”

Targeting farmers, fishermen

A joint report, issued a month ago by the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rightsand the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, found “522 documented shooting incidents targeting fishermen at sea, resulting in nine civilian deaths, 47 injuries and 422 detentions” off the Gaza coast between 1997 and 30 November 2013.

During the same reporting period, the report states, “The facts available suggest that hundreds of farmers were unarmed when they were shot at and injured” (“Under fire: Israel’s enforcement of access restricted areas in the Gaza Strip,” January 2014 [PDF]

A year ago, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees held a rally in the seaport, as well as another in the so-called “buffer zone” by the separation barrier surrounding the Gaza Strip, to support a boycott of Israeli agricultural products.

These events were part of a “Farming Injustice” campaign that included actions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, as well as 40 European cities.

Activating the boycott

“This year, we want to activate the boycott of Israeli products in the Gaza Strip,” Ziada said. “We want farmers and fishermen to be involved in these activities, to know more about boycott and normalization.”

“The boycott movement will not be just for students and academics,” said Mohamed Abu Samra, an activist with the Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel. “It must include all sectors of Palestinian society.”

As another member of the preparatory committee, Abu Samra has helped to plan a range of talks, films and presentations in the Nuseirat municipal hall, the Palestine Red Crescent Society building and the Women’s Development Center.

He also worked with other Gaza activists to film an Israeli Apartheid Week promotional video.

“BDS gives us a wide area for the biggest part of the population to participate in a kind of resistance, and it’s succeeding,” Abu Samra said.

Workshops

The Arab Center for Agricultural Development, another organization involved in Israeli Apartheid Week has an ongoing campaign to encourage the boycott of Israeli agricultural products by Gaza Strip farmers.

“Last year, we had three workshops on BDS with farmers and other groups,” said Abeer Abu Shawish, the center’s project coordinator and the Israeli Apartheid Week preparatory committee member. “These workshops aren’t finished. We’ll keep them going, to reach all the farmers in Gaza and encourage them to support BDS.”

The center will focus its other major campaign, organizing accompaniment for olive farmers during the harvest season, on the West Bank and coordinate it with the BDS National Committee this year, Abu Shawish said.

In the Gaza Strip, the center plans to increase its boycott activities.

“ACAD will recruit a coordinator just for BDS, to be responsible for all the activities we will have in the BDS campaign,” Abu Shawish said. “We are going to do more activities in all the Gaza governorates, in cooperation with our partners in the West Bank. We are also producing posters, newsletters, social media, radio announcements and other publicity tools. It is a main program in our strategic plan this year.”

Challenge

Despite enthusiasm for BDS by civil society groups like the Arab Center for Agricultural Development and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and their constituencies, implementing it under occupation and siege in the Gaza Strip poses a challenge.

“You cannot ask people not to buy something for which they don’t have an alternative, especially after the closure of the tunnels,” said Mohsen Abu Ramadan, ACAD’s director in Gaza and one of three representatives of the Palestinian NGO Network on the BDS National Committee. “Most of the commodities now come through Kerem Shalom [crossing from Israel].”

Abu Shawish agreed that the siege presents the biggest obstacle to boycotting Israel from Gaza.

“The main difficulty is that we don’t have alternatives to many, many products,” she said. “We can’t stop using them all. If we don’t have an alternative product, whether local, national or international, we have to use the Israeli one.”

But the local boycott has cultural value, she said, even if its economic impact is necessarily limited.

“It’s a kind of resistance. People can do it themselves, without it costing anything.”

“We try to make the boycott a culture, as part of a resistance mentality,” Abu Ramadan said.

Gaza IAW, and local BDS activities in general, contribute strength to a global effort, Abu Samra said.

“It raises the awareness of BDS among people in the Palestinian community, and support the BDS movement outside Palestine. BDS succeeded in the past, in South Africa, and we think it will succeed in ending the occupation now.”

Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. Follow him on Twitter @jncatron.

‘I can’t give you information about your health, it’s a security matter’

7th March 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

International action has been called for in solidarity with prisoners held in Israeli jails. 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 which will be released over the coming months focusing on companies providing equipment and services to the Israeli Prison ‘Service’ (IPS).

Israeli surveillance technology overlooks Palestinian farmland in Beit Hanoun- Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013
Israeli surveillance technology overlooks Palestinian farmland in Beit Hanoun- Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013

We met ‘Salah’* at his home in Beit Hanoun in the Northern Gaza Strip a few weeks after his release from seven years prison in Israel. A celebration tent had been set up in his house since his release. We wanted to speak to Salah about the conditions for sick patients in Israeli jails, the particular problems for prisoners from Gaza and the complicity of international companies like G4Sand Hewlett Packard in the Israeli prison system. The Ketziot prison where Salah spent some of his period of imprisonment has been receiving servicesfrom British/Danish company G4S since 2007.

The effects of Israeli air attacks are never far away in Beit Hanoun. As his sons and grandsons bring us tea to drink, Salah tells us that during the Israeli bombardment in November 2012 his grandson ‘Hisham’, who was three and a half years old, “was playing a little way away from a government building. The building was struck by an F16 and rubble hit him on the head. He was in intensive care for seven days.” We are invited to feel the soft patch in Hisham’s skull where he was injured. Salah goes on to tell us: “My son ‘Abed’, now 20 years old, was in the street when the group of boys he was with was targeted by an Apache [helicopter]. One of them was killed and 18 injured. Abed’s hand was amputated, he is seriously psychologically affected.”

When we defended our children, our homes and our homelands

Salah tells us that he wants to tell us the story of what happened when, as he puts it, “we defended our children, our homes and our homelands”. “I was arrested during the first intifada [uprising] and detained under administrative detention for four months. During my arrest I was hit on the head with a stone. While I was interrogated they tortured me by squeezing my testicles. I was released for ten days then detained without charge again for another two years. During that period I remember one of the soldiers pissed on the ground and then scooped up the urine and forced it to my mouth. During the interrogation they hit my legs and toes with sticks.” He rolls up his trouser leg and shows us his bent and scarred legs and feet.

He goes on to say that in November 2006 the “Israelis invaded [Beit Hanoun] and ordered all the men aged from 15 to 50 to gather in one place and asked for our IDs. When they came to me they looked at my ID, then they told me to take off all my clothes except my underwear. They made me walk around several times, it was embarrassing. Then they arrested me.”

At the time of his arrest Salah was being treated for a heart problem. He was taken to the Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint where he was detained for three days, then they took him to Ashkelon prison where he was allowed to see a doctor. The doctor said ‘that he would not be responsible for what happened during interrogation’ as Salah ‘might die’ due to the weakness caused by his health problems. Despite this Salah was interrogated continuously for ten hours. During the interview he had a pain in his chest. They gave him painkillers but the interrogation continued.

Salah told us: “I spent 35 days inside the interrogation cells without any medical care. During my interrogation my health deteriorated. The last part of the interrogation was non-stop for 17 hours – I was exhausted. When it was over they forced me to sign documents in Hebrew which I didn’t understand.”

“They accused me of being a leading figure in Fatah and of membership of the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades [an armed resistance group aligned to Fatah] and of inciting the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades. I told them that I had nothing to do with these things.”

“In Bir al Saba [Beeersheva] prison in 2007 I had a heart attack. They put me in a prison vehicle similar to an ambulance but I was on a stretcher handcuffed and leg-cuffed and wearing an oxygen mask. When I got to Bir al Saba hospital I said ‘where am I, where am I?’ But they didn’t tell me anything.

I stayed there for a few hours. The doctors in the hospital didn’t communicate with me, they just spoke to the soldiers. Then I was driven back to the prison. I asked what the doctors had said about my condition when I returned to the prison. I was told by the officer that he could not tell me anything about my health, as it was a security matter.

I had to return to the hospital regularly. It took more than nine hours from the hospital to the prison. I asked to be transported in a proper ambulance but they refused.

“He is a dog”

In 2012 when I was being taken to hospital one of the guards slammed the door on my legs on purpose. The other guard said to him, ‘why did you do that?’  The first guard answered, ‘he is a dog, don’t worry about him.’

I was always protesting about inappropriate medical care and because of this they constantly transferred me from prison to prison. Painkillers and water drinking are the only solutions they give to medical problems when you bring them up. I met with the International Committee of the Red Cross inside the prisons. I explained to them about the conditions. They made promises but it seemed like it was only slogans, only words.

During the 2012 hunger strike I was in Nafha prison. I was too sick to participate in the strike. The guards tried to make people eat. I saw how they did this. Me and the other sick prisoners threatened that if the Israelis did not meet the demands of the other prisoners we would join the hunger strike and not take food or water.

When I was in the prison clinic getting oxygen I saw the Israeli units kicking and punching the hunger strikers. The guards had food with them and were telling them to eat.

I saw doctors telling the hunger strikers: ‘if you do not stop your hunger strike we will not give you your medicine.’ It was like a battle of defiance between the Palestinian prisoners and the IPS. If an inmate did break the hunger strike the guards tried to humiliate them. Sometimes our clothes were taken and we were left in our underwear. They invaded our cells all the time.

The lives of the people on hunger strike were worth nothing – but what can you expect from people who kill children?”

Denial of visits

After the election of Hamas in 2006 and the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, which ended with Hamas remaining in control of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military decided to end all visits to Israeli prisons by the families of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza. According to Salah, “From 2006-2012 I received no visits. Then, after 28 days of the hunger strike there was an agreement under the supervision of the Egyptians. The IPS agreed to allow some family visits. I received visits about every 2 months”. The number of visits received by prisoners from Gaza is still limited by the IPS.

Salah was imprisoned in Ketziot in the Naqab (Negev) for three years. G4S have a contract to supply equipment and services to Ketziot. Salah told us that the conditions in Ketziot were particularly bad: “We were kept in the caravans. There were three sections to Ketziot: tents, caravans and cement huts. One of the Israeli officers at Ketziot came to my cell and threatened to kill me, another of the guards there took a stapler and fired a staple into my head.

Ketziot Prison – picture from Alternative News
Ketziot Prison – picture from Alternative News

When they invaded our cells in Ketziot they shot tear gas grenades and used pepper spray. They sprayed canisters of gas into the cells. There was a bad smell – you would wash your clothes but the smell would still linger for days. It made you sneeze. Some people lost consciousness because of this. During that time in Ketziot they no longer distinguished between the healthy and the sick and the elderly. My friends used to put me under the bed to protect me because I was weak and they were afraid that I would be killed.

I was also imprisoned in Ramon and Ohalei Keidar prisons.”

‘From a small prison to a big prison’

“When I was released they said ‘let it be the last time for you Salah’. They claimed they could get me back easily if I caused trouble. Since my release I am very nervous, I cannot bear to hear any loud noise. I prefer to be alone.” As he describes this Salah begins to cry.

“I have gone from a small prison to a big prison, here there are drones in the sky and the crossings are closed.

The Israeli border fence in Beit Hanoun – Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013
The Israeli border fence in Beit Hanoun – Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013

The British government should put pressure on Israel to release the prisoners – it is Britain’s responsibility. Administrative detention is their law and the Balfour Declaration started all the problems.

I would like the international community to continue their efforts to raise awareness of the conditions for people in Israeli jails. G4S and other companies should be prosecuted and pursued in the International Criminal Court, they are making money out of the crimes being committed against the Palestinian people.”

Physicians instrumental in the Israeli prison system

A group of doctors has called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association in line with the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. The call is on the basis of the IMA’s complicity in torture and Israeli violations of the rights of the civilian population under the fourth Geneva Convention. Dr. Derek Summerfield, a British supporter of the boycott, said it was justified as many Israeli physicians were complicit in the occupation’s crimes. According to Summerfield, one Israeli physician had confessed that he had “removed the intravenous drip from the arm of a seriously ill Palestinian prisoner, and told the man that if he wanted to live, he should co-operate with his interrogators.”

Take action

One 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

Or you can join the campaign against G4S, click here to find out more.

A specter is hunting Israel: the specter of the BDS movement

6th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Marco Varasio | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

A 9 February 2012 UAWC demonstration for the boycott of Israeli agricultural products by the "buffer zone" east of Gaza City. (Photo by Desde Palestina)
A 9 February 2012 UAWC demonstration for the boycott of Israeli agricultural products by the “buffer zone” east of Gaza. (Photo by Desde Palestina)

While Israeli ministers are discussing the usage of lawyers and the Mossad to fight boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), in the besieged Gaza Strip, like in 250 other cities around the world, activists, students and representatives of organizations are preparing for the tenth annual Israeli Apartheid Week, the worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli apartheid regime and occupation through lectures, rallies, film screenings and conferences.

One of the changes for IAW 2014 in Gaza, organized by the Preparatory Committee for Resistance to Israeli Apartheid through five preparatory workshops from 22 February to 6 March, will be the key role played by the Union of Agricultural Workers Committee (UAWC), which will involve fishermen and farmers in activities scheduled from 9 March until 13 March.

One of UAWC’s main goal is to make fishermen and farmers aware of the BDS call launched in 2005 and its potential. It organized several workshop about BDS through its local committees.

“The BDS movement must include all Palestinian sectors, such as fishermen and farmers, because the Israeli apartheid policies directly affect them,” said Saad Ziada from UAWC. “Israeli occupation forces prevent our sea from being sailed and worked, while they are using it. This is a clear example of discrimination and apartheid policies.”

(Photo by Desde Palestina)
(Photo by Desde Palestina)

The aim of IAW 2014 in the Gaza Strip, where Israel controls the borders, territorial waters, airspace and, due to the Paris Protocol signed in 1994, the economy, is to “raise awareness among the Palestinian people in order to get them to help BDS outside Palestine and Gaza – where goods are supplied through Kerem Shalom checkpoint and Israel often monopolizes the market – showing how the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement affects the Israeli occupation,” said Mohammed Abu Samra, a member of the Preparatory Committee and the Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI).

“Why did we choose to fight through BDS movement?” Mohammed says. “First, the experience in South Africa proved that it is effective. It succeeded in the past. BDS gives us a wide area to involve people and is based on international law.”

“We want to thank all the BDS activists around the world for their activities and their huge amount of work,” he added. “This is an historic moment to prove the success of the BDS movement, to prove that we can isolate the Israeli state. We ask for even more pressure. We ask the international community to implement all the resolution to guarantee us, Palestinian people, our main rights.”

In the besieged Gaza Strip, IAW 2014 activities will start on 9 March with an opening ceremony at the Palestine Red Crescent Society offices in Gaza City, where recorded video messages from Omar Barghouti and Ahmad Kathrada will also be displayed. It will then spread across the universities and municipal halls of the Strip, ending in the Gaza seaport with a final demonstration that, according to UAWC, at least 600-700 people should attend.

Bahaa runs for Palestine

4th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Bahaa Al Farra. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

In the shadow of the bleachers of Yarmouk stadium in Gaza City, still damaged by Israeli bombing, 400-meter Olympic runner Bahaa Al Farra trains. Bahaa took part in the London Olympics, along with three other Palestinian athletes, in 2012. “I started racing at the age of 14,” he said. “We used to compete mostly among students. The coaches attended the competitions and selected the best players.”

That’s how he met his current coach, Ibrahim Abu Hasira, seven years ago. “In 2005 I had the opportunity to compete in a competition in Egypt, but due to the closure of the crossing I could not attend it,” Bahaa said. “Whenever we have opportunities, we face problems related to the siege and military aggression. Several times I stopped the sport due to depression or a bad mood. The first time I left the Gaza Strip was in 2011, when I went to Korea. I was very motivated. Then in March 2012, I competed in Istanbul, and in August 2012 in London for the Olympic Games. But after a week, we were told that we should leave, because we would have risked not being able to return to the Gaza Strip due to the problems in the Sinai.”

Bahaa Al Farra (left), Ibrahim Abu Hasira (center), and runner Mohammed Abu Khousa. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Bahaa Al Farra (left), Ibrahim Abu Hasira (center), and runner Mohammed Abu Khousa. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

“London was a great experience,” Bahaa said. “I met gold medalists. I hope someday Palestinians can win gold medals. It was nice to see how people support the athletes. I felt great emotions. I hope one day to get on the podium. I’m running to represent my country and my people, to make sure that other people know Palestine. I run to prove that despite the suffering in which we live, some runners emerge from the darkness and manage to do something important.”

The Gaza Strip has no quality sports facilities where runners can train, Bahaa said. “This land is not suitable for runners, and would require appropriate shoes,” he said, indicating the ground on which he trains. Yarmouk stadium does not have a track for athletics. It is not a track and field stadium and there is a lack of equipment for athletes, such as starting blocks. Athletes myst train to use them, but have the opportunity only when they go abroad or shortly before competitions.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Bahaa has lost at least five opportunities to train or race abroad due to closures of the Rafah border crossing. “Sometimes when there is a chance, I say ‘goodbye’ to my friends and family, I go to the crossing and then I go back home,” he said. Since the overthrow of Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, openings of the Rafah crossing have been limited. The new Egyptian authorities open the crossing only sporadically, reinforcing the Israeli siege and isolating the population of the Gaza Strip more and more.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Now Bahaa hopes to compete in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. “We hope there are international organizations that can sponsor Palestinian athletes,” he said. “We need training camps”. years old, Bahaa trains every day, except Friday, in Yarmouk stadium, on the beach or in the street. Like all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, he faces daily challenged due to the siege. “Sometimes I come home after training and I have no chance to take a shower because due to the lack of electricity, there is no hot water,” he said.

A football match in Yarmouk stadium. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
A football match in Yarmouk stadium. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

According to Bahaa’s coach, Ibrahim Abu Hasira, “the psychological state of the runners is one of the worst aspects. The obstacles faced by the athletes cause great damage. Often they suffer from depression. I knocked on the doors of many organizations. They replied that there are no donations. I try to encourage the athletes to kill the depression caused by the siege. I treat them as a father, not as a coach. I try to let them overcome their psychological problems. Here athletes face few possibilities. I have been in many European countries in the past. I have seen how sport is considered. If you want to compare the situation there to that of Gaza, you could say that there is no life in Gaza. When athletes are able to leave the Strip, and they know about life in other countries, they feel very motivated. Then they return here to depression.”

Israeli violations: the report of the Palestinian Football Association

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Just a few days ago, a paper on Israeli violations against Palestinian athletes drafted by the Palestinian Football Association was published on the Internet. It had been presented at the annual conference of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 2013. Jibril Al Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association, denounced these offenses during a press conference June 2013, especially those concerning restrictions on the movement of Palestinian athletes, coaches and sports clubs directors, as well as international experts, consultants, trainers and representatives of bodies such as FIFA, and on the entry of sports equipment into Palestine. Al Rajoub also pointed out that Israel had prevented the construction of sports facilities on Palestinian land near illegal Israeli settlements.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

The paper stresses that the sport, and football in particular, face a series of obstacles and deterrents whose main cause is Israel’s military occupation. Football, the document states, should bring people together, promoting ethics, building bridges of friendship between peoples, and be based on the values of peace and fair competition. The restrictions imposed by Israel instead damage the morale of young Palestinian players, undermine their future as athletes and hinder the growth of football, and sport in general, in Palestine.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Israel has committed human rights violations against Palestinian athletes, many of whom were detained; restricted the freedom of movement of athletes and other sports figures; impeded and obstructed to construction of sporting facilities or destroyed existing structures (like the destruction of stadiums and sports clubs during bombings of Gaza); restricted the receipt of sports equipment sent by FIFA or donated by other sports organizations and federations, or releases donations only after the payments of exorbitant taxes; interfered in the organizations of friendly matches between Palestine and other associations through political intervention and pressure to discourage games; and intervened militarily during football matches.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

These actions are violations of the basic rights in FIFA statutes and the Olympic Charter. The document gives examples of athletes killed or detained by Israeli military forces, like the football player Mahmoud Sarsak, captured when he was leaving the Gaza Strip for the West Bank to play with a new club. He was detained for more than three years without process, and released in 2012 only after 90 days of hunger strike, under pressure from FIFA’s president, other sporting bodies and international public opinion.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Israeli checkpoints prevent athletes, like all other Palestinians, from moving freely between Palestinian cities, while players who live abroad do not easily obtain permission to enter the Palestinian territories. For the players of Gaza Strip it’s difficult to enter the West Bank. Like other residents of the Gaza Strip, an athlete must obtain a special permit from Israeli authorities and indicate the reason for the visit, in addition to the destination city. If an athlete has to go to Ramallah, and for some reasons finds himself in another Palestinian city, he is likely to be deported to Gaza. Even permits to go to Jordan are obtained after exhausting procedures that negatively impact athletes’ performances. These restrictive measures prevent players in the Gaza Strip from joining the national team, and Gaza athletes from competing in the West Bank, like on 21 February, 2013, when Israel authorities barred 23 runners from participating in the International Palestine Marathon in Bethlehem without giving any reason.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

When Palestinian athletes from Gaza do not get permission from Israeli to go to the West Bank, they must travel separately and reach their team abroad. Delays at border crossings and other obstacles can cause the loss of their flights.

The latest violation against Palestinian athletes took place on 31 January, when two Palestinian football players, Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, age 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, age 17, were returning from a workout at Faisal Al Husseini stadium in the West Bank town of Al Ram, and were wounded by Israeli forces near a checkpoint. While the two men were walking, the Israeli soldiers opened fire and released their dogs to attack them. The soldiers dragged the two athletes down the street and beat them. They were transported to a hospital in Jerusalem, and have undergone different surgeries for the extraction of bullets from their bodies. Jawhar was wounded by 11 bullets: seven in his left foot, three in the right, and one in his left hand. Halabiya was wounded by a bullet in each foot. Doctors at the Ramallah hospital where they were taken before transfer to the King Hussein medical center in Amman said it would take six months of treatment to assess if the two young athletes would be able to walk again. But they will not be able to play any more.

(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)

Al Rajoub has called for the expulsion of Israel from FIFA for its racist policies which violate international law. “The Israeli brutality against the two young men emphasizes the insistence of the Occupation on destroying the Palestinian sport, he said.”

Three days later, on 3 February, Avi Luzon, president of the Israel Football Association and Jibril Al Rajoub, met with FIFA president Sepp Blatter in Zurich to discuss implementation the agreements from the meeting on 23 September for facilitating the movement of players, coaches, referees, officials and equipment into, out of and within Palestine. The process, which is part of the “FIFA Israel-Palestine task force” announced by Blatter in July 2013, will be monitored by FIFA.