Tag: Beit Hanoun

It’s time to harvest the crop: Accompanying farmers in Gaza under Israeli fire

by Rosa Schiano

Translation by Claudia Saba

23 April 2012 | il Blog di Oliva

Renad Salem Qdeeh

Israeli soldiers have already started shooting onto the land along the border of the Gaza Strip. Two injured just in the first two days of the harvest.

Renad Salem Qdeeh, 33, was collecting he crop from her land when Israeli soldiers started shooting, at around 7.30am or 8am. The other farmers managed to escape, but Renad started screaming as she was hit in the head while standing about 800 meters from the border. She was rushed to a hospital in Khuza’a and received ten stitches for her wound. We now come to find her lying on the bed.

“First they took away 300 meters of land, and now we can’t even work within 800 meters of the border, they’re trying to throw us off our land”, her mother – who can’t hold back her anger and pain – tells us.

“We need to earn a living for the sake of our families”, continues Renad’s mother, “we wait all year long for the harvest period so that we can earn our living. My daughter has eight children, she has to feed them, we have no other income. They won’t let us live on our land. We are asking for help and protection, so that the Israeli army will stop shooting at us.”

“We are surrounded by soldiers, they shoot in all directions. Yesterday a boy was wounded in Khuza’a. Where are our human rights?”

Renad closes her eyes. She is surrounded by her relatives. We are offered some fruit juice. Everyone tries to talk to us and tell us about their specific circumstances, every one of their voices is a cry for help.

“Tomorrow I’ll go back there to continue the harvest”, Renad’s mother says. “We will keep going back to our fields even if it means that we could get killed. What’s a mother supposed to feel when she sees her daughter bleeding? The soldiers had every intention of wounding her. After they shot her, they just left – they had just wanted to shoot her.”

“We’ve already lost most of our land. Now we risk death even at a distance of 800 meters from the border. They want us to go away. No, we’re going to die here!”

Renad’s relatives believe that the Israeli soldiers have been dumping chemical contaminants onto their land. Sometimes they smell something funny, but they’re not sure what it is.

“Other countries can help us if they choose to,” intervenes Renad’s sister. “Without protection we cannot work our land.”

“They confiscated 300 meters of land all along the border of Gaza, do you realize how much land that is? It used to all be fertile land, now it’s all destroyed.”

The No-Go-Zone imposed by Israel on 300 meters all along the perimeter of Gaza, and which has left some farmers without any land at all, was imposed by Israel unilaterally.

The following day we accompanied some farmers right into that No-Go-Zone. On the first day, the Israeli soldiers watched us without shooting. Jeeps drove past us at high speed, and the soldiers positioned themselves on the small watch towers along the border, while others stood behind a small hill. It’s from behind the hill that the bullets come for the most part.

A couple of days later, however, matters changed. Soldiers positioned on the hill opened fire despite our presence there with the farmers. We shouted into our megaphones and asked them to stop shooting, and reminded them that we were on Palestinian land. At that point I switched on my video camera and filmed what happened next.

On the third day, the soldiers watched us without shooting. There was a constant flurry of armored vehicles and jeeps driving past at very high speed. The farmers are more afraid of the jeeps than of the armored vehicles, and they fear the military hummers most of all, because on top of the hummers you’ve got guns set up and ready to shoot.

Basically it is a case of an army against farmers. Soldiers who don’t hesitate to shoot unarmed men as they go about harvesting their crop and as they carry it away on donkey-pulled carts. All the while as this terror is going on, F-16s hover at low altitude.

The farmers were able to work on the third day and they thanked us for our presence.

The day that Renad was injured, Hassan Waled Shnano, 27, was also injured. Except he wasn’t working in the fields. He was simply walking to work, in Khuza’a, in an area that’s about 2km from the border, not far from his house. We met him in the European Hospital in Khan Younis. “It’s a residential area, a safe area. They started shooting very early in the morning”, Hassan told us. Hassan works on various education-related projects in the NGO Mercy Corps in Khuza’a.  A missile hit him right in the joint of his right leg.

His father, who had inhaled white phosphorous during Operation Cast Lead, died of cancer. Hassan has five brothers and one sister. He is married with two daughters. One of his brothers was also injured in 2006 at the age of 15, as he was walking home from school.
This morning soldiers opened fire again at the farmers were trying to work in the fields of Khuza’a. We accompanied the farmers into a new field close to the one where we had been going up to now. Despite the sound of bullets in the air, the farmers just went on working, comforted by our presence with them.

Bullets were also flying in the adjacent field – the one where Renad’s family farm. I shuddered as I watched the soldiers shoot. My hear trembled with every damned shot, I wanted to cry as I thought that maybe someone had been hit by those bullets. In the other field the soldiers did not stop shooting at all until after all the farmers had gone home – after having been prevented from collecting the crop under a shower of bullets. I took the following film this morning as soon as the soldiers first opened fire.

Every morning we will come back to Khuza’a to accompany the farmers, until the harvest has been completed. The farmers keep thanking us continuously. I respond by thanking them – I feel like I should be thanking them. They have no idea how lucky I feel to shake their hands, to look into their eyes which go on smiling despite everything. They have no idea how fortunate I feel to be able to defend their right to basic life.

Rosa is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

 

Gaza: The march for prisoners within a prison

by Nathan Stuckey

18 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

April 17th is Palestinain Prisoners Day.  All over Palestine demonstrations were held in solidarity with the approximately 5,000 prisoners still held in the occupations jails.  Bait Hanoun was no exception, this week the weekly demonstration against the occupation and the no go zones were in support of the prisoners.  The residents of the prison that is Gaza demonstrated in solidarity with the residents of the other Israeli prisons.

We gathered on the road in front of the half destroyed Bait Hanoun Agricultural College.  There were about 50 of us, members of the Bait Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, other international activists, and a small group of local high school students who had just got out of school.  We could hear the drone of jets overhead.  We raised our banners and flags, began to play music over the megaphone and started to walk down the road into the no go zone.  At the edge of the no go zone we paused, a bucket of paint was produced and we all marked a banner comparing the Gaza Ghetto to the Warsaw Ghetto with our finger prints.  As we did this a giant white observation balloon began to rise over the wall in front of us.

The balloon completed the picture of Gaza as a prison, surrounded by no go zones where Israel routinely kills anyone who enters them, its air filled with drones which routinely murder people, its sea patrolled by Israeli warships which fire daily at fisherman trying to feed their families, even a giant underground metal wall under the border with Egypt.  Israel is proud that it does not have the death penalty, but it would be unnecessary in any case: trials are not considered necessary precursors to the murder of Palestinians.

From the extrajudicial executions carried out by drones in Gaza to the murder of Palestinians in Israeli custody, such as the Bus 300 affair, to the “confirming the kill” murder of an already injured 10 year old Imam Darweesh Al Hams, to dumping sick prisoners by sides of the roads in the to die like Omar Abu Aruban, Israel kills Palestinians without the need of courts, not even the need of courts like the apartheid courts of Israel with 99.7% conviction rates for Palestinians.

We raised our banner again and continued to walk into the no go zone into land where Israel has already declared we need no trial, where the death penalty has already been approved for us.  We walked through the shoulder high thistles that have grown up in place of the orchards that used to grow here, that obscure whatever stones might mark the houses that used to be here before Israel ethnically cleansed the area.  We walked on paths that we had worn on our previous demonstrations.  We walked until we reached the ditch that bisects the no go zone.

Saber Zaneen from the Local Initiative of Bait Hanoun said “We would like to welcome Hanna Shalabi to Gaza.  We will contine to struggle until all of our prisoners are released.  We will never forget our prisoners, Khaddar Adman, Mustafa Bargouthi, Aziz Dweik, Ahmed Saadat, and many others.  They will never be forgotten.”

A Polish activist spoke when Saber was finished. “We are here today in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, their sacrifices for freedom inspire us all.”

As we made our way back to Bait Hanoun we paused by the edge of the no go zone.  We sat down by some giant concrete blocks which we had painted with Palestinian flags in an earlier demonstration.  Abu Isa began to sing.  He was singing songs for the prisoners.  A cameraman kneeled in front of him, filming while Abu Isa  sang.  While everyone in the circle clapped in time, Abu Isa leaned forward and began to play the drums on the metal helmet of the cameraman.  Everyone began to laugh, even the cameraman had a big smile on his face when he got up.  We were all alive, still trapped in the prison that is Gaza, still living under the occupation, but still human, still able to laugh.  Israeli prisons have failed just as surely as the “Break Their Bones” strategy did at crushing the Palestinian struggle for freedom.  Israeli prisons are brutal places of torture, bad food, and denial of family visits. But prisons also serve universities for the struggle, a place for people to learn more about how and what they are fighting for.  Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have gone through Israeli prisons. They were marching with us today.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

Beit Hanoun remembers Vittorio: “When he spoke you had to listen”

by Nathan Stuckey

11 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

One year ago Vittorio Arrigoni was murdered.  Since coming to Gaza, Vik, as everyone knew him, had been a regular at Beit Hanoun’s weekly demonstrations against the no go zone and the occupation.  Vik had devoted his life to ending the occupation.  Sadly, he did not live to see his goal accomplished.  The people of Beit Hanoun have not given up though, they continue to demonstrate, they continue to risk their lives every Tuesday in demonstrations against the occupation.  This week, the demonstration was in memory of Vik.

We gathered at the same place we have gathered for the last three years, on the road outside the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College.  The early arrivals seated on a low stone bench beside a wall on the east side of the road.  Finally, the t shirts arrived, in memory of Vik we had prepared t shirts with his photo for everyone to wear.  People quickly pulled the shirts over their own and we gathered in the road.  Bella Ciao started to play over the megaphone.  Young men with flags and a large photo of Vik led the procession toward the no go zone.  How many times had Vik taken this walk with these people?  We marched into the no go zone, we made our way down the paths that our previous demonstrations had worn through shoulder high thistles.  No one is allowed in the no go zone on pain of death, people are shot for even being close to the no go zone.  Want was once some of the most productive farmland in Gaza, home to large orchards, has been reduced to a giant field of thistles.  The houses that used to do the no go zone have all been ground to dust under the treads of bulldozers.  The ethnic cleansing that gained steam after the massacre of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948 has never stopped in Palestine; the land we walked on was a land that had been ethnically cleansed.

We stopped at the ditch that bisects the no zone.  The flags that we had left on previous demonstrations almost hidden by thistles, the photos Rachel Corrie and Hana Shalabi were gone.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun spoke, “From Rome, to Chicago, to Ireland, people remember Vittorio, he is not forgotten and the struggle to which he devoted his life will continue until the occupation disappears.”  When he finished the crowd broke out in chanting, “Vittorio is not dead,” “Vittorio is with the fisherman, Vittorio is with the farmers.”  Rosa, an Italian activist spoke, “Vittorio is still with us, I know this, I feel it even more strongly today, I feel it every time I go out with the fisherman.”  Derrick, an Irish activist spoke, “Vittorio was a giant, and not just in size, when he spoke you had to listen.”  I pray that the world listens, for what Vittorio said again and again is a vital message, the occupation must end, we must have justice, Israeli crimes must not be allowed to continue.  There really isn’t much more to say, every week we gather for this protest, and everything that we say is basically a repeat of that, the occupation must end, we must have justice.  This we say, only this.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

Mahmoud, 19 years old, killed at Erez during Land Day between dreams and hopes: The words of his family

by Rosa Schiano

11 April 2012 | il Blog di Oliva

On Friday 30th March, during the “Land Day,” Gaza joined the Global March in order to remember the confiscation of Palestinian lands by Israel which were protested against on the 30th March 1976. 6 Palestinians were killed and hundreds were injured.

In Gaza this event had the color of blood and the sound of Israeli bullets.

We all met in Beit Hanoun to head to the Erez border. Many people could not continue the march because of the blockade created by the Israeli police.

However, while we were there we learned that many people were able to reach the border, and we also knew about the injured. And so, following alternative ways, bypassing the blockade of the police, we joined them.

What we saw next was at the verge of madness.

A group of young people demonstrated by singing, some were there just sitting or standing, others were trying to remove a barbed wire fence, some were throwing stones  of protest, stones that could have never reached the Israeli soldiers and surely not cross the border.

Nonetheless, the Israeli soldiers did not hesitate. They targeted. They fired. Precisely.

The injured were many. It was chaos. Guys riding motorbikes were bringing the injured quickly towards the ambulances and then they were coming back.

The soldiers fired at the arms, at the legs.

I saw grimaces of pain; I heard the screams of pain.

Also Mahmoud Zaqout, 19 years old, was there with us. They also shot Mahmoud, but he was hit straight in the chest.

Mahmoud would have turned 20 on April 19.

After that terrible day we went to visit his family.

He was a calm boy, a lovely boy, his father Mohammed told us, “Mahmoud was 19 and he was still a child. Mahmoud graduated and he worked in his shop near home.

He was very much beloved by the children, and by his brothers and sisters. He always played with them. Mahmoud was the tenth of 12 children.

His parents told us that Mahmoud was preparing himself for this demonstration since two weeks prior. He really wished to do something for the Palestinian cause. Four days earlier he had taken a picture of himself and he asked his family to use that picture in case he was killed.

Mahmoud’s family thought that he was joking, that he said that for fun.

They did not think that this could happen.

Maybe Mahmoud felt that this could happen. Or simply he knew that whoever goes to the border to demonstrate risks his life under the fire of Israeli bullets.

On Friday, after the prayer, Mahmoud went to the demonstration.

His mother told us that before leaving he told her: “If I am late, keep lunch ready for me.”

These were his last words to his mother.

Mahmoud was trying to put a flag at the gate when he was shot by an Israeli bullet. He was transported to Kamal Odwan Hospital. But because he was badly injured, the medical staff decided to carry him to the Shifa hospital, but he died before arriving.

One of his brothers showed us the flag still stained with his blood.

We asked Mohammed from whom his son had inherited this sense of struggle and resistance. The father told us that his family is from Askilon. Mahmoud is not the first martyr of the family. One of his uncles was killed during the shelling of Gaza (Cast Lead Operation).

Mohammed told us that they feel they must fight for their own rights, for their freedom and for justice.

All his family believes that one day the Palestinian people will go back to their land.

The family of Mahmoud

One of his brother told us that Mahmoud was anxiously waiting for the following Tuesday, 3rd April, in order to watch the football match of Barcelona, because Mahmoud was a fan of the team.

They would have watched the football match together.

Mahmoud was aware of the possibility of getting killed.  He was ready for that, for the love of his land. But at the same time Mahmoud was also thinking about his future and, as all the youth of his age, he was also thinking to watch the football match of his football team together with his family and friends.

“The loss of Mahmoud is a disaster for the whole family,” his father told us. “But now Mahmoud is with God and we hope he will be ok.”

“In the West Bank more than 300 people were injured. There Israeli soldiers used rubber coated  bullets. In Gaza there are F-16 and the soldiers use real bullets, in Gaza the Israeli soldiers shoot to kill the Palestinian people”, concluded Mohammed.

Finally, I asked the relatives of Mahmoud if they feel like sending a message to the international community.

Mohammed, the father, said, “I want to know what Mahmoud has done in order to be killed by Israel. We thank you for your solidarity, and we thank the internationals who are here to support the Palestinians.”

Nedal, one of Mahmoud’s brothers said, “If my brother had been a soldier, and if he had killed an Israeli boy, what would have been the response of the entire world? This question is above all for the governments of the other countries. Me too.. I would like to know what Mahmoud has done to be killed.”

I asked Haiaa, Mahmoud’s mother, how she feels. With her eyes still in disbelief she replied, “I feel like a fire is in my heart. Everyday I go to his room, every day I approach his bed, and I start to cry.”

The mother accompanied me into her son’s room. She showed me his computer, she touched the screen. She showed me a small cupboard with some objects. Toothpaste, a toothbrush, a comb, and some hair gel. She took the toothpaste, she handed it to me and she put it back where it was before.

She showed me Mahmoud’s jeans hanging on a hook, she hugged them. His jeans are still there at their place. Mahmoud’s mother keeps his room as he left it, as if he was still alive, as if he will come back.

I felt out of breath in front of her pain.

I hugged her, a hug full of feelings of helplessness, aware that my embrace could never relieve her pain, aware that nothing will ever bring her son back.

On Tuesday Barcelona won. Mahmoud could not sit on the armchair at home watching the match, but maybe from up there he would have smiled. Now he will wait for the greatest victory, to see the rights of the Palestinian people.

Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

The march from Erez to the iron doors of Al Aqsa

by Nathan Stuckey

30 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Sometimes, the more things change the more they stay the same.  On March 30, 1976 during protests against the confiscation of Palestinian land, Israel killed six protesters, injured over one hundred and arrested hundreds more.  This was the first Land Day.  Every year for the last thirty six years Palestinians have commemorated the heroism of those protesters and reiterated their attachment to their lands.  This year was no different.  This year protests occurred in over eighty countries, thousands of people tried to march to Jerusalem.  Almost everywhere whoever was in power tried to prevent these marches.  Gaza was no different from everywhere else.

The march from south of Beit Hanoun - Click here for more photos

Today’s protest began at a gas station south of Beit Hanoun.  Thousands of people gathered for the protest, many of them made it obvious that they wanted to march to Erez, and, God willing, on to Jerusalem.  Rows of police prevented this.  On a stage speaker after speaker spoke of resistance and return.  Off to the side, tires burned, youth on top of a billboard rhythmically pounded on it, demanding to go to north toward the border.  The police were having none of this, armored, carrying Plexiglas shields and batons; they stopped anyone who attempted to push north.  For three hours thousands of people stood under the sun in honor of Land Day.

At about four o’clock we were told that some people we know had moved past the police lines that were preventing protesters from reaching Erez.  The Israeli army was firing on the demonstrators.  Live bullets from soldiers ensconced in concrete towers embedded in a giant concrete wall shooting at protesters on the narrow road to the border.  That is a constant in Gaza, all protests are met with live bullets.  We set out to Erez to see the situation.

We arrived at Erez at about five o’clock.  There were a couple of hundred young men on the street leading to the border.  They were blocked from coming close to the massive concrete wall in which the soldiers hid by a fence of razor wire.  Israeli soldiers shot at young men burning tires and throwing stones.  None of the stones made it within a hundred meters of the concrete towers, but that did not stop the Israelis from using deadly force, their bullets smashed into body after body.  One young man, Mahmoud Zakot, 20, from Jabalia was killed.  Thirty one others were injured.  There were no ambulances.  Young men would be shot, their friends would carry them to waiting motorcycles, the motorcycles would roar off to take the injured to ambulances waiting by the checkpoint behind us.

The young men were not deterred by the gunfire.  They had come to Erez to protest forty five years of occupation, sixty four years of dispossession, no one had any illusions about how Israel dealt with protests in Gaza with bullets.  Young men would move forward with whatever they could light on fire and leave it in the razor wire which blocked the road.  Other young men would try to pull the razor wire out of the way so that we could advance toward Jerusalem.  Bullets would ring out; young men would fall into the arms of their friends and be put on motorcycles for the trip to the hospital.  While the Israeli’s shot them the young men chanted, “The doors of Al Aqsa are made of iron” and “We are going to Jerusalem, martyrs in the millions”.  Freedom is more valuable than life.

We did not reach Jerusalem today.  We remember though, and we are grateful, that Jerusalem is not Lifta and is not Jarash, Palestinians still live there, it has not been ethnically cleansed.  We will be back on May 15, in commemoration of the Nakba, we will return on June 5th to commemorate the Naksa, we will return to this border until the occupation disappears.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.