Tag: Beit Hanoun - Page 9 - International Solidarity Movement

Planting the seeds of resistance and steadfastness in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey

13 December 2011

Photo: Beit Hanoun Local Initiative – Click here for more images

We set off from in front of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College under the flags of half a dozen countries, but listening to the music of Palestine. Every Tuesday, for three years, we set off from here into the no go zone, that three hundred meter strip of death which surrounds Gaza. We are a diverse group, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other Gazans. We march down the road into the no go zone, the tension builds, we play music, we chant.

Today, as we approached the buffer zone a shot rang out. Israeli soldiers shooting into the air, shooting from the concrete towers which line the border of the prison that Israel has created in Gaza. We do not stop, we keep walking into the no go zone. The no go zone is different this week, it is green. Usually it is a dead brown, every couple of weeks Israeli bulldozers come and uproot any plants that manage to sprout, nothing is allowed to live in the no go zone. It is hard to imagine that this used to be an area of thriving orchards, that their used to be houses here, they have all been destroyed, not just destroyed, erased like the hundreds of Palestinian villages which most of the people of Gaza are refugees from were erased after 1948. Just as Palestinians have refused to be erased by the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, or the war on Gaza, the no go zone steadfastly refuses to become a place of death, green plants emerge from the land after every rain.

We march all the way to the giant ditch which scars the no go zone. We plant a Palestinian flag. It joins the other flags we have left in the no go zone, the orchard of olive trees which we planted here last month. Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative spoke, he vowed to “continue the popular resistance despite the bullets of the occupation, resistance would continue until the liberation of Palestine.” Almost on cue he was answered by the bullets of the soldiers, shots began to ring out, not at us; the soldiers were shooting into the air. We calmly walked back to the road to Beit Hanoun; we still had work to do.

On the road to Beit Hanoun we met a tractor. We had brought the tractor to farm, to plant the land of the no go zone. Israel claims that the no go zone extends only three hundred meters, but in reality the danger extends much farther, just before the demonstration today the Israeli’s had shot a fourteen year old boy from Beit Hanoun while he gathered scrap metal to help support his family, he was not in the no go zone, it didn’t matter, they shot him anyway. We drove the tractor into a large patch of unfarmed land next to the road. We lowered the disc and began to turn the soil. The thistles that grew here were turned under the red soil of Gaza. Young men pulled stones from the field; they were left by the cactuses which mark the border of the land. As soon as the soil was turned young men spread out and began to plant it, barley. When the rains come, the barley will sprout, in four months we will harvest it. We will harvest it under the guns of the Israeli army, just as Palestinians have done for sixty four years, steadfast in their refusal to abandon their land. We are planting not only barley, but also resistance, steadfastness.

Nedal, 14 years old, collected metal to support his family – they shot him from behind

by Rosa Schiano

13 December 2011 | il blog di Oliva

Nedal Khaleel Hamdan (Photo: Rosa Schiano, il blog di Oliva)

This morning at the Eretz border in Beit Hanoun, Israeli soldiers shot a 14-year-old boy, Nedal Khaleel Hamdan. We went to the hospital to meet him. We found him sitting on the bed with his left shoulder bandaged, surrounded by his family.

Nedal was collecting metal along with other boys in an area near the border. Often young people his age collect metal, then sell it to earn some money and help their families as well. At about 8:30 in the morning, Israeli soldiers started shooting at them; Nedal and the other fled, but while they were running Nedal was hit in the shoulder by a bullet.

He was transported on a cart to Balsam Hospital, which provided first aid, and was then transferred to Kamal Odwaan Hospital in Beit Hanoun. There the doctor told us: “We made an incision to remove the M-16 bullet. There is a total lack of supplies in the emergency room. We have to ration everything. People get a lot less medicine than they need. ”

Nadal’s recovery time will be a month. Fortunately, there have been no complications.

When we asked Nedal why he works there, told us: “We try to sell the metal to give our families the money they need to live.”

His father, Khaleel, has 16 children, and cannot work due to a problem in his legs. Lack of money forces his children to work in these dangerous areas, even if they do not earn more than 10 shekels for the sale of the metal. Sometimes his family depends on this money. Khaleel adds: “We live in a situation of injustice in Palestine and suffer from this occupation, but we want to work and need some way to make money. We hope that this occupation and the siege end soon and we can have a better life.”

How long can such crimes continue? Here they fire on children, while the world keeps its eyes and ears closed.

Commemorating the anniversary of the First Intifada in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey

6 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Photo: Rosa Schiano – Click here for more images

Twenty four years ago, on December 9, 2011 a revolution began. The revolution began in Gaza, it was the First Intifada. After twenty years of Israeli occupation Palestinian resistance exploded in full force. Boycotts, demonstrations, tax refusal, all of these were the strategies of the Intifada. Over one thousand Palestinians would be killed by Israel during the Intifada;over one hundred thousand Palestinians would go to prison during the course of the Intifada. For six years the Intifada burned, Palestinians were united in a massive nationwide campaign of popular resistance.

Today, in Beit Hanoun, we marched in remembrance of the beginning of the Intifada. We gathered near the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College, the same place we have gathered every Tuesday for the last three years. We were about forty people in all, activists from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and people from around Gaza. Bella Ciao echoed over the loudspeaker, that was our signal to begin marching. We marched down the road toward the no go zone, the three hundred meter strip of land along Gaza’s border where Israel murders any who dare to enter. Just as we refuse the occupation, we refuse the no go zone, every Tuesday, we march into the no go zone. We began to chant, “No to the Occupation”, “from Beit Hanoun to Bil’in we are all resistance”, and “A steadfast people will never be humiliated”.

As we reached the edge of the no go zone, we paused. Many members of the demonstration wrapped their faces in keffiyehs and empty bottles and sling shots were taken out of bags in honor of the weapons of the First Intifada, the revolution of stones. We march into the buffer zone, our hearts cheered by the Palestine flag that still flies where we planted it several weeks ago, reminding everyone, that this land isn’t naturally dead, that even if the bulldozers come and destroy everything, as they do every couple of weeks, resistance will always rise up anew. We stop by a giant piece of rubble that we have painted with a Palestinian flag. Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative speaks, “this march commemorates the martyrs of the first Intifada, the glorious uprising of stones which began 24 years ago. The revolution continues, the Intifada and the resistance will continue until the Palestinian dream of an independent state with its capital as Jerusalem and the return refugees is achieved.” We march back to Beit Hanoun. Next Tuesday, we will march into the no go zone again if the occupation has not ended by then, but our resistance, will continue every day until the end of occupation and the return of the refugees.

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey

30 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today, Tuesday, November 29, 2011 is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This day commemorates the racist and colonialist proposal of the United Nations to partition Palestine in 1947. All over the world, people stood in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle today. In Beit Hanoun, today, like every Tuesday for the last three years, the popular struggle raised its voice against the occupation. Against the no go zone which surrounds Gaza, which makes the refugees of 1948 and 1967 who live in Beit Hanoun refugees once again, the no go zone which throws them off their land and destroys their houses and orchards. Against the siege on Gaza which is designed to destroy them, their hopes, their dreams, their economy, their future. Under the unceasing gaze of observation balloons and drones, in the shadow of a giant concrete wall studded with gun towers which seem to come out of a futuristic horror film but which is in fact is the present and is no movie, it is Gaza. Against the occupation which can only remind the world of George Orwell’s prediction of what the future would look like, “a boot stamping on a human face, forever”.

We gathered in the shadows of the ruins of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College, not 100 meters away from the graves of the Beit Hanoun Massacre of 2006. The Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and Palestinians from around Gaza gathered to march into the no go zone. We were buoyed by the knowledge that around the world today people were raising their voices in support of Palestine, in support of peace, justice and freedom. The megaphone crackled to life, “We Will Not Go Down” by Michael Heart. In a sea of flags from around the world, Palestine, Ireland, Italy, India, Malaysia and many others, we began our march towards the no go zone.

We enter the no go zone and begin to release balloons with Palestinian flags attached to them. The balloons will float over the walls that surround Gaza, they will take our message farther than our megaphone and our voices can. Perhaps they will be caught in the branches of an orange tree planted by the fathers or grandfathers of the men gathered here, on the land that they were expelled from. There is no risk that they will be caught in the branches of orange trees before they cross the wall, all of those trees have been bulldozed by Israel when it created the no go zone, the zone of death which surrounds Gaza. In the short story “Men in the Sun” by Ghassan Kanafini some Palestinian laborers die in a water tank while waiting to cross a border. The driver of the truck is left lamenting, “Why didn’t they say anything” as they died. We are not silent, even if are voices are lost in the space of the dead zone which Israel created around Gaza, these balloons will carry our message to the outside. Let no one say that they did not know, that we did not say anything while Gaza is strangled to death.

Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative spoke to the crowd. He called upon the people of the world “to isolate Israel internationally and to exert pressure in all its forms until the end of the occupation of Palestine.” Radhika Sainath from the International Solidarity Movement also spoke, “Today the entire free world is against the settlements, the wall and the Israeli occupation. We will continue our work in Palestine with Palestinian activistsuntil we succeed in bringing freedom and justice to Palestine.” Their voices were echoed by the chanting of the crowd, against the occupation, voiced demanding peace, justice and freedom, voicing pledgingsteadfastness in the struggle to the end the occupation.

No go zone protest in Beit Hanoun

by Nathan Stuckey

24 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

We gathered in the road in front of the Agricultural College of Beit Hanoun, the same place that we gather every week. There were about forty people, members of the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement and citizens of Beit Hanoun. Like every week, we planned to march into the no go zone. The chanting started immediately, with more energy than usual. Soon music began to pour from the loudspeakers. The march was to begin.

We walked down the road, into the no go zone. We walked past the flag that we had painted on piece of rubble, past the olive grove that we planted last month, we marched all the way to the flag which we have left to fly over the no go zone. We only enter the no go zone once per week, but we the signs of our presence are always here, the olives the flag. If Israel destroys them, we return them again. The no go zone seems to encapsulate Israel’s attitude toward Palestine, erasure, nothing is left living there, even memory is erased, it becomes truly a land without people. The people who have been left without land are not the Zionists, but the refugees that are confined to the prison that is Gaza.

We reach the flag, the flag has become tattered from its weeks of flying amidst the bullets of the no go zone. A few weeks ago the Israelis had shot the flag pole until it fell; we planted it again that day. Now though, it is tattered, some young men pull down the flag, and replace it with a new one. We are standing only about 70 meters from the wall, six meters of gray concrete ugliness. Smokestacks belch pollution in the distance. Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative speaks, “The resistance will continue until the Israeli occupation is no more, we ask the free people of the world to stand with us in our resistance to oppression.” An Italian activist speaks; she too denounces the occupation and its crimes and calls on the peoples of the world to support the Palestinian struggle for freedom. We leave to sound of music.

As we walk back to Beit Hanoun, Sabur gets a call. It is the office at Erez, at the border crossing. They are warning him that the Israeli’s had wanted to fire into the crowd, the Israeli’s claimed that they were scared in their concrete towers of civilian protesters with their flags. Perhaps we were like a nightmare, the people that they thought that they had disappeared forever coming back to haunt them, ghosts returning to their homes which had been stolen from them. That is the problem with living on stolen land, in stolen homes, sometimes, no matter how far away you have driven the owners, sometimes you see them again, and you are reminded that the land you live in belongs to someone else. We are not ghosts, we can be killed by Israeli bullets, but no matter how many you kill, the land remains stolen, and nothing stolen is ever really yours. No matter how big your guns, how thick the concrete of your walls, you are afraid of the ghosts which haunt the scene of your crime.