23 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
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Today we went farming with the family of Ahmed Saadat. We arrived in Khuzaa at about 7 AM and met Ahmed. He told us that the Israeli’s had already shot at his family when they went to their land to begin work. We went to the land, which lies 300 meters from the border and directly on the buffer zone. You immediately know the buffer zone, nothing is planted in it, no trees are left, and everything has been destroyed, only weeds grow there.
Ahmed and his family began to work, ten people on their knees harvesting wheat by hand. To harvest the wheat they pull it up by the roots and tie it into sheaves to be taken to a threshing machine. The land is quite large, in the past perhaps they would have hired a combine to harvest the wheat so that they would not have to do it by hand, but now it is dangerous to bring equipment near the buffer zone. Now, they work by hand.
At about 7:45 AM an Israeli Occupation Forces Humvee pulled up onto a hill north of us. Soon shots began to ring out, these were not directed at us, they were directed at farmers harvesting wheat to our northwest. At about 8 AM soldiers in a tower next to the Humvee launched either tear gas or a smoke grenade, it landed extremely close to the tower, which was about 400 meters from us. This was soon followed by shooting at us.
Bullets whistled past our ears, they slammed into the ground around us, most of them about 20 meters away from us. The farmers were scared, but most of them kept working. They have little choice, the IOF shoots a lot in this area, it is inevitable that they will be shot at while they try to harvest their wheat. After a minute or two of shooting the bullets stop. Soon the Humvee drives down off of the hill and moves further down the border. All morning long the Humvee drives up and down the border, accompanied by two jeeps.
The farmers continue to work harvesting wheat. At about 8:30 Ahmed receives a phone call. It is from Ma’aan organization. They say that the Red Cross has called them asking Ahmed and advising him to leave the area. He is advised to go two kilometers from the border because of the danger. The Red Cross had been called by the IOF asking them who we were, and if we were internationals with the farmers.
Ahmed laughs, two kilometers is the other side of Khuzaa. The farmers continue harvesting their wheat until about 11 AM. While they work chmed tells us a little bit about his family. Like most Gazans, they are refugees. His family is from Salame, near Jaffa. They were expelled in 1948. His family still has the documents proving that they own the land they were expelled from. Now, his family works what land they have managed to buy in Gaza over the years.
He said, “What am I to do, Israel expelled us from our land, now they steal more of it, they shoot at us, but we need this wheat to live, we must continue to work our land.”
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.
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.
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.
4 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Over the weekend Israeli planes dropped flyers over Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia warning that anyone who approached within three hundred meters of the border would be shot. It is not as though the people don’t know of this policy.
As the following conversation between Israeli soldiers makes clear, this has been policy for many years. The soldiers in this conversation are discussing the murder of a thirteen year old girl, Iman Darweesh Al Hams. She was murdered in October 2004 on her way to school. The chilling transcript relating her murder is still fresh in the minds of Gazans.
In a three-way conversation between watchtower soldier, the operations room in another location, and finally, Captain R, the officer on the ground near watchtower, they discussed and confirmed the cold killing.
From the operations room: Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?
Watchtower: A girl about 10, she’s behind the embankment, scared to death.
A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts
Watchtower: I think that one of the positions took her out.
Captain R: I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over.
Capt R then “clarifies” why he killed Iman:
This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over.
The Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old, was acquitted on all charges by a military court. The soldier, who has only been identified as “Captain R”, was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp.
As you can see, the new leaflets aren’t really necessary. Everyone in Gaza knows of Israel’s policy of murdering anyone who goes near the border. The leaflets were also ineffective.
The weekly demonstration against the no go zone in Beit Hanoun went on just as it has every other Tuesday for the last three years. Just last Friday the Israeli military shot thirty two people at the Erez border crossing, one of them, 20 year old Mahmoud Zakout, was killed.
We gathered as we usually do outside the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College. You could hear the thump of an Apache’s blades, somewhere, unseen, there was a helicopter nearby. A farmer came by on a donkey cart; we went over to speak to him. He told us that because of the lack of fuel in Gaza his crops were threatened. He had no diesel to run irrigation pumps, and without water his crops will die. What was he to do? No one had an answer for him. After he left the music began over the megaphone, flags went up and a giant banner was unfurled. We began to march down the road to the no go zone.
We entered the no go zone with its shoulder high crop of thistles and quickly moved to single file to walk down the paths that we have worn through the thistles in previous demonstrations. We made our way to the ditch that bisects the no go zone, probably seventy meters from the giant concrete wall that marks the perimeter of the prison that is Gaza. Right in front of us was an Israeli tower from which they shoot whom they will. We lined along the ditch and began to chant against the occupation.
The chanting broke for a few minutes, Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke. He said “the resistance will continue until the end of the occupation.”
Then an Irish activist spoke, and he compared the Israeli occupation of Palestine to that of Rome and the Ottomans. “Just as those occupations came to an end so too will this one, Palestine will be free,” he said.
As we made our way back to Beit Hanoun we noticed smoke in the distance, behind a hill off to our east. An Israeli tank was releasing smoke, probably to cover the movement of the soldiers it was disgorging into Gaza. We stopped at some concrete blocks that we had painted with Palestinian flags in an earlier demonstration.
We soon noticed another tank making its way west along the wall. Two tanks and a helicopter, all this to try and scare thirty unarmed demonstrators off Palestinian land. It didn’t work.
Maybe in the future Israel will stop dropping leaflets and stop sending tanks to try and scare people. Israel could just play footage of the murder of Iman Darweesh Al Hams on giant televisions they could install in the wall.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
