Tag: Buffer Zone

Land Day: From Gaza to Sakhnin we are all united with Bil’in

by Nathan Stuckey

27 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Photo courtesy Hussein Amody, 2012

Thirty six years ago on March 30th 1976 demonstrations against the confiscation of Palestinian land by the Israeli government spread throughout Palestine.  Six Palestinians were killed, over a hundred wounded, and hundreds more arrested.  Land day was one of the first large mobilizations of Palestinians with 1948 Palestine.  This year, on Land Day, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from all over the world will march towards Jerusalem.  Today, in Beit Hanoun, Land Day came early.  The weekly Tuesday demonstration against the occupation and the no go zone was in honor of Land Day and the six martyrs who gave their lives defending their land thirty six years ago.

We gathered on the road in front of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College in preparation for the march into the no go zone.  There were about 50 of us, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, other foreign activists, and Gazan activists from all over Gaza.  Palestinian flags flew high, music played over the megaphone, and we unfurled banners in memory of the martyrs of 1976.  Young men carried olive trees, hoes, shovels and water.  We would plant the trees in the no go zone today.  We marched slowly toward the no go zone.

The no go zone has been overgrown with thistles, for some reason the Israeli’s have stopped bulldozing the ground so often.  Perhaps they are satisfied that they grounded most signs that people used to live here, that the no go zone used to be a place of thriving orchards, completely to dust under the treads of their tanks of their bulldozers.  We made our way through the thistles using paths cut by our previous demonstrations in the no go zone.  We made our way to the trench the Israeli’s dug to bisect the no go zone.  The trench is lined with flags from our past demonstrations. Today it is also lined with pictures of Rachel Corrie and Hana Shalabi from last week’s demonstration.

Young men set to work with their hoes. They cleared two areas of thistles, dug holes, and planted young olive saplings.  While the trees were being planted the crowd chanted, “From Gaza to Sakhnin we are all united with Bil’in.” Usually, the chant is from “from Gaza to Jenin we are all united with Bil’in”, but this week Sakhnin was honored for its role in the first Land Day.

After the trees were planted we set about our second task for the day, erasing the trench which scars the no go zone.  Young men set to work with hoes and shovels filling it in with dirt.  Israeli soldiers appeared on top the concrete tower from which they usually shoot at us.  This time, they did not shoot, they merely watched.

The young men continued to work at filling in the ditch.  Perhaps the soldiers were afraid of shooting, afraid of inspiring even demonstrations on the 30th. Perhaps they realized that to these demonstrators, freedom is more important than life.  The young men worked steadily. Soon a good part of the trench was filled in.  They shouldered their shovels and hoes and we began to walk back towards Beit Hanoun.  We paused at the edge of the no go zone by some giant concrete blocks painted with Palestinian flags, we ate cookies and drank orange juice.  Today, we went to the no go zone and planted olive trees, God willing, on Land Day we will plant olive trees in Al Quds.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement

Rachel Corrie & Hana Shalabi: Flowers among thistles of Israeli occupation

by Nathan Stuckey

21 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Rachel Corrie was murdered nine years ago by an Israeli bulldozer.  Hana Shalabi has spent the last 34 days on hunger strike an Israeli prison, yet she is accused of no crime.  This was not the first time Hana has been held in Israeli prisons while being accused of no crime. She was only recently released as part of a prisoner exchange after being held without charges for 25 months. Hana has said that “freedom is more important than life,” and she knows of what she speaks.

The protesters who turn out every week for the demonstration against the occupation and the no go zone agree.

An Israeli bulldozer did not stop the message of Rachel, Israeli prisons have not silenced Hana, and Israeli bullets will not stop our protests.  Rachel Corrie was only 23 years old when she was killed; Hana Shalabi is 29 years old.   Our protest this week was in honor of these women and all of the strong women of Palestine.

At a little after eleven in the morning we set off down the road north from Beit Hanoun and towards the no go zone.  There were about 25 activists from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other international activists.

As we walked music played over the megaphone.  Flowers were in bloom everywhere, it is springtime in Gaza.  I was so enthralled by the flowers that I didn’t even think to look up and see if the giant balloon that always floats over Gaza observing our move was there.  We walked past blooming flowers, green fields of wheat, a few olive trees that the Israeli’s haven’t managed to destroy yet into the no go zone.

The change was dramatic.  Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, it is also very poor, any land that can be cultivated is cultivated.  The no go zone is not cultivated; it is overgrown with thistles and weeds.  It used to be one of Gaza’s most fertile areas, full of orchards and crops.  Israel destroyed all of this, the trees were cut down, any houses in the no go zone were bulldozed, all wells were destroyed.

We made our way up a small path that we have cut through the thistles on previous demonstrations to the trench which Israel has cut across the no go zone.  The trench is lined with flags from one of our previous demonstrations, Palestinian flags and flags from many of the factions in Palestine.  We were carrying pictures of Hana and Rachel, some of us carried posters of Rachel decorated by the kids of the Rachel Corrie Youth Center in Rafah for the anniversary of her murder.

Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke about the importance of continuing the popular resistance and the inspiration that we all take from Hana and Rachel.  We left pictures of Hana and Rachel in the thistles as we left, perhaps the Israeli soldiers can look out from their concrete towers on the faces of their victims.

 Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

The seen and unseen in the No Go Zone

by Nathan Stuckey

7 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today, like ever Tuesday, we marched into the no go zone north of Beit Hanoun.  We gathered by the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College and marched north, towards Jerusalem.  A Jerusalem that few of the protesters have ever seen, they have never been allowed to go to Jerusalem, it is forbidden to them, just as the land in the no go zone is forbidden to them.  Jerusalem and Al Aqsa are unseen.  We demonstrated for Al Aqsa and the prisoners.  The prisoners too are unseen; Gazans are not allowed to visit their sons and brothers and held in the prisons of the occupation.  As we walked down the road toward the no go zone a giant balloon rose over the wall.  We are the seen, watched from giant balloons, watched from soldiers in the towers that line the wall, seen from the sights of guns, an Apache helicopter roars in the distance.  Local herders tell us that there are tanks behind the wall.  For us, the soldiers who look at us through rifle scopes are yet unseen.  Later, they will make their appearance.  In the sky floats the black flag which flies over the occupation, most of the world refuses to see it, they refuse to recognize it for what it is, but for the people of Palestine it always floats in the sky, like the second moon in a Murakami novel.

We enter the no go zone and walk toward the flags that we have left during previous demonstrations.  There are about forty of us, we have no guns, only our voices and our flags.  We stop by row of flags we left last week.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun starts to speak, “Khader Adnan told us that honor is more important than food, Hana Shalabi reminds us that freedom is more important than food, we will continue the struggle.”  Both of them are held in Israeli prisons, neither of them have been charges with any crime.  Three months ago few people knew who either of them were, they were unseen, but they still existed, within them both was a great power and a great determination.  Both of them refuse to be oppressed in silence, their hunger strikes are calls for justice, for honor.  They are inspirations to us all.

We sit down under the flags.  Our goal is to spend twenty minutes in the no go zone.  After only a couple of minutes the unseen Israeli soldiers start to shoot at us.  Bullets whistle over our heads, thirty maybe forty of them.  We stand up, retreat down a small hill and stop.  The young men begin to chant, against the occupation, pledging their lives to defend Al Aqsa, an Al Aqsa that few of them have ever seen, in support of Hana Shalabi, a woman none of us has ever seen.  It doesn’t matter that most of them have never seen Al Aqsa, or Jenin, or  Hebron, or Jaffa, that they have never seen the homes from which their grandfathers were driven, the orange trees that fed their grandmothers, those things are still theirs, they are still inside of them.  Theft does not change possession.

We leave the no go zone when we want, we are not driven out by the Israeli bullets which whistle over our heads.  As we leave the no go zone the soldiers come out of hiding and watch us from atop their tower, we see them with our bare eyes, they see us through rifle sights. We have done what we set out to do today, we have tried in our small way to remind people that closing your eyes and saying that you don’t see something does not make it disappear.  What is unseen is often more important than what is seen.  Food we can all see, honor, none of us can see, but honor is more important than food.  Al Aqsa is something that many of the people here have never seen, but it is something for which we are willing to give our lives.  Justice cannot be seen, but all of us are willing to fight for it.  The struggle will go on, a struggle mostly for unseen things, often unseeable things.  It is a struggle for the only things really worth fighting for, justice, freedom, and peace.  I have never seen Khader Adnan or Hana Shalabi but I would like to thank them both, for showing us what heroism looks like.  Even those that have never seen Al Aqsa know that it is beautiful, that it is worth dying for.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

We Are With Hana Shalabi and Al Aqsa: Demonstration in the No Go Zone in Beit Hanoun

by Nathan Stuckey

29 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Israeli riot police have entered the Al Aqsa Mosque Compound, Palestinians have struggling to protect it for days.  After 66 days Khader Adnan has ended his hunger strike, hopefully, soon, he will be home with his family.  Even before his hunger strike ended the newest one had begun.  Hana Shalabi, a young woman from the West Bank, was put into “administrative detention” on February 16, 2012.  Like Khader Adnan she has been charged with no crime.  Like Khader Adnan she finds dignity more important than food.  Hana Shalabi was only recently released from Israeli prisons, freed in the latest prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestine.  She had spent over two years in prison when she was released, she had not been charged with a crime that time either.  These are the things that inspired this week’s demonstration against the no go zone and the occupation in Beit Hanoun.

As we gathered on the road beside the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College the wind blew fiercely.  The flags did not wave in the breeze, they were held stretched out in full.  Those that did not have flags had posters of Al Aqsa.  Music played over the megaphone.  We marched quietly and quickly down the road to the no go zone.  As we approached the buffer zone the chanting began, dozens of young men pledging to defend Al Aqsa and demanding the end of occupation.  We marched to the ditch that bisects the no go zone, we stopped.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun said a few words, “Al Aqsa is at the center of our nation, it is at the center of our life, we will not abandon it.”  Sabur announced that we would symbolically join Hana’s hunger strike, for two hours we would remain in the no go zone and neither eat nor drink.

Soon, the Israeli shooting began.  The first bullet I thought was perhaps the crack of a flag in the wind; there was no mistaking the bullets after that.  We retreated a bit, then the young men stopped and rallied.  The flag we had been standing by now had a hole in it.  We walked back toward the wall; soldiers appeared on top of the concrete tower from which they had so recently shot at us.  The soldiers started to fire tear gas at us.  The fierce wind carried it away too quickly for it to be really effective.  They started to shoot at us again.  The bullets whistled over our heads.  We were unarmed demonstrators, who had not so much as thrown a ball of cotton, who had no guns, being shot at by soldiers in a concrete tower.  This is the only way the occupation knows how to speak, with bullets, with tear gas.  We started to walk back toward Beit Hanoun, bullets whistling over our heads.  We stopped at the edge of the no go zone.  Some of us set down to continue our symbolic hunger strike.  The Israeli bullets began again.  They continued to shoot as we walked back to Beit Hanoun.  The entire time the Israeli soldiers shot at us Hana Shalabi refused to eat and drink, her refusal is louder than their bullets.  We will win.

Solidarity with Khader Adnan in the No Go Zone

by Nathan Stuckey

14 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Two months ago, few of us knew the name Khader Adnan.  Today, he is an inspiration to all of us.  Two months ago he was kidnapped from his home by Israel.  He was charged with no crime.  He was abused by his captors and interrogators from the moment he was arrested.  None of this is unusual in Palestine, every day people are kidnapped from their homes, abused, and held without charge.  Torture is a routine matter for prisoners of the occupation.  None of the abuse that Israel inflicted on Khader Adnan was new, it has happened to thousands, really hundreds of thousands of Palestinians under the occupation.

It was all so routine that no one would bother to report on it, that is a specialty of the occupation, to make crimes so routine that they are not news.  Khader Adnan, a thirty three year old Palestinian baker, stood up, he said no.  He is willing to give his life for dignity; a life without dignity is not life.  Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike for 59 days, he lies near death in an Israeli hospital chained to his bed.  He has still not been charged with any crime.

Khader Adnan is not striking only for himself, as he said, “I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on.”

He could die at any time.

Protests have been held to support him around the world.  Hundreds of Palestinians have joined hunger strikes in solidarity with him.  Today, in Beit Hanoun, we marched in solidarity with him.  We gathered by the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College, we passed out posters of Khader Adnan, we raised the Palestinian flag, and we set off into the buffer zone.  Above us were three Israel Apaches, a drone, and an observation balloon, in front of us was a giant concrete wall with towers full of soldiers, and a jeep and a tank on a hill.

This did not deter us.  Israel has a history of shooting missiles into demonstrations and shooting live ammunition into unarmed demonstrations is a regular occurrence, especially in Gaza.  We marched down the road into the no go zone.

The no go zone is a place of death.  Israel has forced out everyone who used to live there, it has destroyed their houses, bulldozed their orchards, and now it claims the right to shoot anyone who enters it.  The land is scarred by the blades of bulldozers, by the tracks of tanks.  We marched across it, toward Erez, toward the wall that surrounds Gaza, toward the wall that reminds us all that Gaza is a giant prison.  We walked until we were about 50 meters from the wall.

Khader Adnan’s wife called us, she thanked us for our support, and described her husband’s suffering, “He is chained to a bed, he is in constant pain, he looks like a ghost.  Still he does not give up.”

Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative spoke, “Israel does not respect human rights, the crimes of the occupation are unending, but so will be our resistance to the occupation, the popular resistance will continue until the end of the occupation.”  We chanted our support for Khader, for a man willing to die to live in honor, for a man willing to give his life for his people’s right to live in honor, for a man willing to give his life in his struggle against the occupation.

After the demonstration Sabur received a call from the Palestinian police at the Erez crossing.  The Israeli army had called them threatening to fire on the demonstration unless we left the area.  They threatened to fire on an unarmed demonstration in support of a man who has been on hunger strike for 59 days, a man who could die at any moment, a man who has not even been charged with any crime.  Just as 800,000 Palestinians were forced from their land in 1948 today Israel threatens unarmed demonstrators on their land with death unless they leave their land.

Just as Khader Adnan is steadfast in his hunger strike, we will be steadfast in our resistance to the occupation, like him, we struggle for a life of dignity, a dignity denied by the occupation.  Khader Adnan is our hero; his steadfastness is an inspiration to all of us.

Thank you Khader Adnan.

Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.