Tag: Buffer Zone - Page 16 - 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.

New report documents children under fire in Gaza

13 December 2011 | AlertNet

Children walk past a poster welcoming freed Palestinian prisoners in Qalandiya refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah, October 19, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

Twenty-eight cases of children being shot at by the border fence between Israel and the Gaza strip whilst gathering building materials like gravel, or working by the fence, have been documented by Defence for Children International in their latest report ‘Children of Gravel’.

The shootings reportedly took place between March 26 2010 and October 3, 2011, according to Defence for Children International (DCI)-Palestine Section . According to DCI, the Israeli soldiers often fire warning shots to scare off workers by the border. Their report also states that ‘these soldiers sometimes shoot and kill the donkeys used by the workers, and also target the workers, usually, but not always, shooting at their legs.’

‘That children are in a situation where they need to work to help their parents meet basic family needs is an infringement of their rights. That children are in the line of fire to meet these needs is appalling,’ says World Vision Programme Director for Gaza, Siobhan Kimmerle.

Forty percent of Gaza’s population is unemployed and 80% of the population is completely reliant on foreign assistance. In addition, Israeli restrictions limit the amount of construction material entering the Gaza borders for reconstruction and development. As a result, many workers collect gravel and sell it to builders to use for concrete. The children among the gravel collectors earn about US$8-$14 per day to help support their families.

The North Gaza governorate is one of the most impoverished governorates in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) and the neediest in the Gaza Strip. In comparison to the other governorates in the Gaza Strip, North Gaza’s food insecurity rate is the highest at 60% and the unemployment rate the second highest at 39%. World Vision works with communities in North Gaza to help improve family livelihoods and help ensure their children are cared for and protected.

Currently there are 2,411 registered children in World Vision’s North Gaza Area Development Programme, with 7,061 beneficiaries and as many as 22,594 indirect beneficiaries. World Vision’s programming in North Gaza includes rural development, job creation, and child empowerment projects.

The blockade of the Gaza Strip, including Israeli restrictions on items entering the borders, continue to harm Gaza’s deteriorating economy. The Israeli military continues to restrict Palestinians’ access to the land on the Gaza side of the Israeli-Gaza border, maintaining that anyone that comes within 300 metres of the borders puts his/her life at risk, which has had a negative impact on the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians living in that area. DCI’s documentation indicates that children have been shot at while being between 30 to 800 metres within the Israeli border fence.

To read the DCI’s Urgent Appeal-Children of the Gravel, please visit http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/urgent-appeal-ua-410-children-gravel.

World Vision continues to work for the well-being of children and advocate for an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. World Vision believes that this conflict threatens the lives of all Palestinian and Israeli children, and one of the greatest obstacles to achieving fullness of life for each and every child is the ongoing conflict and the perpetuation of violence.

Sources:
1) Defence for Children International-Palestine Section, Urgent Appeal-Children of the Gravel, available at
http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/urgent-appeal-ua-410-children-gravel, Last accessed on November 25, 2011.
2) Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, Gaza Strip, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html. Last accessed on November 25, 2011.
3) Oxfam International, Crisis in Gaza, available at http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/gaza. Last accessed on December 9, 2011.

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.