Tag: Buffer Zone

As protesters hold Iftar in the “buffer zone,” Israeli bulldozers sever Gaza’s links with the world

16 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On Tuesday, August 9, members of the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip joined the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative for its weekly protest by the Erez Crossing against the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone.” During Ramadan, these protests take the form of Iftars with local farmers threatened by Israeli incursions. Protesters observed Israeli military bulldozers operating by the crossing, and later learned that they had severed electronic cables running under it, shutting down the Gaza Strip’s telecommunications and Internet networks for between 12 and 18 hours.

Ramadan in the Buffer Zone

2 August 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

The buffer zone is a place of death.  300 meters of destroyed land, land that used to be alive, that used to be filled with orchards, houses, and fields, now, all dead.  To enter the buffer zone is to risk your life, even to come close to it, the Israeli’s shoot farmers, shepherds, scrap collectors, anyone who comes close to the buffer zone is in danger.  Every Tuesday, the people of Beit Hanoun attempt to bring the buffer zone back to life.  They gather at the Agricultural College and march to the buffer zone.

Ramadan began on Monday, in honor of Ramadan, this week’s demonstration would involve going to the buffer zone to pray.  We gathered, about thirty of us, under the hot sun.  Thankfully, a breeze was blowing.  It is summer in Gaza, and Ramadan is particularly hard this year, it isn’t easy to march under the hot sun while you are fasting.  We walked to the buffer zone, newly bulldozed by the Israeli’s; our flag planted merely a week before, gone.  The men laid down a white cloth, held it down with clumps of dirt, spread prayer rugs, and Abu Issa recited the call the call to prayer.  It echoed over the buffer zone, joining the symphony of calls from Beit Hanoun.  As the men prayed we looked around nervously, today was quieter than usual; maybe because of Ramadan there was none of the usual background noise of construction to repair previous Israeli destruction.  After finishing prayers, we marched back to Beit Hanoun, at least for a little while, the buffer zone had been returned to life.  For a short while, something lived in it, people prayed in it, may justice come soon.

Activists pray in Gaza’s buffer zone

2 August 2011 | Ma’an News Agency

GAZA CITY — Popular resistance activists held noon prayers on Tuesday in the “buffer zone” in northern Gaza.

International solidarity activists joined dozens of Palestinians to pray on lands recently bulldozed by Israel near Beit Hanoun.

Israeli forces impose a “buffer zone” 300 meters from the border inside Gaza. Israel’s army says it considers the area a combat zone and frequently fires at Palestinians who enter the area, killing many civilians.

In practice, the no-go area extends over a kilometer inside the Gaza Strip in some areas. It encompasses around 20 percent of the coastal enclave, including fertile Palestinian farmland.

Activists said they organized prayers in the buffer zone as an act of resistance to Israeli forces who were watching from behind the concrete wall.

Beit Hanoun, 63 years and 300 meters later

19 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

The Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, happened sixty three years ago.  The theft of Palestinian land continues even today.  Every Tuesday, for the last three years, the people of Beit Hanoun have protested both the occupation and Israel’s three hundred meter “buffer zone” which Israel has declared on Palestinian land near the border of Gaza.  We gathered today, like we do every Tuesday near the agricultural college in Beit Hanoun.  Local farmers warned us that for the last couple of days Israeli forces had been camped out in the abandoned houses near the border.  Just as their grandfathers were driven from their homes by Zionist violence, so these farmers were driven out of their homes by Zionist violence.  Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Over the weekend six were injured in Beit Hanoun when Israel bombed a well in the middle of a residential district.

At eleven A.M. we set off toward the wall, toward the land that their grandfathers were expelled from.  A drone buzzes overhead.  We can see the clouds of dust raised by the movement of Israeli tanks on the other side of the wall.  The farmland in the “buffer zone” has been newly desecrated, bulldozed again, an area that used to be fields and orchards that had been reduced to a few hardy weeds, now devoid of even weeds.  The Palestinian flags that we had planted there during previous demonstrations buried under the earth.  Given the warnings of Israeli soldiers in the abandoned houses and the bombing over the weekend, we were all more nervous than usual.  Bella Ciao boomed out over the megaphone, but few sang along, most of us thinking our own thoughts, worrying alone.

We walked past the last tree still standing, a beautiful tree covered in fragrant pink flowers.  We entered the newly destroyed “buffer zone”, stopped, planted new flags, dreamed of planting new trees, of seeing a dead zone brought back to life.  People looked into the distance, dreaming of their grandfathers trees, trees that many of them have never been allowed to see, their fruit stolen by the grandchildren of the same people who drove their grandfathers from their land.  We chanted for a free Palestine.  Dust rose from the movement of an Israeli tank.  We returned to Beit Hanoun, but at least we had left a flag behind to commemorate that we were there, that the grandchildren of the cleansed still live.

Three years have come and gone in Beit Hanoun

12 July 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Three years of protests have come and gone in Beit Hanoun. Every week, for three years, the people of Beit Hanoun have come out to protest against the occupation, against the wall that prevents them from returning to their homes in ’48, against the buffer zone which prevents them from farming their land. Three years isn’t so long though, three years is only a blip in their sixty three year old struggle to return to their land. The people of Beit Hanoun have survived the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, Cast Lead, and still they have not given up. So every week, every Tuesday, for over three years now, they have marched into the buffer zone to visit their land which they are not allowed to farm, to remind the world that justice has still not been achieved.

We set off at 11 o’clock this morning. About 30 people, residents of Beit Hanoun, Gaza, internationals, set off toward the buffer zone. The sun was beating down, the flags were raised up high, Bella Ciao boomed from the loudspeaker. As always, the march starts out in high spirits, as we get closer to the buffer zone, everyone gets progressively tenser; eyes scan the wall and the hills more carefully. We enter the buffer zone, the dead zone, where every tree has been destroyed by the Israeli’s, where nothing is allowed to live without being attacked regularly by Israeli bulldozers. We stop a short distance inside the buffer zone. Sabur Zaineen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative gives a short speech, specifically against the collaboration of European governments in perpetuating the siege on Gaza, for stopping the Freedom Flotilla II. The loudspeaker is handed off to someone else and chants against the occupation echo out over the dead zone and toward the Israeli soldiers ensconced in their concrete towers. Hopefully, someone is listening; someone will pause for just a moment in their daily life and think about what a life without justice, what a life under siege feels like. Hopefully, that person will decide to fight for justice.