15th October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Burin, Occupied Palestine
On Monday, three Palestinians were picking olives in Burin. Their field was in a very exposed area, right between an illegal settlement, a military checkpoint, and a security detention centre. A group of ISM volunteers accompanied them as protective presence.
These are some of their stories:
Ali, 10-years-old: ”The army keeps coming to our school and throws tear gas at us. One time a boy choked and was taken to hospital. Some children cry and scream.”
Abu Ali, 40 years old: “Settlers from the settlements around us (Arusat, Brahay and Itshar) attack us while we are picking olives. We need international volunteers to help us reach our land and see the troubles the Palestinian farmers face. We don’t want our children to go through what we went through.”
Tarek, 24 years old: “The army stops us young men at the checkpoint by the entrance of the village of Burin. They take us out of the cars. If one of us doesn’t follow their orders they beat us. Sometimes they make us take our clothes off. Even when other people are present.”
Tarek also told the story of losing both his brothers. One of them was killed by a shot in the head from an Israeli soldier, at the age of 16.
The close by security detention centre is notorious for their use of violence, and both Tarek and Abu Ali have been detained here. Addameer (Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association) wrote that since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel.
Tarek spoke of a story during his own detention, he an another prisoner were woken up in the middle of the night, by two aggressive dogs being locked into their room. Tarek was badly bitten by the dogs and had to go through surgery afterwards.
10th October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team |Burin, Occupied Palestine
Tuesday afternoon, the 7th of October, olive farmer Mahmoud Rga Mahoud Aid, his wife, and thei three children were attacked by a a group of settlers from the illegal settlement of Giv’at Ya’akov. The attack took place on the family´s land near the village of Burin, south west of Nablus.
Mahmoud Rga Mahoud Aid
The the family had only three days permission from the District Coordination Office (DCO) to access their land and pick their olives, starting from the 6th of October. To harvest all the olives on the land would normally take about a month.
On the first day of picking, Zionist settlers came down from the illegal settlement and tried to prevent Mahmoud from entering his land. The Israeli military interfered and told the settlers to leave, and Mahmoud was able to finish his working day without further interference from the settlers.
On the second day of picking the family was able to access the land but in the midst of picking the nearby soldiers started yelling at them, ”They are coming, they are coming for you!”
Mahmoud looked up and saw five male settlers wearing masks coming down from the hill towards him and his family. The settlers started throwing rocks at them and Mahmoud tried to protect his family by covering them with the tarpaulin used to collect the olives in. This helped for a while, but the settlers came closer and physically attacked Mahmoud. They continuously hit him in the chest, stomach and the head, and his foot was badly bruised by a stone thrown by the settlers.
The Israeli soldiers watched the settlers attack the family, but didn’t react until a considerable amount of time had passed. Eventually they came down from the hill and told the settlers to leave the area.
Mahmoud walked down the hill, wounded, and was stopped by another group of soldiers who detained him for allegedly attacking the settlers and “causing trouble”. The commander called one of the soldiers that witnessed the attack and even though this soldier told the truth, stating that Mahmoud was attacked, the commander asked for Mahmoud’s passport number and personal information to make a file on him. Furthermore Mahmoud lost his permission for the third and last day of olive picking.
Over a period of ten years, illegal settlers have destroyed approximately 240 olive trees owned by the family. They have about 60 trees left and the settlers keep taking over more and more of their land. As mentioned before, they are permitted a very short time to harvest olives from their trees so a lot of the olives goes to waste which ultimately effects the families income. Mahmoud is afraid that the settlers are planning to destroy all the trees so the family will not have any reason to enter the land the settlers are slowly taking over. Mahmoud anticipates the settler harassment to escalate in the olive harvest high season, which is in two weeks.
10th September 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Burin, Occupied Palestine
The prominent activist from the West Bank village of Burin, and member of Solidarity Movement for Free Palestine, Ghassan Najjar, was taken by the Israeli army from his home in the early hours of the morning on the 27th August. He was transferred to the notorious interrogation facility, Petah Tikva.
The before he was arrested, Ghassan, alongside a group of a villagers from Burin, tried to prevent Israeli soldiers from entering the girls’ classroom of the local school.
Staff from the Israeli Human Rights organisation BT’selem, who was filming the attempted school incursion, was also detained, but released shortly after.
Ghassan was arrested for allegedly throwing stones and hitting a soldier.
On 31th August he appeared briefly before a secret court and a Military Judge agreed to his detention for a further seven days. The second court hearing, which took place on 7th September, was also brief because the soldier witness did not turn up and Ghassan’s detention was extended for eight more days.
Ghassan’s friends and family showed ISM, during a recent visit to Burin, a video of the army attack on the school and saw no evidence that Ghassan did anything other than peacefully protest with the others against the school raid.
When asked if the video would be useful for Ghassan’s defense, a friend of Ghassan said, “It would be in a democratic country, but all the Israelis care about is their security.”
Another of Ghassan’s friends told ISM he had received many threats at different checkpoints, preceding his recent arrest. “Once a soldier told Ghassan that they did not want to arrest him directly at the checkpoint, because they wanted to come to his house, destroy everything and make his mother suffer.”
Photo by a member of the Najjar family
When the occupying army came to arrest Ghassan, the unit captain instructed the soldiers to “destroy everything,” a soldier turned to Ghassan’s mother and stated, “we will wreck your house.”
Photo by a member of the Najjar family
They did as promised. Everything that could be broken was broken and slashed. They even broke pots with houseplants, and cut bottoms from the armchairs. The vandalism lasted from 2am to 4.30am.
Photo by a member of the Najjar family
Ghassan was taken away, handcuffed and blindfolded. Only after the soldiers left, did his mother allow herself to cry.
“Our resistance is peaceful. Ghassan never did anything violent, but we worry because we know Israeli military justice. To give you an example, to this day both Ghassan’s lawyer and the International Committee of Red Cross have been denied access to him,” A friend of the family stated.
For a number of years, the Palestinian West Bank village of Burin, located seven kilometers south of Nablus, has been under constant attack by both the Israeli occupying army, and the zionist settlers from some of the most extreme illegal settlement colonies, such as Yitzhar and Bracha, covering the hilltops around it.
A villager told ISM that the army invades the village almost nightly. Soldiers enter houses and the whole families with children and older people are forced to stay outside in the middle of the night, for long periods of time.
Frequently the army erects checkpoints at the entrance and in the center of the village, near to the boys’ school and the Mosque.
“Things are going to get even worse,” Another villager stated, “The olive harvest is around the corner and that is when settler attacks intensify. Olive harvest used to be a festival, a time of joy, and now it is a nightmare.”
Since the start of the Israeli occupation in 1967, much of Burin’s land and water has been taken away and handed over to the Zionist settlers or to the occupying Israeli army, for military bases.
“About 25 to 30 dunums (one dunum is 1000m2 ) of land belong to our village and we have free access only to seven dunums and even that is limited to some parts of the year,” said a local man.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, reports that in 2013, Burin lost more olive trees due to settler vandalism than any other West Bank village. In the first months of the last year alone, 7714 Palestinian owned trees were damaged.
29th August 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus team | Burin, Occupied Palestine
On the 25th August, the village of Burin, in the south of Nablus, was closed by the Israeli army and declared a military zone.
A checkpoint was erected at the main access to the village, preventing the inhabitants from entering and exiting the village.
The blockade was imposed after clashes broke outthe previousnight when the military invaded the village, raided houses, and detained several villagers for interrogation.
A villager spoke to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) about the closure of Burin, “They always have the same excuse, someone threw stones at the settlers, or sometimes they say molotov cocktails, but that is only an excuse. When we do react, it’s only resistance, only to defend our families and ourselves. We are used to these situations in Burin, problems with the settlers or clashes with the army occur daily and the main road is blocked almost every week. It would be strange for us if this didn`t happen, as strange as if they failed to shoot tear gas and sound bombs during the demonstrations. It’s in our blood already.
When they block the road, going to Nablus for work or to school requires one hour more than usual, causing problems to students and workers.
This morning one of my neighbors had to stand for four hours at the temporary checkpoint without any reason, before getting the permission to enter his village. He just wanted to return back to his home but, when the soldiers saw in his ID that he was from Burin, they detained him.”
Burin is surrounded by three illegal settlements and two Israeli military bases.
Settlers often invade the Palestinian lands around it, burning olive and almonds trees or poisoning them with chemicals.
They enter the village regularly, trying to break windows by throwing stones or to burn homes, always acting under the army protection.
The villager continued to speak to ISM about the situation, “In the last year alone, Burin lost 1600 olive trees and between 500 and 600 almond trees, but every year we collect money from the people in the village in order to plant 2000 new trees and to support our farmers.
As we don’t have access to large sections of our olive fields, except for couple of hours over a couple of days during the olive harvest and with an Israeli permit, I think that, sometimes, going for a coffee on our land can be even more significant act of resistance than a demonstration.
As Israel always tries to steal Palestinian land, with the excuse that it doesn’t belong to anybody, or is not being used, it’s meaningful just to go there to show that there is someone taking care and making use of the land.”
Once a year, hundreds of kites fly over the houses in Burin, with children and families making a stand together.
“This is just another way to say to them that even the sky over our land belongs to us.”
11th April 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Burin, Occupied Palestine
Villagers in Burin are attempting to open a new road, in order to connect the village with the main road heading towards the city of Nablus. This project has been met with much violence and protest from the nearby illegal settlements.
The village of Burin has a long history of violence from the surrounding illegal settlements of Givat Roven (to the East), Bracha (to the North) and Yitzar (to the South). Additionally, to the West of Burin is a military training camp for Israeli forces.
Due to their illegal neighbours, Burin has had to face attacks against the village mosque, theft of animals from local farmers, and settlers throwing stones at villagers. The building of the illegal settlements surrounding the village has stolen over 14000 dunams of Burin’s land.
ISM activists met with Bilal, a Palestinian working on the new road. He described how on the 8th April, settlers from the illegal settlements of Givat Roven and Yitzar arranged a demonstration against the attempted new road, which runs from Burin village, over a large hill, connecting with the road to Nablus. The settlers were marching alongside of the hill and shooting live ammunition up into the air. Bilal described how settlers and Israeli soldiers regularly attempt to prevent the building work and harass those working on the road. Bilal also explained that last year, settlers from the illegal settlements of Yitzar and Givat Roven burnt nine cars belonging to villagers in Burin.
The area where the intended road will be built is in Area B [Palestinian civil control, joint Israeli and Palestinian security control]. When the road is finished, it will pass only 15 meters from the illegal settlement of Givat Roven. Some of parts of this illegal settlement, which lies within Area B, were recently declared illegal by the Israeli High Court and were evicted by Israeli forces two days ago. This led to a clash between settlers and the Israeli military, with some settlers injuring soldiers, leading to their arrest.
