Three Palestinian men were martyred and more than five Palestinians were wounded during the Israeli occupation’s invasion of Tulkarem.
The city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank has witnessed dozens of incursions by the Israeli occupation forces recently. Since 7th October, the number of martyrs of the city of Tulkarm has risen to 109, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
On 16th May, Israeli occupation forces stormed the city of Tulkarm around 1:00 AM. The Israeli occupation forces stationed themselves in the city center on Nablus Street, where the occupation vehicles, accompanied by a D9 bulldozer, stormed the Gulf Exchange store. Israeli occupation forces completely destroyed the store and confiscated its money safe under the pretext that the exchange store transferred money to Palestinian organizations described by Israeli occupation forces as terrorist organizations.
The Israeli occupation forces also deployed snipers throughout the city in buildings and on the roofs of Palestinian homes. These snipers killed three Palestinian youths and wounded more than five other Palestinians.
The Palestinian martyrs are: Ahmed Mubarak, 26, from Tulkarem camp; Imad Dabbas, 22; and Mohammed Yusuf Nasrallah, 27.
Funeral processions started from Tulkarem’s Martyr Doctor Thabit Thabit Governmental Hospital amid angry national chants condemning the crimes of the Israeli occupation against the residents of Tulkarem and the massacres in the West Bank and Gaza.
The families of the martyrs bid a last farewell with a state of great sadness and sorrow.
Israel continues to violate the terms of a 2012 ceasefire by attacking farmers in Gaza. (Eyad Al Baba / APA images)
Farming in the Gaza Strip’s “buffer zone” is hazardous under the best circumstances. Israeli troops routinely shoot live ammunition at Palestinian farmers in the free-fire area, which stretches hundreds of meters into the besieged territory from the barrier separating it and Israel, and invade their fields with tanks and bulldozers.
But Israel’s aggression against civilians in the area has escalated since the Egyptian army deposed elected president Muhammad Morsi and installed a new government on 3 July, according to Gaza’s farmers.
“After the coup in Egypt, the Israelis began shooting more heavily,” said Abu Jamal Abu Taima, a farmer in Khuzaa, a village in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza.
Abu Jamal is the mukhtar, or elected leader, of the Abu Taima family, 3,500 refugees fromBir al-Saba — a town in present-day Israel called Beersheva — now scattered among the farmlands outside Khan Younis.
He and two dozen other farmers from the family spoke to The Electronic Intifada during and after a meeting they held in Khuzaa.
“Egypt was the guarantor of the last ceasefire agreement [in 2012],” he said. “Now the Israelis are free to do whatever they want.”
“Just a few months ago, there was no gunfire. Now there is. We aren’t even in season yet, but they have already started to shoot.”
Morsi’s government brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian resistance groups on 21 November last year, ending eight days of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip and retaliatory fire from groups in the territory.
As part of the agreement, Israel reduced the “buffer zone,” which it had imposed in 2005, from 300 meters to 100 meters, according to the the Israeli military’s civil administrative unit, COGAT.
Targeted
In May this year, following months of conflicting claims about the size of the area by COGAT and the Israeli military’s spokesperson, COGAT stated that the “buffer zone” remained at 300 meters (“IDF: ‘Forbidden zone’ in Gaza three times larger than previously stated,” +972 Magazine, 12 May 2013).
But farmers say Israeli gunfire has extended the zone even further.
“According to the ceasefire, farmers could reach nearly all their lands,” Abu Jamal Abu Taima said. “These days, the Israelis are shooting farmers at 500 meters [from the boundary].”
He is not the only farmer who attributes the shift to turmoil in Egypt.
“After the coup, the Israelis expanded the area farmers couldn’t reach to 500 meters,” Abed al-Rasoul Abu Taima said. “Anyone coming closer to the separation barrier will be shot.”
Other farmers say they have been targeted even further from the barrier.
“The Israelis shot at me at 800 meters,” Zakaria Abu Taima said. “I was preparing to plant when they opened fire. I hid in an iron pipe, but the bullets came right through it.”
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) documented one Israeli shelling attack, twelve shootings, and seven incursions — resulting in a death and seven injuries, including two children — in the “buffer zone” during July and August.
Since the beginning of September, Israeli forces have undertaken at least two further incursions to level farmland.
Many other attacks, especially shootings that do not result in deaths or injuries, are never reported, according to farmers.
“It’s curious now, when you are talking about these limited incursions,” said Khalil Shaheen, head of PCHR’s economic and social rights unit.
“Violations define the restricted area. Officially, according to COGAT, the de jure area is 300 meters. But de facto, it depends on the incursions.”
Israel’s attacks in the “buffer zone,” especially those beyond 300 meters, discourage farmers from growing trees or building structures, like electrical pumps or wells.
“They don’t allow farmers to plant trees or build infrastructure,” said Dr. Nabil Abu Shammala, director of policy and planning at the Palestinian ministry of agriculture and fisheries. “They claim this is for reasons of their security.
“Agricultural activities in this area face many kinds of risks. Farmers avoid it not only because of gunfire, but also the destruction of land and infrastructure,” he added.
“We are afraid”
Amid the current rise in Israeli attacks, the potential destruction of their land particularly worries Gaza’s farmers.
The threat of Israeli bulldozers leveling fields has convinced many to delay the start of their fall planting.
“We are afraid to reach our land because, after we plant, the Israelis may come and destroy everything,” explained Abdul Azia Mahmoud Abu Taima.
“It’s regular for the bulldozers to level our land every week,” said Abed el-Aziz Abu Taima. “No one can stop them.”
When asked about the bulldozers used to raze their fields, farmers described the distinctive triangular treads of Caterpillar’s weaponized D-9 bulldozers.
“Caterpillar is the main weapon of destruction for the Israelis in the ‘buffer zone,’” said PCHR’s Shaheen. “They haven’t changed their company policy, despite all the information they’ve been given on the use of their machines here.
“After the farmers heard that they could access their lands up to 100 meters, they planted them. Now they cannot reach them. They lost their harvest. Israeli bulldozers levelled it.
“It’s very important to show what Caterpillar is doing, and that they know what’s happening.”
Under current circumstances, farmers face a delayed season with heightened dangers and an uncertain outcome.
“We are waiting until November to begin planting,” Zakaria Abu Taima said. “Usually, we would have started by now.”
“Of course we will plant,” remarked Abu Jamal Abu Taima. “But before we harvest, the Israelis may come with their bulldozers.”
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is deeply concerned by the verdict of Judge Oded Gershon that absolved Israel’s military and state of the 2003 murder of American ISM activist Rachel Corrie. Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the American administration stating that the Israeli military investigation had not been “thorough, credible and transparent” and the Israeli government withholding key video and audio evidence, Judge Gershon found no fault in the investigation or in the conclusion that the military and state were not responsible for Rachel’s death. Judge Gershon ruled that Rachel was to blame for her own murder and classifies her non-violent attempt to prevent war crimes as proof that Rachel was not a “thinking person”.
By disregarding international law and granting Israeli war criminals impunity Judge Gershon’s verdict exemplifies the fact that Israel’s legal system cannot be trusted to administer justice according to international standards.The ISM calls on the international community to hold Israel accountable by supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and continuing to join the Palestinian struggle in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Describing the situation in Gaza two days before she was killed, Rachel said, “I’m witnessing the systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive. It’s horrifying.” Rachel’s analysis holds true today, confirmed by the United Nations a day before this ruling, which reported that Gaza would not be “liveable” by 2020 barring urgent action.
The verdict is a green light for Israeli soldiers to use lethal force against human rights defenders and puts Palestinian and International human rights defenders in mortal danger.
This will not deter us. As long as our Palestinian sisters and brothers want our presence, the ISM will continue to find ways to break Israel’s siege, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. As Rachel’s mother Cindy said, “There were children behind the walls of the home Rachel was trying to protect…We should have all been there.”
Judge Gershon’s verdict is a travesty of justice but it is not exceptional. As a rule the Israeli legal system provides Israeli soldiers impunity to commit murder. The only Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter since the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000 was Taysir Hayb, a Bedouin citizen of Israel for shooting British ISM volunteer Tom Hurndall in the back of the head with a sniper rifle as Tom was carrying a child to safety. At least 6,444 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in this period, with no justice for them or their families.
On the anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s martyrdom today, the rain fell in quiet tears that watered Palestine in a confusing emotion of remorse and yet optimism—the same optimism we hear in the voice of Rachel’s diaries and actions.
It rained on Kufr Qaddoum where attack dogs clenched in their jaws the peaceful freedom fighters of Palestine, an image reminiscent of a segregated America.
It drizzled as the folks of Al Ma’sara demanded the wall to fall, an echoing cry humanity heard from Germany.
Puddles formed along Shuhada Street in Al Khalil where Apartheid still lurked despite South Africa’s continued victories.
And it watered on Gaza, where the dust never seems to settle between the murderous attacks of the Zionist military.
While Palestine is indeed special, it is obvious that it shares much with what the world has struggled for, and International Solidarity Movement threads the humanization of the world as the fabric of solidarity work with Palestinians.
Today Palestine and earth, the earth that has inherited the great sacrifices of Rachel Corrie, quietly wept and yet persisted with her memory for the very ideals she died for: freedom and justice.
Peaceful resistance against oppression never dies, and this reassures the international community that despite the images of Rachel facing the Israeli Goliath of colonialism, that she is still alive and with us in ISM, in Palestine, and in the world, as a spirit that will continue to inspire us.
In a letter she sent nearly a decade ago to her family, when she first left her hometown of Olympia, Washington in the US, she said:
We are all born and someday we’ll all die. Most likely to some degree alone. What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid?
While the struggle against occupation feels isolating at times, it is these words that reassure us that we are not alone, that Rachel is not alone, that the voiceless victims of Zionism are not taken for granted. This is not a tragedy which we mark, but the greatness of a peace activist. Nothing can crush the spirit of Rachel Corrie, one of thousands who sacrificed for the humanization and liberation of the Palestinian people.
Murdered in 2003 by an Israeli driven, military Caterpillar bulldozer, Rachel and seven other ISM activists in Rafah, Gaza, were trying to prevent the raising of Palestinian property and livelihood by Zionists. Dropping debris on her and then proceeding towards her is the exact lack of concern Israel has towards life that we see as Gaza faces continued collective punishment today.
She ended her letter in humble realization of her role that would later translate into the sacrifices of a peaceful revolutionary.
I can’t cool boiling waters in Russia. I can’t be Picasso. I can’t be Jesus. I can’t save the planet single-handedly.
She is with us now, from Susiya to Dora, Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, back down to Rafah and across to Jerusalem.
Rachel speaks truth. And so long as a grain of injustice exists in Palestine and this world, this truth will not settle for what is today’s reality of a violent, arrogant Israel that continues to demolish and kill.
It is in your memory, Rachel, that ISM continues towards justice, in memory of Tom and Vittorio, in memory of this week’s martyrs, in memory of the thousands of Palestinians who resisted.
Tribunal finds British and international business complicit in Israeli war crimes, identifies legal remedies and calls for civil society boycott action
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine this morning announced its verdict after weekend deliberations. The jury said it had been presented with “compelling evidence of corporate complicity in Israeli violations of international law”.
Juror Michael Mansfield QC, who chaired this morning’s press conference, announced the jury’s call for the mobilisation of civil
society to end the involvement of companies in Israeli human rights violations.
Both Israel and the complicit businesses, are in clear violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, he said. This relates to “the supply of arms; the construction and maintenance of the illegal separation Wall” and providing services to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In its public statement, the Russell Tribunal named seven examples of corporations complicit in Israeli violations, including British-Danish prison firm G4S which supplies equipment to Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank.
Israel is in “flagrant disregard” of international law and is on the wrong side of world opinion, and morality said Mr. Mansfield.
Juror and South African liberation struggle veteran Ronnie Kasrils said one “can not underestimate the importance” of civil society action on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
The jury concluded there were positive legal ramifications for those took action on boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.“Those who wish to actively protest about this, are entitled to do so,” said Mr. Mansfield. Those prosecuted for criminal damages have a defence: necessity.
The press conference heard breaking news of such an action happening in Covent Garden this morning, as activists shut down Ahava, an Israeli business based in a West Bank settlement.
The statements from those corporations who chose to engage with the tribunal will be annexed to the final report of the London session. This full report will be available in at the beginning of December.
It will identify specific legal remedies in the case of the many companies involved in Israeli human rights violations.
