Tag: Drone

Gaza: Life beneath the drones

25th January 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

A Hermes 450 drone – manufactured by Elbit (Photo by Corporate Watch)

In the Gaza Strip there is no escape from Israel’s drones. Nicknameed ‘zenana’by Palestinians because of their noisy buzzing, the drones (remote control aircraft) are omnipresent. Sometimes they are there to carry out an extra judicial killing and sometimes they are there for surveillance. If you are on the ground you do not know which and you have no choice but to try to ignore them.

Since Israel’s partial withdrawal in 2005, there is not a permanent presence of Israeli soldiers in the majority of the Gaza Strip (although soldiers are a presence in the ‘buffer zone’, off Gaza’s coasts and during frequent invasions), but there is no doubt that the occupation is still brutally enforced -only now a lot of of it is done remotely from the skies.

Monitoring the drones

A selection of the weaponry fired on Gaza over the years collected by Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Photo taken by Corporate Watch – November 2013

During our visit to Gaza in November 2013, Corporate Watch talked to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, to survivors of drone attacks and to just about everyone we met, about the changing impact of drones on the people of Gaza.

Al Mezan is a monitoring organisation working for the protection of human rights in the Gaza Strip. As such they keep extensive records detailing all violations, with separate databases for external and internal abuses. Their files record the number of deaths, injuries and properties destroyed as well as anything that can increase the understanding of each attack, including the type of weapon used. Their initial information is collected by fieldworkers who go to the scene of an attack, assess the evidence and talk to eyewitnesses and people affected. Established in the late nineties, Al Mezan has been recording drone strikes for as long as they have happened in the Strip. This is not always a straightforward task.

According to the UK research group Drone Wars UK, the Israeli military has never, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, admitted publicly that it is using armed drones in Gaza.[1] According to Yamin Al Madhoun, one of Al Mezan’s fieldworkers, people were confused when evidence of drone strikes first started to be noticed around the year 2000. It was a new kind of warfare which changed everything: “When they started to use the drones we did not know what drones were”, Yamin said. “We did not understand. Explosions just seemed to come out of nowhere. It took us about a year to start learning about drones”.

At scenes of drone strikes fieldworkers used to find a golden cable, something that seemed to be attached to the missile, but this has now changed, with the main signifier of drone use being the type of destruction caused and the kind of target being hit. Drones are most commonly used for ‘targeted assassinations’, or extra judicial killings, of individuals and for a practice referred to as ‘roof knocking’. Roof knockings are used when the Israeli military wants to totally destroy a house but starts with a drone attack targeting the roof as a warning for the people inside to leave.[2] These attacks are usually followed by F16 strikes on the same or nearby buildings about three minutes later. If the people fleeing are lucky, this warning is enough to save their life. But often it is not.

Although there are different kind of missiles fitted on drones the strikes usually leave a hole of about 10cm on the target and cause partial destruction to buildings, making it possible to distinguish between drone, F16 and Apache strikes.

In Al Mezan’s experience Israel’s increased reliance on drones does not mean less casualties in Gaza. “When Israeli forces started to use the drones the number of people killed increased”, Yamin said. “This is a cheaper weapon for Israel to use so drones give the Israelis an opportunity to attack more and more. The people who manufacture the drones facilitate more attacks by the Israelis because they are cheaper and the drones are in the sky all the time, they don’t even have to plan the attack properly beforehand”.

For people on the ground it is almost impossible to foresee a drone attack. Although the buzzing sound of the drones is recognised by everyone, and some people report that the noise of the drone gets louder before a strike. “What can we do?” Yamin said. “When we hear an Apache or an F16 we know that it will only be there for a while and we can go into our houses for safety. Drones are in the air 24 hours a day so the people don’t hide from them. We can’t hide 24 hours a day”. On rare occasions the survivors have reported being able to see the drone before it fired, but often the a missile strike is the first warning.

Increased attacks

Because of the secrecy about Israel’s drone use in the Gaza Strip it is hard to get officially confirmed figures of the exact number of casualties caused by drone attacks, but everyone monitoring the situation has no doubt that the proportion of Israeli attacks which are carried out by drones is increasing. According to Mohammed Mattar, data entry analyst at Al Mezan, the first time the organisation was able to be sure that deaths were caused by an armed drone attack was in 2004, when two people were killed. In 2009, the number of people killed by drones was 461, nearly half of the total number of people killed that year. In 2012, the year of the Israeli invasion known as ‘Pillar of Cloud’, 201 out of a total of 255 people were killed via remote control by drones. These statistics do not include people killed by other weaponry in attacks aided by drone surveillance or people injured in drone attacks.

What quickly becomes clear when you talk to people in Gaza is that the alarming numbers of deaths do not tell the full story. The psychological impact of these weapons is everywhere. In al-Quarara outside Khan Younis we talked to a family who go inside their house every time they hear a drone in the sky after their daughter was arbitrarily killed in a drone strike in 2009. In Meghazi our interview with the head of the refugee council is interrupted when his 10 year old son comes home from school and tells us that there was a drone buzzing above his classroom in the morning, making it hard for the children to concentrate on their schoolwork.

The most common complaint of all is about the drones’ interference with the TV reception -whenever the signal breaks up you know that it is because of Israeli drone activity in the area. “I like to watch Arabs Got Talent” Rida, our translator at Al Mezan says shyly, “but lately I have not been able to because of the drones”. It might not sound like much, but in a place like Gaza, with its closed borders and 12 hour power cuts, it is a final reminder that even the tiniest bit of escapism is at the mercy of the occupation forces.

We will be publishing the personal stories of families affected by drone attacks over the coming months.

Take Action

Protest at the Parc Aberporth facility in Wales where the Watchkeeper drone is flight-tested (Photo by Corporate Watch)

With alarming increases in Israeli use of drones being reported by human rights organisations Al Mezan and Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and with drone technology developed by Israeli companies such as Elbit and IAI being sold as ‘battle tested’ in Gaza to almost 50 countries, it is urgent that we increase anti-militarist boycott, divestment and sanctions actions. We can not allow Israel to continue to use its repression of Palestinians as a sales pitch to sell killer drones to war criminals around the world.

In the UK the Ministry of Defence has bought drones from both Elbit and IAI and is working with Elbit to develop the Watchkeeper drone, modeled on the Israeli Hermes 450. The Watchkeeper programme is carried out by U-TacS – a joint venture company owned by Elbit Systems and Thales UK. Although the Watchkeeper is currently being described as a a surveillance drone, Drone Wars UK has pointed out that during the 2011 DSEi arms fair in London, Thales exhibited the Watchkeeper with missiles attached.

Further reading: Both Drone Wars UK and War on Want have recently published detailed reports about Israel’s killer drones with a lot of information for action.

Locations involved in the Watchkeeper programme:

U-TacS – Scudamore Road, Leicester, LE3 1UA, UK. Phone: +44 1162 870 621 email: aerospace@uk.thalesgroup.com

UAV Engines – Elbit subsidiary which makes the engines for the Watchkeeper – Lynn Lane, Shenstone, Lichfield WS14 0DT, United Kingdom, Phone:+44 1543 481819

Parc Aberporth – Site where the testing for the Watchkeeper is carried out by British firm QinetiQ – Parc Aberporth Technology Park, Aberporth, Ceredigion, SA43 2BN, United Kingdom

Footnotes

[1] Drone Wars UK, Israel and the Drone Wars (2013) -http://dronewarsuk.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/israel-and-the-drone-wars.pdf, page 6

[2] United Nations (2009), Report of the United Nations fact finding mission on the Gaza conflict – http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/09/15/UNFFMGCReport.pdf, page 13

Forging new links to boycott movement in Gaza

16th December 2013 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine

Israel effectively boycotts Gaza produce by not giving access to their own markets. (Photo by Desde Palestina)

The Gaza Strip, now in its seventh year of a comprehensive siege by Israel, has faced increased hardships since the 3 July coup in neighboring Egypt.

On 26 November, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the Palestinian enclave “is affected by one of the most serious energy crises in recent years, with potentially serious humanitarian ramifications” (“Gaza fuel crisis situation report”).

Electrical blackouts have increased to as long as 16 hours per day, while fuel scarcity has affected the operations of all 291 water and wastewater treatment facilities, causing multiple sewage spills. Local supplies of vital medicines are low or empty, and Israeli attacks on Palestinian fishermen and farmers continue.

Meanwhile hundreds of students and thousands of would-be travelers remain unable to leave or return through either the Erez checkpoint or the Rafah crossing.

Corporate complicity

Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper are the research team of Corporate Occupation, a project of Corporate Watch. Naming names, and going into detailed specifics, their blog documents the involvement of both international and Israeli companies in the illegal occupation of Palestine.

They spent most of November in the Gaza Strip on a new research trip “to create resources for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid, militarism, colonization and occupation.”

The Electronic Intifada spoke to to the Anderson and Cooper earlier this year about being harassed by police under “anti-terror” law while returning to the UK from a previous research trip to the occupied West Bank.

The Electronic Intifada contributor Joe Catron interviewed Anderson and Cooper on 5 December in Gaza City, shortly before the end of their visit.

Joe Catron: You’ve been in Gaza for four and a half weeks. What was the focus of your research?

Therezia Cooper: We wanted to research the impact of the siege, and the way Israel profits from it. Our research has been quite broad, and looked at all aspects of the strangulation of the economy and impacts the siege has on the ground. We’ve researched agriculture, exports from Gaza, the medical sector, prisoners, and effects of drone technology and other weaponry.

Tom Anderson: Separate from research, we also wanted to provide information from people in Gaza that will be useful in BDS campaigns around the world. Many solidarity activists have a lot of contacts in the West Bank because of the relative ease of access. We wanted to make connections with Gaza activists to better inform solidarity campaigns, specifically the BDS movement.

JC: What kinds of connections have you made with Gaza activists?

TA: We’ve been encouraged by meeting people and hearing of their enthusiasm for BDS as a strategy, and that they feel it’s an important part of their struggle against the occupation.

We’ve been asked to talk by many groups. We spoke about what the international BDS movement has been doing. People were eager to hear about successes. They were keen to have more feedback from the movement, more interaction and more Arabic materials on BDS.

TC: Having all these meetings and making connections has been one of the most fruitful parts of our trip. The movement is growing a lot through interactions over the Internet, but going to meet people, having real-life contact, and talking is very important.

JC: What new resources can BDS activists expect from your time here?

TA: We focused on a few different areas. One was military technology used against Palestinians. Israeli arms companies are world leaders in drone technology. They’ve developed that technology in the context of the occupation. Their expertise, and the technology they’re now trying to sell internationally, has been gained through war crimes and repression.

Israel has sold drone technology to up to 49 countries. The BDS movement needs to challenge Israel’s ability to profit from their experience oppressing the people of Palestine, impede their foreign sales of this technology, and target the offices and manufacturing facilities of [arms] companies like IAI [Israel Aerospace Industries] and Elbit, as well as their participation in international arms fairs.

We’ve done interviews with people on the receiving end of this Israeli drone technology here in Gaza, speaking to people whose houses have been targeted, and many who’ve lost family members to Israeli drone strikes.

Drones are now Israel’s weapon of choice against people in Gaza. Deaths from drone attacks exceeded those from other weapons during the last large-scale Israeli attack on Gaza, and were a large proportion in the previous one. We hope we we can provide resources to campaigners to target these companies’ abilities to make money out of experience they’ve gained supplying equipment used to commit war crimes.

TC: We’ve also spent a lot of time doing research that can be used by the campaign against a company called G4S, which provides security systems for Israeli prisons.

The campaign against G4S is possibly the fastest-growing BDS campaign in Europe, with a lot of groups working together to pressure G4S to withdraw from the contract they have with the Israeli Prison Service [IPS], among other things.

We interviewed prisoners who had a range of different experiences in Israeli prisons, and experienced a lot of different mistreatment, including prisoners who have given birth in prison, people who have been denied proper medical care and detainees who have been forcibly relocated from the West Bank.

Again, we think by coming here to hear the personal stories of people who have experienced the abuses of the IPS, we can benefit campaign work in the UK and around Europe. It’s hard for people in Gaza to boycott Israeli products, or have that kind of BDS campaign on the ground. But I think by telling stories of their experiences, they provide the backbone of the BDS movement and explain why it’s necessary, so we can work together to pressure these companies to end cooperation with Israel.

TA: G4S makes its money from large contracts with the public sector. That’s its weakness. People around the world can pressure the public authorities giving those tenders not to give contracts to G4S until it ends its contracts with the IPS and Israeli checkpoints, settlements and the [Israeli occupation authorities in the West Bank].

It’s a good target for BDS campaigns, because a public campaign to prevent G4S from obtaining one of these tenders can cost them millions of pounds.

“Economic warfare”

TC: One of the biggest challenges that we’ve become even more aware of since getting here, is how the solidarity movement can help Palestinians achieve some kind of independent economy in addition to BDS. The struggle of the Palestinian economy is evident in everything you see, on every level, in Gaza. At the moment, it’s very difficult to find a way to support Palestinian exports.

The devastating effects Israeli policies have on farmers are overwhelming them. Their main markets have been taken away. Even when they’re allowed to export tiny amounts of produce, they have no access to the local markets, in Israel and the West Bank, which used to sustain life in Gaza.

TA: That’s part of a policy of economic warfare. Elements of the siege that seek to control Palestinian exports go hand-in-hand with policies like the targeting of Palestinian farmersand fishermen. They’re intended to devastate the economy, but also to create a compliant economy that Israel can control, and from which it can profit.

Wherever we’ve talked about the boycott, they’ve asked us about ways the solidarity movement can support Palestinian exporters and help get Palestinian produce out of Gaza. That’s one area that could do with some creative thinking by the solidarity movement about how to support Palestinians by breaking the siege, by breaking Israeli control over Palestinian exports.

I think one reason the Israeli authorities allow a small amount of exports and cash crops from Gaza is to undermine the boycott movement, to say that Israeli companies are exporting Palestinian products, and therefore shouldn’t be boycotted. It’s imperative to think of ways to break restrictions on exporting Palestinian produce without benefiting Israeli companies and the Israeli economy.

TC: Even while Israel benefits from Gaza exports, they are effectively boycotting Gaza produce by not giving access to their own markets. That constitutes a boycott by Israel of all Gaza goods.

And of course, farmers here have no options. They have to live, and they have to try to export what they can. The people we’ve met have said they have no choice, but agree with the international boycott. The exports allowed now are so small, they don’t really make a difference. In order to actually benefit the Gaza economy, there needs to be some kind of autonomy for Gaza farmers, so they don’t have to rely exclusively on Israel and its companies.

Damaging restrictions

JC: You’ve mentioned Israel profiting from the siege several times. Can you say more about that?

TA: We’ve already mentioned two areas. One is Palestinian exports, which necessarily have to go through Israeli companies. We’ve also mentioned Israeli arms companies having a market for their products in the continuing aggression against people in Palestine, and a testing ground for products they can sell internationally.

The Kerem Shalom crossing is virtually the only point for goods to enter Gaza. The flow of those goods through Israel benefits the Israeli economy. Transport and marketing companies benefit from selling those goods and transporting them through the crossing.

Health workers have to buy products from outside. All the health workers’ organizations say they are supportive of the boycott of Israel and boycott Israeli products, except when they need them to protects lives and can’t buy them from anywhere else. However, all the drugs services care providers buy or are provided have to come through Israel, except for small amounts occasionally allowed as aid through the Rafah crossing.

Israeli companies benefit in the provision of these drugs, as well as transportation of them. Health workers who need to get equipment into Gaza, when they’re able to bring it, are sometimes required to wait for its delivery while security checks or other arbitrary delays are carried out. In the case of equipment coming from international sources, they’re required to pay for its storage.

The Gaza manufacturing industry is damaged by restrictions on the entry of certain raw materials. Again, that increases the necessity of reliance on products from outside, which necessarily have to come through Israel.

JC: What’s the state of the BDS movement in Gaza?

TC: The movement has a lot of potential. There are people working hard on it, and theacademic boycott seems particularly well-known. I think there’s a clear reason for that. Gaza is very isolated, and students are so often prevented from taking scholarships abroad.

There are a lot of young people, including at universities, who have a vague idea what’s been happening with the BDS movement, but want a way to feed into it and work more directly with people on the outside, as well as organizations that have been doing BDS work here.

But as we said before, we’ve sensed a lot of enthusiasm, especially from young people, and eagerness to work on BDS. Increased connections among all the people interested in BDS, and with BDS activists in the West Bank and abroad, would be a great next step.

TA: I think the role of international campaigners in doing that is to seek the mandate and voices of Palestinians in Gaza in taking BDS actions, to be led by Palestinians in Gaza, and to create better linkages between BDS campaigns and people under siege in Gaza.

For instance, the international campaign against the Prawer Plan would benefit from involvement and experience of the refugees here, as the ongoing forced expulsions in theNaqab are simply a continuation of the Nakba, which forced the refugees who now live in Gaza from their homes.

The organization which took control of the majority of land after the Nakba, which is instrumental in erasing any trace of the Palestinian history from the sites of forced expulsions, and which is currently planting forests on the lands of Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab, is the Jewish National Fund.

“Increased desperation”

JC: What has surprised you here?

TC: Reading about a situation is very different from actually experiencing it. In many ways, experiencing the situation is worse. We’ve come at a time when the border, and issues with fuel and electricity, are very bad. You can sense an increased desperation for a solution.

But like the West Bank, there’s the beauty of the place, the beauty of the sea, and the welcome you get from the people, who desperately want this kind of interaction with the world.

TA: The thing that struck me was the feeling of isolation, not just from the rest of the world, but from the rest of Palestine. Hearing about friends being tear-gassed by Israeli police in the Naqab, knowing that’s only a few miles away, in places we’ve been earlier this year, but feeling the extreme difficulty of meeting the people involved face to face, shows the isolation of people in Gaza struggling against the occupation.

I think the challenge for international solidarity activists is to not accept that isolation.

Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. He blogs at joecatron.wordpress.com and Tweets using@jncatron.

Gaza boy remembers Israeli drone strike that maimed him and killed his cousin

18th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Muhamad al-Zaza. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

An hour before dusk, an armed drones flies low over the rooftops, taking its time, seeking. A few miles away, someone sits, perhaps a young man, perhaps a woman, in front of a screen, secure in a command center. Soon this faceless person will find a target and fire the drone’s deadly cargo.

Two boys, cousins, 14 and 15 years old, were playing as boys in that age often do, kicking a ball between them. Adulthood had not yet begun, the future was still made of dreams, and neither was aware of what was just about to befall them.

Meanwhile the man or woman in the command prepared to fly the drone back to its base, make a neat landing, and perhaps get for a pat on the back for a successful mission.

It was 19th August 2011.

Muhamad al-Zaza woke up lying in his own blood next to his cousin Ibrahim al-Zaza. He screamed, but only for a brief moment before he fell into unconsciousness. Muhamad would never hear Ibrahim shout again, nor would they ever kick another ball. Ibrahim died a month later from his injuries, after weeks of struggle against death. Another number for the statistics. Another casualty of the military occupation’s cruelty. A 14-year-old boy who had to atone with his life for the crime of having been born on the wrong side of the separation barrier.

When Muhamad awoke, he lay bandaged at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, more or less like a mummy. And there could he have died as a direct consequence of the siege. The medical equipment necessary to save the life of someone as badly injured as the two boys was not there. They had to get treatment elsewhere. Still, it took eight days before they were allowed to be transferred to Kaplan hospital, in Israel, the nation behind the attack and which caused their injuries. They were admitted not in recompense, but on a commercial basis, a cynicism that exceeds the limit of the possible.

Ibrahim was immediately placed in an isolated room when he arrived at Kaplan hospital. He had lost a lot of blood and both hands, and most of his internal organs were injured. All efforts to save him were in vain. For Muhamad, the odds were better, but his condition remained critical. Surgeons places eight nails in his leg, and it took several more surgeries to clip muscles and tendons in his legs and hands.

But the hospital was an oasis of humanity for the eleven months he stayed there, very different from what he would encounter during his journeys between hospitals. First he went to Jerusalem; for two months in rehabilitation; then to Nablus, for a month; for back surgery; and then to Egypt. He was refused ambulance transport, and only after a physician at Kaplan hospital, Dr. Tzvia Shapira, paid out of her own pocket could it be arranged. The harassment continued at military checkpoints, with the constant threat soldiers would deny him passage.

Photos of Muhamad's hospitalization. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson) — Photos of Muhamad’s hospitalization. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

When Atef al-Zaza, Muhamad’s father, begins to talk about Dr. Shapira, his eyes glitter like distant stars. She did not let Israeli propaganda and war rhetoric obscure her vision, but saw his son as a human being, and started a fundraising campaign to enable his continued operations and rehabilitation. But despite the warmth that surrounded Muhamad in her care, fear crept in every time he heard the sounds of F-16s from a nearby military airport. He feared not only for his own life, that they would come to finish the job, but also for his family and his friends in Gaza.

I asked him what he experiences today, two years after the attack that could have ended his life, when he hears the sound of the drones as they fly over the rooftops. Muhamad first threw a pleading glance at his father, who said that the nightmares his son once had no longer wake him at night. But when he began to describe the feelings the sound of the drones raise, I saw discomfort reflected in his face, a face whose muscles he struggled to control, and asked another question.

I asked him if he thought that the soldier who controlled the drone experienced it like a computer game, that the people maimed at a safe distance were not of flesh and blood, of emotions and dreams, but just something fictitious on a screen that generates points. This time the answer came immediately, and it was clear he had asked himself the same question. To him it did not matter if the pilot saw it as a computer game or not. “The soldiers, before they sit down in front of the levers, already have dehumanized us Palestinians,” he said. “They do not see us as people. If they did, they could never have done this to us. I would not talk to the soldier if we sat as you and I sit now. Now words can be exchanged between us, not as long as we are not people to them.”

“And,” he says, hesitating a little, “I ‘m afraid that I would hate him, that such a meeting would only produce a worse side of me.”

He pronounces the words with a calm voice, and I try to see the boy as he was before all this happened. The scars he showed me, covering large parts of his body, were obviously not the only ones caused by the drone attack.

The bill for the first eight months of Muhamad’s care in Israel landed on the Palestinian Authority’s desk. A fundraising campaign Dr. Shapira started funded the rest. But more surgery is needed for Muhamad to be able to return to a normal life, something very evident when he showed the injuries on its legs and hand.

During the interview, none of us knew that Dr. Shapira had just launched a new fundraising campaign to at least be able to operate on Muhamed’s hand. When Atef learned this, his eyes again glittered like lightning. But he knows that his son’s story is not unique, that many similar attacks have affected others, and that Dr. Shapira is not enough for everyone.

In Gaza, hundreds of miles from the battlefield

28th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

The "buffer zone" is seen from the second floor of Nasser Abu Said's house in Jahr el-Deek. On 28 April 2011 the house, which stands 300 meters from the separation barrier, was shelled by Israeli tanks and partially destroyed. (Photo by Desde Palestina) — The “buffer zone” is seen from the second floor of Nasser Abu Said’s house in Jahr el-Deek. On 28 April 2011 the house, which stands 300 meters from the separation barrier, was shelled by Israeli tanks and partially destroyed. (Photo by Desde Palestina)

Drones fly over rooftops at night, awakening peoples’ memories. They may only patrol, or carry deadly cargo with them. F-16 planes draws streaks across the sky. Here on the ground, no one knows what order the pilot has for the day. Tanks raid across the separation barrier, devastating farmland. Do farmers plant more seeds, or is it too late in the season?

Boats patrol off the coast. For how many nautical miles do they allow fishing today? Enough for it to be meaningful? Or will they start shooting like so many times before, ruin fishermen’s gear, seize their boats, and take away their livelihood, forcing the men on board to strip naked and swim over to them, laughing at them, humiliating them, arresting them for trying to support themselves and their families in their own waters?

Medicine cabinets sit empty in the hospitals. Only the labels are left for antibiotics and other vital medicines. During long power cuts, only the generator in the basement of the hospital keeps dialysis patients alive. Will they get more gas for it before it runs out?

It’s a scene from a war. But the battle is not here. Nor is in Jerusalem or the West Bank.

Palestinian and international activists hold signs in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement by the buffer zone in Zeitoun on 9 February 2013. (Photo by Desde Palestina)

The battlefield is in the West. That is where the war can be won. The battle is against the media, lobbyists and companies that do not have a column for people in their annual reports. Victory getting people to understand what is happening, getting them to take off their blinders, engaging them and winning their hearts . Victory is to expose the true nature of politicians who insist that some people are not people and therefore are exempt from human rights. Victory is to show the unvarnished truth , the naked truth without censorship or editing. Victory is forcing the democratically-elected leaders of the West to take responsibility.

Victory will be achieved by people exercising their power to influence, either individually or in groups. This is where the battlefield is.

Israeli army uses surveillance drone at Nabi Saleh weekly demonstration

By Paddy Clark

September 13, 2012 | International Solidarity Movement

See photos from demonstration here and get up to date information from Nabi Saleh Solidarity here

Weekly Demonstration

On Friday, September 7, Israeli forces sealed off the village early in the morning and at least 4 people were detained hiking over the hill and two cars of Israeli activists were also detained while on route in to Nabi Saleh. All were released in the evening.

Israeli forces broke up the demonstration with tear gas. Clashes broke out with local youth throwing stones, with Israeli forces firing rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas.

On Friday evening after the weekly demonstration, Israeli forces drove through the village playing loud noises through speakers. Clashes broke out and Israeli military fired tear gas and at least one live round in the air. This week was relatively quiet with no serious injuries sustained.

Locals also reported that soldiers used an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or surveillance drone during the protest. Israel’s practice of testing weapons or security industry products on Palestinians is well documented.

A military grade surveillance scout drone, manufactured by DATRON being tested in Washington D.C. (Photo courtesy of Popsci).

Palestine as a weapons industry laboratory and BDS

Naomi Klein talked about the Israeli war economy in her book The Shock Doctrine (2007) warning:

“The Israeli Export Institute estimates that Israel has 350 corporations dedicated to selling homeland security products, and 30 new ones entered the market in 2007. From a corporate perspective, this development has made Israel a model to be emulated in the post-9/11 market. From a social and political perspective, however, Israel should serve as something else—a stark warning. The fact that Israel continues to enjoy booming prosperity, even as it wages war against its neighbors and escalates the brutality in the occupied territories, demonstrates just how perilous it is to build an economy based on the premise of continual war and deepening disasters.”

Israeli economist Shir Hever wrote an essay in 2011 which made the point that Israeli arms companies such as; Elbit, Magal and Nice increasingly rely on Palestinians to test their weapons, and then advertise their products in arms trade showrooms as ‘battle tested’ in the field.

Private companies operating in ‘conflict’ zones are often not subject to the same laws and treaties governing states making it even more difficult to hold perpetrators of crimes responsible, and move away from impunity.

Ibrihim Shikaki, economics teacher at al-Quds University commented:

“In places of armed conflict where International humanitarian law applies, the obligation to respect and ensure respect is for “high contracting parties” i.e states. Even though there have been several attempts to start regulating the work of Private Military and Security companies (PMSC) such as the Montreux Document, and some efforts on self regulating such as the International code of conduct for private security service providers, things are only in the first steps.”

The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (see handbook here) is increasing pressure against weapons companies who are profiting from the occupation. In August, 2011, members of Palestinian youth movement, Hirak Shababi, symbolically delivered a Palestinian call for military embargo on Israel to the United Nations office in Ramallah.

Youth activist Aghasan said: “We face Israeli repression and violence on a daily basis. Our generation has grown up under occupation and seeing friends and relatives killed, injured or imprisoned. We demand that the international community stops funding and profiting from the military and security apparatus that sustains the colonial Israeli apartheid regime. All trade and cooperation must stop. Young Palestinians demand a comprehensive military embargo now.”

International solidarity and anti-arms trade BDS

The Smash EDO campaign in Brighton, UK, is a great example of local resistance to illegal arms trade at the point of production in Europe. In an article recently published in Electronic Intifada, Jessica Nero, BDS and anti-arms trade activist and researcher, wrote about some of the groups’ tactics; using direct action at a community level as a means to legally challenge an international weapons manufacturer, exposing corporate complicity in war crimes in the process. Jessica spoke about one of their biggest successes saying:

“The biggest success so far came in 2010, when nine defendants were found not guilty of criminal damage after breaking into EDO and smashing it up “to the best of their abilities” as a response to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza during winter 2008-09. After hearing all of the evidence, a jury acquitted the activists on the basis that they had acted with the intention of preventing war crimes against Palestinians.”

Paddy Clark is an activist and writer living in the West Bank (name has been changed).