Tag: Farmers - Page 11 - International Solidarity Movement

Gaza’s economy shattered by Israeli siege

15th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Strawberries in Beit Lahiya. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

A recent report by the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Gaza says the Israeli authorities have closed Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) checkpoint, the Gaza Strip’s only commercial crossing, for 150 days, 41% of working days, during 2013. The reports points out that the continued closure of the commercial crossing constitutes a violation of the ceasefire agreements reached in November 2012 after the Israeli “Operation Pillar of Defense” military offensive.Normally Israel keep the commercial crossing open 22 days per month, says the report, closing it on Fridays and Saturdays. but The crossing was closed also during the Jewish holidays for “security reasons.'” According to the report, in 2013, 55,833, 1,578 fewer truckloads of goods entered Gaza than in 2012. Israel allowed the export of 187 truckloads of goods from the Gaza Strip to European markets, compared to 234 truckloads, mostly agricultural products, 2012.

The report also describes the impact of the Egyptian closure of the tunnels since July 2013. This closure caused huge economic losses over the past six months as a direct result of the interruption of economic activities and a fall in production, resulting in a decline of 60% of gross domestic product. Unemployment exceeded 39% at the end of 2013.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ report on the Gaza Strip’s crossings from 1st-30th November 2013 documents the impact of the ongoing Israeli siege imposed on Palestinians, affecting their economy and social condition. While Israel claims to have eased the blockade, the Gaza Strip has a lack of services, fuel and building materials. According to PCHR’s statistics, the materials Israel has allowed to enter don not meet the needs of Gaza Strip’s population. In November, Israel closed Karm Abu Salem crossing for ten days, 30.3% of the total period. Most imports are consumable. The entry of various raw materials continues to be prohibited, with the exception of very limited types imported under complicated procedures.

Israel has continued to impose a near-total ban on exports to markets in the West Bank, Israel and other countries, excluding limited amounts of agricultural products. Exceptionally, during the month of November, Israel allowed the exportation of 20 truckloads carrying agricultural products, including mints, garlic, basil, strawberries and flowers.

Here we come to a crucial point. Israel allows that minimum exports of Palestinian products only to European and non-European markets, not to the West Bank. Why does Israel not allow Palestinians from Gaza to market their products in the West Bank, within Palestine?

It appears that on the one hand, this practice is part of the collective punishment of the blockade which aims to not allow any economic growth in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Israel wants to protect its own market and sell its product in the occupied territories.

“We face many difficulties, mainly due to the closure of the crossing,” a farmer in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, said. “Generally exports take place twice a week. Sometimes we had to freeze strawberries, due to the closure. There are no exports to the West Bank. They are not allowed.” The use of the term “export” to refer to the marketing of Gaza products in the West Bank, as if speaking about two different countries, shows the division caused by the barriers of the pccupation and its practices that have separated a population. “There is no international law in Gaza,” the farmer said. The farmers have to face not only the expenses of transportation, but also the costs of labor and the packaging. According another farmer in Beit Lahiya, a 2.5 kilogram crate for strawberries costs to twelve shekels, about three euros. They receive 25 shekels, or 5.25 euros, then earn 13 in profit.

“In 1967, Beit Lahia has begun to grow strawberries,” Abu Sami, a farmer in Beit Lahiya, said. “Here, before the arrival of the Palestinian Authority, we marketed our products as Israeli products through the Israeli company Agrexco. As Israeli products, not Palestinian products. Subsequently, the European countries called on Israel to allow the Palestinians to market their products as Palestinian and without taxes. Here we export many kinds of agricultural products such as beans, green zucchini, strawberries and many kinds of vegetables. We focus on the cash crop and flowers. After the siege, since 2006-2007, Israel closed the crossings and we could not export anymore. The European Union has called on Israel to allow the Palestinians to export their crops as Palestinian crops, but we should sell our products through Israeli companies.” He showed the cardboard box used to export strawberries, on which was printed the brand name of the Palestinian cooperative and the logo of the Israeli company Arava Export Growers.

“The Paris Agreement has tied the Palestinian economy to the Israeli economy,” Abu Sami continued. “Most Palestinian products go to Europe, and some to Russia. We asked to sell our products in the West Bank, but the Israeli authorities have refused. They told us, ‘this is a political decision.'”

Israeli companies also receive 6% from the exports of Palestinian products. ”The farmers here have lost a lot,” Abu Sami said. “Before 2005, we were planting approximately 2500 dunums. Now it’s only 700. We started planting herbs in Khan Younis and Rafah, green pepper, cherry tomato. At this time, the cost of strawberries in Europe is too low. We stopped the exports.” There will be meetings in the coming days, and the farmers will decide what to over the next few weeks. The cost of material is high. Farmers can not earn anything from the exports allowed to Europe. The more profitable market in the West Bank is closed to them.

The Paris Protocol, an agreement on economic relations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, was signed on 29th April 1994 as part of Oslo Agreements. It has made the Palestinian economy a prisoner of Israel, in both the productive sector and the trade of goods. Imports and exports are under complete control of Israel, which determines quantity, documents, customs, taxes and time.

Due to the ban on exports, the economic growth of the Gaza Strip is even more difficult. The economic growth could be possible not only with the resumption of exports to foreign markets, but especially through economic and trade exchanges with the West Bank.

Why does Israel treat Gaza farmers sowing wheat by hand as military targets?

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

December is the time for farmers in the Gaza Strip to sow. But for those with fields near the Israeli separation barrier, it is highly dangerous. Sure enough, we were met by news that an 18-year-old was shot an hour earlier when he was checking his bird nets here in Khuza’a in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. To sell small birds can earn a few bucks, but also makes the hunter the hunted. This one was lucky. For him, a day’s hospital visit was enough.

That our presence and our yellow vests are desirable cannot be mistaken. Without any directive, some of us get up on the tractors as protection for the drivers while the rest form a row between the field and the Israeli barrier. Here the open fields were once interspersed with olive and other fruit trees, trees devastated by Israeli bulldozers. Now they can only plant wheat, a crop that grows without daily care.

The fields to be plowed were not large, and after they been sowed, we came closer and closer to the fence. We saw the barbed wire rolled out in large circles before the fence, the towers with machine guns, the large mounds of dirt and tanks coming up behind them, the military Jeeps that stop for a moment before continuing. But we also saw the green fields behind all this, where irrigation is permitted. The contrast is great.

The work takes us closer and closer to the barrier. Activists with yellow vests still sit on tractors, but the rest of us are no longer in a row. We are now very close to the fence, so we walk directly beside those sowing by hand. It would look funny at any time, in any other part of the world, but here it is deadly serious. Maybe 70-80 meters from the fence, the ground is completely disturbed by bulldozers and tanks. Deep traces of crawlers are everywhere, some of them made earlier in the week, we are told. The tractors cannot plow there, and the farmers are not trying, either. And they can only hope that the Israeli soldiers will not tear up their fields and plow down the wheat before they reap. It has happened in the past and will most likely happen again.

Done for the day, we walk back. Not a a single bullet has been fired at us this time. But I find one in the ground, one that didn’t find its target, and show my Israeli souvenir for the others. But no one reacts significantly. Someone strikes out with his arm over the fields: there are plenty of different kinds of ammunition fired here.

I try to understand how the soldier who shot early that morning reasoned. What made him shoot? Did he feet that he did his duty, believe that he erased a potential threat to the state of Israel? Did he get a pat on the shoulder from his commander, or backslapping by his peers in the barracks? When he comes home, will his proud mother serve him his favorite dish, and will his father open the forbidden cabinet to invite his to taste something stronger now then he has become a man?

But above all, I wonder what makes them think that farmers who sow by hand are really a threat forcing the soldiers to shoot them. What makes them so afraid that they take shelter in bulletproof guard towers or tanks. How the State of Israel can be protected by bulldozing Palestinians’ fields and destroying their crops. And how to get an entire nation to believe that these farmers are a threat to their existence. I do not understand it. But I understand that our presence can mean the difference between life and death.

Video: Israeli troops fire on Palestinian farmers and international activists in Gaza

27th December 2013 | Resistenza Quotidiana, Silvia Todeschini | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

International activists have been accompanying Palestinian farmers to their lands near the separation barrier between the territories occupied in 1948 and the Gaza Strip. We have noticed, in recent days, an increase in the presence of the Zionist occupation forces. A few days ago, we felt more drones and F-16, then Jeeps and bulldozers began to move near the barrier more often. On Sunday, 22nd December, two Jeeps were stationed in front of the area where farmers were seeding and tractors plowing. They fired shots into the air and one the the ground. This video shows the last episode.

Olive, orange and lemon trees grew in these fields until the second Intifada. Then bulldozers and tanks of the occupying forces uprooted them. After “Operation Cast Lead,” the no-go zone was established at 300 meters, but aggression towards Palestinians was not limited to that area. According to UN reports, high-risk areas in some places reach two kilometers from the barrier, and included 35% of all arable land in Gaza. Following the truce concluded after the Zionist attack called “Operation Pillar of Defense,” farmers were able to reach their land up to 100 meters. Now, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the situation is very similar to that seen before the last offensive: Zionist aggression reaches up to 1,500 meters from the border. The high-risk areas comprise 35% of arable land, and in the restricted areas, 95% is cultivable. Also according to PCHR data, the last farmer killed by the occupation forces while working, Mustafa Abdul Hakim Mustafa Abu Jarad, was 1,200 meters from the barrier. He was killed by a bullet in the head 14th January 2013, one of four people killed this year in the areas near the separation barrier.

Not only are Palestinian farmers attacked during their work, but the land they farm is itself destroyed by the passage of bulldozers and tanks. They create deep grooves that make it difficult for a tractor to pass and plow. By doing so, they mix layers, making the land less fertile. In addition, the water tanks which are used for irrigation in this area are all destroyed by Zionist gunfire.

In the separation barrier are installed several instruments of repression. There are turrets with automatic weapons, others on which snipers can stand, tall iron columns with cameras installed and others with radar. There is barbed wire, gates where Zionist military vehicles can enter, balloons equipped with cameras, and more.

The violence of the Zionists towards Palestinian farmers and fishermen are an attack not only on their ability to work, but also on the food sovereignty of all the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.

The presence of foreign activists sometimes manages to lightly calm the situation, because we are inconvenient witnesses for the Zionist occupation forces. But the heroes are the farmers, who continue to reach their land. Without regular watering, they can grow only wheat, although after it has been cultivated for several years, not much grows anymore. The heroes are the farmers who, generation after generation, continue to say “adha hardy” – “this is my land,” no matter how strong the Zionist repression with all its resources, weapons, armor and surveillance equipment may be.

Palestinian child wounded by Israeli gunfire while harvesting potatoes in Gaza

17th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

On Sunday, 15th December, a young Palestinian was injured by Israeli gunfire in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Mohammed el-Shanbary, age 17, was harvesting potatoes. “I went to work at 9 am,” el-Shanbary said. “After about 30 minutes, the soldiers started shooting.”

He was working with the owner of the land and another person about 500 meters from the wall that separates the Gaza Strip from territory occupied by Israel in 1948.

El-Shanbary and his father Rafiq think the bullets were fired from control towers situated along the separation barrier, inside of which there are automatic machine guns.

A bullet wounded El-Shanbary in his left shinbone. After he fainted, the landowner called his father and asked him to summon an ambulance. The ambulance took him to Kamal Odwan hospital.

The bullet entered and exited, causing a fracture. El-Shanbary would have surgery 30 minutes after our visit. The doctor said they would insert a tibial fixation.

El-Shanbary started working in the area one month ago. The work depends on the harvest season.

His father does not have a stable job, leaving el-Shanbary and his 21-year-old brother to work to support a family of ten.

He can earn from 25 to 40 shekels per day, depending on how many crates of potatoes he collects. For each crate, he receives two shekels.

“Some time ago, they were shooting just to scare us, not directly at our bodies,” el-Shanbary said.

“We work just to buy bread for our family, and they hit us,” his father Rafiq added.

The ceasefire of 21st November 2012 established that Israeli occupation forces should “refrain from hitting residents in areas along the border” and “cease hostilities in the Gaza Strip by land, by sea and by air, including raids and targeted killings.”

However, Israeli military attacks by land and sea followed from the day after the ceasefire, and Israeli warplanes fly constantly over the Gaza Strip. Seven civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces since the end of their last major offensive, “Operation Pillar of Defense,” and more than 130 have been wounded.

These attacks on the Gaza Strip continue amid international silence.

Gazan farmers and fisherfolk call for food sovereignty and an end to Israeli attacks

20th November 2013 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Palestinians demonstrate outside UNSCO – 20/11/13. (Photo by Corporate Watch)

On 20th November 2013, hundreds of farmers and fisherfolk gathered outside the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East (UNSCO) in Gaza City to demand that the international community take action to prevent the Israeli military’s attacks against them and to end the occupation.

One fisherman told Corporate Watch, “We are only looking for our daily food and a livelihood. We want to ask the UN to pressure the Israeli occupation not to attack us. We are just trying to earn a living for our families.”

Saad El-Deen Ziada, Farmer and Fishermen Coordinator for the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, said, “This demonstration was the start of a Palestinian and international campaign to access our lands and control our water. To achieve what we call food sovereignty.

“We want to send a message to the international community and the General Secretary of the United Nations that it is time to stop the Israeli attacks against Palestinian farmers and to activate human rights law. International human rights law gives us the chance to sanction the occupation government and to support the Palestinians to stay on their land. The international community must deal with the situation as a political issue and not a humanitarian one. First of all we need to end the Israeli occupation. We condemn the international community’s silence at the crimes we are subjected to.”

Several of the speakers at the demonstration also emphasised the importance of the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid.

A delegation from the demonstration delivered a letter to a representative of Ban Ki-moon articulating the protesters’ demands.