Farmers form the villages of Faraheen and Khuza’a , near Gaza’s second biggest city of Khan Younis, reported to the ISM that routine ‘sweeps’ which Israelis carry out along the the border , disrupted the sowing of the wheat in the last few days available after the recent rainfall.
Twice a month Israeli’s enter the Gazan side of the electrified border fence to ensure that they are no explosive devices left by the Palestinian resistance in the 50 meter belt.
This is the time of increased tensions when farmers experience more incidents of intimidation and firing by the Israeli border patrols. For example, in separate incidents, Israeli border patrols fired at the farmers form villages of Faraheen and Khuza’a in the morning of the Saturday, 30th January. The farmers withdrew to the safe distance and returned to continue with the wheat sowing after the soldiers left the area.
Following the Saturday firing, the farmers from Khuza’a requested the ISM accompaniment on the next day, Sunday 31. Three ISM volunteers went with a group of six man and women to the fields 150 meters away form the border fence. Soon after, two army jeeps arrived, parked and observed the farmers for about half an hour. They where than joined by a ‘Hummer’ vehicle which farmers told us are used by the higher army ranks specialized in ‘listening’ and information gathering from a distance. All three vehicles left after a while and farmers continued with their work until it was completed.
Farmers told us that apart from fearing death or injury by shooting, they also worry about being kidnapped by the soldiers crossing to the Gazan side and that paid farm workers helping with the tractor ploughing, for example, are sometimes unwilling to take the risks.
‘We must farm our and or we will give it up bit by bit and the next generation will not have skills to work the land and will abandon it. We owe it to our children to work on our land, regardless of dangers’, said the farmer we accompanied on Sunday.
He also told us that 12 years ago he had many fruit trees and that he used to get 20 boxes of fruit form each plum tree. He also grew vegetables in the greenhouses which Israelis have since destroyed. ‘I used to sleep in the tent with my family in this very field’ he said with the nostalgia and sadness.
Yesterday the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Relief Foundation (IHH) announced a joint venture, sending 10 boats in the spring of 2010 to the besieged Gaza strip. Organizations from Greece, Ireland and Sweden have also promised to send boats to join the flotilla with the Free Gaza movement and Turkey.
Mr. Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the IHH said, “We sail in the spring to Gaza, and our last port is freedom: freedom for the 1.5 million Palestinians denied the right to rebuild their society. We will never stop sailing until Israel’s siege is lifted.”
Two cargo ships will be part of the flotilla, one donated by the Malaysia-based Perdana Foundation and one from IHH. Both will be laden with building supplies, generators and educational materials that Israel prohibits from entering Gaza since their brutal attack on the civilian population a year ago.
The many passenger boats accompanying the cargo ships will carry members of Parliament from countries around the world as well as high-profile journalists and human rights workers.
According to the chair of the Free Gaza Movement, Huwaida Arraf, “The illegal blockade on Gaza and Israel’s continued intransigence make a mockery of international law. If our governments will not take a stance to stop Israel’s abuse of the Palestinian people, global civil society is showing that we will.”
The Free Gaza movement, a human rights group, sent two boats to Gaza in August 2008. These were the first international boats to land in the port in 41 years. Since then, seven more voyages boarded Parliamentarians, human rights workers, and other dignitaries to witness the effects of Israel’s draconian policies on the civilians of Gaza. The last three voyages were illegally stopped by the Israeli navy when, in December, 2008, they rammed the Dignity in international water, turned back the Spirit Of Humanity by threatening to shoot all on board, then hijacking the Spirit on July 1, 2009, kidnapping the passengers and throwing them into prison for a week.
Since 1992, the Turkish Relief Foundation (IHH) has provided humanitarian assistance to civilians who have been victims of war or natural disasters all over the world. One of IHH’s main objectives is to take necessary steps to prevent any violations against civilian basic rights and liberties. IHH aims at providing relief help so communities can resume their daily life and stand on their own feet, as well as strengthening leadership and institutions of communities that have been made dependent on aid.
The Israeli military recently dropped hundreds of leaflets warning Palestinian residents from the village of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip not to travel within 300 meters of the border – the distance of Israel’s so-called “buffer zone.” In response, local activists marched to and nonviolently demonstrated inside the “buffer zone” against the illegal action. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with demonstration organizer Saber Zanin.
Jody McIntyre: Can you tell us about yourself?
Saber Zanin: My name is Saber Zanin. I am 31 years old, living in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. I am a Palestinian who loves life, peace, justice and equal rights for all.
I come from a poor family, around 20 of us in all, from Beit Hanoun. In November 2006, our house, the house I lived in my whole life, was completely destroyed by Israeli air strikes, and then by a tank which came to finish the job. We don’t know why they chose to target our home, but this is an example of the collective punishment we face living in Gaza.
I had the idea to create a group of volunteers, to work together in the local community, to resist Israel’s occupation through nonviolent methods, and to encourage others to do the same. In September 2007, the “Local Initiative” was formed. Rather than relying on governmental institutions or foreign agencies, we work in a personal capacity, and rely on ourselves for everything we need. Altogether the group now consists of around 60 young men and women, from 17-35 years of age, and although we have no political affiliation, we all agree on socialist principles of helping those most in need, and on each individual’s freedom to express their own views.
The group works with all sections of society: women, children, people with disabilities and teenagers. In particular, we give priority to the farmers and residents working and living in the so-called “buffer zone.” As a group, we visit the residents and offer them aid brought by charities to Gaza (although this is small in amount, and limited in effect) for nothing in return, and we accompany the farmers who continue to work on their land, despite regularly being shot at by the Israeli military for doing so. We also work with the young kids in their area, taking them presents, playing games with them and making parties for them, as well as practicalities such as not going out onto the street in certain areas.
The people living in the “buffer zone” are the foundation of the Local Initiative. If there are any farmers who want help working on their land, we will go to help them. We have also organized protests against Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank and the “buffer zone.”
We are always looking for ways to encourage others to join us in our popular resistance against the occupation, and as part of this we try to teach the local community about the human rights they possess: the right to freedom of expression, the right to live freely, the right to an education, to work, to health care, and to a home. We want people to know about their rights so that when they are taken away from them, they will fight for them.
JM: As someone who used to participate in armed resistance against the occupation, what made you adopt nonviolent resistance?
SZ: Any occupied people have the right to resist, and Palestinians are occupied by the Israelis. It is our fundamental right to resist against this occupation. I used to participate in armed resistance, but armed resistance isn’t everything. I am convinced that popular resistance, and protesting against the occupation through nonviolent methods, can actually achieve more than armed resistance, by gaining the sympathy and support for our struggle from people around the world. When we go to protest against Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank, as they do in the villages of Bilin and Nilin, and now here in Beit Hanoun in Gaza as well, we have international activists marching with us, and the whole world is watching. Our demonstrations are nonviolent, so the Israeli army has no excuse to shoot at us and to kill us. I believe that this is one of the noblest ways of protesting against the occupation.
Last week, the Israeli military dropped hundreds of leaflets near the “buffer zone,” instructing residents not to go within 300 meters of the border. We reject this illegal de facto land grab, and in response organized a march to the “buffer zone” on Monday [11 January]. The march was under the slogan: “With popular resistance, we challenge the decisions of the Israeli occupiers.” We protested against the occupation through nonviolent means.
We will now be marching to the “buffer zone” every Monday. We will not be intimidated by the Israeli army’s threat, and we will never give up until the occupation is over.
JM: How can people living abroad support your struggle?
SZ: As we move into the new year, the Local Initiative is in urgent need of funds, in order to continue supporting the families living in the “buffer zone,” and to purchase materials in order to document the ongoing crimes of the Israeli occupation forces.
We truly hope that activists from around the world will support us. They could also write in the media against Israel’s crimes, organize demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy – some governments have even expelled the Israeli ambassador! In the UK an arrest warrant was issued for Tzipi Livni for the war crimes she committed against the people of Gaza, and this should serve as an inspiration for others to follow. Together, we can end this occupation.
Ayman Talal E. Quader is a Palestinian that was born on July 19, 1986 in Gaza and has lived in Gaza City for his entire life. As a young Palestinian student who truly loves his homeland and has always dreamed of freedom for his people, Ayman has worked very hard to achieve one of his most important goals in life; earning a scholarship for a Masters program in Europe.
Ayman was recently accepted to an academic scholarship program at the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) in Castellَn, Spain for the International Masters in Peace, Conflict and Development Studies (PEACE Master). Ayman was also successfully granted a Spanish student visa in order to complete his academic program that begins February 2010 and runs all the way through to May of 2012.
“All I want is my basic rights to learn and study; rights that are supposed to be guaranteed and recommended by all the international resolutions and the United Nations.”
“I am not asking for a miracle, it is my reserved right. I am handling all my documents, visa, acceptance letter from my university and supporting documents. Why I am being prevented from leaving Gaza and prevented access to Spain?”
“The issue of the borders is politically extremely complicated,” Ayman said in an interview. “Since Hamas was elected as the leadership of the Palestinian people in 2006, the Israeli government has declared and relentlessly implemented a total siege on the Gaza Strip.”
The conditions of the borders have become extremely complex, making it almost impossible for Palestinians living in Gaza to leave under any circumstances, including for medical treatment, to visit relatives or on academic scholarship to study abroad. The borders, including the Rafah border – the only throughway between Gaza and Egypt – are all controlled by Israeli Security Forces, although Israel’s control of the Rafah border is more indirect than the borders leading out of Gaza and into “Israel Proper” (as defined by the 1967 armistice lines; see UN Resolution 242). The Egyptian authorities have been complicit with the Israeli government in the collective punishment of a civilian population, contrary to article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions (1949), by neglecting much needed humanitarian aid and building supplies into the strip, pre and post Operation Cast Lead. The result is thousand of homeless and starving Gazans left with nowhere to turn but the international community.
Maan News agency reported earlier this month that throughout the entire year of 2009, the Gaza borders were only opened 33 times. This is truly a crime against humanity.
Israel AND Egypt are both in direct breach of international laws and conventions that guarantee fair access to education for Ayman as declared in the spirit of the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights, Article 28, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966).
The purpose of this manifesto is to send a swift and authoritative message to the Egyptian and Israeli governments, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! This is a call to lawyers, politicians, journalists and all activists for human rights to join the fight for Ayman and his right to the education that he has always dreamed of. Together we can make a difference for Ayman, together we can make a difference for Palestine, one step at a time.
On Thursday 21 January ’10, tree ISM volunteers accompanied five farmers form the village of Abu Tayima in the Khouzaa area near Khan Younis, to their land near the Israeli border.
A long awaited rainfall in Gaza several days ago created good conditions for wheat sowing on this dangerous plot of land where in the past farmers were shot at by the Israeli soldiers patrolling the border.
One hour after arriving when sowing and ploughing were in full swing, two Israeli army jeeps drove alongside the border fence and stopped. From the distance we could see a number of soldiers moving between the two jeeps and soon after that they started firing at us. The farmers withdrew to the safer area while ISM volunteers remained in the field and used loudspeakers to inform the Israeli soldiers that they were dealing with the unarmed civilians working on their land who posed no threat to them.
After about 10 minutes the two jeeps drove away and another jeep arrived with warning sirens on, while the soldiers were shouting in Arabic that we should leave. The ISM volunteers repeated the explanation that Palestinian unarmed farmers were working on their land and that they would leave for their homes when their work was finished.
Shortly after the jeep left and farmers were able to return and complete their work.
One of the farmers told us that they choose to grow wheat there to minimise the risk for themselves and their families of being shot. He said that wheat did not require much looking after and that they hoped to make the same perilous journey to the same field in May to harvest their crops.
