27th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On Monday, at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza City, the weekly rally in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails saw the participation of many prisoners’ families, released prisoners, and international and Palestinian activists.
Each week, the rally focuses on certain topics, ranging from administrative detention to the health condition of sick prisoners, women prisoners and ill-treatment, to the prisoners on hunger strike.
Many women show photographs of their detained children, grandchildren, husbands or relatives.
On Monday, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine protested to demand the release of its general secretary, Ahmad Sa’adat, on the eight anniversary of his abduction by Israeli forces.
Eight years ago, on 14-15 March 2006, Israeli forces surrounded the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where Sa’adat was held with his comrades Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar and Hamdi Qur’an. The Israeli forces attacked and destroyed the prison, kidnapping the Palestinian prisoners held inside. United States and British guards, under whom Sa’adat and the other prisoners were held, left the prison in advance, knowing it would soon come under attack from the Israelis.
Eight years after his abduction, Sa’adat is considered a leader in and out the prison, and protests for his release, as well as broad international support, are the proof.
There are 5,200 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
Many of them suffer from diseases, included cancer. Due to medical negligence, their conditions worsen day by day.
Prisoners on hunger strike have also suffered punitive measures by the Israeli Prison Service in response to their strikes. These measures include solitary confinement in small and cold rooms with no blankets, denial of the right to take showers, denial of family visits, investigations and searches during the night.
Israel continues to arrest Palestinian children and apply administrative detention, arresting Palestinians without charge or trial. Yesterday an Israeli court has extended the detentions of Shireen, Medhat and Shadi Issawi, siblings of former Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi.
27th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Marco Varasio | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
On Land Day, 2014, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Beit Hanoun, Gaza marched toward the separation barrier in the “no-go zone.” Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas canisters to break up the peaceful demonstration. Two people were overcome by the tear gas.
21st March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On Tuesday, 11th March, Israeli naval forces arrested two Palestinian fishermen and confiscated their fishing boat off the coast of Gaza City.
The two cousins, Shabaan Abu Ryala (33) and Jihad Abu Ryala (24), both from al-Shati (“Beach”) refugee camp, went to fish at 7:00 am.
“At about 2:00 pm, Israeli vessels approached our boat and soldiers started shooting,” Jihad said. “We were about four miles offshore. We tried to escape. Soldiers opened fire at our boat and engine. We were about to sink. Our boat was destroyed.”
The two fishermen had tried to escape, and were returning to the coast, when they were forced to stop and were detained about two and a half miles off the coast of Gaza City.
Members of the International Solidarity Movement watched their detention from a building in Gaza City. A video shows two Israeli gunboats towing the fishing boat after its capture.
“A soldier ordered me to go to the front of the boat, take off my clothes, dive and climb aboard their ship, which was a few meters away from our boat,” Jihad said. “I was not willing to take off my clothes, but they shouted for me to do so. My cousin Shabaan was trying to convince me to listen to the Israeli soldiers.
“So I undressed and dived into the sea. I felt cold and swam back to my boat, but the soldiers started shooting and telling me, ‘come on the ship.’ One of the Israeli gunboats was close to our boat, but the soldiers told us to swim to the other gunboat that was distant from us.
“I decided to swim. When I reached the ship, the soldiers pulled me on board. They made me wear a pair of trousers. I was handcuffed with my hands behind my back, blindfolded and hooded.”
Jihad’s family showed the trousers, fleece and slippers the army gave the two fishermen.
“They took our boat, worth $12,000 and gave us a tracksuit worth less than 20 shekels,” a member of the family said.
As the Israeli gunboats headed to the Israeli port of Ashdod, the soldiers asked the two fishermen for general information, their name and ID number. “I don’t remember the number of my identity card,” Jihad said. “I told the soldier, who then used force on me. He was trying to get information from me. Then another soldier said, ‘Leave him.’”
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
At the port of Ashdod, soldiers removed the bandages from the eyes of the fishermen and freed them from their handcuffs to allow them to leave the ship. The fishermen were given sweatshirts and slippers.
“We were hooded and handcuffed again,” Jihad said. “We were then taken to a small room where soldiers freed us from handcuffs and bandages. A female army doctor checked our health condition and blood pressure. When she finished, we were handcuffed and blindfolded again.
“We were left alone for about twenty minutes. Then a detective came to interrogate me. During the investigation, they took the bandages off my eyes while my cousin was still blindfolded. The investigator asked me the names of my family members, from the smallest to the eldest. He asked me who my friends are. Then I was blindfolded and handcuffed.
“I was taken to another room, where I stayed for about an hour. Later a detective came and asked me, ‘Can you tell me how the soldiers treated you on board the ship?’ then, he ‘Do you remember the identification number of the ships that fired on your boat?’ I said yes and I gave him the identification numbers. Then they left me alone for about four hours.
“Then a soldier came, freed me from handcuffs, hit me hard in my back and said I could go home.”
The two fishermen were transported to Erez and crossed into the Gaza Strip around midnight.
In addition to the fishing boat, the two fishermen lost two GPS units and a telephone on the fishing boat.
Jihad had already been arrested by the Israeli navy once in 2008. His cousin Shabaan was arrested for the third time.
A fisherman said that since 2010, Israel has not returned any of the small fishing boats it has confiscated.
Jihad has two young children and has been a fisherman since he was ten. His family is a family of fishermen.
Thirty-one people from Jihad and Shabaan’s families depended on the confiscated fishing boat. It was their only source of livelihood. Jihad’s family owns another small boat, without a motor and slightly damaged.
“Neither of them worked,” Shabaan’s father said. “There is no hope for them.”
Al-Shati refugee camp was dark. For a few days, the Gaza Strip had only six hours of electricity daily due to the lack of fuel. The power went off around 6:30 pm, when the ISM’s meeting with the fishermen ended.
In the camp, a strong smell came from sewage flowing along the asphalt. Some children played on roller skates. One of them fell in the darkness, but he stood up immediately. They smiled when a group greeted them.
Looking at the sea on my right, I watched the lights of the fishing boats and the helplessness that I felt during our meeting mingled with anger.
“The situation here is getting worse and worse,” a Palestinian said.
Here people continue living thanks to donations and meager food parcels. “The refugees,” victims of a double injustice, still dream of returning to their lands and hand down their history and their right of return from generation to generation.
The Israeli army perpetuates its daily violations in the light of day. For many years, thousands of reports have denounced these violations with no result. No international power intervenes to stop Israeli forces, no international body sanctions Israel. For this reason, Israeli naval forces continue entering into Gaza seas, in which they impose an illegal blockade, and do what they want.
Sometimes, fishermen who have been attacked ask what can they get through reports like this. How can we answer? Sometimes we tell them that the reports are helpful in order to raise awareness among people. But in practice, if our institutions will not take action against the Israeli government, nothing will change. BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel is a good response to Israeli violations.
Although officially the limit imposed by Israel on Gaza waters is six nautical miles off the Palestinian coast, Israeli naval forces impose a limit of one or two miles in the waters to the north of Gaza Strip. The limit is shrinking even in the waters in the south of the Gaza Strip, especially off the coast of Rafah.
These continuous attacks against Gaza fishermen undermine their ability to subsistence and constitute a violation of international humanitarian law.
Background
Israel has progressively imposed restrictions on Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical miles established under the Jericho agreements, between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1994, were reduced to 12 miles in the Bertini Agreement of 2002. In 2006, the area Israel allowed for fishing was reduced to six nautical miles from the coast. After its military offensive “Operation Cast Lead” (December 2008 – January 2009) Israel imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast, preventing Palestinians from accessing 85% of the water to which they are entitled under the Jericho agreements of 1994.
Under the ceasefire agreement reached by Israel and the Palestinian resistance after the Israeli military offensive “Operation Pillar of Defense” (November 2012), Israel agreed that Palestinian fishermen could again sail six nautical miles from the coast. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy has not stopped its attacks on fishermen, even within this limit. In March 2013, Israel once again imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast. On 22 May, Israeli military authorities announced a decision to extend the limit to six nautical miles again.
16th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine
On this date 11 years ago, ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie was brutally murdered by the Israeli army in Gaza. Rachel was 23-years-old.
This interview was filmed two days before Rachel was killed and her words are still unfortunately relevant when describing the situation in Gaza. To this day the Gaza strip is still besieged. Regular air strikes carried out by Israeli forces continue to destroy homes and lives. Violations of international law are largely ignored by the international community. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens daily as the Israeli government continues to disregard human rights.
11th March 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Jenny and Derek Graham
On Christmas Day 2013, a small armada of tank trucks drove around Jabaliya, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and one of the areas severely affected during the recent floods. Clean water is in short supply here, and many households are forced to spend more than a quarter of their disposable income on this coveted resource. In a refugee camp marked by poverty, this cost is even higher than it sounds. So the truck made frequent stops to fill the water tanks on rooftops, in stairwells or in shacks of corrugated iron and tarpaulins, since the water, this time, was free.
The news of free water spread like wildfire in the camp, and people began to gather around the cars with jugs they wanted to fill, some as small as five liters. A little girl with pigtails came with a coffeepot. Others pointed to houses a few blocks away, afraid that the water would run out before the cars reached them. But the water would suffice. 2.3 million liters were distributed over a period of five weeks in a well-coordinated program. The initiators are an Irish couple, Derek and Jenny Graham, and the program was funded by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation.
This was not the first time the Grahams had taken the initiative to coordinate a similar program. In 2012, they worked for three months handing out water, all over the Gaza Strip that time in green-colored bottles. 600,000 1.5 liter bottles, purchased from an international soft drink giant’s Gaza plant, were carried into mosques and churches for further distribution to hospitals and schools, but also handed directly from the cars to the outstretched hands in the areas most affected by poverty. On Fridays, during the weekends here, the drivers also worked for free, contributing in this way to distribute water to more people in need.
Water distribution is not the only thing the Grahams do. On Christmas Evem they were in a Bedouin camp in the north with blankets and plastic sheeting they had purchased using funds raised on their Web site, separate from Perdana. Because of the simple homes the Bedouins had built, they were hit very hit by the storms that recently swept across the Gaza Strip and in dire need of help. Not only was there major damage to their homes and cattle-sheds, but most of their crops were beyond rescue. But they fell through the cracks if they were not refugees, and were therefore not supported by the UN refugee agency, UNRWA. The government’s ability and willingness to invest in infrastructure near the buffer zone near the separation barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strip, facing constant shootings and incursions by the occupying power, is limited.
The Grahams’ solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza did not start here. In 2008, Derek was on the Free Gaza and Liberty boats when they broke the siege, even if only temporarily. Later that year, he sailed on the Dignity which was boarded by the Israeli military, resulting in a short detention. More attempts followed, on Humanity in 2009, and with Jenny on the Rachel Corrie and Challenger I and II in 2010. In 2011, they made an effort with the MV Finch, but were forced away, and into Egyptian waters, by the Israeli military about 400 meters from their goal. A three-week detention on board the boat, docked in al- Arish, followed. According to Israeli terminology, they are probably classified as repeat offenders. That they tried to bring medicine to a health care system desperately in need because of the blockade, as well as cement for reconstruction, is not likely to be seen as a mitigating factor. The cargo the MV Finch carried, a total of 7.5 kilometers of PVC sewer pipe, finally entered Gaza, with help from the UN, after an eight-month battle.
Their work for the Palestinian people has resulted in an impressive network of contacts with influential people at multiple levels within the community, necessary contacts for the plans they are making for the future. Recently they received approval from the port authority and support among fishermen for an experiment to significantly reduce fuel consumption relative to the catch, something important when fuel prices have doubled since Egypt demolished the tunnels, and with catches gradually decreasing already due to Israeli military limits on fishermen’s ability to pursue their profession. Among their plans is also a sea rescue unit, an effort that is already underway and a project that finds legitimacy in the fourth Geneva Convention.
But what is it that compels them to do all this? They are now in their sixth year, starting from when they first entered by sea. They do not seek fame, and the compensation they receive from Perdana is only paid when they perform projects on its behalf. And why Gaza? Jenny looks up from her laptop when I ask the question, shrugs, and explains for me the similarities between the Palestinian situation and the Irish people’s suffering during the British occupation: the arbitrary arrests, the denials of human rights, and the desire for freedom and self-determination that cannot be extinguished even by force of arms. They have no trouble identifying their history with the Palestinians, and it feels completely natural to assist them. Derek nods in agreement, adding that they cannot reach the West Bank after their time in Israeli detention, and the Gaza Strip is the only part of Palestine where they can reach and work. There are moments when we wonder how long we will cope, he tells me, but when we see that our efforts are making a difference, it is easier to continue.
