An estimated 400 – 500 people, most in their late teens, gathered at the hillside east of Jabaliya for the recurrent demonstration against the occupation. There was no organizer, leader or banners, and the demonstration was largely chaotic. Stones were thrown, mostly from quite far distances, tear gas drifted along the hillside. Youth trying to get past rolls of razor wire to attach the Palestinian flag on the fence facing Israel were met by tear gas as well as live ammunition.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
Unlike previous bombardments with tear-gas cartridges, it was clear this time that the occupying power was deliberately trying to hit protesters with the cartridges, not only disperse them with gas. This procedure has previously caused deaths. Perhaps the most well-known case was in Nabi Salah on 9th December 2011 when Mustafa Tamimi was shot at close range.
Kamal Radwan hospital reported 17 casualties from the demonstration, most of them direct hits with tear-gas cartridges. Two were also shot by live ammunition in the legs. Previously injured demonstrators have explained the demonstrations as a manifestations against the impacts of the occupation: soaring unemployment, poverty and lack of confidence in the future.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
12th February 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Flowers from Gaza being prepared for export (Photo by Corporate Watch)
Valentine’s Day is almost upon us and for supermarkets and florists that means a massive increase in the sale of flowers. But how many romantic couples consider where the flowers they exchange are grown?
Farmers in Gaza have long been encouraged by Israeli export companies to focus their production on high risk ‘cash crops’ such as flowers and strawberries, and the arrival of carnations from Rafah to European markets for Christmas or Valentine’s day is often cheered on by the Israeli Government who uses it as a PR exercise to show how it ‘facilitates’ Palestinian exports. Unsurprisingly, this is not the full story.
According to the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) there used to be over 500 dunams of carnations planted in the Gaza Strip, but since the beginning of the siege in 2007 flower exports have plummeted year on year and there are only around 60 dunams left. The planted land used to produce over forty million stems for export, but now the few carnation farmers who are left are struggling to sell 5-10 million.
“The Israeli occupation allows us to export a small quantity of produce, just to show the world that they are nice to the Palestinians, but they are using us. Everything we do is controlled by them”, said Saad Ziada from UAWC when we met him in his Gaza City office in November last year, just before what was supposed to be the start of the flower exporting season. This statement is true of all produce in Gaza but flower exporters are particularly susceptible to the control Israel holds over exports, as their produce relies on hitting the market at exactly the right time for popular flower buying holidays. If the border is closed for a week and the flowers miss the export window for Valentine’s Day, for instance, their profit for the whole year can be lost.
We visited Rafah to talk to one of the few flower growers still in business and hear about the situation for farmers under the siege.
“The problem is the border and the siege”
Hassan Hijazi’s greenhouses in Rafah (Photo by Corporate Watch)
Hassan Gazi al Hijazi has been in the flower business for over 25 years and has seen many changes in the flower export industry. When he started out he had to be registered as an Israeli grower, despite growing his flowers in Gaza, and he gave classes in the art of flower growing to new farmers. “There used to be 53 flower farmers in the Rafah area and now there are only 4 of us left” he told us. “I personally used to have 40 dunams and now I only have 4”. He said that he needs assistance from outside to even operate them now, his flower packing house displays signs showing that he receives financial support from Spain.
(Photo by Corporate Watch)
Just as with all produce from Gaza, his flowers have to be exported via Israel, through an Israeli company. In the past this used to be Carmel Agrexco, which used the name Coral for Palestinian produce, but after its liquidation he now works with a Palestinian Co-operative which exports under the brand name Palestine Crops using the slogan ‘From Palestine Land to Global Markets’. Palestine Crops is a Gaza initiative which works with agricultural co-ops in the strip and aims to create a market for Palestinian labelled goods and, eventually, independent exports. For now, however, this is impossible and although some exports from Gaza come with Palestine Crops branding, they are dependent on their Israeli distributor. In the case of flowers, this is primarily the Flower Board of Israel. Once transported out of Gaza, the flowers are taken to the big flower auction houses in Holland, where they are sold by grower name. By the time the bouquets reach our shops they will have been mixed with other flowers and it is unlikely the the buyer will be aware of their origin.
Talking to Hassan, it becomes obvious just how much the farmers of Gaza are at the mercy of the Israeli occupation forces. Palestine’s flower export season lasts from December until May. The most important sales periods are Christmas and Valentine’s Day. According to Hassan, these are often the seasons when the border is closed. Our interview took place on 5 December, a time which should be busy in Rafah. “I should be exporting my flowers around the 15th of December to be in time for the Christmas market, but I do not know how much I will be allowed to export yet”, Hassan told us. “if you are not able to export for those occasions the price for flowers drops and you lose”. Farmers in Gaza are not able to export flowers during the summer as this is the season when Holland grows the same crops.
“The problem is not the growing of the flowers, the problem is the border and the siege” Hassan said whilst showing us his beautiful dunams of ready to go flowers. As with most custom designed cash crops there is not enough of a local market for Hassan’s flowers if he fails to export them, they either just go to waste or become animal food. No one in Gaza can pay a price which would even make the enterprise break even.
In the past Hassan could get around $120 000 for exporting two million flowers if he had a good season, but for the last five years he has been paying the big upfront outlay necessary in flower growing from his own pocket, just dreaming that he will be able to get a return on his investment.
The statistics: The decline of Gaza’s flower exports
Recorded Gaza Flower Exports (according to Palestine Crops):
Date
Carnations
Stems
Trucks
End of 2004
44,000,000
200
2005
30,700,000
210
2006
21,500,000
205
2007
37,400,000
187
2008
2,100,000
10
2009
0
0
2010
10,668,520
74
2011
8,974,890
57
2012
0
0
The table above shows that flower exports have decreased to a fraction of what they were in 2004. During 2012 and 2009, the years of major Israeli attacks on the Strip, exports were prevented entirely.
Gaza’s flower growers see no light at the end of the tunnel with most not having the cash flow to continue their profession. Exports are declining and becoming even more unpredictable with increased border closures.
We asked Hassan for his opinion about the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. We particularly wanted his opinion as his livelihood relies on exporting produce through Israeli companies. “You should continue these campaigns even if it damages our business” he said. “The problem for us is that there is no other way we can export, but people on the outside should continue to boycott and help us keep the borders open”.
This sentiment was one that was repeated over and over again across the Gaza Strip, and the challenge for the solidarity movement is clear: in order for Palestinians to be able to control their own exports we first need to break the siege -permanently.
We will publish some further articles on the problems faced by Palestinian exporters in the coming weeks.
11th February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Friends and relatives, as well as local and international activists, gathered Monday morning at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza to demonstrate, like every week, in support of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
“My cousin was arrested during the 2006 Israeli invasion of Beit Hannoun,” Said Attallah Abu Oudah said. “He is detained in the Ramle prison. He is 31 years old and has been in jail for almost eight years. Only his mother and his sister can visit him. I hope one day all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as Palestine itself, will win their freedom.”
Outside the ICRC, the Muhjad al-Quds Association erected a stage in the middle of the street. The spokesman of the association gave a speech, appealing to all the Palestinian political factions to combine their efforts in support of the struggle of the prisoners. He spoke of all types of Palestinian detainees, from the sick prisoners to the released ones, from Ibrahim Bitar to Samer Issawi.
The Fatah delegation currently visiting Gaza from the West Bank attended the rally as well. Nabil Shaath, head of the delegation, spoke from the the stage about the current series of prisoner releases.
10th February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Joe Catron)
On Friday, 7th February, hundreds of Palestinian youth joined a weekly demonstration of popular resistance along the separation barrier east of Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Aware of attacks by the Israeli army, many were equipped with onions, water and yeast to relieve the pain of tear gas.
Palestinian youth between ten and 24 years old gather there to challenge the Israeli military occupation, approaching the separation barrier, throwing stones or placing Palestinian flags on the fence.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Placing a Palestinian flag on top of the barrier that separates the Gaza Strip from the lands Israeli occupied in 1948 is a victory that worth life for many.
The Israeli army deployed Jeeps along the barrier. Three soldiers hid behind a small hill, pointing guns at the protesters. Some other soldiers came out of a Jeep and shot bullets and tear gas.
The wind was in protesters’ favor, the reason the tear gas did not initially hit them. Later, the Israeli army fired tear gas a long distance over demonstrators so all were surrounded by it. Many youth started to run, looking to the sky to avoid being hit by the canisters. The gas burned the eyes and lungs.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
“We are here to liberate Jerusalem and affirm the right to our land,” a young man said.
The protest was also attended by two young men wounded in previous demonstrations. One of them, on crutches, had an external fixator in his right leg. He had a big smile, despite everything.
The tension rose as time passed, and soon the tear gas was replaced with more bullets.
An ambulance reached the area shortly afterward.
At the end of the, day five youths were wounded, three by gunfire and two by tear gas.
Nizar Mahey El Dein Zaqout, age 23, was hospitalized at Kamal Odwan hospital in Beit Lahia. He suffered from a gunshot wound to his left knee that caused a fracture and from shrapnel. He underwent surgery the next morning and will remain under observation for control of his nerves.
Nizar had placed a Palestinian flag over the separation barrier and a soldier shot him. Some youth carried him to the ambulance.
The next morning in the hospital, he said he had risked his life “Because this is our land. Jerusalem belongs to us. They live in our land against our will.”
Nizar Mahey El Dein Zaqout. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Nizar also attended the protest also the previous Friday, when he was injured by tear gas.
His cousin Mahmoud Zaqout, age 19, was killed two years ago on 30th March during the Global March to Jerusalem near the Erez checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip. Mahmoud had been shot while trying to place a Palestinian flag on the separation barrier.
Nizar said he will continue to go to these protests, which began again in Gaza about two months ago. He added that for about six weeks, the demonstrations have become more aggressive.
(Photo by Joe Catron)
“I could become a martyr fighting for the liberation of Jerusalem and to open a line between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he said. “We also demonstrate for the rights of Palestinian women detained in Israeli jails.”
Ali Ziad Salim Abu Dan, age 19, was seriously injured and hospitalized in the intensive care unit at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. His father Ziad said that the bullet entered the chest and affected the heart and liver, at a distance of a few millimeters from the spine. His son arrived at the hospital in a coma, waking up the next day. He was hospitalized in the ICU with artificial ventilation. The last from his father on Sunday night reported that his condition was improving and he was breathing without ventilation.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
Ahmad Mahmoud Al Najjar, age 23, was hit by a bullet in the right leg. His bones were not fractured and he was released from the hospital.
The other two youth, injured by tear gas, were released from the hospital.
Many of these youth risk their lives because they believe in the liberation of their land, and become martyrdom means to be remembered for having fought bravely for it.
Some of them likely risk their lives in part because they are desperate. Their life conditions, the siege, and unemployment do not give them any hope for the future.
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
ISM will continue to be witnesses, as Nizar asked, to give these youth a voice and be close to them in the fight for their rights, because the Palestinian issue is not only a humanitarian cause but also a political one.
Umm Muhammad, the mother of critically ill prisoner Ibrahim Bitar, with two of his neices at a weekly sit-in. She hasn’t seen her son in more than three months. (Joe Catron)
“We’ve garnered internal support for my brother, and created this popular campaign,” Ibrahim’s brother Mamdouh said last week. “It started within our family. Many of my friends participate in it. It’s a symbol of all the sick detainees.”
“All the funding is personal,” he added. “It comes from our own pockets.”
Ibrahim Bitar, now 32, was a fighter in Fatah’s Abu al-Arish Brigades. Israeli forces captured him on 7 August 2003.
“He was injured by the Israelis in his right eye during clashes,” Mamdouh said. “He was transferred to Egypt for treatment. The Israelis let him go to Egypt. During his return to Gaza, they detained him at the Rafah border.”
A military court sentenced him to 17 years, although Mamdouh said the prosecution had initially asked for a life sentence.
At the family’s house in Khan Younis, a town in southern Gaza, Mamdouh flicked through folders on his laptop. The campaign’s graphic designer, he showed the logos and posters he has created for it. He also collects photos of rallies for his brother, in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Illness remains a mystery
Despite news reports on Ibrahim’s medical condition, his illness remains a mystery, at least to his family.
“They aren’t giving his family the proper diagnosis,” he said. “We still don’t know the exact disease he has. First, they claimed he was suffering from leukemia. They gave him medication for three years. Then, they found out he didn’t have it and stopped his treatment.
“Finally, they told him he had colon cancer. They gave him cortisone. Now he takes 15 types of medicine per day.”
Mamdouh recited a list of his brother’s ailments: chronic anemia, Crohn’s disease, rheumatism and a tumor on his back which was recently removed by surgery.
“We don’t have any details about the surgery,” Mamdouh said. “We only know that it was conducted. He still bleeds from it.”
Ibrahim’s mother, Umm Muhammad, said Israel’s occupation policies had limited her family’s contact with him.
“I haven’t been allowed to visit him for three months now,” she said. “We have gotten no messages or letters except through the lawyers. When other prisoners are released, they come visit us to tell us about his condition and send his regards.”
(Photo by Joe Catron)
Three goals
Their family’s campaign has three goals, according to Mamdouh.
“The aim is for Ibrahim to be released because of his health condition,” he said. “The second is for a health committee to have access, to find out his condition and give him the proper medication. Finally, we want the release of all the sick prisoners.”
By most official accounts, Bitar is one of at least 180 detainees in critical condition — including 25 with cancer — among roughly 1,400 sick prisoners.
“This number is the figure used by Palestinian groups dealing with the issue,” said Osama Wahidi, a spokesman for the Hussam Association, a prisoners’ society in Gaza. “But if you research among prisoners, you will find a higher number. This is the one registered in the files of the Israel Prison Service and humanitarian associations.”
Because of his family’s efforts, Bitar’s detention has emerged as a flashpoint for the families of sick prisoners in general. When crowds gather outside the Red Cross during the weekly rallies, signs depicting other prisoners mix with those Mamdouh has designed for Ibrahim.
“If every Palestinian detainee’s family did like Bitar’s, it would be a turning point for the issue of detainees,” Wahidi said. “There would be no need for the associations. And it would mount great pressure against Israel, more effective than the work of all the Palestinian factions.
“What they are doing is very helpful for everyone. They are trying to highlight him as a symbol of the issue of sick detainees.”
Broad support
The living room of Nahid al-Aqraa’s home in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood is decorated with posters of his image issued by Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah.
Al-Aqraa, a fighter for the Popular Resistance Committees’ al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, hails from none of these organizations. But their paraphernalia offers a visible reminder of the broad, strong support he and other sick detainees attract in Palestine.
Like Ibrahim Bitar, Nahid al-Aqraa was captured by Israeli forces while returning to Palestine from medical treatment in Egypt. They detained him on 28 July 2007, at the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, when the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was closed.
A military court sentenced him to three life sentences.
“I visited him for the first time since his detention very recently,” his wife Jahadir said. “His father and mother live in the West Bank, but his children and I live in Gaza. His parents have been able to visit him. For me and our children, it has been impossible.”
The al-Aqraas have three daughters and a son. Israeli forces have not allowed two of his daughters, aged 12 and 15, to visit him since his detention. “I send him voice messages through a radio station, and written messages through the ICRC,” 15-year-old Nisma said in June last year.
Under the current occupation policy, their son Raed, who turned ten in December, has not been able to see his father since the family’s first visit either.
(Photo by Joe Catron)
Visits blocked
For more than five years between June 2007 and August 2012, Israeli forces had blocked all visits to detainees by family members in the Gaza Strip.
Israel ended this comprehensive ban as part of an agreement to settle the mass Karameh (“Dignity”) hunger strike in April 2012, but continues to bar categories of relatives, including children who have reached the age of ten, from traveling through the Erez checkpoint to its prisons.
“Before I was allowed to visit my husband, both the older girls started crying,” Jahadir said. “I threatened them that if they kept crying, I wouldn’t go. They said no, I should go, even if they couldn’t.”
“My daughter Nada was very upset that she couldn’t hug her father, since she is over the age of eight,” she added. “It was the first time she had ever seen him.”
Another occupation policy bans physical contact between detainees and their children who, like Nada, have turned eight.
“When we saw him, Nada started crying and asking to stay with her father,” Jahadir said. “I told her it was up to the Israelis, not me.”
Now 44, al-Aqraa is one of 18 sick detainees held permanently in the Ramle prison clinic. In June, he and another Ramle detainee, Mansour Muqada of Salfit in the West Bank, undertook a dramatic protest when they swallowed potentially lethal quantities of pills.
“We were ignored in the Shalit deal [a prisoner exchange agreement in 2011], and we don’t want current talks to ignore us too,” they wrote. “Death has become easier than living with sickness aggravated in our bodies” (“Ministry: Two sick prisoners attempt suicide,” Ma’an News Agency, 6 August 2013).
Their attempt, along with a subsequent hunger strike by Ramle prison clinic detainees, led to slightly improved medical treatment, Wahidi said.
Meanwhile, Nahid al-Aqraa’s condition has continued to deteriorate.
“He has inflammation in his legs,” his wife said. “Parts of both were amputated. The first was in Gaza, before his detention. The second was inside the Israeli jails. The Egyptians did some surgery on it, but it didn’t succeed.”
“While I visited him, he didn’t want me to know he had problems. He just said he had a little inflammation and tried to hide his second amputated leg. But his lawyer told me the truth.”
Both families said that Ibrahim Bitar and Nahid al-Aqraa were not receiving proper treatment.
“Many lawyers have met Ibrahim,” Mamdouh Bitar said. “They have told us his condition is in the terminal stages.
“The bleeding from his surgery still has not been treated. Many times, they have taken him to the Ramle prison clinic or Assaf Harofeh hospital, then sent him back to the prison the same day under the pretext that there are not enough beds in the hospital.”
“The Israelis delayed his medical treatment,” Jahadir said about her husband Nahid. “They could have cured him if he had the proper medication. But he didn’t.”
“We don’t trust Israel”
Last year claims of Israeli medical negligence that followed the deaths two sick Palestinian detainees, Maysara Abuhamdia and Hassan al-Turabi, sparked protests across the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Addameer, an advocacy organization for Palestinian prisoners, argued that al-Turabi’s death on 5 November was “the direct result of the Israel Prison Service policy of medical negligence which is being practiced against all Palestinian political prisoners and detainees.”
“We’re not asking the Israelis to only give them the proper medication,” Wahidi said. “They need their freedom. We don’t trust the Israel Prison Service to give them the right treatment.”
