Tag: Green Line - Page 3 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian kids with kites reclaiming land and rights

25 June 2009

ISM Gaza Strip activists participated in a children event/protest organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, close to the so called “buffer zone” that Israeli occupation forces are trying to impose all along the Green Line. Among the ruble of recently demolished homes, with other children watching from their homes full of bullet holes, the children of Beit Hanoun launched their kites, defying the siege and the buffer zone and reclaiming land and rights. The Israeli occupation forces participated also to the event with their military balloons.

Beit Hanoun Local Initiative press release of Tuesday June 23, 2009 (translation by ISM Gaza Strip)

Beit Hanoun Local Initiative launches its Children’s activities: Let me Play Freely, in Beit Hanoun

On Tuesday June 23, 2009, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative group organized a kite competition with the participation of Beit Hanoun children. Six organizations participated in this event, which are from Beit Hanoun: Family Development Centre, Izbet Beit Hanoun Development and Progress centre, Adham Charity centre, Jerusalem Centre for health and society, Taghreed Association for Culture & Development, and the Promising Generation group.

Five children from each organization were chosen to hold big colourful kites, some with the colours of the Palestinian national flag, while other kites had slogans such as: The Children of Palestine Have a Right to Life, a Right to Play, We Refuse Occupation, We want to live like other children in the world, No to the Israeli Occupation.

The “Let me Play Freely” activities was launched in a march beginning from the centre of the town, till the buffer zone east of Beit Hanoun, near Sderot. There, the children released their kites in the air.

Children who are physically challenged and those with special needs participated in the activity too. They played and released kites in the air.
Palestine… we shall remain here despite all the damage and the siege.

The Beit Hanoun Local Initiative coordinator, Saber Al Zaaneen, certified that the activities and events shall continue in the buffer zone despite the occupation forces’ policies that aim at forced removal of familes, and farmers from their places of residence. He called upon the Intenational community to take on a move to stand with the Palestinian people against occupation and neo-colonialism.

On his part, the coordinator of league for activities and events in the Beit Hanoun local initiative stated that the initiative will work during the summer period in organizing and launching children’s activities and events.

At the end of the day’s activity, the initiative and fellow solidarity workers distributed modest gifts to the children who won the “Let me Play Freely” competition.

Beit Hanoun Local Initiative
Media Committee- Beit Hanoun, GS-Palestine

Rotting in the ‘buffer zone’

ISM Gaza | Farming Under Fire

18 June 2009

Ahmed Abu Hashish, a Bedouin teenager of 18 years from a rural community in the northern Gaza Strip had been missing for 54 days.

A shepherd then noticed a murder of crows on a patch of land from which there was also a foul stench emanating, but he could not approach close enough to investigate. This patch of land is in what Israel calls the “buffer zone”. A strip of land within “The Strip” which abuts the border with Israel, and in which the Israeli military enforce a no-go decree by shooting, from positions on their side of the border, at anyone who breaks it. It feels like a no-mans land, typically empty of people – or at least the living.

Of course most Gazans now choose not to go there. Others go out of necessity, desperation, or a resolve not to be forced off their land. Usually they survive. The soldiers don’t always shoot with the firm intent to kill. Often the shooting‘s just very, very close – enough to terrify. Enough to make one believe that the intention of the shots are to kill, and that the next one might. And the fact is that the next one might.

Ahmed’s father, Abu Ayesh, knew that this patch of land was most likely where his son now lay, slowly decomposing in the hot summer heat. No “official” organisations could or would help him search for his son’s body in this area – even the International Committee of the Red Cross who might normally coordinate with the Israeli Military in matters such as this had refused. He then requested assistance from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, and from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

On Sunday 14th June, members of Ahmed’s family including his father, and volunteers from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative and the ISM ventured “out” into the “buffer zone“. As we arranged ourselves into a line to sweep along, and scour the land for a corpse, we could see Israeli jeeps and hummers congregating just across the border fence next to us. N from the ISM communicated with the soldiers over a megaphone, informing them of our purpose, and of our status as civilians. Many of our number were high visibility vests, drawing attention to the fact that we were a group of civilians.

Within minutes of starting our search however, the first shots rang out.

This land over which we were treading was rough, and speckled with thorn bushes. Maintaining our line, and ensuring that we didn’t pass some spot of ground unnoticed proved to be very challenging in these conditions – navigating our way through the the scrub, scanning the ground around us for a corpse, and instinctively attempting to avoid the bullets that split the air with an audible hiss.

We pressed on, and the gunfire waxed and waned – sometimes from assault rifles, sometimes from a machine gun, and punctuated with the odd explosion. Soldiers were visible on top of their jeeps, and on foot right up against the fence. N continued to communicate with them, requesting that they stop shooting at us.

Suddenly we spotted Ahmed’s body. As two of the Bedouins approached and began crouching down to examine it, more shots suddenly rang out which were obviously directed at them. They dived for cover away from the body. More of our group converged on the spot where the body was. We began wrapping it in a sheet, to carry it off the field. The stench of decay was nauseating, and a quick glance at the state of the corpse after lying there open to the elements for 54 days, was enough to induce an urge to retch.

As we rushed to take Ahmed’s body away, the shooting only intensified. We were all heading away from the fence. We’d told the soldiers over the megaphone, that we’d found the body and that we were going. Ahmed’s father hurriedly and in anguish attempted to catch up with the bearers of his son’s corpse, wailing and lamenting his loss as he did so. Still the bullets whistled past our heads, or into the ground behind us.

It struck me, when we finally got out of range of the soldiers’ guns, that our presence in that area that day must not have come as any surprise to them. It was most likely them who had shot Ahmed in cold blood some 54 days previously. They would have known where his body lay. The Israeli military never informed anyone of this. They did not pass on news of Ahmed’s murder to his family. Instead, they waited for almost two months, knowing that at some point and despite the danger, a search party might come looking for the corpse.

Was it necessary to shoot at a group of civilians on a humanitarian mission? Was it necessary to continue shooting at us as they left? Was it necessary for their bullets to force a grieving father to face his own mortality in the very moment he was compelled to recognise that of his son.

Bedouin family to search for the body of their missing son

14 June 2009

A Bedouin teenager – Ahmed Salama Eid Abu Hashish, 18 – from the border area east of Beit Hanoun has been missing since 21st April, 2009. His family believe that he may have been killed in the “buffer zone” – an area of Gaza next to the border that Israeli soldiers attempt to prohibit access to by shooting at people. On Sunday, 14 June 2009, his family, along with members of the Local Initiative from Beit Hanoun, and volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip will attempt to search for his body in this area.
The ISM is aware of 18 people who have been injured by Israeli gunfire or shelling.

5 June 2009, Shoka, Rafah: Khaled Ismail Mohammed Jahjuh was shot in his lower spine by the Israeli army.
3 June 2009, Beit Hanoun: Ali Mohammed al-Zummara, 65, injured by shrapnel in the back.
3 June 2009, Beit Hanoun: Saleh Mohammed al-Zummara, 66, injured by a gunshot to the left hand.
3 June 2009, Bedouin village ‘Um An-Nassir’: Ahmed Tawfiq Abu Hashish, 17, injured by shrapnel to the left shoulder and foot.
3 June 2009, Bedouin village ‘Um An-Nassir’: Saleh Ahmed al-Madani, 17, seriously injured by shrapnel to the neck and the left shoulder.
20 May 2009, Beit Hanoun: Ziad Salem abu Hadayid, 23, was shot in his legs with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
7 May 2009, Rafah: Randa Shaloof, 32, was shot in her hand with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
3 May 2009, Beit Hanoun: Mohamed Harb Shamia, 12, was injured in his leg by Israeli forces.
3 May 2009, East of Jabalya: Mona Selmi As-Sawarka, 30, was injured by shrapnel wounds to her chest.
2 May 2009, Khoza’a: Nafith Abu T’eima, 35, injured in his neck by shrapnel from Israeli forces.
10 March 2009, al-Maghazi refugee camp: Muhannad Sehi Abu Mandil, 24, was shot in the left foot with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
24 February 2009, Khoza’a: Wafa Al Najar, 17, was shot in the kneecap with live ammuntion by Israeli forces.
18 February 2009, Al Faraheen: Mohammad al-Breem, 20, was shot in the right leg with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
14 February 2009, Jabalya: Hammad Barrak Salem Silmiya, 13, was killed when Israeli forces shot him in the head with live ammunition.
27 January 2009, Al Faraheen: Arwan al Ibrim, 27, was killed when Israeli forces shot him in the neck with live ammunition.
25 January 2009, Khoza’a: Subhi Tafesh Qudaih, 55, was wounded by a gunshot to the back.
23 January 2009, Khoza’a: Nabeel Ibrahim al-Najjar, 40, was wounded by shrapnel from a gunshot to the left hand by Israeli forces.
20 January 2009, Sheyjaiee: Ahmed Hassanian, 7, was shot in the head by Israeli forces.
20 January 2009, al-Qarara: Waleed al-Astal, 42, was shot in his right foot by Israeli soldiers.
18 January 2009, Khoza’a: Maher ‘Abdul ‘Azim Abu Rjaila, 23, was killed when Israeli forces shot him in the chest with live ammunition.

UN: Israel exclusion zone eats up 30% of Gaza’s arable land

Ma’an News Agency

Israel’s military “buffer zone” along the eastern and northern edge of the Gaza Strip eats up 30% of the territory’s arable land, the United Nations said this week.

Fieldworkers with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) told the Christian Science Monitor that they have been unable to verify conditions in this 300-meter-wide band of land along the Green Line.

“We haven’t been able to visit this area. No organization has,” said Mohammed Al-Shattali, project manager for (FAO) in the Gaza, according to the newspaper.

“The war increased the amount of land destroyed, particularly in the border areas, and the farmers can’t replant anything because it’s too dangerous,” he told the Christian Science Monitor. “The Israeli soldiers, they shoot at everything – dogs, sheep. They are very tense.”

According to FAO, the exclusion zone, which at times protrudes 1.25 miles into the Strip, has made much of Gaza’s scarce farmland unusable. The entire Gaza Strip is 25 miles long and just six miles wide.

Harvest challenges

Eva Bartlett | In Gaza

1 June 2009

Just after 7 am on May 30th, Palestinian farmers in Khoza’a, east of Khan Younis, returned to the land they’d been menaced off of 5 days earlier. “The same day the Israelis dropped papers saying they would shoot at us for being on our land they did shoot at us,” Ahmed, a 22 year old farmer explained. It was around 10:30, he said. “They were shooting so much that the dirt rose in clouds of dust.”

When we arrive on May 30th, the bales of wheat are ready, all neatly and compactly hand-bundled, covering 30 dunums (1 dunum=1000 square metres) of land belonging to Radi Abu Rayder. He has another 140 dunums which he can no longer access because it lies too close to the border, within the Israel-imposed “buffer zone”.

The farmers will take 2 days to clear the bundles from the field.

The farmers today are two 18 year olds, two 22 year olds, and two men in their late 30s/early 40s.

They work steadily, carrying bales of wheat to the waiting tractor trailer. It is piled as high and full as manageable, then trundles off to a storage field hundreds of metres away, further from the Green Line and the potential danger from Israeli soldiers.

While most of the 30 dunums has been harvested, a small section remains. As some of the farmers off-load the trailer, the others resume hand-picking the wheat, ripping in bunches and laying for bundling.

As they work, they tell us of how the land used to be. “This area used to be so filled with trees you couldn’t see the fence,” Ahmed recalled, gesturing at the naked fields around us. He spoke of how they adapted to the razing of trees and grew, instead, many types of vegetables. “We grew tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and beans, among other things. We used to fill 17-20 trucks (4 tons each) of produce each day,” he said.

Amazingly, as he recounts their losses, he speaks without audibe bitterness or anger. This is something I’ve come across countless times, whether speaking of razed farmland or a bombed house. The tone, when emotion is evident, is fatigue and confusion: why do they attack us? how are we supposed to live? how can I feed my children?

But Ahmed recounts with a soft smile, just telling how it used to be.

Some time later, we notice thick smoke rising from the direction of the tractor. Moving to see what’s happened, we arrive to find blackened, burnt wheat spread along the dirt track, laid there as the panicked farmers put out the fire. Upon inspection, they see that the tractor crossed under a low-hanging electrical wire which immediately set the dry wheat alight. It’s not hard to imagine how the wheat and barley in Johr ad Dik blazed just weeks ago, after Israeli soldiers shot incendiary bombs into farmers’ fields.

After two days, the group has successfully brought all of the bales to safety. We are pleased their harvest hasn’t been lost, but not disillusioned to think that this is a victory. Their situation remains the same: each time they go onto their land near the Green Line border fence they face the danger of being targeted by Israeli soldiers from jeeps or from their watchtowers.

A heavy price to pay for working on your land.

Six days earlier, on May 24th, we joined 7 farmers, including women and 1 youth, in a different area of Khoza’a, on land of Nasser abu Rjla a few hundred metres from the border fence. They, too, were harvesting the wheat they had already bundled, though they were forced to bring it in without the luxury of a tractor.

At around 7:45 am the shooting began, coming from one of the mechanical watchtowers this time. These towers are a recent addition to the military landscape: remotely-operated by soldiers, the towers guns can shoot as dangerously close as the guns of Israeli soldiers at the jeeps.