18th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
Tonight in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces arrested a 10-year old Palestinian boy twice. Both times he was taken to the military base.
Marwan Sharabati was playing outside his house, riding a bicycle in the street, in the vicinity of a military checkpoint cordoning off part of segregated Shuhada Street for Palestinians. Settlers from the nearby illegal settlements, who are allowed to freely walk down this street, came towards him, stole the bicycle from him and left with it. Whereas Israeli soldiers at the nearby checkpoint did nothing to prevent this or even interfere, they did arrest 10-year old Marwan, telling his family they were just taking him ‘to bring his bicycle back’. When soldiers forced him to walk down the street towards the military base he was clearly scared and crying.
The boy was released from the military base after half an hour and was walked back to the checkpoint by Israeli soldiers. A group of settlers watched the events unfold. Upon Marwan being received by a friend of the family, infamous settler Anat Cohen, charged at an international volunteer attacking her, while soldiers were standing by idly. On Anat Cohen’s request 10-year old Marwan was again arrested by the Israeli army only a few minutes after being released. A Palestinian man, who was with him at that moment insisted to stay at Marwan’s side as he is just a small boy. Israeli soldiers coerced both of them to walk down the street to the military base and barely stopped settlers from attacking the man and boy along the way. Both of them were blindfolded and made to sit on the ground in the military base, with soldiers verbally insulting them. All requests of informing the parents and allowing the boy to talk to his father were bluntly refused by Israeli soldiers.
The family and friends were, in the meantime, forced to desert the street and go into the house by Israeli soldiers on orders of Anat Cohen. After repeated complaints of her, soldiers entered the house thus funnelling everyone into one room and preventing them from leaving. Only after Anat Cohen left the Palestinians were allowed to leave the house again. This again illustrates the power settlers exercise over the Israeli army, following their orders and whishes.
After more than an hour of being held in the military base, both the boy and the man accompanying him were finally released but had to climb onto the roof of the house to get back inside as settlers were still at the checkpoint close to the house. Even under Israeli law, it is illegal to arrest children under the age of eleven. Still, this is just one out of many cases of child arrests and violations of basic laws that are part of Palestinians’ every day lives.
16th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
On Monday and Tuesday was the Jewish holiday of Rosh Ha’Shannah, the Jewish New Year.
In al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli forces have taken this occassion to make the already tough every-day life of Palestinians in this segregated and oppressed city even more difficult.
The omnipresence of the Israeli forces throughout the city was increased even more, forcing every Palestinian, whether elderly, little child or adult to navigate around the many closed checkpoints, groups of heavily armed soldiers right in front of their own doorsteps and throughout most of the city and their armored jeeps and trucks, blocking the already obstructed roads to schools and homes.
With even more holidays approaching, Israeli forces are expected to increase the level of harassment, intrusion and collective punishment of the Palestinian people trudging through every day life in Israeli military controlled al-Khalil (Hebron).
13th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
International Solidarity Movement human rights monitors spend the afternoon at the Women in Hebron embroidery cooperative where Palestinian women are empowering themselves and persisting with grace in a colourful and beautiful way in a community space amidst the horror of the ongoing military occupation of their home.
Silverware clinks on plates, numerous excited voices float above the large trays of food laid out and loud bursts of laughter punctuate most bites of food. We are in the colorful and warm ‘Women in Hebron’ embroidery cooperative space in the village of Idna in the Hebron district. And we are surrounded by the women who keep the business running and the spirit of community and empowerment nearly bursting the center at its very seams.
From the worn hands of an elderly woman rushing her crease-patterned hands through the weaving of a carpet stretching the length of the cooperative itself to the bright eyes of 14 year old Yafa Slemiah whose mother founded Women in Hebron, at this cooperative, there is space for everyone.
“We welcome everyone here. People from all over the world have come to work with us. We open our home to them; there we have an entire floor dedicated for volunteers, three rooms and three bathrooms, they have free food and can travel with us. …And we teach them embroidery.”
From humble beginnings in 2005, the cooperative itself now boasts a beautiful shop in the souq. The shop is the only woman-run establishment in Hebron and it is rare to pass the richly colorful, craft-filled space without coming in contact with the welcoming smile of Leila, the shop owner, Yafa’s aunt and sister of Women in Hebron’s director, Nawal Slemiah.
Currently, Nawal is traveling through America promoting the cooperative, thus her enthusiastic and kind daughter sits with us as both translator and story teller- conveying what Women in Hebron means to those who are a part of it, creating breathtaking bead-work and embroidered traditional Palestinian dresses for weddings and events, holidays and parties.
23 year old Haneen sits beside Yafa, her work with the cooperative began four years ago. “My mom was sick, pregnant with twins and already had twins. I had to leave school in the sixth grade to care for her. There was no work for a woman who is uneducated. But I knew how to embroider and here I can teach other women.”
And like all other elements of life in the occupied territories, the work of Women in Hebron and Leila’s shop in the souq do not go untouched by the cruelty of their occupiers. “Shops in Hebron gets lots of water from the rain because the soldiers close the gates separating the settlers from the old city. Our area floods so the settlers can stay dry.” This was the reality this past April in Hebron when heavy rains flooded the souq to staggering chest level heights, destroying shelf-fulls of embroidery Leila made by hand at the cooperative to sell at market.
Yafa’s frustration is clear, “Can you imagine making items by hand for months? Months. Things that take days to transport to the shop, only to have it flooded out so people who stole your land can stay dry?” Another way the occupation effects the cooperative is by deporting volunteers with Arabic names or those who come stating that they are visiting the West Bank to do embroidery work. “The volunteers have to lie and say they are visiting Tel Aviv or they do not get through at the airport.”
For those who do get in, they join a group of women dedicated to keeping Palestine alive. Haneen describes her commitment to her culture and keeping resistance alive, creatively so, “It’s very… tradition is very important in Palestine. It is very important that people know about what is happening in Palestine.
Through our work, people will know about traditional Palestinian culture. They will come to know the situation here. We will let people know we are not terrorists. I can help make a difference and then I can teach embroidery to my daughters.”
Isma has been at the cooperative for three years. At 24, with limited education, Isma’s options were few. “Not only do uneducated women have a difficult time finding work, but also the occupation limits us severely. We are unable to travel.
We have no airport. If we want to go anywhere or do anything, we must go through Israel to do it and they do not want to help us.” Nawal welcomed Isma into the cooperative, allowing her to cook and clean while learning the machines, she is now one of the women who train the volunteers who come in.
To be a volunteer with the cooperative, you are not only welcomed into Nawal’s home, you learn how to run the website, answer the emails, process the sales- the entire business side of the cooperative is shared alongside the teaching of the handcrafting. They also have a colorful nursery within the cooperative so women with children can bring them along as they work.
After lunch, Yafa and the others walk us through a room with shelves made bright by their wares. Shelf after shelf houses beaded wallets, purses, scarves and even bookmarks that can be personalized, all kaleidoscopic, all made by the hands of those who are economically and socially strangled by an occupation that seeks to end them- all binds broken in the process of free creation. One of the women laughs and holds up a beaded wallet that says “Women can do anything.” She then turns it over, “Men can do something.”
Before leaving them to their work, we sit with Yafa a few more moments. She describes the world she knows, “The occupation has taken over everyone’s lives. At this moment, if you walked outside and didn’t see a soldier you would wonder why not. The women working here all have to worry about the occupation when they consider each day they spend at the cooperative. ‘What if I’m not home and the soldiers raid my home? What if I’m gone too long?’ Occupation is always the first thing to think about. In Palestine this is normal. She can die. I can die. The soldiers can kill us and the people may talk about it for one day, one week, but here this is normal life. During the time the world hears about a Palestinian getting killed, like the 18 month old baby the settlers burned to death recently, three more Palestinians are killed. The occupation makes our lives gross.”
The occupation doesn’t only entail soldier harassment and collective punishments enacted against Palestinians as a whole. Settler violence is a daily and worsening issue. “They are building a fence above our homes now because the settlers throw eggs down on us. They throw rocks. When we are at home in the middle of the night, we do not wear our hijabs, only to have male settlers jump into our homes in the middle of the night and see us this way before running out again. This can never happen for ‘normal’ people. You do not see this in Europe or anywhere else. So this is very different for us.”
With the occupation ‘coming first,’ the all-encompassing hurdle to be considered by the people who are subjugated and oppressed by it, the Women in Hebron are utilizing a rich and generational tradition to perpetuate their culture and their resistance to a system who would sooner end their lives than to better them.
They are dichotomous existences these women lead of both fighting oppressive social and power structures whilst building and creating a world where all voices are heard, where they see more friends in a day than they see soldiers, where every facet of their lives isn’t stained with the awful truth of a military occupation and near seven decade ethnic cleansing.
The women we share this afternoon with are making more with their hands than what meets the eye. They are molding an empowering path for Palestinian women, one more elaborate- and accessible- with each passing day.
Read more about the cooperative and buy products made by Women in Hebron here.
12th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Sunday night an international human rights observer was arrested by Israeli forces on bogus charges in al-Khalil (Hebron) in occupied Palestine.
The activist was detained by Israeli soldiers when leaving a house in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood of al-Khalil. Only a few minutes later, a reinforcement of another group of about 7 soldiers arrived. The only explanation provided by the soldiers in English to the two volunteers, who do not speak any Hebrew, was that they had to wait for the police to arrive for an explanation on the detention.
When the police arrived, the police-man immediately took the passport of one of the internationals, not even asking to see the other person’s passport. As the police-man himself did not speak any English, a soldier had to translate the charges to the volunteer and explain to her, that she had to come to the police station. The soldier lawlessly accusing the international was later present at all times at the police station except for interrogation.
The international was released only on the condition of signing a paper banning her from the ‘Jewish part’ of the city and passing through any checkpoint for a week. An explanation on what exactly that means was not given by the Israeli forces, who tried to ascertain the activist that she would be allowed back to move freely in al-Khalil on Saturday morning, an obvious attempt to have a reason to legally arrest her on violating the conditions of the seven-day period.
This is clearly intended to impede her work as a human rights observer, and tries to stop her from documenting and reporting on violence against Palestinians and violations of human rights and international law by Israeli forces. In al-Khalil (Hebron), a ctiy often dubbed a microcosmos of the occupation with illegal settlements right in the heart of the city, violence against Palestinians both by settlers and soldiers is rampant. Human Rights organisations are documenting and reporting on daily incidents to reveal the impact of the military occupation in Palestine and to raise awareness.
6th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
The Jabari family in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) is again facing threats of settlers, taking over their land.
The family owns a piece of land sandwidched between the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba and the Israeli police station Givat Ha’vot. Settlers built a synagogue tent on the land, but the Israeli Supreme Court finally took the decision that as it is illegal and has to be demolished in the beginning of this year. This resulted in attacks by settlers on the family, Palestinians living in the neighbourhood and human rights observers.
The area is now declared a closed military zone, so the settlers coming to pray there last Friday are illegaly trespassing and should be arrested for their crime. Still, they were protected by Israeli forces refusing to interfere. The case involving settlers taking over this land has been dragged on in court since 2000, which keeps the family from actually using their own land.