Tag: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Qusra demolition orders: “If they destroy this house, where will we go?”

7th July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Qusra, Occupied Palestine

On Wednesday July 3rd the Israeli army entered the village of Qusra, south east of Nablus, issuing eleven demolition orders on houses and buildings. At 9am two army jeeps arrived at the home of Seqer Musbah and presented him with demolition orders for the house he had built for his brother and family five years ago. When he tried to speak with the army commander he was told, “Don’t talk to me, talk to the court.”

Home of newly married couple Yusef and Sundis Rizek, now under demolition order (Photo by ISM)

All the houses and buildings were built at least five years prior, some as long as ten years ago and are spread across different parts of the 5000 population village. The village is classed as Area B and thus under Palestinian civil control. The orders though state that the houses are in Area C and therefore under full Israeli civil and security control despite a number of owners getting permission from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to build there, on the understanding their properties were in Area B.

A 2012 report from the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, Demolishing Homes, Demolishing Peace states, “Israeli officials explain this type of demolition by stating that Palestinians are violating the zoning and planning laws and that the demolitions are merely law enforcement.” In fact, home demolition is used as a tactic by the Israeli authorities control the expansion of Palestinian villages, with the wider aim of ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

Musbah’s family have lived on the land in question since 1965 and in 1995 had demolition orders on a neighbouring house also belonging to the family. The family took the case to court and ended up paying 10,000 shekels to the Israeli government to stop the demolition orders. When looking for the paperwork from 1995 in a briefcase full of documents, Musbah referred to it as the “bag of troubles”.

Yusef and Sundis Rizek, a newly married husband and wife also have demolition orders on the house they share with Yusef’s sister, her husband and four children. The family have lived in the house for ten years and had planned to build further on the land to house more family members. They had permission from the PA to build the house and stated in disbelief, “Why did they not come to talk to us when we started to build the house? Why now? Where will we go if the house is destroyed? We spent all our money on the house and land. We have no other place and no more money. If they destroy this house, where will we go?”.

PA planning permission for Qusra home now under demolition order (Photo by ISM)

A month prior, in June, twenty agricultural buildings in Qusra donated by a foreign European government also had demolition orders issued against them. The village not only faces constant harassment from the Israeli government but also from settlers and the Israeli army who protect them. Settlers from the nearby illegal outpost of Esh Kadesh regularly attack the village injuring locals, damaging land and property.

One local stated, “The Israeli army, government and Shin Bet. All of them work together. Now all the time they attack. Why now? We are strong. They see this, so they want to.” The villagers have collectively hired a lawyer in Jerusalem to work on the case in court, though none will be able to attend the proceedings there as permission is routinely denied to the majority of Palestinians to travel to the city. Even though Musbah’s family have documents proving their house was built in Area B, he has chosen not to play solo with this potential advantage but to fight collectively because, as he said : “We are one people, and this land is the collective property of the Palestinian people, we will speak with one tongue.”

Demolitions: Israel’s path of destruction through the Jordan Valley

by Andreas

27 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Families and their livestock are left without shelter as Israeli Occupation Forces soldiers and bulldozers leave a path of destruction El Hemmi, al-Farisiya and Khirbet Homse in the Jordan Valley

On the 26th of March several houses and animal barricades were demolished in the small communities of El Hemmi, Al Farisiya and Khirbet Homse in the Jordan Valley. The convoy of military vehicles started out in El Hemmi in the morning and continued to Al Farisiya and ended in Homse close to Hamra Checkpoint by the afternoon.

El Hemmi

Early in the morning Mahmoud Awad from the small community of Khirbet Tel El Hemmi, north of the Jordan Valley, went to graze his sheep in the mountains surrounding his home. He did not make it far before hearing his wife screaming as four military jeeps, two civil administration cars, 15 soldiers, and two bulldozers arrived and surrounded their house.

The IOF had come to destroy Mahmoud Awards’ property for the second time. Within a few minutes the house that was home for six members of Mahmoud’s family was destroyed. The family was given no time to pack up their possessions, which now are spread all over the ground, beneath and inbetween the demolished bricks. When asked where the family will go and how life can continue, Hani Mahmoud, the father of Mahmoud Awad, replied that they “must ask for mercy from Allah and hope for better times.”

So far the family has been offered shelter in the neighboring house. If the family chooses to rebuild their home – they will have to live with the constant threat of yet another demolition.

Around 9’clock the military jeeps and bulldozers continued up the small road of el Hemmi to reach the houses of Abed Rabu and his family. Two houses and four animal shelters were demolished – leaving no shelter for the eleven members of his family including a baby aged two months. Under the bricks that used to make up their home shoes and clothes were seen, as the family was given no time to collect valuable possessions before the bulldozers started their destruction.

Abed Rabu received a demolition order in November demanding him to destroy his own house and the shelters for his animals. He hired a lawyer, and he was at the moment trying to take his case through the court system. When we left Abed Rabu’s neighbors and friends had arrived and were building a new tent for the family to seek rest for the night.

El Hammi is located very close the settlement Rotem.

Al Farisiya

At around 11’clock the military cheeps and bulldozer reached Al Farisiya close to El Hammi. For Ali Zhurida Abdallah and his family this was the third time this year that Israeli military has entered his land and demolished his animal shelters. Ali is a shepherd and he has been living on the land for more than 50 years. Several times the Israeli soldiers have told him to pack up his things and move to Tubas. When refusing to leave his land, soldiers have threatened him that they will come back in the night to kill him.

Ali’s brother Hussein lives 50 meters away and also had animal shelters destroyed this morning, leaving 175 sheep without shelter and protection for the night. Hussein will have to stay up all night and look after the animals making sure that no wild animals will attack the sheep. Looking at the destruction carried out today Hussein’s wife says, “They want to be the masters of everything. Look, they destroy even animal shelters. The Ottomans, the British and the Jordanian have all occupied this land- but not one of them treated us in this way.”

A path of Zionist destruction – Click here for more images

Khirbet Homse

At around 12:30 PM the convoy of destruction arrived in Khirbet Homse close to Hamra Checkpoint. Suleiman Abdallah Mahmoud Bsharat watched as the bulldozers destroyed his two animal barracks that until a few days ago gave shelter for his 300 sheep. According to Suleiman the military was trying to demolish the barracks whilst the animals were still inside.

Suleiman and his family had to move fast in order to rescue the sheep from the moving bulldozers. Three months ago on the 14^th of January Suleiman had his animal shelters demolished for the first time. He chose to rebuild. He had not received any demolition order on his newly built barracks before the demolition.

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Monday’s events are the latest in a series of home demolitions in the Jordan Valley. The Valley is 94 % area C which makes almost every community and village very vulnerable to the process of ethnic cleansing. The house demolitions are well documented by the Jordan Valley Solidarity Group and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Andreas is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Remembering Vik

Jeff Halper | Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Less than two weeks after losing another friend and comrade, Juliano Mer-Khamis, I now have to mourn and remember my fellow Free Gaza shipmate Vittorio (Vik) Arrigoni, who was brutally murdered last night by religious extremists in Gaza (and who actually resembled Juliano, physically, in his buoyant personality and in his insistence on “being there” when the oppressed needed him).

Vik was truly a person greater than life. He was so filled with energy, a mixture of joy, camaraderie and impatience with the confines of boats and prisons like Gaza, that he would suddenly lift you into the air, or wrestle with you – he was a big, strong, handsome guy, ebullient and smiling even in the most oppressive and dangerous situations – as if to tell you: Yalla! These Israel naval ships shooting at us and the Palestinian fisherman cannot prevail over our solidarity, outrage and the justice of our cause! (Vik was wounded in one of those confrontations). He would come up behind you and say: The Occupation will fall just like this! (and he would wrestle you to the ground, laughing and playing with you as he did).

Vik, who like me received Palestinian citizenship and a passport when we broke the siege of Gaza and sailed into Gaza port in August, 2008, was a peace-maker exemplar. Though having a family in Italy, he cast his lot with the Palestinians (with his whole heart, as was his wont. On his facebook page is written: “lives in Gaza”). He was especially known for accompanying the fishermen as they tried to ply their trade despite almost daily shootings at them from the Israeli navy, who confined them to the fished-out, sewage-filled waters near the Gaza coast. At least eighteen fishermen have been killed in the past decade, about 200 injured, many boats wrecked and much equipment ruined. But he was intimately involved wherever he was needed in Gaza, among the farmers as well as traumatized children, in times of distress – his book, Gaza: Stay Human, documents his experiences among the people during Israel’s three-week attack in 2008-09 – and simply being with the people in their coffee shops and homes.

When it was learned he was kidnapped, hundreds of appeals rose spontaneously not only from the international peace community but especially from a distraught Palestinian population in Gaza. A memorial service will be held today in Gaza City and other parts of the Occupied Territories.

Vik worked in the West Bank as well as Gaza, and was jailed three times before being expelled by Israel. But his peace work did not take the form of activism alone. Vik was a master of communication – physical, verbal, written (his blog, Guerrilla Radio, was one of the most popular in Italy) – and he mixed personal experiences, reportage and analysis effortlessly.

Vik was what we call a “witness”: someone who put himself physically with the oppressed and shared with them their triumphs, tragedies, sufferings and hopes. Yet he was one who through his actions tried to affect genuine change. His last message on my facebook page was: “No-fly zone over Palestine.” He, like Juliano, Rachel, Tom and so many other internationals who have sacrificed themselves for peace and justice in Palestine and the world over, leave a huge hole in our hearts, our lives and in the struggle.

I’ll miss you, man. But every time I feel tired or discouraged, I’ll feel you lifting me up over your head and, with your huge smile and laughter, threatening to throw me overboard if I even hesitate in throwing myself into the fight. You were and are the earth-force of the struggle against injustice. You will always hold us up and inspire us. Like the Palestinian fishermen you loved so much, we and all others fighting for the fundamentals of life throughout the world commit ourselves to seeing your vision through.

Ciao, friend.

Mourning Juliano Mer-Khamis

Jeff Halper | Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

The ICAHD family mourns the tragic slaying of Juliano Mer-Khamis

The ICAHD family mourns the tragic slaying by masked gunmen of our friend and comrade Juliano Mer-Khamis in Jenin. Juliano was a major figure in the struggle for a just peace and the forging of a new multi-cultural society in Palestine/Israel based on human rights, freedom, equality and, not least, creative, critical expression.

Juliano, filmmaker, actor, and the co-founder and director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, supported the work of ICAHD and frequently attended our summer rebuilding camp in the West Bank, showing his films to our activists and sharing his thoughts and vision. That vision was of a bi-national society, although Juliano was far too critical to confine himself to “Jewish-Israeli-Palestinian” dichotomies. As a man of the theatre as well as a political figure driven to forge a better society against sectarian forces who sought only to divide and dominate, he opened issues of equality, gender, religion, and individual expression, bringing young people – his “actors” – into experiential encounters with them. This may have cost him his life; in both the societies in which he lived, Israeli and Palestinian, the conflict has not only suffocated equal rights and individualism by group-think sectarianism, but has legitimized the use of violence against anyone envisioning unfettered pluralism. Juliano did not allow fear or pressures to shut him up, but it is having its effects on all of us. Liberals and even those of the critical left are hunkering down; many of Israel and Palestine’s brightest young people are fleeing.

The ones that envision and work for a just society are decreasing among us. The loss of one of the bravest, one of the most energetic, articulate, and creative among us, the symbol of what might be, is a cruel blow, not only to his family, to whom our condolences go, but to the rest of us who must struggle on without him. No, not “without him,” since Juliano will always inspire and guide us. Someone of his presence, like Rachel Corrie, cannot be easily removed from the scene. Juliano, we will miss you but we will continue your struggle.

May Is About Memories

Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service

25 May 2010

Mohammed Tooman and Hammad Awadallah, Nakba survivors from Isdud, share memories of their destroyed village. Credit: Eva Bartlett, IPS

This is the month for Palestinians to remember their Nakba, or “catastrophe”, in which more than 700,000 women, men and children were pushed off their land and rendered homeless refugees by the Zionist attacks before, during and after the founding of Israel in 1948.

Isdud, a farming community to the north of Gaza’s current border, was ethnically cleansed, in the months after the expulsions began in May 1948. It was one of over 530 villages razed and destroyed after the residents were forced out by Zionist attacks.

After three nights of Israeli air bombardment, more than 5,000 Palestinian residents here were forcibly expelled from their houses and land. Most resettled in what are now overcrowded refugee camps in Gaza.

“Most of the houses have been destroyed; the rubble is covered with grasses and thorns,” wrote Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi.

At a Gaza City Nakba commemoration displaying the clothes, agricultural equipment and tools of Palestinian daily life, Mohammed Tooman, 83, wearing the traditional robes of Isdud, spoke of village life and their forced expulsion.

“We were farmers and grew grains, fruits and had orange and palm orchards. Isdud had a large market every week and people from neighbouring towns came to buy from us.

“With every sunrise, I expect to return to my home in Isdud. And as the sun sets, I tell my grandchildren about our home and village, to which they will return.”

Hammad Awadallah, 70, also from Isdud, keeps this call for justice alive. “My right is passed down to my sons and daughters and their children. We will not forget our villages and our history. They are instilled in our memories.”

Since 1948 the United Nations (UN) has reiterated over 130 times its Resolution 194 calling for Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. The 1974 UN Resolution 3236 specified “the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return.”

Roughly another four kilometres east of Isdud, East Sawafir (al Sawafir al Sharqiyya) was ethnically cleansed of its thousand residents on May 18, 1948. The village had a mosque and shared a school with two other villages.

“No village houses remain on the site,” wrote Khalidi. “But some traces of the former village are still present on the surrounding lands.”

Abu Fouad was born in 1930, before East Sawafir was intentionally disappeared. After the forced expulsion from his village, he ended up in the tents which eventually became the tiny, poorly-built, maze-like concrete houses of a Palestinian refugee camp.

“My father was a farmer and had 35 dunums (a dunam is 1,000 square metres) of land, on which he grew wheat and vegetables. We had 50 sheep which I used to herd.”

East Sawafir shared a primary school with two neighbouring villages. “We didn’t go to school after 4th grade because there were no secondary schools in our area,” says Abu Fouad. “We only learned to write our name and studied religion a little, but nothing much more.”

Life was simple as were the houses. “Ours had two rooms,” Abu Fouad says, “but no bathroom: we would bathe outside. Even though we didn’t have money or the conveniences of today, we lived well, people were happy.”

Like most Palestinians, Abu Fouad has relatives spilled around the world from whom he is cut off.

“We have family in Jerusalem, Libya and Hebron. We don’t know them. And I haven’t seen or spoken with one of my brothers since he left for Libya decades ago.”

His wife Umm Fouad comes from the same East Sawafir community. Born in 1948, she was just four months old when her family fled.

“My father was a tailor and grandfather a farmer. He grew cucumbers, squash, tomatoes and other vegetables. We hand-washed our clothes and cooked food over a fire or a kerosene stove (baboor) and baked bread in the wood oven (taboon).”

Although just an infant at the time of expulsion, Umm Fouad has been told the history of her family’s land and home so much that she has internalised it as her own memory.

“We fled because the Israelis were firing on us. My grandmother couldn’t walk properly, so in the panic we had to leave her there. She must have died in the house. We left walking, carrying only a few possessions as we didn’t have cart or horse. It was days of walking until we reached Gaza.”

And dispossessions continue. Since 1967, Israel has demolished more than 24,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, says the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD).

“I still come back to the house to work a small piece of my land that is 700 metres from the border. But even then I get shot at by the Israelis,” says Jaber Abu Rjila. His home and poultry farm east of Khan Younis lie just under 500 metres from the border. They were destroyed in a May 2008 Israeli invasion into the farming community. Soon after, the family fled, renting a house to escape the regular Israeli attacks.

On May 18, Israeli soldiers set land near Rjila’s fields on fire, burning the wheat crops of the Abu Tabbash family. The Nakba is not just about memory.