19th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Khuzaa, Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine
It only depends on us that this mother’s cry of pain does not drown in the silence.
“My paralyzed daughter was murdered by Israeli soldiers and I couldn’t save her” she told us, looking at us with clear eyes veiled with tears of pain, the other of a paraplegic girl, just 18 years old, massacred in her wheelchair by Zionist occupation forces during the ground invasion in Khuzaa, in southern Gaza Strip.
“My paralyzed daughter was murdered by Israeli soldiers and I couldn’t save her.”
The mother’s voice is like her eyes, clear and painful, sad and intense. In her tone there is much suffering – although she is a victim of the zionist atrocities – there is also a lot of guilt for failing to rescue her daughter from a terrible death under the fire of one of the most powerful armies of the planet: the Israeli Occupation Forces.
“My daughter asked me not to leave her, but she was in a crater formed by a bomb explosion in the middle of the street and I couldn’t move her from there, I didn’t have the strength to carry her in my arms, and the Israeli soldiers were coming back, shooting with tanks, guns, with everything. Crying I told her that I had to leave her and prayed to God.”
What happened next is so cruel and vicious as the crime itself: an officer of the Israeli forces communicated by telephone with the family to say the girl was with them in one of the houses that they had occupied n Khuzaa “Come and get her, she is unharmed”, said the officer. The family was so happy that one brother decided to leave the house where they were sheltering with the intention of picking up the girl, but when he opened the door, multiple shots from the occupation forces began to impact the house.
The Zionist’s macabre game is repeated, they call again to tell the family to look for the paralyzed teen and again they open fire when one of the brothers tries to leave the house to rescue his sister.
“This kind of inhuman mockery of Palestinians is common from the Israeli Army”, explain various witnesses of the Zionist crimes. Not content just to kill with impunity, they also like to torture their victims, tease them and laugh at the suffering of the families.”
It hurts, but is not surprising, knowing that she had never been safe in the hands of the occupying forces, she had been murdered in cold blood and she lies near her wheelchair with multiple gunshots in her limbs, heart and head, when she was found days later by her family in an advanced state of decomposition on the main street of the devastated village of Khuzaa, southern Gaza Strip, a place where life is worthless, where the slaughtering of Palestinians is a coward game without consequences for this criminal army.
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.
Women in Hebron shop in the old city of Hebron
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.”
Palestinian woman in the cooperative creating a carpet by hand.
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.
Women in Hebron
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.
Hand-making carpet in the traditional Palestinian way.
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.
Handmade small bag. Front: Men can do something
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.”
Handmade small bag. Back: Women can do anything
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.”
Some of the handmade products made by Women in Hebron.
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.
Vittorio Fera is released on bail after an extremely violent and terrifying time in Israeli prisons. He is falsely accused of throwing stones and attacking Israeli soldiers. His case will be in court again Tuesday the 8th of September in Jerusalem.
Here is Fera’s own testimony on the arrest, imprisonment and the international media attention:
1st September | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil Team | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Friday the 28th of August Vittorio Fera was violently arrested by Israeli forces. He was beaten up during the arrest and treated badly in prison. His case was in court Monday 31st of August and is now postponed till the 8th of September. The story has been covered in the media, and we are proud of the international media for bringing the case to the surface and showing the world how people are treated in occupied Palestine.
Vittorio Fera violently arrested.
Especially Italian media have taken this particular case very seriously, and even the city council of Napoli has taken a stand in the case. Here is a message by the mayor of Napoli on the violent arrest of Vittorio Fera from the 31st of August:
“The presence of committed and sensitive people engaged in non-violent actions of testimony in the occupied territories of Palestine are a necessary resource for the entire international community. This activity documents and discourages abuses against the civilian population. The International Solidarity Movement activist Vittorio Fera was engaged in this valuable work near the Palestinian village Nabi Saleh in the West Bank when he was arrested by the Israeli authorities. From Naples, a city that has always worked for peace and coexistence of all the peoples of the Mediterranean, we are asking the Foreign Ministry to work for the immediate release of Vittorio Fera and to guarantee all the necessary practicability for the international and pacifist organizations working commendably in the land of Palestine. “
– Mayor Luigi de Magistris, Napoli
Vittorio Fera was released on bail with conditions yesterday evening. Shortly after the release, the Italian TV station RAI news made an interview with Vittorio Fera. Other Italian media has been interviewing other activists, who took part in the non-violent demonstration and were present at the court in Jerusalem yesterday morning.
The story has not just reached Italy, but is also getting attention in the rest of the world. The hashtag #VittorioFera has been used on twitter 960 times on twitter and have reached approximately 2000000 people. In Denmark, a member of the parliament, will take up the case of Vittorio Fera and other cases of military violence against internationals in Palestine in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Vittorio is doing fine under the circumstances, and is really happy to be out of the Israeli prison, where he was not treated well. We, in ISM, are really grateful for all the attention on the case of Vittorio Fera, and hope this will make more people see what is going on. This case does not stand alone. Palestinians and internationals get arrested every single day without reason or on false accusations. We need the world to recognize this problem and support Palestinians and internationals in the fight against the injustice, that we see in Palestine every single day.
11th April 2015 |Valeria Cortes, International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Occupied Palestine
“You corner me, you kill me, and on top of that you ask me not to defend myself. Human beings in this world have the right to defend themselves. We, as Palestinians, have the right to defend our land and our families by all means available”, said the Dr. Basman Alashi.
The night of the 17th of July 2014 the Israeli occupation forces bombed the Al Wafaa Hospital, in Shijaia, Gaza Strip. The hospital´s speciality was the rehabilitation of paralyzed patients.
This is the moving testimony of Dr. Basman Alashi, its director:
Dr. Basman Alashi
How is it possible to reach the point of bombing a hospital full of patients and medical staff?
“The UN told me that, according to a report from the Israeli occupation forces, the bombing of the hospital was due to the fact that there were weapons within its facilities … I can assure you that this report is completely false; the hospital opened its doors to the international press and to all the foreigners who freely inspected our facilities without finding any weapons at all. Despite all the overwhelming evidence, our hospital was bombed in the middle of the night, with its patients, medical staff, and some international witnesses, still inside the buildings.”
What were the consequences of the bombing by the Zionist occupation forces?
“Whilst under Israeli fire, we evacuated the remaining 17 paralyzed patients that still were inside the hospital. We couldn’t take any medication or equipment; we evacuated them just with sheets. That’s why during a cease-fire we asked the Red Cross to take us to rescue some medicines that were vital for our patients. However the Red Cross refused and we had to go by ourselves. We were only able to stay 45 minutes at the ruins of what was the Al Wafaa Hospital. The bombings continued, and we could only recover a very small amount of medicine, as bombs had destroyed most of it.
Four members of our staff were injured during the bombing. Luckily these weapons of war injured none of the patients. However they did suffer a lot during the emergency evacuation. Four of the paralyzed patients needed oxygen and many of them breathe through tubes, that’s why it was so dangerous to move them from one hospital to another; under conditions of intense aggression, under the attack of lethal weapons used against a defenceless civil population.
We could have lost some of them. It was very hard because we had to evacuate them in regular vehicles, three or four in every vehicle. Luckily we were able to move them all without any loss, due to the heroic efforts of our nurses and hospital staff. Without them all would be dead.
The patients suffered a lot during the Israeli attack on the hospital, some of them still hear the explosions of the bombs and are afraid of the start of another bombing. One of our patients, just 19 years old, refuses to enter to another hospital “the Al Wafa Hospital was bombed, my house was bombed, this hospital will also be bombed” he explained to me, terrified.
We are here to survive, to improve the lives of our children, of our patients. I can’t stand to see a small girl of barely 6 years old, to whom I can’t give the medicines she needs to survive and who can not leave Gaza to receive them. The only thing we want is for them to live with the same freedom as kids from any other place in the world.”
The Israeli occupation forces said that they bombed the hospital because there were weapons inside, this statement was firmly denied by many witnesses. In your opinion, what was the real reason for the attack that left a hospital as big and important as Al Wafaa reduced to rubble?
“The hospital was less than a kilometre from the fence that separates Gaza from the occupied territories. Our facilities had three big buildings, so it was just a military decision, given that those constructions blocked their way for a deeper land incursion. There wasn’t activity from the resistance inside or near the hospital installations.
I challenged the Israeli occupation forces to provide any proof of their reasons to bomb the hospital. They showed me a classified picture where, according to them, there was a rocket launcher from the resistance very near the hospital. However, the picture wasn’t from the hospital, it was from a place located almost five kilometres away. That proves that all the reasons provided by Israel were false. They just fabricated this story to justify the planned destruction of a hospital.
The Israeli occupation forces demanded we evacuate the hospital under fire and, as the facilities were under their control, it was Israel’s duty to protect the buildings. It was their obligation to preserve a hospital with 30 years history and an investment of more than 15 million dollars in equipment. Despite all this, far from protecting it’s medical facilities, they bombed them and destroyed it to the ground.”
The occupation forces point out that the attacks aren’t against the Palestinian people but against Hamas and the resistance. Do you have anything to say against the government of Gaza or the resistance?
“Against the resistance?” – asks the doctor with surprise – “We are the victims!” he clarifies. “In Gaza we have already had 8 years of suffering a terrible blockade by Israel. Our resistance is very basic. Israel has the lead, they have F16 planes, they have the tanks, war ships… they surround us! They deny us the right to defend our children, our women, our land, our homes, our own lives. It’s ridiculous. You corner me, you kill me, and you still ask me not to defend myself. Human beings in this world have the right to defend themselves. We, as Palestinians, have the right to defend our land and our families by all means available. The resistance is a way of defending our lives, it is our right.
Israel has the most powerful and destructive weapons; Israel is the one that the world should control.
Israel has committed genocide in Gaza while the world was looking. It assassinated children playing on the beach. Israel has killed children and women while they were sleeping in their homes and has bombed residential buildings without reason. Thousands of families have been left destroyed or without a home and all this took place before the eyes of the world. That’s why I blame Israel but also the international community.”
What is the situation now regarding the reconstruction of the hospital?
“There are many organizations and countries who want to help us. However, due to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, they find themselves unable to provide the materials necessary for the reconstruction, or to send to the Gaza Strip the funds necessary for funding this reconstruction. That’s why we started to raise funds through local activities. Even so the amount collected doesn’t cover the 0,01% of the amount needed for the reconstruction of the hospital.
A lot of people all around the world have said to me that they are sorry about what happened to the hospital, and that’s good but we need much more than that to be able to attend our patients and move forward. The blockade is affecting our patients terribly, and it’s impossible for us to provide the medical treatment that they urgently need. They don’t need charity, blankets, or clothes… they need to have the stability to be self-sufficient.
The blockade seriously affects the hospital, as we find ourselves unable to go back to a full medical service like we had before and we are unable to support the rehabilitation and healthy recovery of our patients. Of the 11.000 injured from the last Israeli aggression against Gaza, more than the 50% need rehabilitation. If in one or two years the hospital is not working as it was in the past, there will be an important segment of this population that will be left unable to manage by itself and to contribute to our society, affecting it at all the levels.
What we need from the world more than anything else is an end to the blockade, to allow the entrance of materials for the reconstructions; to allow us to rebuild the homes of our families that were destroyed by Israel. This way there will be peace. But if the blockade continues, peace will be further away every day. We are human; we want a normal life as in every other place in the world. For our kids to be able to grow in a normal house, not in a shelter or a tent, suffering from the cold, without a single blanket to cover them”.
How do you see the current situation and the future of Gaza?
“The people of Gaza are resilient. They live in the most difficult conditions but still smile. The kids keep playing and adapt themselves to all the conditions, but the rest of the world must know that this situation is not normal and for this to end the only solution is to lift the blockade. The blockade must end. It’s not enough to give the people a tent, or some food or a blanket. People need a house, a job, and the possibility of giving their children a good education and to travel abroad if they wish to.
To have the possibility of going to a hospital abroad if their condition requires it. Give us the freedom that the rest of the world enjoys, because we are not different from any other population on the planet. We just want to live in peace if we are given the opportunity and doing it in freedom. But, if that right is denied to us, we will fight until we conquer it… Inshallah!”.
