Tag: Nablus

by ISM Nablus

Urif, 9th November

There is chaos in the air. A couple of the young boys have climbed up to one of the upper ridges of the hillside and are scorching the earth with a small blowtorch — an ancient agricultural technique designed to improve the quality of the soil. “Come down immediately! The settlers will shoot you!” the other villagers shout. But their father, the mayor, is back in the Palestinian village and they will not listen to reason. Everyone has stopped picking now and is gazing warily up toward the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar, straining their eyes to see if there is anyone peering out from under one of the red-tiled roofs, gun in hand. Finally, the boys relent to the ever louder protests coming from the valley and saunter down the hill to join their family and neighbors.

The villagers of Urif have been unable to harvest their olives from the groves near Yitzhar for almost six years. Three years ago, one young man in his early twenties was shot dead by Yitzhar colonists, while three other men were badly injured. The trauma imprinted into the hearts of the people here is readily apparent, despite the rather heavy military and police presence around the groves. Israeli soldiers are stationed at regular intervals along the mountain ridges and police come down to check IDs and expel any non-Palestinian from the area. Unfortunately this also includes international solidarity workers, who are relegated to an area further down the valley.

The Israeli military forces seem largely unaware of the threat they pose to Palestinian villagers, even when their presence serves to deter settler attacks. The valley of olives opens up into a circle of land closed in by a settler by-pass road and several settler outposts. The villagers of Urif seem much more willing to enter this area when soldiers are not present. The days pass as one long series of nervous advances and retreats. As the police jeep drives off, people hastily haul their tarpaulin sheets and buckets off the tractor, picking at the nearest tree and stuffing their olives into anything that will hold them — pockets, plastic bags and headscarves.

A grandmother, stunning in a leopard print pinafore and black eyeliner, stays behind in the valley, touching her heart as she speaks of her children and her fears for their safety. Some of her grandchildren and their friends gather around her, their faces grubby and sweaty from work. Yet they do not pick much these days, able only to gather the confidence and calm needed to concentrate on the harvest for a few minutes at a time. Most of their energy is spent on looking out for settlers and soldiers, talking about what they will do if they do come, making sure that someone stays behind to make sure that their trees are not burned down in retaliation for a successful harvest.

Yesterday afternoon, when the police had left for the day, several Yitzhar settlers ventured into the valley. One was on horseback and rode all around the valley, occasionally stopping to peer down the slope at the Palestinian harvesters, silently slumped in his saddle. Five others were play fighting with each other, kicking and jostling along the roadside. All six of them finally retreated to a tin shack that Yitzhar inhabitants set up only a few days ago, jumping their horse over a fence over and over again and whooping with laughter. The villagers of Urif watched from the other side of the valley, now cold in the shadow cast by the mountain opposite, the smug profile of Yitzhar taunting them as it shone in the afternoon sun.

A row of identical white houses on the rim of a valley. This is the challenge that drives the villagers of Urif to get out of their beds in the morning and face the fear that otherwise would consume them. It’s tiring, as witnessed on the face of mayor Abu Ammar. But, as he says “it is the only way to live. We must go on, or give up and be shamed in front of our children.”

Asira Al-Qibliye, Saturday 11th November

“No, no, I’m not going up there”, our driver says, shaking his head and stepping down from the military-made roadblock. “It is too dangerous. I am sorry, you will have to go on your own.” We look down at the fork in the settler by-pass road. A large sign saying “Yitzhar” points up the hill. On the West side of the road leading up to the Yitzhar colony is a large olive grove with trees in tidy rows, but in order to get there the Palestinian owners of the land, from the village of Asira Al-Qibliye, have to cross one major settler thoroughfare and then trek up along another.

Six years ago, the elderly mother of one of the farmers was shot in the stomach by settlers from Yitzhar and had to undergo extensive surgery. The settlers had come down to physically assault the olive harvesters. Since then, the farmers have been reluctant to go to their land for fear of further settler harassment. The land is overgrown with thorns and untended, yet the branches of the trees still weigh down heavily with big juicy olives.

About twenty women and two men from several different families harvested their olives today, in a big rush to finish before the settlers would detect them. Working quickly and efficiently, and yet still finding the time and composure to sing one or two songs in honour of the beautiful sunny day, they were able to finish without any Israeli interference.

by ISM Nablus, 5th November

Yesterday, the checkpoint known to Nablusians as “Sabatash” was closed to everyone trying to pass it in both directions. Located at a narrow bend in the road, flanked by a steep mountainous slope and a watchtower overlooking an olive grove valley running beside a military road, this checkpoint is notorious for its violent and trigger-happy soldiers. Every day, this checkpoint denies people living north of Nablus city their freedom of movement, as well as preventing the transport of such diverse but equally essential goods as sewage pipes and olive oil to the villages of Asira Ash-Shamalia, An-Naqura and Sebastiya.

By midday, the line of buses, trucks and private cars was already several hundred meters long. The Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint were forcing the young men to get out of their vehicles and lift up their shirts so as to prove that they were not wearing explosive belts around their waists. According to eyewitness reports, 24-year old Haythem Yaseen refused to submit to this humiliating procedure and began to argue with one of the soldiers. In front of the line of waiting students, farmers and workers, the soldier then shot Haythem in the leg with live ammunition as punishment.

“He is a beautiful, gentle man”, said one of Haythem’s fellow students, 22-year old Yusef Hashaka. “He was only standing up for himself and for us. And then they shot him.” Shortly after sustaining his injury, Haythem was abducted by Israeli forces and taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

At half past eight, the line of stationary vehicles had grown even longer and most of the male passengers were standing on the verge of the road smoking or jumping up and down in an attempt to keep warm. The soldiers at the checkpoint were saying that their only job was to make sure that the checkpoint would close at eight o’clock and that any people who were still waiting on the Nablus side would have to return to the city, despite the fact that the checkpoint had in practice been closed since two o’clock in the afternoon.

The people, furious at the situation and without money for taxis or anywhere to sleep over in the city, refused to move and stood behind the razor-wire rolled over both car lanes, waiting for a second decision. By this time, most of them had been waiting for over six hours in the cold and rain. After some negotiation on the part of international human rights workers, women, elderly men and children were allowed to pass.

By ten o’clock in the evening, there were about 150 young men left on the Nablus side of the checkpoint. The soldiers were unusually nervous and jumpy throughout the evening, pointing their guns at and scanning their strobe light across the crowd. After further negotiation, they finally agreed to let the young men through in two buses. As the men finally, after eight hours of delay, got into the buses and waved goodbye, Palestinian sources reported that there were large numbers of Israeli special forces and soldiers in the city which would have made it impossible for the men to return to Nablus.

Denied passage through the checkpoint to Asira Ash-Shamalia, the group of human rights workers took refuge on the porch of a nearby mosque until able to return to the city safely. Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters took place throughout the Old City for several hours but no one was injured. Two Palestinian men were abducted and are currently being held in an unknown location.

For more information contact ISM Nablus: 059 907 6568

by ISM Nablus, 4th of November 2006

Today, Palestinian farmers from Azmut village north of Nablus city were attacked on their land by a gang of Israeli settlers, who were accompanied by two soldiers. The settlers ran after the families, shouted and threw stones at them. At one point they kicked and hit international volunteers, who had come to help the farmers pick olives. The group of settlers, aged from around eight to twenty, came from the settlement of Elon Moreh two kilometres away from the village.

This year’s olive harvest has been difficult for the people of Azmut. This is the third time this week that farmers from the village were forced off their land. Five days ago an armed settler stopped nearby and used a megaphone to threaten families picking olives, intimidating them into leaving. Yesterday, a group of settlers chased the farmers off their land. The farmers, knowing the violence that has come from these settlers in the past and the extreme views of those in the Elon Moreh settlement, didn’t want to risk any injuries and subsequently left.

This morning the farmers had to begin their work by picking up all the olives that settlers had thrown across the ground the previous night. They had only harvested for about forty minutes, when two soldiers approached and told them that “there is no coordination today, come back tomorrow”.

The international volunteers attempted to negotiate with the soldiers about the families’ legal right to access their land at any time, but after a couple of minutes a gang of around 25 settler children and young people suddenly descended down the hill towards the groves. The families had no time to collect their tools and olive sacks as they were forced to flee.

As the settlers approached the families and international volunteers, they stopped by the soldiers to pick up and throw stones. As they got closer one volunteer was kicked by a settler. Other volunteers were hit with rocks, one volunteer seemingly because he was recording the attack with a video camera. All of this happened with soldiers standing by and making no attempt to stop the settlers or to protect the families and the international volunteers, in spite of their legal obligations under Israeli law to stop settler attacks.

Elon Moreh is one of the oldest settlements in the northern West Bank and has explicitly expressed its purpose: to block the creation of a Palestinian state. The 1200 or so inhabitants are infamous for their religious and violent extremism. They have been involved in a number of serious attacks on Palestinian villages, where they have burnt down trees, attacked Palestinians and in some cases killed them.

This settler attack is just another example of the harassment that Palestinians face. Checkpoints, settler-only roads and military harassment all serve to keep them away from their land and livelihoods. The villagers of Azmut are afraid. But they are also determined to go back to their land, even in the face of such violence, to continue their harvest and to keep their land.

For more information on Elon Moreh, see this entry on the Peace Now website.