18th July 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Burin, occupied Nablus
At the beginning of July the local committee of Burin invited to the town`s 8th Kite Festival of the City. The festival is kind of a tradition for this town, but has not taken place for the last three years, because the main organiser and head of the Burin Youth Committee, Target Organisation for Rural Development, Ghassan Najar was in prison, having been arrested for hosting the last Kite Festival in 2014.
Festivities on the hill
Burin is a small village west of Nablus with 2,000 inhabitants.
Around 400 people participated in the festival, which saw the community organise food, water and music for the attendees, who gathered on a hill in the north of the village. Families from Burin, children form the Jordan Valley and also kids from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus were able to come together to spend a sunny day in the hills and to compete to see whose kite flew highest. The children brought colourful, handmade kites, the men danced and the women handed out delicious homemade treats. The atmosphere was full of peace and joy.
Children with their kites
Every child got a medal as memento for this great day after the competition was over.
Some children proudly showing their medals
The main organiser, Ghassan, has been head of the Target Organisation for Rural Development for several years. This Committee is heavily targeted by the Israeli forces: 25 of the 40 members were once detained up to three years without a charge, laptops were stolen, their belongings were broken and relatives of the members threatened.
Balloons flying in the sky
Military raids are common in Burin, as it is located directly next to the illegal Ariel settlement and surrounded by illegal military and settler outposts. Settlers are constantly threatening the farmers of the village when they go out to work on their land. A huge part of the land is not even accessible for the farmers, as entering the property which is close to the settlement is simply to dangerous. Settler violence is one of the major problems of the community: burned olive trees, stolen olives and harassment are part and parcel of the olive harvest season.
31st March 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Madama, occupied Palestine
Palestinians gathered in Madama village to plant olive trees during Land Day
Thursday the 30th of March was Land Day, a day in which Palestinians and their supporters commemorate the loss of huge amounts of land, stolen by the Zionist colonisers in 1976. In Madama village, in the Nablus area, around 300 Palestinian activists with some internationals marched to the outskirts of their village to plant olive trees on village land which has been stolen by the extremist illegal settlement Yitzhar. This non-violent action came under heavy attack by the Israeli Forces with more than 45 people shot with rubber-coated metal bullets and many more suffering from tear gas inhalation.
At around 12pm the march set off from the centre of Madama with many people carrying flags and singing songs, including women, children and men.After climbing a steep street up onto the fields at the edge of the village people began to plant olive trees. There were Israeli Army vehicles and around 20 heavily armed soldiers waiting for the demonstration on the hillside. As people began to plant olive trees the soldiers started to shoot tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets without any warning. Despite this repression, people continued to plant trees and a small group of people responded to the tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets with stones.
Israeli settlers stood next to the Israeli Forces while tear gas was being shot
Over the next two hours or so, the Israeli forces became more and more aggressive firing rubber-coated metal bullets at anyone who was there, often at head height. If someone was injured and on the floor they would fire upon them again and at the people coming to rescue them, even if they were clearly marked as medics. According to the Red Crescent at least 45 people were injured by rubber-coated metal bullets throughout the demonstration. An activist from ISM was also shot with both a rubber-coated metal bullet and hit with a tear gas canister upon their lower legs whilst providing medical support to the injured.
Extremist settlers from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar also came to attack the demonstration with stones. They were held off by the people of the demonstration and after talking to the army sat and watched the Israeli forces fire upon unarmed demonstrators.
More than 45 people suffered injuries and needed assistance
Despite this extreme repression of a group of unarmed demonstrators, people did not leave until all the trees were planted, demonstrating that this is their land and they will not be threatened into not using it.
The villages around the illegal Yitzhar settlement have suffered a huge amount since it was set up in 1983. The extremist inhabitants of this settlement regularly attack Palestinians with impunity, sometimes even killing them. They regularly intimidate Palestinians off their farm lands, attack buildings and lands in the local villages, throw stones at Palestinian cars, and, block roads, these attacks are done with the protection of the Israeli Army. Yitzhar is just one example of the over 196 illegal settlements built throughout the West Bank, supported by Israel, but deemed illegal by the international community.
Assira al Quiblya is a West Bank village up on a hill between Huwwara and Nablus. But unfortunately, it is not sufficiently uphill enough to be free and safe from the Yitzhar settlement. This settlement, one of the most active in assaults, makes life more and more difficult for the Palestinian inhabitants.
Illegal colonial settlement Yitzhar
For many years Assira has faced the violence of the same script the rest of the occupied territories has faced: night raids, tear gas, sound bombs, and destruction of properties. There is tremendous fear, and the loss of peace and safety.
Currently, Assira is faced with a new problem, not coming from Yitzhar (for the moment), but from its own authorities – those who have the duty to protect its people. It’s hard to believe, but the Village Council has decided, without any consultation with the population, to open a road that will allow the settlers to reach the village more easily and quickly.
The path starts at the edge of Assira and this naturally frightens a lot the people living there, as they are completely exposed to the potential assaults from their extremists neighbors. In order to open the track, they will have to uproot olive trees, a source of both possible income and an important symbol for the Palestinian people. There has been no permission from the owners for this. Wasn’t there sufficient suffering and uncertainty already?
A group of citizens have gone to the Regional Authority hoping to find help to stop the project. It is absurd that the Palestinian people now must fight against the organising body that are supposed to be in charge of defending their rights. It is already a difficult situation caused by the violence of the illegal colonizing settlers and soldiers of the Israeli Occupation Forces.
The struggle continues for this community. Latest news states that the illegal colonial settlers have built a tower near the houses in order to continue to expand their territory.
Is there no end to their bullying?
Link to OCHA report from 2012 of settlement violence on the Palestinian village: https://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_yitzhar_map_february_2012_map_english.pdf
12th November 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwwara team | Kafr Qalil, occupied Palestine
For the past six days, international activists joined a Palestinian farmer, Fares Deek, in the harvest of his olives outside Kafr ad Dik village, located inside Salfit governate. For the past 16 years, the area has been a target of expanding illegal Israeli settlements.
Fares field is today surrounded at the north, east and west sides by Lashem settlement, started in 2010, with 700 units inhabited and another large number under construction.
Military check-point at the metal road gate
“They surrounded all my land and cut my road coming to my land. When they finish, I think I cannot come to my land.” Fares explained about the situation he is living in.
Fares reported that until now, Israelies, have stolen 700 dunums to build Lashem, leaving seven families that own fields in the same hill, without their land, only to establish this illegal settlement.
“They stole all my neighbors lands from the north and the east. In the future maybe in the south, maybe me.”
Bulldozer expanding Lashem colony
Eight months ago, bulldozers destroyed the agriculture road that used to lead up to Fares field.
Lashem has also cut him off the road to another field he owns, now on the north of Lashem illegal colony.
It used to take Fares 5 minutes to drive from Kafr ad Dik to the land, but to reach it now he has to cross a valley, after driving through Der Ballut and Rafat villages, then he needs to climb for half an hour to the top of the mountain where the field is. The last time he visited that field for the harvest was in 2013. The time and the money needed makes it hardly worth the out-put anymore.
Fare’s mother watching the destruction of her land
Two other settlements, Pedu’el to the south and Ale Zahav, behind Lashem, to the east complete to enclose his field. Just like Lashem, the illegal colony of Pedu’el, is also being expanded. Also to the north of Kafr ad Dik, the village Fares lives in, the new illegal settlement of “Sahar” is being formed on top of the mountain that Palestinians know as, Daher Subeh.
The area is being advertised as a quiet, peaceful place for Israelis to move to, according to Fares Deek.
“Israeli wants to encourage people to live here. As living cost is less, all the water you want is available, good for factories and no taxes!
maybe in the future in Salfit area all the mountains will become settlements.”
Bulldozer working in Pedu’el illegal settlement
“They work quickly, building new units, they look carefully at Salfit area. Compare Jerusalem area and Salfit area, they are doing the same.”
During the first day of the harvest, many settler colonists showed up at Fares field. Some of the colonists where openly carrying firearms and monitored the family while picking their olives.
“I have a bad feel about zionism. About anyone who came to take your land, to take your freedom, and take your hope. How would anyone in the world feel if he had to go through all this?
What that can make people feel? A bad feeling”
There is a well in Fares land that he used to use for drinking water, but 6 years ago after settlerers started to throw down big rocks and to take baths inside it, he couldn’t use it any more.
Dust is being spread from the bulldozers working on Lashem, causing damages for the olive trees.
Bulldozer working at the edge of Farres land at the place where they cut his agricultural road.
“All the years the harvest suffers because of the dust. The olive trees cannot breath good air because of the dust. They are between life and death.”
As we drove with the family towards the field the second morning harvesting, the Israeli army had put up a check-point at a metal road gate in the exit of Kafr ad Dik. The team was stopped for a total of 28 minutes by the four soldiers that were operating this checkpoint. Even though Fares said that he was going to pick his olives, the soldiers demanded to check IDs and kept asking questions.
When we finally got told to leave, Fares said that this was a common occurrence.
“They are doing this only to stress the people.”
This road gate was closed for 5 years between 2000 and 2005, forcing the people of Kafr al Dik to take an alternative route in order to exit the village, Fares explained.
Fares also reported that he has frequent visits from the Israeli forces while working in his field. He explained that there is a military tower in Pedu’el and sometimes the army will arrive very quickly after he enters the field.
“They tell me I have to have a permit to bring people here. I tell them that this is my land I’ll bring people here anytime I want. Sometimes they tell me you have to go back before the sunset. This makes me afraid about the future, about the land, what will happen in the future. I’m not having big problem now, but they will finish the units and come to live here in Lashem, they will tell me “you have no permit to come here”. Maybe they will put gates, fences. That is the future”
Also he thinks that Lashem will be finished in one to two years and that he is not sure if he will be able to harvest the olives next year.
“I’m afraid about the future, about the situation in Palestine, about Salfit, about my village. Israel is building more and more units in all settlements and started to build three new settlements since 2010 till now. That means cut more and more land, making new streets. Where is the solutions if they build more and more? The idea of a Palestinian state will die. And the pressure on Palestinians is always more. That is very bad”
“I want to tell people that we suffer and I invite people to visit Palestine to see with their own eyes to know who has the right to live here. I want to encourage Palestinian people to stay in the land as well.”
2nd November 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwwara team | Kafr Qalil, occupied Palestine
On 31st October international activists joined a Palestinian farmer and his family in Kafr Qalil to pick their olives. There was no interruption during the harvest this day, but there was a strong sense of pressure that is always present for Palestinians living under Israel’s illegal military occupation. The land that was worked on is between the illegal Israeli settlement Bracha and the road that leads up to the settlement. The family has been attacked and physically assaulted by settler colonists from Bracha in the past.
The main road to Nablus in-between the two Israeli apartheid roads. The road in the foreground leads to Bracha illegal settlement and the road seen above the main road leads to Elon Moreh settler colony.
The farmer reported that he was only given 6 days of permission by Israel to finish harvesting his own land, but said that he would need at least 20 days to be able to pick the olives from all of the around 300 trees that he owns.
Farmers in the village of Kafr Qalil have been targeted in settler attacks over several years. There have been various reports of settler colonists stealing crops, farming equipment, animals and throwing rocks at the Palestinian families as they harvest. Israeli forces have also repeatedly stopped farmers from reaching their land.
Teargas canister found leaving the olive fields after the day’s harvest.
The village has also lost land to the illegal settlement Bracha and its outpost, both of which are built on land that belongs to Kafr Qalil and the nearby Palestinian village of Burin.
In May 2013 Israel issued a military order that confiscated a further 3.55 dunums of land that belongs to Kafr Qalil in addition to the many dunums stolen over the years to establish and spread the illegal settlements in the area as well as to be used by the Israeli forces.
Furthermore, Israel has confiscated land from Kafr Qalil to construct two bypass roads. One road links the illegal Bracha settlement with the nearby Huwwara military checkpoint and the other road provides exclusive access for settler colonists between the same checkpoint and another illegal Israeli colony, Elon Moreh. These roads can only be used by Israelis and Palestinians are forbidden from driving on them. The Israeli bypass roads are one example of the apartheid-like system Palestinians are forced to live with under Israel’s illegal military occupation.
