October 22, 2018 |International Solidarity Movement | Bruqin, Occupied Palestine
ISM volunteers spent the day harvesting olives with farmers in Bruqin village, a day that began with Israeli soldiers confronting the farmer and his family and ordering them to leave their land no later than 5 p.m. Since the harvest workday typically concludes around 4 p.m., this did not prove an obstacle for the harvesters. But it was a potent reminder that the residents of Bruqin, a primarily agrarian village located in the fertile Salfit governorate area, continue to lose control over and access to their land due to ongoing Israeli military occupation.
In the last few decades, Israel has expropriated hundreds of dunams of land from Bruqin in order to build Israeli settlements, settlement “outposts,” military checkpoints, and Israeli-only settler by-pass roads. Bruqin village has existed since Roman times. Yet Israel’s historically recent military occupation is swiftly eroding this village’s existence.
Despite the vastness of the olive groves in which they were working, the buildings and vast structures of the hilltop settlements of Bruchin and Barkan Industrial Zone proved impossible for volunteers to overlook. These settlements are connected by settlement highway roads 5 and 446, which were both audible and visible from the land where volunteers were working. The sound of cars zooming by on the settler roads was ever-present.
Since its creation, Barkan Industrial Zone has pumped its wastewater into Bruqin’s agricultural land, causing pollution and the spread of disease in both humans and animals. As volunteers walked through the groves of olive trees, the stench of human waste was palpable, even in the middle of wide-open farmland. This “policy” is a continuation of past practice when Ariel, another nearby settlement, began channeling its sewage into the northeast side of the village more than twenty years ago.
Palestinians and ISM volunteers were able to harvest the rest of the day without further Zionist interference. In conversation with the farmer, however, ISMers asked the name of the settlement looming over them as they worked. They were initially confused by his answer, because it sounded as though he were simply saying the name of his own village. Carefully re-iterating and exaggerating the slight difference in pronunciation between “Bruqin” and “Bruchin” for his international listeners, the farmer explained, “They take everything. They take our land, they take our freedom. Then they take our names.”
Barkan pumps its wastewater into Bruqin’s agricultural land
October 7, 2018 | International Solidarity Movement | As-Sawiya, Occupied Palestine
A group of Israeli soldiers, one Israeli policeman, and one Israeli settler harassed a group of Palestinian and international olive pickers in As-Sawiya village yesterday, demanding identification and threatening to expel the harvesters from the area.
Soon after the group began work, they noticed security vehicles from the nearby settlement of Alia arrive and park along the settler road above them. The occupants of the vehicle got out of the car and stood along the road for some time, taking photographs of the olive pickers. Soon thereafter, a team of Israeli soldiers arrived, along with an Israeli police officer in an Israeli police vehicle. The soldiers and police officer immediately approached the olive pickers and asked for IDs. One Israeli soldier filmed the entire interaction with his mobile phone, while the police officer photographed the passports of all the international harvesters. He returned the passports immediately, but held onto the Palestinians’ IDs for a much longer period of time, walking away from the group to make a phone call and visibly sorting through the IDs. After the phone call, he appeared to photograph one or more of the Palestinian IDs before returning them. The officer then tried to tell the group that they needed to leave. The team refused, with the Palestinians insisting that this was their land and they were there for the olive harvest.
During the confrontation, a settler came and sat nearby, watching. After the confrontation, the settler, along with two Israeli soldiers, remained on the scene for an additional 20-30 minutes, trailing the olive pickers. Eventually all Zionists left and the rest of the day’s harvest proceeded without incident.
As-Sawiya is slowly being surrounded by Alia as it expands along three sides of the village and encroaches on its land. The particular area being harvested yesterday was among the closest to the Alia settlement.
International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine
Like here in Kafr ad-Dik illegal Israeli settlements were built close to the Palestinian farmers land. Settlers are not hesitant to harass and threaten the Palestinian families during the harvest.
Tthe International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is issuing an urgent call for volunteers to join us for the 2018 Olive Harvest Campaign at the invitation of Palestinian communities.
The olive tree is a national symbol for Palestinians. As thousands of olive trees have been bulldozed, uprooted and burned by Israeli settlers and the military —over half a million olive and fruit trees have been destroyed since September 2000—harvesting has become more than a source of livelihood; it has become a form of resistance.
The olive harvest is an annual affirmation of Palestinians’ historical, spiritual, and economic connection to their land, and a rejection of Israeli efforts to seize it. Despite efforts by Israeli settlers and soldiers to prevent them from accessing their land, Palestinian communities have remained steadfast in refusing to give up their olive harvest.
ISM volunteers join Palestinian farming communities “on the ground” each year to harvest olives, in areas where Palestinians face settler and military violence when working their land. Frequently, the Israeli administration sets farmers a very limited access and time to harvest their olives. In some areas, Palestinians face settler and military violence when working their land and harvesting their olives. Your presence can make a big difference, with Palestinian communities stating that the presence of international volunteers reduces the risk of extreme violence from Israeli settlers and the Israeli army.
We support Palestinians’ assertion of their right to earn their livelihoods and be present on their lands. International solidarity activists engage in non-violent intervention and documentation:practical support which enables many families to pick their olives.
The harvest will begin in early-October and run until mid-November. We request a minimum two-week commitment from volunteers but stress that long-termers are needed as well. We kindly ask volunteers to start arriving in the first week of October, so team are trained and well prepared when the harvest begins.
Training
ISM will host mandatory two-day training sessions for prospective volunteers before they do any work on the ground.
Please send an email to ismtraining@riseup.net to register as a volunteer.
Other ways to help: Donate
For those who can’t make it on this period and want to help they can donate or help in fundraising money.
Donating will help provide funds for farmers to hire unemployed Palestinians during olive harvest; especially women with little or no other income, university students wanting to earn money to cover school fees and living expenses, graduates waiting to get a paying job or others in need.
The main benefits of hiring Palestinians for olive harvest include: (1) supporting unemployed workers; (2) encouraging more Palestinians to work the land, to join their neighbours, to support the farmers; (3) getting more people “on the ground” supporting olive harvest, and ensuring a higher proportion of Palestinians to internationals; (4) enabling internationals to focus more on their special role as needed (recording, documentation, protection) versus just harvesting olives.
Your donation would enable ISM to contribute 50% of each wage a farmer pays to otherwise unemployed Palestinians, which will ensure a fair wage to the workers and still be affordable for the farmers. Your donation of US$30-40 or EUR25-35 (both about NIS100-150) can pay the wages of a harvester for one or two days with the contribution of a farmer.
In addition to the olive harvest, there will be opportunities to participate in others kinds of grass-roots, non-violent resistance in Palestine.
ISM maintains a constant presence in Hebron (Al-Khalil), where settler harassment and violence is a regular occurrence. Lately, Israeli army violence has escalated for Palestinians living close to the illegal inner-city settlement. Israeli forces use Palestinian neighborhoods for military training, and heavily repress any form of resistance, responding with collective punishment as they lob dozens of teargas canisters and stun grenades onto Hebron’s population: even schoolchildren. With harassment, humiliation and violence a daily occurrence, ISM is present to document these extremely violent responses, and to serve as a protective presence by joining children and teachers going to school and make sure they return safely (school runs).
Amongst other places, ISM practices documentation and presence in the Jordan Valley, Umm Al-Kheir (South Hebron Hills) and Khan Al-Ahmar to stand up against cleansing.
In addition to these activities, we participate in the weekly demonstrations in different regions in the West Bank, for example in Bel’in and Kafr Qadum where our presence is requested, protesters face excessive force by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and are threatened with house demolition orders, all adding up to ethnic cleansing.
Other regions where ISM is asked to participate against the Occupying power’s violations of Human Rights and other International Laws is in Occupied East-Jerusalem and areas in 48.
Experiencing the situation for yourself is vital to adequately convey the reality of life in Palestine to your home communities and to re-frame the debate in a way that will expose Israel’s apartheid policies; creeping ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem as well as collective punishment and genocidal practices in Gaza.
23rd October 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah-team | Bruqin, occupied Palestine
On October 21st, an ISM-team joined farmers in the village of Bruqin, Salfit district, for the olive harvest. The family’s fields are occupied by an illegal Israeli settlement and they are denied access to their land by the Israeli military except during the olive harvest.
A team of solidarity activists went to meet the farmers and set out to the olive fields together. The crop this year was very small as the access restriction prevents the farmers from caring for their trees during the year. The wild condition of the field made the harvest more difficult and less fruitful. Neither settlers nor military appeared during the harvest day.
In 1999, the illegal Israeli settlement Burchin was established near the village of Bruqin. The establishment of this illegal settlement led to local farmers being denied access to land which has belonged to their families for generations. In 2011, the settlement structure was expanded by several baracks, confiscating even more land. The illegal settlers have repeatedly harrassed the local farmers verbally, phyiscally and by also cutting down olive trees in their fields. Moreover, the local farmers are harrassed by the Israeli military every year, trying to deny them access to their land even on the day of the harvest. On one of the local family’s fields, the access restriction and harressment by settlers and military has led to a huge decrease in gain from the harvest from formerly 1000 kg of olives per season to now 30 kg of olives per season.
Apart from the harrassment and land restrictions, the nearby illegal industrial settlement Barkan streams its toxic waste water down into the village of Bruqin. This poses also an environmental threat to the olive harvest and the peoples’ health in the village in general.
The olive field is overgrown as the access restrictions prevent the local farmers from caring for their fields during the year
17th november 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwwara team | Burin, occupied Palestine
ķ The Israeli forces came to the family’s field
On monday morning, Mahmoud Yasser Eid, a 22 year-old palestinian from the village of Burin, was stopped by the Israeli forces as he went to pick olives with his mother, near the Huwwara checkpoint. The land, that the family has been harvesting for three years along with another family, is located between route 60 from Ramallah to Nablus, and the road leading to the Bracha illegal settlement. The family did not get a permit to harvest this year : “they don’t want us to work near this road because of the situation. They say it’s for safety”, said Mohammed, Mahmoud’s older brother. The family tried to access their land anyway, as olives are an important income to the family of nine children. “People here need the olives”, added Mohammed.
The Israeli forces came at around 8 am, as the mother and son were having breakfast in the field. They controlled and searched Mahmoud and made them both sit there for a few hours while they searched all their belongings. Mahmoud’s mother, Raeda, cried until the soldiers accepted not to arrest her son. They warned him that they would come to arrest him at his house if he tried to access the field again. “We didn’t sleep that night !” said Mahmoud.
During the last three years, the Yasser family was allowed to harvest on this field, but this year they were not granted permission to do so. A neighbour who was picking olives in his field nearby saw the scene and said “they [the israeli army] don’t want anyone to go to this land anymore”. The family thinks that they won’t be allowed to harvest the olives on their land in the next few years, as it is strategically located a few meters away from the main road, route 60, between Ramallah and Nablus, and near the Huwwara checkpoint.
The project of expanding part of route 60 to a wider road, with a financiel help from the US Aid, could explain the difficulties faced by Mahmoud’s family to access their land. The construction, that has already started, will make the road from Yizhar junction (west of Huwwara) to the palestinian village of Beita (east of Huwwara), through the town of Huwwara, a 21-meters wide road. This would lead to an even more limited access to the surroundings of the road for palestinian locals. “Some land might be taken by Israel”, carefully said Raed, from the Burin village council. The situation is already complicated at the moment for the villages close to route 60, and especially for Huwwara, a rare example of palestinian village crossed by a road used by both israeli settlers and Palestinians, that is under permanent surveillance from the Israeli forces.
Map of the Huwwara surroundings (ocha)
The “bypass-roads system”, was thought to enable “access to settlements and travel between settlements without having to pass through Palestinian villages”, according to a Bet’selem research from 2004. It has become a way to reinforce apartheid within the West Bank. According to the study from the Israeli organization, many of these roads had as a goal to refrain palestinian villages from expanding. And it had indeed refrained them.
