Tag: Olive Trees - Page 21 - International Solidarity Movement

Yitzhar settlers violently crash Burin wedding, military watches

6 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

While villagers were celebrating a wedding in the small village of Burin, Israeli arsonists from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar seized the opportunity to set ablaze olive groves, destroying over 200 olive trees.

On September 5th at 5 AM, locals in the village of Burin and other surrounding areas awoke to the crashing sound of stones pelting their parked vehicles. The harassment continued, and at 3:15pm during a village party, settlers from the neighboring, illegal settlement of Yitzhar began to assault the village from the hilltops by rolling burning tires towards olive orchards.

Five tires were thrown at the groups of olive trees in a measured attempt to ensure maximum damage. When the Israeli army arrived the settlers began to stroll back towards the settlement, with soldiers closing off the road to prevent a fire truck from reaching the fire.

A number of villagers, who were at the wedding, left and started to make their way towards their olive groves, yet were stopped by Israeli military.

“The settlers were masked, and one settler had a video camera and was filming the event,” said Ghassan, a local of Burin.

As the illegal settlers stood to watch the trees burning, they were joined by a second group of settlers from a neighboring outposts. 5 families lost a total of over 200 trees due to this particular instance. Over 4000 olive trees have been uprooted or burnt by the illegal settlers from Yitzhar, which was erected in 1984.

This follows suit with the “price tag campaign” Yitzhar has famously coined, attacking Palestinians violently to wage a toll on their existence, while Israelis and Palestinians call on the Israeli military to stop condoning such attacks as the time for harvesting olives nears. International Solidarity Movement will be actively working during this time to safeguard Palestinians and assist in harvesting despite violent threats made by settlers throughout the West Bank.

For more information on ISMs Olive Harvest Campaign, visit our website.

We will not be uprooted–tree planting in Fasayel

26 June 2011 | Jordan Valley Solidarity

Today local and international activists joined families affected by last week’s demolitions in the Palestinian community of Fasayel in the occupied Jordan Valley as they planted 300 olive trees on their land. At around 5pm a group of 25 Palestinian and international activists joined 10 families whose homes were destroyed last week by the Israeli military (see article and video). The group planted olive trees for nearly 3 hours, putting down new roots in defiance of Israel’s brutal attempts to ethnically cleanse the village. Many of the trees were labeled with the names of Palestinian villages destroyed during the 1967 occupation, a symbolic act meant to connect the history of ethnic cleansing in Palestine to the ethnic cleansing taking place today in Fasayel.

On June 14, 2011, the Israeli army destroyed the homes of 18 families in the village of Fasayel. The families have been without shelter for over a week now, and have still received no meaningful aid. While several families have left the area, many others have remained steadfast on their land, and are determined to rebuild their lives.

Olive trees destroyed outside Bethlehem

31 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

This morning Maher Abu Sab’a’ discovered that 248 out of the 250 olive tree saplings that had recently been planted on his land had been destroyed over-night. The saplings which had been planted three months previously had been systematically uprooted from the earth and broken with their remains left scattered over the earth. The land is situated outside Bethlehem next to a number of illegal Israeli settlements including Kiryat Arba, one of the largest illegal settlement in the West Bank with approximately 10,000 inhabitants. The attack took place right next to the Israeli checkpoint and watch tower on road 60, however it would appear that there was no intervention in the attack. Last year Maher lost all of the almond and grape trees from his land when settlers set light to the same field. He now plans to re-plant all of the trees he has lost.

Green Palestine marks Nakba day

19 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Palestinians planting a tree to mark one of the villages wiped out in 1948

With the creation of Israel in 1948, four hundred and eighteen Palestinian villages were wiped out and destroyed, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people from homes they had lived in for generations. This year on May 17, in further commemoration of the Nakba (the Catastrophe), the ISM joined the Palestinian organisation Green Palestine in planting olive trees in the village of Al Tayba, near Jenin in the north of the West Bank. After each tree was planted a laminated tag with the name of each individual village was tied to a branch.

Arwad and Fakreh Adiri, two Palestinian activists for the Green Palestine, put together a schedule of events over the Nakba period, which included 63 horses (standing for 63 years of exile) riding to Jenin, 418 bicyclists wearing the names of the 418 villages cycling for 3 kilometres to the centre of Jenin and an Ambulance alarm sounding during a 63 second silence in which the whole of Jenin observed.

ISM talked with Arwad, one of the organizers of the event.

What has been the aim of today?
To tell the young people that these 418 villages existed. The Palestinian people are patient enough to wait to go back home. We chose Al Tayba as it is next to the 1948 border, the wall has split this village so half of it is in Palestine and the other half is in Israel, leaving families cut off from each other.

This is just the beginning, we are planning to turn this into Haifa’s garden, we will invite other districts in Palestine to come and visit and also put an information board in French, German and English to tell this story so that we raise awareness in the international community.

What is the significance of planting trees?
Olive trees are the strongest trees in Palestine, they last for hundreds of years. This is to indicate that our roots will remain in Palestine, we are going deep in the ground and we will stand tall.

What do you think the future of Palestine will be?
That’s a very hard question but I will be honest… as long as we have internationals coming to Palestine, we see the light coming close. And I don’t mean governments I mean regular people like you. We feel like we have solidarity which is more important to us, it will take longer this way ´[to bring about change] but finally I’m sure we can and we will have change, Inshallah.

I am for having Israel as a state, but living all together. Don’t steal my stuff, let’s share it or leave it alone. Look at this water issue, settlers use 80% of the water available to Palestine and the rest of us have just 20% because they dig their wells deeper. They are stealing. It is not fair.

Army fires on Iraq Burin during olive tree planting

10 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Bullets and tear gas were fired upon Palestinians and internationals whilst they planted olive trees on the land legally owned by the village of Iraq Burin yesterday.

The popular committee asked for a group of internationals to assist them in planting olive trees on the village land which is close to an army out post and the illegal Israeli settlement of Bracha. The trees were successfully planted even under the aggressive presence of the Israeli Army.

As the trees where being planted one army jeep came close and was a looming presence as local people took the chance to go further into the land to pick “akoub” (a plant used for cooking.)

After some 20 minutes, another jeep turned up, and the heavily armed soldiers started moving towards the people. One of the soldiers was seen aiming his gun directly at one of the boys.

When one boy, who in a symbolic act of resistance, threw a stone towards the soldiers in the far distance, they responded by firing shots and tear gas directly at the people, who had to run and duck to avoid being hit. More shots where fired at the youth but it is not clear if they were live or rubber coated steel bullets. However, what was clear was the completely disproportionate use of weapons and force on people partaking in a peaceful act of planting trees.

Despite the dangerous aggression of the Israeli army all 50 olive trees were planted on the hillside and three in the local cemetery – one for each of the boys that were killed in the village in the last year. On 19th March 2010, 16-year-old Muhammed Qadus, together with his cousin Asaud Qadus were shot and killed by the Israeli Army during a peaceful demonstration. On the 27th January this year, 19-year-old Oday Maher Hamza Qadous was shot dead by a settler on the hilltop just outside the village.