Tag: Olive Trees

Call to action: Olive Harvest 2017

10th July 2017 | International Solidarity Movement | Ramallah, occupied Palestine

At a time of regular settler violence in the West Bank, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is issuing an urgent call for volunteers to join us for the 2017 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.

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.

Palestinian woman protests the destruction of the olive trees

ISM volunteers join Palestinian farming communities each year to harvest olives, in areas where Palestinians face settler and military violence when working their land. 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 start-October and run until  mid-November.  We request a minimum 2 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 we are prepared when the harvest begins.
Israeli soldier stands next to Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives

Training

The ISM will be holding mandatory two day training sessions which will run weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please contact palreports@gmail.com for further information.

Ongoing campaigns

In addition to the olive harvest, there will be opportunities to participate in grass-roots, non-violent resistance in Palestine.

ISM maintains a constant presence in Hebron, 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 have used the 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 Khalil’s population and even schoolchildren. As harassment, humiliation and violence became a daily occurrence, ISM is present to document these extremely violent responses, and to serve as a protective presence.

In addition to these activities, we participate in the weekly demonstrations in Kafr Qaddum, Nabi Saleh, Ni’lin and others where our presence is requested and protesters face excessive force by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

Come! Bear witness to the suffering, courage and generosity of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.

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.

In Solidarity,

ISM Palestine

Palestinians denied passage for Friday prayer in Deir Istiya

6th May 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Deir Istiya, occupied Palestine

Israeli forces prevent Palestinians to access their own lands for Friday prayer in Deir Istiya

Yesterday, 5th May, for the second week in a row , a group of Palestinians gathered in the olive groves, just outside Deir Istiya, district of Salfit, for their Friday prayer.

Before the prayer even started, a group of Israeli soldiers denied them passage to an open space near Highway 5066, which connects Tel Aviv to the illegal settlement of Ariel, stating that the prayer would have to take place at least 300 meters away from the road. After harassement and threats from the soldiers, who temporarily restrained Riziq Abu Nasser, one of the leaders of the peaceful protest, another group of soliders was called to the spot, with the Israeli police lingering not far from there. Pictures and videos of the protesters were taken and the Friday prayer ended up taking place where the growing number of Israeli soldiers allowed. The crowd dispersed soon after the prayer was over, in a peaceful manner.

Palestinians gathered in the olive groves, next to Highway 5066, start their prayer

This is the second time the inhabitants of Deir Istiya try to peacefully demonstrate against the construction of the highway, that rendered inaccessible their farmlands on the other side of the road. Last year, 15 demonstrations took place in Deir Istiya, and they were heavily repressed and followed by night raids into the village.

Israeli forces temporarily restrain the leader of the peaceful protest

After contacts between Israeli authorities, the Salfit Governorate and Deir Istiya municipality, along with the Israeli promise that a new agricultural road would be built, the population agreed to put a stop to the demonstrations. The new road would allow Deir Istiya’s farmers to regain acess not to their own lands – around 2000 dunums in the valley of Wadi Qana – but also to neigbouring villages. The construction of Highway 5066 has become a check-point for Deir Istiya inhabitants, forcing them to walk more than 2 km to access their lands without ensuring their own safety and preventing them to take their cattle, tractors or other machinery with them. Frequent attacks from settlers have also been reported, with no response.

The frequent harassment, both by Israeli Occupation Forces and settlers, as well as the inability to take care of their own lands and crops has led, according to Abu Nasser, to a growing dependency on imported agricultural products and to a serious population loss. Still his belief on peaceful resistance as the best mean to send a message to Israeli authorities remain unchallenged.

Palestinian farmers from Deir Istiya have their Friday prayer while being watched by Israeli soldiers

Olive tree planting in the village of Bruqin

Photo: ISM/Charlie Donnelly

9th April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Bruqin, occupied Palestine

On 8th April 2017 an ISM team joint Abu Skander, a farmer from the village of Bruqin, Salfit district, to plant 30 new olive trees on his field within the village. The village is located close to the illegal Israeli settlement of Bruchin and several others.

Since the beginning of 2017, the Israeli water company Mekorot has started to build new water and sewage pipelines for nearby illegal Israeli settlements, on private Palestinian farmland near Bruqin. Abu Skander found six trees cut down and 14 trees were damaged, after the company first started its work on 30th January. This happened during the building of a temporary street on the field, as first step of the construction activities. Three of his neighbors lost another 20 olive trees and many more were damaged at this time. In total 2.5 dunums of agricultural land has been destroyed so far.

Construction work on Palestinian land for illegal Israeli settlements

Approximately two weeks ago, the company started to lay the pipes while the farmers were trying to talk to the construction workers and preventing them from destroying their fields, sometimes by standing in front of the bulldozers. The Israeli army was eventually called in. After some arguing, the Israeli forces eventually requested the construction workers to leave the site due to an existing agreement. The agreement states that no trees should be cut down and the land has to be given back after finishing the construction work. Nevertheless, this agreement was reached between the Israeli civilian administration and the water company, without any approval or voice from the farmers.

The construction workers then continued to work on a different part of the field without olive trees. However, after a few days the company returned to work on the other field and as a result, even more trees were cut down and damaged. This time the Israeli army told the farmers that they would come with army vehicles and destroy everything themselves, if they keep resisting. The laying of the pipes is currently ongoing, which makes it impossible for the farmers to return and work on their fields.

The construction of the water infrastructure for the illegal Israeli settlement has not just caused already considerable agricultural losses; it is also a threat to the health of the farmers. One of the farmers suffered an anxiety attack, after he was exposed to the stressful and exhausting situation of seeing his livelihood being destroyed. He was treated in hospital with an intravenous drip and oxygen for several hours; and still has to take medication because of the after effects.

Although the company offered a compensation (either new trees or money), which Abu Skander has rejected, the economic loss is still much higher and he simply demands that they leave his land. It needs years of hard work and resources until the new olive trees bear the same amount of fruits than the already 45yo, which were destroyed. It is not just, that for the construction and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements private Palestinian land often gets confiscated or damaged; despite plentiful water resources, the water supply for the Palestinian residents in the area is highly restricted, whereas, this is not the case for the illegal Israeli settlements.

The town of Bruqin, in the Salfit municipality, is surrounded by a string of illegal Israeli settlements belonging to the ‘Ariel finger’ – a stretch of illegal settlements that carves in deep into the West Bank in an attempt to split the West Bank in two. These settlements have also been exposed as unlawfully dumping untreated waters and sewage onto Palestinian land. The residents of Bruqin are regularly subjected to harassment by settlers and the Israeli army. The farmers are often verbally and physically attacked whilst working on their fields or are even denied access to their own land by the Israeli army.

Wadi Qana’s Palestinian farmers endure another mass tree uprooting

5th April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

Just days after Palestinians commemorated Land Day, a day which marks the struggle against the Israeli government’s expropriation of Palestinian land, farmers of Wadi Qana endured another mass uprooting and theft of their trees.
Speaking from his home in the Salfit district village of Deir Istiya, Palestinian activist Rezeq Abu Nasser cited the frustrating chronology, “This is the third time they took my trees.  They stole them in 2013 and 2015 as well.”  He then handed ISM volunteers the Arabic/Hebrew notice that he found posted on a fence he erected at a cost of over 1,000 NIS to protect his trees.  Abu Nasser’s fence was also dismantled and seized along with 25 of his trees.

Palestinian farmers received warrants stating their trees were threatened.

The notice received by four Palestinian farmers demands that they uproot their own trees or face arrest and/or fines to cover the cost of Israeli occupation forces uprooting the trees for them.  Soon after, 135 trees were uprooted and stolen during the small hours of morning after several bulldozers entered the valley, hauled large stones into the road to block the entryway and rammed through part of a 40 meter stone wall to access the trees.

Citing environmental justifications for these aggressive acts of theft, an Israeli government spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territory was quoted as saying that the trees were uprooted due to their “damaging the natural view and value of the nature resort.”  Claiming the act to be one of protection of the view of a lush valley from the sight of trees is even more absurd, given that the Israeli forces left a partially demolished stone wall and broken tree limbs scattered atop a small field of holes where the trees once took root.

While speaking to the Mayor of Deir Istiya, his office produced copies of the issued warrants for the threatened trees and the generations old British land deeds affirming the farmers’ rights to their ancestral land. The Mayor of Deir Istiya described arriving at the Wadi Qana immediately after being alerted to the uprootings in progress, only to find the road blockage Israeli forces left to keep farmers and residents from defending their land.  As for the stone wall, he claimed,”This is a new experience for us that they demolished the stones.”

The farmers who lost their trees, tantamount to their livelihood, plan to continue their struggle against these incursions by furthering their cases with the local municipality. As for Abu Nasser, “I’m going to replant them again.”

URGENT ACTION: Four Palestinian Human Rights Defenders arrested facing military trial

1st April 2017  |  International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team  |  Hebron, occupied Palestine 

The four human rights activists arrested three days ago on Thursday 30th March on a peaceful Land Day protest action now face the Israeli military court at Ofer tomorrow, 2nd April.  They are charged with participating in an illegal demonstration and being in a closed military zone.  They were in fact exercising their human rights of freedom of expression and assembly.

All four belong to the Dismantle the Ghetto Coalition and the ISM team here in al-Khalil has been working with and supporting their actions.

Please act immediately in Hebrew, English or your own language:

• Call the Israeli embassy consulate and demand the immediate release of the four activists.
• Call the Israeli embassy consulate and demand the Israeli authorities immediately drop all charges against the four activists.
• Demand an immediate end to the continued harassment of the four activists and other human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

For more information:

https://sjungsta.wordpress.com/2017/03/31/urgent-action-four-palestinian-human-rights-defenders-arrested-facing-military-trial/