Tag: Ramallah

Brighton-Tubas Fellowship: Life in the women’s prison

Two days ago I attended a peaceful demonstration of villagers against the theft of their land by villagers. I found my self assaulted and ‘arrested’ by a settler with the acquiescence of the Isreali army, lied to by the Israeli police, dumped in the punishment block of the women’s prison, driven for miles to the Ministry of the Interior deportation centre, and eventually released because I had done nothing wrong. What would they have done to me if I was Palestinian?

Over the last week I have seen the heartache on the faces of the families of many Palestinian prisoners and the hollow looks in the eyes of those who have been incarcerated, as they have told me their stories of humiliation and degradation. Sitting in a prison cell, with no way of contacting the outside world, I began to grasp the enormity of what they had been telling me.

I know without a doubt that the Police and prison guards were being a little careful with us as internationals who had insisted on our right to contact our Consulate, to have legal representation, and to not sign the endless documents they put before us in Hebrew. But I still experienced the fear of sitting in a filthy dirty cell, not knowing how long I was going to be there. Then a young Palestinian woman in the cell next to us struck up a conversation. She had been sitting in cells for the last 2 years. Her youngest brother was shot by Israeli soldiers when he was 12, and all her other brothers were in prison. We knew our friends on the outside would be constantly worrying about us. What must her mother be going through? Her friend further down the block, and graduate of Beir Zeit University, had been there for 7 years. How had they survived this ordeal, and still had the energy to welcome us, and reassure us?

We thought it would be reasonable to expect such things as water, exercise, medical help, sleep and a phone call to the outside world. How wrong could we be? By the time we had gone 18 hours without water, having asked many, many times, we were given ‘water’ that was in fact orange squash that looked more like a urine sample sitting in our water bottle in the cell. When we questioned this the guards told us that there is no cold water supply in the prison and the prisoners never, ever get water. Soon afterwards we were told that we should be ready to ‘go out’ when it was our turn for the 1 hour of exercise we were entitled to in every 24 hours. We were quite excited at the prospect at leaving our cell until we saw that we would spend our precious hour in a hot concrete yard 20 x 25ft. We tried some stretches and walking around in circles, but found our motivation was quickly waning after a day of enforced sitting around doing nothing and not being able to sleep.

As we were in the ‘punishment’ block all the women around us were in solitary confinement. An Israeli woman nearby was clearly distressed by her situation. She must have used every ounce of energy she had to shout, scream, bang on her door with whatever she could find and cry endlessly. I was really worried that she would hurt herself, but the prison guards felt that ambling up to her cell and shouting at her intermittently was the appropriate response to this. As a result we had only 2 hrs respite when i assume she slept in the early hours of the morning. All the other prisoners were tired and stressed and shouting at her and each other through their cell doors. In the middle of all this racket the young women in the cell next to us sat at her cell door and sang the most beautiful song imaginable and I strained to listen to her and cut out all the noise around me to claim a few minutes of sanity. For this I have to thank her. When we hadn’t heard from our friend from Beir Zeit for some time we asked if she had left and were told that she was sleeping. Had she really had to get used to these torturous conditions to such an extent that she could now sleep through this constant noise?

As I had been told that we were arrested for 24 hours from 1.30pm on Friday I assumed that by 1.30pm on Saturday I would have to be released or go to court. Nothing is so simple. We were given different information by each prison guard that came along and felt a call to our solicitor was needed, so we asked for this. The reply: Yes, we were entitled to make a phone call but we needed a card. Could we buy a card with the money they had taken off us? No, they do not sell them.

Eventually they came to collect us at 7pm. They gave us our bags, then out came the handcuffs and shackles to be locked around our ankles. Did they really think we would try to run surrounded by police men and women with two guns each?

Throughout our time there the prison guards were nasty, uncooperative and sadistic without exception. I assume they will have developed their skill at treating people like animals in the two years they will have served in the army, and have been honing them ever since.

Brighton-Tubas Fellowship: Three British nationals go to trial after non-violent demonstration

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Brighton-Tubas Fellowship:

For more info contact Tom Hayes on 00447846506710 or Ann on 0522354477

***Update, after being sent to the Ministry of the Interior to begin the process of deportation, the three women were released.

Three British women, Kate Harrison, Caroline Bailey and Sarah Cobham representing the Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity group, were arrested during a non-violent protest at Al Mazra’a al Qibilya in the West Bank on Friday 26th October and will appear at 7pm this evening in the Jerusalem Peace Court, located in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem.

The women, aged 45, 60 and 62, who are facing deportation, are being charged this evening with “participating in an illegal demonstration“, “damaging a barbed wire fence” belonging to settlers erected on Palestinian land and uprooting settler owned grape vines planted illegally on Palestinian land.

The women, two of whom are members of Amnesty International, did not actively participate in the demonstration but intended to act as observers. They were arrested as the protesters retreated under live fire.

Members of a ten person delegation to Palestine organised by the Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group joined a demonstration in Al Mazra’a al Qibliya in the occupied West Bank today. Al Mazra’a is surrounded by seven illegal Israel settlements known collectively as Talmund B.

The settlements have been steadily expanding. In the last few years they have expropriated 14,000 dunums of Palestinian land (4 dunums= 1 acre) and uprooted Palestinian olive trees.

The settlement also monopolises water resources in the area. Settlements like Talmund B are illegal under international law. However, the Israeli state encourages the growth of settlements by subsidising colonisers who move to the occupied territories.

Three months ago a further 500 dunums were confiscated from the village and were planted with grape vines.

The Brighton group joined the villagers in marching to the confiscated land. They reached the area where a barbed wire fence marked the boundary of the stolen land. Approximately 50 people crossed the fence and started to remove the grape vines from the land. Also the pipes that take the stolen water were partially destroyed.

As the demonstrators entered the land settlers fired live ammunition at them. Soldiers also fired live ammunition. No warning was given. The group included old people and many young children.

The villagers told the remaining members of the Brighton group that it was because of their presence that no-one was killed.

Ha’aretz: Protesters block Highway 443 to protest ban on Palestinian traffic

Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators blocked Highway 443 early Thursday morning to protest the ban on Palestinian vehicles from the road, which is a major artery connecting Jerusalem to Lod, Army Radio reported.

The protesters, a coalition of Jewish and Arab members of leftist organizations, carried signs which read, among other slogans, “Caution Apartheid Road” and “Paved Road on Pilfered Land,” Army Radio said.

“Highway 443 is an example of what is taking place in the territories,” one of the demonstrators told Army Radio. “[The authorities] are expropriating land from the Palestinians in order to build a highway which is then declared off limits to Palestinian traffic.”

“There is a policy here of apartheid,” Hadar Grievsky, another protester, told Army Radio. “Highways are built on roads that were seized from Palestinians and is only permitted to Jewish drivers.”

Organizers of the protest said that 70 demonstrators participated, most of them Palestinian residents of nearby towns. Israel Defense Forces soldiers and police arrived at the scene to disperse the crowd approximately 10 minutes after the road was blocked. Seven people were taken into custody for questioning, according to Army Radio.

The commander of the Binyamin police station, Chief Superintendent Benny Har-Nes, told Army Radio that law enforcement received information on the demonstrators’ plans to block the highway, enabling authorities to deploy the necessary amount of force.

“We knew of the plan to [block the road] and we prepared accordingly,” Har-Nes said. “We arrived at the scene within five minutes from the start of the event, and after trying to persuade them to evacuate willingly, we declared the matter an unlawful gathering and we cleared them out.

Action Alert! Non-Violent Demonstration at Al Mazra al Qiblya to Protest Illegal Confiscation of Palestinian Land

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

26 October, 2007

Palestinian villagers from al Mazra al Qiblya will again protest the illegal confiscation and cultivation of their agricultural land by Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Talmon, who over 2 months ago leveled nearly 500 dunums of land and planted grape vines on it.

The state of Israel claims that villagers were informed of the land confiscation in the early eighties, however villagers challenge this statement. Although this is being challenged legally, settlers have nonetheless already planted grape vines, the first step in taking over Palestinian land and absorbing it into a settlement.

This phenomenon of cultivating so-called ‘uncultivated land’ in Palestinian regions is widespread and often results in the annexation of the land into the illegal Israeli settlements. It is important to note that this is a process being sanctioned by the State of Israel, which is essentially giving permission to Israeli settlers to illegally take over land for private business and expansion purposes.

Palestinian villagers from al Mazra al Qiblya have already protested this land grab and will continue to do so.

The popular committee against the wall and villagers from Al Mazra al Qiblya, along with Israeli and international activists, will meet at the village mosque, at 12 noon and will leave following the noon prayer

Shared taxis leave from the Birzeit servis area near al Manarah in Ramallah.

For more information, contact:
ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157, 0542-103-657

Seattle P-I: Palestinians’ lives invisible to Israelis

By Edward Mast

On a visit to Tel Aviv last month, I asked some Israeli friends what people in Israel were saying about the Palestinian situation. Not much, they told me. Israelis are more concerned about the corruption charges against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, coming on the heels of corruption charges against previous governments. Palestinians and their issues, my friends told me, are becoming more and more invisible to the Israeli people.

Palestinian lives are kept invisible in David Brumer’s Oct. 10 guest column, “Despite concerns, Israel a vibrant country.” Also invisible are Israel’s military occupation and the ongoing takeover of Palestinian land. If Brumer had traveled to the other side of the wall, as I did, he could have witnessed the many ways that the Israeli occupation crushes people with poverty, violence and injustice.

Before visiting Tel Aviv, I spent two weeks working with a theater in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank. During that short time, the Israeli army killed at least 15 Palestinians in the occupied territories; several killed were children. For Palestinians, these are regular occurrences. Over the past seven years, the Israeli army has killed more than 4,000 Palestinians. The majority of these, even according to Israeli statistics, have been unarmed civilians. Many thousands more have been wounded or kidnapped. The severe underreporting of Palestinian casualties in the U.S. and Israel can leave the impression that Palestinian lives have less value.

While I was there, Brian Avery came from the United States to testify in Jerusalem against the Israeli army. Avery is a peace activist who was shot in the face by the Israeli army in 2003. At first the Israeli army denied that the shooting took place, but has been forced to launch an investigation now that Avery is bringing a suit.

In Ramallah, I learned that, though there is plenty of water near the city, the several hundred thousand residents had spent the summer with running water available only three or four days each week. That sort of fact tends to be invisible to Israelis, along with the reasons.

Ramallah is near the cluster of West Bank aquifers, which are the main sources of water for both the West Bank and Israel, but 80 percent of the West Bank’s water goes to Israel and Israeli settlements. For decades, Israel has used its military occupation of the West Bank to build an illegal network of settlements around the water sources. Palestinians have been beaten, killed and driven away to make space for these settlements, and Israel has built a continuous wall, not on the border of Israel but inside Palestinian territory, which effectively annexes the settlements and water resources into Israel.

Israelis are told the wall is for their security. Palestinians call it the annexation wall, and it is difficult for them to believe Israel can be a partner for peace while the Israeli government continues taking Palestinian land for settlements, building the wall to annex them and maintaining the system of checkpoints that paralyze movement and life in the West Bank.

With some colleagues, I spent one day traveling from Ramallah to Jerusalem. The eight-mile trip took 2 1/2 hours. In Ramallah, the wall is 25 feet high, and the Israeli checkpoint is like an airport security station. We lined up for more than half an hour with Palestinians at a remote-controlled 8-foot turnstile where people had to crowd like cattle and wait for a green light to get as many through as possible before the light turned red.

Once past X-ray security and more turnstiles, we boarded shared taxis for what should have been a short ride to Jerusalem. However, the Israeli military had set up an additional temporary “flying checkpoint” some 1,640 feet down the road, forcing several lanes of traffic down to a single lane for stopping and searching. That took almost an hour.

Business in Ramallah is at a standstill. Poverty is everywhere; jobs are not to be found. The people at the checkpoint said to us, “Take pictures. Tell people what is happening here.”

Some Israelis, such as my Tel Aviv friends, no longer accept the excuse that the virtual imprisonment and killing of Palestinians are justified by the need for security.

The Israeli government has recently confiscated more Palestinian land near Jerusalem to build a segregated road, literally underground, for Palestinians. Israeli settlers will be able to commute back and forth from the territories without having so much as to see a Palestinian. Invisibility here is no accident.

Edward Mast is a Seattle playwright who volunteers with the Palestine Information Project; palestineinformation.org.

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/336015_insivible19.html

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