Tag: Refugees

A visit to the houses of the martyrs in Nur al-Shams

Solidarity visit to the Nur Shams camp, following the deaths of Abdulrahman Abu Daghash and Oseed Farhan Abu Ali, killed by indiscriminate Israeli Occupation Forces shooting during the raid on Sunday 24th September.

It’s hot, it’s the third day of mourning. There is a constant flow of visitors in the home of Abdulrahman Abu Daghash. Mohmen, his brother takes us upstairs to his upper-floor flat in the family house. But first we go to the roof terrace to see. Not for the view, but to see the broad smears of blood left when Abdulrahman was killed.

Blood on the roof where Abdulrahman was murdered

Mohmen tells us:

He had gone up to see what was happening, I was telling him come inside, it’s dangerous. He falls forward, I try to hold his body, I can’t do it, I have blood on my hands, maybe I was hit. No, he is the one bleeding, I call for help. My wife and his wife – seeing him lying on the roof – can’t react. Finally someone helps me, the ambulance is called. Now that we get down the ambulance is already there, they always go around during the raids. But soldiers have arrived with sound bombs, they try to prevent the ambulance from going. It finally manages to leave, but we stay barricaded in the house for another hour and a half, besieged by soldiers.

The view from the roof where Abdulrahman was killed

Mohmen told us about his relationship with his brother:

We used to work together, we were very close, I don’t know how I will cope now he is gone, his children will be like my own.

We meet Abdulrahman’s father in the mourning are set up in the courtyard. He said:

You have to tell everyone how they treat us, he had nothing to do with it, shot by a sniper who was doing target practice, couldn’t he have shot at at the shoulder? he was aiming for the eye. My son died in the hospital!

It seems the result of the murder is to bring everyone together, they will be more and more active against the occupation.

We leave the grieving family, and visit the family of another martyr. It’s very hot, it must be one o’clock, we might find a cab, but there are five of us, we don’t fit, so we keep walking, luckily we started off high up on the hill, the sniper had fired from a lower roof. So we go down and up again heading for the central square of the camp. Such destruction! The army of occupation had left a gutted building from a previous invasion, the streets torn up.

Then, on a corner between narrow alleys: the second house. There are only women here, but they accept me and T. Come on, we wipe off our sweat, in the rear room we are received by the mother and sister.

Aseed was only 21 years old, he was like all the boys here, he dreamed of being a writer, of making his mother happy, he was like everyone here, they despise death, so what kind of life is this, in one month two raids

Even on the third day of mourning there are many outbursts of weeping. After we have paid our condolences, however, food arrives, a smiling woman says she cooked. She wants us to eat with them to remember Aseed. So many tables are set up, everyone tucks in, besides yogurt and humus, there are pans with minced meat in strips seasoned in different ways.

A military bulldozer during the invasion of Nour Al-Shams

So what’s the background here? Around midnight between Saturday and Sunday, massive occupation forces attacked the Nour Al-Shams refugee camp, adjacent to Tulkarem. Dozens of vehicles, supported by three bulldozers, equipped with a kind of rear plough. These are adapted to penetrate the roads, break the asphalt and the water and electricity pipes. In Jenin, they had been caught out by the explosives hidden under the asphalt, which had severely damaged their vehicles. Now the explosives are throw them at them, but now they always enter the camps with these contraptions to destroy what they can. In Nour Al-Shams the last raid had been only 20 days earlier and they had not yet finished repairing the damage. Alarm sirens sounded immediately, the resistance fought for four hours, with barrages of fire, explosives and ambushes on the army that soon needed reinforcements.

As always, nothing is known about Israeli casualties and the damage to military vehicles. A few vehicles had to be dragged out. They severely damaged one building using rockets, it had been the home of a boy who was killed in 2001. They claim fighters were hiding there and explosives had been stockpiled; unlikely to be true because everything would have been blown up.

But where are we? In Tulkarem, a northern town attached to the separation wall. We are only a hundred meters above sea level, at the mouth of some valleys. Of course, there are a few settlements around here, too. So low compared to Nablus, it is much warmer and also more humid.

A. lives on a hill that divides two descending valleys, however, to get some air you have to arrive almost in the morning. From his rooftop, he points out the two refugee camps, one on each side: “Nour Al-Shams” further east, “Tulkarem” to the west attached to the city. Many workers are cross-border, but here the Israelis have also set up a dozen factories. Workers come from here, but management comes in directly from the other side.

Before visiting the martyr’s families we attended a demonstration for the prisoners, with many children.

Children at a demonstration for Palestinian prisoners in Tulkarem

The agricultural part has several greenhouses, in the past, there were also many orange trees, but the construction work on the expanding town devoured them.

By Abu Sara, for ISM

The ‘Beautiful Resistance’ of Aida Camp – “People cannot tolerate injustice for eternity”

Tucked within the antiquated corridors of the municipality of Bethlehem, there lies Aida Camp, established 1950. The densely populated cement structures, thinly outlined by narrow passageways, are a living summation of the occupation of Palestine itself.

Scraping elbows with the massive checkpoint pathway between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, hedged by the West Bank apartheid separation wall and situated nearby two large illegal Israeli settlement blocs, Aida camp sits on the front lines of the Palestinian struggle to exist in the grim face of an ethnic cleansing.

For the internally displaced residents of the camp, a predominant feature of life inside Aida is the near daily child arrests that occur. This specter links arms with prolific doses of teargas that are hurled by occupation forces over the wall, drugs being smuggled inside, staggering unemployment rates and regular military incursions.

Conflating the elements of imposed unrest in the camp, Aida has been termed a ‘gateway’ for drugs being that it is located in the space yawning from the physical intersection of occupied and occupier. Resident’s note a common scenario that unfolds in the camp. “The soldiers raid the camp and everyone goes running to hide. The outside drug dealers come once the soldiers scare everyone away and hide the drugs in the cemetery and then the local drug dealers retrieve the drugs and deal them inside the camp.”

From his office in the vibrant center of the non-profit Alrowwad, an “independent, dynamic, community-based” bastion of culture and empowerment in Aida, Dr. Adbelfattah Abusrour, Alrowwad’s founder, poetically unfolds the organization’s vision for the people of Aida camp. “We believe it is important to introduce creative elements for the children. Games, theater, photography, painting. I call this beautiful resistance. Children should have access to this experience.”

In the face of overpopulation and occupation, camp resident Dr. Abdelfattah knows the emotional pipeline that Aida’s youth faces, “Aida is a hotspot because it is so near the border. They want us to be silent on every level. They target the young to be collaborators. The high unemployment rates lead to despair. And when children feel despair, they feel unsafe. At that point, the best thing is to want to die.”

But with Alrowwad injecting an intoxicating blend of art and fire into daily camp existence, the trajectory manifests, colorfully so, “We want children to express themselves in the most beautiful ways. To want to live for Palestine. Not to die for Palestine. The issue is that people cannot tolerate injustice for eternity. It varies, our tolerance for injustice. For me, I can make a play or a painting, for someone else, he will blow himself up.”

“Home of Hope, Dream, Imagination and Creativity”

The Alrowwad center features a bright classroom area stocked with books on arts and history of various countries and cultures, a radio station, theater and more. With an arts unit, media center, women’s program and environmentally centered project, Alrowwad leaves no creative stone un-turned. They have taken their programs on international tour to share the beauty of their creations, as well as to “show the children what life in a free country is like.” However, the occupation, insecure with the world gaining view of expressive, dignified Palestinian life, has harassed and even gotten their international shows cancelled, “The Zionists have contacted our venues around the world and told them that we are terrorists and they need to shut down the show, and sometimes they have.” But Alrowwad presses on.

On this warm afternoon, children crowd around computer monitors while teachers and volunteers sweep busily through the room, guiding and interacting, a conference of cheerful sounds. Juxtapose this scene with the tragic display just over one year ago when 13-year-old Palestinian youth Abed al-Rahman Shadi Obeidallah, was shot in the chest by Israeli forces, “by mistake” as he made his way to his home in the camp after school. Abed’s murderer was held to no accountability.

Dr. Abdelfattah’s mission is to create safe, expressive spaces for the Palestinian youth of the camp, to abolish the pipeline and create a life not prescribed from the miseries of injustice. “The international community doesn’t care about our politics. Nothing is fine being reduced to a humanitarian cause, a political cause. This is more humiliating than occupation itself. And it’s challenging to change that. Arts and culture are not a priority. But this is what are pure bridges between us as human beings. It’s what brings us closer rather than marginalizes us.”

Through daily military incursions and the arresting theft of Aida’s children, the beautiful resistance that Alrowwad conjures and enforces is the importance of education as a weapon against oppression. But an education that is rewritten from traditional norms, “Education has always been based on dictation and memorization. It is up to the teacher to bring out the student’s excellence. We don’t want to be these gods of knowledge. We teach them to have fun. The essence of this is to give these possibilities and build the human before building the knowledge.”

With a nearby, illegal separation wall force-instilling a sense of otherness, along with the grinding oppression and onslaught against Palestinian tradition, life and identity itself, it is the beautiful resistance of Dr. Abdelfattah and the Alrowwad organization that is painting, for Aida’s youth, a dynamic and electrifying way forth.

Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria seek home in Gaza

February 11, 2016| International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Khan Younis, Gaza strip, occupied Palestine

Palestinian refugee Heesham Ahmed El Khoranin and his family have already survived 2 Israeli assaults against the Gaza Strip since he returned after fleeing from Syria in 2011.

Heesham grandparents were born in Masmiya, 42km north of Gaza, one of the many villages wiped out by the Zionist militias during the Nakba. In 1948 they were forced to flee and settled in Khan Younis, where Heesham was born. He lived there until the Israeli army occupied Gaza in 1967 and forced his parents to flee from Palestine. They then moved to the Syrian city of Daraa, where he married a Syrian woman and had 6 children.

They lived in peace until 2011, when the war started in Syria, Heesham explained. “Snipers were shooting anything that moved in our city, people, animals . . . they killed children as young as 10 years old in front of my eyes.” Several of their neighbours were kidnapped and tortured by the Syrian army, including children. Heesham spoke of how “one of the fathers refused to handle his 13 years old son to the army, so they took both of them and the father could listen how they tortured his son.”

Heesham's neighborhood in Daraa — Heesham’s neighborhood in Daraa, after the bombing

Four months after the beginning of the war Heesham and his family managed to escape to Egypt and entered Gaza through the tunnels. Once in Gaza he received the news that “our home and my small factory had been bombed . . . we had lost all we had.” A few months later, in another bombing, one of his sons who had stayed in Syria was killed.

Heesham's son killed in Syria wm 2 — Heesham’s son, killed in Syria

In Gaza they lived 3 years in a rented flat, until they ran out of money and were kicked out by the owner. A few months before the 2014 Israeli attack they moved to a caravan provided by an NGO and settled on land that the government ceded to them. “Now I just want to find a job and live in peace with my family… I hope we’ll be able to build a home and stay in Gaza” Heesham said. “[W]e don’t have a place where to return in Syria and at least here we are in Palestine, our homeland.”

Heesham's caravan in Gaza wm — Heesham’s caravan in Gaza

Life inside the Shuafat Refugee Camp, East Jerusalem

January 18th 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | East Jerusalem, occupied Palestine

A few days ago, the ISM went to the Shuafat Refugee Camp to learn about the situation and living conditions for its Palestinian residents.

Buildings at the entrance of the Camp — Residential buildings at the entrance of the Camp

Built in 1965 with the aim of relocating the Palestinians who were living in the Moroccan Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem (today’s Wailing Wall area), Shuafat Refugee Camp has a population that is estimated between 60.000 to 80.000 Palestinians. These numbers are only an estimation since the Israeli Municipality, which is responsible for the Camp’s administration, has not carried out any census of its residents.

But the Municipality’s negligence of the Camp is further seen in the everyday life lack of basic services such as picking up the garbage in the streets, and insufficient water and power supply, giving way to frequent water shortages and power cuts. All this happens regardless of the fact that Palestinians living in the Camp pay all their taxes, which are equal to the tax amounts that Israeli citizens pay. In contrast, all Israeli resident areas and illegal settlements in Jerusalem receive these services without interruption; having no water shortages or power cuts, and enjoying perfectly clean streets.

Streets have garbage everywhere, as the Municipality neglects collecting the garbage from the streets — The Municipality neglects collecting the garbage from the streets

The situation inside the Shuafat Refugee Camp only worsened when in 2004 the Israeli authority built an Apartheid Wall that completely surrounded the Camp. Only two entrances connect the Camp to the outer world: the Shuafat checkpoint, which connects to Jerusalem, and the Anaata entrance, which connects to the West Bank.

On many occasions, when there are confrontations between the Palestinian youth of the Camp and the Israeli forces, the army closes both entrances, locking up the entire population of the Camp, only adding more pressure to the already existing everyday life difficulties.

View to the surveillance tour, inside the Camp — View to the surveillance towerr and checkpoint, once you enter the Camp

The schooling system is poorly covered for the Camp’s children. UNWRA established two schools inside the Camp, one for boys and another for girls. But these schools only have classes between 1st and 6th grades, and cannot provide education for all the Camp’s children. Every morning, many children need to exit through the Shuafat checkpoint to go to other schools in East Jerusalem. A school bus service runs every morning, but again it does not have the capacity to serve all the children, and many of them have to take a ride with a car, a taxi or walk between 30 minutes and one hour, depending on how far their school is located.

This situation for the children is very difficult since the checkpoint in the morning is very congested, as other people need to cross to get to work. There are even times when waiting to cross the checkpoint can take more than an hour.

Another aggravating problem is the refusal of ambulances to enter the Camp when there are accidents or people injured from clashes. Residents usually call the Israeli ambulance service, as the Palestinian Red Crescent has only 5 ambulances for all Jerusalem and is too busy to arrive fast enough. But the Israeli ambulances say they do not enter the Camp without Israeli police officers. Instead, they wait outside the Shuafat checkpoint for the injured person to be delivered by members from the community or family in any way they can, cross the checkpoint and place him or her inside the ambulance. Carrying injured people in an unprepared and inappropriate way has resulted in many people dying under these circumstances.

In addition to these difficulties, the Israeli army and police sometimes enter the Camp to raid homes and arrest people who have any political leadership within their community. Just like in the rest of the West Bank, these arrest operations happen in the middle of the night with hundreds of soldiers, terrifying whole families and neighbors.

Another view of the Camp, seen through the checkpoint fence — A view of the Apartheid Wall that surrounds the entire Camp

It is important to note that the State of Israel does not provide citizenship to Palestinians living in Jerusalem, but instead gives them a permanent residence status, which Israel takes the right to revoke at any time by different means. One example would be if a Palestinian moves to live outside of Jerusalem for a certain period of time, he or she will lose the residency status and will not be allowed to live in Jerusalem anymore. Therefore, in fear of losing their residency right and at the same time not being able to afford living in other parts of an increasingly expensive Jerusalem, more and more Palestinians continue to move into the already overcrowded Shuafat Refugee Camp.

Stories from Al Arroub refugee camp

28th March 2015 | International Women’s Peace Service | Al Arroub refugee camp, Occupied Palestine

Situated along the main Hebron-Jerusalem road, across the street from a University, sits the heavily fenced and concrete blockaded main entrance to Al Arroub Palestinian refugee camp. Taysir, a 39 year old former prisoner of the Israeli government and resident of the camp, waits out front of the camp entry way to give an intimate and shocking view of Al Arroub which is home to over 10,000 refugees living on less than a square mile of land and originating from nearly 3 dozen villages from as far away as Gaza.

Al Arroub, a maze of crumbling buildings and graffiti telling the story of Palestinian resistance to occupation, was established in 1949 and remained as tented housing until concrete living structures were built in 1956. Just steps into the camp, laid the remnants of a fired rubber-coated steel bullet laying near a post which bore the scar from the shot. Taysir lifts the bullet, “Violence here explodes within moments.” A few more steps and along the building sits a small cement structure to mark the spot where a 17 year old Palestinian boy was murdered, but he is not alone- throughout the camp there are photos, posters and spray paint stenciled portraits of those Palestinians whose lives were ended violently by Israeli soldiers. Palestinian refugee camps are the heart of the resistance and the birthplace of both intifadas; this is evidenced in a colorful section of wall which calls out in Arabic, “Enough! We want freedom!”

There is one children’s center in the camp and from the outside you can see the cage like fencing around the play area for dozens of young children, their ecstatic yells echoing through the bars. Proud mother’s lead the way upstairs to a room for infants where babies born to an occupied nation lay napping. The children sing, change into traditional Palestinian dress and rush excitedly around one another in the cramped center. One of the main issues facing the refugees of the camp is overcrowded schools. UNRWA’s camp profile cites three schools in Al Arroub; along with high unemployment rates and the lack of an appropriate sewage network.

IWPS members are introduced to Nazaar, whose 28 year old brother Eid, married just one year, was shot two dozen times by occupation forces during a raid in the camp as last year’s war in Gaza raged to a fever pitch. The murder took place on the first day’s Eid celebration of the Ramadan month of fasting as Nazaar was driving his brother’s to a family meal. He stands beside the poster of his murdered brother as he recalls the horror, “This was an execution. They killed him in the streets in front of everyone. Why? He was happy, he loved life. This was a tragedy.”

Just over a week ago, violent clashes were reported in Al Arroub when solidarity protests for Ibrahim Jamal, a prisoner of Israel’s Eshel prison, lost sight and speech after hitting his head on the end of an iron bed, occurred in the camp and Israeli forces responded by firing tear gas bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets indiscriminately at the protesters. Jamal, already suffering from an uncurable disease, received no treatment despite being injured in the prison. Violence stemming from Israeli incursions has seemingly touched every life inside the camp. Between raids, kidnappings and collective punishment, the personal stories are as seemingly endless as the occupation itself.

The day is ended at the home of a woman who has had every one of her children imprisoned. Two of which still languish in administrative detention. In the room is Taysir, imprisoned four years- A young Palestinian who was kidnapped from a field near school and imprisoned two years along with a film maker and actor who spent “just a year” in Israeli detention. The young man still bears the scars from his time in jail, two on his knee- for which he didn’t receive medical attention for three days, and many others on his arm- but these were self inflicted. “Before my time in jail, I was happy and gentle. Now I feel rage over the smallest thing. I began to cut myself. I didn’t feel relief until I saw the blood.” He goes on to expose a sinister issue that is eating away at the very fabric of life at Al Arroub and indeed all over occupied Palestine.

“Yes, we love life and freedom. But we are not afraid of dying for our rights and for the absolute truth. “

“When I was released from prison, I had drug withdawal symptoms and had no idea why.” He fears he was drugged during his time in Ben Yamen, Asharon and Demoon Prisons- It is common for Palestinians to be moved from prison to prison, it is a disorienting and unnerving tactic. “They called me three times since I have been released offering me money, a car and a pass to work inside of Israel if I sell ketamine for them. We don’t need you to collaborate with us, you are our brother, let’s just be friends, they told me.” Collaboration has been reported as a huge point of harrassment, especially for child prisoners, coming from elements of the Israeli military. And drug abuse is rising among residents of Palestinian refugee camps.

Torture is also a common tactic utilized in Israeli prisons, ranging from psychological and emotional abuse to violently imposed physical trauma. Taysir recalls the hours he spent in a chair, sleep deprived and in isolation. He was seated in a room where he could hear prisoners screaming in pain and calling for help. “You can hear the torture and you fear that this will happen to you next. They do this on purpose.” Taysir went two years in detention before he received a court date. Two years later, he was released through a prisoner exchange agreement. “The pain during interrogation may go away quickly but the pain of the life you spent in prison never goes away.”

At the heart of Palestinian resistance to occupation, Israeli violence, military presence and poor living conditions continues to be the reality of day to day life for refugees living inside of Al Arroub refugee camp as well as the many other refugee camps located in occupied Palestine.