Tag: Refugees - Page 3 - International Solidarity Movement

Wheat farmers under fire in Gaza: We must continue to work our land

by Nathan Stuckey

23 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today we went farming with the family of Ahmed Saadat. We arrived in Khuzaa at about 7 AM and met Ahmed. He told us that the Israeli’s had already shot at his family when they went to their land to begin work. We went to the land, which lies 300 meters from the border and directly on the buffer zone. You immediately know the buffer zone, nothing is planted in it, no trees are left, and everything has been destroyed, only weeds grow there.

Ahmed and his family began to work, ten people on their knees harvesting wheat by hand. To harvest the wheat they pull it up by the roots and tie it into sheaves to be taken to a threshing machine. The land is quite large, in the past perhaps they would have hired a combine to harvest the wheat so that they would not have to do it by hand, but now it is dangerous to bring equipment near the buffer zone. Now, they work by hand.

At about 7:45 AM an Israeli Occupation Forces Humvee pulled up onto a hill north of us. Soon shots began to ring out, these were not directed at us, they were directed at farmers harvesting wheat to our northwest. At about 8 AM soldiers in a tower next to the Humvee launched either tear gas or a smoke grenade, it landed extremely close to the tower, which was about 400 meters from us. This was soon followed by shooting at us.

Bullets whistled past our ears, they slammed into the ground around us, most of them about 20 meters away from us. The farmers were scared, but most of them kept working. They have little choice, the IOF shoots a lot in this area, it is inevitable that they will be shot at while they try to harvest their wheat. After a minute or two of shooting the bullets stop. Soon the Humvee drives down off of the hill and moves further down the border. All morning long the Humvee drives up and down the border, accompanied by two jeeps.

The farmers continue to work harvesting wheat. At about 8:30 Ahmed receives a phone call. It is from Ma’aan organization. They say that the Red Cross has called them asking Ahmed and advising him to leave the area. He is advised to go two kilometers from the border because of the danger. The Red Cross had been called by the IOF asking them who we were, and if we were internationals with the farmers.

Ahmed laughs, two kilometers is the other side of Khuzaa. The farmers continue harvesting their wheat until about 11 AM. While they work chmed tells us a little bit about his family. Like most Gazans, they are refugees. His family is from Salame, near Jaffa. They were expelled in 1948. His family still has the documents proving that they own the land they were expelled from. Now, his family works what land they have managed to buy in Gaza over the years.

He said, “What am I to do, Israel expelled us from our land, now they steal more of it, they shoot at us, but we need this wheat to live, we must continue to work our land.”

Narratives under siege: Overcrowded living

14 December 2011 | Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Muhammed Salman Abu Rashad, 45, Amna Abu Rashad, 31, and their nine children live in the Jabalia refugee camp, one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The family represent just 11 of the 1.1 million refugees who make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population of approximately 1.7 million people.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Jabalia is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps and is home to around 110,000 registered refugees in an area of only 1.4 square kilometres; unsurprisingly, the camp is infamous for its overcrowding. Israel’s illegal closure policy, first used to isolate the Gaza Strip in 1991, has been particularly devastating on the residents of Jabalia camp, who, like Muhammed Abu Rashad, previously relied on jobs within Israel to support their families. Since the beginning of the complete closure of Gaza in 2007, the now-unemployed residents have been forced to rely on UNRWA aid to survive.

The Abu Rashad’s home, consisting largely of a 3 meter by 3 meter room, is typical of many homes in Jabalia camp. A single room acts as the sleeping, living, studying and eating area for all eleven family members. With winter approaching, it is obvious that the house, which displays long winding cracks along its walls and an open doorway where there should be a functioning door, is entirely inadequate for the couple and their nine children, with a tenth on the way. When the rain comes it flows into the house and onto their blankets, and despite the fact it is a crisp dry day outside, the damp in the room is particularly noticeable. Muhammad is quick to point out that the conditions would be better in prison: “it is not a home but a cemetery”.

The crowding affect’s all aspects of family life, but for the couple’s 9 children the effect is crippling. A majority of the family’s children study during the evening shift in the local UNRWA school, which is forced to run double shifts to facilitate all the camp’s students. When the children return home it is dark and, given the constant power cuts, lack of space, and loud noise from electrical generators the children are unable to study. As a result, two of the Abu Rashad children have failed a year in school and been kept back.

With a lack of space to play – either in the home or in the tight, rubbish strewn, alleyways outside – the children have little physical or emotional space and tend to lash out against each other as a result. The boys resort to violence against their younger siblings and Muhammed tells me that his two daughters are unable “to behave like young girls”, instead imitating their brothers violence in an attempt to “hold their own”. Muhammed himself regrets lashing out at his children when they misbehave, saying that the stress of living in such close quarters leaves him anxious and prone to outbursts.

The crowding has repercussions not only on the family’s mental health but also their physical health. Greeting the children it is obvious they are all suffering from colds and flu. Muhammed says that “when one child comes down with an illness, with no space to isolate and treat them, the rest of the children are all rapidly infected”. Given the constant damp and cold getting the children well again once they become sick is no easy task.

While the crowding has left the family at crisis point, the situation is only getting worse. The children are currently young, the eldest being 15, but as they grow older the tiny room will become progressively more cramped. The eldest daughter Sundus, 10, will soon be too old to sleep next to her brothers. Muhammad tells us that with the neighbours building on top of their current houses in an attempt to alleviate their own crowding problems, the sun will soon be blocked entirely from the already dank family home. The result, according to Muhammad, will be “the families’ destruction”.

The Palestinian refugee crisis is one of the largest and most longstanding refugee problems in the world; today approximately one in four of the entire world’s refugee’s are Palestinian. The rights of Palestinian refugees, and in particular the ‘right of return’, are protected in numerous UN Resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 194. However, for as long as the international community refuses to enforce international law, these resolutions will continue to bear little relevance for the Gaza Strip’s refugees, whose fundamental human rights continue to be systematically denied.

“I wish Dad was here celebrating Eid with me”

by Shahd Abusalama

6 November 2011 | Palestine from My Eyes
The day before the start of Al-Adha Eid is the day of Arafa. It is said that a believer who fasts on this day expiates the past year’s sins and the sins of the coming year. As it is considered to be a day of forgiveness from sin, many Palestinians fasted yesterday. Despite me fasting, I eagerly accepted the offer of my friend, a solidarity activist from Holland, to have a walk in Jabalia Camp. Approximately 108,000 registered refugees live in the camp, which covers an area of only 1.4 square kilometres.

I passed by the Jabalia market, which was so crowded that one has to keep pushing people out of his way in order for him to pass through. With every step forward I could glimpse many faces of different ages, genders, and features. I could see children jumping around from one stand of clothes to another, excited to pick their new outfits. At the same time, other children seized the opportunity of this unusually large crowd. They were carrying heavy boxes containing simple goods, trying to earn some money so that they could help their poor families have sort of happy atmosphere, to at least buy some candies.

I could see faces full of anger because of the high prices of goods, which result from the siege which has been illegally imposed since 2007. Parents would spend hours going around to every stand, searching for the cheapest clothing to buy for their children, who still innocently think that Eid means having new clothes. Yesterday, I could see how the inhabitants of Jabalia Camp, who are mostly refugees, face obstacles like low income, shortages of goods, and high prices for the available ones. They are desperate for happiness, even if it’s always missing something: the feeling of freedom, security and independence.

Today, 6 November, 2011, Gaza has welcomed Al-Adha Eid. Hymns played as the sun dawned. I could hear children and men gathering around the microphone in the mosque right behind our house, singing continuously and happily in one voice, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar…” I couldn’t help but wake up earlier than I always do, and more energetic than ever, excited for what would come next.

My mother said that the door has been knocked on constantly since the early morning by people with Eid greetings. Some of them could afford to buy sacrificed animals, “Uḍhiyyah”, and hand out a slice of meat.

Eid is a very special religious holiday, as it reconnects people with each other, strengthens social life, and reminds the rich of people who are in need. In Palestine, Eid exceeds its conventional frame. It’s a festival of tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, and thoughts of the people who are missed in prison, in Diaspora, or in the grave. My father and his brothers, for example, visit the families of martyrs and prisoners in the neighborhood.

On the second day of Eid, there will be a demonstration in solidarity with our detainees in the Red Cross to convey that their spirits live among us, and that they are never forgotten. We will also show sympathy with the mothers who waited many long years, hoping for their sons’ freedom, who passed away before they could celebrate their release. Tomorrow will be a day of support for our heroes inside the merciless Israeli bars, encouraging them to stay steadfast, as well as a day of compassion for their families, who have passed through several important holidays with one, or in some cases more than one missing, making their happiness incomplete, to help them stay strong and optimistic.

I feel blessed for having all the people I care about around me. At the same time, I feel like I can’t enjoy my happiness at its fullest while thousands of people in Palestine can’t feel this blessing.

I’ve been constantly thinking about Gomana Abu Jazar today. Gomana is a ten-year-old girl whose mother died after she delivered her, and whose father has been imprisoned since she was less than two years old, leaving her uncle to look after her. Once, as she wondered why all children have fathers but her, her uncle said, “I’ll be in your father’s place until he is free. You’re lucky, since you have two fathers instead of one.” So she started calling her uncle “dad” for a whole year, until he was killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces, leaving her with none. As she returned from school one day, she saw a huge funeral in front of her house, and asked, “Whose big funeral is this?” Her neighbors’ children answered, “It’s your uncle’s”. She began screaming, denying it and saying, “Impossible! He accompanied me to school this morning.” Now she lives with her 70-year-old grandmother.

I called Gomana to greet her for Eid. After a long chat, I asked her, “What’s your wish for this Eid?” “I wish Dad was here,” she replied in a sad voice. “I wish they would at least allow me to see him once in lifetime. I only know Dad from his photographs. I wish I could see him in reality. Once I thought this dream was very close to coming true, but then I realized that I was prevented from seeing him for security reasons.”

How can Palestinians fully enjoy our happiness while these heartbreaking stories are so very common in their daily lives? I hope next year the happiness of Eid and other occasions will be complete, with the Israeli jails emptied and Palestine independent and free. Insha’Allah.

Palestinians in Gaza march for return on Naksa Day

5 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Hundreds of Palestinian refugees rallied outside the Erez Crossing in Beit Hanoun today to demand the right to return to the homes from which they and their families were ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias and Israeli military forces beginning in 1947. They were joined by other Palestinians and foreign supporters, including the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip.

The demonstration, organized by the Preparatory Commission for the Right to Return, marked the 44th anniversary of the Naksa, or “setback,” Israel’s 1967 occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and its accompanying expulsion of 300,000 refugees from their homeland. Many of them had already been forced from their original homes during the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” the displacement of 711,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1947-1948.

The rally was addressed by representatives of a broad range of political parties and civil society organizations.

Another nearby gathering, organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, celebrated Palestinian culture with an exhibition of traditional food, clothing, and lifestyles.

Simultaneous demonstrations by Palestinians elsewhere faced violent repression, including lethal force, from the Israeli military. The Syrian Arab News Agency reported that live gunfire by Israeli forces had killed 23 protesters, including a child, a woman, and a journalist, and injured over 350, outside the occupied Golan Heights. At the Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem, Israeli troops targeted hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas, concussion grenades, and rubber-coated bullets, injuring dozens.

The mobilization drew support from allies of the Palestinian struggle across the world, including Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign organizers.

On June 5th support the Palestinian refugees’ right to return

22 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

The right to return is a core goal of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Since 1947-1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes – and more than 700,000 were ethnically cleansed from their country altogether – they and their descendants have organized to demand the rectification of this historic injustice. The refugees of the Six-Day War in 1967 (after which Israeli forces drove 300,000 Palestinians out of the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank ), the 1967-1994 Israeli administration of the occupied territories (during which Israel stripped 140,000 Palestinians of their residency rights), and the ongoing colonization of Palestine and displacement of its indigenous inhabitants, have added their voices to the growing global movement for return.

In recent years, the right to return has also emerged as a key demand of international solidarity activists supporting Palestinian aspirations for freedom. On July 9, 2005, for example, the Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) – the founding document of a Palestinian-led global movement for justice in Palestine – stated that “non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by … respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.”

Today the seven million Palestinian refugees are the world’s largest group of refugees, comprising one-third of the total refugee population. Their right to return to their homes, and to receive compensation for the damages inflicted on them, are enshrined in international law. Resolution 194, which the United Nations General Assembly adopted on 11 December 1948 and Israel agreed to implement as a condition of its subsequent admission to the United Nations,

resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.

Additionally, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948, states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” And Resolution 3236, which the General Assembly adopted on November 22, 1974, “reaffirms … the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to the homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return.”

Despite its clear obligations under international law, Israel continues to resist demands by Palestinian refugees that they are allowed to return to their homes. Most recently, on Sunday, May 15, the 63rd commemoration of the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of the 1947-1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Israeli troops responded to demonstrations by unarmed refugees marching towards their homes with lethal force.

Israeli forces killed at least 15 demonstrators on three borders (with occupied Gaza, Lebanon, and between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights), wounded hundreds more with live gunfire, artillery shells, and tear gas, and unleashed a wave of arrests and repression in the occupied West Bank. This massive violence could only have been planned as a show of brute force, intended, along with Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated assertions that “it’s not going to happen,” to dissuade Palestinian refugees from asserting their historic rights and the global consensus for the right of return.

Yet the most enduring story from May 15 may be that of Hassan Hijazi. A 28-year old Palestinian refugee living in Syria, he braved the gunfire that killed four others along the border with the occupied Golan Heights, then hitchhiked, and finally took a bus, to his family’s home in Jaffa. Before turning himself in to Tel Aviv police, he told Israeli reporters, “I wasn’t afraid and I’m not afraid. On the bus to Jaffa, I sat next to Israeli soldiers. I realized that they were more afraid than I was.”

Millions more are resolved to follow Hijazi’s path. On Sunday, June 5, the 44th commemoration of the Naksa, or setback, Israel’s 1967 expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians following the Six-Day War, Palestinian refugees will return en masse to the borders. Announcing the mobilization on May 18, the Third Intifada Youth Coalition said, “The last few days proved that the liberation of Palestine is possible and very achievable even with an unarmed massive march if the nation decides it is ready to pay all at once for the liberation of Palestine.”

The Preparatory Commission for the Right to Return, a nonpartisan coordinating body, has requested that supporters of the Palestinian liberation struggle also take action on June 5, by staging rallies, marches, and protests throughout the world demanding Palestinian refugees’ right to return. Appropriate venues could include Israeli embassies, consulates, and missions, BDS campaign targets, and foreign governments and international organizations that enable Israeli crimes.

”The May 15 marches were not an isolated incident, but were rather a declaration of the foundation of a new stage of struggle in the history of the Palestinian cause, entitled: ‘The refugees’ right to return to their homes,’” a statement by the Commission says.

For the first time ever, the Palestinians have switched from commemorating their displacement with statements, festivals, and speeches, to actual attempts to return to their homes.

The scene of refugees marching from all directions towards their homeland of Palestine sent a powerful message to the entire world that the refugees are determined to return to their homes however long it may take; and that 63 years were not enough to kill their dream of return; and that the new generations born in forced exile who have never seen their homeland are no less attached than their grandparents and fathers who witnessed the Nakba.

What happened on May 15 was only a microcosm of the larger march soon to come, a march that will be made by Palestinian refugees and those who support them. They will pass the barbed wire and return to their occupied villages and cities.

The crowds will head out from everywhere there are Palestinian refugees toward the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and occupied Palestine’s borders with Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, in peaceful marches raising the Palestinian flag and the names of their villages and towns, the keys to their homes, and certification papers.

The Arab Spring’s “winds of change” are blowing through the refugee camps, no less than the Arab capitals, toward Palestine. And they show no signs of stopping.