September 15 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine
ISM is issuing an urgent call out for volunteers to join the 2022 Olive Harvest at the invitation of Palestinian communities, starting next month.
Olive trees are a national symbol in Palestine. As hundreds of thousands of trees have been uprooted by the Israeli military and illegal settlers – more than 11,700 olive trees were destroyed in 2021 alone – harvesting has become more than a source of income, but a form of resistance.
Recent years have also seen an explosion in settler violence against Palestinian communities, and a series of illegal settler outposts set up across the West Bank.
The new outposts – primarily located in the northern regions of the West Bank close to the cities and towns of Salfit, Hares and Nablus – puts Palestinian farmers in these areas at an increased risk of violence and attacks this Olive Harvest.
ISM is calling for volunteers to join Palestinian farmers on the ground to support them to assert their right to earn a living and be present on their lands.
International activists joining the harvest engage in non-violent direct action, practical support and document human rights abuses against Palestinians, which enables many families to pick their olives. ISM activists work alongside other international organisations to support farmers during the Olive Harvest.
The harvest will begin on October 1 and run until mid-November 2022. We request a minimum 2 week commitment but we ask that if possible, volunteers could stay as long as they can. Our work is dependent on relationships with the Palestinian communities in which we work, and a long-term presence is a massive help towards that end. We kindly ask volunteers to start arriving in the first week of October if possible, so we are prepared when the harvest begins. ISM activists will receive training upon arrival with information on what to expect and how to act in what can be tense situations.
To register your interest in joining the Olive Harvest this year contact ismtraining@riseup.net
August 6 | International Solidarity Movement | South Hebron Hills, occupied Palestine
Youth activist Sameeha walks through the beautiful South Hebron Hills
“My life is occupation … all the time you have to be ready for the bad, and the most bad you can imagine,” Sameeha Huraini tells me, as she explains the reality of day-to-day life in the South Hebron Hills.
She is just 20-years-old but Sameeha has already experienced and witnessed more brutality than most people in their entire lifetime. When she was just a child, she saw her father beaten close to death by occupation forces during a peaceful protest against the construction of the apartheid wall. Her grandmother, who was 70 at the time, leapt to protect her son but was shoved to the ground by soldiers, smashing her fragile head against a rock. The impact caused her to lose sight in one eye and hearing in one ear. But this experience didn’t scare Sameeha from following in her father and grandmother’s footsteps. In fact this traumatic childhood memory has strengthened her will to fight the occupation.
“My father was beaten for the resistance, for Palestine,” she says. “My grandmother lost her eye and ear for the resistance, for Palestine, for At-Tuwani. It shouldn’t make me weak; it should make me strong.
“From there we really learnt the resistance, and how to fight for our rights and not to give up. I am my father’s daughter, if he can be in this situation, so can I… and more.”
The tree-topped settlement of Havat Ma’on looms in the distance behind a house in At-Tuwani that faces constant attacks from the settlers.
Sameeha is from At-Tuwani, a small farming village (shown in video below) of around 350 people, located in the South Hebron Hills. She is one of many youth activists in the village who have taken up their parent’s mantle in fighting against Israel’s unrelenting attempts to steal Palestinian land in the region. These attempts come in many forms, from expanding and protecting violent settler communities to preventing Palestinians accessing water and electricity. This constant onslaught is strategically carried out to make life unbearable for the people of At-Tuwani and its surrounding villages in the hope that they will leave.
“But they don’t understand,” Sameeha says. “Our connection is not with the life, it’s with the land.”
For the past two years, she has been involved with Youth of Sumud, an activist group with over 50 members, 15 of those girls, and all under the age of 25. They are constantly on call, responding to attacks from settlers, soldier harassment of shepherds and house demolitions. At the scene, they document the incident, and share it on their social media ensuring that Israel’s crimes do not go unheard. It’s dangerous work – every male member of the group has been arrested at least once.
Local activists from At-Tuwani challenge soldiers trying to move Palestinian shepherds from their land
Sameeha tells me about a time when she was planting olive trees with other Youth of Sumud activists. Israeli soldiers tried to stop them and attacked their friend who has a mental disability. Sameeha and her friends tried to prevent the soldiers beating him, but were then given arrest warrants themselves.
As well as taking part in these actions, she notes that simply going about her day-to-day life is a form of resistance. ‘It’s non-violent resistance,’ she explains. “The occupation is in every detail of our lives. Just planting trees, visiting friends in another village, for me it’s my daily life, what’s your problem with that?”
Alongside her activism work the 20 year old studies English at university, giving her the tools to spread the stories of At-Tuwani, the occupation and the South Hebron Hills across the globe.
Her village has a long history of resistance, one where women have played a crucial role. Sameeha grew up watching her mother and friend’s mothers help to build the town’s school. Building at that time was forbidden in At-Tuwani without a permit from the Israeli Civil Administration and these permits are rarely if ever given to Palestinians. The whole community worked together to make the school a reality, with the women taking over from the men in the field during the day so their husbands and sons could build the school under the cover of night to evade detection by soldiers.
Traditional dresses made by a women’s cooperative in the South Hebron HillsYoung women activists look over the village of Tuba in the South Hebron Hills
Sameeha is incredibly proud of the women’s role in fighting the occupation.
“They have this big history of resistance,” she tells ISM. “If you go back in At-Tuwani history you will find that’s the reason why At-Tuwani is like that now. They succeed to have a village in this new age, to build the school and build a clinic – that will learn and educate. They don’t want their sons and daughters to have the same life they had. They had a hard life in At-Tuwani without water and electricity and roads. They decide for us, for me, to make the life for them more easy to keep going.”
At protests, women often form the front line, creating a protective barrier against the soldiers who are more reluctant to arrest or act violently towards them. However this is not always the case, as Sameeha’s traumatic childhood memory of her grandmother painfully shows.
Part of her work with Youth of Sumud is to empower other girls and young women to join the resistance.
“I want the women of the South Hebron Hills to be more activist, to be more open about their rights. I want them to take part in the non-violent resistance.”
To do this, she visits girls in other villages, sits with them and explains the importance of uniting together as a community, men and women, to fight the occupation.
“What if there were no international people to help you when soldiers come to your house and arrest your father,” she tells me, explaining how she empowers her friends. “You are young, you are smart, you study, and you can use the cameras and you have to help yourselves, help your family, help your village.”
She uses herself as an example: “I am a young girl and I am studying and also dealing with my activism in the group so you can do that.
“We are the heart of the community, if we don’t work hand-by-hand, we will fall.”
August 16 | International Solidarity Movement | Kafr Malik, Ramallah, occupied Palestine
This is the third of a series of reports documenting the control and devastation of water sources by Israel as a tool of oppression.
The residents of Kafr Malik, a town northeast of Ramallah, marched towards the Ain Samia area today to protest Israel’s theft of the village’s water supply, which has been diverted to a new illegal settlement.
Protesters told ISM that 20 hectares of land had also been stolen from the village, where almost 3,000 Palestinians live, and handed to just five settler families.
Hundreds attended the march and prayer – organised jointly by Fatah and the National and Islamic Parties – including the head of the Roman Catholic monastery in Palestine Abdullah Yolio.
The peaceful protest was immediately bombarded with rounds of tear gas (seen in video below) fired by occupation forces as well as hundreds of rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs.
Israeli soldiers also tried to confiscate Palestinian flags from protesters and targeted journalists, interrupting their filming and forcing them to move if they refused to comply with what appeared to be entirely arbitrary orders. The Red Crescent treated several people for tear gas inhalation including an ISMer who had to be carried to an ambulance.
He said that Israeli soldiers: “…came up the hill behind us, and fired directly at journalists filming on the hill above the protest.” The ISMer did not suffer any serious injuries.
Protesters including the Roman Catholic monastery suffer from tear gas inhalationTear gas sets dry hill on fire in Kafr Malik protest
Being cut off from the local water supply has severe implications for local Palestinian communities and is used as a means of oppression across the West Bank, from the Jordan Valley to the South Hebron Hills.
The cutting of Palestinian water resources is not just a matter of preferential treatment, or discrimination. It is an active effort to force Palestinians out of their homes by applying psychological and economic pressure to the communities there. The cumulative effect of settler attacks and vandalism, military harassment, and economic deprivation are all part of an attempt to break the Palestinian resistance movement. The aim is to force people into being too preoccupied with constant fears, as well as by making day to day existence so difficult, that they cease to resist.
There is no reason why people should be denied the basic human rights and means to live, and this is made all the worse when the means to do so are within reach, and are taken away from them. Control of water by the Israeli apartheid state is an essential aspect of oppression of Palestinians, and is one of the most pressing issues in Palestinians regaining their rights and autonomy.
Protesters pray beside Israeli police and soldiers at Kafr Malik protest
August 11 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Whilst continuing my work with ISM this year, I spent four weeks working at the Hebron/al-Khalil office of Defence for Children International focussing on the way that the occupation has compromised the access to education in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
It is believed that Abraham of the Bible/Ibrahim of the Quran is buried in this city. Thus, Hebron is entwined with the relgions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The tombs of Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacon and Leah, who are deeply revered in all religions are also believed to be buried there.Due to its religious significance, Hebron has become a stronghold for Jewish extremists and is the only city in the occupied West Bank with internal illegal Jewish settlements. Red-roofed have been built in and around the Old City, which traditionally served as the commercial centre for the entire southern West Bank, on private Palestinian land. Hebron’s fundamentalist settlers are united in their belief that the whole of Palestine is Jewish by divine right. They are united in their objective of expanding Israel through establishing settlements. These are illegal according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that, ‘the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies’. These settlers are united in their wish to expel Palestinians by demolishing their homes. Article 53 provides that ‘any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons… is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.’ Hebron is a stark symbol of how Palestinians are affected by the creeping policies of Israeli occupation.
Freedom of movement does not exist in this city that has 59 checkpoints, sporadic and endless barriers, closures, military zones and Jewish-only streets. A policy of separation is in place between Palestinians and Jewish settlers. Hebron is emblematic of the structural inequality of a land where one ethnic group lives under oppressive military rule, and another under democratic, civilian authority. Shuhada Street is one of the most stark examples of this apatheid system in Hebron. It was once among the busiest streets in this ancient city. In 1994, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) welded shut the street-facing doors of all the shops and the homes of the merchants who typically lived upstairs. By the time of the Second Intifada in 2000, no Palestinian was permitted to set foot on the once teeming market street. What compelled the IOF to close Shuhada Street was a tragedy that took place in 1994. Unarmed Palestinians at the nearby Ibrahimi Mosque were massacred as they prayed. This mass murder was carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Jewish zealot with Israeli military training and an assault rifle, who stopped firing only when he was killed by survivors of his attack. Shuhada Street, and the vibrant urban life it once sustained and symbolised, can be added to the list of Goldstein’s victims. Today, Goldstein is memorialised in his settlement of Kiryat Arba, where his shrine is revered. The few Palestinians who remain living on Shuhada Street have been barred from the street where they live. If they want to enter their homes, they must do so through back doors, which in many cases involves clambering over rooftops. Their homes are often vandalised; their water tanks are often poisoned. Continuing to live there peacefully is the ultimate form of nonviolent resistance.
In 2018, the UN documented 111 different cases of interference to education in the West Bank affecting more than 19,000 children. Movement restrictions such as the checkpoints and the apartheid wall limit access to education as the army or border police are likely to conduct ID checks, body searches, bag checks, and restrict children and teachers’ ability to get to school. Education is disrupted by Israeli Occupation Forces lobbing stun grenades, firing tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition into schools. In less than a month (between the 4th and 27th of November 2018), Christian Peacemaking Team Palestine documented 228 rounds of tear gas canisters and 51 rounds of sound grenades fired by the Israeli military when Palestinian children were leaving school. As well as their safe passage being restricted by the military, Palestinian school children’s access to education is also at risk from settler violence. A particularly malicious attack by 12 masked settlers in the South Hebron Hills against a group of children and international volunteers in 2004 precipitated implementation of a military escort. Lax execution of the military escort still leaves children vulnerable to harassment, intimidation and violence. The negative psychosocial impact of the occupation on the children affect their well-being, performance and completion rates. In one workshop, we collected data on how the students felt when they were at school. The overwhelming response was ‘scared’. It is not just the children who are endangered but the school buildings themselves. The shortage of physical infrastructure because of building restrictions and demolition orders often render schools unusable. Moreover, access to education is undermined by the unrelenting detention of children.
More than half of the children arrested by Israeli forces whose cases DCIP documented reported experiencing verbal abuse, threats, humiliation or intimidation. The vast majority, over 75 percent, said they were physically abused during the course of their detention. While under pre-trial detention, Israeli forces placed 22 children in isolation for a period of 48 hours or more. The longest period of isolation of a child that DCIP documented in 2018 was 30 days. Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Jewish settlers are subject to the civilian and criminal legal system whereas Palestinians live under military law. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military courts. Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes approximately 700 children each year in military courts lacking fundamental fair trial rights. So far, in 2019, there have been 210 child ‘security’ detainees, 14 of whom were or are currently subject to solitary confinement.
Palestinian children’s right to life is consistently undermined by the occupation. In 2018, more than one child was killed per week. At the bitter close of 52 weeks, 57 Palestinian children had been martyred by Israeli forces. So far in 2019, there have been 19 child fatalities. Abdul Rahman Shteiwi, 10, is currently fighting for his life after having been shot in the head by a sniper in Kafr Qadum while he was playing at the entrance of a home, posing no danger to anybody. Israel has denied using any live ammunition despite doctors finding an expanding live bullet that had exploded into more than 100 fragments after it lodged in his head.
Military fixtures such as checkpoints and watchtowers in the West Bank and the heavily surveilled ‘buffer zone’ along the border of Gaza represent significant risks of death, injury and arrest to children who live or pass near them frequently. Since 2014, DCIP documentation and analysis show that Israeli forces have increasingly targetted Palestinian children with intentional lethal force. Under international law, lethal force such as live ammunition may only be used as a last resort and when a direct threat to life or of serious injury exists. The latest child fatality occurred when occupation forces opened fire against 15-year-old Abdallah Ghaith near a Bethlehem checkpoint. Abdallah and his cousin were attempting to get over Israel’s apartheid wall to reach East Jerusalem for the last Friday prayers of Ramadan. He was posing no imminent threat. They killed him with a bullet in his chest that penetrated his heart. This killing is just the latest in an ever-lengthening list of child fatalities at the hands of the Israeli forces which the state has failed to fully and impartially investigate. On July 16, Tariq Zebania, a 7-year-old Palestinian child was riding his bicycle near Adhoura settlement in Hebron. He was struck by a car driven by a Jewish settler who headed into the settlement after hitting the boy. Eyewitnesses called the Israeli security forces. Tariq was pronounced dead upon reaching the hospital. No efforts were made by the Israeli authorities to apprehend the driver who killed the boy. The people responsible for these unlawful and deliberate killings of children should be prosecuted.
August 11 | International Solidarity Movement | Hebron, occupied Palestine
Yesterday in Tel Rumeida, the afternoon before Eid, settlers attacked an elderly Palestinian couple as they walked home. International activists in the area attempted to document the abuse. The soldiers were not protecting the Palestinians. They were allowing the actions of the violent settlers.
The soldiers instructed the activists to step away and stop filming. As the five international activists walked away, a settler pushed his young son into a 20-year-old British man, who was immediately pushed from behind to the ground and handcuffed by Israeli soldiers. When asked about his treatment, he stated that he had been placed in a chokehold whilst being dragged up the street, with his cable-tie being too tight for IOF soldiers to remove easily, causing his hands to swell and leaving red marks on his wrists that lasted for the rest of the day. Settlers were encouraging the aggression. They snatched the phones of two of the activists, when they asked for them back, the two 25-year-old British women were detained by border police and taken to Kiryat Arba police station. A fourth American activist had her phone stolen by Israeli settlers and thrown over a wall, and was also arrested at the scene. These four international activists were detained for four hours.
As you can see in the video, a Palestinian man was also handcuffed and taken away, despite not engaging illegally or provocatively.
A fifth international activist was stalked by a settler who verbally abused her along with Badee, founder of Human Rights Defenders. She called them terrorists whilst again, the army did nothing to help the situation. The soldiers ignored violations of Palestinians’ and activists’ fundamental human rights, made to stand in the sweltering heat being verbally and physically abused as some sort of collective punishment for simply trying to walk to their homes in the occupied Hebron. Soldiers threatened to arrest Badee if he didn’t stand at a particular point on the pavement that they arbitrarily had designated him.
The house that you see at the end of the video was vandalised. Hebrew signs were left overnight threatening Abu Awani. He visited the police station to make a complaint this morning but was turned away. Tensions remain high in Tel Rumeida with Palestinians’ freedom of movement restricted and right to life threatened.
The HRDA have released a statement regarding the threat:
“The activist Badee Dwaik said that Imad Abu Shamsya noticed the presence of slogans on cartons on the roof of Imad’s house on Friday morning threatening him with death and a group of Palestinian and foreign activists went to Imad Abu Shamsia’s house to declare their solidarity with him and to denounce the policy of threats against Imad and many activists Human Rights Defenders as a group of settlers returned at 3 am on the roof of Abu Shamsiya and we went to the occupation police station to file a complaint about the issue at 1:30 am, but the Israeli police asked to leave the place and remove it after 4 pm. This is the termination period.
The Defenders’ Association held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for the incident, since the activist Imad lives in the area under full Israeli security responsibility. The Defenders’ Association appealed to international and local institutions to provide protection for the activist Imad Abu Shamsieh and all activists of the Human Rights Coalition. It discourages activists from stopping by their duty to protect their people and expose the crimes of the occupation by documenting the camera.
It should be recalled that Imad Abu Shamsiah documented the assassination of martyr Abdel Fattah al-Sharif in March 2016 by the criminal soldier Alor Azzaro in Hebron.”
