Tag: Settlers

No freeze on Palestinian suffering

Seth Freedman | The Guardian

14 December 2009

Within minutes of our arrival in Tuwani, in the south Hebron hills of the West Bank, an army Jeep rolled into the village and shattered the mid-morning tranquillity. “We’re turning this place into a closed military zone,” announced the stern-faced commander to anyone within earshot. Brandishing his rifle in one hand and a military document in the other, he proceeded to explain that “I decide who can be here and who can’t, and anyone who isn’t a resident has to leave immediately”.

That meant us – me, my friend and our three guides from the Villages Group – as well as the other activists who maintain a permanent presence in Tuwani assisting the locals in their struggle to survive. The timing of the closure was no accident: earlier in the morning NGO workers and locals had taken part in a solidarity march to highlight the hardships suffered by the village children who run the gauntlet of the neighbouring settlement every time they walk to and from their school.

Anything the activists could do the soldiers could do better, it seemed. “The IDF [Israel Defence Forces] don’t like us coming to support the residents of Tuwani,” said one volunteer, “so they make it their mission to make everyone’s lives uncomfortable as a result.”

The shutdown of the village and the surrounding farmland was only the latest in a long line of attempts by the Israeli authorities to break the will of the Palestinians living in the area. As we drove out of Tuwani, we were shown the stump of an electricity pylon sawn down by the army after attempts by villagers to connect themselves to the national grid. Elsewhere, dirt mounds and locked gates stopped locals driving to the nearby city of Ya’ta, thus preventing them taking their produce to sell at market, and severely impairing their economic prospects.

Thanks to the army’s exclusion orders, we were forced to walk a treacherous and convoluted route through the rocky scrubland to visit communities living in even deeper seclusion beyond Tuwani. In Tu’ba, the cave-dwelling residents of the village are under no illusion about what the future holds for them, despite all the hype surrounding the much-vaunted settlement freeze.

“The freeze will have no effect round here,” the father of the household told us bitterly. Our guide expanded on the theme, telling us that the “real freeze is on Palestinian construction: 95% of Palestinian applications for building permits in Area C are denied by the civil administration, and for communities in this area they are not allowed to build above ground whatsoever”.

Those people living in caves are, it seems, tolerated by the authorities while they remain underground, but as soon as they put their heads above the surface and attempt to build rudimentary shacks and outhouses, demolition orders are served and the army are quick to enforce the letter of the law with gusto.

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring settlements of Carmel and Ma’on, building work was going on in earnest, and defiant banners on bus stops and fence posts declared the settlers’ intention to “smash the freeze”, and denounced the incumbent government as traitors to the Zionist cause. While government inspectors have been attacked during their attempts to bring settlement construction to a halt, the full force of the settlers’ wrath has – as ever – been meted out against the Palestinians.

The sickening desecration of a mosque on Friday in the village of Yasuf, near Nablus, appears to be the opening salvo in the settlers’ latest battle to force the government to back down over the building freeze, and those we met in the south Hebron hills were wary of similar reprisal attacks being carried out against their communities. “Our children are still attacked on a regular basis,” one local told us, “as well as our shepherds and farmers. Even if we call the police, we know justice will never be done, and the situation is only getting worse now that the settlers are furious about Netanyahu’s decision.”

Ehud Krinis, one of the Villages Group activists, believes that the freeze is “just an act” on the part of the government; having worked in the area for almost eight years and seen the settlers’ above-the-law behaviour first hand, he maintains “there is no effective force that can stop the settlers building more. In fact, as we can see in Susiya and elsewhere, the settlers simply see the freeze as a challenge to construct [at an even faster rate], which is what will happen over the next 10 months.”

As we sat with the head of the Bedouin clan living in Um al-Kheir – a collection of tumble-down tents and shacks literally touching the perimeter fence of the Carmel settlement – the mood of resignation engulfing the encampment’s residents was suffocating. We were shown aerial photos of Um al-Kheir’s gradual demise over the past 30 years, a situation attributable to the encroachment of the settlers and the military on to their ancestral land. It was clear that for those forced to endure the humiliation and hardship on a daily basis, the politicians’ upbeat talk was at best cheap, and at worst a flagrant denial of the facts.

For those Palestinians living under military rule, coupled with indiscriminate and incessant settler attacks against them, their children and their flocks, there is no end in sight to the suffering. While the world might have been convinced that the worm is about to turn in the Israeli political arena, a quick glance at the fevered construction still taking place in the settlements, the oppressive military activity against the Palestinian villagers and the overarching penury in which the Palestinians are forced to subsist should give onlookers food for thought about the true situation on the ground.

Freeze or no freeze, the future looks no brighter for the Palestinian locals today than it has during any of the bitter years and decades gone by.

Sheikh Jarrah families continue to face harassment from settlers occupying Palestinian houses

14 December 2009

The Jewish settler group that has taken over several houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem continues to harass the Palestinian residents and vandalise Palestinian property. In the past two days alone there were numerous incidents displaying an extreme disregard for the human and legal rights of others.

In the night of Sunday 13 December 2009, settlers spray-painted on the back part of the Kurd family house, adjacent to the front part which is occupied by settlers since 1 December.

In the morning, settlers occupying the front part of the Kurd family house sprayed water through the window onto two young girls in the Kurd family. This was the second time they have done this.

In the afternoon, settlers attempted to spray-paint a message on the Qassem family home wall. However, they were interrupted and stopped as they were discovered by international activists. The Qassem family
home is adjacent to the occupied Ghawi home and opposite the street to the occupied Kurd house.

Also in the afternoon, a settler in the occupied Kurd house threw a bag of trash into the garden of the Kurd family and attempted to steal a plastic pipe that he found in the yard. The theft-in-progress was discovered and stopped by family father Nabeel Kurd. Not long after, the same settler walked across the street to the occupied Ghawi house and subsequently returned to the occupied Kurd house carrying a stick, and when passing an international activist in the gate to the Kurd property the settler threateningly jabbed with the stick towards the throat of the activist.

In the evening, settlers occupying the front part of the Kurd family house sprayed water through the window, this time on Kurd family belongings that were thrown out during the 1 December take over and
are now stored outside the window.

On Monday 14 December 2009 at 4am, one of the settlers sneaked close to the Kurd family tent and drew with a black felt-tip pen onto the plastic canvas. The settler stopped and returned to the occupied Kurd
house upon discovery by an international activist. A private settler security guard was immediately notified about the vandalism but failed to find the settler inside the house.

At 8am, another settler spray-painted on the Kurd family home wall, while two of this friends kept look-out (one being the one who drew on the tent).

While the recent actions of the settlers haven’t been extremely violent, their persistance is aimed at making the life of the Palestinian familes as difficult as possible. A day doesn’t pass for the Palestinians without the settlers subjecting them to constant harassment and, in some cases, violence.

Background

Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.

The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to evict all Palestinians from the area and turn it into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.

Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.

Israeli police demolish tent of evicted Sheikh Jarrah family for the fifth time

14 December 2009

On Monday 14 December 2009 at 10am, heavily armed Israeli police came to the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem and demolished the Gawi family tent for the fifth time in two months. As the winter rain started to fall, the Gawi family members found themselves once again on the street without shelter.

The Palestinian family’s possessions were confiscated and removed in police pick-up trucks. The Gawi family has lived in a tent for over four months now, since 2 August 2009 when the 37 extended family members were forcefully evicted from their 7-appartment home in Sheikh Jarrah, now occupied by Jewish settlers.

Notes from Area C / The right to return to the caves

Amira Hass | Ha’aretz

11 December 2009

This is a story of return, the return of Palestinians to their land in Area C. Just over a month ago, on November 8, two out of 15 families returned to Khirbet Bir el-Eid, in south Mount Hebron. By yesterday their number had reached eight.

“Everyone waited to see if they would kill us before they decided whether to return,” joked Ismail I’dra, 63, as he worked energetically to clean up one of the caves that serve as homes to residents the village. Indeed, less than two weeks ago, I’dra, too, was afraid to enter the area on his own, with his tractor laden with feed for his flock; he preferred to be accompanied by activist Ezra Nawi of Ta’ayush (an Arab-Jewish anti-occupation movement).

The first three weeks after residents began to return to Bir el-Eid were full of incidents in which settlers from nearby communities threw stones at the women and the flocks, and tried to enter the village to frighten people), and blocked the access road, sometimes with the help of the army. Only the submission of an urgent petition, two weeks ago, to the High Court of Justice by the inhabitants, by means of Rabbis for Human Rights, compelled the army to leave the road open.

“But, God be praised,” said I’dra on Wednesday, “during the past week it has been quiet.”

The minor incident last Saturday apparently no longer counts as a clash: About 20 members of Ta’ayush arrived to help clean up the village, which is actually a collection of caves. One settler appeared, as did Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Border Police. There was tension, and one Ta’ayush activist was arrested, which is a routine occurence. And this week, there are already more smiles on people’s faces: The constant presence of activists from abroad and daily visits by Israeli supporters add to their sense of security in Bir el-Eid.

Laundry fluttered in the breeze, chickens scuttled about and some of the sheep ventured off to chomp the first grass that sprouted after the rain, while others bleated from inside their stone enclosures. A few inquisitive children scampered around the mothers and the volunteers working to tidy the area, between the black water containers brought by Rabbis for Human Rights and the white tents protecting the caves – donations from the Red Cross.

On the agenda now are the cleaning and restoration of the village’s cisterns, which were dug by the residents’ great-great-grandfathers. A number of Ta’ayush volunteers have already acquired expertise in “this donkeys’ work,” as Nawi calls it. One noted with satisfaction that the first cistern he has been entrusted with would be a cinch; there is no need to slither down into it on a rope. The work will take two or three days, and it will be able to store enough rainwater to supply residents for a month.

Is this cleaning operation allowed, we wondered. After all, this is Area C, where every heart needs a permit to beat from the Civil Administration. The activist’s reply: Digging new cisterns for collecting and drawing rainwater is forbidden, but repairing existing cisterns is allowed.

During a tour by Haaretz in August 2007, this place looked like a lost cause – manifest proof, it seemed, that the designation of a locale as belonging to Area C is the final stage before “cleansing” the place of Palestinians and effectively annexing it. No sign of life was visible on these slopes back then. The cisterns were in ruins. The half-destroyed stone fences and structures, and partly blocked caves, looked like memorials, situated as they were between the two unauthorized outposts overlooking the area: from the south the Lucifer farm, and Magen David (also called Mitzpeh Yair) from the north.

An attack back then by two settlers on UN field researchers and on a Haaretz correspondent and photographer was added to the list of abuses suffered by the indigenous inhabitants, which spurred them to flee. The harassment was backed up by closure orders of the area by the army, and by inaction on its part, and on that of the Civil Administration and the police.

Useless complaints

The harassments began in 1999; by 2003 the last family had departed. A petition by inhabitants of Bir el-Eid in 2006 to the High Court of Justice, submitted on their behalf by Rabbis for Human Rights attorney Quamar Mishirqi-Assad, gave all the details: the killing of sheep, burning of fields, destruction of crops, damage to property, use of gunfire and dogs, building of dirt mounds to prevent access, throwing of carcasses into the cisterns. Complaining to the police was worthless.

At the end of January 2009, about five years after attorney Mishirqi-Assad began her correspondence with the authorities, climaxing in the petition to the court, the state gave its response: “In the wake of the completion of the examinations and assessments of the issue, it has been decided that the army will allow the petitioners to come to the area of Bir el-Eid for purposes of grazing and dwelling … starting from the second part of 2009 …”

On Wednesday Mussa Raba’i, one of the residents, said the real problem in the area is not with the settlers, but rather with the Israeli authorities – i.e., the central government: It allows the settlements (including unauthorized ones) to sprout up and develop, while preventing the original inhabitants from building or connecting their dwellings to the electricity and water grids. This, added Raba’i, effectively prevents adoption of a modern way of life.

The state’s response to Rabbis for Human Rights also stipulates: “Nothing in what is stated allows your clients to enter areas that have been declared state lands or to carry out construction of any sort without obtaining the requisite building permits from the responsible authorities.”

Maryam Raba’i and her daughter Abir, a student of business management at the Al-Quds Open University, smiled when asked whether they live in the caves of their own free will. Abir, who cannot study at night because there is no electricity, said of course not. Everyone wants modern and convenient housing, she added, but on their own land.

In various places in the West Bank, clusters of similar semi-nomadic dwellings (tents or caves) had by 1967 developed into villages with permanent structures, but this natural process of development was halted by the Israeli occupation.

“In the period when the central government was weak,” explained geographer and archaeologist Nazmi Ju’beh, “people left the khirbehs [rural outposts] in which they had been living and moved to larger, central villages to seek protection mainly from acts of robbery by nomadic Bedouin tribes. As the central government grew stronger, after 1830, habitation near their springs, grazing lands and cultivated fields – in accordance with the seasons – became more permanent. A mosque was built here, a school and a shop went up there. Jordan encouraged this process. Now the situation is reversed: The government is causing the insecurity and selective non-development.”

Why didn’t you build stone houses before 1967, we asked the inhabitants of Bir el-Eid. They immediately corrected us: Some 40 roughly hewn stone houses had been built during the period of the British Mandate in the village of Jinba, in a valley about three kilometers to the southeast. Bir el-Eid is an integral part of Jinba, in terms of the families living there, the land and the history. However, in the 1980s, without anyone being aware of it, the IDF demolished most of the houses because they stood on land that was declared a “military training zone.”

The determination to return, the legal battle, and close support of Israeli and international activists have rendered the expulsion only temporary. Neither the massive demolition or the training grounds designation; nor the building prohibitions that Israel imposed in the early 1970s; nor the restrictions of “Area C” are what has impelled people to abandon their lands. The official Israeli limitations only force people to live in harsh, traditional conditions that do not accord with the younger generation’s aspirations and expectations.

In reply to a query from Haaretz regarding measures being taken to protect the safety of the inhabitants of BBir el-Eid, the IDF spokesman and the spokesman of the coordinator of activities in the territories replied: “The IDF takes seriously the claims regarding friction between Palestinians and the settlers, and carries out various activities at known points of confrontation in the sector with the aim of preventing and limiting occurrences that disrupt public order. Recently the brigade command has also carried out a tour of the site, in cooperation with people from the Civil Administration and the prosecution, to assess the situation.

“In the wake of incidents that occurred there, and after carrying out a security assessment of the situation, the army determined that, provisionally, entering the Bir el-Eid area can be done by means of an access route that is different from the one that initially served the inhabitants.

“Indeed, the inhabitants submitted a request for an urgent discussion in the High Court of Justice, but prior to deliberation (and with no connection to it), an additional assessment of the situation was conducted, and it was decided to allow the inhabitants free access also along the original route, if there is no concrete security impediment, in the future. On November 28, there was friction between Palestinians and settlers, in the aftermath of which the area was declared a closed military zone, with respect to Israeli civilians. The settlers were evacuated in order to prevent a conflagration.

“The IDF is continuing to take all measures to ensure public order in the area within existing limitations, with the aim of reducing the incidents as much as possible.”

Settlers set fire to Yasuf mosque, burning over 80 Qur’an and other holy texts

11 December 2009

Qur'an and other holy texts destroyed by fire set to Yasuf mosque by settlers
Qur\’an and other holy texts destroyed by fire set to Yasuf mosque by settlers

Settlers set fire to the mosque of Yasuf village in the Nablus region of the West Bank on Friday, 11 December. The vicious attack was carried out in the early hours of the morning, after which the village was invaded by Israeli Occupation Forces, firing tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at distraught Palestinians, protesting the desecration of the holy site. Settler violence has seen a sharp increase this month with the Israeli government’s announcement to “freeze” settlement construction in the West Bank for 10 months.

The attack came directly after the dawn call to prayer at approximately 4:30am, when 4 residents of the notorious Tappuah settlement entered the mosque. Litres of gasoline were dumped across prayer carpets and copies of the Qur’an and dozens of other holy Islamic texts were pulled from shelves lining the wall. These too were covered in gas and set alight, smoke filling the mosque and blackening its walls. The settlers spraypainted messages of hate across the building’s entrance in Hebrew – “Price tag – greetings from Effi” and “We will burn all of you.”

As news of the attack broke in Yasuf, hundreds of angry and bewildered villagers gathered to march on the settlement. Their approach was cut short as they were intercepted by Israeli Occupation Forces, firing tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets on the Palestinians, who were driven back to the village. The military followed them, 10 jeeps carrying 50 soldiers entering Yasuf, continuing to fire within the village. 8 residents were removed from the scene by Red Crescent ambulances, 1 shot in the leg by a tear-gas cannister, and 7 others – including the mayor of Yasuf – suffering severe respiratory problems from gas inhalation.

The army finally retreated from the village at 11am, but established a flying checkpoint at its entrance, banning entry to all but residents and local reporters. No international media or activists were permitted access until the following day. Friday, the traditional Muslim day of rest, saw residents of Yasuf conducting mass prayers in the streets as the mosque’s insides, charred, blackened, and reeking of tar, made it impossible to use.

The site of Tappuah, originally an Israeli military base, was established as a settlement in 1984. Home to only 100 settlers, its borders have expanded to swallow 1200 dunums of what was formerly Yasuf’s land. A road planned for construction between Tappuah and Ariel, to Yasuf’s west, will effectively separate the village from many more hundreds of dunums, easing the settlements’ systematic annexation and isolation of Palestinian land. What remains of Yasuf’s land today is regularly grazed by farmers from Tappuah, at times even uprooting or cutting olive trees, rendering their crops useless. Incidents of harassment and outright violence have escalated in recent years, seeing 7 incidents of car arson in the last month alone.

The desecration of the mosque is a serious development in what settlers have dubbed the ‘price-tag’ campaign – a co-ordinated backlash against Israeli government attempts to curb expansion of settlements – inflicted not on Israeli targets, but Palestinian. Settler violence has surged with the government’s latest alleged 10-month “freeze” on construction in West Bank settlements, seeing acts of vandalism and destruction on agricultural and private property in Palestinian villages. But the campaign takes on a new dimension with the targeting of a religious site, sending a powerful message – anything is fair game. But as Omar, a young resident of Yasuf says, “this is a place of prayer, not fighting.”

The destruction of religious items is illegal under Israeli law. Numerous national governments – including America, Israel and the Palestinian Authority – have condemned the attack, calling for the perpetrators to be caught and dealt a swift justice. Although the Israeli police and military have both stated they are investigating the incident, history has shown such incidents are rarely – if ever – treated with the same
priority as crimes against Israelis, and the perpetrators seldom identified, let alone held accountable.