Tag: Tulkarem

Land Day commemorations continue in Nazlat ‘Isa, Tulkarm

On Monday 31st March, residents of the Tulkarm district continued their Land Day demonstrations with a protest against the separation wall in the village of Nazlat ‘Isa.

Approximately 100 protesters confronted Israeli soldiers as they attempted to march to the separation wall that denies freedom of movement to Palestinians – preventing farmers from reaching their lands, and families from visiting each other. Waving flags and holding banners, demonstrators demanded to be allowed to approach the wall, standing defiantly as soldiers tried to push them back.

“Go home!” Cried women from the local Women’s Committee. “Leave us alone! This is our land!”

The demonstration, organised by the Tulkarm Women’s Union; municipalities of Nazlat ‘Isa and Tulkarm; numerous political parties; and social organisations, intended to march down the main street of Nazlat ‘Isa, which was once a thriving hub of commerce, but now surrounded by empty fields where over 180 shops were bulldozed by the Israeli army in 2003 to prepare for the construction of the wall. The march was then planned to continue on along the route of the wall until it reached the house that in 2004 was built into the wall itself. Here demonstrators were to protest against the fact that seven houses of the village were separated from the rest of the village by the building of the wall, preventing family members from ever visiting them.

Israeli soldiers insisted that protesters could take another route to their destination, but that at no point would they be allowed to march near the wall. Demonstrators refused this “offer”, and insisted on protesting as close to the wall as possible.

15 kilometres north-east of Tulkarm city, the village of Nazlat ‘Isa has been crippled economically by the occupation. In 1948, the village lost 10 000 of its 12 400 dounums of land; and then another 824 dunnums from the construction of the separation wall (300 for the wall itself, and another 524 has been isolated from the village by the wall). Prior to 1948, 97% of the villagers were farmers; now, following the destruction of the market place and factories in 2003, and the construction of the wall, 97% of the villagers are unemployed.

For over an hour the stand-off between demonstrators and Israeli soldiers continued, with Palestinians remaining non-violent despite the march through their own lands being curtailed by the presence of the occupying army.

Tulkarm Continues Land Day Commemmoration, Israeli Military injures 2

Today, Friday, March 28, 2008 two demonstrators were injured with rubber-coated steel bullets (one seriously), as the second of Tulkarm’s Land Day demonstrations took place in the village of Deir al Ghusun, 8km north of the center of Tulkarm. The focus of the demonstration was against the separation wall – which prevents farmers accessing their land, as well as preventing freedom of movement.

Approximately 100 people took part in the demonstration, which was organized by the local municipality, in conjunction with the local popular committee and heads of political parties in the area. Protesters carried banners that read: “On Land Day we will continue our struggle against the wall; the occupation; and the siege.”

Demonstrators marched to the wall that separates them from their lands and families, chanting and waving flags. As they approached the gate that allows only ten percent of farmers to pass through to their lands on the other side of the wall, Israeli soldiers threw sound bombs into the crowd, causing protesters to scatter. The soldiers then fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters from behind the gate, injuring one man, Fariz Tanib, aged 50 years, in the leg, and an employee of the local municipality, Hazem Omar, aged 41 years, in the forehead. Hazem was rushed to hospital with a head injury that required 4 stitches.

The protest marked a refusal to submit to the loss of land that has occurred since 1948 – when 18,000 dunnums of village land were assigned to Israel by the green line; and more recently in 2004 when the separation wall isolated farmers from an additional 2,400 dunnums of their land, as well as taking 300 dunnums for the route of the wall itself. Abu Sayad, member of the Deir al Ghusun popular committee, says that now there is only 6,000 dunnums left for the village, which has a population of 10,000.

Local political party leaders today committed to continue the demonstrations against the wall weekly.

Tulkarm Holds First of Many Actions Commemmorating Land Day

On Thursday the city of Tulkarm began the first of its Land Day demonstrations – a national event held on 30th March each year to commemorate the killing of seven Palestinians citizens of Israel by Israeli soldiers in 1976, during protests over land confiscation.

The city began by replanting trees along Al Khadouri street – once a tree-lined avenue, now barren because the trees were destroyed by Israeli bombing during the first and second Intifadas. Organized by a collaboration of local and national institutions, such as PARC, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Farmer’s Union, the local municipality and Palestine Technical University, around one hundred conifer trees were prepared to rehabilitate the street.

Approximately forty children from local primary schools, internationals, Israelis and local Tulkarm identities such as the mayor, all took part in the planting, which extended from the site where the first tree was destroyed, all the way to the Israeli-owned Geshuri chemical factories that cause enormous pollution and health problems for the residents of Tulkarm. Asme, from the Public Relations department of Palestine Technical University, explained that involving the children in the action by getting them to plant trees helped to “explain to the children the importance of the land; to mark the anniversary of Land Day in an active way. When the child plants the tree, and every day he sees the tree, it will be very good. He will watch it growing.”

Once the street was completely re-lined with trees (identical in species to those destroyed), approximately 150 demonstrators marched the length of the street, in the direction of the Geshuri chemical factories, and then along the compound wall of the factories themselves, to protest against the presence of such dangerously polluting factories in Tulkarm.

The Israeli chemical factories, including factories for ammonia, fertilizers, plastics, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, were originally built within Israel, near Tel Aviv, explains local activist and journalist Abdul Karim. They were forced to shutdown in 1984, however, because of the danger of the pollutants they produce. They were relocated to Tulkarm in 1987, onto land confiscated by the Israeli government, a large percentage of which belonged to the agricultural college of An Najar university. The local residents of Tulkarm are not the only ones concerned about the dangerous pollution that purportedly gives Tulkarm one of the highest rates of cancer in the West Bank (some claim in the world) – Abdul Karim reports that Israelis on the other side of the factories (which border on Israel and are in fact surrounded by the separation wall) protested against the factories also. However, because the location is within the West Bank, Israeli authorities apparently claim that it is out of their jurisdiction. The Israeli’s protests did, however, grant one concession: now every year in May, (the one month in the year when the winds blow from East to West, instead of from West to East) the factories are forced to halt their operations, so that nearby Israeli’s do not suffer from the pollution that is blown across Tulkarm for the other eleven months of the year.

Demonstrators gathered at a disused gas station across from the factories – damaged by Israeli army tanks in 2002, and forcibly abandoned along with all of the other shops and restaurants along this once bustling strip, due to persistent army presence and firing from 2001-2003, when the area became a combat zone.

The owner of the abandoned gas station addressed the crowd, explaining that what happened to his building is reflective of what is occurring across the entire West Bank, and called for the chemical factories to be uprooted. Jamal Said, advisor to the governor of Tulkarm, then spoke of the high cancer rates in Tulkarm, and the general negative effects of the chemical factories on the health of those living in all of Tulkarm, but especially those living close to the factories.

These actions marked the first in a week of Land Day activities for Tulkarm, which include two more demonstrations against the separation wall, as well as photo exhibitions and festivals throughout the city.

Farmers protest against being denied access to their lands

On Thursday, March 13th, the farmers of Deir Al Ghusun, a village north of Tulkarm, gathered at one of the gates restricting them access to their land to confront the Israeli military. The farmers and other members of the village sat in protest in front of the gate demanding that it be removed. The village has three supervised gates that are opened three times a day for one hour at a time. The farmers must bring their land certificates to be allowed to work on their land and commonly are turned away for no particular reason.

After 15 minutes of seated resistance and chanting against the gate, the Israeli military had forced the villagers to move back with threats of open fire; the mayor remained asking for the gate to be opened. The Israelis complied and after 20 minutes of failure to open to gate they claimed that there were technical difficulties and they would bring in their commander. As the commander arrived, it was clear that the gate wouldn’t be opened, the Israelis promised that on Sunday the mayor and five farmers would be able to meet with the District Coordination office: the Israeli military office throughout the west bank that grants Palestinians permits for various necessities.

Friday Anti-Wall demonstrations marked by violence

Qaffin

Friday, March 8th, saw a large demonstration in the West Bank town of Qaffin against the annexation wall. The demonstration was organised by the Qaffin municipality and featured a large block of activists from the Democratic Union. Approximately four hundred Palestinian and international demonstrators marched to wall to be met by two Israeli army jeeps. The soldiers initially fired live ammunition into the air and then in the direction of the protesters. Tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets were then used to attack the non-violent demonstration. Three people were hit by the rubber coated bullets, but were not seriously injured. After an hour the protesters returned to the town.

Qaffin, just north of Tulkarem has a population of around 10,000. The size of the town has more than halved in the last 13 years as settlements and the annexation wall have stolen the towns agricultural land. 120,000 olive trees are currently on the west side of the wall, and a further 12,000 were razed to make way for the walls construction. The Israeli army also regularly invade the town, and 280 of the towns population are currently in Israeli jails.

Bil’in (from IMEMC, by: George Rishmawi)

Several protesters wounded in weekly Bil’in anti-wall protest

Dozens of residents of Bil’in, a village near Ramallah, took to the streets on Friday in their weekly demonstration protesting the illegal confiscation of the village’s land through Israel’s continued expansion of the wall.

The residents were joined by many International and Israeli peace activists, in addition to supporters of the Palestinian Democratic Federation Party (Fida), who were celebrating their eighteenth anniversary.

Protesters carried signs condemning the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and others demanding the dismantling of the wall that is causing serious hardships for farmers in the village.

The protesters were stopped by Israeli soldiers at the pass-through gate of the wall and were prevented from reaching the land that has already been confiscated from their village. Israeli soldiers then used tear gas and sound bombs to disperse the demonstrators.

Palestinian youth participating in the demonstration responded by throwing rocks at the soldiers, who then began firing rubber-coated steel bullets. An Israeli peace activist, identified as Marina, and a Palestinian protester, identified as Naji Shouha, were moderately wounded by Israeli gunfire. Additionally, a number of Palestinians and Internationals were treated for tear gas inhalation.