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.
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.
Two houses in the village of Far’un, near Tulkarem, are under threat of imminent demolition as the deadline given by the Israeli authorities for residents to evacuate their homes has come and passed.
The original deadline, which fell on 3rd February 2008, was met with a show of community resistance, with up to 100 villagers holding vigil outside the endangered houses, accompanied by eight international human rights workers. The community presence seemed sufficient to dissuade Israeli authorities from sending bulldozers to demolish the structures before the lawyer for the families could make an appeal of the High Court of Justice. A deadline extension was won, providing the families’ lawyer with ten more days in which to argue their case with the Israeli authorities. This deadline too has now passed, with no assurances the houses will be saved.
The homes, built on the western perimeter of the village, both lie within 50 meters of the segregation wall. Israeli authorities usually require the separation wall to have a “buffer zone” of up to 200 metres of empty land for security purposes. The houses, however, were built in 1998 – six years prior to the construction of the wall, which was completed in the Tulkarem region in 2004. Nonetheless, Israeli authorities have declared the houses “illegal structures”, despite having needlessly constructed the wall so close to residential dwellings.
Eight nearby homes have also been demolished since the construction of the wall – two in 2003 and six in February 2007 – causing chaos in the small village of only 3000 residents, as the forcibly displaced home-owners were compelled to move in to relatives’ homes.
Another nearby home has also received two written warnings advising residents to demolish their own home – a third letter will advise of impending Israeli destruction. The local primary school for boys is also under threat, as one-half of the school grounds lie within the projected “buffer zone”.
The residents currently live in a state of fear and uncertainty – as they have been doing in the four years since their neighbours’ houses were first demolished in 2003. One of the home-owners, a 35 year old man, has remained single, waiting to marry until he had finished building his house so as to have stability to offer his intended family.
Sunday saw the assassination of a young man, Mohammed Qawzah, known as “Azzalayim,” from Tulkarem refugee camp. Azzalayim, 23, believed he had been granted amnesty and pardon by Israeli authorities, but was shot dead at a coffee shop near his Tulkarem refugee camp home Sunday afternoon. A Tulkarem source reported that Qawzah had been told by soldiers that he was no longer on the ‘wanted’ list, that it was safe for him to return home.
Also injured at the same time was, 23 year old Mushir Al-Mansuri, a friend of Qawzah’s, shot in the shoulder and leg and taken to a West Bank hospital. It is unknown thus far whether the Israeli army is pursuing this man or whether he has been granted pardon, it is known however that the deceased was on an amnesty list released by Israel a few weeks ago.
Like many West Bank areas, Tulkarem residents suffer regular Israeli army invasions and kidnappings. Most of the residents have either themselves been imprisoned in Israeli jails or have close family members who have been or currently are imprisoned, held in a cycle of administrative detention which can be extended indefinitely to upwards of 5 years in many cases without ever being officially charged.
One Tulkarem camp resident, Umm S, told her family’s story from a corner of her well-kept home, relating the whereabouts of her 4 sons and 1 daughter: “One was martyred; one has been in prison for 6 years; another was taken 4 months before, after being shot by Israeli soldiers in his leg and chest, and then arrested in his home; and 1 was released after 5 years in administrative detention.” The daughter has spent a year and a half in Israeli prisons. She is 19.
The friend of the family acting as translator cited this one family as an example of families across Palestine: at least 2 immediate family members in prison, usually in administrative detention.
“In the 1st Intifada, the army took our sons and fathers. In this Intifada, they take anyone.”
Referring to the Annapolis summit to begin on Tuesday, he continued: “Israel does not take this summit seriously, but we do, because our brothers and sisters are in jail.”
The translator related his own family experience: “My son is in an Israeli prison. He is 16 years old and has been imprisoned for 1.5 years.”
That would make the boy 14.5 years old upon arrest. The father himself was held in Israeli prisons for 4 years from 1984, and his brother is currently in prison for the long-term.
B, who also translated the stories, has his own story, imprisoned at 16 for 2 years. He had joined the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah-offshoot resistance fighters, at 14 after his cousin was shot and killed in front of him by the Israeli army. Sentenced to 5 years, he had an Israeli lawyer who got him out after 2 years and on 7,000 shekels bail.
He related his arrest: “I was caught leaving my home and taken to the DCO. The Israeli soldiers beat me severely on my kneecaps, then took me straight to jail. They never gave me medical attention. I couldn’t stand up to use the bathroom on my own for one month.”
Post-incarceration, B renounced participation in the Brigades, opting to pursue education: “I quit Al Aqsa because I wanted to educate myself,” he confessed with determination.
Given that he has lost friends and family to the Occupation forces, lost two years of his young life to the prison system, his pledge is convincing, though the future obstacles from the Israeli soldiers and Occupation seemingly unavoidable.
Annapolis nears, but life in camps like Tulkarem continues to grind under Occupation, camp residents continuing to crawl through a mire of unfulfilled peace and amnesty pledges. Life on West Bank roads barely crawls, the number of “flying checkpoints” increasing as the summit nears, the length of lines increasingly in tandem with the hype.
In Tulkarem late Sunday night, Israeli Special Forces disguised as veiled Muslim women, continued with their policy of middle of the night abductions, climbing onto the roof of one home and arresting a man, alleged to be a Hamas member, and his wife, the couple taken to an unknown location.
Members of Combatants for Peace with the Vice President of the European Parliament Louisa Morgantini
A meeting of Combatants for Peace, with an audience of more than one hundred people, took place in this small village adjacent to the illegal settlement of Avne Hafez and with a checkpoint blocking the only road that leads out of the village.
The presence of the illegal settlement of Avne Hefez resulted in the closure of the main route that used to connect Shufa with Tulkarem city. Previously it would take ten minutes to travel between the two towns. The inhabitants now need over one hour to travel from one to the other, greatly decreasing their ability to access university or work both through the added time and also the significantly increased expense. The village is also not connected with the electricity network and consequently depends on a generator to have an energy supply. The increasing isolation of Shufa by the illegal occupation is killing the future of the youth from the village, who grow frustrated and desire nothing else than to leave their community.
Combatants for Peace is a movement started in 2005 jointly by Palestinians and Israelis who have taken an active part in the cycle of violence within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The former combatants believe in joining forces and in using non-violent means to terminate the Israeli occupation, to halt the construction of illegal settlements and to establish a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, alongside the State of Israel. Their goals are to raise consciousness in both the Palestinian and Israeli spheres, to create partners in dialogue, to educate others towards reconciliation and non-violent struggle, and to put political pressure on both governments to stop the violence and the occupation.
Attending the meeting in Shufa were former Palestinian and Israeli combatants, nowadays struggling through non-violent methods for ending the occupation and achieving two independent states. Also present was an Italian member of the European Parliament, Louisa Morgentini, who recognizes Europe’s responsibility in resolving the issues of political prisoners, the apartheid wall, the illegal settlements, the checkpoints and other occupation measures, in order to achieve real and lasting peace between the countries.
Former Palestinian fighters explained that they had to justify to their people why they had joined former Israeli soldiers. For them the answer is that they want to have real peace, and to follow the example of non-violent liberation from the occupation of other countries, such as India or South Africa. For those former combatants, speaking together with the Israelis is the beginning for both nations to be in peace, moreover with an international presence, as in fact happened in the meeting.
One of the testimonials in Shufa came from a former Israeli soldier, who now works as a teacher and is the father of a small girl. Until three years ago he was a soldier in Israeli forces. For fifteen years he was a commando. His reasons for becoming a professional soldier reach back to the way Israeli youth are brought up and educated about their culture, history and current context. From an early age he was taught that this was the country of Israeli people and others living there were just preventing them from living in peace. They told him that Israelis were always peaceful while Palestinians were always violent.
In this way, joining the army was for him a means for defending Israel from the Palestinians, instead of thinking that he was committing crimes in the occupied territories, as in fact he was doing. In 2001, during the Second Intifada, he was near a settlement looking for armed groups shooting in nearby roads. Waiting for them, he found an old man picking up nylon bags and going to the fence. He couldn’t reach is home without making a very big tour. After seeing that, he said to his soldiers that he was not going to participate in these actions anymore. But four months later, in Jerusalem a suicide bomb explode near him and he went to give assistance to the injured people. Then his unit called him to go to Jenin and he, worried about the pressure of his society, went there. He participated in the Battle of Jenin knowing that it was a crime, but without the courage to say no to his commanders. He would need another terrible event to be able to say no.
He went with his platoon to a small village to arrest someone wanted for investigation. Walking in the night, leading his platoon, he knew that he was doing something unacceptable. They blocked houses around, preparing the scene for arrest, the soldiers shot to the walls many times just to show they were there, without knowing how big the walls were. The commander told them to be aware of children because the inhuman Palestinians used them by strapping bombs to them. It was three in the morning, a mother and her three daughters were the first ones running out of the house. One of the small girls was so afraid that she ran towards them. They also were afraid, so he shot in the air and the girl stopped running. He knew that his shot killed her soul. For some seconds she looked at his eyes and that was for him like a heavy hammer on his head. He knew that if he wouldn’t stop then nothing would touch his heart anymore. So he and his thirty soldiers wrote a letter to the Prime Minister stating that they planned to end their participation in activities in the West Bank. They said they were ready to serve in the defense of Israelis, but not to serve in Israeli attacks.
That was three years ago. Then he joined Combatants for Peace. There are Israelis who think that by participating in violence they bring peace and freedom to Israel and peace to the Palestinian people. He realized however that violence just brings more violence. He was also surprised to realize that most of the Palestinian people want peace and that many of them struggle through non-violent means against the occupation. Unfortunately, Israeli media often doesn’t show the peaceful acts between Israelis and Palestinians such as this one being held in Shufa.
Another testimonial came from a former major in the army. He said that he considers himself a war criminal, having attended seminars on International Law. He personally carried out and gave order for illegal arrests, collective punishment and other war crimes.
He grow up in a Zionist house. His father was also a soldier. They told him that, as a soldier, he would save his country and his family. His grandfather was born in Poland, and the Nazis had killed his family. So he grew up with stories about Zionism and about how they would only be safe in Israel. He felt that the only way to avoid another holocaust was joining the Army. This way of thinking is a part of the “Israeli paranoia”. He was four years in regular Army and ten in reserves. So he has been everywhere in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
He had given commands to arrest a nine-year old boy and to separate children from their parents in the middle of the night. Sometimes, in the morning, he could be discussing with his wife the best way to decorate the house and in the evening he could be demolishing Palestinian houses after dragging out their residents. Other times, he would worry in the morning because his little girl had a fever and would carry her to the doctor, and in the afternoon he was at a checkpoint preventing people with serious illnesses to go to the hospital. He did all that without thinking about what he was doing, just following orders, but little by little he realized that he couldn’t do it anymore. Then he refused serve in the occupied territories because that behavior is inhuman and not a way for achieving peace.
The above are just two of many testimonies and views of ex-combatants from both the Israeli and Palestinian side. It was considered a privilege to witness some of these testimonies, which offer hope to finding a peaceful resolution to what has been a long and violent conflict.
Sima is a 35 year old Palestinian woman who was released approximately four months ago following two and a half years in an underground Israeli jail. She has four young children who were left without any parents during her stay in prison, as the Israeli army had assassinated her husband a little while prior to her incarceration.
On the eve of Sima’s wedding, her brother and cousin were out buying some jewelry for her as a wedding gift. The shop was quite a distance from the house so they hitched a lift with a man who was unknown to them. Soon after they set off, the Israeli army blew up the car. The driver as it turned out, was apparently connected to a militant wing of the Fatah organization. The army had been targeting the driver even though they had no confirmation of who the other two men in the car were. As a result, Sima’s husband vowed to gain justice for the incident, but was assassinated as he was coming out of a mosque.
The Israeli army then invaded Sima’s house a number of times during the night to arrest and question members of the family. They arrested one of her brothers and came back a couple of times to look for the other brother who was only 15 years old at the time. The final time they took Sima and when the family questioned the soldiers about the fate of her children, one soldier replied that there were many orphanages the children could go to.
For the first two weeks, Sima was kept in solitary confinement in a room only 2 meters by 3 meters, in complete darkness. After two weeks of this, she was connected to a polygraph machine every day for one week from 8am-5pm with electrodes attached to her fingers and forced to sit with her hands spread out and body hunched over. As a result of this, she has now developed a type of arthritis in her neck. Interrogators told her she would not be able to wash or take a shower unless she admitted to helping her husband collaborate with militants. She was beaten a number of times, and eventually she was moved to a tiny cell with five other prisoners. The food was so terrible she couldn’t eat properly for two months after being released. Sometimes there were insects all over the food but they had no choice but to eat. At one time the prisoners staged an 11-day hunger strike.
Some of the prisoners became quite ill but medical attention was slow and sporadic, especially dental treatment during which the same instruments were used in many different patients mouths without being disinfected. One of the other prisoners who was just 18 years old had a serious gum infection and was refused dental treatment which resulted in her teeth falling out.
Another time, Sima witnessed one of the prisoners who had been bitten by a scorpion and was refused medical treatment even though she was in obvious pain. Another common occurrence, Sima told us, was money for the prisoners from their relatives being stolen by soldiers. Each time the money would be collected in a tin from relatives especially if visitation rights were withdrawn which they often were on a regular basis and being emptied by the soldiers before the empty box being presented to the prisoners.
The soldiers would also spray the prisoners with cold water if they felt their spirits were too high and then spray them with tear gas. As water causes teargas to stick to the skin, this served to heighten the gas’ effects. They would also make the prisoners crouch in a line and then proceed to play “leapfrog” over them.
In the cells in winter the soldiers would bring in air conditioners and in summer they would bring in heaters as a form of torture as well as making the prisoners climb up and down stairs in their already weakened condition.
Sima was moved twice to two different underground prisons during her incarceration. Her brother is currently in an underground prison, the location of which has never been made known to her for the last 13 years. She is overjoyed to be reunited with her family however it is evident to see the trauma and scars she has had to bear. During the interview she remained relatively stable but broke down into tears on a couple of occasions. She is now trying to raise her four children and to turn her experience into something positive and recently attended the recent meeting in Shufa with Combatants for Peace.
