Tag: Tulkarem - Page 13 - International Solidarity Movement

The Small Battles

by Daniela, Tuesday 26th September

This weekend I attended a small rally in Tulkarem, where Palestinian NGOs were calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. Although the group was small, they were organized and seemed intent to follow through with this goal. On our way back to Ramallah, our taxi slowed to a stop. A line of ten cars was ahead of us, waiting at the checkpoint.

When our time came to pull up beside the soldiers we all passed our IDs to the driver. The three soldiers glanced at the IDs and began to walk around the car, inspecting the passengers. We opened the door and they instructed my friend to step out and speak with them. He walked over to their station, lifted his shirt upon request, and turned in a circle to prove that he was not carrying a weapon. He said nothing. (One day later, I would watch this same guy as he furiously chanted in front of a group of soldiers, “Hey Israel what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?”)

The three soldiers spoke to him for a short time, and then asked the driver to pull over to the side and wait while they called in my friend’s ID. “It will only take five minutes,” they said, and went back to chatting. One soldier appeared bored with this game, and blithely urged his friend to just let us pass, but he refused.

Five minutes turned into fifteen, and the car’s passengers began to get restless. After my friend’s failed attempt to reason with the soldiers, I decided to get out, and use any pull that I might have as a U.S. citizen to get back the ID.

“What do you want,” called out one soldier as I approached them.

“Listen, I’m not sure what the problem is, but we’re really in a hurry,” I said, trying to sound casual and degrading at the same time.

“What’s your hurry, do you have to catch a plane back to the U.S. or something?” one of the younger ones joked.

“No, but there are people in that car that have things to do with their day. They have to get to work, they have to meet people in Ramallah, they have lives to get back to.”

“This will only take a few minutes, we have to check your friend’s ID.”

“Why,” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said another one.

“You don’t know, but you’re making us wait here for 20 minutes?”

“Well, he could be a suspect,” he responded authoritatively.

“He could be a suspect? That’s it?” I said, trying to be careful with my words. “Listen, can you just give me his ID and let us go. We really need to get to Ramallah.”

They looked me up and down, and then hesitantly handed me the green ID. I snatched it up and walked back to the car.

When I was only a few steps away, the youngest of the soldiers called back to me, “Don’t hate us sweetie,” in a tone of condescension that I had not been subjected to in a while.

I turned around, prepared to say everything that I thought this kid needed to hear, everything that I hadn’t spoken out loud since I arrived in Palestine. But I looked down at the ID in my hand, wondered what might happen to my fellow travelers if I talked back to the soldiers, thought about the four more checkpoints we would have to go through that day, and remembered that this wasn’t my fight.

Recently I have been working on a report for ADDAMEER (Arabic for conscience, a prisoner support and human rights association) on Palestinian child detainees, and the various military regulations that apply to their interrogation, trial, and detention. Advocacy agencies will often make the point that most Israeli military regulations consistently violate international laws. For example, Palestinian children are tried as adults when they reach the age of 16 and will be placed in adult prisons. They are denied the right to education, the right to congregate in prayer, and are subjected to both physical and psychological abuse on a daily basis. But what do all of these small arguments matter when they are merely tiny details in a much larger injustice?

I was interviewing an Israeli lawyer the other day on the differences in treatment between Israeli children and Palestinian children. He mentioned that Israeli children who are convicted are often sent to rehabilitation centers, and not to juvenile prisons. When I pointed out that this option has not been provided to Palestinian children he scoffed at the idea. “The help [a Palestinian child prisoner] might need is not the help that Israeli occupying system would be able or ready to supply,” he said. “What will be the rehabilitation? Education to Zionism? Or will Palestinian social workers, who identify with the Palestinian cause (and may be potential
prisoners themselves) be let inside to help the children?”

It is rare that I will see a lawyer make the argument at trial that this system, as a whole, is illegal. It is rare even to hear someone bring up international law in the proceedings. With the exception of administrative detention cases, or cases of torture, international standards have no place in these military courts. More often than not, there will be a plea bargain, and if they’re lucky they will get their client’s sentence down a few months. As no one is listening to the big arguments, they have to make these small arguments day in and day out: This child has never been arrested, so his sentence for throwing rocks should be reduced…This man has a family to take care of, so may he pay a fine for belonging to the PFLP party instead of serving time?

Last week, I was able to attend the appeal hearing for the members of the Palestinian Parliament that have been held in Israeli jails since June. A few days before, a military judge had ordered the release of these detainees, on bail, for the duration of the trial, but this was delayed in order to give the prosecutor time to appeal. Five minutes into the trial my translator had to abandon me, so I stood silently and did my best to pick up a few words.

All of the hearings are conducted in Hebrew, but a soldier will stand at the back of the room and translate in Arabic. Most of the time his words will be mumbled, so it’s nearly impossible for the detainee’s families to understand what is happening. The defense attorney went on at length, speaking for nearly half an hour straight. The court was definitely standing room only that day, as all of the seats were occupied by reporters. I wondered if the judge would have allowed the defense attorney to continue for this long if members of the media weren’t watching him like hawks. The members of the legislative council sat quietly, occasionally mumbling something to their lawyers and laughing. I had seen the faces of all of these men on posters plastered up around Ramallah. In their pictures, they looked dignified in their suits and ties, resembling every politician I have ever seen. Now, even in their brown jumpsuits and shackles, they still seemed determined to look stately.

The defense attorney was still presenting his case, and all I could think was, how could he possibly have that much to say? What more is there to say than, “This is completely illegal. You can’t arrest someone for being a democratically elected official.” Done. Case closed. But things do not work that way around here.

There have been moments in the history of this occupation when defense lawyers have decided to boycott the trials altogether. They will make a statement that they cannot participate in this instrument of the occupation. The organization I’m currently working with has often called for such boycotts, but will never follow through with them without the full support of the prisoners. After all, it is they who will bear the brunt. I was speaking to a good friend the other day about his time in prison. He said that these boycotts had occurred during his time, but it was always damaging to the prisoners. If a group of lawyers made a public statement about the illegality of the Israeli Military Courts, any prisoner associated with them would undoubtedly be sentenced to double the amount of time. This is a risk most lawyers are not willing to take, nor should they—unless their client is ready to take that risk with them.

So I sit back each day and watch the small battles being fought, but not often won. I’m still trying to figure out my role in all of this, but for now I’m satisfied in getting the stories of those I meet out to all of you. So here are the words of one client of ADDAMEER who is currently being held under administrative detention. This means that he is held without charges or trial, and his attorney is not permitted to see the secret file against him. Technically he may only be held like this for six months, but most administrative detainees have their sentences renewed indefinitely. His name is Yahir, and he is 18 years old:

“During the last 10 days of my Detention Order, I start to think about the outside world. About my family and friends, how things are outside, what all my friends are doing, how they are spending their time. When my Detention Order is renewed, I feel shattered. I am depressed and frustrated because in my mind the renewal means nofamily, no friends, no knowledge of the outside world.

“On the day of renewal, the prison authorities move 26 prisoners all together and put us in 3 cells. We leave our section at 8:30 in the morning and have to wait until the end of the day, when all the 26 prisoners have finished, before we are returned to our section.

“During the renewal hearings, I sit and wish I would hear the word ‘release’ and I wait for the judge to say ‘sha’rur’ (release). I don’t understand what the translator says as he speaks too quickly and sometimes I have to ask him to repeat.

“On the last hearing, when my detention was renewed, I told the judge that I am only 18 and that there is nothing against me and that I have never been in prison. I wanted to know what the secret file against me has in it. I told him I was from Qalqilya, which is literally a prison anyway due to the wall. I asked him to release me. My request was refused.

“The life of the Administrative Detainee is all about waiting. We don’t know when we will go home. When our detention order is about to end, all our thinking goes to the outside world. We daydream about our family and friends and what we will do when we are released.

“I have seen Detainees receive a renewal of their detention on the day they are supposed to be released, and they go mad. One Detainee, Nimmer Nazal in my section gave all his prison belongings away on the morning he was to be released. He was given a renewal on that day and he lost his temper.

“Then in the evening he had to ask to get all his belongings back again…”

Tulkarem Farmers in Boycott of Israeli goods

Palestinian traders and farmers will gather in the Tulkarem Refugee Camp on September 20th for a Palestinian goods market, boycotting Israeli products as a statement of resistance against Israel’s ongoing occupation, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign said.

The Campaign said that The Tulkarem trade fair will gather over a hundred businesses and farmers, many of them from Tulkarem Camp itself, as part of a growing movement to boycott Israeli goods and promote Palestinian produce.

“Seizure and destruction of land and property has made life almost impossible for many Palestinian farmers, and restrictions on movement have devastated trade,” it said.

The Trade Fair will run from September 20-23, from 9.00 – 4.00 every day in The Hall of the Martyr Kamal Saleem, Main Street, Tulkarem Refugee Camp.

The Trade Fair is organised by the Tulkarem Refugee Camp organising committee with the support of the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

During the first intifada Palestinians created ‘victory gardens’, mostly famously in Beit Sahour, in an effort to feed themselves without relying on Israeli goods.

Meanwhile, in the latest international boycott action, shops and supermarkets across Ireland were picketed last Saturday by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) to mark the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Shops were targetted by pickets which handed out leaflets as well as by trolley actions, which involved activists filling up trolleys with Israeli products and taking them to the checkout to vociferously demand that these products no longer be sold. Actions took place in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Sligo. Especially targetted was the Irish-owned supermarket chain Dunnes Stores as this was where workers first refused to handle goods from Apartheid South Africa in 1984.

These actions coincided with a call in a letter to the Irish times signed by 61 Irish academics for a moratorium on EU support for Israeli academic institutions until Israel abides by UN resolutions and ends the occupation of Palestinian territories.

Palestinians Demonstrate at Checkpoint Near Tulkarem

Yesterday, 26th of July, the Israeli military set up a so-called “flying checkpoint” – made up of three jeeps and a couple of cement blocks – on the busy road from Ramallah to Tulkarm between the villages of Beit Iba and Beit Lid.

They refused to let any Palestinians pass going in both directions starting from two o’clock in the afternoon. After many hours standing in the sun, some of the people got so frustrated they initiated a spontaneous demonstration. The Israeli army responded to their peaceful act of defiance by shooting massive amounts of tear gas into the crowd, followed by live ammunition fired above people’s heads.

Amidst the chaos, Shadi Takhsin Abu Aidi, from Beit Lid, was grabbed by the army, blindfolded and thrown into a jeep.

The army escorted settlers- headed for one of the many settlements and outposts around Nablus- past the mile-long line of Palestinian vehicles, ambulances and buses loaded with wedding guests, students and children.

A group of women students from Jenin, one of whom was severely ill, had been told that they were not to be allowed to pass, even though the alternative way to Jenin was also blocked. When
asked whether they were supposed to sleep beside the road, one of the Israeli soldiers replied that the women could pass but not their male driver. “They can walk to Jenin”, he said and turned his back on them.

At about ten o’clock in the evening, the Israeli military started letting Palestinian vechicles pass.

This is in no way an isolated incident. The Israeli army regularly prevents the passage of Palestinians to school, work and during medical emergencies. Currently there is a closure of Northern cities and villages of the West Bank, where checkpoints are completely closed for many hours of the day for no reason other than to restrict movement.

The Trip from Tulkarm to Ramallah: 3 road blocks, 5 check-points, 7 cars

How long does it take to travel from the north-east of the West Bank, to the centre? In such a small area of land, you might think not long. A Palestinian ISM co-ordinator gives an account of the realities of trying to get out of the prison that the Israeli military is turning the north into.

by Abdel-Karim Dalbah

An average journey

Drive distance: 90 km
Drive time: 90 min max – directly in one car.
Cost: 15 shekels by bus or 20 to 25 shekels by car (service)

On the 23rd of April 2006 and for more than five months

Drive distance: more than 300 km
Drive time + walking + waiting at checkpoints: 5 hrs, 30 min
Cost: 65 Shekels

WHY

Because of the Israeli policies of closure and checkpoints and the fact that I am a Palestinian from Tulkarm (in the north of the West Bank).

HOW

I left my home at 8:30 am and walked to the bus station. There were no buses, and no direct cars so I had to take the sevice to Innap checkpoint (15 km east). Before we reached it, we were stopped by a flying checkpoint after 5 km. We waited about 15 min in a long line of cars before our driver decided to go back and take another road, going around the checkpoint. This added another 15 min as we had to go 200m east around the check point and continue to Innap (the main checkpoint). We reached Innap and waited there about 15 min when the soldier came and told our driver that it was forbidden for anyone to pass today. So the he had to use another road to drive around . We reached a road-block just 1 km east of the checkpoint. The cost had increased from 5 to 10 shekels by then.

The end of the first part.

When we reached the road-block we had to walk about 200 m to cross it. We started waiting for a car to take us to Ramallah. When one arrived the driver was asking for 50 shekels each which is too much – it’s normally 20 or 30 maximum. After 10 minutes, I took a taxi with four others to a village called Funkuk, halfway to Ramallah. This cost 10 shekels each. From there, a taxi driver offered to take us to Borgeen road block for another 10 shekels. We agreed to this but after driving for about 20 minutes we were stopped by another flying checkpoint near Haris. The soldiers prevented us from passing, so the driver took us back to Funduk. He offered another choice – to try another long road through different villages. Along the way we had to get out of the car several times because the parallel road we were taking to avoid the road-blocks was so rough. After driving more than an hour we reached the Borgeen road block – it cost 20 shekels to get there.

The end of the second step.

After we passed the road blocks, we felt like we were about to reach Ramallah, taking one last service. However, the drivers said not it would not be that simple. The soldiers at Attara checkpoint near Bir Zeit were apparently not allowing people from the north of the West Bank to get into Ramallah.

However, at the road-block before Attara, we would be able to pass and then get another car to Ramallah. What should we do? We agreed to this plan and drove (10 shekels each) to Attara checkpoint which we reached after 45 minutes, passing through some villages that I’ve never been though before. Instead of a car waiting on the other side of the road block there was a Border Police jeep which stopped anyone from being near by. We stayed there about 30 minutes, trying to pass though the main checkpoint, at first with a taxi and then by trying to speak to the commander. We tried to point out to him that we were all over forty years of age. After a long time he said “sorry. You can go and try to get in through Qalandya”. When we asked about going that way we discovered that it would cost 20 shekels more.

The end of the third part.

Eventually, we decided not to go that way but also not to go back since by this point we were less than 4 km from Ber Zeit [which is just north of Ramallah]. Instead, we decided to get past by walking. This meant we had to go over the mountain – but we would have to pass away from the checkpoint so that the soldiers at the military tower couldn’t see us. So after we had walked about 3 km, we finally reached Ber Zeit town, from which we caught a car for only 4 shekels each.

We finally reached Ramallah at 2:30 pm, tired and hungry, but happy.

The end of the fourth step.

The ministry of education was closed, where I needed to go to sign a paper for my sister. I missed it for today. I also missed the training of new ISMers, so I decided to go to my nephew’s house to have a rest for a while, but because I was so tired I slept for about 2 hours.

The day is over.

I spent the next day doing some work till 6.00pm before I went back to the car station to leave for Tulkarm. After 15 minutes the car filled up and we drove directly to Tulkarm. On the way we passed through the roads that were forbidden for us to pass on the way to Ramallah. Not one check-point stopped us! One of the men in the car said “it is very easy to get into the prison”.

This situation has lasted for over five moths for Tulkarm and Jenin residents – it is a collective punishment. The Israeli government claims this is for security reasons.

Land Day Actions

Since 1976 Land Day is marked by Palestinians on the 30th of March to protest against the grabbing of Palestinian lands by Israel.

This year, thousands of Palestinians, along with Israeli and international activists held a series of large-scale peaceful protests against the ongoing occupation and continued theft of Palestinian land by Israel.

Demonstrations took place in the villages of Beit Sira (Ramallah area), Zabda (Jenin area), Rafat (Salfit area) and Tulkarm city (Tulkarm area) with marches alongside the annexation barrier where local residents attempted to plant olive trees.

In Beit Sira, about 400 or 500 demonstrators marched down to the village land where they were met by a large presence of Israeli soldiers blocking the path to the area where they wanted to plant olive trees. They were geared up with riot shields, clubs, rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas and live round. After roughly a 5 minute stand-off, the soldiers decided to attempt to drive the demonstration away with physical force – beatings and sound bombs. The Palestinians responded to this mostly by running away, though some threw stones. The soldiers then used the stone throwing as an opportunity to open up with rubber-coated bullets, which in turn provoked further stone throwing. By the end of the demonstration, the soldiers had used a lot of their tear gas and some live rounds were heard. An ambulance was directly hit with a tear gas canister. Several minor injuries were inflicted on Palestinians by the soldiers, including one boy who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet.

Thursday’s nonviolent demonstration in Rafat was quickly met by Israeli soldiers and border police jeeps which blocked the main agricultural road leading to the Annexation Wall. Israeli soldiers threw sound bombs to disperse the demonstration which was peacefully walking with Palestinian flags and signs and chanting “No to the Wall” in Arabic. Despite the sound bombs, the demonstrators pushed forward and more sound bombs and few tear gas canisters were thrown directly in the middle of the crowd.

The demonstrators then sat in front of the jeeps and the Palestinians demanded that they be allowed to go to their land. The Israeli military recently declared 300 of the remaining 500 dunam of village lands are in a closed military zone and have restricted access to pasture and olive groves on the east side of the Wall. After the noon prayer in the road, the Palestinians returned to the village.

Recently, Rafat and the adjacent village of Deir Ballut have been the site of demolitions and access restrictions. While the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the area has winded down, the Israeli military have issued demolition orders and restricted access to pasture and olive groves on the east side of the Wall. Bulldozers are flattening part of the hillside for unknown purposes.

In 2003 and 2004 the Salfit region, particularly the villages of Deir Ballut, Azzawiya, Rafat and Mas’ha, was the center of mass actions against the building of the Apartheid Wall. While not stopping the building of the Wall completely, the resistance of the villages resulted in the High Court ordering the re-routing of the wall in mid-2005. Still, Rafat lost all but 500 dunums of its land. Rafat is adjacent to the 27-settlement bloc of Ariel, the largest Israeli settlement network in the West Bank after Greater-Jerusalem. As he campaigned in Ariel last week, Kadima frontrunner Ehud Olmert pledged to supporters that “the Ariel bloc will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel under any situation.”