26 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Israel demolished the homes of two families in the Bedouin village of Um Al-Kheer in the South Hebron Hills last week, on Wednesday January 25th.
Demolitions in Umm al Kheer - Click here for more images
The demolition team arrived with a bulldozer at 9:00 in the morning together Israeli soldiers and police. Villagers reported a chaotic situation of shouting and screaming and extremely aggressive behaviour on the part of the Israeli demolition team, soldiers and police. A video of part the demolition was taken by the Italian group Operation Dove:
An international observer for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israeli (EAPPI) who arrived on the scene later the same day, described hearing the news as “the message we had feared for two months.” A video from later that Wednesday can be found on the Norwegian-language blog, showing village residents searching through the rubble, looking for belongings.
Um Al-Kheer is a so-called “unrecognised village” of 150 people, situated next to the settlement of Karmel. Its Bedouin residents originally settled in the village after they had been forced out of the Neguib (Negev) in 1948.
One of the houses belonged to a widow and her nine children, who was left crying for their lost home. The second house was home to a young couple and their three children.
Um Al-Kheer has been repeatedly subject to Israeli house demolitions. The events of January 25th were the fourth such assault on the village since February 2007 and brings the number of Israeli demolitions in the tiny village to a total of sixteen houses and one restroom. The most recent previous demolition was in October 2011.
Village resident Eid Suleymann said of the demolitions, “We die a little bit inside us each time.”
The primary reason for the demolitions is the adjacent settlement of Karmel. Part of the Israeli excuse for the demolitions is the security of the settlers, but residents feel that the actual purpose is to “clear this area of people”and to expand the already-growing settlement into it. This settlement is considered illegal under international law.Only a few metres away from the village and the rubble of the house, house construction can be seen under way in Karmel. Several cranes and newly or partly built houses are clearly visible.
While the story of Um al-Kheer is one of tremendous suffering and of inhuman and racist behaviour on the part of the Israel state, it should however also be regarded as an outstanding example of endurance and solidarity. A temporary metal shack has already been constructed to house the widow and her children. Palestinians and Israeli activists from Ta’ayush worked through the rain on Saturday January 28th to begin rebuilding of the houses’ stone walls.
Tom is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
25 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Strip
Gaza was treated to a strange new sight today, not really new, but something that has not been seen in Gaza in a long time: tear gas. In Gaza protests are not smashed with tear gas and clubs like in the West Bank, they are met with live ammunition. In a continuation of Israel’s policy to separate the West Bank from Gaza, nothing is overlooked. The sub-human status they wish to cement in the world’s mind when it comes to the people of Gaza is adhered to brutally. On May 15th 2011, when over a hundred demonstrators were shot near Erez, only one canister of tear gas was fired. Before that the protesters faced live ammunition and tank fire. In the three years that regular demonstrations have been carried out near Erez by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, regulars tell me that this was the first time they had seen tear gas.
The demonstration started like all the others. We gathered near the half destroyed Beit Hanoun Agricultural College and marched towards the no go zone. There were about forty of us, men and women together. As always, the demonstrators were armed only with a megaphone and our voices. Today, we planned to hike from Erez to the east of Beit Hanoun, near the site where two young men were murdered last week while catching birds and collecting rubble near the no go zone. The no go zone, which used to be an area of flourishing orchards has been reduced to yielding rubble to recycle into concrete.
Israel bans the import of concrete into Gaza. Only humans would need concrete to rebuild the thousands of houses Israel destroyed in the 2008-2009 massacres they carried out in Gaza. In Israeli eyes, Gazans aren’t really full people; they are half people to be murdered at will for even thinking of coming close to the no go zone.
This is why we march, we deny the no go zone, and we deny the occupation. The refugees of Gaza, thrown from their homes during the Nakba, want to return to their homes.
We walked down the muddy road that leads to the no go zone. As we got close to the no go zone, the shooting began. Shooting is not unexpected; bullets are the language of the occupation, at least the language that you hear. Ethnic cleansing, oppression, and torture are also languages the occupation speaks, but the loudest voices of the occupation are the bullets and the bombs. The bullets passed over our heads; they slammed into the dirt in front of us. Then, the unexpected happened; the tear gas began to fall. The clouds of tear gas were smaller than I remember from protests in the West Bank. Perhaps the shells are old, they are used so seldom in Gaza that maybe the inventory is old.
This isn’t an issue in the West Bank, there the protests are coated in tear gas, men are killed or severely injured by tear gas canisters shot at them like Mustafa Tamimi and Bassem Abu Rahma who both passed away, or Tristan Anderson, who survived. Women are suffocated by it, woman like Jawaher Abu Rahma. It is fired into houses, schools, fields, villages; tear gas is omnipresent. In Gaza, tear gas is a blast from the past, here the occupation has discarded that language, in Gaza, it only speaks with bullets and bombs.
At first it wasn’t clear if the protest would continue. People were shocked by the use of the new weapon. Quickly though, a decision was reached: We would continue. We walked east along the edge of the buffer zone. Soldiers in concrete towers hundreds of meters away fired live ammunition at unarmed protesters walking on their own land–soldiers in concrete towers built on the land these protesters were ethnically cleansed from.
The black flag that flies over the occupation did not come down after the massacre of Kfar Kassem, it is still there, it is just that it has been flying for so long that no one remembers anything else. the black flag is like the sun, people do not remember a day before it was in the sky.
Walking in the no go zone isn’t easy. The ground is uneven from the constant destruction of the bulldozers which Israel uses to make sure that nothing takes root there. The ground is littered with the past: irrigation pipes, metal rods and concrete rubble from the destroyed houses. Slowly all of this is ground up under the blades of bulldozers and treads of tanks. We walked east, the shooting stopped for a bit. Two soldiers appeared on a hill to the north, they raised their guns. They lost sight of us behind a hill. We emerged from behind a hill: we saw a tank on another hill. Jeeps sped along the border. The shooting began again. Bullets flew over our heads.
Beit Hanoun demonstration under fire – Click here for more images
We reached the eastern edge of our prison and turned south. Soldiers appeared again on a new hill. Shooting resumed, tear gas canisters from 500 meters arced over our heads. We stopped and reminded the soldiers that this was a nonviolent demonstration by people on their land.
They continued to shoot, then the soldiers on the hill began to yell at us with a megaphone, “Gazans are donkeys.” Gazans are not donkeys, they are people, but perhaps if you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe, people like these soldiers. We passed the carcass of a horse, rotting. A donkey grazed to the east of the dead horse. At least the donkey was still alive.
The soldiers continued to shoot at us, bullets and tear gas. Just as Gaza did not kneel after the 23 day massacre three years ago, we will not be stopped by bullets and tear gas. We will continue to protest until the occupation disappears. We will continue to protest until we achieve justice. Without the end of the occupation and true justice, peace is impossible. We will not accept the peace of silent oppression. We will never accept the occupation. Gaza will not kneel.
Nathan Stuckey is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
Israeli Apaches and land forces shelled an area east of Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday morning, January 18 2012.
Two young men were killed and another was injured. As we hurried to the scene we met an ambulance driving at high speed. Upon arriving we heard immediately that one of the young men, 20 year old Mohammed Shaker Abu Auda, had died instantly, while the other man was rushed to the hospital.
We went to the Beit Hanoun hospital morgue, and we saw the massacred body of Mohammed. While we were at the morgue we heard that the other young man was in critical condition at Kamal Adwan Hospital. While we were moving to that hospital, we learned that Ahmed Khaled Abu Murad Al-Zaaneen, 17 years-old, had also died.
We waited for his funeral.
Mohammed Shaker Abu Auda, martyred at the age of 20
Family members and friends told us that the two young men went near the border to find building materials to sell. The poorest youth of Gaza frequently go to the border, in the so-called no go zone of 300 meters imposed by Israel, to find building material to sell.
They also told us that the two young men were catching birds.
The body of Ahmed was at about 300-400 meters from the border.
Saber Zaaneen of the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative told us that Ahmed was losing blood from his head but that “he was still alive, he was breathing heavily” when he found him.
The ambulance could not reach the body of Ahmed immediately because tanks and soldiers were continuing to shoot and it was too dangerous to approach the area.
The ambulance was forced to back away because of the continuous fire.
The entire time the father of Ahmed was crying, “I want to see my son! I want to see my son!”
Ahmed was still alive when he reached the ambulance.
The day after, we went to the mourning tent and we met the families of the two victims.
Ahmed’s mother did not stop crying. I remained seated with her and the other women of the family, silently, I was speechless at so much pain.
Then we went to the other mourning tent. Here, the brother of Mohammed, Zahor Abu Auda, told us that the two young men were catching birds to sell them for pets.
If they were lucky, they made 100 shekels from the sale of the birds (100 shekels are equivalent to about 20 euros).
His mother can’t walk, Mohammed took care of her.
Zahor told us, “Let the world know that the Israelis killed a man that was only trying to get money to live. The Israeli forces, supported by the Americans. kill people in Gaza regularly and nobody hears about it, the world is silent.”
Missile fired by an Israeli Apache during the attack
Meanwhile we knew that Israeli spokespersons were spreading the story that the two victims were armed militants and that they were about to place explosives in the area of the border.
These Israeli declarations and their powerful influence on the mass media induce a feeling of powerlessness. Members of the families and friends told us that Mohammed and Ahmed were not part of armed groups.
Mohammed and Ahmed were civilians, they were just workers.
We join the appeal of Zohar, and we will continue to give a voice to the people of Gaza so that the silence will never completely obscure all of this pain over the agony of the mothers and over the bodies massacred.
Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement. You can read more of her writing at il Blog di Oliva.
22 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
In an action that appears to have been carried out purely for the entertainment and satisfaction of Israeli settlers, the center of the activist group, Youth Against Settlements, in Tel Rumeida, Al Khalil (also known as Hebron) was stormed by Israeli soldiers at 3pm on the afternoon of Saturday 21st January. Organisation leader Issa Amro was briefly arrested and taken away without reason.
Settlers surrounded the Centre of Steadfastness and Challenge, as soldiers broke in and seized Amro while simultaneously seeming to attempt a search of the building.
Amro was forcefully handcuffed behind his back, despite his having a medical condition which means that this should be prohibited; a fact of which Israeli authorities are well aware having detained him on fifteen different occasions last year. He was then blindfolded and taken away to a military base, where he was beaten. Soldiers also threatened to kill him.
Soldiers then proceeded to assault several other activists who were attempting to document the incident, including Badia Dwaik, Tamer Atrash, Hamad Israir and Sundos Assilay, an eighteen-year old girl.
As Amro was taken away, settlers who had gathered for the show cheered triumphantly, spat at him and chanted slogans such as “each Arab dog will have his day.” No reason was given for the arrest and no provocation was made. He was subsequently released without any kind of charge less than half-an-hour later. Many more Jews were visiting the city for Shabbat and the Settler Tour of the old city, and it seems that the army wanted to put on a show for the settlers.
The Youth Against Settlements centre was previously occupied by the Israeli military before being reclaimed for Palestinians in a major victory for the organisation.
Tom is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
16 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
The cold and rain did not keep the residents of Kufr Qaddoum from protesting this past Friday. Even the hail storm did not stop them from demanding their equal rights. The resilience and courage of the residents cannot be summed up in words. However, this is not the message they wanted to broadcast. Besides their everyday demands for justice, they wanted to express their concern for the “Judiazation of Jerusalem.” This term refers to the Israeli strategy of erasing all Palestinian and Arab identity in Jerusalem. Kufr Qaddoum residents expressed this concern by wearing traditional Arab clothing during the protest. They proudly walked around in this traditional clothing because they know the history of this land and their legitimate connection to it. Although this was a symbolic gesture for solidarity with the Palestinians from Jerusalem, culture theft is a wide spread concern for all Palestinians.
Insisting on the culture of Palestine - Click here for more images
The term the “Judiazation of Jerusalem” does not show the entire picture because Palestine as a whole is at risk of having its history censored. Israel’s strategy to legitimize its self consists of de-legitimizing Palestine. This strategy has been in place sinse the creation of Israel, and the tactics do not appear to be slowing down.
The Israeli government uses many methods, but one of the most inhumane is home demolitions. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has documented that 2011’s house demolition numbers have doubled from previous years. In order to “make room” for more illegal settlements, Israel is continuing the displacement of hundreds of Palestinians every year. As reported by ICAHD, 622 Palestinian structures were demolished and 60% of the displaced people are children.
The landscape itself has fallen victim to bulldozers and landscaping. Debris from destroyed villages is cleared, and trees are planted to create forests in an attempt to show the land was never populated, while its refugees still hold keys to their leveled homeland.
While the landscape is under attack, the very names of villages throughout Palestine have been turned into Hebrew. Rabbi Kahane, an American Zionist and ultra nationalist, stated that there was no such thing as an Arab village with an Arab name. “It is all Jewish,” and according to him, rightly so.
This attempt to destruct Palestine has of course targeted the culture in addition to the geography. In what appears to be a comical topic, Israel forges its way into Levantine culture by thieving falafel and hummus through its public stunts and marketing at supermarkets. From translating popular Arabic songs to Hebrew, to borrowing the culture of Arab Jews to mask a mostly European colonial pursuit, Palestinians still trace their authentic history to the land while most Israelis will eventually admit where they are from, while mechanically uttering state fed propaganda:
The indigenous, regardless of religion, have more in common with the land and its history than Zionist immigrants can attest to.
If Israel’s “Judiazation” procedures continue to target the land, the homes, and the people who are forcibly “replaced” by “the chosen inheritors of the land,” then the indigenous Palestinian, Arab culture will be replaced with manufactured Israeli culture.
These are the reasons why Kufr Qaddoum residents and other Palestinians resist; for their existence. Yet, when American politicians state that Palestinians are “invented,” it goes to show just how essential it is for those in solidarity with Palestine to showcase what is actually occurring on the ground: that it is Israel itself who has manufactured itself.
It is becoming more and more obvious as insecure, violent settlers showcase the nature of colonialism, with the self righteous, pompous attitude of gun holders. No Palestinian would deface the land just to prove a point. Historical truth does not change, regardless of the millions of maps and books Israel and America author. As Edward Said stated, “It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.”
Amal is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
