June 7, 2009
PSC weekly update 5 June 2009
1. UN hearings to be held on Gaza war crimes
2. Oxfam report calls for lifting blockade on Gaza, and ending politicisation of aid.
3. On Obama’s speech
4. See speech by Hana Joma at PCS Annual Conference
5. More on Israel wiping Palestine off the map
6. Scottish TUC supports Edinburgh Film Festival decision to return Israeli Embassy funding
7. Israel declares Nablus area a closed military zone
8. Israel prepares laws to deepen discrimination
For more news, information and details of more events across the country, see the PSC website: www.palestinecampaign.org
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The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) aims to raise public awareness about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people. PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from communities across the UK. Join PSC today!
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London WC1N 3XX
Tel: 020 7700 6192
Fax: 020 7609 7779
Email: info@palestinecampaign.org
Web: www.palestinecampaign.org
May 6, 2009
PSC Update 30 April 09
PSC Weekly Update Thursday 30 April
Actions
- Stop Veolia running the London Cycle Hire scheme!
- Book your place now on coaches to 16 May demonstration Gaza
- 100 run for Gaza!
News
- Gaza depends on tunnels for food, fuel, medicines
- Watch Seven Jewish Children online
- Israel’s secret plan for West Bank expansion
- Israel continues using Palestinians as human shields
- Israel’s imprisons more Palestinian children
- Visiting Daddy in Prison: A Palestinian Ordeal Israel harasses peace activists
Actions
1. Exclude Veolia from the London Cycle Hire Scheme! Transport for London (TfL) is in the process of selecting a contractor to build and operate a public cycle hire scheme similar to the one in Paris. The contractor is anticipated to be selected by June this year and the scheme will start operating in May 2010. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, is Chair of Transport For London.
The French multinational Veolia recently set up a subsidiary called Veloway to run cycle hire schemes and is highly likely to have bid for such a lucrative and prestigious contract.
Whether you live in London or not, please write or email a letter to the Mayor (mayor@london.gov.uk) asking for Veolia and all its subsidiaries, including Veloway, to be excluded from this contract on the grounds of grave misconduct, namely aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes.
Veolia is involved in building and operating a tramway linking Israel with its illegal settlements in East Jerusalem, binding these settlements more firmly to Israel, and so helping to perpetuate war crimes.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/roadusers/cycling/cycle-hire-scheme/ gives a description of the cycle hire scheme.
A suggested letter is on our website: http://www.palestinecampaign.org/index7b-2.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=3&l2_id=51&content_ID=607
London is the capital and we all have an interest in its transport system. This will be a high profile scheme and a great opportunity to put more pressure on Veolia to pull out of the Jerusalem project and show Israel that it can no longer break international law with impunity.
If you live in London, please also write to your Assembly Member, asking them to oppose this and raise their opposition with Boris Johnson. For details of your Assembly Member: http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/lams_facts_cont.jsp
2. Book your place now on coaches to 16 May demonstration Details of coaches are now coming into the PSC office and are available on our website.
More details are being added daily and if there isn’t a coach leaving near you, why not talk to other local supporters, friends and family and organise one yourselves!
The demonstration will be assembling at 12 noon in Malet Street, London WC1 and marching to Trafalgar Square for a rally.
Make sure you are there! On the anniversary of the Nakba, we must send a clear and strong message to the British government, and a message of solidarity to Palestinians: Remember Gaza End the siege now!
Free Palestine End Israeli occupation! End the arms trade! With only two weeks to go, please make sure that everyone you know is coming along for more leaflets, stickers and posters, just contact us on 020 7700 6192 or info@palestinecampaign.org
3. Gaza 100 run for Gaza! Most People Running 100 Metres in a 12 hour Relay Guinness Book of Records Official Title Saturday 23 May and Sunday 24 May 2009 from 12 noon to 12 noon, Mile End Stadium, London. IF, supported by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and many other organisations, is calling for participants to take part in one of two spectacular record breaking attempts on May 23rd 2009 running 100 metre relays.
The aim is to raise as much money as possible for the children of Gaza. All monies generated from this World Record Run will be given as humanitarian aid to Save the Children’s Gaza Appeal.
Celebrities that have already agreed to participate in the run, include Tre Azam, and Ghazal Asif from BBC1’s hit show, the Apprentice, comedian Jeff Mirza, boxer Anthony Small and Baroness Pola Uddin.
For more details and to sign up: http://www.ifcharity.com/gaza100.html
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News
4. Gaza depends on tunnels for food, fuel, medicines:
The tunnels that provide Gaza with food, fuel, medicine and other consumer goods may have become even more crucial as an economic lifeline, the World Food Programme (WFP) says. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46629
5. Watch Seven Jewish Children online Watch Jennie Stoller perform Caryl Churchill’s play, Seven Jewish Children, which was written in response to the situation in Gaza in January this year, thanks to the Guardian who have put it online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/video/2009/apr/25/seven-jewish-children-caryl-churchill
6. Israel continues using Palestinians as human shields The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights has released an important update to its July 2008 report on the IOF practise of hiding behind Palestinian human shields.
The use of civilian human shields is customary Israeli practice in gross violation of international law, in which the practice is a war crime and crime against humanity, as well as a violation of Israel’s own High Court ruling of 2005, which itself came after a three-year legal battle. The pretence extends then to the illusion of Israeli rule of its own law.
The Al Mezan report also takes the international community to task for its “continued failure … to fulfil its obligations and its silence on Israeli violations [which] encourages Israel to proceed with its crimes.”
http://pulsemedia.org/2009/04/28/hiding-behind-civilians/
7. Israel’s secret plan for West Bank expansion Israel has taken a step towards expanding the largest settlement in the West Bank, a move Palestinians warn will leave their future state unviable and further isolate its future capital, East Jerusalem’. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israels-secret-plan-for-west-bank-expansion-1674759.html
8. Israel’s imprisons more Palestinian children The Global Movement for the Defence of Children’s Palestine Branch reports that Israeli imprisonment of Palestinian children is up.
Over the past two months Israeli forces have increased campaigns against children. At the end of February 2009 the number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons was up to 423.
This is the highest number since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada in 2000. http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5148
9. Visiting Daddy in Prison: A Palestinian Ordeal Spending time with her dad requires that six-year-old Jinan undertake a bizarre and arduous odyssey.
Usually, she travels alone, but last Monday, the Palestinian girl with the rosebud smile and bouncing energy was accompanied by her younger sisters, Dania, 4, and Noor, 2, on the journey to the Israeli prison that holds her father. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1893620,00.html
10. Israel harasses peace activists On April 26, 2009, a number of Israeli peace activists had their computers confiscated, were called for interrogations, and were only released upon signing agreements not to contact their political friends for 30 days. We are asking you to contact the Israeli Attorney General to demand an immediate stop to this harassment. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27127
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The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) aims to raise public awareness about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people.
PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from communities across the UK.
Join PSC today!
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London WC1N 3XX
Tel: 020 7700 6192
Fax: 020 7609 7779
Email: info@palestinecampaign.org
April 8, 2009
ISM Digest: April 5, 2009
1. Israeli forces impose collective punishment on Saffa village following attack on settler youth
2 April 2008
Israeli forces imposed collective punishment on the village of Saffa, following an axe attack in a nearby settlement that left a Settler child dead and another injured. At around 1:30pm, dozens of soldiers entered the village, declaring a 24-hour curfew and preventing residents from leaving their homes. Israeli authorities have said that the military operation was in response to the attack on the settler children, which occurred in the settlement of Bet Ayn, located adjacent to Saffa. However, the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits acts of collective punishment against civilian populations.
After the curfew was declared in Saffa, Israeli forces began conducting several house-to-house searches. Hundreds of men, and boys over the age of 15, were forced into the village mosque where they were questioned by Israeli intelligence officers and had their ID cards checked. At this time, at least three villagers were placed under formal arrest and taken away in army jeeps.
Several of the men detained in the mosque also had parts of their identification papers confiscated by soldiers, who never returned the documents. Israeli jeeps periodically drove through Saffa and the nearby village of Beit Omar, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Dozens of Palestinian youth resisted the army incursion, at times responding to the invasion by throwing stones at the jeeps.
The army also took up position in three village residences, in two cases forcing their inhabitants to leave the house altogether without their possessions. Israeli flags were planted on the roofs of these houses. Several interiors of houses were damaged during the house searches. Soldiers occupying the houses told residents that they were positioning themselves in the village to protect Saffa from settler reprisals. Yet the curfew, road closures, arrests, house occupations, and military presence were clearly meant to punish the entire village for what happened to the two settler boys.
The Israeli army also used military bulldozers to close the roads leading into Saffa in at least three places. The villages of Beit Omar and Surif also experienced closures on their main roads in the form of earth mounds. The military gate at the entrance to Beit Omar remained closed for more than 24 hours. The closing of roads in these three villages affected around 30,000 residents. Additionally, several hours after the attack on the settlement, a checkpoint was installed on the main road between Bethlehem and Hebron, just in front of the village of Halhul. Traffic quickly backed up as hundreds of cars had to undergo security checks.
On the following day of 3 April, a large military presence still remained in Saffa, and most roads in the area continue to be closed. At around 9am, villagers removed an army earth mound between Beit Omar and Saffa. The army returned to build the roadblock again, only to clear the road a few hours later and build a new roadblock on another street. All three houses continued to be occupied by soldiers, though the residents who have been forced to leave their homes have been allowed to retrieve some of their personal belongings. Two taxi drivers in Beit Omar also had the keys to their cars taken by the military and not returned.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5848
2. Land Day Demonstration in Halhul, Hebron District
At mid day on the 4th of April, around forty Palestinians from Halhul and the surrounding villages set off to cultivate land near the illegal settlement of Karmi Zur. Halhul is a village in the Hebron district of the southern West Bank. Demonstrators were also joined by Israeli and international solidarity activists.
The protestors headed up the road to the fields around that village that have restricted access to Palestinian farmers. The Israeli military restricts these lands due to their proximity to the illegal Israeli settlement of Karme Zur. These fields are also dangerous for Palestinian farmers to cultivate because of attacks and harassment fom settlers.
Soldiers in two jeeps arrived and escorted the demonstators up the road as settlers came to the security fence around Karme Zur. The soldiers then stopped the protestors from continuing any further but one Palestinian farmer headed out to his fields and started cultivating his land. The crowd followed, helping the famer to clear rocks, dig the soil and plant crops. There was singing and a festive atmosphere to the crowd as a dozen soldiers lined up between the protestors and the settlement and made a failed attempt to detain a Palestinian man.
Thirty minutes later, around 30 more soldiers and border police arrived and issued an order declaring the area a closed military zone, demanding that everyone leave the land. Israeli forces then began to break up the demonstration. The army began to push people off the land, using sound grenades to disperse the crowd. The demonstrators attempted to hold their ground, and two Israeli activists were arrested.
In December 2007, owners of grape fields surrounding the settlement of Karme Zur presented a complaint to the Israeli official responsible for the lands surrounding the settlement. The complaint described the damage to the grape fields due to the military injunctions that limit the access of farmers to their land in order to provide “security for the settlers.”
Throughout Palestine for the past week, people have been commemorating Land Day. The protest in Halhul is amongst the last of around 50 such markings across Palestine. Land Day marks the date of the Palestinian demonstration that occurred in the Galilee in 1976 against the planned confiscation of around 21,000 dunams (21km) of land from Palestinian farmers in Israel and the subsequent assault by Israeli forces on the demonstrators that resulted in 6 Palestinian deaths, 96 people injured and 300 arrests.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5863
3. Warmth and support
Eva Bartlett (see blog at http://ingaza.wordpress.com)
4 April 2009
I met Ramadan and Sabrine Shamali at a Sheyjayee market a couple of days ago. They were going to buy new blankets, mattresses, and other essentials, including clothing, to replace what was lost when their house was attacked by the invading Israeli army during Israel’s war on Gaza. They were using money sent from those outside of Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians.
Ramadan knew the best place for blankets, a small store in the district, with blankets mostly brought in through sporadically-opened borders or, more likely, the tunnels. I was told that immediately after the war, when people were scrambling to replace burned and destroyed blankets, there were nearly none to be had, with the borders closed since November 4 and the tunnels out of order.
We eyed the different weights and got a run-down of the prices: a 7 kg blanket goes for 270 shekels (~$65), a 5 kg for170 shekels (~$40), and a children’s for 75 shekels (~$18). The mattresses were 170 shekels, pillows 25 shekels, and a large, woven floor mat 170 shekels.
Just replacing these items ended up costing the couple 1500 shekels, or about $365. While the days have gotten warmer, nights still merit good blankets, particularly in a missile-hole-riddled house.
Needless to say, Sabrine and Ramadan were pleased to finally replace them, 2 months after their losses.
From there we headed to a clothing market in the same region, where items like underwear for the kids and sports pants, t-shirts, and other children’s needs were added to the bill.
They’ll still be living in a house most would consider not fit, not safe, for habitation. But such is the dilemma of so many here, where cement is on the banned list, held at bay by Israeli authorities from the Palestinians here who so desperately need it.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5841
4. The Lentils did Ok Today
Sharon Lock (see blog at http://talestotell.wordpress.com)
31 March 2009
Today we accompanied farmers in the Latamat area on the outskirts of Khoza’a. The last time we were out farming in Khoza’a the shooting was the closest I’d experienced, and from the video footage it looked like the Israelis were aiming to shoot my college J in the leg. Since later that same day Wafa was shot in the kneecap, and not too long before that farmer Mohammed was shot in the foot while we were with him, the ISM group had been taking stock of our role. We decided that Gaza ISM had to hold meetings with any farmers that wanted our accompaniment and be absolutely sure they understood that our presence protects them only mildly if in fact it protects them at all.
My personal feeling was that as long as they are clear on that, then if they still want us we should still go, but then I have to leave Gaza soon. In the Khoza’a meeting (this included showing our video footage of the Faraheen shooting of Mohammed and telling them about Tristan’s shooting and the past killings of ISMers) the farmers replied “Ok, maybe they shoot at us when you are with us, well we’re used to that because they shoot at us when you are not with us. So it’s normal. But if you are with us when it happens – at least you can tell the world about it.”
So we met the mostly women farmers at 7am (often women work the most dangerous areas in the hope the soldiers will shoot less) and walked to the fields which were about 4-500 metres from the border. Today’s crop was lentils. I have never seen a lentil plant before, and I certainly hope no-one has to shell the lentils individually cos that would really be some job.
The farmers told us they had been shot at the day before in this same field. Several of us had had bad dreams the night before, and I’d written a quick will with various keepsakes for Gaza friends. In the van, E and I exchanged computer passwords and emergency contact numbers. (Actually, I’ve noticed her looking speculatively at me sometimes, since I told her she gets my laptop if something happens to me here.) She also informed me that for her martyr poster if she died, she wanted a picture of her with a donkey. So it was with somewhat of a sense of doom we walked down the track among golden wheatfields. And when explosions started shaking the ground, we wondered if we should even keep going. We rang our friend J in Faraheen, since they seemed to be coming from his direction.
But he told us that actually what we could hear was a fight between Palestinian resistance, and Israeli occupation forces, in Maghazi camp (where Dr Halid – who is a nurse not a doctor – and his family live) which was a lot further north. So the lentil picking got underway and we tried to feel reassured by the fact that the F16s and Apaches flying overhead, and the distant roaring, were not directed at us. But I couldn’t help imagining what it must be like to be a resistance fighter on the ground facing those Apaches and F16s.
Anyway, it wasn’t long before two jeeps turned up at the border, and Israeli soldiers got out. We waited for the inevitable, and it came – a short burst of shooting only broadly in our general direction. The women working on the ground tensed up and waited. But that turned out to be it. The soldiers got back in the jeeps, and the jeeps drove off again. Some hours later, lots of lentils were picked, the sun was high, everyone was relaxed, and the morning was a success.
You can see my colleage G’s Youtube footage of the brief shooting, which he has cheekily finished with a minute or two of me and E entertaining ourselves with some of the dubke dance steps we’ve learnt. You can also find a report of the day and archived articles and videos at the new blog Gaza ISMers have created to support the campaign to protect Gaza farmers, at http://farmingunderfire.blogspot.com/. Please tell your friends.
Later we heard that in Maghazi camp, two fighters were killed, 2 injured, and an Israeli soldier was injured and an Israeli jeep destroyed. I texted Dr Halid and asked how the little girls were. “My children are used to bombing now”, he replied resignedly. I can’t help but feel like the resistance fighters took the fire for us today. If Israel hadn’t been busy shooting at them, from past experience it seems a sure thing they would have stuck round to shoot at us, like they had at the same farmers in the same place the day before. I guess that’s why the resistance is called the resistance.
Later that afternoon, V and I were sitting smoking shisha, looking out at the sea, and gunfire got our attention again. Squinting, we spotted another Israeli gunship, tormenting another Palestinian fishing boat. The gunboat alternated tightly circling the fishing boat with drive-by shooting; we could see the spray as the bullets hit the water. It reminded me of nothing more than a cat playing with a mouse. This was still going on several hours later when we left.
Today, E heard that yesterday a woman she visited in Al Shifa hospital, Ghada, the 21 year old mum of two little girls, finally died in an Egyptian hospital of her horrendous white phosphorous burns. Before she was sent out to Egypt she gave her testimony to my friend M, one of the Al Quds Red Crescent workers, and it is posted here on the B’T Selem website. Please read it. It’s the least we can do.
Oh…and Israel dropped its internal investigation into possible war crimes by the Israeli army in the Dec/Jan attacks.
Photo: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5830
5. Thousands of dunums confiscated for Israeli settler road near Nablus
Ma’an News Agency 2 April 2009
Israeli authorities issued orders to confiscate more than one thousand dunums of Palestinian lands of the village of Qaryut south of Nablus, head of the villages and municipal affairs office in Nablus Ghassan Daghlas said on Thursday.
On the land a road will be constructed linking the three illegal settlements, He noted that “this decision aims at to construct a three kilometer road to link the Israeli illegal settlement of Shilo, and the illegal settlement outposts of Hayovel and a second known locally as the “Qaryut” outpost.
Daghlas noted that Israeli bulldozers had been surveying the area for days, and that there seemed to be a coordinated effort between soldiers and settlers, who constructed a road barrier near the village of Der Sharaf, while military crews expanded the Yitzhar road after confiscating Palestinian lands adjacent to it. The village representative also mentioned that several home demolition orders were served in the past weeks in the nearby villages of Tana and At-Tawila, both south of Nablus.
Head of the village council of Qaryot, Abed An-Naser Badawi, told Ma’an that “the settlers along with the soldiers blocked the southern entrance of the village and began to confiscate the land.” The day before he said settlers distributed written orders saying the land would be confiscated. Qaryot village has a population of more than 2700 people is surrounded with a number of Israeli settlements.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5819
6. Israeli exports hit by European boycotts after attacks on Gaza
Rachel Shabi | The Guardian
3 April 2009
Israeli companies are feeling the impact of boycott moves in Europe, according to surveys, amid growing concern within the Israeli business sector over organised campaigns following the recent attack on Gaza.
Last week, the Israel Manufacturers Association reported that 21% of 90 local exporters who were questioned had felt a drop in demand due to boycotts, mostly from the UK and Scandinavian countries. Last month, a report from the Israel Export Institute reported that 10% of 400 polled exporters received order cancellation notices this year, because of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
There is no doubt that a red light has been switched on,” Dan Katrivas, head of the foreign trade department at the Israel Manufacturers Association, told Maariv newspaper this week.
We are closely following what’s happening with exporters who are running into problems with boycotts.” He added that in Britain there exists “a special problem regarding the export of agricultural produce from Israel”.
The problem, said Katrivas, is in part the discussion in the UK over how to label goods that come from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Last week British government officials met with food industry representatives to discuss the issue.
In recent months, the Israeli financial press has reported the impact of mounting calls to boycott goods from the Jewish state. Writing in the daily finance paper, the Marker, economics journalist Nehemia Stressler berated then trade and industry minister Eli Yishai for telling the Israeli army to “destroy one hundred homes” in Gaza for every rocket fired into Israel.
The minister, wrote Stressler, did not understand “how much the operation in Gaza is hurting the economy”.
Stressler added: “The horrific images on TV and the statements of politicians in Europe and Turkey are changing the behaviour of consumers, businessmen and potential investors. Many European consumers boycott Israeli products in practice.”
He quoted a pepper grower who spoke of “a concealed boycott of Israeli products in Europe”. In February, another article in the Marker, titled “Now heads are lowered as we wait for the storm to blow over”, reported that Israelis with major business interests in Turkey hoped to remain anonymous to avoid arousing the attention of pro-boycott groups.
The paper said that, while trade difficulties with Turkey during the Gaza assault received more media attention, Britain was in reality of greater concern.
Gil Erez, Israel’s commercial attache in London, told the paper: Organisations are bombarding [British] retailers with letters, asking that they remove Israeli merchandise from the shelves.” Finance journalists have reported that Israeli hi-tech, food and agribusiness companies suffered adverse consequences following Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza, and called for government intervention to protect businesses from a growing boycott.
However, analysts stressed that the impact of a boycott on local exporters was difficult to discern amidst a global economic crisis and that such effects could be exaggerated.
If there was something serious, I would have heard about it,” said Avi Tempkin, from Globes, the Israeli business daily.
Israeli companies are thought to be wary of giving credence to boycott efforts by talking openly about their effect, preferring to resolve problems through diplomatic channels.
Consumer boycotts in Europe have targeted food produce such as Israeli oranges, avocados and herbs, while in Turkey the focus has been on agribusiness products such as pesticides and fertilisers.
The bulk of Israeli export is in components, especially hi-tech products such as Intel chips and flashcards for mobile phones. It is thought that the consumer goods targeted by boycott campaigns represent around 3% to 5% of the Israeli export economy.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5815
7. Israeli settlers take over Palestinian residence in Jerusalem’s old city
On the 2nd of April at 2am, at least seven armed Israeli settlers took over a Palestinian residence on al-Malwiyeh Street in Jerusalem’s old city. The house’s owner, Nasser Jaber, was away for four nights while the building was being renovated. The settlers arrived in the early morning, breaking open the door and changing the locks. A neighbor called Nasser to tell him that his house was being invaded, and Nasser called the police.
When the police arrived around 3am, they protected the settlers and allowed them to complete their takeover unhindered. Police claim that the settlers will be allowed to stay in the house until an Israeli court has made a decision over whether they are to be evicted. Nasser and another resident protested the takeover on the street outside of their home, and they were promptly arrested. Police released the two men after two hours. Nasser has presented his ownership documents to the Israeli court. The court says it will reach a decision as to who owns the house on Sunday. In the afternoon, police were seen giving food and electrical equipment to the settlers inside of Nasser’s house.
This most recent takeover follows months of increased settler activity in occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinian residents in Jerusalem’s old city, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and elsewhere often face eviction, with settlers given ownership of their houses.
Photo: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5791
8. They Will Not Go Down: Celebrating Life and Land Day
Eva Bartlett (see blog at http://ingaza.wordpress.com)
31 March 2009
Less than two months have passed since the end of Israel’s grisly war on Gaza. Not a house has been re-built (there is no cement; Israel continues to ban its entry into Gaza), thousands are displaced or sheltering in an overcrowded relative’s house or renting a scarcely- available apartment. The aid has stockpiled on the other side of crossings into Gaza, many trucks being sent back or expired. And the pain of loss, let alone of seeing family members -children, siblings, parents-burned by white phosphorous, being murdered or left to bleed to death is still unbearably fresh.
Yet Palestinians are trying to move on, again, while dealing with a siege which has only tightened post-destruction of Gaza. Last week Palestinian youths held a concert in the burnt-out theatre in one of the al Quds hospital buildings, attacked and seriously damaged by Israel during its war on Gaza [more than 14 hospitals and medical centres were bombed and damaged by Israeli army, 2 clinics were destroyed, 44 other damaged, and 23 emergency workers and medics were killed].
Quds Concert
Charred walls as a backdrop, piles of twisted metal, burnt rafters, and the ash of destroyed walls framing the stage, the next generation of Palestinian parents and leaders stood proud last Thursday, saying with their presence, as well as singing, “we will not go down”. The Michael Heart song written during Israel’s 3 weeks of attacks on Gaza caught the spirit of what Palestinians have been saying and living for decades, since the Zionists first began -even before Israel was created on the smoking ruins of Palestinian villages -their assassinations and acts of terrorism designed to frighten and drive out the existing Palestinian population.
On stage, a youth troupe of Dabke dancers held their own, did justice to the art that is Dabke. What was evident more than the skill of the musicians and dancers was Palestinians’ drive to live, to laugh, to show off and share their love of life. Just as with a concert organized by several youths last November to lift the spirits of Palestinians in Gaza living under a suffocating siege, the crowd clearly reveled in the opportunity for joy …after so much tragedy.
Land Day
In Gaza’s northern Beit Hanoun region, Palestinians, led by women, marched to land in the Israel-imposed “buffer zone” to tend the remaining trees and proclaim their right to the land. The area once flourished with olive, lemon, orange, guava and almond trees, in the years before Israeli invasions razed them to the ground, simultaneously razing history and life. Following Israel’s latest bout of destruction upon Gaza, most sources cite 60,000-75,000 dunams (1 dunam is 1,000 square metres) of fertile, cultivable land as having been destroyed by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. In Gaza’s perimeter areas, the “buffer zone” annexes land to Israel, gobbling up rich soil which had served Gaza’s agricultural needs. As of the last attacks on Gaza, as much as 60 % of the agriculture industry has been destroyed by Israel, further rendering Gazans aid-dependent.
Yet, again despite the gravity of the bleak situation Palestinians are facing, all over Palestine, on Land Day their voices were loud in protest, in defiance, and in joy. Organized by Beit Hanoun’s Local Initiative, a group leading agricultural and social projects in the northern region, Land Day celebrants sang, danced Dabke, tended their trees, and celebrated being on their land. On any given normal day, most of the residents would hesitate to go to this border region area due to the Israeli soldiers’ shooting which routinely erupts dangerously close to anyone on the land.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5780
9. Gazan fishermen protest against Israeli Navy attacks
On the 2nd of April, dozens of fishermen from the Salateen area in Beit Lahiya in the far north of Gaza, staged a march towards the coast to protest against recent Israeli naval attacks. The demonstrators were joined by the Director of the General Syndicate of Marine Fishers, Nizar Ayash, as well as Palestinian activists from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative. The demonstration was supported by volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), amongst them two international activists abducted by Israeli naval forces last November.
The Israeli navy has intensely escalated its attacks against Gazan fishermen since the recent onslaught on the Gaza Strip. In just the past three weeks, at least two fishermen have been injured by gunfire, 16 have been abducted (some of them tortured and later released) and seven fishing boats have been stolen without being returned. Several other boats have also reportedly been damaged by Israeli gunfire. Most of the fishermen are from the Salateen area, some of whom now face bleak situations in the wake of losing their homes during Israeli bombing raids, they have now lost their sole means of income in an area already greatly impoverished by the continued Israeli siege on Gaza.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5773
Posted: April 2, 2009
Israeli authorities have recently removed Beit Iba checkpoint, north of the city of Nablus, only to build a new checkpoint 2km away on the same road. This new checkpoint is located west of the village of Deir Sharaf, closer to the illegal Israeli settlement of Shave Shomeron. The new checkpoint is being built on at least 70 dunums of confiscated village land. Most of this land consists of agricultural fields belonging to 23 families from Deir Sharaf. Dozens of olive trees are to be cut down or confiscated when the new checkpoint is implemented.
In 2006, when the settlement of Shave Shomeron was built, around 700 dunums of land and more than 700 olive trees were taken from Deir Sharaf village. The villagers have since been denied access to this land, apart from three days each year during the olive harvest.
A villager from Deir Sharaf speaks about this new confiscation of village lands: “There has already been taken so much land taken from us because of the settlement, why do they need to move the checkpoint? When they confiscated our land and our trees three years ago, we where denied access to it the whole year except three days during the harvest. As every farmer knows, three days to do the harvest is impossible, it is a big joke. When the harvest began, the grass around the trees was a meter high and the trees were in terrible condition due to the lack of careful treatment that the olive fields require. This is injustice, this land belongs to us. We will not accept more land being confiscated.”
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5769
11. Beit Liqya commemorates Land Day by planting trees near martyr’s graves
On the 31st of March, at 10:30am, villagers in Beit Liqya marked Land Day by planting trees near the graves of two villagers killed by Israeli forces during demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall in 2005. Beit Liqya is located in the Ramallah district of the central West Bank. Around 200 villagers, supported by Israeli and international solidarity activists, moved towards the Apartheid Wall, which is built on village land.
Around 50 boys from the local youth committee beat drums and marched in procession to the graves of two boys killed by Israeli forces. Jamal Jaber, 15 years old, and Uday Mofeed, 14 years old, were shot with live ammunition during nonviolent demonstrations against the construction of the Apartheid Wall in 2005. Villagers planted trees near their graves, connecting the martyrs’ deaths to the continued brutality of the Israeli occupation and remembering the murder of six Palestinian demonstrators in 1976, which is commemorated every year on Land Day.
After the trees were planted, three Israeli soldiers standing nearby began shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd and firing live ammunition into the air. Some of the village youth responded to the soldiers by throwing stones. One Israeli solidarity activist was hit in his back with a rubber bullet.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5822
12. Gazan farmers continue their work despite army shooting
On the morning of the 1st of April, ISM Gaza Strip activists returned to accompany Palestinian farmers in the area of Khouza’a, east of Khan Younis. This is the same area where farmers working their fields were almost shot on the 24th of February. The fields are far away from the Israeli watchtowers and about 400 meters from the Green Line. Despite this, the farmers had problems when they tried to reach their fields on the two previous days because of the shooting from Israeli troops.
The work began at 7:40am and about 25 minutes later, two army jeeps moved along the fence and approached the group of farmers and activists. The soldiers got out and started watching. It was obvious that the group was posing no threat to the soldiers. Most of the Palestinian farmers were middle-aged women. Many of the international solidarity activists were wearing fluorescent or Red Crescent vests. But after a few minutes of watching, the Israeli soldiers started shooting.
One of the ISM activists tried to deescalate the situation by talking to the army by megaphone but they still continued shooting. The farmers resisted the attack by ignoring the fire and continuing their work. After awhile, the soldiers withdrew and quit their attempt to expel the Palestinian farmers from their land. Despite the intimidation of the Israeli soldiers, and despite the fact that they could hear the intense battles between Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian resistance fighters (two of them killed and another two injured) east of Al Meshazi camp further north, the farmers stayed and defended their rights to work their land. Today they won the battle, tomorrow is another day.
Photos and video download: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5807
13. Land Day demonstration in Ni’lin
On March 30th, about 30 Palestinian villagers from Ni’lin, supported by international and Israeli solidarity activists, held a protest to commemorate Land Day. The nonviolent demonstration was stopped by Israeli forces on the outskirts of the village, far away from the construction site of the wall. Three military jeeps parked in the main street of the village to block the protest, shooting tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber coated steel bullets against the demonstrators.
The demonstration started at the main square of the village and continued towards the field where the Israeli army blocked their path. Several speeches were given and when the demonstrators tried to continue the army claimed that the village fields was a closed military zone. The Israeli commander also argued that villagers in Ni’lin do not have the right to demonstrate.
Demonstrators then tried to enter the field from other spots near the clinic and were subsequently attacked by soldiers with sound bombs, tear gas and rubber coated steal bullets. At the end of the demonstration some protesters managed to reach the illegal Apartheid Wall, damaging a small part of it.
This Land day demonstration remembers the six Palestinans murdered by the Israeli army for protesting against land confiscation in 1976. Ni’lin villagers know well that land confiscation is still a reality in Palestine. Since 1948, Ni´lin residents have lost more than 85% of their land to confiscation from Israeli authorities and illegal settlement building. Since the resistance against the Apartheid Wall began in Ni´lin in May 2008, four youth have been killed by Israeli forces in nonviolent demonstrations. Nineteen people have also been shot with live ammunition and over 600 have been injured by other army weaponry.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5736
14. Congresswoman Barbara Lee makes statement regarding Tristan Anderson
Congresswoman Barbara Lee makes a statement regarding the American citizen, Tristan Anderson, who was shot in the head with a tear-gas projectile on 13 March 2009 by Israeli forces. Anderson, currently in critical condition at Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv, was shot during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Ni’lin.
ISM Update 8 April 09: Funds needed for Tristan Anderson’s medical expenses
Tristan (38), is currently in Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv. To date, he has undergone 3 brain surgeries. During the first operation, part of Tristan’s right frontal lobe had to be removed, as it was penetrated by bone fragments. A brain fluid leakage was sealed using a tendon from his thigh, and his right eye suffered extensive damage. The long-term scope of Tristan’s injuries is yet unknown.
Tristan has been a social justice activist for many years. He grew up in Oakland, California, where he was introduced to activism at a young age. Over the past years, Tristan has been involved in numerous projects, including Food Not Bombs, a group that cooks for the homeless, and an operation committed to stopping the destruction of tree groves in Berkley California through sit-in demonstrations. He recently traveled to the West Bank to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.
As Tristan has been in intensive care for three weeks, it is certain that his recovery process is accompanied by mounting medical expenses. We ask that supporters around the world donate what they can to help pay for Tristan’s care. He is without medical insurance in the United States and will need substantial financial assistance to continue the long-term treatment that his injuries will require.
Tax deductible donations can be made through the Northern California ISM Chapter. Please make checks out to ISM Support Group, with Tristan Anderson Fund as the memo line. Please mail to
ISM Support Group 405 Vista Heights Rd. El Cerrito, CA 94530
OR
visit http://justicefortristan.org/?page_id=10 to donate via paypal
DONATE @ http://palsolidarity.org/donate
March 31, 2009
ISM Digest 29 March 2009
DIGEST March 29, 2009
March 27, 2009
[ISM Updates] Digest March 22, 2009
Roane Carey | The Nation
On Friday [March 20, 2009] I went to the anti-separation wall demo in Ni’lin in the West Bank, the same village where International Solidarity Movement activist Tristan Anderson was critically wounded last week. Several hundred villagers were accompanied by Jewish Israeli activists (most with Anarchists Against the Wall) and ISMers, plus a few journalists like me. The IDF started firing tear gas at us even before we got close to the wall. The shebab (Palestinian youth) responded with stones, and the game was on: back and forth street battles, with the soldiers alternating between tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and occasional live ammunition, often fired by snipers, and the shebab hurling their stones by slingshot against the Israeli Goliath.
The IDF often fires tear gas now with a high-velocity rifle that can be lethal, especially when they fire it straight at you rather than pointed up in the air. Pointed straight, it comes at you like a bullet. That’s what seriously wounded Anderson. I saw these projectiles coming very near us, and saw how dangerous they could be. Not to mention the live ammo they occasionally firedbut they fired live rounds only at the shebab, never at the Jews or internationals. After a few hours, the clashes died down. Six were injured, one critically. Me, I just coughed and teared up from the gas on occasion. (In simultaneous demos in the nearby village of Bi’lin, three were injured, including two Americans.)
I mistakenly thought the army would be less aggressive on Friday, and not only because of the negative publicity surrounding the shooting of Anderson (the killing of Palestinians is of course routinely ignored in Western media; in Ni’lin alone, four villagers have been killed in the past eight months, with hundreds injured). The day before Friday’s march, revelations from Israeli veterans about war crimes they’d committed in the recent Gaza campaign made world headlines .
As villagers prepared yesterday’s march, Jonathan Pollock, a veteran activist with AATW, showed me where Anderson was standing when he was shot and where the IDF soldier was standing who shot him, just up the hill. The soldier had fired a high-velocity tear-gas canister at close rangewhat looked to me like about fifty or sixty metersdirectly at Anderson, hitting him in the head. It was hard to imagine the intention could have been anything other than to seriously maim or kill.
The courage and steadfast resistance of the people of Ni’lin, and many other West Bank villages just like it that are fighting the wall’s illegal annexation of their land, is truly remarkable. Every week, for years now, West Bank Palestinians have stood up against the world’s fourth-most-powerful military machine, which shows no compunction about shooting unarmed demonstrators. This grassroots resistance organized by the villagers themselves, not Fatah or Hamashas gotten little publicity from the world media , which seem to prefer stories about Hamas rockets and the image of Palestinians as terrorists.
The village protests against the wall are inspiring, and not just because they’ve continued for so long, against such daunting odds. The villagers recognize the power and revolutionary potential of mass, unarmed resistance, and the shebab with their slingshots hearken back to the first intifada of the late 1980s and the “children of the stones,” when hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were directly involved in the struggle against the occupation. The Israeli government knows how difficult it is to suppress that kind of mass resistance, which is why it has used such brutality and provocation against the villagers. The army wants to shut this uprising down before it spreads, and would like nothing more than for the villagers to start using guns, as the IDF is certain to win a purely military confrontation. The other inspiration of this struggle is the courage and solidarity of the Israeli and ISM activists. They risk their lives day after day, and the villagers appreciate it. I saw signs in Ni’lin praising Tristan Anderson, who, just like Rachel Corrie six years ago, was willing to sacrifice his life for Palestinian justice.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5512
2. Speaking Truth to Power
By Sharon Lock (See blog: http:talestotell.wordpress.com)
We were back at Faraheen this morning accompanying farmers again, eying the jeeps driving along the Israeli border while our farmers removed the irrigation pipes from one of the fields we have visited regularly. Since Mohammed was shot in the leg, the farmer here has decided to give up on this field, its convenient well, and its half- grown parsley crop – 200,000 shekels worth – in case of further injury or death of harvesters. It was a quiet morning, thank goodness.
Tristan is conscious and was breathing on his own until he caught pneumonia. He has a long way to go and it’s not known what will be ahead – for sure, more surgery, including on his damaged right eye.
A second time this week we spotted an Israeli gun boat traveling at 3 miles from the shoreline, all the way from near Deir al Balah to Gaza city (it kept pace with our shared taxi) as fishermen were out trying to get in a catch in, and inevitably the next day we heard that a fisherman had been shot; Deeb Al Ankaa who we understand to now be in Kamal Odwan hospital.
I met a great Manchester guy this week, Dr Sohail of Medical International Surgical Team (MIST) who has come here to do good work with peoples’ bones, for example working with amputees who have had limbs removed at a high point, to enable the otherwise impossible attachment of prosthetic limbs (if Israel lets the prosthetics through the border, which apparently is another problem of the siege…).
Thinking about bones, I immediately thought of Wafa. After wincing at the picture of her in hospital the day after soldiers shot out her kneecap, Dr Sohail said “I’m a kneecap man!” and told me a series of incomprehensible surgical things he might be able to do to give her back some movement. We rang her family today while standing in the Faraheen field (it’s a good time to get your phone-calling done) to say that Dr Sohail will see her in June if I go and take a photo of her medical records for him beforehand.
Dr Sohail spoke of the several limitations medical people are under here – mostly no access to the latest equipment – if any gets in, no access to training on how to use it – and of course very little of the ongoing training amongst their international peers that people doing tricky surgical things need to have.
In the last days there have been renewed calls for an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes in Gaza, including for example “white flag killings” by Israeli soldiers. One of the big problems in the way is that during the attacks there were no forensic pathologists in Gaza trained to a level that would meet the requirements. (They are trying to send some people outside for training now, ready for the next time…) A second big problem is that when the International Criminal Court representatives tried to get in through Rafah to investigate the situation, Egypt refused to let them through, so they missed the February 8 deadline for submitting evidence.
And it was never going to be easy. Here is an example. One of the Al Quds Red Crescent medics talked about getting through to some of the surviving Samouni kids trapped with dead adults, on the first Red Cross/Red Crescent evacuation permitted by Israel. He said the kids (who they found in circumstances that left some of the medics who reached them, traumatised themselves) said the adults had been shot, and they had covered over the bodies themselves.
The medics knew it was important to try to take the adults’ bodies out, but the children were starving, dehydrated, and in a state of collapse. Since Israel had not permitted the medics to take ambulances, and several miles had to be covered, the medics found a donkey cart for the children. The Red Cross asked Israel to be allowed to take a donkey to pull the cart, but Israel said no.
My medic friend says: “We put the children on the donkey cart and pulled it ourselves, hurrying to get out before 4pm which was the deadline for the evacuation. And there was no room for the bodies. So a lot of time passed before those bodies could be retrieved, and while we have the verbal testimony of the children, we don’t have an early medical assessment of the adults bodies.”
I was called in to PressTV to give an interview today about what I witnessed myself, and it turned out this is because Israeli soldiers have themselves started to admit some of what went on, in the Israeli press today. This has been covered by the TimesOnline, and the International Middle East Media Centre. It includes an anonymous solider who ’says that he was told “we should kill everyone there (Gaza). Everyone there is a terrorist.”
Photo: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5499
3) IPS: Israelis Using ‘Excessive’ Force Against Protesters
Posted on: March 20, 2009
By Mel Frykberg | Inter-Press Service
The critical wounding of a U.S. activist has highlighted the excessive use of force by Israeli forces.
The activist, Tristan Anderson, 38, was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers during a protest against Israel’s separation barrier in the Palestinian West Bank last week. He remains in intensive care in Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv.
Anderson was one of approximately 400 international, Palestinian and Israeli protestors taking part in a demonstration in the village of Ni’ilin, near the central West Bank city Ramallah, when he was hit by a teargas canister.
Since Israel’s devastating three-week war on Gaza, human rights organisations and activists have accused the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) of using indiscriminate violence and testing new weapons on unarmed protestors.
The teargas canister which hit Anderson is a new variety being used by the IDF, and is particularly lethal if fired directly at protestors.
The gas canister can travel over 400 metres. It does not make a noise when fired, or emit a smoke tail, and has a propeller for mid-air acceleration. A combination of velocity and silence increases the danger it poses.
Witnesses gave testimonies to the media and to human rights organisations that they saw Israeli soldiers aiming at Anderson before they shot the canister from a distance of about 60 metres. It hit him directly on the forehead. The impact of the canister caused severe damage to the right eye, and Anderson has had to undergo critical brain surgery. Israeli soldiers continued to fire teargas canisters towards the wounded man and the people surrounding him as he lay critically injured on the ground and Palestinian medics tried to give him first aid.
Later, a Palestinian ambulance trying to rush Anderson to hospital was blocked at least five minutes by Israeli soldiers. Only after other foreigners engaged the soldiers in heated debate did they allow the ambulance to pass.
Anderson was then delayed another 15 minutes while an Israel ambulance was called, because Palestinian ambulances are not allowed to cross into Israeli territory without special permit. Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli activist who witnessed the event said that the soldiers had fired unnecessarily. “There was no way that their lives were even remotely in danger or that they might have been injured,” Pollack told IPS.
Even if the IDF (Israeli defence forces) argument was true that they had been the targets of stones before they shot him, no stone could travel uphill for 60 metres and threaten them, and Anderson had definitely not been involved in any violent activity.”
Pollack said the demonstration had finished and most of the demonstrators had left when the teargas was fired. “At the time of the shooting there were no confrontations, and Anderson was standing amongst about 10 remaining protestors just milling about.”
Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli rights group B’Tselem says that the IDF has at times used crowd control measures indiscriminately. “The teargas canister is not meant to be used as a weapon or fired directly at protestors but in an arc or at an angle,” she told IPS.
We have many credible witnesses, and I myself have seen soldiers fire at people who are nowhere near and have nothing to do with any stone- throwing. And even when the soldiers have the right to shoot on grounds of self-defence, they are obliged to use the minimum of force and in a strictly proportionate way.”
B’Tselem is concerned about the even more severe crowd control methods being employed by the IDF.
An Israeli journalist was recently shot in the chest with a rubber- coated steel bullet (marble-sized metal ball covered in 0.5mm of rubber) when the soldiers knew full well the target was a journalist. Towards the end of last year the IDF began once again to use Ruger rifles, which use .22 calibre ammunition, against unarmed protestors.
We have written a letter to the judge advocate general (JAG) protesting and questioning the use of Ruger rifles,” said Michaeli.
According to B’Tselem, back in 2001 then JAG Major-General Menachem Finkelstein had ordered that use of the Ruger rifle be stopped. The decision followed the killing of several children in the Gaza Strip by Ruger rifle fire, and an order by the Central Command to cease using the rifle. The order came after it was found that soldiers often used the rifle against demonstrators without justification.
Furthermore, Israeli soldiers are using live ammunition against protestors, contrary to IDF laws of engagement.
Although Anderson’s case made international headlines because of his status as a foreigner, four Palestinians were killed by the IDF in the village of Ni’ilin last year.
Ahmed Mousa, 10, was shot dead with live ammunition in July last year. The following day Yousef Amira, 17, was left brain-dead, and died a week later after he too had been shot in the head with rubber-coated steel bullets.
Arafat Rateb Khawaje, 22, was shot in the back with live ammunition in December. The same day Mohammed Khawaje, 20, was also shot in the head with live ammunition. He died three days later.
The villagers of Ni’ilin and their supporters have been protesting weekly against the confiscation of their land by Israeli authorities for expansion of nearby Israeli settlements, and against the separation barrier.
The separation barrier, which slices through the village, divides Palestinian farmers from their land. It was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5486
4) Human rights workers to accompany farmers in Gaza
8am, Thursday 19th March 2009: Seven international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) will be accompanying Palestinian farmers in Al Basan Kabira, Al Faraheen, East of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.
HRWs from Britain, Australia and Canada will be accompanying farmers on their lands 500m from the ‘Green Line’ as they attempt to retrieve irrigation pipes.
Palestinian farmers have been repeatedly been shot at by Israeli forces while working on their agricultural lands within 1km from the Green Line’.
On the 18th February 2009 international HRWs witnessed the shooting of 20 year old Mohammad Il Ibrahim by Israeli forces. Mohammad was shot in the leg as he was loading parsley onto a truck approximately 550m from the Green Line. The farmers and internationals had been working for two hours in full view of the Israeli forces and were leaving the area at the time of shooting.
Mohammed al-Buraim is the fourth Palestinian farmer to be shot by Israeli forces in the ‘buffer zone’ in the last two months. Two of the four farmers shot died from their wounds. On the 18th January 2009, 24 year old Maher Abu Rajileh from the village of Khoza’a was killed by Israeli forces while working his agricultural lands 400m from the Green Line. On the 27th January, Anwar al Buraim was shot in the neck by Israeli forces.
On 20 January, Israeli soldiers shot Waleed al-Astal (42) of Al Qarara (near Khan Younis) in his right foot.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5482
5) Six years without Rachel We still demand justice
16th March, 2009 | ISM Gaza Strip
Every year we remember 16th March. We remember a kind, insightful, talented person committed to the plight of the Palestinian people, who genuinely had the courage of her convictions. Her name was Rachel Corrie. This year, the anniversary of her death comes in the wake of Israel’s massive assault on the Gaza Strip. We believe Rachel would want the world to remember the 1,400 Palestinians killed before she is remembered herself. Now, six long years after her death, the situation in Gaza is even more desperate than when Rachel bore witness to it. Six years on we still demand justice. We still demand that the international community hold the Israeli military and government responsible for the murder of Rachel and so many
Palestinian civilians. We also demand that the US justice system holds responsible the Caterpillar company which continues to provide the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) with the military D-9 bulldozers, which killed not only Rachel but a number of Palestinians and have demolished thousands of Palestinian homes.
It wasn’t possible for ISM volunteers to enter the Gaza Strip for several years due to the clampdown of the Erez crossing, so today was the first time ISM activists managed to commemorate the anniversary in Gaza itself. Some of the activists who volunteered with ISM Rafah in 2003 were able to compare the situation then and now. Different facets of occupation are manifest in 2009 – the oppressive wall along the Rafah border with Egypt has been cut down but has been replaced by siege and blockade; the brutality endured by the residents of Rafah’s border areas has now touched every single person throughout the Gaza Strip. From 2002 to 2005 over 3,000 Palestinian homes were bulldozed in Rafah. Now, in just 22 days, thousands more were destroyed throughout the entire Gaza Strip. 100,000 Palestinians have been left homeless by air missile strikes and shelling with many families now living in tents on the rubble of their homes.
This is a highly poignant day for us, so to mark it in a positive and inspiring way, we joined five young Palestinian artists to create a mural on one of the few remaining sections of the Israeli wall on the Rafah-Egypt border strip. The same wall whose construction saw the creation of a buffer zone hundreds of metres deep, which gnawed away at vast swathes of residential neighbourhoods, including the one Rachel died trying to safeguard. The same wall from where fellow ISM activist, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier from a watchtower less than a month after Rachel was killed. The same wall that for years was intended to imprison Palestinian people. The same wall that was finally destroyed by the Palestinian people.
As the artists began painting the wall, enlivening it with colourful symbols of defiance, Israeli F-16 fighter jets were heard flying over Rafah. Despite Israel’s announcement of a “unilateral ceasefire” on 18th January, the Israeli Air Force continues to unilaterally bomb Rafah and other areas in the Gaza Strip almost daily.. Most of the international journalists have left and the international community considers the war as being over, but Palestinian civilians are still being killed and injured by Israeli attacks on a regular basis. Fortunately, today we weren’t bombed by Israeli aircraft. Maybe because we were protected by the “Palestinian Air Force”. Palestinian children from the Lifemakers Center along with kids from the nearby al- Barazil refugee camp responded to the Israeli military flying F-16s by flying kites! 14 kites were flown in memory of the 14 hundred Palestinians killed recently in Gaza. Another kite sent our love to Rachel.
This was also a symbolic action against the crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade. Gaza has been under siege for nearly two years now and can aptly be described as the world’s largest open-air prison with over 1.5 million people locked in by land, sea and air. After the Free Gaza Movement voyages challenged the blockade by sea last year, followed by the Viva Palestina convoy challenging the siege by land last week, Palestinian children symbolically broke the control of Gazan airspace today.
A delegation from Code Pink also succeeded to gain entry recently and celebrated International Women’s Day with the courageous women of Gaza on 8th March. Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie joined them, commenting on their visit, “Despite the pain, we have once again felt privileged to enter briefly into the lives of Rachel’s Palestinian friends in Gaza. We are moved by their resilience and heartened by their song, dance, and laughter amidst the tears.”
Maybe the soaring kites were seen by some of the internationals protesting today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, against the Egyptian authorities’ denial to allow them access to Gaza. They included Jordanian parliamentarians and Greek engineers aiming to assist reconstruction efforts in Gaza. However, all of this is not enough. We must call again on the international community to mobilise against the genocidal siege on Gaza.
The Israeli Occupation Forces attempted to kill another American ISM activist, Tristan Anderson, three days ago in the stalwart West Bank village of Ni’lin. Tristan, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Just as today we stood at the destroyed wall of Rafah, commemorating the sacrifice of Rachel, one day we will stand together with Tristan at the destroyed wall of Ni’lin to commemorate the sacrifice of Ahmed Mousa (10), Yousef Amira (17), Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) and Mohammed Khawaje (20), the four civilian martyrs of Ni’lin. Despite the murders of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, despite the attempted assassinations of Brian Avery and Tristan Anderson, despite the injuries, abductions, illegal deportations and denials of entry that we suffered, we are back. ISM is still here, and will continue to support Palestinian non-violent resistance.
Today, six years after the martyrdom of Rachel; three days after the shooting of Tristan; two months after the Palestinians ousted the IOF from the Gaza Strip; 42 years after the occupation of West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip; 61 years after the Naqba; we still say free Palestine! End the occupation! Peace with justice and dignity! We should remember Rachel and all that she stood for. Similarly we must never let the world forget all the innocent Palestinian souls who perished without mercy. Their fate is already slipping from the collective memory of the international community, fading from the headlines of a fickle corporate media. It is time this manufactured catastrophe ends so that Rachel’s death and the deaths of countless Palestinians were not in vain.
Photos: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5457
6) Boycott Israel Action
Posted on: March 18, 2009
Palestine solidarity activists go boycott shopping in France and hold a teach-in on Israeli-made products. (Euro Palestine)
Video: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5458
7) Streets remain closed as army continues demolition attempts in Beit Safafa
Ma’an News
17 March 2009
Israeli forces blocked off the Gilo road beside Bait Safafa Tuesday as soldiers prepared to destroy the sixth floor of a multi-family home in East Jerusalem.
Demolition began in the late hours of the morning, with crews removing the tile roof of the building and knocking down walls on the Ar-Rakhma street building. The demolition stalled when demolition workers attempted to dismantle the elevator to the top floor. Eyewitnesses said several methods of destruction were attempted, but none have yet been successful.
Earlier in the day armed soldiers blocked the entrances to both the Gilo and Beit Safafa streets, prohibiting press from entering the area and warning residents that if they leave with their cars they will not be permitted to re-enter the area. Others are able to enter the area but only on foot.
Soldiers have prevented those who live in the building from coming within 200 meters of the site.
Those who wish to remove personal items from their homes in advance of the demolition are being removed from the area.
The six-story building belongs to Mahfoudh Abu Khalaf, who is reportedly refusing to leave the building, which houses 50 people, from several different families. Some were seen taking suitcases and furniture out of the building.
The first three floors of the building were built with permits, but the fourth, fifth and sixth were denied permits and are considered illegal. The sixth floor is home to seven people.
Israeli soldiers told locals that only the sixth floor will be destroyed Tuesday, though the other two have demolition orders pending. They have been assured that special equipment will be used to ensure that only the top floor of the building will be destroyed.
Witnesses said it was likely the demolition would damage the other floors of the home.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5446
8 ) Israeli soldiers reoccupy ‘House of Contention’ in Hebron
17th March 2009 | Ma’an News Agency
Hebron Ma’an Three months after Israel’s army evacuated settlers from the Ar-Rajabi building that was confiscated two years earlier, soldiers have returned to reoccupy it.
Dubbed the Hebron-area House of Contention, the building is owned by a Palestinian family before it was taken over by Jewish settlers. Enforcing a court order, the Israeli military evacuated the settlers by force in early December.
But on Sunday, the home returned to the spotlight when Israel’s army announced it would turn the building into a military post rather than return it to its original Palestinian owners.
Hebron Mayor Khaled Al-U’seili, said the Ar-Rajabi building “is owned by the family and should be returned to it.”
Having a military post in the area would make the situation worse,” he said, “adding that Israel’s military presence in the area should be lessened.”
Al-U’seili also noted that a recent agreement signed between the Palestinian Authority and Israel stipulated that Ash-Shuhada Street should be reopened for Palestinians and their vehicles in both directions.
We previously had a decision from the Israeli High Court to open the street, yet a military decision was taken to close the street for the Palestinians,” he said.
Israeli army commanders should consider opening the street in two directions, rather than what they are planning,” he said, adding restoring normal life to the Old City will not happen but by lifting all kinds of closures on the area.”
He noted that there are currently 101 military checkpoints in the Hebron area alone. Imad Hamdan the administrative and financial manager for the Hebron Rehabilitation Committe said his organization petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to prevent Israeli soldiers from using the Rajabi house.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5444
9) Israeli army attack non-violent demonstration and steal cameras in Burin, Nablus region
On the 13th of March 2009, in Burin village (Nablus district), the Israeli army repressed a peaceful and non violent demonstration by shooting live ammunition and teargas canister aimed directly at protesters.
The protesters decided to hold ground, before a group of twenty Israeli soldiers started to chase the demonstrators down to the village, beating up the Palestinians demonstrators, including a journalist, and international activists. They also set about illegally confiscating all the cameras and a video recorder that previously where being used to document the soldiers’ actions.
Between seventy and a hundred people took part in the demonstration against the expansion of the illegal settlement in the village, who will result in the confiscation of much of the village’s lands.
This is again a blatant example that Israel still refuse any kind of freedom of expression to the Palestinian people and try to prevent journalists or internationals to report and document about the illegal Israeli occupation.
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5442
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STOP THE WAR COALITION NEWSLETTER – 25 March 2009
STOP THE WAR COALITION NEWSLETTER No. 1087 25 March 2009 Email office@stopwar.org.uk Tel: 020 7801 2768 Web: http://www.stopwar.org.uk
In this newsletter:
1) GET READY FOR A WEEK OF PROTEST
2) SAT 28 MARCH: PUT PEOPLE FIRST DEMONSTRATION
3) MON 30 MARCH: PUBLIC MEETING: MEET THE RESISTANCE
4) TUE 31 MARCH: STOP THE WAR PRESENTS LOWKEY
5) WED 1 APRIL: YES WE CAN DEMONSTRATION
6) THURS 2 APRIL, 11AM PROTEST AT THE EXCEL CENTRE
7) APR 3-5 NO TO NATO INTERNATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
1) GET READY FOR A WEEK OF PROTEST
Stop the War’s main event at the G20 is the YES WE CAN demonstration which starts at the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square at 2.00pm on Wednesday 1 April. But we have a week of protest coming up at the G20 and NATO (details below). It is crucial we make sure the world’s leaders can’t escape the massive opposition to the wars they are waging.
For more information on any of these events please contact the Stop the War office on 020 7801 2768 on or check the website http://www.stopwar.org.uk
2) SAT 28 MARCH: PUT PEOPLE FIRST DEMONSTRATION
Stop the War is encouraging its supporters to join this demonstration called by the TUC and NGO’s calling for Jobs and action on poverty and the environment. We will be forming an anti war/solidarity with Palestine contingent on the demo.
Look for the Jobs Not Bombs banner, meet at Temple Tube 10.30 am. http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk
3) MON 30 MARCH: PUBLIC MEETING: MEET THE RESISTANCE THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE & JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Come and hear elected representatives from the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon.
Speakers:
HUSSEIN EL-HAJJ HASSAN MP Lebanon’s Loyalty to the Resistance Parliamentary Bloc
HASAN KHREISHI Vice President of the Palestinian Legislative Council
JEREMY CORBYN MP Stop the War Coalition JOHN REES Vice President (Europe) Cairo Conference
DYAB ABOU JAHJAH International Co-Ordinator of the International Union of Parliamentarians For Palestine
SUKANT CHANDAN English Chair of IUPFP
Time: 7pm
Date: Monday 30th March
Place: Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London (nearest tube, Euston or Euston Square)
Entrance £2
4) TUE 31 MARCH: STOP THE WAR PRESENTS LOWKEY Tears to Laughter, a benefit and launch party for Lowkey’s new single and for the G20 protests.
Featuring Faith SFX and Shadia Mansour. 8pm, Vibe Bar, Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, E1 6QL 8pm.
Contact the Stop the War office on 020 7801 2768 to book your ticket.
5) WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL: YES WE CAN DEMONSTRATION
Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, End the Siege of Gaza, Make Jobs not Bombs, Abolish nukes, End Arms Sales to Israel.
Assemble 2pm US Embassy Grosvenor Square. The demonstration will start by handing in a message to Barack Obama at the US embassy. We will then march through central London at the moment the world leaders’ arrive and Obama meets Gordon Brown at Downing Street. 3.30
RALLY IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. Speakers include Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill, Daud Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain, anti debt campaigner Susan George, and Keith Sonnet from UNISON. Performers include Palestinian singer Reem Kolanai and rapper Lowkey.
6) THURS 2 APRIL, 11AM PROTEST AT THE EXCEL CENTRE Details to be announced.
7) NO TO NATO INTERNATIONAL DEMONSTRATION FRIDAY 3 APRIL:
6am Victoria Embankment.
Join the coach for Strasbourg No To NATO protests.
Book online at http://www.stopwar.org.uk or by phone on 020 7801 2768
SATURDAY 4 APRIL: NO to NATO
International Demonstration, Strasbourg SUNDAY 5 APRIL: Strasbourg Counter Conference
January 24, 2009
24 January 2009 – BBC/Gaza Rally. Tony Benn’s Speech outside the BBC
Embargo: 1.30 pm, Saturday 24 January 2009
Press Release
THE RT HON TONY BENN SPEAKING AT A MEETING OUTSIDE THE BBC BROADCASTING HOUSE, PORTLAND PLACE, SAID THIS AFTERNOON [SAT JAN 24]:
“The decision of the BBC to refuse to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, which has left aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations, is a betrayal of the obligation which it owes as a public service.
“The destruction in Gaza and the loss of the lives of over a thousand civilians and children, has shocked the world as Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, made clear, when he saw the devastation for himself.
“The human suffering that the people of Gaza has experienced over the last few weeks has appalled people who have seen it for themselves on their television screens.
“To deny the help that the aid agencies and the UN need at this moment in time is incomprehensible and it follows the bias in BBC reporting of this crisis, which has been widely criticised.
“I appeal to the Chairman of the BBC Trust to intervene to reverse this decision to save the lives of those who are now in acute danger of dying through a lack of food, fuel, water and medical supplies.
” *********
Stop the War Coalition on behalf of the Coalition’s President, Tony Benn
0207 229 0779
0794 110 2163