South Side Story - Beit Omar

A combination of busyness and poor internet access has prevented me from contributing to the blog for over a week. So many stories have built up in that time that it is impossible to tell them all here. For the sake of ease, I will start now with just the story of the place I am currently stationed: Beit Omar, a small town just north of Hebron. I am working with the Soleiby family, a family of Palestinian farmers living near the Saffa valley. They are regularly attacked by settlers from the Bat ‘Ayn settlement, who live on the hill overlooking the Soleiby’s fields.

The Bat ‘Ayn settlers are some of the most violent extremists in the West Bank. In April, Abdullah Soleiby was beaten in the head with a rock by a settler, causing serious head trauma. Since then, Israeli and international activists have accompanied the family to their fields on a weekly basis. The settlers frequently harass and abuse the farmers and activists, throwing stones and vicious insults. Last Monday, settlers cut down and set fire to over 125 of the Soleiby’s grapevines and fruit trees.

Rather than arresting the settlers or interfering in the attacks, the army has responded by issuing a series of “Closed military zone” orders that forbid anyone, including the farmers, from entering the land. These orders have prevented the family from accessing their primary source of income. The supreme court has ruled the orders unconstitutional, but the army has continued to implement them.

Every Saturday morning, an entourage of between 30 and 50 activists accompany the farmers into their fields, where they usually pick for about an hour before being beaten, arrested and expelled from the land. In the last month, 37 Israeli activists and 5 international activists have been arrested in the Saffa valley. But the confrontation this past Saturday, which resulted in the arrest of 26 activists, seems to have had a different outcome. The soldiers have finally agreed to provide protection for the family, and have set up a tent on the road between the fields and the settlement. For the past two mornings, three of us have gone down with the farmers and safely picked their fields, hearing only the distant shouts of angry settlers. We don’t know how long this trend will last, but if it continues it could mean a profound change in the lives of the Soleiby family. Perhaps there is hope after all.

Bi'lin Invaded by Israeli Soldiers

June 29, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Tzj_bYvis

At around 2:30am two groups of around 35 soldiers (70 total) descended on the village of Bi'lin. They raided several houses, detained their inhabitants, and searched the inside of the houses. When members of the ISM (including yours truely) and the Popular Committee of Bi'lin confronted the soldiers, they called all of Bi'lin a closed military zone and threatened to arrest anyone out of their house or anyone on top of a house taking pictures. In the course of these house raids, they kidnapped two 16 year old boys (Mohsen Kateb and Hamoda Yaseen) from their houses and took them away into the night. Haitham al-Katib, a respected Palestinian activist in Bi'lin was video taping the raids when soldiers aggressively pushed him against a wall and threatened him with arrest. We intervened on his behalf and were able to wrest him out of the grasp of the soldiers(which was really fortunate and only happened cause the rest of the soldiers hadn't arrived yet).

They then raided the house of Iyad Burant, the head of the popular committee. He unlocked the door when he saw them walking towards around the house. (I figured out that he didn't want them to destroy his door). I stood in the entrance and when the soldiers showed up they said "where is the upstairs?" I said, "upstairs" and pointed up. Apparently my sarcastic answer wasn't the one they were looking for and the soldier body checked me with his rifle and pushed his way into the house. Other soldiers followed suit but we were being very defensive in our stances and impeded their path. First we demanded to see proof of their closed military zone, then we kept blocking their access to the rest of the house.

One of the soldiers saw Iyad's 9 year old son (Abdal kalik) taking pictures and threatened him with physical harm if he didn't produce a camera he was holding. After myself and another international intervened by blocking the soldiers path, they threatened us arrest and pushed us around. After repeated efforts, the soldiers gave up and left that particular house.

Bilin Nightwatchmen

Over the last week and a half, Bi'lin has been raided almost every night and men and young boys have been arrested and dragged out of their beds. So we got a call from the head of the popular committee of Bi'lin to send some internationals. I arrived yesterday and went on night patrol all night with men from the popular committee. Over the course of the night we saw 6 lorries let out soldiers in the darkness. They stayed out of site using the hills as cover and we did similar in the village. Everyone in the village gets the alarm (there are only 1500 people living here so any person arrested is a big deal and everyone knows them and their family). We try to stay in the darkness and quiet. Its a bit creepy knowing that some trigger happy 18 year old israeli soldier might decide to blow your brains out at any second, but you just put that thought out of your head and its a lot easier. We stayed vigilant in the dark and no one in Bi'lin ended up getting raided last night.

However, we found out that the soldiers circumvented us and raided the nearby village of Kafr ni'ma. We are going out again every night till the raids stop (so I will be going out again in 30 mins). The others in my original group are still split off in Nablus and Hebron and hopefully one of them will get to a computer to blog about their experiences soon.

Israeli forces arrest 24 solidarity activists and 2 hired Palestinian Israeli Drivers!!

For Immediate Release
27 June 2009: Israeli forces arrest 24 solidarity activists and 2 hired Palestinian Israeli drivers in the West Bank village of Saffa.

At 7.30am, 35 Israeli and 10 international solidarity activists joined 3 Palestinian families from Beit Ummar to harvest their land. As the group tried to go down to their lands, 50 soldiers and border policemen stopped them.

Before reaching the land, Israeli forces arrested 10 Israeli and international activists, under the premise that Saffa was under a Closed Military Zone*. The army was aggressive towards the group and used violence against them.

After pushing the group, border policemen arrested another 9 activists.
Yousef Abu Maria from the Palestine Solidarity Project, had his leg broken from the use of excessive force. Israeli soldiers tried to arrest him, but the solidarity activists negotiated for the soldiers to release him and allow him to be taken by an ambulance from the Palestinian Red Crescent. He is currently being treated at a Hebron hospital.

A female Israeli activist from Tayyoush was also injured and is currently at an Israeli hospital seeking treatment for a potentially broken hand.

As 2 cars with hired drivers were leaving the area with other activists, Israeli forces stopped them and arrested 5 more activists and the 2 Palestinian Israeli drivers.
The arrested were taken to the Israeli prison in the illegal settlement of Gush Etzion.

Please Contact:
Sahar Vardi (Hebrew & English) 054-568-3419

Bekah Wolf, International Coordinator for PSP (English) 054-203-7539
Sasha Solanas, ISM Media Office (Russian & English) 054-903-2981

The activists are members from Palestine Solidarity Project, Tayyoush, Anarchists Against the Wall, and the International Solidarity Movement. They have been accompanying Palestinian farmers to document and deter violence from Israeli forces as the farmers harvest their land.
Last Saturday, 8 Israeli activists were arrested as they accompanied Palestinian farmers.
*Israeli forces have declared the area in Saffa a Closed Military Zone (CMZ), in direct violation of an Israeli Supreme Court decision. The Israeli Supreme Court determined that Closed Military Zones cannot be issued on Palestinian agricultural land, cutting off Palestinian farmers, for prolonged periods of time. However, Israeli forces have been regularly declaring a Closed Military Zone on farm land in Saffa since 2 April 2009.

Some confrontations with soldiers.

We received an urgent distress call from Silwan last night that they thought that the bulldozers were to come this morning. I wont get into the details about how they knew or in the preparations that went into Silwan's defense. But I will say that they were extensive and if the Israeli military wants to come demolish homes, there will be an incredible and forceful defense. After arriving at 5am, we waited for hours for the inevitable onslaught which never came. While waiting we heard that Israeli soldiers were spotted in force with bulldozers in Esewiyeh in Jerusalem.

We arrived at around noon to find the soldiers already taking up residence in front of several houses, and on a hill overlooking us.
We found from the beginning that the Border Guards were going to try to impede our movement. They called it a "closed military zone". When we asked why, they refused to tell us and they also refused to show us written proof.

We tried walking around, but the border guards became angry and started yelling at us. They called in several police cars as backup. The head officer demanded our passports, which we were not carrying. He photographed us, but we stayed firm that we wanted to know what was going on. This left some heated discussions with the police and border guards.

Sky news, Reuters, and AFP showed up and the border guards let them through. They did try to intimidate the Palestinian children with dogs that they had. We found out that what they didn't want us to. There was construction going on further up the hill. It seemed possible that they were constructing a temporary separating ramp in order to cleave the outlying houses in east jerusalem from a massive hill where a settlement could possible connect with Male Adumim. (the largest settlement bloc in the west bank) This would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

Sheikh Jarrah Families Go To Court.

Another family in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem went to court today over a settler's claim. We went with them to show solidarity and to make a statement for everyone there. The more spectacle and attention we can bring to these cases, the less likely they will try to ethnically cleanse additional families and the more likely the pressure could affect the likelyhood that the police force the families out.

The security at the court thought that they were being snide by refusing to let us assemble on the same side of the street as the court. (because it was in the shade) So we just put on tons of sunscreen and walked directly opposite the court entrance so that everyone that went near had to pass us.

Updates on our other comrades:

Nablus: One of our group went to Nablus and took part in a demonstration on friday to prevent the closure of the main gate out of the city. The day afterwords they took part in treeplanting. (which is really really hard work with the soil here)

Sousia: Settlers burned down a bedoin tent. (thankfully, the family wasn't inside it at the time)

Beit Omar: Seven Israelis activists in Tayoush were arrested after they approached soldiers who were watching settlers throw rocks at Palestinians and demanded that they do something. One of the Israelis had a document proving that settler encroachment was illegal. None of the Internationals or Palestinians who were there were arrested.

Splitting up

Due to the amount of activity happening here, we decided to split up. One of us went to Hebron, another to Nablus. I cant speak for what they are doing and they promised to blog when they get internet access.

I spent the last 3 days deathly ill from something I ate. That didn't stop me from going to the protest in N'ilin (which in retrospect was a really stupid idea given my condition) and though I dodged most of the teargas (as pictured left) I still managed to throw up quite a lot. After not being able to eat for 72 hours, my friends brought me to a hospital. I feel really drained but immensely better.

As for what has been going on:

The N'ilin protest was rather tame by comparison to the usual ones. The israeli soldiers had some media with them so they didn't use any live ammunition (they usually fire 22 caliber bullets) and even the amount of tear gas wasn't the norm. This allowed the Palestinan youth ample time to cut through extensive amounts of barbed wire. As far as I could tell no one was injured at the protest, though one media report says 3 Israeli soldiers were hurt. This was an obvious fabrication given the distance of the soldiers and the fact that every rock thrown fell 100 meters short.

Silwan: Today members of the Silwan community in East Jerusalem cleared out the rubble of a house that was recently bulldozed. They hope to reconstruct the house there again and to act defiantly to the proposed demolition of an additional 88 houses that are planned in the next few weeks

Jenin: Today near the Jenin refugee camp, olive trees were planted to make up for the many groves that have been uprooted by settlers and the military.