THE HANDSTAND

MARCH 2007


Reuters photo
Palestine news

YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN BIL'IN, PALESTINE

18 – 20 APRIL 2007


February 2007 marks the second anniversary of the weekly non-violent protests in opposition to the "work-site of shame" for the Apartheid Wall that has annexed almost 60% of the land of Bil'in village in the West Bank.  Bil'in has become a symbol both of the theft of land across Palestine and of the power of non-violent grassroots movements in building local and international resistance to Occupation.

 

The International Conference will follow upon a Palestinian conference to be held in March to extend the Popular Non-Violent Struggle across Palestine and offers Israelis and Internationals opportunity to join their Palestinian partners in spreading non-violent resistance to the injustice suffered by Palestinians: land confiscation, home demolitions, checkpoints, and imprisonment behind the Wall.


The year between June 2007 and May 2008 provides an effective framework for highlighting the ongoing Palestinian catastrophe:  90 years since the Balfour Declaration, 60 years since the Nakba, 40 years of Occupation, 25 years since Sabra/Shatila, 20 years since the First Intifada, 5 years of building the Apartheid Wall


Join us in strategizing effective, concerted non-violent action in
Palestine and across the globe! 

WHEN:   18 – 20 APRIL, 2007 with a major non-violent action on the final day 

WHERE:  BIL'IN VILLAGE near Ramallah, Palestine 

SPEAKERS: 

  • Dr. Azmi Bishara, Palestinian Israeli Knesset member
  • Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Irish Nobel Peace Prize recipient
  • Dr. Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
  • Luisa Morgantini, Italian EU Parliament member and Peace Activist
  • Stéphane Hessel, former French Ambassador
  • Jean-Claude Lefort, French parliament member
  • Amira Haas, author and journalist, Ha'aretz
  • Sam Bahour, Palestinian activist and entrepreneur
  • Representatives of the Bil'in Popular Committee

WORKSHOPS: NON-VIOLENT STRATEGIES TO OPPOSE OPPRESSION

    • Boycott, divestment, and sanctions
    • Building economic independence
    • Media & Advocacy
    • Direct Action

COST:  Accommodations per night, 20 Euros plus Conference Registration, 20 Euros per day (April 18 -19)

TO REGISTER and for information on options for pre-and-post conference activities see:  www.bilin-village. org

For Pre and post Confrence tours: http://www.sirajcenter.org/bilin.htm   -----------
George N. Rishmawi
The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People
(PCR)
Director
Phone: +972(0)2-277-2018 Fax:
+972(0)2-277-4602
+970-599-833-888 (cell)
+972-(0)544-351-339 (cell)

www.pcr.ps , www.imemc.org


march 15th update

The policeman was quite busy when I called him to ask what was going on; rumors were circulating that the Rafah border had suddenly been opened, and that many people had been injured, one dead. "Hold on a minute, Mohammed,” the officer said, “there are people shooting at each other and clashes going on." Later on, as he was stamping passports for people leaving Gaza, the police officer explained that this time the border had closed immediately and the EU observers had evacuated the area.

This opening was an unexpected one, a rare event, announced to have been open for four days. But due to the enormous number of travelers who rushed to the border, only a proportionately small amount of people were able to make it out of Gaza. Seven were injured, and an elderly man, over 60 years old, on his way to Cairo for medical tests, died of heart attack while waiting for the border to open.

Thousands of people stampeded the Rafah border, among them children, women, and men, many of whom had been waiting for extended periods for the border to open, in order to get outside for things like medication and medical appointments, with resources non-existent or scarce in Gaza. Among those waiting masses, Falsteen, 22, along with her father, had had to sleep at the border for three days in hopes of being among the limited number of those crossing, so that she could go for her medical appointment. If she missed it, then it would mean no less than 6 months wait for a new appointment: "I'm on my way for eye surgery. It's exhausting to wait for three days, sleeping here on the road with no basic services or water, waiting in vain to cross" she said. Her father continued: "I have lost patience. It's not fair; why should we suffer like this? Why close the border? Where are our human rights, and where is the international community?" He had a lot of questions, for which I had no answers.

The Rafah border closed anew, yet as militants closed in, Palestinians also crowded one another at the terminal, desperate to get their relatives travel outside. The police have been trying to keep order, but many believe that the police are the source of problems, allowing certain people to pass on a basis of favoritism. "If you have money to pay off such guys at the border, you will travel; but I have no money, I have only God in my side" one woman related, in tears. There are such claims of dishonesty, with no proof that there is corruption on the border. In any case, it is impossible to get out of Gaza these days, as the border is long closed by now. People will have to wait for the next time Israel deigns to give approval for European Union observers to go to the Rafah border. The final decision is, of course, Israel's.

On November 25, 2005, an agreement on the Rafah border was brokered by the Under Secretary of State, according control of the Rafah-Egypt border to Palestinians and Egypt, along with European observers. Yet, as soon as Hamas won the democratic election, Israel closed all borders, thereafter only opening the Rafah-Egypt border on sudden and very rare occasions, for short periods. Sometimes, an opening is announced about a day or two ahead of the event. But the reality is different from what is being reported in the media. Cross-border movement is video-taped on a regular basis, so that all activities inside and outside of the border can be watched live via cameras in Israel.

Those thousands of people waiting at the border: when they will cross? When will the student go cross to attend his university outside the Gaza Strip? When will the patient waiting to cross to Egypt for medication be permitted this necessary luxury? Or the brother who has not seen his sister for ages, when will he be able to cross? Or even the man married to a foreign woman who, along with their children, can now no longer enter the Occupied Territories... As with many hundreds of families, he instead, has to go to Cairo or another country to meet them. Just as all these questions remain, unanswered, for Israel to answer, so too the border remains closed, for Israel to decide to open.

The situation in the Gaza Strip has been very grave. Numerous people were injured in different places throughout the Strip, and numerous Israeli tanks and bulldozers are amassed at the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip--many believe that this is the start of a bigger attack on parts of Gaza.

................................
The poorest families are now living a meagre existence totally reliant on assistance

The UN study, carried out by the World Food Programme (WFP), talks of a "marked decline" in living standards. It says that by the end of last year more than 80% of Gazans and 60% of West Bankers were reducing their daily expenditures.The report warns that rising levels of unemployment and poverty are posing acute challenges to "food security" - a family's ability to provide itself with enough to eat. The study talks of "economic suffocation" and says that Israeli security restrictions in the occupied West Bank and around Gaza are fragmenting the Palestinian economy.

Sectors like fishing and farming are being ruined.

Although the report does not refer to them, the past 12 months have also seen international economic sanctions on the Hamas-led Palestinian government. BBC World News

..........The sanctions were imposed by Israel and the West because they refused to acknowledge the Palestinians democratic vote. JB Editor

Negev desert nomads on the move again to make way for Israel's barrier
Security fence and spread of Jewish settlement risks way of life for thousands

Rory McCarthy in Azariya
Wednesday February 28, 2007
The Guardian

The bulldozers came for Hamid Salim Hassan's house just after dawn. Before the demolition began, the Bedouin family scrambled to gather what they could: a fridge, a pile of carpets, some plastic chairs, a canister of cooking gas and a metal bed frame.

Now, with their house a wreck of smashed concrete and broken plastic pipes, Mr Hassan and his family are living in a canvas tent on a neighbour's land. Their possessions are piled outside, along with boxes of supplies, including washing-up liquid, toothpaste, corned beef, wheat flour and tomato paste, provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

His tent is small but it affords Mr Hassan a compelling view of the future. Stretched out before him are the hilltops of the West Bank where he and his family, all Bedouin shepherds who fled Israel in 1948, used to live and graze their sheep. Standing there now is Ma'ale Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements which is illegal under international law. Snaking up the hillside towards his tent is the West Bank barrier, also ruled unlawful in advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. When complete, the steel and barbed wire barrier, which here will be 50m wide and include a ditch and patrol roads, will surround Ma'ale Adumim, attaching it to a greater Jerusalem.

For the 3,000 Bedouin living here, most from the Jahalin tribe, this presents an imminent crisis. "They came and destroyed my house to protect their wall," said Mr Hassan, 62. "They really don't have enough land already that they had to come and destroy my house? We've lost everything."

Earlier this month the Israeli military destroyed seven huts and tents belonging to Bedouin living near a settlement in Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Another group of Bedouin living further east in the Jordan Valley have been given two months to leave their homes near an Israeli military base and a Jewish settlement.

In each case the Israeli authorities argue the homes have been built without permits, but Palestinians say they are notoriously hard to obtain.

Bedouin culture has been eroded as a result. Refugees from the Negev desert in Israel who crossed after 1948, their grazing land has been squeezed by the growth of Palestinian towns, the rapid emergence of large Jewish settlements and lately the vast concrete and steel barrier. Most Bedouin live on land that under the Oslo accords was supposed to be unpopulated farmland where Israel has civilian and military control. Today most live in primitive shacks, many no longer keep animal herds and they have little in the way of formal land ownership documents. They have become one of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities.

Open and free

Mr Hassan, 62, was born in Be'er Sheva, in what is now Israel. His family crossed during the 1948-9 war and moved to land near Azariya, the biblical town of Bethany, near Jerusalem. For years they continued their semi-nomadic existence, grazing their large flock of sheep on the hillside. In 1975 a group of 23 Jewish families founded the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which has grown into a town of 35,000 people. Mr Hassan and other Bedouin were forced off the land. Most set up shacks on another hilltop. Ten years ago Mr Hassan found the money to buy a plot of land and built a house, giving up his Bedouin existence. "Life changes," he said. "We had no other choice." His seven children, including his daughters, went to school and college, integrating into a new urban life.

Other Bedouin have also changed and work as construction labourers, many even employed in Ma'ale Adumim, building the settlement that has taken the land they once lived on.

"In the past people envied our lifestyle. The land was open and free. There were sheep and we were rich," said his brother Saeed Hassan Salim, 50. "The occupation put us out of business. The Bedouin life is slipping away." He now lives in a small shack that stands directly in the path of the barrier and is almost certain to be demolished soon.

"It seems the whole presence in this area is about to disappear," said Jeremy Milgrom, 53, a rabbi and human rights activist who has worked with the Bedouin here for 15 years and is mapping their remaining communities. "We are asking why it is this has to happen. Why did the government assume the prerogative that they can absolutely redesign the entire landscape and eliminate the Bedouin?"

The Israeli military's civil administration, which runs the West Bank, says the Bedouin were being offered alternatives. "They came and illegally put up their houses and tents. So we are working against this illegal construction," said its spokesman Captain Tsidki Maman. "We are helping them to find a place where it will be OK for them to settle."

The areas under consideration are all on the other side of the barrier from the Jewish settlements.

Capt Maman rejected the Bedouin argument that they have lived on the land for years. "The Bedouin are travelling all the time. They can't say they've been here for decades. It's not like this," he said.

In the late 1990s there was a similar move against the Bedouin around Ma'ale Adumim and several of their homes were demolished. But supported by Shlomo Lecker, an Israeli lawyer, the Bedouin were given a deal under which they would move to a new area, with plots of land, building permits and up to 40,000 shekels (then £7,000) per family. Around 50 families took up the offer, and now live in an area known as the Jebel. However, the deal was not without its problems: the houses are within a few hundred metres of Jerusalem's main rubbish dump and on land that other Palestinians claim as their own.

Power and water

The prospect of another move is being hotly debated within the Bedouin community. For some it is an opportunity to upgrade to houses with electricity and running water. Others say they would rather move into Palestinian towns like Azariya but lack the money, while others still want to stay on their land and cling to what is left of their traditional lifestyle.

Mr Lecker, the lawyer, said in reality they will have little choice but to move. "They are being forced. They don't have another option," he said. "All these shacks are built without permits and there is a lot of pressure on them."

Israel defends the barrier on the grounds of security, saying it has drastically reduced the number of suicide bombings. But Mr Lecker said: "There is absolutely no reason to build the wall there. This is to do with taking a huge chunk of land and making it part of a wider Jerusalem. It is the idea of taking the land without the people. Why not give them rights in Israel - identity cards, electricity and water? The land comes with the people and if you take the land and push out the people then what do you call it?"

Backstory

Bedouin shepherds have lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic life in the Negev desert for centuries. After the 1948-9 war, when Israel was created, many were forced out or fled. Around 140,000 now live in the Negev, in Israel. Some serve in the Israeli military but around half live in villages not recognised by the state where they lack basic services and building permits.

Those that fled Israel crossed to Jordan, Egypt or the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank, around 3,000 members of the Jahalin tribe live next to land taken by the Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. In the 1990s several Bedouin families were moved to make way for the settlement. Now other homes are being demolished, to make way for the West Bank barrier.

QUINTUPLETS BORN IN GAZA
by Mohammed Omer
http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm

A 25 year old mother lies down, recovering after giving birth to quintuplets, a highlight of Gazan news amidst the internal family disputes occurring in the Khan Younis refugee Camp in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

In Al Shifa’s Cesarean department, Laila Abu Nofal delivered four baby boys and a fifth unexpected gift: a baby girl.

Mohammed Nofal, the 28 year old father of the newborn babies, mentions in an interview that while his wife had taken hormone treatments to get pregnant, they never expected to have five babies at once.

The five babies cause a commotion in Al Shifa’s maternity ward, where the newborns lie side by side, five new heads in a line. This brings to mind a similarly phenomenal event last year, when a woman had six babies in the same Gaza Strip hospital.

Mohammed Nofal mentioned that he already has one five year old girl and another six year old boy. When asked if they had named the newborns yet, he replied that everyone in the family had chosen names for the five infants, deciding upon: Mohammed, Ahmed, Hussam, Abdullrahman, and Iman, for the baby girl.

The crucial question remains whether Mohammed Nofal will be able to raise their five new babies, especially as they will require special care. Mohammed works as a policeman in Gaza, and like the rest of Palestinians working for the Palestinian Authority, he has not received his salary for many months, since sanctions were imposed by the US, Israel and the EU. Even if he is receiving his salary, $460 is not enough money for milk and other expenses for all his children. He wonders how he is going to raise his quintuplets, when, additionally, his parents also need help.

Only if the sanctions imposed on Palestinians by the international community are lifted will the challenge of providing for his extensive family become more feasible. The extreme poverty of most Palestinians in Gaza is so severe that in addition to the lifting of the sanctions, humanitarian funding is necessary, so that the new born babies can count on a bottle of milk, and malnourished children throughout the Strip can avoid irreparable damage.

On one side of Gaza, in Gaza City, new babies are born; but in Khan Younis, another five people were killed in a family dispute. And, according to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, another 45 Palestinians were injured.

Everyday, people are killed in the Gaza Strip, but people are still getting married, despite the grave situation; people are still having children, as all believe this appalling situation can’t last forever. Perhaps those newborn babies will enjoy a safe and unoccupied Palestine. But only if ‘civilized’ countries want them to; only if the international community
truly wakes up and takes decisions to end the embargo on Palestinians, restore our right to earning a livelihood, and compensate the great losses we have suffered as a result both of the sanctions and Israel’s ban on fishing and exporting.

demolition of houses and agricultural structures in west bank

On Wednesday 14th February Israeli Occupation Forces demolished a
large number of houses and agricultural structures in four different
villages in the South Hebron Hills - Qwawis, M'nezel, Um-Elhe'r and
the Abu-Kbeita family near Yatir settlement. The villagers in this
area struggle to stay on their land despite ongoing home demolitions,
violent attacks and constant settler and military harassment. Please
donate what you can to help them remain on the land they have farmed
for generations.

Illegal Israeli settlements and outposts (illegal even according to
Israeli law,) whose residents have stolen most of the area's
agricultural land, have tried for years to drive the local Palestinian
villagers off their land. Unlike the homes of Palestinians, the
illegal outposts are not demolished. Instead, they receive electricity
and water supplies, paved roads and subsidies for their agricultural
enterprises. The Palestinians rely on water from wells, a few hours of
electricity a day from a generator, and an ever decreasing patch of
land on which to grow crops and graze their livestock. Despite these
hardships the indigenous people refuse to surrender to the state-
sponsored land grab, aware that they otherwise face eviction into
walled ghettos.

With your help, ISM, and Israeli peace groups, Ta'ayush and Rabbis for
Human Rights, are working to rebuild the houses and structures as soon
as possible. Rebuilding will start over two days in March. Villagers
have requested that internationals maintain a permanent presence in
the area after the rebuilding to offer protection from settler
violence.

It is estimated that around $36,000 will be needed to rebuild all
these houses and structures. The costs below are for the materials and
transportation of them to the different locations. The costs include:
cement, blocks, stone, sand, concrete and roofs.

Um al Kheir 1 concrete house  - NIS 37,000
      5 other houses  -  NIS 62,000
Qawawis 7 houses and 1 agricultural structure - NIS 14,800
Imneizil    1 house and 1 agricultural structure - NIS 9,800
Abu Kbeita Family    2 houses and a tent - NIS 6,700
Lawyer's fees NIS 21,000
Total     NIS 151,300 ($36024)

For more details on the recent demolitions see: www.palsolidarity.org
For more on the Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing in the South Hebron
Hills:
http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/Summaries/200507_South_Hebron.asp

Checks of any amount may be made out to "ISM-USA" and sent to:
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