The trip - Gaza, part 1

This week I did a trip that is impossible for most Palestinians on the West Bank. I traveled around Israel in areas which before 1948 were inhabited by a majority of Palestinians. My travel companions, two volunteers, two travelers and a little Hyundai Getz, improvised our way through Israel's cities, beaches and countryside.

The first decision we took was to travel south to Gaza. Going into the Gaza Strip is impossible without diplomatic visa. Our plan was therefore just to see Gaza from the outside, to experience if this would produce a special feeling. One of the world's most closed and inaccessible places is so unreal and tormented why I felt a compulsion to see it. A macabre feeling, as if I was going to a zoo to see an endangered animal in the cage... emotional porn.

We did one stop on the way there, in Sderot which is the Israeli town closest to Gaza that was most effected by Hamas bombs during the siege of Gaza. When we enter the city we witness a sleepy and run down city. Sderot is one of the cities in Israel which is suffering most from unemployment, social problems and the conflict between Israel / Palestine. The most poor Jews who make their aliyha to Israel go here, and once they find a better option they leave. Since May this year, Hamas ceased their rocket attacks and the people in the town seem to be relieved. For barely a year the city was the victim of almost daily rocket fire from Gaza. We found it difficult to get people to talk to us about it, which is understandable. After an hour in Sderot, we therefore decided to resume the journey towards Gaza.

We were south of the main check-point (Erez) so we continued south to the Karnis check-point. We followed the direction to the Gaza Strip, and found ourselves going on more and more obscure roads. After a while we were driving slowly on poor gravel roads and all signs of direction and civilization were gone. Suddenly we were just a few meters from the border to Gaza. On the other side of the fence, 500 meters away, we could see the Palestinian houses and mosques. All of us felt that something was wrong, we must have made a wrong turn somewhere. It should not be possible to be this close to Gaza. Someone in the back started to question the whole idea of going to Gaza in the first place. Almost paralized we continue forward on the gravel road that runs just meters parallel along the border. A complete silent spred in the car when we a few seconds later observed several Israeli military vehicles going towards us. Our presence was known and as sure as the Earth's gravity we got closer and closer to them, meter by meter. In the end, they surrounded us and asked us to follow them to a location farther away from the border. A few hundred meters on the dusty road and they stopped us at a patch of gravel. The somewhat surprised soldiers asked us for our passports and to explain what we were doing there. Having emerged as stupid and confused tourists for a few minutes, they found no reason to keep us. Extremely relieved, we left the closed military zone in which we had wandered into.

With Gaza and the sunset in the rearview mirror we went on to our next destination, a beautiful beach north of Ashkelon. We prepared our sleeping bags on the beach but before we fell asleep we saw flares fired in the sky above Gaza by the Israeli army. The entire Gaza Strip lit up for a few seconds and you could not stop thinking about how it must be to live there, it must be hell, but people survive. They are fighting for their freedom, fighting to break the siege. In many newsreports they describe Israel's overreacted attack on Gaza as a response to Hamas rocket fire on Israeli towns. Less reports, however, talked about Israel's continued occupation of the Gaza Strip after the withdrawal in 2005, few talked about that Israel bombed Gaza's only power plant. Few talked about that after 2005 and before Hamas' Qassam rockets Gaza had to ask Israel for permission to do everything. Israel controlls all of Gaza's borders, even the one with Egypt, they controll the airspace and Gaza coast, they continued to make military incursions into Gaza after 2005, they continue to control fiscal policy, foreign policy, monitary policy etc.. Those were the conditions under wich Hamas broke the truce, it was under these conditions that they kidnapped Gilad Shalit, it was with a starving and oppressed population that they decided to fire their rockets into Israel. There is nothing that can justify the killing of civilians in Israel but on the other hand it is not difficult to understand on which grounds Hamas took their decision. It was a sort of blood vengeance. You kill and starve our people, why can't we do the same to you ...

A little more information about Gaza:

• 70% live below the breadline
• Half a million live in refugee camps and another half a million refugees live outside camps
• 75% of the residents are refugees
• 40% are unemployed
• Gaza's power station, water supply and sewerage systems have collapsed
• Never before has the world boycotted a people under siege who have chosen their government through transparent and democratic elections (John Dugard)
• And so much more, read more by clicking the source below

Sources: UNWRA, UNCTAD, Oxfam and the book "Palestine & Palestinians" (Alternative Tourism Group)

A night in Sheikh Jarrah - An experience of Israels right now most flagrant trespass on international law

It's a difficult experience to sitt face to face with someone who had his whole life turned upside down. On 14 August 2009, I sat with the Palestinian Ghawy Nasser, one of the residents of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, who told me about his family's tragic history. We're just a few meters from the house that a few weeks ago belonged to the Ghawy family with 38 members. Israeli companies and the ultra-Orthodox Jews have for a long time tried to seize houses in Sheikh Jarrah, but their efforts has recently intensified. Almost a year ago, the Israeli legal system decided Ghawy no longer had the right to his house, instead they gave the ownership to the Israeli settlers. The family refused to move why Israeli police confiscated the house by force. Everything happened on August 2, the Ghawy family had to leave their home in Sheikh Jarrah and has since then lived on the street. The house, which only two weeks ago was theirs, is now inhabited by Israeli settlers and guarded by Israeli security guards paid by the Israeli Ministry of Housing.The house of the Ghawy family

Me and my Italian friend, Armando, listened attentively to what Nasser had to say while we sipped our Arabic coffee. We sit on plastic chairs in the Ghawy famly's i modest establishment on the street in the Sheikh Jarrah. "This is the living room and over there you see the sleeping room" says Nasser in an effort to lighten up the mood when we asked what it's like to live on the street. Furthermore, he describes the long and complex process, the family has undergone. It was not always easy to understand all the details of his story. However, everything began in 1948 when his family fled from Jaffa to Jerusalem after the Nakba. Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1948 and gave recidence for the Ghawy family and other Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem. After the Six Day War of 1967 Jordan lost control of the West Bank and Israel occupied the area. Since the Six Day War, Israeli stakeholders (Sephardic Jewish Settlers och Oriental Jews Association) say that the family has no legal right to reside there and has therefore raised the question in the Israeli legal system. The Israeli groups argue that the land belongs to them because the area was inhabited by Jewish families before the war 1948. In order to avoid being evicted the Israeli court wanted to have title deeds that shows that the land they live on belongs to them. With the help of lawyers the family successfully managed to produce 12 titles that chronologically describes the ownership from the time Palestine belonged to the Ottoman Empire (found in the central archives in Istanbul) to the current date. The Israeli groups' arguments, that the land previously belonged to jews during the Ottoman Empire period was disproved by the documents from the central archives in Istanbul, which instead showed that the land only been lended to the jews for three years and was never owned by them. The Israeli court system has been playing with the family for decades and now they even have difficulties explaining reason for the verdict that means that the family has to leave their homes even though they have all the appropriate title deeds. For more info about the situation in Sheikh Jarrah please visit StandUpForJerusalem's web page by clicking here.

The Ghawy family

And here we are today. The Ghawy family, the Hanoun family and previously also the al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah have been expelled from their homes. The fact that I think this is wrong and unfair doesn't matter, but what should matter and what should get the international community to act is that all this clearly violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which reads:

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportation of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

It can't be clearer than that. The Convention is ratified by 194 countries, including Israel. Israel therefore has no right to enter the occupied territories and to seize Palestinian houses because they do not agree to the titles they have in their houses.

The Ghawy familie's "bed room"

Armando and I decided during the day to show our support the Ghawy family and sleep with them on the street. Later in the evening, neighbors and friends of the family dropped a visit to socialize and support them. We started asking around among the other families if they also were in the risk of being evicted from their homes. It turned out that most of them had received a letter from the Israeli court that they had to appear in court in November to defend their homes. Everything is obviously a charade, the Israeli justice system are in these cases a political establishment in which a part of the plan for a Jerusalem free from Palestinians is to be implemented. Otherwise they would not so blatantly ignore international law and year after year ensure that less and less Palestinians can live there.

Depressed because what we had seen and heard, we decided to have an evening stroll around the area to be able to breath a bit. After some 100m we meet Liam Bartlett and his television crew from 60 Minutes Australia, which was in full swing doing a feature on the situation in Sheikh Jarrah. He told me that they interviewed several of the ultra-Orthodox Jews who have settled in Palestinian homes. Their frame of reference was frightening. The settlers had referred to the Torah when the journalist asked them with what right they seize the houses. They use the old religious scriptures as title deeds... how should one interpret an answer like that? How can you find a solution to the conflict here if the State of Israel supports the ultra-Orthodox Jews whose only truth is spelled T o r a h?

Armando and I left the australian tv-crew and felt that the only natural step would be is to find a pub nearby where we could relax a bit before went back to make us ready for bed... on the street.

al-Ma'asara - Marrige in the name of freedom

In Ma'asara (near Bethlehem), the villagers lived a simple life and they still do. Their lifes, however, are being siffled more and more every month that passes. This because the village is one of many in the West Bank that has been harshly effected by the apartheid wall being built by Israel on Palestinian land.

The Wall. It is real. I have seen it. I have seen how it has tripled the unemployment rate in the villages near Jerusalem because it they no longer can go to work in East Jerusalem. I have seen how it has confiscated Palestinian land and deprived the families of their profession, to cultivate the land. I have seen how The Wall has stolen the most beautiful sunsets of all for the residents of Qalqilya. It has made people realize that not everything can be taken for granted, not even the right to see the sun set in the horizon and not behind a walll.

The construction of the wall has now reached Ma'asara. It will mean a minor disaster for the village. Their access to the highway will be taken away from them. The village will be virtually inaccessible. It will be a small appendix, a small peninsula where you don't go unless you must. Ma'asara's future is already a reality for many cities and villages on the West Bank. The best known example is Qalqilya (google it and read).

Instead of being paralyzed and wait to be eaten by The Wall, the Ma'asara inhabitats have used all peaceful means possible to stop the construction of The Wall. For over three years they have organised demonstrations every Friday at the site were The Wall will be built. Why? Resistance. But also because a 100 years from now they don't want their grandchildren to look back at the injustice of our time and wonder why their ancestors did nothing. At least they want to have an alibi, something to refer to which can calm their conscience. And Ma'asaras alibi is strong but ...
They demonstrate and The Wall gets closer. They invite international and Israelis to the demonstrations in order to increase the legitimacy and attention and The Wall still gets closer. They organise a wedding at the construction site of The Wall but The Wall is already here. Yesterday I and several other internationals and Israelis were invited to the wedding feast and the ceremony the day after (which also was the demonstration) to do a peaceful protest.
The party yesterday was very different from anything I've seen in Europe and also very fun. Traditional wedding parties here are held separately for men and women. When you come to the party you see the dance floor full of Palestinian men who dance with each other. With the feminine element gone all of the focus is on dancing and they surely can dance. Every Palestinian wedding has a segment where the best dancers in the family scatter the masses on the dance floor and show what they can do. They all danced the dabka and they did it well and in sync.

The day after (today) it was time to test the limits of their freedom, to see if they still can get married on their own land which still hasn't been eaten up by The Wall and the Israelis. It was time for marriage in the name of freedom. The demonstration was completely peaceful. Yet two Israeli activists were arrested by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli army's tactics at the demonstrations are at best the following.

Israeli soldiers line up behind barbed wire at the point where they want to stop the protesters. When the protesters arrive they straighten their backs and one of them starts filming the masses. This is done in order to identify the participants of the demonstration. When they've caught everyone on film and when they get tired of all Palestinian slogans they give the masses a 5-10 minute deadline to leave the area, otherwise they start arresting people. The most dedicated protesters (usaualy Israelis) put themselves in front of the soldiers and wait patiently for their arrest. If the soldiers are experienced the arrests are made without any significant violence, but if it's a young inexperienced soldiers, the situation can degenerate. Today, the soldiers used excessive force only twice (see picture below). The case is usaualy different in Bi'lin.
I admire the Ma'asara inhabitants way to stubbornly, peacefully and with finesse protest against the apartheid wall. But still I can't do nothing but to understand that The Wall will be built, the village will slowly suffocate and wither, the world will have forgotten Ma'asara in a few decades and the villagers will be forced into exile if they don't want to loose contact with the rest of the land which is under Palestinian Authority control.