Story 1

Jewish settlers destroy olive groves
By Amal Hamdan

Wednesday 05 November 2003, 15:24 Makka Time, 12:24 GMT


Jewish settlers have gone on a rampage in occupied West Bank towns and villages, hacking down hundreds of olive orchards just as they were about to be harvested.


Settlers uprooted, chopped and burned trees overnight in the villages of Sawia, Beta, Yitma, Bait Furik, Hawwara and Tal, said Palestinian witnesses on Wednesday.
One witness said Israeli soldiers in Tal, about six kilometres southwest of Nablus, fired into orchards, sparking a fire and leaving 200 trees charred. 
Olive crops amount to up to 50% of the livelihood of Palestinians in some of these towns.
Historic ties  
Farmer Imad al-Jallad from Hawwara, whose family lost 150 to 200 trees in the last week, could not find the words to describe losing orchards his father planted 40 years ago.
“We’ve been (farming) for hundreds of years,” he said.
His brother, Fawzan, was expecting nearly 25 barrels of olive oil from this year’s crop. Each barrel sells for $60 to $70 -money he needs to feed his family. 
The settlers’ latest activities mean that income has disappeared.
Hasan al-Afi owns 300 olive trees in Hawwara, but had been unable to harvest this year’s crop because Israeli soldiers and settlers were barricading his land. He tried to access his farm earlier this week accompanied by foreign peace activists, but was turned back.
“We are shot at if we go up there without the peace activists,” added the farmer, 47, bitterly.


This harvest, some West Bank farmers appealed to peace activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Israeli peace groups such as Gush Shalom and Peace Now to accompany them to their orchards for protection, particularly those located next to Jewish settlements.
Hasan is currently working odd jobs to put food on the table for his 12 children.
He discovered that his trees had been picked clean by the settlers, but not yet chopped down.
Israelis authorised
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that these incidents took place.
“The army has no right to arrest Israeli citizens, including the settlers,” he told Aljazeera’s correspondent in the West Bank, Khaled Amayreh, in response to a question why the army did not intervene.
When asked if this also applied if there were attacks on Palestinian civilians and vandalising their property he said: “Yes.” 
 
Earlier this week, Jewish settlers from the Yitzhar settlement north of Nablus hacked down about 500 olive trees in Aynabus, some of which were hundreds of years old.
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted one of the settler leaders in the area as saying that the destruction of the Palestinian groves was aimed at preventing villagers from approaching the settlement.
Under international law, all Jewish settlements are illegal.
Opposition Labour party MP Ephraim Sneh was quoted on public radio as saying that he had raised the issue at a meeting of the parliament’s defence and foreign affairs committee after witnessing the damage himself.
Uri Ariel, an MP for the right-wing National Unity Party who is close to settlers’ organisations, claimed it was not known who was behind the destruction.
In 2002, Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, Israel’s former chief rabbi, issued a religious edict allowing Jewish settlers to steal Palestinian olive crops in their respective areas.
An Israeli army spokesman said forces have no right to arrest settlers, even if they were attacking Palestinians and vandalising their property.

courtesy of Al Jazeera Network

 

 

Story 2

Numerous stories are told, but there are no specific count of how many deaths occur specifically because of the olive harvest or the olive trees.
The latest incident occurred Sunday October 6, 2002 near the village of Aqraba in the West Bank. A Jewish settler shot two Palestinians while they were harvesting their olives. The 22 year old Palestinian man died and the other was wounded. (Palestine Monitor BBC)
Olive farmers complain that the harassment by the settlers ranges from “theft of the harvests, burning and chopping down of trees, to violent physical attacks, including shooting.” (Palestine Monitor)
Ghaleb Jibril, a 70 year old farmer from Kufr Qalil, north of Nablus “went with his sons and brothers to check on his land after hearing that settlers had been harvesting his olives. Before he could reach his property, the family members were attacked by settlers wielding sticks, stones and guns. Jibril was severely injured, with bruises all over his body. The settler escaped to the Barkha with three large bags of olives.”
Another 70 year old farmer Mohammad Zalumud was killed while he was picking olives on his farm. Reportedly the settlers crushed his skull with large rocks, before escaping back to their settlements. The suspected killers were set free after only 1 week in detention because police claimed there was insufficient evidence from Palestinian witnesses. (Palestine Monitor (Olive harvesting season brings new risks for Pales. Farmers)
In one incident in Rafah, a family whose lands were being bulldozed attempted to protest against the Israeli authorities, when the Israeli military fired a shell form a nearby tank, injuring 6 children in the head with shrapnel. (Nature in War).
 

Story 3

Ziegler says 56% of the Palestinian people eat one meal per day

GENEVA, July 18 (KUNA) -- The UN special reporter on the right to food John Ziegler said Friday that 56% of the population eat only one meal per day and that 60% are living in extreme poverty.
Returning from a field mission to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) Ziegler added that there is massive economic destruction in the Palestinian territories.

Talking to reporters following his return, Ziegler noted that the reasons for this degradation of the Palestinian economy goes back to the Israeli occupation and noted that the Israeli security wall will not allow the Palestinian state when it becomes a reality to have international borders.

He called upon the international community to exercise maximum pressure to turn the road map into a reality in order to end the frightening sufferance of the Palestinian people.

Ziegler gave examples of the destruction of Palestinian agricultural fields and said that in Beit Hanoun, the Israeli army has destroyed all the Greenhouses, the factories and dozens of private houses.

In Rafah, he added, rows of Palestinian houses were also destroyed.

Jericho, who was not re-occupied, said Ziegler, was another town where the Israeli army destroyed its agricultural fields.

Ziegler will present a detailed report on his mission to the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan next September who in turn will present it to the General Assembly. (end)

 

Story 4

ARRESTED FOR WALKING WITH PALESTINIANS

One of the objectives and tactics of the August Campaign is to protect farmers in two villages, including Al-Khader, as they attempt to harvest their crops, primarily grapes. Fanatically religious or nationalistic settlers, of course, are the threat that must be protected against. Most of the settlements that ring the fields and village of Al-Khader are filled with such settlers.

Such actions require Palestinian involvement, obviously. They also put Palestinians at risk. We got a practical example of some of the dynamics of this—and the potential cost to those of us acting as human shields—through an experience today.

Various people on our Steering Committee wanted me—the guy with the video camera—to actually go out to the fields with the farmers, to interact with them directly, and get an idea of their concerns. We tried to do this two weeks ago, but I was exhausted, and so we did it this morning. At 5:30 AM, I joined two young Palestinian men, a university student named Ahmed, and a farmer with a business degree from Bethlehem University named Adnan. Together we began a tour that would end up being over six hours long.

The first thing that was obvious about our tour was that the Israeli military has put roadblocks not only on regular roads that farmers would normally use to drive to their fields and harvest their crops. No, there were blockages of all side roads and even paths. As a result, Palestinian farmers have had to travel VERY far, and use their backs, or the backs of donkeys or horses to harvest their cucumbers, apples, plums (DELICIOUS, BTW), and other crops. There is not enough room in the blockages for wagons! Several people told me that others who had tried to widen the footpaths at the edges of these road- and pathblocks had been severely dealt with if caught.

Settlements are everywhere, and I saw clear evidence of Israeli encroachments on Palestinian lands, destruction of crops, and prohibition of continued farming for capricious reasons. Palestinians report that settlers and or soldiers often harass them in various ways, sometimes by throwing stones, sometimes by shooting, sometimes by uprooting trees, and sometimes by driving bulldozers over crops, ruining them.

Pardon me, there was just gunfire on the east part of town. Gotta check it out.

Well, I have no idea what it was, but it seems to be over.

Anyway, about 10:15, we were walking towards Ahmed’s family’s fields. They are some of the farmers most afraid of settler intimidation. As we walked, I took a picture of an old farmer’s temporary house, the kind used for generations as places farmers would live temporarily during sowing or harvesting, but which the settlers and military have deemed illegal to use. Ahmed and Adnan were ahead, when a settler security vehicle (unmarked) drove up beside them and the driver demanded to see their IDs. I, naturally, videotaped what was happening. Suddenly the car lurched toward me, and the settler demanded to see my ID and to know why I was filming him. I told him I was just filming everything I saw. He then dialed about 6 or 7 numbers as he ignored my questions about his authority over us, and if we were being detained for some reason. Then ahead of a cloud of dust, a jeep appeared on the road from one of the settlements. It was joined by a second, and then, believe it or not (but I’ve got the footage to show any of you from Missouri), a HELICOPTER appeared overhead.

Well, the army took our IDs and questioned us, particularly me. I showed them my press pass, and they seemed about to let us go, over the objections of the settler, when another settler vehicle rolled up. Two burly settlers emerged and, it seemed to me, confidently browbeat the army commander. Ahmed and Adnan whispered that one of them was a man they recognized as a leader of the settlers. These men demanded to see the video footage I had shot, and the army commander ordered me to play it. They apparently didn’t like what they saw (evidence of their own oppression, I guess), and all of a sudden, a police vehicle arrived. The police have the authority to arrest Americans.

The whole drama began again. The police sergeant in charge didn’t seem to want to do it, but he asked (rather politely) to view the footage for himself. I kept asking if we were under arrest, and if so, what was the charge, and getting no reply. Our IDs were examined again, calls were made, and then we were ordered into the police vehicle. We were taken to a police station in an army base.

They sat us separately in the sun under guard—soldiers with M-16s, naturally. The sergeant asked me for my tape, and I again asked why we were being held. He again requested the tapes, and I told him—twice—that I expected them back when he was through. He took them into a room where the settlers apparently joined him. He had my passport, but I didn’t surrender my press pass, having told him that to me this treatment was not a matter of journalism, but of my rights as an American citizen.

For about 15 minutes I could hear voices from the room, sometimes angry sounding. Then the sergeant emerged with our IDs and passport. No videotapes. He returned our identification papers, and gave Ahmed and Adnan each a summons to appear in a few days at an army administrative facility to answer further questions. I asked for the tape, fearing that either he would not give it to me, or that it would come back erased. He apologized, retrieved it, and gave it to me. Then he instructed one of his officers to fill my water bottle. As the police officer did this, I rewound the tape and found it to be INTACT!!

Then, miles away from where we had been picked up, we were free to leave.

I apologized to Adnan and Ahmed for the trouble they were in, but they both were quite glad that another non-Palestinian had seen up close and personal the power of the settlers. They also let me know in no uncertain terms that if I had not been with them, or had turned on them, the settlers surely and the soldiers probably would have beaten them up—or worse. They also told me—and this was confirmed in later conversations back in the village—that they would probably simply ignore the summonses, and that it was not uncommon for people to do that. Apparently Palestinians are so unimportant in the normal Israeli scheme of things, that the Israeli “justice” system frequently looses track of them. However, two settlers whispered death threats to both men; I uncomprehendingly overheard the Hebrew, but picked up on the tones of voice and body language, and asked Ahmed and Adnan about it, and they told me. Ahmed also reported that one of the soldiers offered to get him out of this trouble and give him money and protection if he would become an informer. Ahmed declined.

So, friends, we can learn some lessons from this. First, the Palestinians are in great danger from the whims and bigotries of the settlers and soldiers. They need our protection. Second, Westerners are not completely immune from harassment from Israeli authorities. Third, however, a foreign passport and a disciplined and measured approach to Israeli soldiers and police provide protection not only to those we want to help, but to us, as well.