Children swarming the streets coming from school, men and women going to market, people employed as traffic police, police –many who worked for the former government and continued with the current government –people on bikes, in taxis, afoot…

These were the scenes when Israel began dropping bombs all over Gaza on December 27 and kept it up for the next 22 days, indiscriminately targeting civilians at a peak hour, in their homes, schools, cars, mosques, kindergartens…

Think of these children, and justice for Palestinians.  And ask, what more than supporting the Goldstone report (important, but certainly not marking Israel’s first violations of international human rights) can we do?

…BDS: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions

*Amal Nassir, Local Initiative volunteer, harvests olives in the Beit Hanoun border region.

1st published: (IPS) **- On a quiet October morning, Fida Zaneen, 19, sings a traditional love song as she pulls olives from trees in Beit Hanoun’s border region during the annual olive harvest.

“My grandmother taught me the folk songs. They were popular all over Palestine many decades ago.”

Saber Zaneen, 44, and Khalil Nassir, 45, alternately belt out traditional harvest songs as they, too, strip the limbs of the green and black fruit in the northern Gaza region.

Keeping Palestinian culture alive is one of the mandates of Local Initiative, a Beit Hanoun-based volunteer group comprising many youths and women, and of which Fida Zaneen is a member. At group events, participants often sport traditional robes and Palestinian kuffiyehs, and dance dabke to hand-drums and singing from the group.

Formed in September 2007, Local Initiative has a number of other mandates: promoting volunteerism; reaching out to marginalised families living in the regions along the Green Line border between Israel and Gaza; giving psycho- social support to children scarred by Israeli military attacks and shooting; financially assisting children with martyred parents; and improving the role of women and youth in society.

Saber Zaneen, one of the original seven founders and now the general coordinator, elaborates on the group’s objectives.

“The border areas are very dangerous and difficult areas for families and farmers to live and work in, due to Israeli shooting and shelling at any Palestinians in the area. We are trying to support those people who choose to remain on their land.”

Farmers in the north and eastern Beit Hanoun buffer zone region have reason to feel threatened: of the eight Palestinians killed and over 33 injured in the buffer zone since the Jan. 18 ceasefire, three of the killed (all children) and 12 of the injured (including six children) were attacked in the northern and eastern border regions.

The region, dubbed the “buffer zone”, is an Israeli-imposed no-go zone which encompasses approximately 30 percent of Gaza’s most fertile agricultural land, ranging from off-limits land between 300 metres wide to up to two kilometres wide in some areas. According to Israeli authorities, anyone entering that area is subject to being shot by the Israeli army.

IRIN, the UN’s news agency, reported that “In different areas there is a certain ambiguity regarding the exact border between Israel and the Strip.” The report cited an Israeli military source, who added that the fence that delineated the Gaza Strip today did not necessarily reflect the final border that would be determined by the two sides in a final status agreement.

Ahmed Sourani from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee summarized to the Guardian news the very real fears of farmers with land in and near the buffer zone: “Now there are areas, depending on the situation, where farmers cannot reach their farms in safety within an area of over a kilometre. It is indirect confiscation by fear.”

It is in the knowledge that farmers struggle not only to access their land but also to bring water to it, that Local Initiative volunteers accompany farmers to do the simplest of things: water their land, check on their bees, re-plant Israeli-bulldozed trees.

“During the war, Israeli soldiers destroyed almost all of the water wells and pumps in this area,” says Zaneen of the razed land east of Beit Hanoun. “We sometimes accompany farmers to bring water to their land. We’d like to see the wells and pumps repaired and farmers working their land without fear of being shot.”

The Guardian report corroborates Zaneen, saying that international officials believed that throughout Gaza “perhaps hundreds of wells and water sources have been damaged and several hundred greenhouses have been levelled.”

Local Initiative uses direct action against what they see as Israel’s policies of collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinians. To highlight the issues and increase solidarity among buffer zone inhabitants, the group leads non- violent demonstrations and holds events in the buffer zone region.

Some of the demonstrations have been near the Erez checkpoint, along with other NGOs and local groups, calling for an end to the siege of Gaza, imposed since shortly after Hamas was elected in early 2006, but tightening more and more severely since June 2007 when Hamas took control of Gaza.

Another demonstration saw Local Initiative volunteers march to land near the north-eastern border, protesting the Israeli shootings and the Israeli destruction of water sources in the region. Farmers passed by, donkey carts laden with emptied containers of water used to irrigate their land, pointing out destroyed water wells and pumps and noting that in the eastern Beit Hanoun region just one well remains to irrigate 40 dunams of land [1 dunam= 1000 square metres].

Zaneen speaks of the impetus to set up the group. “It was after the Israeli army had on two different days shelled groups of children in Beit Hanoun in 2007. I saw tiny body parts all over the ground. It was the hardest thing I’d seen.”

The first incident Zaneen refers to occurred on Aug. 21 2007 when Abdul Khader Ashoor, 13, and Fadi Kafarna, 11, were targeted by an Israeli missile. Testimony given by a child injured in the shelling to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that the boys were going to pick fruit in an area where a homemade rocket launcher stand stood when they were struck by the missile.

Eight days later, three children from the Abu Ghazala family were likewise killed by an Israeli ground to ground missile. PCHR reports that Mahmoud, 8, Sara, 9, and Yehya, 12, were herding sheep roughly two kilometres from the border fence when hit by the missile and that, while 40m from a homemade rocket launching stand, there were no resistance activists in the area at the time.

*photo: Abu Ghazala children, PCHR

In September 2007, after recruiting concerned Beit Hanoun residents, the seven volunteers met for the first time as Local Initiative. Since then, the group has blossomed, now comprising roughly 20 female volunteers and 30 males. The ages range from teenage to parents.

Fida Zaneen studies engineering at university. She is fluent in English and often acts as translator for visiting international delegations and journalists, at the same time joining in the non-violent demonstrations.

Ibrahim Kaloub, 17, one of the younger volunteers, documents their activities. A compilation video shows psycho-social activities with clowns visiting the border region families, demonstrations in the “buffer zone”, celebrating Palestinian Land Day, harvesting olives in 2008, and Israeli tanks and military bulldozer incursions along the border regions.

During the first ten days of October, Local Initiative volunteers assisted in the olive harvest on five border area farms. Mohammed Zaneen lives to the east of Beit Hanoun. Over the years of numerous Israeli invasions, the family has lost their ten dunams (one dunam is 1,000 square metres) of olive trees to Israeli bulldozers, leaving just 18 trees as their source of olives and oil.

Zaneen says that in eight days of harvest work, they harvested over 100 trees in border areas north and east of Beit Hanoun, but that the harvest was a meagre one. He cites natural biennial decreases in olive production as one reason for this year’s poor harvest, but says the most significant factor was the Israeli bulldozing of hundreds of olive trees in the border areas – an estimated 90 percent of the trees – during the Israeli massacre of Gaza last winter.

With the choking siege on Gaza, unemployment couples with soaring prices to render simple existence a daily challenge for the 90 percent of Gaza’s population who live in extreme poverty.

Zaneen knows the region and is acutely aware of the most impoverished families, including children orphaned by one or both parents. In dire cases, he seeks financial aid from local and international supporters.

Khalil Nassir, 45, is another of the original founders. During the Israeli winter massacre of Gaza, Nassir volunteered as a medic in the region.

Mahmoud Billih, 17, is always in the front line of any demonstration. He, too, has been a Local Initiative member since the beginning.

He recalls the day Local Initiative and international activists brought a martyr’s corpse from the buffer zone east of Beit Hanoun. “This was a very important act. His family had no idea if he was alive of not. When his father was able to lay his son to rest, he too could rest.”

Gassem Kafarni, 23, an engineer, and another of the original members remembers: “Saber (Zaneen) said, ‘we need volunteers who are willing to risk their lives while helping families live on their land.’ I was willing.”

Kafarni speaks of the families Local Initiative used to visit, before their homes were destroyed during the last Israeli massacre.

“We used to visit around 13 families who lived in very hard conditions. They all lived close to the border fence and had many problems from the Israeli soldiers. No other groups visited them; they were given the UN dry food aid but otherwise were completely ignored. We’d go, bring the children toys, and play games with them. They were always very happy for our visits. But now their houses are gone.”

Shabaan Garmut, 60, is among the families who had a home next to the border fence. “There was always Israeli soldier shooting,” says Kafarni. “Eventually Garmut told his family to go live elsewhere, for their safety. But he stayed in the house.”

Kafarni says that the Israeli soldiers would prevent Garmut from reaching his water well, thereby preventing him from watering his three dunams of olive and lemon trees.

“We organised solidarity marches to his land, brought many journalists filming live so that the Israeli soldiers would not shoot too closely. We also brought new trees and planted them to replace trees the Israelis had bulldozed.”

With the Israeli massacre of Gaza, Garmut’s house was destroyed and his land razed.

Saber Zaneen says that approximately 80 houses were demolished in the buffer zone area to the north and east of Beit Hannoun – rendering at least 400 residents homeless.

Following the attacks, the Initiative organised short-term emergency medical training courses for farmers and civilians in the border regions, to better enable them to work and live on the land, but prepared for Israeli attacks.

The volunteers also engage in activities for traumatised children. In June 2009, Local Initiative held a ‘let me play freely’ day of kite-flying in the border region, involving also children with special needs and physically challenged children. Amal Nassir, 21, is a social worker and one of the original seven founders. “I’m not afraid to go in the border areas,” she says, despite the reality of Israeli soldiers’ shooting. “The hardest thing for me is to hear the children speak of their experiences and suffering during the last war.”

For Fida Zaneen and Nassir, being female does not limit their participation. “We are equal; we can do any of the work the men are doing, nothing is off- limits,” says Nassir.

**[includes material not published in IPS article]

see also:

Beit Hanoun Olive Harvest

Irrepressible Culture, Living Traditions [with video]

Electronic Intifada: 28 October 2009

Ashraf Abu Suleiman (Eva Bartlett)

On 4 October, Ashraf Abu Suleiman, a 16-year-old from Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, went to the northwest coast town of Sudaniya to visit an ill school friend. The teen then went to the sea, where he rolled up the legs of his pants, waded into the water and enjoyed the late summer morning. He took some photos of the sea and of the area around him, intending to play with the photos later on Photoshop, a hobby he and his father share.

Minutes later, Ashraf was running in blind terror as Israeli soldiers in a gunboat off the coast began shooting at Palestinian fishermen. He was hit by an Israeli soldier’s bullet which bore through his neck and grazed his vertebrae, fracturing C-4 and C-5, leaving him bleeding on the ground and unable to stand up.

“They were shooting at Palestinian fishermen in hassakas [small fishing vessels],” he said of the Israeli soldiers in the gunboat. “Some of the bullets were hitting near where I stood. I started to run north. I didn’t think about where to run, I just ran.”

He estimates he ran for a few minutes, soon approaching the northern border before an Israeli soldier’s voice shouted over a megaphone for him to stop. Seeing an Israeli military vehicle in the distance ahead, Ashraf was afraid that the soldiers north of him would start shooting. He kept running, hoping to take cover behind a low hill nearby.

Then he was grounded, one of the bullets hitting him in the neck.

The Ma’an news agency reported, “an Israeli military spokeswoman says soldiers identified a ’suspicious Palestinian man’ approaching the border fence, and fired warning shots in the air. After the Palestinian ignored warning shots, the spokeswoman said, the army fired at and lightly injured him.”

At least eight Palestinians have been killed and at least 33 injured in the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone” along Gaza’s border since the 18 January ceasefire. Three of the killed and 12 of the injured were minors, including many children.

The “buffer zone” was imposed by Israeli authorities about a decade ago, initially at 150 meters and now while Israeli authorities say the no-go zone runs 300 metres from the boundary between Gaza and Israel, it ranges up to two kilometers in some areas. The buffer zone renders off-limits approximately 30 percent of Gaza’s most fertile agricultural land, as well as the land adjacent to it. Israeli authorities warn that anyone entering that area is subject to being shot by the Israeli army.

“I don’t know how close I was, maybe less than 400 meters from the fence,” Ashraf said.

Three Israeli soldiers approached him on foot, Ashraf explained. “An Israeli soldier kicked me in the mouth and told me to stand up. I couldn’t, my legs wouldn’t move.”

According to Ashraf, an Israeli soldier dragged him by his arms over the rough ground. After another kick to the face, he was put on a stretcher and carried across the northern border to a waiting Israeli jeep.

After they checked his identity via computer, Ashraf said that the Israeli soldiers told him: “You’re 16 years and one month old. You’re a student.” Although the soldiers realized that he was harmless, they continued to treat him with contempt.

“They put me in a jeep and we drove for a while, maybe 20 minutes, I don’t know exactly. Then they transferred me to an Apache helicopter and flew me to a military base near Erez. I don’t know the name but I know it wasn’t so far from Erez. There was a small clinic there where they gave me a little first aid,” he said, recalling that this treatment was at least 30 minutes after his injury.

“They put some gauze and bandaging on my neck wound,” Ashraf said. He then was made to wait as a Palestinian medic negotiated his return to a Gaza hospital.

Hassam Ghrenam, a Palestine Red Crescent Society medic and ambulance driver, had approval to cross into Israel for two medical cases unrelated to Ashraf. While on the Israeli side, Ghrenam saw Ashraf and requested to take him back to Gaza.

Ashraf explained that Ghrenam wanted to bring three other men, to transfer him carefully as medical procedure dictates. The Israeli soldiers refused the request and Ashraf had to wait for more than an hour until the soldiers finally relented.

“There were maybe 30 Israeli soldiers around us. The ambulance driver kept saying, ‘he’s critical, very critical, take him to Israel,’ but the soldiers just pointed their guns at him and did nothing,” Ashraf explained.

Ghrenam noted that there was blood and signs that Ashraf was beaten or kicked in the face. According to Ghrenam, “The Israelis only put a bandage on his wound, no neck collar, no proper treatment. I immediately put a neck collar on him. Injuries to the neck and spinal cord can lead to paralysis.”

At the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing, Ghrenam passed Ashraf to a waiting Red Crescent ambulance which immediately transferred the youth to Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital. He is now in the al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital, and doctors and Ashraf’s parents wait to see whether his fractured vertebrae will heal well enough so he can walk again.

Ashraf’s father is not optimistic. “Every day we wait I feel like his life is withering. I’m worried about his future.”

source: The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA)and Canada’s Israel representatives are waging a propaganda and legal battle to silence the expanding number of people and organizations who support Palestinian rights or are critical of Israel for its illegal occupation, invasions and siege of Palestine.

The CPCCA is joining the Conservative government, the B’nai Brith, and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), in an ambitious plan to censor civil dialogue by deliberately confusing criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.

In rejection and response, The Independent Jewish Voices of Canada wrote this petition.

And I ask:

Because we recognize the Zionists brutally displaced Palestinians from their land and razed Palestinian villages in the process, and have never recognized Palestinian refugees right of return (although the UN has)…

Because we recognize Israel is brutally occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and militarily controlling Gaza…

Because we call for Palestinian prisoners to be released, that they not be tortured, that they are given a fair trial (not in a military court) and charged with something instead of held indefinitely in “administrative detention” , that children are not imprisoned…

Because we (like Goldstone [see his recent comments]) call for the investigation of Israel’s war crimes and breaches of international law…

Because we support the right to free speech, including that of Palestinian academics…

Because Palestinians have the right to resist the occupation and siege, and when they do so non-violently they are brutally suppressed by the Israeli occupation forces, killed [Yousef Amira, Ahmed Mousa, Bassem Abu Rahmah, and many, many more) or are arrested without grounds, as with Mohammad Othman, Adeeb Abu Rahme...

Because Palestinians can be mowed down, shot dead, beaten, and tortured by Israeli soldiers without any chance of the soldiers being prosecuted...

Because Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) are a real and valid form of fighting Israel's occupation, oppression, racism and war-mongering...

Because of these martyrs and families of martyrs, lives ruined in Israel's massacre of Gaza:

*(AP Photo/Ashraf Amra)

*(AP Photo/Ashraf Amra)

Because we call for inspection of Israel's nuclear capability [The latest estimates suggest that Israel has produced at least 118 warheads with weapons grade plutonium.The Jericho Two has a range of 1500 kilometres. It could just reach Iran - and is believed to be able to carry a one megaton nuclear bomb, which is 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.It is believed a Jericho Three missile is now being developed - that will be able to travel around 5,000 kilometres, bringing all of Iran and Europe into its range.] while Israel calls for inspection of everyone else…

And because Canada has already long slid down the slope of ignoring justice and favouring Zionism…

Because of all this, we are anti-semitic?

No thanks.

Sign a petition to confront this fascism.

*Mahmoud Musleh: “I’ve had three main things destroyed by Israeli forces: a tile factory on Sikka street (northern Beit Hanoun), another tile factory on Salah el Din street (Beit Hanoun), and the water well on my land. My olive trees have been bulldozed many times by Israeli forces. I’m 70 years old and now I have nothing, like when I was 16.”

*Mohammed Zaneen [eastern Beit Hanoun]: “I had 11 dunams of olive trees, bulldozed by the Israeli army. I used to earn well over US$11,000 from the olives. Now my oldest trees are just 4 years old and produce only a meagre amount. We also have bees. When there were many olive, lemon and orange trees, the bees produced quality honey twice per year. Now, we have to supplement the bees’ diet with sugar; they produce honey just once per year.”

*Abdullah Abu Shar, Waddi Salqa (central eastern Gaza): “During the Israeli war on Gaza, my house and 50 other homes from our extended family were destroyed by the Israeli army. My son Mahmoud (25) and his wife Fida (18) were killed with their son Tamer (10 months) by two Israeli drone missile attacks on their home.” [He later adds, "we have 4 martyrs in our family, bas (only)." "That's too many," I say. His stoic face crumbles and he sobs silently for a moment.]

*the water tank and pump, sending water to 150,000 residents, was destroyed in the Israeli attacks. It was out of use for 2 months. It has been re-built 4 times over the last 10 years.

*Masiouna Abu Shar: “I lived here for 50 years. This was my grandfather’s land. The Israelis destroyed everything. Not a single house was left. All the land destroyed. All of us now have to rent homes in Deir el Balah. $150 per month. The land is so torn up you can’t farm it any longer. What can we do with this land?”

“This was our house. Nothing is left. We had 50 trees, too: olives, figs, guava… all destroyed. See those houses over there? Destroyed, everything gone, all from our family.”

*Abdul-Raziq Abu Shar: “Three times the Israelis have bulldozed my olive trees in the last 7 years: in 2002, 2004, and 2005. I had 120 olive trees, and another 100 date trees. 15 of which were over 30 years old.”

“Thank you very much, thank you for listening.”

*Nayfa Abu Shar: “My house was destroyed, along with all my trees.”

*Ghrelli Abu Shar: “I lived with my son and his 4 children. Our house was destroyed. So were our 80 trees: we had figs, olives, lemons and dates.”

“We’ve made a small two room shelter with some of the stones we retrieved, but it’s not complete. When I come here during the day, I use this tent for shade, make food over a fire. I’m afraid to stay past sunset; the Israeli soldiers are always shooting at us here.”

*Sabri Jendiya (74), Shayjayee, eastern Gaza: “I’ve worked our land since I was a boy. We’re farmers, we put all of our investment into our land. We have 30 dunams (30,000 square metres) about 800m from the border fence.Because of the danger from Israeli soldier shooting, I don’t work my land like I used. Also, all the water sources were destroyed by the Israeli war on Gaza. When it rains, I will plant simple vegetables. There are 30 people in our house and only one of my sons has work.”

*Shabaan Mohammed Mhayssy (83): “I was so happy on my 7.5 dunams of land. I spent 10,000 shekels (~$2,500) to make our water cistern with a pump for watering the land. My olive trees were very old. The cistern and all of my trees have been destroyed by Israeli soldiers. I can’t feed the 30 people in our house.”

*Samir: “My land has been bulldozed 7 times. This area had maybe 100 olive and orange trees. There were 6 wells. All have been destroyed. When farmers were producing their own food, they were able to live self-sufficiently. Now they are run-off their land by Israeli attacks and are dependent on aid.”

*Ramzi Hillis: “I have good land, 20 dunams (20,000 square metres) about 400m from the border fence. All the trees and my 10,000 chickens have been bulldozed and destroyed, from 2004 until now. We still keep bees, though the honey production is very poor these years. I work as a taxi driver now to help support the 13 people in my family.”

*Amar Mhayssy (78): “My wife and I have 9 dunams (9,000 square metres) of land in the buffer zone. We can’t use the land because the Israelis will shoot us. We have 10 dunams of land over 500m from the border fence. Of that, we had 2 dunams of olive trees, over 60 years old. They were all bulldozed by the Israeli army. We will re-plant, and pray to Allah that the trees are not again bulldozed. We’ve got 13 people in our family, with 4 children in university. None of us has employment.”

*Amar Mhayssy and Sena Mhayssy (75): “Every morning the Israeli soldiers shoot at us. It’s a hard life here.”

*Salem As Saede. eastern Beit Hanoun: “I had 4.5 dunams of land, with olive and orange trees; it has all been destroyed by Israeli soldiers in recent years” During the winter Israeli massacre of Gaza, Israeli soldiers finished off his land and once again destroyed his water well. Married twice, Saede has 17 children, non employed. All are dependent on food aid. He cannot even work his land to provide fresh produce. Formerly, Saede was a school teacher.

see Mazin Qumsiyeh’s “Palestinian Olives“

A lust for birdsongs drew me to the park. Walking down a small street parallel to the Shifa taxi street, I’d heard that rare sound: birds chirping. Usually the sounds are muffled by the noise of daily life: horns honking, generators making up for power outages, vendors’ calls, music from passing weddings…

But on that relatively lush back street –with towering trees (they seem towering when compared with the dwarf trees in the Israeli-razed border areas, or the decorative but short trees amidst the concrete of the city) –the birdsongs rang out loudly.

I realized I was hungry, thirsty, desperate to hear and be surrounded by nature. There are few spots in Gaza City where one can find some tranquility (other areas, especially the east of Khan Younis, where I’ve spent many a morning and night, can be especially tranquil… when there’s no Israeli soldier shooting). Lack of tranquility… the product of squashing 1.5 million people into 365 square km (minus the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ restrictions along the border, which eat approximately 80 square km, or 30% of Gaza’s best agricultural land).

In Gaza City, if one yearns for trees and flowers, one can go to the Jundi park –but its by no means tranquil, pulsing with life: tea vendors, families, friends, kids, rallies… One can go also to the gardens closer to Sahaa, eastern Gaza City. There are nice shrubs and flowers, but its still not overly tranquil, nor filled with bird calls.

I found a small park in my area, a UN park, and gave it a try.

Some bird calls, not so much traffic (though the sound of a saw somewhere is cutting through the light peace). There are tall, leafy trees of different sorts: various palms, a relative of a pine, a tall fern-leafed tree, some small shrubbery.

The wind in the leaves is always soothing. And, yes, there are more bird twitters now.

But dammit, the drone buzzing overhead is ruining it all.

“Please, have some coffee,” Mahmoud insisted, though I told him I’d just drank an entire pot at home. Water wasn’t good enough for him to serve me. I relented.

I’d stopped in his computer shop to buy a new power cord and, as things go in Palestine, we sat chatting about life.

“I dream of going around the world. I’ve never been in an airplane, never left Gaza,” he said, not the first.

I told him that this is his right, he deserves to see the world’s beauty like anyone.

“I’m so happy to speak with you. You know, this is the first time I’ve had a conversation with a foreigner,” he grinned.

He’s 21, personable, helped with the power cord, and like any other person I’ve met in Gaza: friendly, curious, wants to see the world, loves his country, is thrilled to meet people from outside, and tried to give me the power cord for free.

“Everyday is the same here (massacres aside). I go from work to home, nothing is new, nothing different.”

Adham, 13 years old, walked up to me as I waited, typing, in the Ezbet Abed Rabbo Red Crescent centre hallway yesterday.

“Where are you from, anyway?” he began, sauntering up to me.

“How much is that computer?” he wanted to know.

When I tell him about $500, he says his family’s computer was about half that price, but now it’s useless, destroyed.

“Where do you live?” I asked him.

Ezbet Abed Rabbo, he said, gesturing eastward to the graveyard of homes toppled during the Israeli massacre.

“What’s your family name?”

Abed Rabbo.

“How is your house after the war?”

Half-destroyed.

He left, and returned, walked past three times, forgetting something each time as he collected medicine for his ill brother, a nurse scolding him for stopping to chat with me.

The dabke youths were ready, so I went into the meeting room which until then was being used for a conference on health issues, put on by the Red Crescent. A number of youths from the area showed off their dabke-in-process: they have the basic steps, they have the dabke spirit and straight back with springing legs. The rest will come with practise.

Dabke is one of the things that unceasingly fascinates me in Palestine:

it’s the obvious pride and self-assurance, the enthusiasm and zest for life, despite it all (as ever).

I see this pride in people all over Palestine: in those driving donkey carts and scavenging for recyclables, in the fruit vendors with meticulously-stacked goods.

Palestinians, have their human flaws like any of us, but a carry pride and playfulness that I never stop noticing.

It’s the little things…

It’s the playful poke in the belly as a man runs past his friend but wants to give a quick hello.

It’s the “ahlaaayyyn”[a greeting] as a friend sees another friend not seen in a while.

It’s the children who’ve lived through lifetimes of invasions, have a broad knowledge of warplanes and tanks, have taken up work at age twelve, ten, eight…and still smile, joke.

My friend J writes about another youth killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank:

“Mehdi Abu Ayyesh, a 17 year old boy from Beit Ommar, succumbed to hiswounds yesterday morning after being critically injured 7 months ago. He was shot on March 4th when me and X were in the village filming the army shooting at groups of youth in the streets. I know many have been lost,and there will no doubt be many more martyrs, but it still knocks me downeach time.”

Palestine Solidarity Project reports:

“Mehdi Abu Ayyesh, 17, died this morning after being shot in the head with what doctors believe was a .22 ruger rifle by Israeli forces in Beit Ommar on March 4. The funeral was earlier today and as of 5:00pm today there was still an ongoing military invasion in Beit Ommar.”

Gideon Levy wrote in Ha’aretz after the targeted shooting:

Young Mahdi Abu Ayash lies in the intensive care unit of Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron, with no chance of a meaningful recovery. Look at the picture and understand – or not. Why was this teenager – who maybe, or maybe not, threw rocks at soldiers who had arrested and beaten two of his friends – shot with live ammunition? Is the IDF once again using the Ruger 0.22 caliber rifle, after it was specifically banned as a means of crowd dispersal in December 2001, by the then chief military prosector, Menahem Finkelstein? The doctors said they had never seen such a bullet before, which spins about in the brain and destroys its tissues. Why wasn’t tear gas or rubber bullets enough? Or a shot in the air? Why does the IDF spokesman say that the soldiers used “crowd dispersal measures,” while the doctors determined it was live ammunition? Why isn’t the IDF investigating this grave incident? Why do soldiers need to roam about the town of Beit Omar at night and relentlessly provoke its youths? Why does a 16-year-old boy have to end up as a vegetable? And who will bear responsibility for it?

These questions hung in the air in the meager home of the Abu Ayash family in Beit Omar, and more so in the intensive care unit of Al Ahli Hospital. No one will give them an answer. No one will bother about them – neither the IDF commanders nor the soldier who destroyed the boy’s life. A sniper’s bullet in the forehead and it’s the end.

When he got a little farther away, Said heard two gunshots, one loud and one soft. Then he saw the boys running toward his car, yelling to him to stop and carrying one of the boys who was wounded. Said tried to prepare his daughter: “You’re going to see something bad now. When you grow up, you’ll be a doctor,” he told her. The boys opened the car door and started putting the wounded boy in the back seat. It was dark and Said couldn’t get a good look at the wounded boy’s face, which was covered in blood.

Within moments, a Palestinian ambulance arrived, and the youths removed the wounded boy from Said’s car and transferred him to the ambulance. Said told his daughter to wait in the car and not be afraid, and then he went to the ambulance to see who was hurt, so he could hurry to tell the boy’s family. When he looked in the ambulance, he still didn’t recognize the boy, but then one of his friends suddenly yelled to him: “Don’t go. Don’t you see? It’s your son.”

Said rushed back to the ambulance, gave his car keys to one of the teenagers and asked him to take Anwar home and keep her calm. “God gave me so much presence of mind,” he says now. He was most worried then about his daughter finding out that the wounded boy was her brother.

Said boarded the ambulance and it started on its way. There was no medical team, just the driver and two boys, friends of Mahdi, who held his head and tried to stanch the bleeding from his forehead. “I could tell that the situation was very serious. I knew that in such a situation you have to talk with the injured person and so I started talking with him. I told him that he was my son and I was his father and he would live.” The ambulance driver knew from experience that there would surely be a roadblock at the main entrance to the town, so he decided to take a roundabout route to Hebron, a way that took about an hour and a half on bad roads.

The wounded boy was jostled about and they held him so he wouldn’t fall. At one point it seemed like he stopped breathing, and Said tried to massage his heart and give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He tried to calm the two frightened boys in the ambulance and told them: “Be men. Be brave. Now we must do everything we can to get him to the hospital alive.” At another point, he, too, lost hope and started reciting verses from the Koran.

The whole time, Said was thinking that the wounded person was Taher, his 19-year-old son. When they reached the hospital, Said gave the wounded boy’s name to the medical staff and the Palestinian police and it was passed on to the local media. A few minutes later, his brother phoned him: “They reported that Taher was wounded. But Taher is standing here next to me and he’s fine.” Said thought he was losing his mind. He ran to the X-ray room and then he discovered the truth: It wasn’t Taher, it was 16-year-old Mahdi. Said fainted. Mahdi had arrived with the bullet in his head and the doctors were afraid to take it out. It is still lodged in his head.

Taher sits in the room with us. He doesn’t say a word. He’s still in shock. He only shows a picture of his brother on his cell phone from before the injury: The two brothers really do look very much alike. Said says Mahdi was his quietest child. He liked to stay at home and spend hours on the Internet, chatting with a cousin who is studying in Libya. He dreamed of eventually joining him there and studying engineering. Said says he always told his children that they wouldn’t achieve anything with rocks. He’s sure that Mahdi didn’t throw rocks, but what does it matter, he says. “They wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill someone – to punish the youths. That’s why they didn’t use anything else – they didn’t use tear gas or fire in the air. Just a real bullet to the forehead.”

What are his chances?

“The prognosis is very bad. Many tissues were damaged as the bullet spun around inside the brain and many vital systems were destroyed. If he lives, he’ll remain a vegetable.” Said says he would like the IDF to at least investigate and put the soldier on trial. His dream was to transfer his son to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. He has heard that they work wonders there, but he can’t afford it.

The IDF spokesman this week: “During an activity held by an IDF force in the village of Beit Omar, a violent disturbance developed, in which dozens of Palestinian youths stoned the force. The force retaliated with crowd dispersal measures and identified a hit of one of the stone throwers. The Palestinian was evacuated by the Red Crescent to Hebron hospital. It should be stressed that solely crowd dispersal measures were used. In recent months, 17 firebombs were thrown in the village and 9 bombs were thrown at the road to endanger the lives of passengers.” The IDF declined to reply to a question about the types of weapons used.

PSP NOTE: International Volunteers with PSP were present in the village on March 4, the night Mehdi was shot. They confirm that absolutely no firebombs or any other explosive devices were thrown that night. They also confirm that NO crowd dispersal weaponry, including sound bombs, tear gas, or rubber-coated steel bullets were used that night, though troops that enter Beit Ommar nearly nightly are always equipped with such less-lethal weaponry.

His name will be added to the list of children killed.

It started with a sheep. It had roamed between the walls of Ahmed’s home and the home behind them. Ahmed wanted to show me the sheep, the Hola sheep.

He calls it the Hola sheep after his new daughter, an 8 day old infant named… Hola. (by the way, the boy in the above photo is obviously not Ahmed).

Hola is Ahmed and Islam’s first child, a “war baby” (more accurately, a “massacre baby”… but that sounds pretty terrible).

Ahmed and Islam married 5 days before the Israeli massacre of Gaza began last winter.

Like any new parents, Ahmed and Islam are as proud as can be, think their girl is the greatest (she’s pretty cute). Ahmed fawns over her like Palestinian men have a habit of doing: Palestinian men hold no pretense of machoism when it comes to children; they’re all noises and gurgles…

I’d been in the Red Crescent office at Diwwar Zimmo, near Ezbet Abed Rabbo. Ahmed, coordinator of all the Red Crescent volunteers and a seasoned medic and member of the Civil Defence (like the Fire department), had called me there. Today they were having a conference on health issues, followed by some youths performing Dabke. I can never resist Dabke.

Ahmed was grinning a little more than ever, which is already normally a lot. He was happy to see me, he said, and happier to show off photos of his new daughter.

“Hola. She’s eight days now. She came out with her eyes wide open.” It’s true, a photo 30 minutes after her birth shows a tiny infant with platter eyes. She was much the same today, 8 days after her birth.

Those who can afford to do so have a feast in honour of a newborn baby. I’m invited Friday, though I don’t think I will go as early as Ahmed invited me (my vegetarian tendencies lead me to prefer arriving after the sheep has been…prepared).

He’s in love with her, keeps asking me don’t I think she’s gorgeous?

And now he’s been welcomed into fatherhood, and he seems to be leaping into to the role.

Islam, his wife, is doing well, her health is fine, she’s also thrilled with their daughter (many women here prefer not to be photographed, which is why there are no photos of Islam).

[I wrote this earlier, but since I'm talking about him, will repeat it]

Ahmed has one of the greatest laughs in the world, and he uses it regularly. Immediately after the massacre, when we were walking through the ruins of what was Ezbet Abed Rabbo, eastern Jabaliya, I forgot that he had shrapnel wounds on his back and legs, that walking was hard for him. He didn’t mention it until many crushed houses and burnt out staircases later. The shrapnel was from an Israeli army attack on he and Dr. Issa on January 12, in which the doctor was killed by the missile’s explosion, decapitated, and Ahmed was littered with shapnel, including his skull.

I didn’t know that Ahmed had also been attacked a later time (and I now suspect there have been other times and medics to ask about). The other attack I learned of by chance, watching a Youtube clip, a documentary made by a Palestinian journalist, Radjah abu Dagga, on the dangers inflicted on Palestinian medics as they try to do their work. I watched, coming to a scene where a medic is lying on the ground, shots firing at and around him. He gets up, runs toward the ambulance, and seconds later I see that he is Ahmed [at 2:00 minutes and on].

He is still young but holds and carries well much responsibility with his two roles (medic and civil defence), is personable and gentle, fairly crazy, generous, and a wonderful ambassador for the Palestinians living under siege and repeated Israeli massacres.

He worked through some of the worst massacres during the winter Israeli attacks, including the Fakhoura school attack with white phosphorous.

My first encounter with Ahmed was during a very cold night with the Red Crescent. Underdressed, I was shivering in the ambulance when Ahmed was introduced. He disappeared and reappeared minutes later with a turtleneck and sweater he said he’d brought from home but which still had their price tags on them.

Following the halt of the widescale bombing (still bombing the tunnels and random attacks throughout Gaza), we surveyed the damage done to the clearly visible Red Crescent centre in Ezbet Abed Rabbo.

While Ahmed’s situation is better than the majority in Gaza who live far below the poverty line (over 90%, the September 2009 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCATD) report states), they are still not well-off, still subject to the problems of living in a poorly-designed, too-long-inhabited refugee camp. The below photo is from October 2008, when rains flooded their home.

SHEIKH ZAYED, Gaza, Oct 13 (IPS) – On a searing summer morning, workers are adding layers to the mud-brick police station being constructed in Sheikh Zayed, northern Gaza.

“We started building on Jun. 20,” says Mohammed el-Sheikh ‘Eid, a consultant engineer with Gaza’s Ministry of Interior. “Since this is the first time we’ve built something on this scale with mud bricks, we can’t estimate exactly how much longer it will take to complete. Maybe another two months or so.”

He is confident, however, that they will finish before the winter rains begin.

Since the war on Gaza ended, a number of houses have been built using mud to create simple, square, two or three-room homes. The new Sheikh Zayed police station is one of the larger and more ambitious projects.

An intricate series of thick-walled, deep-arched chambers form what is on the whole a much more artistic rendition of the former square, cement police station bombed during the attacks. When finished, the station will be 550 square metres, including seven 3.5m by 3.5m office rooms and eight long, arched-roofed chambers 3m wide and 8m long.

In contrast to Gaza’s basic new mud-brick homes, with their cracked-earth finish inside and rough, straw-flecked outer layer, the police station design replicates that of the elegant, traditional Palestinian stone or brick buildings: neatly-packed rows of brick frame windows and doorways in graceful arcs; with surprisingly smooth domes that top off vaulted rooms and corridors. The one-level station, with its multiple rooftop domes, resembles the architecture of Palestinian homes from Nablus to Jerusalem.

The site, just off the coastal road serving Beit Lahia, is open and spacious, with a contrasting backdrop of cement block apartment buildings, built long before the Israeli siege on Gaza, when cement was accessible.

Engineer and site supervisor Sameh Al-Khalout explains the small-scale and hand-crafted construction process.

“The mud bricks take between one and two weeks to cast and dry,” he says, gesturing at the rows of bricks drying in the sun. “Each brick costs roughly one shekel (a quarter of a dollar) to make.”

Al-Khalout says the clay is brought from a nearby area of Beit Lahia, and the straw comes from local farmers. “We will put plaster on the roof, to seal it and protect it from rain.”

Wood is temporarily used to buffer ceiling arches and windows until the clay mortar hardens. The wood is then removed and used elsewhere in the same manner.

Apart from these wood bracings, conventional and excessively expensive building materials are not used.

Cement smuggled in via the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza is as much as ten times the pre-siege price. A tonne of cement costs 3,400 shekels (850 dollars), compared to the 350 shekels it cost prior to June 2007.

Husam Toubil from the United Nations Development Programme says Gaza requires 50,000 tons of cement to rebuild destroyed homes, and 41,000 tons for public buildings.

Al-Khalout says problems extend beyond lack of availability of materials. “For most of our workers, this is their first experience building with mud bricks.

“Since we have to bring in clay, straw and gravel, and mix the mud cement, make the bricks and then build the actual station, we require more workers than we would using cement.”

In an enclosed Strip where unemployment is near 50 percent and poverty has reached 90 percent, according to a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCATD) report, the workers will brave the heat for the chance to earn 40 shekels a day.

Since the siege on Gaza tightened in June 2007, almost no construction materials have entered Gaza, according to an OCHA report. This is in comparison to the pre-attacks, pre-siege import levels of 7,400 trucks per month, from January to May 2007.

According to the United Nations Relief Web news, 3,900 truckloads entered Gaza from January to May 2007. Over the same period this year, six trucks were allowed in. These carried material for water projects, greatly in need and long awaiting completion.

The Israeli authorities say the ban on building materials is to prevent Hamas from using so-called “dual use” items for military activities.

Yet, non-Hamas run agencies, schools, and healthcare centres are facing the same blanket restrictions on import of cement, gravel, wood, tiles, piping, paint, glass and steel bars, notes the OCHA report.

The mud brick technique, extended beyond the simple clay ovens prevalent in Gaza to the building of houses, potentially meets some of Gaza’s great construction needs.

East of Gaza city, in the Al-Shojayia district, engineers have tackled the challenge of a multi-level clay-brick building: a three-storey school for 600 disabled children is under construction, using a combination of mud brick and rubble from the remains of homes and buildings destroyed during the Israeli attacks.

According to a Guardian news report, engineer Maher Al-Batroukh and university engineers experimented with clay to create strong bricks. When finished, the school will be roughly twice the size of the Sheikh Zayed police station, with similar domed ceilings and plaster coating.

Noting the success of clay building endeavours, the Hamas Ministry of Public Works is likewise pursuing the mud-brick alternative, with plans to build multi-storey houses and re-build destroyed public buildings.

While some are finding means to get around the Israeli ban on nearly everything needed to re-build in Gaza, the on-going siege on the Strip continues to hit daily life to an extent that the latest UN report notes that closed borders and delays in allowing in goods are ‘devastating livelihoods’ and causing gradual ‘de-development’.

The OCHA report further cites the damage to education, including overcrowding due to destroyed or damaged schools, and denied or delayed education materials.

In an August 2009 statement, Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, noted that the “deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip.”

Gaylard, along with the Association for International Development Agencies (AIDA), notes that the Israeli denial of entry of equipment and supplies needed for the construction, maintenance and operation of water and sanitation facilities since June 2007 has led to “the gradual deterioration of these essential services.”

Further citing destruction from the Israeli attacks, the statement says Gaza’s sanitation and water services are on the “brink of collapse”, noting that the sparse supplies allowed in have been “nowhere near enough to restore a fully functioning water and sanitation system.”

About 60 percent of the population does not have continuous access to water, the statement notes. Roughly 10,000 people in Gaza have no access to the water network at all. This, combined with the 50-80 million litres of untreated and partially treated wastewater that is being discharged daily since January 2008, compounds the water and sanitation crisis.

Although some resourceful individuals have built homes despite the ban on cement, these various reports highlight that the manifold problems created by the ongoing siege and Israeli attacks on Gaza are too extensive to be solved by improvisation and mud alone.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that 60 police stations were destroyed or damaged during the winter 2008-2009 Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) August 2009 report says more than 6,400 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and over 52,000 suffered minor damage from bombing during Israel’s winter war on Gaza.

The OCHA report notes that the continued Israeli-led siege on Gaza has prevented reconstruction or repair of 13,900 homes, including approximately 2,700 homes damaged or destroyed in earlier Israeli military operations, and of 3,000 housing units intended to replace inadequate homes in crowded refugee camps.

Over 20,000 Palestinians remain displaced in Gaza, with approximately 100 families still living in emergency tents provided by aid agencies.

PCHR also reports that 215 factories and 700 private businesses, 17 universities or colleges, 15 hospitals and 43 health care centres, and 58 mosques were destroyed or damaged during the attacks. The United Nations says that 298 schools were destroyed or damaged.

They all await reconstruction, as does Gaza’s shattered economy.