IWPS-Palestine Annual Report No.1. 2002-3
August 2003
Table of Contents
Summary
The first year of the
project has seen the successful establishment of the Women’s Peace House
in Hares, Salfit. A continuous presence of women has been provided despite
three women being denied entry by the Israeli authorities. The Team
Members, supplemented by Volunteers, have provided a service for local
villagers who call on the internationals to provide a witness and presence
at roadblocks, checkpoints, and where Israeli Settlers or Israeli Defence
Forces (IDF) are engaged in human rights abuses. We have established a
process for making consistent human rights reports on arrests, house
demolitions and other violent incidents, which are sent on to human rights
organizations. We have documented and provided a presence, at Palestinian
nonviolent demonstrations and activities against the military occupation
of Palestinian lands, including helping with the formation and development
of the peace camps resisting the building of the Apartheid Wall. Numerous
reports have been filed, photos taken, videos and presentations made. We
have worked in co-operation with many different Palestinian and Israeli
NGOs, committed to justice and peace, in an attempt to encourage creative
networking. A website has been maintained where our work and reports are
easily available to the public. As the siege against the Palestinians
continues and villages are dispossessed of their land and water resources
through the building of the Wall, Palestinians are becoming more desperate
and our presence is becoming ever more necessary and appreciated. We enter
our second year with more experience and a continuing commitment to our
objectives.
The
Objectives of IWPS-Palestine
-
to train and support an
international team of women to work in
Palestine
;
-
to provide written and
photographic documentation of human rights abuses in the Salfit
Governate and other parts of the Occupied Territories and forward these
to human rights lawyers and organisations for action;
-
to develop village profiles on
the long-term effects on the lives of the people, of the Occupation and
continuing land expropriation;
-
to work with independent media
and international press to promote and facilitate the dissemination of
the documentation and profiles through use of the internet and other
information technology;
-
to consistently call on
Israel
to end the Occupation and to comply with
international law and UN resolutions, in the acknowledgement that
justice is a pre-requisite for peace;
-
to non-violently intervene in
human rights abuses by Israelis, Palestinians or Internationals;
-
to provide a protective shield
for civilians as they try to go about their normal peaceful lives;
-
to seek and implement
alternatives to the lethal inter-group conflicts caused by the Israeli
Occupation;
-
to engage in acts of nonviolent
civil resistance, utilizing the possible privileges of gender and international status, in order to oppose the human
rights abuses and the confiscation and destruction of land and property
of Palestinian civilians, which is internationally recognised as
illegal;
-
to support the Palestinian and
Israeli peace movements in their nonviolent peacemaking and civil
resistance to end the Occupation
-
to provide an experiential model
for setting up further international women’s peace teams in other
areas.
Personnel
From February to July 2002 the founders of the
project advertised, interviewed and recruited 16 Team Members from 8
different countries. In July of 2002 the 16 women attended a two-week
training in
Norfolk
,
UK
, provided by Responding to Conflict and the
Scottish Centre for Nonviolence. By August 6th the first two
Team Members (TMs) were in Hares setting up the House ready for the next 2
women who joined them a few weeks later.
During the year each TM has served approximately three months each. During
the course of the year three of the original Team Members had to leave the
Team, for various personal and health problems. Meanwhile, Volunteers were
being recruited and began to supplement the work of the TMs and one who
successfully volunteered for several months and who was able to come to
the second year training, held in the UK in August 2003, has since become
a Team Member.
To start our second year
in the field (August 2003) we have 14 TMs (4 from USA; 3 from Canada; 3
from UK; and 1 each from Austria, Italy, South Africa and Switzerland);
and 6 Long-term Volunteers from Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and UK; and
29 Volunteers (10 from UK; 10 from USA; 1 each from Australia, Austria,
Bahrain, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Japan, Netherlands, and Poland).
Much of our work requires us to confront
Israeli Settlers and IDF with their human rights abuses and ask them to
remember their humanity and desist from their violence. As our profile
increases with the Israeli Authorities we are finding that our personnel
are being arrested and denied access into
Israel
. Three TMs have now been denied access into
the West Bank by the Israeli authorities (one was detained for 4 days and
at a District Court hearing was told she was a ‘security risk’ and
given no chance to challenge this falsehood) and other TMs have been
subjected to lengthy delays at the airport with one computer being
seriously damaged. We are, however, maintaining our presence in Hares with
the valued help of our Volunteers.
In August 2003 a summer meeting was held in the
UK
where TMs and Long-term Volunteers gathered to
evaluate the first year’s work and agree the structure and work policies
for the coming year as well as to undertake some more skills training.
This meeting decided to expand the number of TMs to 20 and to recruit
Long-term Volunteers from successful first-time volunteers. It was also
decided that we would implement an outreach recruitment process to enable
more women from the two thirds world and more women of colour to become
volunteers and TMs.
IWPS In
Palestine
IWPS-Palestine is based
in Hares, Salfit, in the northwest part of the
West Bank
. It
is a beautiful olive-growing area, one of the most fertile in all of
Palestine
, and consequently has the highest
concentration of illegal Israeli settlements. The 22 villages of Salfit are now surrounded by 45 settlements, 17
actual colonies and 28 outposts. If
the word “settlement” makes you imagine tents or trailers, think
again. Ariel, the settlement only 3 kilometers east of Hares, is a city of
20,000 people with a university, hotel, and a shopping mall. Barqan, two kilometers in the other direction, is home to an
industrial park comprising 80 factories, which are established there
partly in order to avoid the environmental regulation they would be
subject to in
Israel
. Everything
from wine to computer copy stands is produced in Barqan.
The settlements are joined to each other
and
Israel
by an ever-expanding network of “bypass
roads,” known in
Palestine
as “settler roads.” These roads, which are still being expanded, are carved out of
Palestinian village land confiscated by the army in the name of
“security.” Once they are
built, Palestinian cars are normally not allowed to travel on them, and
Palestinians are sometimes arrested even for walking on them. Since the intifada began in September 2000, roadblocks - piles
of dirt and boulders or concrete blocks - have been constructed at
the entrance to every village in Salfit, and military checkpoints have
multiplied. The villages are
increasingly cut off from one another and from the cities of
Nablus
, Ramallah, and Salfit, which are the main
centers of employment, education, medical care and shopping in the region.
Monitoring and Documenting Human Rights
Abuses
IWPS-Palestine has
responded to over 100 requests to investigate and report on human rights
abuses including home demolitions, arrests, military occupation of family
homes, incursions by the army, shootings, beatings and killings by
settlers or soldiers.
They also sometimes
witness first-hand incidents of human rights abuses. They write up the
information in a carefully controlled manner and send the reports to
various human rights organizations in
Palestine
and in
Israel
. These organizations sometimes use the reports
and ask for further information or follow-up by interviewing the people
concerned in more depth. Over the year we have sent out 73 human rights
reports. See Appendices 1 and 2 for more details.
IWPS-Palestine has helped to locate over two
dozen men taken prisoner by Israeli forces (army, police or border
police), accompanied families to take clothes to prisoners, negotiated for
the family of a 15-year-old to visit their son in military prison, and
helped connect families to organizations that provide free legal services.
Freedom of Movement
IWPS-Palestine has done
frequent ‘checkpoint watches’ at Huwara checkpoint, the main way in
and out of Nablus, and at Zatara checkpoint, which is a major crossroads
for people traveling east-west or north-south. Checkpoints are a major source of humiliation and harassment, and
also frequently locations of violence and severe human rights violations.
The behavior of the soldiers is monitored and TMs and Volunteers
talk to the people who are waiting about many aspects of their lives.
This work is done in cooperation with the Israeli women’s
organization, Machsom Watch.
Village Outreach
IWPS-Palestine has been called in to several
villages other than Hares, to help provide protection. In the autumn of
2002 Yasouf villagers were experiencing the theft of their olives
and were being prevented from accessing their olive groves by the violent
armed settlers of Tapuach. IWPS-Palestine
provided a constant presence for over a month, helping plan and implement
major successful nonviolent resistance to the intimidation. Yanoun, was another village which experienced violent
intimidation by settlers who caused the death of a Palestinian farmer and
the severe injury of several others, destroyed the village electricity
generator and polluted the village water supply, thus causing the
residents to flee their village in September 2002. IWPS-Palestine (along
with Israeli peace groups) helped provide a constant international
presence to enable the return of the frightened villagers. Protection was
also provided to Qarawat Bani Zeid in the summer of 2003, as the
village is under constant military occupation and there had been many
shootings and assassinations. Many other villages have sought and received
help including Sawiye - where settlers had blocked up the village
water source and were attempting to take it over, Salfit - where
English teachers were needed on a temporary basis, and Mas’ha -
where the Apartheid Wall was being built and IWPS-Palestine helped in the
foundation of a peace camp (see below for more details).
Olive Harvest 2002
By 2002 Palestinian farmers were facing
disaster: The total military reoccupation of the
West Bank
meant checkpoints, roadblocks 'closed military
zones' and curfews, and increasingly the destruction of vast tracts of
agricultural land for 'security' purposes. Settler violence had
sharply increased as had incidences of the theft of olives and
agricultural equipment and the burning and poisoning of trees. IWPS
worked with a number of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace
activist groups in an effort to provide assistance and accompaniment to
farmers willing to dare to visit their lands, and to document and
publicize their plight. The need for immediate access to lands was
twofold: The worsening economy meant that the olive crop would represent a
vital source of income and food, but
just as importantly, having not been able to visit their land for almost
two years meant that many farmers were facing its imminent confiscation.
Under Israeli law (using the previous Ottoman Law to their advantage) any
Palestinian land not worked for three years can be - and often is -
confiscated.
In August IWPS sent out a direct call for volunteers to join its 'Olive
Harvest Campaign' (OHC). Given its location and the contacts it had made,
IWPS was also appointed regional coordinator for Salfit district of
volunteers from the ISM's harvest program.
Consistent with its mandate, IWPS worked with local Palestinian
organizations to set up a coordinating body (CB) which would be
responsible for identifying those farmers most at risk and organizing
volunteer distribution within the region. Volunteers were placed
with host families. A sum of $10 per night per volunteer was charged, of
which $7.70 went to the host family to cover costs. The members of the CB
represented the Palestinian Peasant's
Union
, the Palestinian Police Force, the District
Coordinating Liaison and the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture. It
came to light during the campaign that these were largely Fatah affiliated
organizations and that the resulting contact with villagers was somewhat
factional. In an effort to rectify this IWPS/ISM switched the focus
of the
campaign from accompanying individual farmers to locating volunteers in a
given region, for example bordering a settlement or highway.
Many of the international volunteers filed numerous reports and interviews
with newspapers (eg. LA Times, Ha'aretz, die Standard), television (CBC,
Israel Channel 2, Al Jazera) and radio (NPR,
Pacifica
, CNN). Israeli media displayed a high interest
level, given the large numbers of Israeli volunteers who also took part.
Following a particularly extreme incident of settler violence in Yasouf
village, the OHC managed to obtain from the IDF an assurance of protection
for the farmers, based on an admission that their (the IDF's) role was to
protect all civilians equally. However, although this constituted a
de-facto statement of Palestinians' rights of property and access, in
reality this often translated into forcing farmers to leave an area 'for
their own protection against the settlers'.
In total, the OHC worked in 10 villages in the Salfit region for an
overall period of 38 days with 29 internationals placed directly through
the program, and, in coordinated efforts with other organizations, an
estimated one hundred and twenty further International, Israeli and
Palestinian volunteers. A follow up questionnaire of 40 villagers
and a feedback session with coordinating bodies indicated that the OHC had
succeeded overall in strengthening farmers' access to restricted areas and
in increasing the people of the regions' awareness of IWPS, ISM and other
organizations commitment to their non-violent struggle for justice and
freedom. Points of concern and suggestions for improvement of the
OHC's process have been duly noted and are being applied to the evaluation
procedure in preparation for next year's campaign. A copy of the
full report is available in English and soon in Arabic.
Apartheid Wall Campaign
Construction of the Apartheid
wall - what
Israel
euphemistically calls the
Security Fence - began in June 2002. When completed, the wall will be 360
kilometres long on its western portion and 700 kms long in its entirety.
The
Israeli government says the wall is being built for "security"
reasons. One has only to see where and how the Apartheid Wall is being
built to know its true purpose - to steal more
West Bank
land and water resources, to
destroy communities by cutting off access to precious farmland and centres
of trade, education, health care and jobs, and to annex illegal
settlements to
Israel
. The Apartheid Wall, in effect,
furthers the bantustanization of the
West Bank
and puts an end to the
possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
As early as September 2002, when the IWPS
presence in Hares was only a few weeks old, IWPS became involved in
documenting, reporting and working together with local communities and
Israeli, Palestinian and International activists to oppose the Wall's
construction. An official
campaign was launched in October 2002, under the auspices of the
Palestinian Environmental NGOS Network (PENGON). IWPS participated in the campaign and continued to maintain a
presence in support of activities initiated by towns and villages such as
Falamia, Jayous and Qalqilya, some of the communities which were being
devastated by the first stage of Apartheid Wall construction.
The
announcement regarding the beginning of the second phase of the Apartheid
Wall came from Ariel Sharon in March 2003. The second portion would cut deep into the northwestern part of the
West Bank
, incorporating more illegal
settlements near Hares along the way - Revava, Imanuel, Qedumim and Ariel,
among them. It would then be
extended into the south to encircle
Bethlehem
and
Hebron
and join a newly proposed
eastern portion, to be built along the
Jordan
Valley
. The entire
West Bank
would be walled in.
After participating in a
demonstration against the destruction of the land of a neighbouring
village - Mas'ha - which was losing 98% of its land to the Wall, IWPS met
with local farmers, politicians and Palestinian, Israeli and ISM
(International Solidarity Movement) activists, to work out ways to
strengthen and broaden the fight.
In a proposal submitted for
discussion, IWPS felt that the anti-Apartheid campaign had done a lot to
support the resistance of many communities in opposing the Wall and its
effects, but the struggle was not sufficiently talked about in the context
of Occupation and the overall purpose of the Wall had not been
sufficiently explained to the world. To do this, IWPS proposed that the
campaign had to sustain work on the ground that did not localize the
struggle, work harder to get mainstream and alternative media involved,
make the necessary links to the anti-war, environmental and anti-globabilization
networks and work in the area of humanitarian and international law.
Toward
achieving some of these goals, on
April 5, 2003
, in Mas'ha, farmers and their
families, local politicians, Palestinian, Israeli, and International
activists from the IWPS and ISM, set up a permanent peace camp in an olive
grove on Mas'ha village land.
Despite
harassment from the Apartheid Wall contractor and workers, and concerns
that the Israeli military would shut it down, Mas'ha camp kept going.
It has become the meeting and organizing centre for thousands of
people - Palestinians from other towns and villages, politicians,
journalists (local and international) and Palestinian, Israeli and
International activists who have forged deep ties. The Mas’ha camp is
the hub for many anti-Apartheid Wall activities which have included:
· Rallies
· Three
open-air exhibits
· Art
installations, poetry readings and other cultural events
· Efforts
to broaden the campaign through organizing demonstrations in other parts
of the
West Bank
- Ramallah,
Qalqilya and Jenin
IWPS,
Israeli and International women activists have also begun to meet with the
Mas'ha Women's Club and the women of other villages such as Kufr Thulit,
and Hable to look at business projects geared to alleviate economic
hardship caused by the Wall.
And
there is a lot more work ahead. Before
January 2004, IWPS will fight construction of the second phase of the Wall
with special passion as our village and the neighbouring villages of Kifl
Hares, Deir Istya, Marda and Qira become more affected. The land of our
host family in the village and their home and our ‘Women’s Peace
House’ apartment may face destruction as the Wall is built around us.
But
not without a struggle.
IWPS
will continue to fight against the Apartheid Wall and find new ways to
tell the world what it is doing to the Palestinian people. A documentary on the Wall is currently in production and we are
planning to set up, with PENGON, a photo and video archive.
Whatever
the form of our work, we will continue to make the campaign against the
Apartheid Wall an important part of our struggle for a just peace and an
end to Occupation in Hares and the rest of the
West Bank
and
Gaza
.
Networking and Support of Palestinian
and Israeli NGOs
We also work with groups in both
Palestine
and
Israel
who are working nonviolently to reduce the
violence in Israel/Palestine caused by the illegal military and settler
occupation in the
West Bank
. Such organizations include Bat Shalom, Gush
Shalom, International Solidarity Movement, Pengon,
Rabbis for Human Rights
and Ta’ayush.
Publications and Resources
IWPS-Palestine produces
a series of reports including general House Reports (average 3 per
month) and Human Rights Reports (average 2 arrest reports per month
and 4 incident reports per month). These are posted to the website and a
selection are also emailed to IWPS supporters when they sign up by
emailing iwps-pal-reports-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
For a full summary of the kinds of reports produced see App. 1 and for
full survey of reports see App. 2.
Various audio-visual
resources have also been produced:-
"A
Glimpse into Salfit"
is a 45-minute Power Point presentation on the effects of the Israeli
Military Occupation on rural villagers in the Salfit region of
Palestine
based
on the first hand experience of the women of IWPS.
“The
Apartheid Wall” is
a 60-minute Power Point presentation that
demonstrates, through an analysis of Israeli expansionist policies in the
Occupied Territories and by focusing on the issue of the settlements, that
the so called "security fence" is not about security but about
annexation, transfer and apartheid and that it precludes the creation of a
viable independent Palestinian state. It concludes by presenting some
examples of Palestinian non-violent resistance and by suggesting
campaigning initiatives.
"The
Right to Education"
is a 20-minute video that explores the systematic denial of the right to
education. The Israeli military occupation is shown disrupting the
functioning of the Palestinian educational system by a variety of measures
including curfews, checkpoints and roadblocks that prevent students along
with teachers from reaching schools and universities, constant closures of
universities, and the bombing
and gassing of schools.
IWPS-Palestine has a website www.iwps.info
where reports, photos and maps are archived and freely available for the
public. Many of the documents are translated into Arabic, French, German,
Hebrew, Italian, and Japanese.
Funding and Annual Accounts
We are in a reasonably healthy financial
position with enough funds to cover the next seven months or so of work.
We are working at present to secure enough funding to cover the last 17
months work of the project so we can concentrate our efforts on long-term
core funding, as it seems that there will be a need to continue the
project beyond the initial 3 years. Attached is a copy of the new budget
(Appendix 3) and the first annual set of accounts (Appendix 4).
Total spent to date:
£47,887.
Total income to date: £93,140
Current net assets amount
to: £45,253 (Bank £40,505; Equipment £4,748)
Income was from the
following sources to-date:
Grants:
£46,311 = 50%
From
UK
sources
£37,907
US sources
£3,105
Canadian sources
£5,299
Individual
donations: £36,223 = 39%
From
UK
sources
£17,126
US sources
£3,349
Europe
sources
£10,785
Canadian sources
£3,785
Hares
£1,178
Based on average monthly
spending, and taking into consideration the new budget requirements, IWPS-Palestine
has enough funds for the next 7 months. Further donations and financial
support are welcome.
Appendices
