Israeli army continue to harrass local Palestinian farmers.

Yassir and his family (including 8 children) have been living during the spring time in Khirbet Samra,  Jordan Valley, since 2006. At 8.30 pm yesterday evening the Israeli army came to his home claiming to be looking for terrorists from Nablus who they said they knew were staying with him.  Despite his insistence that only his family were there they made everyone leave the tents and requested to see the ID papers of all of the family, including his terrifed young children.

Running water to Al Farisiya

Whilst we are here we plan to collect together some information about the way Israel prevents Palestinian communities from having access to water and the work that Jordan Valley Solidarity has been doing with communities to enable them to survive and continue to stay on their land.

Two days ago we visited Al Farisiya, and have posted a report and photos from our visit at http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207:running-water-to-al-farisiya&catid=14:2009&Itemid=21

Palestinian solidarity - staying on the land

Wednesday 30th April 2011
We called in on Nabeel and Ghada on our way to visit other communities this morning. It is Land Day and we don't know if the family are aware of this, but staying on the land is exactly what they are doing. They have sorted out their home, setting up their kitchen and sleeping areas, and the children are down at the kindergarten school in Ein Elhilwe. Life is not of course normal, but nothing is normal here except the everyday reality of coping with life under occupation and the constant threat of displacement. The best thing though, was that two other families are setting up home a hundred metres or so from the family. They are no longer alone, and other Bedouin families are expressing their solidarity with the family's stand.

The family's tent, with two other tents set up nearby

Tractors face collective punishment

At 7 am this morning the Israeli army entered the village of Al Jiftlik, central Jordan Valley, in the occupied West Bank. Soldiers went door to door ordering all tractor owners to bring their farming vehicles to the closed military zone between Massu'a settlement and a nearby Israeli army base, where they had set up a temporary inspection point in a disused bus shelter. Flying checkpoints were set up on roads in the area, presumably to ensure that no tractor escaped uninspected.





The persecution of the Daraghme family continues

Monday 28th March 2011.
The Army did not return on Sunday, as they had threatened, although it was clear that they were keeping a close eye on the family by jeeps that were seen in the area. On Sunday afternoon the local representative of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) visited and interviewed Nabeel. He left to make representations to the Army, but it is clear that he has little power in this situation.

Settlers and army collude in ethnic cleansing: photo journal

For the last week the family of Nabeel and Ghada Daraghme have become the latest victims of Israels brutal policy of ethnic cleansing in the Jordan Valley. Jordan Valley Solidarity volunteers have been staying at the family home with other internationals over the past few days to support them. This is our photojournal, which we hope goes some way to portraying the way in which the army and settlers collude in this process of ethnic cleansing, and what it is like to be the people who are subjected to this humiliation and violence.

At home in the Jordan Valley

Sarah 22/3/11

This is our home for the next few days – the Jordan Valley Friends Meeting House.

The increase in community organisation since my last visit is so noticeable, and having a community base in the centre of the Jordan Valley makes so much difference. The house is much bigger than I expected with two rooms for sleeping, a room for storage and where clothes donations organised, and a really big communal walled area outside with palm branch roofing to keep us cool, where all the talking, working, meeting, eating and tea and coffee drinking takes place.

Colonisation in East Jerusalem

Natalie 20/3/11


Testing the new trams in Jerusalem

Jerusalem was our first stop, before setting off for the Jordan valley. Right outside the walls of the old city we saw our first sight of a Jerusalem light rail tram system. The Jerusalem light railway system is currently doing trials, so running the trams empty, but the trams are due to start to operate for real from about late April. The service, which is not of course a service for the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, will be taking trams through east Jerusalem to the illegal Israeli settlements. For more information on the campaign against Veolia, the multinational involved in running the Jerusalem light rail system, see  http://www.bigcampaign.org/veolia/

 The route of the trams has been laid with grass, and it appears that there are nowater shortages in Palestine, since the grass over whcih the trams will run has water sprinklers running all day.




Watering the grass along the tracks of the new tram system

 Although we stayed the night in East Jerusalem, we noticed that the palestinian run shops that we went into to buy food, stocked almost exclusively Israeli goods. This included fresh fruit and vegetables in Carmel Agrexco, EDOM and MTEX boxes, all of which are involved in the agricultural colonisation of the Jordan Valley, where we are headed. It was virtually impossible to buy fruit, humous or water which was not Israeli. This was the economy of the occupation in action for small shopkeepers, struggling to make a living, but in practice contributing to the profits of the very occuaption which oppresses them.