BY ELISABETH KEAN
As part of its response to the Palestinian intifada, the Israeli government's policy is to contain and control the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Part of that policy is to construct impenetrable walls around both areas, combined with a program of internal separation of Palestinian towns and villages from one another.
This will create a ghetto for the Palestinians, where travel through, and exits from, Palestinian lands will be under Israeli control.
This will also appropriate Palestinian land. The walls are being built inside the "green line", which was the previously agreed border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Approximately 10% of that land will be on the Israeli side of the wall. The US government funds the construction of these walls, which cost US$1.6 million per kilometre.
The walls have exacerbated the severe economic hardship the Palestinians already face, causing a loss of employment and income by destroying shops, farms and factories. They create refugees from the house demolitions carried out by the Israeli military.
The Israeli government provides no compensation for the destruction and appropriation of land. When questioned about the destruction of homes and property, the Israeli government claims they were either illegally constructed or are the homes of "militants".
There is a town called Rafah in the Gaza Strip. It has a population of approximately 150,000 people and contains many refugee camps. Before the commencement of wall construction in Rafah, house demolitions had been occurring as a means of collective punishment of the Palestinian population. With the advent of the wall policy, demolitions have increased.
No warning
Those who have their homes demolished are never formally advised of the impending demolition, nor are they offered alternative accommodation. The first notification of the impending demolition is the commencement of random shooting into the house, which continues for an indeterminate period of days or months.
Finally, the Israeli military arrive and give the homeowners as little as 15 minutes to leave before the bulldozers begin to level the dwelling. There have been demolitions in which there has been no prior warning; the first the families knew of it was the roar of the US-made armoured Caterpillar bulldozers as they headed towards their homes.
The majority of the refugees in these camps have no means of escape from the Israeli military. They endure an unofficial curfew enforced by tanks stationed constantly outside their homes. Tank crews sporadically shoot bullets or throw grenades into the streets and houses.
Until a house is completely destroyed, the United Nations cannot help the family. After demolition, the UN provides limited support — usually paying rent for new accommodation. It does have a rebuilding program for the area. There have been more than 700 house demolitions in Rafah alone since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000; only 97 homes have been built to rehouse the refugees. The UN only has the approval and funds to build another 100 more.
The replacement houses are in a village called Tel el Sultan, which the Israeli military is also attempting to demolish. The village provides the majority of Rafah's water. In January, the military destroyed 50% of its water supply and damaged the sewerage system. This has resulted in the contamination of the remaining water and the heightened risk of disease. When water company engineers attempted repairs, they were attacked by the Israeli military.
Targets
All Palestinians are targets of Israel's occupation army. Within one family I met, the father had been murdered by a shot through the head, one son has a paralysed left arm due to being hit in the neck by bullets and another had been shot near the heart by a metal dart (in fact, a four-centimetre-long nail with metal "feathers".
These "darts" are delivered by tank shells that contain thousands of them. When shot from the tank, the round explodes in the air and darts scatter over an area measuring 300 metres by 100 metres. These rounds are illegal under international law — but then, so is Israel's occupation. This family's house has been under threat of demolition for a considerable period, and the cumulative stress has created severe mental health problems for all its members. Their only crime is to live in a refugee camp.
During an interview with BBC television news, an Israeli spokesperson justified killing a seven-year-old boy because the child was supposedly walking towards a military post and, they claimed, could have been a suicide bomber. There is no documented case of a child suicide bomber, yet the mainstream media accepted this story uncritically. Most of the children killed have been either at home or playing in the street.
Rafah has well-documented mental health problems that result from the terror inflicted on the population by the Israeli military. There is child malnutrition due to the combination of food shortages and distress caused by the continuing military aggression. This leads children to control the only thing they can — their food intake. In Australia, we would call it anorexia; in Rafah, it does not merit such a fancy description.
Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people is designed to humiliate them and to drive them from their land. Land appropriation is official Israeli government policy, as confirmed by the continuing building and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is the author of, and driving force behind, the settlement plan for Palestine.
The intention is to isolate all Palestinian towns and villages by encircling them with illegal settlements and roads. These roads are built between each of the encircling settlements and Palestinians are forbidden from using, or even crossing, them — even when the road separates farmers from their land.
Defiance of this edict can result in injury or death at the hands of the Israeli military or the Israeli settlers living illegally on the expropriated land. Settlers kill and maim Palestinians with impunity, and are subsequently feted within their communities.
Israel is breaching the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights every hour of every day. It has ignored 64 UN resolutions and the rest of the world has done nothing.
Since the November 22 murder of the UN worker Ian Hook by the Israeli military, the subsequent US veto of the UN Security Council resolution that sought to condemn the killing and the ensuing silence from the international community, the Israeli military has escalated its violence against Palestinians and international peace volunteers. It was only a matter of time before one of the international volunteers met with a similar fate as Hook.
On March 16, Rachel Corrie, an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) peace volunteer was murdered by an Israeli soldier, who crushed her to death with his Caterpillar bulldozer as she was trying to protect the house of a Palestinian from being demolished.
There are many ways to support the Palestinian cause. There is a campaign to boycott the Caterpillar clothing shops. Opponents of human rights abuses are urged to contact the Israeli embassy in Canberra on (02) 6273 1309 to voice their concern, as well as makeg local MPs aware of the situation in occupied Palestine. Australia consistently follows the US lead when voting on UN resolutions relating to the Israeli occupation.
Readers are also encouraged to support the work of the ISM.
The construction of settlements, the wall and the terrorising of the civilian population must stop if there is to be any hope of a lasting peace. All countries and peoples must act to stop the abuses of power by the Israeli government. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights must be upheld without exception, not selectively used for political and economic gain.
[Elisabeth Kean has lived in Rafah, Gaza Strip, as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. For more information visit <http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/>, <http://www.palsolidarity.org/> or <http://www.palestinecampaign.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 2, 2003.
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