i love the village where we have spent the last three days. the grove is up a mountain side which we climb about 5:55am. we pass over a five minute trek of grove annually burned by settlers. it is a wasteland, with seven food high straw colored flowers in place of what used to be a fruit grove. the earth is scorched by old fire, and today, i stumbled on a 12 inch artillery shell fired from the military base inside the settlement. why the occupation army would fire an artillery shell into a burned grove i don't know.
since azmut three days ago, we have not had any direct violence from settlers, though yesterday we witnessed settlers stealing. the reason we are harvesting during ramadan, is because the settlers come to the fields while the palestinians are away and steal the olives. so we harvest almost one month early to save what is left. all of the olives from the head level and down are already stolen. so while we were harvesting in kufr kalil, we were witnesses to yet another theft.
as we picked, we saw seven settler men approach in three cars, enter the palestinian fruit grove with two large bags and begin to steal. they stole two bags of figs and pomegranates. while they were stealing, myself and a sweedish women trekked down the hill, through the prickly brush to confront them. we spoke to them, asked them why they were stealing, and they responded with the usual zionist shit, 'this is all our land...' and the other things you'd expect a zionist robot to respond with.
before we confronted them, while we were filming their thievery, we called the DCO to report the crime...as the good law abiding human rights lawyers we present ourselves to be. the DCO is meant to be the repository of this kind of complaint, but when we called, they were not interested in the crimes of the settlers, but only concerned with who WE were and why we were there. "what is your mision?'' "who are you with?' and this sort of shit. eventually, long after the settlers had left back to barach settlement with their stolen fruit, the DCO responded. we reported the crime, showed them pictures of the settlers, gave them their license plate number and all that. they didn't seem to care. more so, while we were making our complaint, another settler walked in front of us ans started stealing from a different tree in the grove. we told to soldier to stop him, the soldier talked to him, and the settler continued to steal. the soldiers refused to stop him even while we were present. they steal from the palestinians each and every day and the palestinians are powerless to use the law to stop them. while the soldier was looking at the pictures i took, he saw a picture of a wall in nablus, and scolded me. i was told that it is forbidden to take pictures in the city of nablus...not in an area, but in the entire city.
we left the harvest in the afternoon, went back to our flat to relax...hungry and thirsty. after about ten minutes of zombie-like rest, we got a phone call, a journalist friend of ours was being beaten at huwarra checkpoint. so we saddled up, and went back out, back to huwarra. that morning, when we were harvesting, we worked above huwarra, close enough to hear the soldiers curse and yell in hebrew at the palestinians all day. when we reached huwarra, the situation was as it always is, crowded and angry. there were hundreds of palestinians waiting to cross south, an ambulance (carrying our friend) was being prevented from leaving, and solders were running around point their guns at people to move them. we watched the ambulance leave, our friend inside, and he smiled form the back as we took a few pictures. he had been punched repeatedly in the face and kicked in the legs. he was bandaged and bleeding.
when we tried to leave the checkpoint, we were flagged down by a group of men who asked for help. three of their friends were being detained by occupation forces on the other side of an olive grove separating huwarra from the villages of awarta and the other south eastern areas. this is very common. since huwarra takes up to 6 hours to pass, many people, especially students who make the commute every day, take their chances and attempt to circumvent the checkpoint by walking through an olive grove, past two military posts, around a military base, and onto the other side. sometimes the palestinians get through, and save themselves a half days wait, sometimes they get caught. this afternoon, these men's friend were caught. so we went with the men, through the grove to make sure their friends were not being beaten or worse. on our way through the grove, we were spotted by two soldiers, no surprise. so now instead of three men in detention, we had ten palestinians men and three of us. the soldiers approached, punched one man in the face, cursed at us, grabbed another by the neck and used violence and intimidation without provocation. we told the soldiers we were lawyers with the red cross, attempting to sound official, and walked with the men to their detention. the soldier told me that to "teach the dogs a lesson" they would have to wait there for five hours, and be released at 9. we argued, we saw the soldiers assault more men, and made the best of our detention. i included two pictures from this adventure:
A pair of soldiers striking a palestinian in the shoulder with an m-16 for no reason.
the scene of our detention.the story is much longer but you get the idea. for about 30 minutes of our capture, a settler was invited to join the soldier and use some power. three to five soldiers stood above the palestinians who were seated on the ground, and the soldier and settler taunted, threatened and harassed the detained men. not only did the soldier allow a civilian to harass men in captivity, but he temporally deputized him and the combined occupation forces made what could have been a pleasant wait in the shade unpleasant.
eventually, the soldiers drove the men's IDs to huwarra checkpoint, made us all walk back, and said that when we got there the IDs would be returned. so we walked back with them, past the two military posts, past the two roads closed by the military, past the 7 foot high razor wire barrier encircling the fields, past the military base, past the prison and to huwarra checkpoint. we left the checkpoint, went to balata camp to visit a family, had so many fire crackers thrown at us by the kids on sugar highs and hugged some friends we hadn't seen in some time. during ramadan, the kids all have fire crackers and they love to throw them.
quite a day. harvesting olives, confronting settlers, circumventing huwarra, being detained, stopping by balata and getting to sleep early enough.
this morning, we started again at 5 and picked again.
tonight i am going to al-quds, and tomorrow into 48 to take care of some business... wish me luck i will really need it.
our recent writing:
our story from the al-jab'a roadblock removal action with pictures.our report on the start of the olive harvest in azmut...of course with pictures.
hebron settlers attack on shabat...
if you don't believe me or the report...there is video: (watch | download)
i included a third picture of me near our house in the old city, it was taken by a friend:
it doesn't really show my new palestinian prison-style hair cut, but its something. its dark and blurry so you can't see how dirty i am...good.so no time for the news... there has been some factional violence, more kidnappings and killings by the occupation and some activity from the resistance. i will catch y'all up soon.
all my love from occupied palestine, nablus' old city:
michael
p.s. the paypal will be up in a few days so please keep that money aside...it is needed badly as it is october 1 and my rent is due.
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