ISM digest 4-1-08; Breaking the siege on Gaza, Remembering Rachel Corrie, 'Land Day' demonstrations, Road 443 closed to Palestinians by High Court, ISM activist deported, Gaza's 'bigger holocaust'

[ISM Media Group]

ISM digest 4-1-08; Breaking the siege on Gaza, Remembering Rachel
Corrie, 'Land Day' demonstrations, Road 443 closed to Palestinians by
High Court, ISM activist deported, Gaza's 'bigger holocaust'

1. International Action in Solidarity with Gaza is stopped by Egyptian
authorities.
2.Demonstrations across the West Bank to commemorate 'Land Day'.
3. Ha'aretz: High Court ruling closes off Route 443 to Palestinians.
4. Jerusalem Post: PA urges Palestinians to 'return'.
5. ISM activist Blake Murphy is deported to the US.
6. Ma'an: Israeli police ordered to shoot Palestinian demonstrators
along separation wall.
7. Rachel Corrie's parents speak at Nablus demonstration to remember
those killed in Gaza.
8. Women of the Underworld: On Being Thrown Out of Israel.
9. Demonstration at Beit Furik checkpoint calling for its removal.
10. 5 years on, we remember Rachel Corrie.
11. Demonstration takes place on playground near Qalqiliya, two days
before it is due to be demolished.
12. Gaza's 'bigger holocaust'.
13. Demonstrations take place in Gaza and the West Bank for
International Women's Day.
14. Anti-Wall demonstrations marked by violence.
15. Adalah-NY: In Ha'aretz interview Leviev "spins" protests against
his companies' settlement construction.
16. Breaking the Siege of Gaza, Taking to the Streets.
17. Non-violent march through Ramallah streets ends reading the names
of the fallen in Gaza at the Muqata.
18. Palestinians are shot as they take to the streets in response to
Gaza massacres.

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1. International Action in Solidarity with Gaza is stopped by Egyptian
authorities

On March 31st, an international action to take supplies to the Rafah
border crossing into Gaza was stopped in the Sinai by Egyptian
authorities. As protesters attempted to 'Walk to Gaza', they were
threatened with arrest before eventually turning back to Cairo.

Original press release: End the siege of Gaza!

End the world complicity to the Israeli occupation and crimes against
the Palestinian people!

A group of international participants decided to act against our
countries' complicity to the inhumane and devastating siege of the
Gaza Strip.

A delegation including participants from the Basque country, Austria,
Scotland, Norway, Italy, Netherlands, France, Spain, Greece, Turkey,
Palestine, Jordan, America and India intend to reach the Egyptian side
of the border with Gaza in order to deliver a truckload of food and
medicine and in protest against the inhuman siege imposed on the
people of Gaza, with the complicity of our own governments.

We protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people and condemn
the hypocrisy of European and other governments who blatantly violate
the democratic will of the Palestinian people and have taken positions
in the interest of the Israeli and US agenda of occupation and
domination.

We strongly condemn the European Union for backtracking on their
responsibility, as stipulated in past agreements, to facilitate and
oversee the flow of people through the Rafah border crossing. The
European governments are therefore directly complicit in the Israeli-
imposed siege of the Palestinian population of Gaza, their confinement
to an open air prison and denial of access to the most basic goods and
services, resulting in massive suffering and a humanitarian disaster.

Our protest must also be seen in the light of the 60th anniversary of
the 1948 Nakba -the massive expulsion and forced flight of the
Palestinian people as a result of the Zionist aggression which paved
the way for the creation of the state of Israel- as well as the on-
going Nakba and Israeli occupation, marked by expansion policies,
expropriation and bloodshed.

We emphasize the urgent need to enforce and broaden the global
campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the
Israeli Apartheid State and its policies of occupation and oppression.

Solidarity with the people of Palestine!!!
We call on everyone wishing to participate to join the delegation to
Rafah!!!

European Campaign Against the Siege of Gaza

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2.Demonstrations across the West Bank to commemorate 'Land Day'.

Demonstration in Umm Salamuna calls for solidarity from Arab nations

On Sunday, March 30th, more than 200 protesters took to the main
street in Umm Salamuna to demonstrate against the Apartheid wall. What
is usually a small weakly demonstration in Umm Salamuna, was this week
host to an increased amount of demonstrators in honor of Land Day.
Local community members, students from El Sawara high school from the
nearby El Masara village, 5 Israelis and 3 Internationals attended
this week's protest. But this increased amount of protesters meant a
higher level of military presence. The demonstrators walked from the
center of Umm Salamuna and up the main road, where they were stopped
by the army who had blocked the road with barbed wire. Four people
suffered minor injuries, when the army physically pushed the
protesters away with the barbed wire.

Two members of the community spoke about land day and the significance
of the 1976 events when 6 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli
army. They also sent out a call for solidarity to the Arab Nations
meeting in Damascus this week

To date, 14 km of the wall have been completed in the Umm Salamuna
area. The construction of the apartheid wall in this area, 12 km from
the green line, means the confiscation of thousands of dunums of
fertile farmland from the local people. This land will be annexed to
the nearby Efrat settlement, which has announced the construction of
54 additional housing units. Local farmers access to the land has been
made difficult; daily, they are harassed or denied access to their
land by the Israeli army.

Water accessibility has also become a problem in Umm Salamuna. The
Efrat settlement is polluting their source of water, as well as
leaving only a short supply of water, especially in the summer months,
for the local Palestinian villages.
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Demonstration at Huwarra checkpoint to mark Land day

Two people were arrested at the Huwarra checkpoint in Nablus on 30th
March, when approximately 250 Palestinians and internationals
protested there as part of the Land Day actions and commemorations
that are taking place throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Whilst the demonstration was a collaborative effort between many local
organisations, including local political parties; various health care
committees; the union of women's committees; Tanweer centre for
cultural enlightenment; the Disabled society and representatives from
the Nablus refugee camps and villages, organisers were disappointed
with the turnout. "There are not many people here because they are
afraid. These days...the soldiers will kill any person," said Myasser, a
member of the Women's Committee.

The demonstration to protest against the system of checkpoints that
imprisons Nablus, congregated approximately 500 meters from the
Huwarra checkpoint, before marching towards it, led by member of the
Nablus disabled society. The march paused to witness the erection of a
large billboard, which read: 41 Years of Israeli Occupation; 2738 Days
of Barriers and Siege; Until When? We insist on our Right of Freedom,
Justice and Peace.

As the protesters approached the checkpoint, they were confronted by
two Israeli army jeeps, obstructing their path. Israeli soldiers told
the protesters to go back, but demonstrators responded "No! You go
back!" and continued their advance.

The Israeli soldiers then began to drive their jeeps forwards,
attempting to push the demonstration back, but protesters held firm.
"This is a peaceful protest", some shouted in English, whilst others
yelled in Arabic "This is apartheid!" As more soldiers and border
police arrived, tear gas and sound bombs were thrown into the crowd,
in an attempt to disperse it.

Two residents of Nablus were arrested, and one man injured, as police
charged at the protesters, hitting demonstrators with their guns and
threatening people with tear gas and sound bombs.

The crowd finally dispersed as more and more soldiers arrived,
advancing upon the demonstrators, throwing numerous sound bombs, and
taking up sniper positions on the embankments.

Land Day demonstrations will continue throughout the West Bank today
and tomorrow, as Palestinians commemorate the deaths of six
Palestinians at popular protests against land confiscation 32 years
ago today.
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Tulkarm Continues Land Day Commemoration, Israeli Military injures 2

On Friday, March 28, 2008 two demonstrators were injured with rubber-
coated steel bullets (one seriously), as the second of Tulkarm's Land
Day demonstrations took place in the village of Deir al Ghusun, 8km
north of the center of Tulkarm. The focus of the demonstration was
against the separation wall - which prevents farmers accessing their
land, as well as preventing freedom of movement.

Approximately 100 people took part in the demonstration, which was
organized by the local municipality, in conjunction with the local
popular committee and heads of political parties in the area.
Protesters carried banners that read: "On Land Day we will continue
our struggle against the wall; the occupation; and the siege."

Demonstrators marched to the wall that separates them from their lands
and families, chanting and waving flags. As they approached the gate
that allows only ten percent of farmers to pass through to their lands
on the other side of the wall, Israeli soldiers threw sound bombs into
the crowd, causing protesters to scatter. The soldiers then fired tear
gas and rubber bullets at the protesters from behind the gate,
injuring one man, Fariz Tanib, aged 50 years, in the leg, and an
employee of the local municipality, Hazem Omar, aged 41 years, in the
forehead. Hazem was rushed to hospital with a head injury that
required 4 stitches.

The protest marked a refusal to submit to the loss of land that has
occurred since 1948 - when 18,000 dunnums of village land were
assigned to Israel by the green line; and more recently in 2004 when
the separation wall isolated farmers from an additional 2,400 dunnums
of their land, as well as taking 300 dunnums for the route of the wall
itself. Abu Sayad, member of the Deir al Ghusun popular committee,
says that now there is only 6,000 dunnums left for the village, which
has a population of 10,000.

Local political party leaders today committed to continue the
demonstrations against the wall weekly.
----------
IMEMC: Israeli military attacks weekly Bil'in protest, 17 injured
including 7 journalists

On Friday March 28, 2008 scores of residents of Bil'in, a village near
the central West Bank city of Ramallah, along with their international
and Israeli supporters, took to the streets to conduct their weekly
nonviolent protest against the Israeli wall and illegal confiscation
of the village's land. Israeli troops manning the wall and its gate
that cuts off the villagers from their land showered the protesters
with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets immediately after the
protesters reached the gate.

17 people were injured including seven journalists. Medical sources
identified some of the injured journalists as Fadi Al Arouri, a
photojournalist, Najud al Qassem, a cameraman, Moheb Al Bargouthi, a
reporter, and George Haltah, a cameraman.

Also among those injured was Eyad Burnat, of the Bil'in Popular
Committee Against the Wall, who said, "I was trying to protect one of
the village youth who was attacked by the soldiers when soldiers
attacked and beat me up."

The parents of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist who was
killed by the Israeli army in Gaza five years ago, took part in the
Bil'in protest. Her father, Mr. Craig Corrie, praised the nonviolent
resistance in Bil'in and called for more support for the Palestinians
in their struggle for freedom. Rachel Corrie was killed in 2003 in
Rafah city, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, when an army
bulldozer ran over her while she was protecting a local family home
from being demolished by the Israeli army.

For original article: http://www.imemc.org/article/53799
----------
Tulkarm Holds First of Many Actions Commemorating Land Day

On Thursday 27th March, the city of Tulkarm began the first of its
Land Day demonstrations - a national event held on 30th March each
year to commemorate the killing of seven Palestinians citizens of
Israel by Israeli soldiers in 1976, during protests over land
confiscation.

The city began by replanting trees along Al Khadouri Street - once a
tree-lined avenue, now barren because the trees were destroyed by
Israeli bombing during the first and second Intifadas. Organized by a
collaboration of local and national institutions, such as PARC, the
Ministry of Agriculture, the Farmer's Union, the local municipality
and Palestine Technical University, around one hundred conifer trees
were prepared to rehabilitate the street.

Approximately forty children from local primary schools,
internationals, Israelis and local Tulkarm identities such as the
mayor, all took part in the planting, which extended from the site
where the first tree was destroyed, all the way to the Israeli-owned
Geshuri chemical factories that cause enormous pollution and health
problems for the residents of Tulkarm. Asme, from the Public Relations
department of Palestine Technical University, explained that involving
the children in the action by getting them to plant trees helped to
"explain to the children the importance of the land; to mark the
anniversary of Land Day in an active way. When the child plants the
tree, and every day he sees the tree, it will be very good. He will
watch it growing."

Once the street was completely re-lined with trees (identical in
species to those destroyed), approximately 150 demonstrators marched
the length of the street, in the direction of the Geshuri chemical
factories, and then along the compound wall of the factories
themselves, to protest against the presence of such dangerously
polluting factories in Tulkarm.

The Israeli chemical factories, including factories for ammonia,
fertilizers, plastics, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, were
originally built within Israel, near Tel Aviv, explains local activist
and journalist Abdul Karim. They were forced to shutdown in 1984,
however, because of the danger of the pollutants they produce. They
were relocated to Tulkarm in 1987, onto land confiscated by the
Israeli government, a large percentage of which belonged to the
agricultural college of An Najar university. The local residents of
Tulkarm are not the only ones concerned about the dangerous pollution
that purportedly gives Tulkarm one of the highest rates of cancer in
the West Bank (some claim in the world) - Abdul Karim reports that
Israelis on the other side of the factories (which border on Israel
and are in fact surrounded by the separation wall) protested against
the factories also. However, because the location is within the West
Bank, Israeli authorities apparently claim that it is out of their
jurisdiction. The Israeli's protests did, however, grant one
concession: now every year in May, (the one month in the year when the
winds blow from East to West, instead of from West to East) the
factories are forced to halt their operations, so that nearby
Israeli's do not suffer from the pollution that is blown across
Tulkarm for the other eleven months of the year.

Demonstrators gathered at a disused gas station across from the
factories - damaged by Israeli army tanks in 2002, and forcibly
abandoned along with all of the other shops and restaurants along this
once bustling strip, due to persistent army presence and firing from
2001-2003, when the area became a combat zone.

The owner of the abandoned gas station addressed the crowd, explaining
that what happened to his building is reflective of what is occurring
across the entire West Bank, and called for the chemical factories to
be uprooted. Jamal Said, advisor to the governor of Tulkarm, then
spoke of the high cancer rates in Tulkarm, and the general negative
effects of the chemical factories on the health of those living in all
of Tulkarm, but especially those living close to the factories.

These actions marked the first in a week of Land Day activities for
Tulkarm, which included two more demonstrations against the separation
wall, as well as photo exhibitions and festivals throughout the city.

--------------------
3. Ha'aretz: High Court ruling closes off Route 443 to Palestinians

The interim decision issued 10 days ago by the High Court of Justice
on the use of Route 443 marks the first time the justices have issued
a ruling to close a road traversing occupied territory to Palestinian
use, for the convenience of Israeli travelers. The interim ruling on a
petition by six Palestinian villages adjacent to the highway, which
links the coastal plain to Jerusalem, gave the state six months to
report progress on the construction of an alternative road for
Palestinian use. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which
submitted the petition on behalf of Palestinians who have been injured
by the travel ban, noted that had the justices sincerely sought to
consider opening the road to all, without regard to race or
nationality, they would not have requested details on the building of
an alternate route, which entails the destruction of additional land
and costs tens of millions of shekels.

The decision was issued after both parties argued their positions.
According to ACRI, the ruling marks a High Court precedent in
upholding a policy of separation and discrimination with regard to
movement that has already earned the name "road apartheid." It
violates international law, ACRI holds, permitting the expropriation
of land from the local population for the protection of the occupying
power.

About 10 kilometers of Route 443 was paved on private Palestinian land
in the early 1980s, on the grounds it was needed for the West Bank
Palestinian population (and not for "security purposes"). A large part
of the expropriated land had been earmarked for a housing development
for local teachers. In response to a petition from a Palestinian whose
land was expropriated for the road, the High Court ruled that the
military government cannot plan and build a road system in an area
held by its soldiers if the purpose is solely for the creation of a
"service road" for the state. As a result, the state promised that the
road was to be open to all.

Shortly after the start of the second Intifada, after attacks on
Israeli vehicles, the army closed the road to Palestinians. MK Ephraim
Sneh, deputy defense minister at the time, admitted in an interview
that the closure was not approved by the political leadership. The
closure cut off the villages on either side of the road from their
main city, Ramallah, and the rest of the West Bank. In court, the
Civil Administration offered to issue travel permits for 80 vehicles,
for a population of about 30,000 villagers. The villagers refused to
cooperate with Israeli authorities and continued their legal battle
for right to use the road on their lands. ACRI claimed in court that
the Israel Defense Forces had recently begun frequent raids on the six
villages that included the use of illumination bombs, pressure
grenades, rubber-tipped bullets and live rounds. The IDF Spokesman's
Office said at the time that these were routine operations in response
to the throwing or rocks on vehicles traveling on Route 443.

ACRI officials say they fear the High Court stamp of approval for the
illegal and immoral policy regarding Route 443 could be cited as a
precedent for additional human rights violations. The petitioners
protest what they call a lack of judicial process, noting that even
though the decision was on an important principle, it was issued
without any accompany explanation and with absolutely no reference to
the points raised by the petitioners. In addition, they note, the
alternative road will not provide for the needs of hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians in areas bordering Route 443.

For original article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=965778

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4. Jerusalem Post: PA urges Palestinians to 'return'.

The Palestinian Authority is planning to mark Israel's 60th
anniversary by calling on all Palestinians living abroad to converge
on Israel by land, sea and air.

The plan, drawn by Ziad Abu Ein, a senior Fatah operative and Deputy
Minister for Prisoners' Affairs in the Palestinian Authority, states
that the Palestinians have decided to implement United Nations
Resolution 194 regarding the refugees.

Article 11 of the resolution, which was passed in December 1948, says
that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with
their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest
practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the
property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to
property which, under principles of international law or in equity,
should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."

The initiative is the first of its kind and is clearly aimed at
embarrassing Israel during the anniversary celebrations by
highlighting the issue of the "right of return" for the refugees.

Entitled "The Initiative of Return and Coexistence," the plan suggests
that the PA has abandoned a two-state solution in favor of one state
where all Arabs and Jews would live together.

"The Palestinians, backed by all those who believe in peace,
coexistence, human rights and the UN resolutions, shall recruit all
their energies and efforts to return to their homeland and live with
the Jews in peace and security," the plan says.

"Fulfilling the right of return is a human, moral and legal will that
can't be denied by the Jews or the international community. On the
[60th] anniversary of the great suffering, the Palestinian people are
determined to end this injustice."

Abu Ein's initiative, which has won the backing of many PA leaders in
Ramallah, calls on all Israelis to welcome the Palestinians "who will
be returning to live together with them in the land of peace."

The plan calls on the refugees to return to Israel on May 14, 2008
with their suitcases and tents so that they could settle in their
former villages and towns. The refugees are also requested to carry UN
flags upon their return and to be equipped with their UNRWA-issued ID
cards.

The Arab countries hosting Palestinian refugees are requested to
facilitate the return of the refugees by opening their borders and
allowing them to march toward Israel. The plan specifically refers to
Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, whose governments are asked to
provide logistic support to allow the refugees to carry out their
mission.

Palestinian refugees living in the US, EU, Canada and Latin America
are requested to use their foreign passports to fly to Ben-Gurion
Airport from May 14-16. The plan calls for the Palestinians to hire
dozens of boats flying UN flags that will converge on Israeli ports
simultaneously.

To ensure international backing, the plan calls to invite world
leaders, the UN secretary-general, journalists and legal experts from
around the world to declare their support for the Palestinians' "right
of return." The Palestinians, in return, would promise to practice
their right peacefully and to denounce terror and violence.

Arab governments are requested to provide both financial and political
backing for the initiative. The plan stresses that the Palestinians
can no longer expect to achieve the "right of return" at the
negotiating table with Israel. "We must take matters into our own
hands," it states. "Negotiations, slogans and UN resolutions are not
going to bring us our rights."

For original article:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1205420712985&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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5. ISM activist Blake Murphy is deported to the US

Blake Murphy, an American activist from Bedford, MA, working in the
West Bank, was beaten and arrested by Israeli army and police forces
on Friday 14th March 2008. He has had to face a series of evidently
false charges from the Israeli authorities due to his work supporting
non-violent resistance to the occupation of Palestine. He was deported
to the United States on Friday 21st March after a week in detention.
While in custody, Blake has had many of his legal rights abused by the
Israeli authorities.

Blake was arrested while attending the weekly demonstration in the
village of Bi'lin, where the separation wall annexes much of the
Palestinians' land. Blake was singled out for arrest during the
demonstration by the Israeli forces. He was violently assaulted and
pepper sprayed before being taken away and subsequently arrested.
Blake was then beaten and abused by the soldiers while handcuffed.

Upon arriving at the detention center, after being beaten and sprayed
in the eyes with mace, Blake was interrogated while still recovering
from the effects of the mace. The police only offered him water to
rinse the mace from his eyes, which only makes the effects of the mace
worse. There have been days when Blake has been given only bread as a
meal.

Injuries inflicted by Israeli solders on Blake Murphy were severe
enough that he was taken to the hospital. He appeared in court on the
15th of March, where the judge prolonged his detention until the 18th
March. He was told that he would have to reappear in court on the
18th. Blake was woken up on the 18th at 5:00am and taken from the
detention center to the court. He was held there for 8 hours, three
hours past the time he was told he would appear, locked in a room with
only 8 chairs and 15 other people. At the end of this long day, Blake
was informed that a mistake had been made and there had never been an
appearance scheduled for him on that day. While in custody, Blake was
denied a translator in court, been brought before a judge without his
lawyer being informed, and also been made to appear for a trial that
was canceled without him being informed.

Blake Murphy had been working for the last 8 and a half months in the
Palestinian Occupied Territories with the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM). For over 6 months he was working as the full-time
media coordinator for the ISM and was therefore highly involved in
supporting Palestinian non-violent resistance towards the occupation.
It is for this reason that he was targeted by the Israeli authorities
and has undergone such inhumane treatment.

For video if his arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzIAYQmIDRU&eurl=http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/page/2/

--------------------
6. Ma'an: Israeli police ordered to shoot Palestinian demonstrators
along separation wall

Israeli authorities have given new directive to border police
operating along the Israeli separation wall surrounding Jerusalem
enabling them to open fire directly on Palestinians who try to
demonstrate near the barrier, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on
Wednesday.

According to the new rule, sniping is forbidden if there are Israeli
or foreign citizens amongst demonstrators.

For original article: http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=28361

--------------------
7. Rachel Corrie's parents speak at Nablus demonstration to remember
those killed in Gaza

On March 20th, 200 residents of Nablus and internationals gathered to
commemorate the five-year anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie
by Israeli forces in Rafah, Gaza, as she tried to prevent a bulldozer
from demolishing a family home. The demonstration also protested the
ongoing attacks on Gaza by the Israeli army, and the occupation of
Iraq - taking place on the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion.

Present were bereaved parents of Rachel Corrie, Craig and Cindy
Corrie, who were visiting Nablus for the first time. The Corries
expressed their gratitude for the continuing remembrence of their
daughter, but stressed the importance of focussing on the atrocities
carried out against Palestinians everyday. Her mother stated:

"While we remember Rachel, it is important to remember the children of
Palestine, because Rachel knew and Rachel taught us that it is about
the people of Palestine, not about Rachel.

"We know that the people of Nablus have suffered for many, many years,
and have suffered many, many losses that are like our loss, except
they go on and on for them."

Working tirelessly on education about the plight of the Palestinian
people, through lobbying efforts, public speaking and the
establishment of The Rachel Corrie Foundation, this is the Corries'
third visit to Palestine. Of their work, Rachel's father, Craig Corrie
said:

"There's nothing more we can do for Rachel, but we can all work so
that these children, our children - for they are all our children -
can have a life that we would all want our children to have. And we
will work so that bulldozers do not destroy the garden walls of a
family's garden, but that they destroy the walls that imprison us
here, and people everywhere."

The protesters carried 122 black balloons, to commemorate the 121
Palestinians killed in Gaza during the Israeli army Operation Hot
Winter, as well as one for Rachel Corrie. The also carried Palestinian
flags and pictures of those killed in Gaza.

Representatives from many organisations in Nablus addressed the crowd,
including the Women's Committee; Tanweer Centre for Cultural
Enlightenment; and Centre for Global Consciousness; as well as
Palestinians whose family members had been murdered by Israeli forces.
Many spoke of the links between the occupation of Palestine and the
occupation of Iraq, demanding freedom and justice for both.

These connections were also expressed by Rachel Corrie, which she
wrote to her parents from Palestine before she died, which her mother
Cindy shared with the crowd,

"I think freedom for Palestine could be an incredible source of hope
for people struggling all over the world.''

---------------------
8. Women of the Underworld: On Being Thrown Out of Israel

By Starhawk

What stays with me most from the last few days is the kindness of
women. Just ordinary women, caught in bad circumstances, being nice to
one another.

I've spent a lot of the last week being searched, questioned,
detained, jailed, and ultimately denied entry and deported from the
State of Israel-that land which I had been raised to believe would
always be the ultimate refuge for anyone born Jewish. But not,
apparently, for me.

I was refused entrance because of work I have done in the past with
the International Solidarity Movement, a group which supports
nonviolent resistance against the Occupation. ISM works in the West
Bank and Gaza, bringing internationals as witnesses, moral and
practical support for nonviolent Palestinian initiatives-like the
ongoing campaign against the Wall, which the Israeli military is
building to protect the illegal settlements which have encroached
deeply into the territory once designated for a Palestinian state.

I came to join the ISM out of a deep belief that nonviolence is a
powerful means of struggle, that the Jews of Israel who after all are
my own people are good people and a nonviolent struggle would touch
their hearts and turn the tide toward real justice. I saw efforts to
establish a nonviolent movement as a small ray of hope in an endless
cycle of killing begetting more killing and revenge begetting revenge.

Four years ago, I spent a month or more working with the ISM. When I
left the country, I was questioned and warned that I might have
difficulty returning.

But I chose to try, anyway. This time my intention was to work with
ecological groups, doing permaculture presentations and trainings. I
had invitations from three green Israeli organizations, and the
assurance of a lawyer that that would be enough to get me in.

The lawyer was wrong.

There's a jail that they take people to, who are refused entry into a
country or being deported for one reason or another. It's not a
horrific place-no one was being beaten or tortured, no screams echoed
on the concrete walls. Those places exist, too, and most Palestinian
men and many women have spent time in them, under conditions so much
worse than anything I have ever experienced that the strength it takes
to survive is hard to fathom.

But this jail is just a kind of limbo, a place to wait, for a forced
flight back home, or for a few lucky or intrepid ones with lawyers,
for a hearing and a trial. Most people are there for a few hours,
maybe a day or two. Some are there longer, as their court cases drag
on.

There's a human tide of immigration that washes around the world,
lured by the gravitational pull of jobs and hope. Now and then, the
waves crash up against the seawall of a border and leave behind a
human being as the sea leaves mementoes of driftwood and shells.

Now I had become a piece of that detritus. And for the other women
with me, some tide of hope has also gone out. The first night, I am
with Tina, the young American law student of Palestinian descent. She
and her brother are plucked from a student tour group and refused
entry. All the indignant protests of their law professor, traveling
with them, and their professional friends cannot change their fate.
Tina, in her headscarf and white poncho, has spent months planning and
organizing the trip, and she sobs in disappointment when it finally
becomes clear she will not be able to stay.

With us is Zmerna, who I begin to call the Bewildered Brazilian. She
is slim, dark-haired, dressed in her good jewelry and high heels. She
speaks nothing but Portuguese, and no one else speaks her language-not
the guards, not the Security or the Ministry of Interior or anyone she
has contact with through the whole process. A couple of us speak
Spanish and at times manage to communicate some simple concepts.

"Prison?" Zmerna says in alarm as the guards marched us into the
locked entryway. Tina and her brother have been told they were going
to a hotel, where they would have wifi and access to their luggage and
computers.

"Not prison," says the guard. But they separate us from Tina's
brother, and lock us into a small room full of bunk beds. I say, if
you're locked in and can't get out, you're in jail. It's not the worst
jail I've ever been in. I note its attractions: plastic mattresses,
wool blankets, a toilet with a door that actually closed, a shower.
Tina has a horror of germs, and has to force herself to use the
facilities. I try to comfort and reassure her. She tries to comfort
me. We both sit down and try to comfort Zmerna, who is crying on the
other bunk.

Tina's course, which she will now miss, is, ironically enough, a human
rights course. I tell her she deserves an 'A'.

"Get some sleep," I said. "You'll need your rest." Bur I find it hard
to take my own advice. There's an energetic field that seems to
underlie Israel, like a nest of high voltage wires that short circuit
continuously, buzzing and jangling. It's hard to hold an uninterrupted
conversation, a train of thought. I find myself able to doze lightly,
but not able to relax and truly sleep. My mind keeps buzzing and I
keep fighting with it, doing my meditations, grounding, trying to draw
some help and nurturance from the land itself. But all I can really
feel are walls and fences, barriers to any flow.

By morning, Zmerna and Tina are gone. I refuse the first flights that
are offered to me, waiting to hear back from the lawyer my friends
have hastily arranged to take my case. One of the guards, round and
hard as a billiard ball, with a round beer belly and sharp, round
eyes, tries to intimidate me, shouting and bringing out a pair of
handcuffs to show me. But his heart isn't really in it, and he soon
gives up and admits that they will not physically force me to get on a
plane.

Instead they move me to a new room, with Sol, a young Phillipina with
an acne-scarred face, six months pregnant, who is trying to resist
going back to the Philippines. With her is Marie, from Moldova on the
border of Romania and Ukraine, who has been here for a month, while
her lawyer push her case slowly through the courts. Sol is heavy
bodied and tired and sad; Marie is slim, blond, and radiantly
cheerful, washing out her underwear in the sink, stalking about the
cell in her gold, high heeled sandals, creaming her face and
chattering on the cell phones. They are economic refugees. In Israel,
one of the results of the Intifada and the closures is that the low-
level jobs once done by Palestinians are now taken by a stream of
immigrants from Russia and Central Europe, Africa and Asia. They come,
as immigrants all over the world come, with the hope of bettering
themselves, making money to send home, finding love and fortune. When
they overstay their welcome, or when the system decides, for its own
reasons, not to admit them, they end up here.

Marie gives Sol most of her lunch. I try to give her mine. For some
reason, I just can't eat. It's not my usual reaction to stress-
usually, the worse things get the more I'll eat anything in front of
me. But for once in my life, I have entirely lost my appetite, even
though I tell myself that I should eat something. "Eat when you can,
sleep when you can, and whenever you get a chance to pee, pee!" is my
usual rule. But this time I just can't force down the mystery meat,
the plentiful but greasy and dead-looking chicken wings, potatoes and
rice. I do eat some aged salad, and an orange.

To cheer Sol up, I offer to read her cards, as I have my pocket Tarot
deck with me. Her face lights up as I predict something good happening
for her, soon. Love, celebration, joyfulness-the cars are like a
window into all the bright possibilities on the other side of the
walls.

Marie's cards show trouble ahead, but I comb through them for every
hint of good fortune. Strength is at her crown. "You are a strong
woman," I tell her. In truth I am amazed at her ability to smile, to
radiate cheerfulness and grace after a month in this place, which, for
all its amenities, is still driving me crazing with boredom after less
than a day.

"Ani 'zkah," she agrees, smiling and nodding with confidence. "I am
strong."

And then Sol gets called by the guards, to be ready to go. Whatever is
happening to her, she seems joyful about it. The cards' prediction is
confirmed, and she leaves us, smiling.

The guards, for reasons of their own, move me to a different cell. I
am settling into the solitude when the door opens and they usher in
Irina, from Russia-Siberia, to be exact. Irina is plump and middle-
aged, like me, and she makes herself at home, taking off her blouse
and relaxing in her slip. She wears a gold icon around her neck and
gold, spiked earrings and she tells me she is a doctor, a gynecologist
who has been in Israel for eight years. She speaks fluent Hebrew but
little English, and we communicate in Hebrew words I drag up from my
deep memory like archaeological relics. She has a big bagful of food
and drink, and she makes me drink a cup of Orangina and shares her
face cream. Although we are both fifty-six years old, I can't help but
notice how much better preserved she appears. Her hair is still brown,
her face neatly made up, her mouth a red rosebud and her skin clear of
wrinkles. Whereas I have no hairbrush-it disappeared in the original
search at the airport, my skin is dry and covered with a fine net of
wrinkles, and I am coming to more and more resemble the Hag of the
Underworld.

Irina does what I think of as 'the woman thing'...she flirts with the
guards, purses up her little rosebud mouth and lowers her eyes, scolds
them from time to time, pleads with them. I can't do it. It's not that
I don't know how, I just can't bring myself to do it even though I
know that the way I am with them-clear, calm and stubborn-makes them
angry.

Irina comforts me as I get bad news from my lawyer, news that
convinces me that I have little chance of winning a case. My own cards
look consistently dismal.

Irina goes off to Moscow. I try again to sleep. In the night I am
jolted awake with the conviction that I have made a terrible mistake
in abandoning my case. But in the morning, when I might still get word
to my lawyer to carry on with it, the cards say over and over again
that it is useless, and time to make a strategic retreat. I can't ever
know, really, if they're right or wrong, if I've lost all objectivity,
if my own inner sense of agreement with their verdict is accurate or
influenced by the stress of going cold turkey from all my usual
addictions and comforts: food, tea, exercise, and above all, work. In
the end, I have to make some decision, so I decide to go.

The morning brings two sweet, doll-like Filipina women, sisters who
have come, they say, to spend Holy Week with a friend. Immigration has
not believed them, and after yelling and shouting and threatening, is
sending them back. They are slim and delicate and beautiful, and one
speaks English quite well. She is studying for a Bachelor of Science
in Tourism, she tells me, and says, again and again, repeating it like
a mantra: "You come to the Philippines, you will not need visa." They
huddle on the bunk in a state of shock, two delicate, frightened
birds, while I urge them to eat, to rest, and assure them that they
don't need to be afraid, that nothing terrible will happen to them.
Finally I read their cards, too. I feel like I have become the Hag of
the Underworld. I'm glad to see their faces brighten a bit, imagining
they can go home now with at least a good story and a bit of
confidence in a brighter future predicted for them by the old Witch in
the bowls of the Israeli jails.

Just as I finish the second sister's reading, the guards come to
escort me to the plane.

I'm in the back of the van with the tall, good-looking guard whom
Irina told me was the good one, the one with a heart of gold. "I
noticed you were doing something with the cards," he says. "You read
them? What are they called?

And while they load my luggage onto the plane, I read his palm.

Israel is a place where faith is either magnified or abandoned, where
belief becomes delusion easily, shifts to fanaticism, or burns itself
out into cynical ash. From my first visit there with my Hebrew High
School student trip when I was fifteen, For me, something in the air
or the water or the energy always challenges every system of belief or
faith I come in with: from my childhood faith in a personal God that
deserted me in the midst of the Hebrew High School youth trip I was on
at fifteen, to my belief that nonviolence would easily turn the hearts
of the Israelis back toward justice for all people of the land. And my
faith in a refuge.

But I continue to believe in this: that in even the terrible places of
the world, we find. The small hands of sisterhood, reaching across
boundaries and borders and walls, across gaps of culture and language
and belief to do acts of kindness for one another. And that in the
end, that power is strong enough to break down the walls.

Starhawk

--------------------
9. Demonstration at Beit Furik checkpoint calling for its removal

At 10am on Saturday 15th March 2008 approximately 250 Palestinians and
internationals gathered at the Beit Furik checkpoint near Nablus to
protest against the checkpoint. Internationals and residents of Nablus
joined villagers from Beit Furik and Beit Dajan to march to the
checkpoint - one of seven that surrounds the city of Nablus, cutting
the nearby villages off from the city. Organised by the Beit Furik
municipality, protesters demanded the removal of the checkpoint, which
is open only from 6am until 9pm each day, only allowing ambulances to
pass through after 9pm. The checkpoint also only allows residents of
Beit Furik and Beit Dajan to pass through, denying any visits by
friends or family to the village. Even this is uncertain though, the
mayor of Beit Furik, Abu Hakeem, explained - often the soldiers
prevent the passage of any persons through the checkpoint, including
those seeking medical treatment.

Demonstrators were quickly confronted by Israeli soldiers, who
demanded they move back from the checkpoint and cease filming the
demonstration, and closed the checkpoint, refusing to allow anyone to
pass. Protesters held their ground for over an hour, whilst soldiers
wielded guns and tear gas threateningly, despite standing just one
metre from the demonstrators.

After long negotiations by the mayor of Beit Furik and a
representative from Beit Dajan, the commander of the Israeli soldiers
announced that anyone from the demonstration who wished to pass
through to the checkpoint would be allowed to do so, reopening the
checkpoint to the queues of pedestrians and cars that had formed.

The Beit Furik checkpoint causes major obstacles to the lives of
residents of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan, often preventing them from
reaching work and university, with students suffering particularly
during exam periods, as well as creating economic depression for the
villages who cannot easily transport goods and must pay a lot of money
to reach Nablus. This is especially true for residents of Beit Dajan
whose main road to Nablus was closed by Israeli forces in 2000, almost
doubling the length of the route from Beit Dajan to Nablus.

The peaceful demonstration demanded not only the removal of the
checkpoint, but also an end to the Israeli occupation that imposes the
checkpoints throughout the West Bank. Protesters also carried banners
calling for an end to the siege of Gaza, and protesting against the
recent Israeli army attacks that killed over 100 people, including 25
children and injured more than 200 Palestinians.

This demonstration marks the first in a planned series of fortnightly
demonstrations against the checkpoint, demanding its removal.

--------------------
10. 5 years on, we remember Rachel Corrie

Original article by Louise France published in The Observer newspaper,
2nd March 2008.

It is impossible to underestimate quite how much life for Rachel
Corrie's family has changed since she was killed by an Israeli army
Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in the Gaza Strip on 16 March 2003. As
Rachel's elder sister Sarah puts it: 'What was normal doesn't exist
for us now.'

'After Rachel was killed.' When I meet the Corries, it swiftly becomes
clear that there is a great deal they want to speak out about, but it
is these four words, heavy with loss, that they have repeated most
over the past five years.

Before Rachel was killed trying to prevent a Palestinian home in Rafah
from being demolished, they were a pretty ordinary West Coast American
family. It has been said in the past that she came from a left-
leaning, alternative background, but this is not strictly accurate.
Craig Corrie is an insurance executive, who has spent 24 years of his
career working for the same firm. Cindy Corrie is a musician and
teacher. Since the mid-Seventies they have mostly lived in the same
slate-grey house in Olympia, a small town with many coffee shops an
hour's drive out of Seattle, and it was here that they raised their
three children, Chris, Sarah and Rachel. True, the Corries liked to
debate politics around the kitchen table. They also liked to talk
about the cats and the chickens, going skiing at the weekend, the
vegetable plot, the family holiday cottage in Minnesota. Whenever the
conversation did turn towards the Palestinian issue, Craig and Cindy's
sympathies would instinctively fall on the Israeli side.

After Rachel was killed, life changed abruptly. Over the past five
years they've had to deal with the loss of their youngest daughter, at
the age of 23. Cindy, a quietly spoken woman not given to over-
statement or, indeed, self-pity, describes a period of mourning that
will never really end.

Rachel's parents and sister have not returned to their jobs, although
their schedule is relentless. Last week Craig and Cindy were in
Vancouver. Next week they're heading to Alabama. As part of their work
for the Rachel Corrie Foundation, an organisation they set up after
their daughter died, to promote peace and justice in the Middle East,
there are school talks and early-morning radio interviews about the
human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, lobbying to have her
death properly investigated and campaign meetings supporting their bid
to fulfill Rachel's ambition to establish a sister city project
between Rafah and Olympia. Twice they have visited the contentious
40km by 10km strip of land where Rachel died. Before Rachel was
killed, Cindy had never been to Europe, let alone the chaotic,
squalid, potentially dangerous refugee camp that is Rafah.

The routine of day-to-day life has been cast aside. Their two-acre
garden, from where you can see the creek where the children used to
swim in the summer and the rushes in which they'd play hide-and-seek,
has an elegiac, abandoned feel. They're away so often the family cat
now lives with Sarah. Even if Cindy had the time to cook dinner, she'd
have nowhere to serve it up. Every surface of the house is smothered
with paperwork.

Rachel had been a volunteer with the International Solidarity
Movement, a non-violent pro-Palestinian activist group. Within days of
her death, the eloquent and vivid emails that she had sent from Gaza
were published, with the consent of the Corries, in the Guardian. In
2005 they became the inspiration for an acclaimed play, My Name Is
Rachel Corrie, based on Rachel's writing. Following two sell-out runs
in London and a controversial last-minute cancellation in New York,
the dramatic monologue, which follows Rachel's life from messy teenage
bedroom through to Palestinian refugee camp, has been performed across
America and Canada.

Later this month, on the fifth anniversary of Rachel's death, it will
be staged in Israel and the Corries will be there to watch the first
performance in Arabic. This is a typically frenetic month. Next week
sees the publication of Let Me Stand Alone, a collection of Rachel's
writing and drawings from the ages of 10 to 23, the final piece
written four days before she was killed.

Craig and Cindy Corrie have become well known in Olympia. This modest
middle-aged couple with silver hair and sensible waterproof anoraks -
in the winter it rains so much in this part of the world that
umbrellas are pointless - are stopped in the street. Teenage girls in
skinny jeans hover, wanting to say hello to the parents of Rachel
Corrie. Cindy, in particular, lights up, as though caught in the glow
from a torch beam. I ask Sarah if her mother and father are often
approached.

'All the time,' she says. 'I've got used to it.'

'In the first hour after Rachel was killed,' Cindy recalls, 'I
remember saying: we have to get her words out.'

I'm sitting with Cindy and Sarah in one of Olympia's oldest coffee
shops, a place where the Corries used to come as a family when the
children were growing up. One by one they piece together the events of
16 March 2003. It was a humdrum Sunday. Sarah, not long married to her
husband, Kelly, was living in the family home while her parents were
based temporarily in North Carolina, where Craig was working.

'I caught the end of a message on the answer machine, someone saying,
"I just heard the sad news,"' says Sarah, 'and it dawned on me. It was
something to do with Rachel.' She found out her sister had died by
reading the ticker tape along the bottom of the television screen:
'Olympia woman killed in Gaza.'

'My first thought was that maybe it wasn't Rachel. My next was that
Mom and Dad didn't know. I started trying to dial and I remember
looking at the handset and thinking, "I don't know how to punch in the
numbers."'

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, Craig was doing the laundry when the
phone rang. Cindy picked it up. It was her son-in-law, Kelly.

'I could hear that there was something wrong in his voice,' recalls
Cindy. 'I could hear Sarah crying hysterically in the background. She
came onto the phone and said, "It's Rachel." And I said, "Is she
dead?" I just knew I had to ask about the very worst possibility so
that maybe that option would go away.'

While she took the phone to her husband, the news was confirmed on the
television screen back in Olympia. 'It says her name,' Sarah told her
mother. 'It says her name.'

It would be days before they had a chance to mourn in private. First
they flew to Washington DC to be with their son, Chris - 'He was the
only one who could function,' recalls Craig - from where they began
the logistical nightmare of organising the return of their daughter's
body. Craig was in such a hurry to pack he slung a pillowcase into his
overnight bag mistaking it for a shirt. A journalist pitched up on
their driveway in Olympia. There were more in Washington. A
congressman suggested they hold a press conference. The death of an
American citizen in Gaza was front page news - all this at a time when
the atmosphere in America was already intense. The Iraq war would
begin four days after Rachel was killed.

Craig recalls how, at one point, he picked up the telephone to learn
that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was on the line. 'He told me:
"She is your daughter but she is also the daughter of all
Palestinians. She is ours too now."'

'If someone had told me 10 years ago that this was going to happen to
us,' says Cindy, 'I'd never have predicted any of the things that we
have done. I would have said, "You're crazy. If anything happened to a
child of mine I would not draw another breath." But, amazingly, you do
take the next step.'

For Cindy, as for the rest of the family, that next step seemed to be
exploring the words Rachel had written. 'Immediately I was drawn to
the writing,' she says. 'Because the writing was what we had, and what
we still have, of Rachel. Nobody was thinking of a book back then but,
even early on, when we were in such searing pain, we were drawn to
what Rachel had written. As a comfort, as a connection.'

Most of Rachel's words had been kept in plastic tubs in the garage, or
the attic. Journals, email printouts, poems, letters, assignments for
creative writing classes, scraps written on paper napkins. Sarah, who
has painstakingly edited the book over the past year, recites one of
the first lines she read after Rachel died: 'There is something that
I'm supposed to do. I know there is something big that I am supposed
to do. I just don't know what it is yet.'

In the early pages of Let Me Stand Alone there is the sense of someone
comfortable with the notion of revealing her inner world on the page:
the style is uninhibited, experimental, confident. While it's clear
this is a dreamy little girl who likes to dance and to visit her
grandmother, she also has an easy relationship with words. Her parents
don't describe themselves as writers but they remember their daughter
sitting on the floor with pens and crayons before she went to nursery.

What emerges is someone who could be variously idealistic, knowing,
self-deprecating, earnest, quirky, pretentious, fanciful,
melodramatic, obsessive, flip and wise. Some of the pieces are uneven
- whose private musings wouldn't be? - but at its best Let Me Stand
Alone is a window into the private preoccupations of a singular girl
growing up in middle-class America in the Eighties and Nineties, a
girl discovering her own lucid and original voice. Some of the
passages, particularly her accounts of her intense love affair with a
young man called Colin, are breathtakingly vivid and personal.

It is impossible to read about how Rachel lived without thinking about
how she died. There are times when her words are chillingly prescient
as she describes dreams about falling, fears of tumbling, being out of
control. 'Death smells like homemade apple sauce as it cooks on the
stove. It is not the strangling sense of illness. It is not fear. It
is freedom,' she writes on 19 May 1993. Aged just 14.

Early on there is a surprising empathy for outsiders and I realise
that in a media obsessed with the Paris Hiltons of this world, we
don't often get to hear about young, politicised American women.
'Maybe,' writes Rachel, aged 11, 'if people stopped thinking of
themselves, and started thinking of the other sides of things, people
wouldn't hurt each other.' But there is a healthy streak of self-
obsession too, and a wicked sense of humour. She grows up into a chain-
smoking Pat Benatar fan. Some of the most poignant moments are
Rachel's 'to do' wish lists. A teenager who imagines there are years
and years ahead of her.

A trip to a remote part of Russia as a teenager, just after the fall
of Communism, is clearly a catalyst. So are stints staffing telephone
crisis lines and volunteering for mental health organisations. 'I know
I scare you,' she writes to her mother when she's 19. 'But being on a
tightrope, with a safety net and a costume, doesn't work for me... I
have to do things that scare you. I'm sorry I scare you. I hope I'm
not ugly in your eyes. But I want to write and I want to see. And what
would I write about if I only stayed within the doll's house, the
flower world I grew up in?'

She is a student at Evergreen State College, a famously liberal
university with a tradition of activism, when the two planes fly into
the Twin Towers. Rachel Corrie, blonde, skinny, high cheek-boned,
carelessly beautiful, is already looking beyond the claustrophobic
confines of Olympia and into the world beyond. However, when it
emerges that she is saving up to go to Gaza in order to volunteer for
the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) the rest of the family are
dead against the idea. Her sister remembers the tension: 'I didn't
want her to go. It was extremely stressful; I couldn't talk to her
about it.'

Her mother adds: 'I think all of us hoped that Rachel would not quite
get her act together to go.'

Her father: 'I was concerned. Why not work in a soup kitchen or
something like that, I said to her. But if that is what she really
wanted to do, you can't ask your child to do less.' This quietly
thoughtful man, a former Vietnam veteran who masks his sadness with a
droll sense of humour, pauses. 'I was concerned. But not really,
really frightened. To be honest, it wasn't until she got there that I
got really, really frightened.'

The writing from Rafah, Gaza, steps up a gear. Her emails home are
passionate, articulate and forensic. She's been criticised for being
naive about the dangers. I suspect many people, even seasoned war
reporters, might admit to being blindsided by the situation on the
ground in Gaza. She researched the region before she got there and
attended an ISM training session, but the shock of being in the midst
of chaos is immediately apparent. A day after arriving she's helping
someone move the body of a child. She describes a colleague with
shrapnel in her shoes.

Gradually Rachel seems to adapt to this new level of anxiety. She
makes friends with Palestinian families, looks after their children,
learns bits of Arabic. Television footage of Rachel from this time
shows her draped in the traditional black and white kaffiyeh, looking
drawn. A tank rumbles by in the background. She sounds resolute: 'I
feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's
ability to survive,' she tells the reporter. 'It takes a while to get
what's happening here. Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and
I realise there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying
to kill the people I'm having dinner with.'

I wonder if the family understood that, along with other ISM
volunteers, she was acting as a human shield - or 'a bulldozer
cowgirl' as she puts it. Cindy says: 'We knew what she was doing. We
knew she was staying at different houses.' Initially Craig believed
that the worst that might happen was that she would be arrested. 'But
then when she started reporting back, I realised that this was a
military out of control, where there was no discipline. I said to her
brother a week before she was killed: "She can't continue to do this
sort of thing. Sooner or later it's not going to work."' Cindy adds,
'You were just holding your breath.'

It sounds agonising for the family left behind. Sarah agrees. 'You may
not be talking about it every day, but you're thinking about it. She
knew that was what we would be doing. I don't think it was an easy
decision for her to be there knowing how worried we were going to be.'
Has Sarah ever been angry with her sister? 'People ask that,' she
replies. 'I never feel angry about Rachel because she didn't intend to
die. There was no part of her that intended to die. I can't be mad at
Rachel for something she didn't intend to happen. So, no.'

This kind of bereavement, premature and violent, is hard to imagine.
Now add the fact that Rachel swiftly became both a worldwide news
story and a debating point and it's difficult to comprehend the amount
of stress the family must have been under. Within a few hours, Cindy's
email account had crashed. Absurdly, in the first hours of mourning
they were trying to work out how to set up a new computer inbox. They
received 10,000 emails in the first fortnight alone. In one of what
must have been many dream-like moments, Craig recalls a candlelit
vigil held three days after his daughter died: a stranger carried a
huge poster-sized picture of Rachel, a photograph he hadn't even seen
before.

Overnight in Rafah there was graffiti dedicated to the young woman who
believed there would be a democratic Israeli-Palestinian state in her
lifetime - 'Rachel was a US citizen with Palestinian blood.' She had
become a victim of their intifada, a heroine who had stood up to the
mighty Israeli army. New mothers christened their daughters Rachel. A
kindergarten was named after her. Palestinians living in America would
approach the Corries crying, barely able to speak. 'It should have
been me,' they told them.

Elsewhere the response was more mixed. The death of a young blonde
female American in the Middle East aroused extreme reactions. Angry
messages to pro-Israel websites suggested 'she should burn in hell for
an eternity'. Critics of the Palestinian cause suggested that the
houses in Rafah hid tunnels which supplied arms. A picture of Rachel
burning a makeshift American flag in front of Gaza schoolchildren was
circulated. There was heated debate on the campus at Evergreen. Sarah
and her brother Chris began filtering out some of the hate mail that
arrived.

'I don't think people understand how divisive this issue is, and how
much people care,' says Craig. 'I don't think we did.'

Rachel Corrie was both lionised and demonised. 'In some ways,' says
Cindy, 'both reactions are threatening. Because Rachel was a very
human person. I used to worry about the adulation - what happens when
they find out that the real person was as flawed as we all are? On the
other hand, I know she has given a lot of people hope and something to
aspire to. I think it is important to people to have figures in their
lives that provide that for them.'

The Corries take me around Olympia in their car, past the places where
Rachel grew up. While Craig drives he recalls descriptive passages
from her journals and tries to retrace his daughter's steps in his
mind's eye. Even on a winter's day you can see how beautiful it is:
noble Douglas firs, a glint of water, secluded wooden houses with
verandas.

Two years ago some of the Nasrallah family visited Olympia. They were
the owners of the concrete house, pockmarked with tank shell holes,
that Rachel had died defending. The two families were invited on a
speaking tour to talk about the situation in the Middle East. When
Khaled Nasrallah saw where Rachel had grown up he turned to her
parents and said, wide-eyed: 'She gave up this paradise, for us?'

In turn, the Corries have twice visited Gaza since Rachel was killed.
'My feeling,' says Craig, 'was that she wrote about those people with
warmth. Going to Gaza was a real need to see who Rachel wrote about
and to thank them for the care they took of her while she was there.'
They negotiated the same checkpoints, the same rubble-strewn streets
as their daughter had done. Armed men in watchtowers looked down on
them. At night they slept through the sound of tracer fire. I imagine
how proud, and perhaps astonished, their daughter would have been (on
occasion she'd railed against her father for having 'his head in the
sand' politically). The Corries' instinct is to play down the danger
they were in: gunfire whistled past Craig and, one evening, dinner
with the Nasrallah family was interrupted by the menacing sound of a
bulldozer outside the window. On their second visit in 2006 they were
woken in the middle of the night by men with Kalashnikovs. Craig and
Cindy Corrie would be valuable bargaining tools in an area that has
become even more desperate since Rachel was
killed. As it was, the Nasrallahs managed to persuade the men to go on
their way. It was said that they killed two security guards on the
Egyptian border instead.

In one of her final emails home Rachel said, 'This has to stop! I
think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our
lives to making this stop.' It's clear that her parents have taken her
at her word. Sarah says, 'She wanted them to go there. In her writing
she says you need to meet these people. Now our lives are intertwined
with what goes on in Rafah and Gaza and Israel and Palestine.'
Meanwhile, in the five years since Rachel was killed, the humanitarian
situation in Gaza - effectively imprisoned by Israel, with limited
fuel, electricity and medical - has grown worse, not better.

The family is still seeking information about what happened to Rachel
and to have her death accounted for. According to former US secretary
of state Colin Powell's chief of staff, the Israeli government's
report was not 'thorough, credible or transparent', yet there is no
sign that the US government plans to take any further action. Four
months ago Sarah discovered distressing reports that Rachel's autopsy
was not carried out according to their stipulations. The Corries,
along with four Palestinian families, are waiting for court action
against Caterpillar Inc, the American company that makes the bulldozer
that killed Rachel, to be reheard.

Sarah recalls, three weeks after Rachel died, her mother meeting the
family of Amy Biehl, an American anti-apartheid campaigner killed in
South Africa in 1993. 'I remember Mom asking Amy's mother, "Do you
ever get the normal back?" She paused for a long while and in the end
she said, "No, not really." I knew then that this is what was going to
happen to our family. First you have to mourn Rachel. Then you have to
mourn the loss of your family and the life that you had.'

--------------------
11. Demonstration takes place on playground near Qalqiliya, two days
before it is due to be demolished

A large protest took place today in the West Bank town of Azzoun
against the planned demolition of the children's playground in the
town. 450 protesters came from the local area, the village Women's
Development Association and the Palestinian Agricultural Relief
Committees (PARC), who celebrated their 25-year anniversary at the
demonstration.

Speeches were given by members of the municipality, the village
women's development association and PARC. Protesters also planted
trees in the area to symbolize how although the playground may fall in
area C, it is still Palestinian land. Entertainment was provided for
the children by local clowns.

The playgrounds construction was near completion when on the morning
of February 22nd, 2006, bulldozers accompanied by Israeli soldiers
arrived and demolished half of the park - which consisted of two
swimming pools and changing rooms.

The justification given by the Israeli army for the demolition was
that the park lacked a building permit for that specific ground, an
area which falls within Area C, thus under Israeli civil and military
control. Building permits for Area C are notoriously unattainable,
applicants being denied by the Israeli authorities-run Civil
Administration, even when building on private land. In a recent Peace
Now report, it was shown that 94% of housing permits have been denied
over the last seven years. The Israeli army had, prior to the
demolition, given orders to stop the building several times, but
despite that, the village decided to continue, strengthened by the
knowledge that the building was taking place on Palestinian land.

An Israeli lawyer is still fighting the case, and is awaiting an
interim decision on the appeal. If the town loses the appeal, they
have promised to take the case to the Supreme Court.

---------------------
12. Gaza's 'bigger holocaust'

By Fida Qishta

Rafah, the Gaza Strip, 3 March - Israeli officials said today that
they finished their military operation in the Gaza Strip, but the
Israeli attacks continue, and we fear that Israel is still planning a
major invasion. On February 29th, Israel's Deputy Defense Minister
Matan Vilnai warned of "a bigger holocaust" for Palestinians.

From February 27th - March 2nd, the Israeli army killed around 110
Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, and nearly a
quarter children, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
in Gaza. Hundreds were injured. Palestinians killed two Israeli
soldiers and one Israeli civilian.

What is happening in Gaza hurts all Palestinians, not just Hamas.
Before this assault, the Gaza Strip, with 1.5 million residents, was
already like a prison under siege, with dwindling supplies of food,
medicine, fuel, clean water and electricity, and growing poverty. Many
families eat just one meal a day. We have no electricity for 6-12
hours daily.

On March 1st, I was home with my family in the city of Rafah at the
southern end of the Gaza Strip, watching TV to see what was happening
in northern Gaza. Around 10 PM we suddenly heard Israeli F16 fighter
planes overhead. I said to my mom, something is going to happen. The
sound of the F16s grew louder. Then we heard very loud rocket
explosions.

My sister ran crying, saying, it's close. My mom was cut in the hand
trying to prevent glass from hitting her head. Many of our windows
were broken. We ran outside because the electricity went off. My
father said it's safer in the street. At least we can see where the
rockets are going and where to go.

Four Israeli rockets hit the mosque 150 meters away, killing six
civilians and injuring 30. One of those killed was my 30 year old
cousin Samer. Samer, a policeman with Fateh's Palestinian Authority,
was married with a young daughter.

The latest Israeli attacks began on February 27th when Israel
assassinated five Palestinian fighters in Gaza. Palestinian fighters
responded by firing rockets into Israel, killing an Israeli teacher in
Sderot. Israel fired more rockets, and invaded.

Most deaths were in northern Gaza. When I visited there on February
29th, a mother from Beit Lahia explained what happened the day before,
"My sons went to the playground to play football, and I said to myself
they will be safe." She completed the story crying, "but they weren't
safe anywhere. One of them was killed and the second was injured." I
began to cry also as she asked, "My son, why have you left me?" Twelve
year-old Omar Dardona died immediately, and eight year-old Ali Dardona
died on March 1st.

Another woman there told me, "I didn't believe there were tanks in the
neighborhood, and I looked through the door's peephole, and there
really were. I didn't know what to do. I saw on TV yesterday eight
children were killed, and I was thinking of my children. My husband
climbed over our house wall and I passed the kids one by one to their
father. They crossed the street and reached their grandfather's house
safely."

Some Palestinians see shooting rockets into Israel as the only way to
respond to continued Israeli attacks that have killed so many
civilians and children, the only way to protest with a loud voice.
Israel besieged Gaza after Hamas won the Palestinian elections in
January 2006, and killed 823 Gazans in 2006 and 2007, according to the
Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. Hamas has repeatedly
offered a truce, but the Israeli government has rejected those offers.
Fourteen Israelis have been killed by rockets from Gaza since 2000.

It seems like the world knows that Israelis in Sderot are scared
because of rockets from Gaza, but they don't see what the Israeli army
is doing. I feel sometimes like people in Gaza are in a different
world.

The Israeli army bulldozed and destroyed our family home in 2004. In
2006 they bombed a house 40 meters from where we were living. Saturday
night they could have hit our house. I fight hard to keep hate from my
heart, but I get scared sometimes that it will overcome my resistance.
I hope that I can continue to win this struggle.

Violence and death bring more violence and death. Hope brings more
hope. Despite everything, children in Rafah tell me they hope to play,
have fun, travel, and meet Egyptian children. It is these children's
dreams that renew my spirit.

Fida Qishta, an educator and journalist, is the founder and manager of
the Lifemakers Center, which serves 70 children aged 6-18 in Rafah.

--------------------
13. Demonstrations take place in Gaza and the West Bank for
International Women's Day

Ma'an: Women march for rights, end of occupation in Gaza

Women staged two demonstrations in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to
demand a stop Israeli violence that has recently led to the death of
18 women, including two infants recently.

Women marched to the slogans "Under what fault was she killed," "Where
is my right to live in peace and safety?" and "I am a peace dove
suffocated by the blockade."

One of the marches went to the United Nations headquarters in Gaza
City, where women from throughout the Strip delivered a letter
demanding an emergency United Nations meeting to lift the Israeli-
imposed siege.

The letter was handed over by organizer Soad Hijo, the head of the
women's program at the Al-Ghawth relief center, demanding that the
international community pressure the occupying power to end its war in
Gaza and grant Palestinian women the rights that are owed women
throughout the world.

The letter also called for the release of all female and male
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and an end to all forms of
discrimination against women.

In the second march, organized by the Union of Palestinian Women's
Committees, protesters gathered in front of the Legislative Council
headquarters in Gaza carrying banners calling for women's rights and
the need to end the suffering of the Palestinian women

A Palestinian called Om Raefat stated, " I am here to tell them how I
wish for the unity of the Palestinian people, for people feel
suffocated and what to live in internal peace."
----------
Women's Day March in Nablus

On Thursday 6th March 2008 the Women's Committees of Nablus marched
through the centre of the city to protest against the recent massacre
in Gaza during which more than 115 people were murdered. In
preparation for International Women's Day on the 8th of March, the
women of Nablus took to the streets carrying banners and flags
demanding an end to the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza.

Internationals joined the demonstration in solidarity with the Women's
Committees, holding pictures of some of the 27 murdered children of
Israel's 'Operation Hot Winter'.

The rally culminated in a gathering at the central plaza where
speeches were made by members of the Women's Committees and
representatives from the governorate, condemning the attacks on Gaza.

This year's International Women's Day actions and celebrations in
Palestine will mourn and honour the deaths of the 6 women killed in
their homes during the recent Gaza onslaught, which has brought the
total of women killed by Israeli forces this year to 13. (PHCR, 2008)

PHCR, 8th March 2008: On International Women's Day, the Suffering of
Palestinian Women Continues,
pchrgaza.ps/files/PressR/English/2008/25-2008.html

--------------------
14. Anti-Wall demonstrations marked by violence

Qaffin

Friday, March 8th, saw a large demonstration in the West Bank town of
Qaffin against the annexation wall. The demonstration was organised by
the Qaffin municipality and featured a large block of activists from
the Democratic Union. Approximately four hundred Palestinian and
international demonstrators marched to wall to be met by two Israeli
army jeeps. The soldiers initially fired live ammunition into the air
and then in the direction of the protesters. Tear gas and rubber-
coated steel bullets were then used to attack the non-violent
demonstration. Three people were hit by the rubber coated bullets, but
were not seriously injured. After an hour the protesters returned to
the town.

Qaffin, just north of Tulkarem has a population of around 10,000. The
size of the town has more than halved in the last 13 years as
settlements and the annexation wall have stolen the towns agricultural
land. 120,000 olive trees are currently on the west side of the wall,
and a further 12,000 were razed to make way for the walls
construction. The Israeli army also regularly invade the town, and 280
of the towns population are currently in Israeli jails.
---------
IMEMC: Bil'in

Dozens of residents of Bil'in, a village near Ramallah, took to the
streets on Friday in their weekly demonstration protesting the illegal
confiscation of the village's land through Israel's continued
expansion of the wall.

The residents were joined by many International and Israeli peace
activists, in addition to supporters of the Palestinian Democratic
Federation Party (Fida), who were celebrating their eighteenth
anniversary.

Protesters carried signs condemning the Israeli attacks on the Gaza
Strip and others demanding the dismantling of the wall that is causing
serious hardships for farmers in the village.

The protesters were stopped by Israeli soldiers at the pass-through
gate of the wall and were prevented from reaching the land that has
already been confiscated from their village. Israeli soldiers then
used tear gas and sound bombs to disperse the demonstrators.

Palestinian youth participating in the demonstration responded by
throwing rocks at the soldiers, who then began firing rubber-coated
steel bullets. An Israeli peace activist, identified as Marina, and a
Palestinian protester, identified as Naji Shouha, were moderately
wounded by Israeli gunfire. Additionally, a number of Palestinians and
Internationals were treated for tear gas inhalation.

--------------------
15. Adalah-NY: In Ha'aretz interview Leviev "spins" protests against
his companies' settlement construction
(see excerpt from Ha'aretz interview below)

New York, NY, March 7 - In a rare interview in the March 7 English
edition of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz Daily, Israeli billionaire
Lev Leviev responded to questions about recent protests and calls for
a boycott of his companies in response to their settlement
construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Issa Mikel, a spokesperson for Adalah-NY - the group that has
organized eight protests outside Leviev's Manhattan jewelry store
since it opened last November - commented, "Leviev's responses were
disingenuous and troubling. Leviev neglected to mention that his
company Leader is building the settlement of Zufim, that he is a major
donor to a company that acquires Palestinian land for settlements, and
that all Israeli settlements violate international law. Leviev also
portrayed his company's monopoly over Gaza's fuel supply as somehow
charitable. Finally, as independent human rights activists, we
challenge Leviev to provide evidence to support the completely false
accusation he made that we have any relationship with or are "funded
by business competitors."

In the Ha'aretz interview by Anshel Pfeffer titled "We need
Judaization" (www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961664.html), Leviev
responded to Pfeffer's question, "Do you have a problem with building
in the territories?" by saying, "Not if the State of Israel grants
permits legally. But Danya Sibus is only a subcontractor; I didn't
even know it was building there." Yet Danya Cebus' construction in
Maale Adumim and Har Homa was highlighted in multiple newspapers due
to possible losses to Leviev's Africa Israel, Danya Cebus' parent
company. Furthermore, in an August 24, 2004 interview in Globes, when
asked about neglecting Israel, Africa Israel CEO Pinchas Cohen
responded, "Heaven forbid! Our subsidiary, Danya Cebus, recently
signed a very large contract to build 2,500 apartments in Matityahu
Mizrach (Upper Modi'in), for a $130 million investment." It seems
unlikely that Leviev was unaware of all this construction.

Leviev also co-owns the company Leader Management and Development
which is building the settlement of Zufim on the village of Jayyous'
land. Due to the strangulation of Jayyous caused by the construction
of Zufim and Israel's wall, more than 50% of families from this once
prosperous farming village are now receiving food aid. The secretive,
right-wing settler company the Land Redemption Fund, which Leviev
funds according to a 2005 article in Yedioth Ahronoth, used fraud and
deceit to secure Palestinian land from Jayyous and Bil'in for eventual
settlement construction by Leader and Danya Cebus.

While Leviev uses Israeli law to justify his companies' settlement
construction, all Israeli settlements are judged to violate
international law according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, the Israeli organization B'Tselem, the International
Court of Justice, the United Nations, and every government in the
world besides Israel.

Leviev asked Pfeffer, "If they want to demonstrate, why against us?
After all Dor Alon, in which Africa-Israel owns 26 percent, is the
only company that sells fuel to the Palestinians." Yet, as the
monopoly fuel supplier to Gaza, Dor Alon has profited for years from
Israeli occupation by benefitting from non-competitive fuel provision
to a "captive" market. Though a major offshore natural gas field with
an estimated 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lies twenty miles
from Gaza's coast, for nearly a decade Israel has blocked the
development of that resource, which could provide the foundation for
sustainable economic growth and Palestinian fuel self-sufficiency.

Responding to Leviev's professsed incomprehension of why groups are
demonstrating against him, Adalah-NY spokesperson Ethan Heitner
summarized, "Leviev has invested heavily in New York real estate. He
and his former partner Shaya Boymelgreen have been singled out for
their mistreatment of workers, their shoddy construction and their
displacement of communities here. We also have close ties with
Palestinian and Israeli activists working to save villages like
Jayyous and Bil'in from Leviev's settlements. Finally, when Leviev
opened a swanky jewelry store here and we learned of his companies'
role in exploiting and abusing poor communities in Angola through his
diamond mining, we said, enough. We must hold Leviev accountable for
his business practices."

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961664.html

We need Judaization, Anshel Pfeffer, Ha'aretz Daily, March 7, 2008
(Excerpt)

"In recent weeks there have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations in New
York and London, calling to boycott Leviev's jewelry stores because of
the construction being done on the other side of the Green Line by the
Danya Sibus firm, which is owned by Africa-Israel. Leviev suspects
that financial interests are behind the demonstrations. 'I don't know
what this is - after all, if they want to demonstrate, why against us?
After all Dor Alon, in which Africa-Israel owns 26 percent, is the
only company that sells fuel to the Palestinians. I think that it's
more groups that are funded by business competitors.'

Do you have a problem with building in the territories?

'Not if the State of Israel grants permits legally. But Danya Sibus is
only a subcontractor; I didn't even know it was building there.'

--------------------
16. Breaking the Siege of Gaza, Taking to the Streets

Palestinian Youth Network (PYN), Paz Ahora, and ISM Spain

March 5, 2008

After three and a half weeks of waiting at Rafah with much needed
medicines for Gaza, on the evening of Wednesday, March 5, Saif Abu
Keshek, General Coordinator of the Palestinian Youth Network (PYN)
managed to enter the besieged Gaza Strip. Carrying 50,000 euros worth
of medicines unavailable or in very short supply in Gaza, Saif has
been at Rafah since February 12, 2008, waiting for permission to
enter, each day told to wait a little longer. "I finally made it in,"
said Saif, "but there are tons more aid for Gaza in dozens of trucks,
still held up at the border."

Last week's Israeli military onslaught on Gaza, which killed over 120
Palestinians, many of them women and children, was met with deafening
silence from government leaders and international agencies. This
reality should not only sadden and enrage us, but also make us realize
how important it is that civil society steps up to defend human rights
in the face of organized impotence. Saif's entry into Gaza shows that
the siege can be broken, but it needs pressure and persistence and
pressure, which governments and the United Nations are not willing to
exert. Currently that is not happening, and as the situation worsens,
foreign journalists are being told to leave the Strip.

On the evening of Sunday, March 2, Palestinians young and old took to
the streets of Ramallah banging loudly on pots and pans, blowing
whistles, and screaming for people to wake up! Wake up we must. We
must wake up and believe that we indeed have the power to effect
change; then we must organize to show our representatives and decision-
makers our strength.

Below is an email sent from Saif on March 3, two days before entering
Gaza, describing the scene on the border. You can contact Saif in Gaza
at: +970-599-963-273.
----------
Escaping Death

March 3, 2008

The sound of ambulance sirens all over the place; wounded people here
and there... This one is shouting and the other almost dying; and its
red... everywhere is filled with blood. "Run fast," I heard them
shouting. "We need an ambulance, now, now, now... This guy is dying.
Please help him, please bring a doctor, give him pain killers... Do
anything, just help him."

The medical response is much slower than his painful cries. The
medical workers must check every one. They must decide who is more
critical to move first, taking the risk that someone may die before
being checked. Hundreds of people are waiting on the other side. Some
people have been waiting for a month to go back to Egypt; Palestinians
who entered to visit their families and now have no exit. Others,
Egyptians who went to visit Gaza and are now stuck. But the most
compelling are the Palestinian mothers and other family members who
are watching the ambulances depart with their loved ones, praying that
they will see them again, but not knowing. They cannot know. Maybe
they will die along the way? Or perhaps they will receive the needed
treatment but then get stuck in a detention center before being
allowed to go back home. You can never know. In this place every thing
is luck, or casualty.

I told them we have medicine to take to Gaza; this medicine is needed
for urgent operations. They answered, "well, many wounded people are
now in Egypt, why you don't give your medicine to an Egyptian
hospital?" Did they really open the border? Who is going to be with
the wounded ones? They will see no family before going back to Gaza.
Visits are very restricted, and you can talk to no one.

These people are escaping death, but to an unknown destiny. They hope
to find some mercy away from the Israeli killing machine. They are in
an ambulance taking them to a hospital, and they don't know when they
will return home, if they will. How painful it is to be wounded,
almost dying, with no family around you, with no visitors. And how
painful it is for any family not to be with their loved ones while
they are being treated, or maybe living their last moments in this
life. For some these last moments can be the only peaceful moments in
their life, what an irony, you escape death to live your last moments
dying away from your family.

The brutality of this occupation, that it is living in us, it is
living everywhere, hunting us wherever we go. Perhaps some managed to
escape death today, but death is still hunting the rest in Gaza.

Isn't it time to reclaim the streets? Isn't it the time to force
change?

How many more must die before we realize that our silence is just part
of the story; that one protest is not the answer; that the life of
many

Palestinians depends on what the civil society may or may not do?
Maybe it is time to get more radical. Maybe the Palestinians will help
us to escape death, a different kind of death -- the death of our
humanity!

Saif

-------------------
17. Non-violent march through Ramallah streets ends reading the names
of the fallen in Gaza at the Muqata

On Sunday, March 2nd, Palestinians marched alongside international
supporters through the streets of Ramallah, banging pots, chanting,
and making noise. They were protesting the massacres in Gaza, the
continued siege, the silence in the international community, and the
ongoing violations of international law.

Around 200 people gathered near the Manara Square in central Ramallah
and walked through roads and refugee camps singing, chanting, banging
noise into the night in order to express their outrage and encourage
bystanders to join. In the end they arrived at the Muqata, where
Yassir Arafat is buried, and negotiated with the police to enter the
closed off area. Inside, the names of the newly dead in Gaza were read
to the crowd. After, a member of the P.A. spoke, and the entire crowd
turned their backs to him and walked away, possibly signifying their
outrage at the P.A. reaction to the massacres in Gaza.

This non-violent demonstration was organized by the Gaza 3ala Bali
group and contained people from all walks of life, children from
Qadurra camp, students from Bir Zeit, and Mustafa Barghouti, all came
to show their support.

---------------------
18. Palestinians are shot as they take to the streets in response to
Gaza massacres

(Edited from Ma'an News and Human Rights Observers' reports)

Dozens of Palestinians have been injured in towns across the West Bank
after Israeli troops cracked down on demonstrations against the
Israeli mass killings in Gaza.

Bethlehem

Today, students marched to the Israeli separation wall near Rachael's
Tomb. Young Palestinians pelted Israeli military vehicles with stones
and empty bottles. The soldiers fired live ammunition, tear gas and
sound grenades. Ten people were injured, witnesses said.

Israeli soldiers shot 16-year-old Nabil Nayif Al-'Eisawi in the chest.
Sources at Beit Jala government hospital described his injury as
"critical." The rest were injured moderately and slightly.
----------
Hebron

In the Hebron district in the southern West Bank, about 20
Palestinians have been injured after Israeli soldiers opened fire in
various place, reporters said on Monday.

Ma'an's reporter said that at least 10 people have been injured in
Bani Na'im, east of Hebron and six others have been injured in Beit
Ummar, north of Hebron.

Local sources said that 16-year-old Muhammad Khlayyil was was
seriously injured during the confrontation in Beit Ummar. Eyewitnesses
told Ma'an that clashes erupted in the morning and continued into the
afternoon. Israeli forces overran the town firing live ammunition,
tear gas and sound grenades, witnesses said.

Two people have also been injured in Al-Arrub refugee camp and several
people in Hebron itself, including one seriously injured.

Eyewitnesses in Al-Arrub refugee camp stated that an Israeli settler
was injured after his car was struck by stones. Palestinian young
people set fire to car tires and threw stones at Israeli military
vehicles. Israeli soldiers intervened to disperse the demonstration
using live ammunition, rubber-coater metal bullets and tear gas
canisters.

In the town of Surif, north of Hebron, eight Palestinians were injured
in clashes with Israeli soldiers. Four others were detained.

Israeli sources said that a Jewish settler was hospitalized after
being injured near Surif.
----------
Ramallah

A Palestinian student was killed on Monday morning after Israeli
forces opened fire on a peaceful demonstration in the West Bank
against the Israeli mass killings in the Gaza Strip

19-year-old Muhammad Shreitih was killed at the student rally in the
village of Al-Mazra'a Al-Qibliya, near the city of Ramallah.

Palestinians across the West Bank took to the streets for a second day
on Monday, confronting Israeli troops and expressing solidarity with
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Relatives of the deceased told Ma'an that students marched to the
Israeli settlements near the village. Clashes erupted between the
students and Israeli soldiers near the Talmon settlement. Shretih, a
student in his third year of secondary school, was shot in the head
and died on the way to Khalid Hospital in Ramallah.

Israeli media reported that an Israeli settler named Moshe
Benbenishti, a student in a Jewish school in the settlement opened
fire at the Palestinians.

Israeli security sources commented on the incident, saying, "The
settler felt he was endangered when 200 Palestinians were pelting his
car with stones, so he fired at them."

Meanwhile, Israeli forces stormed the village of Ni'lin, also west of
Ramallah, closing all entrances to the town as fierce clashes erupted
between the invading forces and Palestinian youths.