Looking for Trouble

Living in an open air prison by Gerri Haynes, photos by Bob Haynes

(Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility has traveled to Gaza since 1993. Since 2009, following the Cast Lead invasion by Israel, WPSR has sponsored eight medical delegations to serve the besieged, imprisoned and war-torn people of Gaza.)

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) was co-founded in 1997 by Dr. Jeff Halper.

The goal of this human rights organization is to resist and protest Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes. Jeff was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and ICAHD received from Jewish Voice for Peace the Olive Branch award in 2007.

Today, our group spent four hours with an ICAHD guide traveling through East Jerusalem to learn more about land annexation, confiscation and housing destruction in the Occupied West Bank. Since 1967, Israel has destroyed nearly 30,000 homes and other structures constructed on Palestinian land. The reasons given for this destruction are many, but the result is always disruption of life for the Palestinians affected.

Israel often refuses Palestinians in East Jerusalem permission to build or expand their homes and the crowding in circumscribed Palestinian villages causes resentment and frustration. The Separation Wall built along or inside the 1967 Green Line has effectively usurped at least 10 percent of the West Bank Palestinian territory and much West Bank land has been confiscated by Israel.

Palestinians are left with tightly controlled land areas, separated from each other by the Wall and by Israeli-only bypass roads. The effect of this land confiscation, Wall-building, permit refusal and house demolition is a sense of imprisonment reminiscent of the open-air prison of Gaza.

Last week in Gaza, we talked with a health care worker whose home was destroyed near Wadi Gaza. We visited the home site and met the man’s son and father. In the nearby area, land had been stripped of trees and every home had been leveled. The Israeli border was clearly visible in the near distance and we were told that military tunnels had been discovered and destroyed nearby.

Since Israel ended it’s internal occupation of Gaza in 2005, Gazans have been able to build on their land (outside the no-go zone), but the on-going siege (since 2007) that prevents the import of essential construction materials effectively thwarts adequate home building. Three wars that have destroyed thousands of existing homes mean that tens of thousands of Gazans are displaced and many are homeless.

The result of home demolitions throughout Palestine, land confiscation, siege, war, and the associated poverty is the real sense of growing containment or imprisonment for Palestinians. There is an air of tension in this region – violence is reported every day. We leave with the hope that justice will come and further war will be avoided.