Beit Hanoon – popular resistance along the buffer zone

Report by Keith Hammond in Gaza
13 August 2010

Gaza and the West Bank are not underdeveloped. Development is simply denied. Gaza is one big open-aired prison. Access to and exit from Gaza is strictly controlled. The perimeter fence heavily militarised. Air space is carefully policed, as is the coastline just a couple of miles out. This tiny strip of land has been been systematically denied any possibilities of development – an intentional policy. Modernization and identity are nothing like as problematic as we Europeans might assume. It is basic human rights that are a problem for the people of Gaza. Palestinians simply want to be free and live in full control of their lives as any other people in the world.

Palestinianism is about ‘the full integration of Arab Palestinians with lands and, more importantly, with political processes’ that have ‘either systematically excluded them or made them more and more intractable prisoners’ (Said 1994:3). I see plenty of American, European and Gulf aid in Gaza but everywhere I also see the denial of development. The Israeli blockade has to be lifted, and the Egyptian border opened for the movement of materials and people.

The world allows Palestinians to hang on but it does not facilitate the conditions of freedom and growth. Growth is required more than ever after Cast Lead. The piles of rubble have been cleared up. Makeshift repairs have been carried out wherever possible, sometimes in brilliantly creative ways, but Gaza needs building itself in a way that it has been denied for far too long. Gaza needs international civil society to wake up and the brakes to be put on Israel’s militarism – militarism which always means more death and destruction for the Palestinians of Gaza.

This morning I was in Beit Hanoon, which sits in the top eastern corner of Gaza. It is an area traditionally known for its water well and particularly fertile soil conditions. Cast Lead saw the destruction the wells and the closing off of the land along the perimeter ‘buffer zone’. The precise area that is covered by the buffer zone is not known. What is known however is that it is protected by the Israeli forces with live fire. Farmers and young people are frequently shot. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, between the 1st January and the 31st July this year (2010) there have been 37 people killed, 93 injuries, 41 people captured and held by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Again during the same period there have been 101 IDF ground attacks, 13 land leveling exercises and 75 aerial bombings. Along the coast there have been 27 naval attacks to give a total of 216 attacks in this seven-month period. The crimes of Israel just go on and on.

27,000 dunums of land on the Palestinian side of the fence can only be accessed under high ‘personal risk’ because Israel routinely opens fire on civilians for simply trying to work the land in the Beit Hanoon area. Apprpoximately 30% of agricultural land simply cannot be worked without the possibility of injury or death. These are the facts for farmers in Gaza. It is not maintaining their identity that worries these small-scale farmers. It is working at least a small portion of their land and staying alive.

Fishermen in Gaza fare no better than the farmers. The fishing supports 3,600 fishermen and the risks they take each day in order to bring home fish is similar to the field workers. The area just off the Gaza coas is over-fished. Between January and April 19 naval attacks took place destroying boats and fishing nets.

Popular resistance groups go out into the fields and try to work the land. They refuse to be held as captives in their own land. They refuse to be denied their land and water resources in Beit Hanoon and the rest of Gaza.

There are important politicians visiting Gaza regularly. Photo opportunities are never missed. Last month it was the EU and shortly it will be a high-ranking delegation from the UN. Yet the aid to Israel will continue and the water rights of Beit Hanoon will continue to be denied. Useless Israeli commodities will flood in and necessary building materials will be held back. Freedom and justice for these wonderful people is always for another day … This is not good enough. The boycott and disinvestment movement must be built and resistance movements in Beit Hanoon as elsewhere in Palestine must be supported.