www.brightonpalestine.org

To the north of the Jordan Valley is a remote town called Ein Al Beide, a picture of devastation and destruction surrounded by Israeli opulance created from stolen Palestinian lands. Where once they had thousands of dunums of land only 100 dunums remain. It was in this town where we met with the Womens Cooperative Group who meet weekly or, they say, up to three times a week in emergency situations, to discuss general womens issues and undergo training for cultivation of produce. They have been established now for approximately 18 months and meet in a large purpose built community centre funded by themselves from the sale of honey. (more…)

Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group Call to Action

Al Hadidya, a bedouin camp in the Northern Jordan Valley close to the
illegal Israeli settlement of Ro'i has had demolition orders on it since
March 2007. Some people in Al Hadidya chose to leave when the miltary
asked and move a few kilometres away.

 (more…)

				

Boycott Israel, the State of Occupation

(more…)

We never quite knew what was going to happen next! Plans could change at a moment’s notice - meetings took longer than expected, people connected with people and wanted to stay and talk and listen for longer. We listened to the tragedies and trials and challenges of their daily lives. But we heard far more. We heard and recognised the warmth of the Palestinian men and women, of their support of one another, of their care for one another and of their determination to find a way to ordinary life. (more…)

One of our contacts in Tubas told me yesterday that a flying checkpoint had been set up preventing students from coming back to Tubas from the American University. Two Tubas residents were arrested at the checkpoint. Their families currently do not know where they are. Both of them are ex-prisoners

On Monday we did our first video link between Brighton and Tubas, Palestine. It was fantastic to speak directly to a room full of women from Tubas, and see all our friends from Brighton sitting there with them. However, it was appalling to hear how much the situation has deteriorated in Tubas since I was there a year ago. They told us that the Israeli Army are now coming into the town every day or night, and frequently invade and arrest local people. Last week two people were arrested and their families still do not know where they are, what prison they have been taken to, or if they are OK.

(more…)

http://www.alhaq.org/
*30 March 2007*

Al-Haq takes the occasion of Land Day to highlight the intrinsic link between land and the exercise of the right to self-determination. Over nearly 40 years of occupation, Israel’s pervasive policies of land expropriation and confiscation, settlement construction and movement restrictions have severely damaged the access of the Palestinian people to their land in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), thereby rendering the meaningful exercise of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination all but impossible. (more…)

by Jameel al-Husni, a local journalist in Tubas

Road signs written in Hebrew line Road 90 in regular patterns starting from the north of Bardala village to the south of Jericho show the Israeli nature of this road. It is the second longest Israeli-controlled road in the West Bank, right after Road 60 which connects Nazareth to Beer Sheva and passes through the central West Bank. Since 1967, the Palestinian presence in the areas around this road has been diminishing. Spread around Road 90, one can still see remains of cement rooms the Palestinian farmers built on their farmland alongside the Jordan River prior to the Israeli control of the area. (more…)

It is surely a celebration. Everyone is bustling about, preparing for the
day's activities. But it is different than a typical celebration. Instead of
carrying brightly colored drinks and holding plates of food, people are
carrying shovels and pick-axes to plant seedlings as part of a plan to grow
trees throughout the Jordan Valley. Palestinians consider trees as one of
the most effective weapons against the Israeli occupation.

In the eastern heights area overlooking the isolated Jordan Valley,
residents of several villages began this past Tuesday to plant different
kinds of trees as part of the campaign "For a Green Palestine," sponsored by
a local foundation.

The "celebration" was in full swing in the village of al-Aqaba, located at
the head of the eastern heights of the Jordan Valley, and designated for
demolition as part of settlement expansion. The residents are saying that
they are planting trees as part of an ongoing popular resistance campaign.
It is expected that more than 3,000 olive and evergreen trees, delivered by
the Palestinian Organization for Development, Dialogue and Democracy
"Wa'ad," will be planted in different areas around Tubas and the Valley.
The coordinator of the organization, Mahmoud Issa, said, "Planting one tree
in an area threatened by settlements is the most effective weapon to face
the Israelis." He added that several areas targeted by the Israelis will be
planted with olive trees.

Rashid al-Debik, a local villager, was busy putting twenty seedlings in a
cart, which he will be planting in front of one of the Israeli army's camps
adjacent to his village. He said that there is another forty dunums that he
will try to plant if the Israeli army allows him to do so.
Standing at the edge of al-Debik's land, near a large hole dug by the
Israeli army, one can see the vast area of the eastern heights. One man
helping with the project said that one of the biggest problems he and others
face is the shortage of water in the area.

Mohammad Hussein Jaber and other men from his family are busy moving olive
seedlings and evergreen trees. In an area nearby, a bucket-shovel begins
working, easily breaking through the moist soil.
In less than ten years, the village of al-Aqaba, which had been occupied by
Israeli soldiers and military camps, became a village bustling with people
and replete with trees.

The head of the village council, Sami Sadeq, said that the residents took
the responsibility to plant trees as a popular means of resistance. Sadeq is
responsible for organizing the process of distributing the trees and
planting them throughout the village.

Al-Debik is determined to plant his land that overlooks a military camp "I
will plant and they [the Israelis] will uproot it, but I will win in the
end."

However, soldiers denied access to seedlings in a number of other villages
nearby without offering a reason. Residents of al-Maleh village in the
Jordan Valley reported that soldiers on duty at al-Tayaseer checkpoint at
the entrance of the Valley barred them from transferring 200 olive tree
seedlings to their village.

In that area, residents suffer from a shortage of water resources to
cultivated land. The area is under Israeli control in accordance with the
Oslo accords.

Since 2000, Israeli forces have uprooted thousands of olive trees as part of
its military policy. The construction of the wall has greatly damaged
agricultural life in the West Bank, since wide areas have been confiscated
or compromised by its construction. Reports indicate that the Israeli army
has bulldozed more than one million trees in the past few years.