West Bank Rising Up: Nabi Saleh

This week I decided to cover the weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh, a village north of Ramallah. Unlike Nil’in and Bil’in who protest against the wall, Nabi Saleh’s demonstration focuses on the settlement that is continuously growing on their land and the water well which has now been annexed by the Israeli military. Weekly demonstrations are now popping up all over the occupied West Bank and now includes Bil’in, Nil’in, Al Massarah, Sheikh Jarrah (E. Jerusalem) and now Nabi Saleh. Within the next few months several more names of villages and cities will join this list of anti-occupation demonstrations. For Nabi Saleh the village is entering it’s 5th week of protests so the IDF is using an incredible amount of force and violence in attempts to crush the movement before it takes hold. This village is very hard to document because the military controlls all the hills around the area and attacks from every direction. This week 20 people were injured and 8 children hospitalized as the military used tear gas, aluminum canisters, gas cannons (tear gas shot in waves of 60 canisters at a time), rubber bullets, live ammunition and SKUNK (chemical sewage water propelled like a fire hose).

Demonstrators gather in the streets in protests of settlement

Israeli military cutting the road to protest the settlement

Protester approaches the military with stones in hand

IDF rushing into the village to break up the crowd

A child running away from chemical sewage water

Rural Resistance

As a photographer it is easy to focus your work on the ‘action shots’, images of soldiers with guns or some unimaginable image of violence from war. When most people think about the Palestinian resistance they think about children throwing stones against armored cars and masked fighters taking up arms against one another. This is only one side of the resistance. Resistance in Palestine can take many forms: peaceful, violent, cultural, musical, religious, artistic and rural.

Helping the Palestinian resistance in the SSH (South Hebron Hills) results in the basic act of surviving. This not-so-simple act is due to the intense amount settler violence that takes place because of the extremely small Palestinian villages with little to no media coverage. These extremely zionist settlers poison large fields of Palestinian crops destroying their food source, cut down and burn olive tree groves, poison livestock which later poisons the villagers who eat them, attack children on their way to school and have even shot livestock before killing the shepherds. For internationals living in the SSH activism is about spending the day out with the shepherds in the hillside to help stem the violence from the settlers which is often watched over or even joined by the Israeli military. It is an overwhelming experience when the act of living becomes resistance.

This photo series focuses on the rural resistance of living from the indigenous Palestinians in the SHH region. One week ago settlers from a nearby settlement came down and destroyed a Palestinian’s olive grove which held about 20 trees. In response the local farmers gathers a handful of internationals and replanted the destroyed olive trees. During the planting settler children came out with slingshots as the military pushed the Palestinians off of their land and declared it a closed military zone. In an act of resistance the trees were planted regardless of the orders and dangers at hand. 

A shepherd tends to his roaming flock outside the remote village of Al Tuwani

A boy passing time with his herd on a hillside

A Palestinian resisting occupation by planting an olive tree

A child raises the Palestinian flag while looking at a settlement across the valley

The SHH - South Hebron Hills

The Chaos of Covering Cairo

A woman silently protesting in front of a line of Cairo police.

I left occupied Palestine on christmas day 2009 and travel to Egypt across the Sinai desert where I spend 3 days in the village of Nuweba waiting to meet the Viva Palestina convoy bringing medical aid and supplies to the occupied Gaza Strip. The reason I spent 3 days in Nuweba was because the Egyptian government was denying the convoy entrance into the country and it soon became apparent that they were going to have to take a different route. I called a contact and heard that similar cases where taking place inside the country and that international activists where amassing in the capital city of Cairo.

The actions that took place inside the capital city varied depending on the location and group performing the action itself. Some were direct action blockades, sidewalk protests, embassy sit-ins and of course endless negotiations. Instead of talking about the actions that took place I think it would be more important to address why things failed in the end. ‘Code Pink’ is an organization that was at the front of the ‘Gaza Freedom March’ (GFM) which never criticized the Egyptian government’s help on the Gaza blockade or the newly built wall for fear of not being allowed entrance to the occupied strip. By not creating any waves with the government they single handedly cut out and ignored all Egyptian activist groups who were more than willing to help. 

When the time came for the march the government rejected all access into Gaza leaving Code Pink and GFM to quickly put together demonstrations in Cairo, a city and political system where they were completely unaware of the power and structure of the government they were now facing. Eventually the GFM decided to bring in Egyptian activists for help but even then when the time for organizing came the Arab voice was pushed back and overwhelmed by western words. At one point it was said by an American organizer that “This is our march! If the Egyptians want to join us they are more than welcome!”  ..... I want to thank the international activists for giving the Egyptians the right to protest in their own country! You proclaimed your where here in solidarity but were unable to see your own destructive and colonialist ideas. 

On the response to the actions themselves I can only say that the Egyptian government is nothing more than a childish tin-pot dictatorship. As a photojournalist I would actually prefer to work inside of Israel than Egypt. Israel at least tries to accommodate the lie that they are a democratic country and that there are rights. In Egypt, if you get in the way of the government and its grip on power you are simply removed by any means necessary. Taking a photograph can instantly make you the unpleasant center of attention by police and I have had a tug-of-war for my camera. Internationals leaving Cairo in the direction of Gaza were pulled off the bus and were forced back to the capital. In one action people where punched, kicked and woman where dragged out by their hair. All of these horrible acts are even worse for Egyptians where being arrested is almost a guaranteed torture sentence and political assassinations can shadow over activist organizations.  

Americans protest their government's involvement in the Gaza war.

Protesters are surrounded by riot police.

Cairo riot police use violence to disperse protesters and media.

Some international protesters were injured during the demonstration. 

A Rabbi for peace is upset with the news that the convoy will not enter Gaza.

An elderly woman is pulled out from the crowd.

Police violence does not break the protests as demonstrators rally again. 

A photograph of activists raising a Palestinian flag on the Giza pyramids.

Monsters in Green

Palestinian child outside of a refugee tent.

*For those who have been patiently waiting for my project from Cairo, I am still working on editing my photographs and collecting my thoughts. I have re-entered the Middle East and returned to Palestine where the violence has tremendously escalated all over the West Bank with nightly raids, threatening phone calls and the disappearing of Palestinian and International organizers/activists. These are the most recent photographs and accounts from the Bi'lin.*

A soldiers aims his gun with live ammunition at a crowd of protesters.

Upon my return to Bi’lin all of my friends and ‘family’ greeted me with smiles and a loving embrace as we celebrated with a large cooked meal. Even after all of my travels and despair I finally felt calm again being back in Palestine, a population that feels like my own people. By midnight people at the gathering dispersed and went home to their families as me and the other activists went to the community center to edit our work and talk to our own families back home. With little not no rest I still felt fully awake at 3 am and decided to go relax at my friends house.

A soldier firing tear gas into a crowd down the road.

Soldiers entering the village of Bi'lin for a ground invasion.

Half way to your destination my Palestinian friend stopped when we were in the middle of the graveyard behind the village mosque as if sensing something in the air.

I asked him “What is it?”

After a pause and deep inhale he looked through the tree and said “Something is not right.”

We stood silent for a seconds and then the phone call came in. A house on the other side of the village was being raided.

A soldier aiming his gun directly at civilians at a lethally close range.

We quickly turned around and sprinted back in the direction that we came from. The cool night air rushing down my lungs left me with the idea of how many kids find themselves in positions like this? When we reached the house the military had already blocked everything off with 3 armored cars and squads of soldiers in the field surrounding the house. There was nothing I could do. Every time I raised my camera it was blocked by a bright glair from a soldier’s flashlight and every time I moved closer to the house I was pushed back until I was grabbed at the chest by a soldier who said “Stop or you will be arrested!” The 3 stars on his shoulder showed he was the commander and there was no joking in his voice. I was at a loss. For only 3 seconds a man appeared from the house being pulled by soldiers until he was locked in the armored Jeep. Even with all of the cameras and video recorders no clear image was able to capture the man being taken away behind the towering wall of monsters in green who hide behind guns. Just as fast as the Jeep pulled away into the night the foot soldiers disappeared into the fields. Monsters in green who disappear into the inked night to hide behind their walls.

In a last act of desperation the mother runs after them to the edge of her balcony screaming “Why did you take my son from me!? Imagine your own child being stolen from you!”

Right before they disappeared into the fields she gave her last cry of accepting her loss, “How can you do this to me!?”

A cameraman waiting for help after being injured by a thrown stone.

They were gone as quickly as they came. The man they arrested was nicknamed ‘Sox’, a friend who welcomed me back home only hours ago at my welcome back gathering. The military has been trying to arrest him for quite some time so he has been fleeing his home in fear of imprisonment. He could not stand to be in hiding away from his family for so long and decided to spend a night or two with them before disappearing again.

He was stripped away from us all in the middle of the night for protesting against the apartheid wall that stole his land and I don’t know when I will see him again or what lies ahead in his future.

At the end of it all the mother lay on the floor weeping praying for the grace of god to help protect her son and bring him home. There was nothing I could do to comfort her. I could not even talk to her or hold her hand and tell her everything will be OK because I am a man and I am forbidden to make contact with a married muslim woman. My heart felt as if it’s weight was ripping it in two as I did the only thing I was allowed to do... say good night as we left her crying on the ground for her lost son. An overwhelming feeling of anger, hatred, sadness, failure and helplessness all mingled into one and the only thing that kept me from crying was writing this message to you.

Monsters in green who hide behind walls and guns.

I will never be the same person again.

Three soldiers waiting for orders to advance.

Hebron: A City Strangled by Occupation

**I am currently in Cairo to attempt to get into Gaza. I will not be able to get online for awhile, but hope you will take the time to read about my experiences in Hebron**

The more I think of how to explain Hebron to you, the more I realize it is truly impossible to describe what goes on here. This stunningly beautiful city is currently the most violent location in Palestine. The city is split in two parts H1 & H2. Palestinian controlled H1 is a noisy, bustling center. Merchants and food venders yell loudly as honking taxis pass by, but as you make your way toward H2, the occupied old city, things quickly start to change. The number of people in the streets drops dramatically, and you will notice more closed and barred shut shops. Further down the path you find almost all stores closed. Only a few families living under intense poverty conditions try to make a living here. They sell their goods to the few tourists that dare enter the city and they make a maximum of $3 a day to feed their family with.

One of the first things I do when entering an unknown area is to walk around and get a feel for my surroundings. However, walking around in Hebron is no simple task; dotted with over 100 checkpoints movement becomes increasingly difficult. It is wise to walk against the walls and under the canopies here to avoid being pelted with objects (trash, rocks, urine, feces) from settlers above, who have taken control of the houses and streets. The illegal settlements have military outposts on rooftops and snipers to protect the occupants. Water is only imported to the city once every three weeks. The water pipes are controlled by the Israeli government who regularly cut the water supply to all Palestinian families for weeks.

I get hassled much less Palestinians, no one attempts to hide the racism or hatred here; there is no need to. The soldiers, who routinely humiliate the citizens of Palestine, can make moving around the city mildly annoying or impossible by closing a checkpoint or detaining people for no reason and for any amount of time.

Sometimes it is quite obvious the soldiers are just bored and get a kick out of making people suffer. I witnessed a group of soldiers detaining several Palestinian teenagers. While the military looked on and laughed, the teens were forced to stand in a circle, sing and dance to, the Israeli national anthem.

In the Jewish-Only H2 neighborhood soldiers are the only people you will see on otherwise abandoned street corners. Most walls and doors are covered with graffiti and almost all have the Star of David on them (this is done by both the IDF and settlers). I spoke with a Palestinian man about the area and he explained “it's a ghost town, but they don’t want to tell you who the ghosts are.”

With physical violence and humiliation also comes a sometimes hopelessly crushing feeling of not knowing what lies in the future. Psychological warfare is a main tactic progressively pushing insanity on the Arab inhabitants. As I write this I can’t truly explain or describe what it is like living under occupation in this city. Photographing resistance fighters in other regions in the West Bank is different than in Hebron, here every Palestinian is a resistance fighter. They may not pick up a gun or throw stones but every day is a fight for life.

Witnessing this occupation can be difficult beyond anything I imagined before I got here. Coming from the U.S. I am not unaware of racism, but seeing it so proudly displayed here sickens my soul. Yet even with all the horrific events I see, I still find myself smiling at times, this is because of the children of Palestine. Their smiles and welcoming attitudes lift my spirits, when I am with them all of the pain I feel and sacrifices I have made make sense, and those feelings pale in comparison to the hope I have that these children will be free and able to determine their own future without humiliation or imprisonment.

A Israeli military sign outside of an outpost. H2, Hebron.
    A military patrol passes an elderly Palestinian man. Old city, Hebron.
      Palestinian waiting at a check point to the Abraham mosque (H2).
  Nightly military patrol, Old City.
Forcefully closed Palestinian neighborhood now Jewish only, H2.

      Looking over Hebron from inside an Israeli bunker.
Peace sign from an Israeli lookout station.
A woman being denied passage into the Jewish only section on Hebron.
    A child being interrogated during a night patrol.
A small girl in a stare down with  soldier, Old City.
Child doing backflips off a wall after school lets out.

        Handprints of kids paint a Palestinian house.