Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.

What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.

Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.

That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.

The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.

My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.

Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.

Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.

That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.

This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.

It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.

But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.

We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

The Gaza Strip is located on the Mediterranean Sea and borders Israel to the north and east and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to the south. It is inhabited by 1.4 million Palestinians (including nearly one million refugees from the 1948 war in which Israel conquered 78% of historic Palestine) and around 8,500 illegal Israeli settlers.

These settlers (0.6% of the population) and the Israeli soldiers who guard them control all of the land borders of Gaza, its access to the sea, its drinking water, its air space, and 30% of its land area.

Settlements and checkpoints split the small area in which Palestinians live into five sub-areas (Rafah, Khan Younis, Al Mawasi, Deir Al Balah, and Gaza City) that cannot be traveled between without Israeli permission. Settlers, on the other hand, can go back and forth freely on exclusive, heavily fortified roads that link them directly to Israel. The checkpoints between the five Palestinian enclaves areas are frequently closed. Many Gazans are not allowed to travel at all, and the people who are allowed through are subjected to humiliating body searches and sometimes abuse or even violence. Many patients have died at these checkpoints on the way to hospitals, and many babies have been born and died at them while waiting for Israeli permission to pass.

Israel’s decision to evacuate its settlers from the Gaza Strip, and relocate them in Israel and the West Bank, is a tactical decision designed to strengthen Israel’s Jewish majority and its illegal stranglehold over East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Haaretz recently ran a story that stated that Palestinians now outnumber Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The same story said that disengaging from Gaza will ensure a Jewish majority in Israel plus East Jerusalem and the West bank for another 20 years.

Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza is not a concession but rather a strategic choice to selectively obey international and Israeli law, which call for Israel’s withdrawal from illegally occupied Palestinian territory, in order to continue breaking the same law elsewhere, namely in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Currently Israel is busily building expanding dozens of settlements and outposts throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel’s High Court has ruled this summer that the illegal Israeli settlements within the Gaza Strip are not part of the State of Israel and are in an area of “belligerent occupancy.” Therefore it cannot order the state to make “border adjustments” and annex the settlements to Israel.

The West Bank and East Jerusalem are also under belligerent occupancy, but so far the High Court has avoided making a similar ruling about them since Israel wishes to annex vast areas of the West Bank and all of East Jerusalem to Israel illegally.

The most important thing to understand about the Gaza withdrawal is that it is not a move toward peace by the Israeli establishment. It is a move to shore up Israel’s hold on the West Bank settlement blocks and on East Jerusalem that will make a two-state solution impossible. It is a way to postpone a just and negotiated final settlement to the conflicts that have devastated both societies for decades, and if East Jerusalem and vital areas of the West Bank are stolen unilaterally and illegally by Israel, more bloodshed will surely result.

Israel also has not agreed to allow Palestinians to have any meaningful control over their land or sea borders or airspace in the Gaza Strip once the settlers leave. Palestinian goods and travelers may be forced to ask Israel’s permission to enter and exit the Gaza Strip, even if they are coming in from Egypt or another country via land, air, or sea.

If Palestinians must continue to submit to Israel’s expensive and humiliating searches of every import and export into and out of Gaza’s territory, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn believes Gaza’s shattered economy will have no chance to recover.

Israel also explicitly reserves the right to invade militarily any time it sees fit. If such is the case, the Gaza Strip will remain occupied territory under international law even after every settler leaves.

Basic Facts:

• The Gaza Strip is 27 miles (45km) long and 3-7 miles (5-12km) wide, an area of 141 sq miles (365 sq km) that is completely walled-in.
• Around 1.4 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, making it one of the most densely populated places on earth.
• Under the Oslo accords, Israel retains military control of 30% of the Gaza Strip, most of it reserved for 8,500 Israeli settlers (0.6% of the population).
• This 30% of Israeli-controlled land also includes military bases, bypass roads, a buffer zone along the border, and “yellow areas” (areas populated by Palestinians but under Israeli military control).
• Three-quarters of Gazans (nearly one million people) are refugees expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 war, or their descendants. Approximately 500,000 of these people live in UN-registered camps. The main ones are Rafah, Khan Younis, and Jabaliya.
• The most densely populated camp is Jabaliya outside Gaza City, where 90,000 live in an area of 3 sq km.
• Jabaliya Camp was invaded in October 2004 by the Israeli army in an operation called “Days of Penitence” following the death of two young children from Sderot due to Palestinian rocket fire. During the invasion, 133 Palestinians were killed, including 31 children. 77 homes were destroyed, hundreds more were damaged, and 150 acres of farmland were razed. Police and security posts, schools, mosques, and kindergartens were damaged or destroyed. Israel had engaged in several similar invasions before.
• On May 19, 2004, Israeli helicopters and tanks opened fire on a civilian demonstration near Rafah, killing 18 and wounding dozens, mostly children. The demonstrators had been protesting a deadly Israeli invasion into a neighboring refugee camp.
• The Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip is growing rapidly, at over 4% per year. Half of the population is under age 15.
• The majority of Gaza’s adults are unemployed. The poverty rate stands at about 70%.
• Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip are all illegal under international humanitarian law. Built mainly on expropriated land, settlements disrupt the territorial contiguity of Palestinian areas and are used to justify the Israeli military presence.
• Settlements are heavily fortified and linked to Israel by roads that are off-limits to Palestinians. Settlers in the Gaza Strip have virtually no contact with the Palestinian population. They enjoy exclusive roads and four border crossings to enable them to enter and leave Israel.
• The only crossing point for Palestinians into Israel is Erez checkpoint at the northern tip of the strip.
• Before the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, the Gazan economy was valued at approximately $US 1 billion. The service sector is the largest part the economy, followed by agriculture.
• According to the United Nations, the Palestinian economy contracted by 50% during the last quarter of 2000 due mostly to severe movement restrictions imposed by Israel. Approximately 24,000 Gazans who used to work in Israel are now unable to reach their jobs due to Israeli border closures.

Buildings damages or destroyed in the Gaza Strip - September 2000 to May 2005

Number of completely destroyed homes in Gaza Strip: 4,662

Number of partially damaged homes in Gaza Strip: 22,807

Number of damaged public buildings in Gaza Strip: 30

Number of damaged security buildings in Gaza Strip: 340

(Source: Ministry of Public Works and Housing, 2005)

History of Gaza

“A city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land,” wrote the 14th-century Syrian scholar al-Dimashqi of his expansive view of Gaza. He was not the first to pen the city’s praises: Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo and others had all complimented it in antiquity. Indeed, as early as 1500 BC, Pharaoh Thutmose III had chiseled into the Temple of Amun at Karnak a note that Gaza was “flourishing,” and today, Gaza historian Ibrahim Skeik recalls seeing, in the early 20th century, “trees all about the city, olives and almond groves.”

Cradled in the southeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea, near the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, what is now known as the Gaza Strip has changed hands many times over the millennia. Its fertile land and value as a trade route and seaport have been prized by successive invaders.

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were the Canaanites, and in ancient times Gaza City served as the residence of the Egyptian governor of Canaan. In the 13th century B.C. it was taken over by the Philistines, who created a coastal power base with Gaza City as its principal center. The Philistine city came successively under control of the Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians until it was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 330s BC.

Following the Roman conquest in 63 BC, the area known historically as Canaan became known as Palestine. It later came under Byzantine rule.

Gaza became a Muslim city in 635 when it was captured by adherents to the new religion. It was captured by Christian Crusaders in the 1100s but recaptured by the Muslims in 1187.

The Ottoman Empire took control of Gaza in the 1500s. The French under Napoleon briefly controlled Gaza beginning in 1798 after defeating the Egyptian Mamluks who were allied with the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey. Napoleon stayed three days in the modest palace of the governing Radwan family; in Gaza City today, the palace, now a girl’s school, is still called “Napoleon’s Castle.” The French were driven out years later by a combination of Brits, Turks, Mamluks, and Arabs.

During World War I, in 1917, the Third Battle of Gaza ended with British forces capturing Gaza. During the war of 1948, following an ill-considered plan to partition Palestine into a 55% Jewish state and 45% Arab state (despite the fact that Jews at this time only owned about 7% of the land), 78% of historic Palestine was captured by Jewish forces.

During the devastating 1948 war, Jewish gangs and armies drove approximately 800,000 Palestinian Arabs, including Christians and Muslims, farmers and bankers, women and children, from their homes in what became known as Israel. Many of these refugees fled into Gaza, swelling its population; many still have the keys and deeds to their homes and lands inside Israel. Of the 22% of historic Palestine not captured by Jewish forces, Jordan annexed the West Bank, and Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip.

During the 1967 war, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights, and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula were conquered and occupied by Israel. The annexations were not recognized under the new regime of international law. Israel later gave the Sinai back to Egypt, but the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan remain under illegal occupation.

When Palestinians reached the breaking point with regard to the oppression, humiliation, and subjugation inherent in foreign military occupations, the Palestinians engaged in a popular revolt known as the First Intifada. Israeli forces engaged in excessive violence to put down the revolt, killing hundreds of Palestinians and injuring and imprisoning thousands.

In response, Israel signed the Oslo Accords in 1993 in order to transfer social responsibility for Palestinians onto a new body called the Palestinian National Authority. Meanwhile Israel maintained security control over the Palestinian territories and maintained severe restrictions on freedom and movement. From the day it was signed until the Second Intifada broke out, Israel accelerated its project of building Jewish-only cities called settlements in the West Bank and Gaza in order to strengthen their position there in the hopes that they could eventually annex all of this territory outright.

The Second Intifada, which began in September 2000 with an explosive visit by Ariel Sharon, a known war criminal, to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, has resulted in the deaths of around 4,000 Palestinians, including over 700 children, and 950 Israelis, including about one hundred children.

Israel’s population within the ’67 borders is currently around six million, 20% of whom are Arab-Israelis, or indigenous Palestinians who remained in Israel despite the ethnic cleansing of 1948. Thus, along with the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, the number of Jews and Palestinians is roughly equal between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, and the Palestinian population is growing much faster.

The Second Intifada forced Israel to realize that it was impossible to keep total control over the 3.7 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza. This combined with the Palestinians’ high birth rate and Israel’s inability to bring in the millions of Jews they needed to ensure a Jewish majority between the Jordan and the Mediterranean led to Sharon’s announcement in 2004 that he was leaving the Gaza Strip.

He did so because he reached the inescapable conclusion that Israel can only choose two of the following three choices: Jewish, democratic, and occupying all of historic Palestine. If Israel wants to be Jewish but annex all of the land of historic Palestine, it cannot be democratic, as Palestinians will soon outnumber Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. If it chooses to be democratic and occupy all of historic Palestine, it will no longer be dominated by Jews. Thus the only viable choice for a Jewish democratic state is to tactically retreat from at least the population centers of the West Bank and Gaza. And with the disengagement plan, Sharon is excising 1.4 million Palestinians from the Israeli population at a stroke.

In other words, if Israel doesn’t find a way to “disengage” from the rapidly-growing Palestinian population, whom some say already outnumber Jews, Israel will be forced to replace its de facto Apartheid policies with official de jure Apartheid policies in order to maintain its Jewish dominance. Sharon bases his actions on the knowledge that Israel has enormously more power than the Palestinians and the belief that this disengagement and the inevitable ones to follow should happen on Israel’s terms rather than through a negotiated solution based on international law.

Gaza Today

Today, the past endures, scattered amid streets dense with homes and small shops. Only the Mosque of Umar—the converted crusader church—and the small Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, which still serves Gaza’s 700 Christians, hark back to pre-Mamluk times. The Mamluk maze of arched, covered streets collapsed under World War I’s shells, except for a lone, musty passage in Gaza's gold market. The tomb of the Prophet Muhammad’s great grandfather, Hashim, still lies in a corner of a 19th-century mosque and former pilgrim’s hostel.

Several smaller, Mamluk-era mosques and tombs dot Shuja’iyyah, Gaza’s old Lower Town; one, the Mosque of ibn Uthman, is considered by historian Salim al-Mobayed to be architecturally “the purest Islamic mosque in Gaza.” Mamluk baths open in the morning for men and in the afternoon for women, and in the narrow, ancient quarters of Daraj and Zaytun, cinder-block walls rise everywhere atop the worn stones and antique arches of earlier eras.

Many details of Gaza's past hang today as equally unanswered questions. Where was the crusader castle? Where was [Roman Emperor] Hadrian’s famous stadium? What of the sixth-century library and school of rhetoric, known throughout the Mediterranean, or the eight Greek temples? Or, indeed, what of the remains of Gaza’s cultural life in every era? And who, at the dawn of history, really founded Gaza, the city whose name has meant “strong,” “treasure,” and “the ruler's prize”?

For a more detailed satellite map, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/08/06/weekinreview

Sources:

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199405/gaza-contested
http://www.visit-palestine.com/gaza/places/basha.htm
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gz.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

The Palestine Monitor calls upon the international community to immediately intervene and put pressure on Israel to re-open the ballot offices in East Jerusalem.

In an attempt to halt the registration process and deter Palestinian voters from participating in their democratic electoral right, the Israeli occupation forces, have raided and closed six registration centers in Jerusalem.

Israel constantly invokes the claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East and criticizes the Palestinian Authority’s stalling over elections. However, the Israeli ongoing occupation and military escalation in the OPT serve to further justify the Palestinian Authority’s suspension of elections. Now that the Palestinians are attempting to participate freely in elections, Israeli occupation forces are taking further deliberate measures intended to sabotage the election and reform processes by driving away Jerusalem residents from the registration centers. By shutting down the Palestinian elections offices in occupied east Jerusalem, and by detaining nine workers and seizing all voter registration lists, Israel is depriving Palestinians from holding elections and reform, and therefore building their nation in a free, democratic and peaceful manner.

TAKE ACTION

The Palestine Monitor calls upon a large mobilization of international public opinion on behalf of the Palestinian people demanding that those with power and responsibility act to re-open the offices.

Talking Points for letters: - Immediate intervention to demand the right of Palestinians to conduct free elections.

- A call for governments to unequivocally condemn Israel's closure of registration centers.

- Support the Central Elections Commission (CEC) is an independent body responsible for the administration and supervision of the Palestinian National elections and is supported by the EU.

We urge all concerned individuals and organizations to act immediately and without delay and contact the following US, UN, UK, and European Union representatives (Readers outside the United States are encouraged to contact their national political representatives. Contact information can typically be tracked down quickly by searching with Google.com):

United States Representatives 

President George Bush Jr.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington DC 20500

e-mail: president@whitehouse.gov

Tel. 202-456-1414

US Secretary of State Colin Powell

2201 C St. NW Washington DC 20520

e-mail: secretary@state.gov 

(State Dept. Tel switchboard 202-647-4000) fax: 202-736 4461

US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer

Tel: (+972-3) 519-7575;

e-mail: webmaster@usembassy-israel.org.il

Your member of Congress -- Call the Capitol switchboard toll-free on 1-800-839-5276 and ask to be connected to your member of Congress.

United Nations 

General Telephone: (212) 963-1234

Fax for Kofi Annan's office: (212) 963-7055

e-mail: inquiries@un.org 

Permanent Missions to the United Nations

European Union Representatives

EU Presidency

e-mail: eu@taoiseach.gov.ie 

High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) for the European Union Javier Solana

Tel: +32 (0)2-285-6467 or +32 (0)476-93-6426;

e-mail: presse.cabinet@consilium.eu.int 

UK Representatives 

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair 

e-mail or Fax via Downing Street website: www.number-10.gov.uk 

Appeals should be sent to:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

Office of the Prime Minister 3 Kaplan Street, P O Box 187 Jerusalem 91919,

Israel Telegram: Prime Minister, Jerusalem, Israel

Fax: +972 2 6705475

Telex: 25279 MPRES IL

e-mail: rohm@pmo.gov.il

Minister of Justice Yosef Lapid

Ministry of Justice 29 Salah al-Din Street Jerusalem 91010

Israel Telegram: Justice Minister, Jerusalem, Israel

Fax: +972 2 6285438

E-mail: sar@justice.gov.il

Yet another anti-wall protest passed off peacefully this morning in the small village of Deir Qaddis north-west of the city of Ramallah where local Palestinians were joined by international solidarity groups among them a delegation from the French Farmers Union. Whilst the demonstration was small in terms of the recent violent clashes seen in Biddu and Abu Dis all members of the village young and old turned out to voice their frustration and anger hoping their demonstration would do something to stop the ongoing Israeli destruction of their lands. Deir Qaddis lies some five kilometers from Israel, well inside the Green Line. The majority of villagers are farmers and earn a living from working the surrounding land, most of it olive groves. This land is now being torn up in preparation for the next stages of the Israeli Apartheid Wall which is continuing on its path of destruction through the West Bank in the name of Israeli security.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee emphasized the importance of maintaining the struggle on the ground, and at the same time making this possible by providing small communities such as Deir Qaddis with the basic means to survive. UPMRC has recently spent 50,000 dollars building the village a health centre at the request of the residents to provide primary health care services. This project is just one of fifteen that UPMRC operates in the area. The hope as Dr Barghouthi explained is to ensure the villagers are not discouraged in their plight and remain steadfast to the Israeli encroachment.

Driving away from the village it is impossible to ignore the huge challenge these small communities are confronted with. The village and its small hills of olive groves are overshadowed by the continuing construction of high rise buildings in the illegal Mod'in IIIit settlement. From the school in Deir Qaddis the children view a different world and between them and it, their family's lands lie just moments from destruction. In what looks like a vast building site, Israel has taken yet another huge bite into the serene Palestinian landscape. The lands of the farmers of Deir Qaddis will soon be taken from them, annexed to Israel by the continuing wall.

Once the wall is built it will almost surround the village isolating many of the children from their schools and cutting the community as a whole from a network of health and social facilities. All their lands will be taken and few will have the economic means to remain. Israel's wall will then have succeeded in emptying another village of its Palestinian residents and cleared yet more land for the sprawling Israeli settlements.

On Sunday February 8, two year old Mohammad Hersham Maraba became the first victim of the Israeli wall's obstruction of Palestinian access to medical services. Mohammad died after desperate attempts by his father to take him to hospital were thwarted by the Israeli Apartheid Wall.

Mohammad had developed a temperature during the night of Saturday 7, and seeming no better the following morning his parents took him to the local doctor in the next village of Habla. After assessing Mohammad the doctor explained that the child's situation was critical and an ambulance was called to take Mohammad to the hospital in Qalqiliya, 2.5 km to the north.

The construction of the wall around Habla, Ras Atiya and Izbet Jalud began in December 2002, prior to this the journey from the surrounding villages to Qalqiliya hospital was relatively straightforward, probably taking no longer than ten or fifteen minutes. However, on the day Mohammad's father went to take his son to the hospital the obstructions and delays created by the construction of the wall led to the death of his child.

The village of Ras Atieh where the Maraba family live is on the Palestinian side of the wall. Unlike many towns and villages in the northern Qalqilya district it is not isolated in an area now de facto annexed into Israel yet due to Israel's annexation of the Alfe Menashe settlement the wall has deviated considerably from the 1967 green line and circled back into Palestinian territory to catch the settlement. The only thing more blatant than Israel's illegal annexations is their determination to take the land without the people. The route of the wall can often be seen therefore to follow as close as possible to the edges of Palestinian built up areas while leaving their land on the Israeli side of the wall. This has been the case in Habla. Though Israel has annexed the land, incorporating the 5,300 population into Israel was not acceptable. The wall therefore breaks between Qalqiliya and Habla leaving a small gap for an Israeli bypass road, tunneling back into West Bank land before swelling out to engulf the Alfe Menashe settlement almost like a great lake.

The ramifications of this are that people from Habla, Ras Atiya and Izbet Jalud now have to circumvent this great lake to reach services their small communities cannot provide, such as emergency hospital care.

When the ambulance didn't arrive to take Mohammad to hospital his father rushed down to the Habla gate which could enable him to pass through the first wall and then on to the second and the gate to enter Qalqiliya. The gates however are renowned for their sporadic opening if not permanent closure. On reaching the Habla gate Maraba found it locked and un-manned. He was therefore forced to begin the long journey following the wall around the Alfe Menashe settlement. Forty minutes later he reached the town of Azzun - approximately half way to the Qalqiliya Hospital - where he met the waiting ambulance and medics pronounced his little boy dead.

According to Doctor Zouhir Ashour from Al Aqsa medical center in Qalqilya the boy had suffered fibril convulsions. There is a simple medicine to treat such cases but this can only be administered in a hospital. Dr Ashour said there is no doubt that the obstruction caused by the wall was responsible for the child's death. Had the boy come to the hospital directly he could have been treated immediately and would have stood a significantly higher chance of survival.