On Tuesday, October 20, a small group of Israeli and international activists from Anarchists Against the Wall, Rabbis for Human Rights, and PSP, joined Abu Jabber Soleiby and his family to again harvest his few olive trees. The Abu Jabber and Hamad Soleiby families have not been allowed to work freely on their land without either Israeli settler attacks and/or Israeli military intervention, since March of this year. PSP, along with Israeli activists, have had an on-going campaign that has lasted over 5 months, accompanying the farmers to their land which lies in a valley in the Saffa area of Beit Ommar, just below the … Continue reading

This Sunday, 5 Israeli activists and 3 international activists with PSP, along with other Palestinian volunteers, joined the family of Abu Jabber Soleiby to pick olives on their land in the valley just below the Bat ‘Ayn settlement. After the deployment of a large number of soldiers last week that prevented anyone from entering the area, this week the Israeli military was caught unawares and the farmers, along with the solidarity activists, were able to work in the privately-owned Palestinian fields for nearly 2 hours, picking olives from the trees remaining after several acts of vandalism by Israeli Jewish settlers that destroyed much of the agricultural land in … Continue reading

On October 17, 2009 AbdelHamid Ahmed Abu Maria, father of PSP activists Mousa and Yousef Abu Maria, was told that Israeli soldiers had arrived on his land near the Arroub Agricultural University with bulldozers. When Mousa and an international solidarity activist with PSP arrived in the area, they saw that Israeli forces had bulldozed more than 1.5 acres of agricultural land, belonging to Yousef Abdel-Izzat Abu Maria, Abdelhamid Ahmed Abu Maria, and Ahmed Mohammed Ikhlayl in order to build two large electricity towers. The position of … Continue reading

In Al-Ma’asara, Palestinians were joined by their regular Israeli and international solidarity activists in a march towards the lands belonging to the residents of Al-Ma’asara, Um Salamuna, and Wadi An-Nis. Though there hasn’t been any construction on the actual barrier in nearly a year, the scar of the patrol road that is part of the matrix of the barrier in rural areas can be seen from the edge of the village. As has become routine in Al-Ma’asara, the Israeli army blocked the procession from advancing beyond the edge of the village and onto the main road that runs past their agricultural land. Children from the village … Continue reading

Today, October 12, 2009, Mehdi Sa’id Abu Ayyesh finally succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in Hebron. He was shot in the head with live ammunition, believed by his doctors to have been a .22 caliber bullet fired with a ruger rifle, which the Israeli military insists is “non-lethal”, on the evening of March 4, 2009 outside his home during an Israeli military invasion. Israeli forces said he threw rocks at them. He was taken to the hospital in Hebron, where he remained in a coma with bullet fragments in his brain, until his now-emaciated body finally rejected the ventilator and … Continue reading

Throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem Palestinians closed their shops and held demonstrations on Friday as various Palestinian movements throughout Occupied Palestine called for a “Day of anger” in response to the closure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to Muslim worshippers and the provocative actions of Israeli Jewish settlers, who were accompanied onto the compound by Israeli military forces last week.
During a demonstration organized by various political parties in Beit Ommar, Israeli forces invaded the village, provoking outrage by the local residents, some of whom responded by throwing stones and setting fire to tires to create a roadblock to prevent more Israeli … Continue reading

This Saturday, October 3, residents of the small town of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills were accompanied by approximately 40 international and Israeli solidarity activists on a tree-planting mission. The group walked out of town in the direction of Ma’on, an illegal Israeli settlement that has been expanding with great speed in the last few months. In September alone, 6 new homes were erected near the settlement, continuing to encroach on privately-owned Palestinian land. In response to this illegal expansion, the popular committee of At-Tuwani organized a mass tree-planting session. Activists spent several hours clearing the ground and planting fruit trees throughout the area near the … Continue reading

This Saturday, October 3, international and Israeli activists, along with PSP committee members, attempted to accompany Abu Jabber Soleiby and his family to his land in the Wad Arish valley, in the Saffa district of Beit Ommar. Since the completion of Ramadan and the Muslim holidays, the farmers wished to again tend to their land, in preparation for some repair work that they intend to begin, with the support of PSP and Israeli solidarity activists, this month. Instead, the Israeli military, with an unusual show of force even for the often-brutalized Beit Ommar, prevented farmers and activists alike from accessing the valley. The soldiers, who were even more … Continue reading

The weekly protest against the wall in Ni’lin was the first one held during the olive harvest season. This is also the first harvest season since the completion of the wall on Ni’lin land, and the village is waiting to see whether the occupation forces will fulfill their stated commitment to allow the villagers access to their land across the Barrier.
Families who still have remaining olive trees that haven’t been confiscated through the construction of the Annexation Barrier have begun the work of picking the olives. Ni’lin families with olive trees beyond the wall haven’t been allowed to cross over to harvest them yet, as the army has requested a list of names from the municipality.

The protesters marched … Continue reading

At approximately 2:30 am Monday morning, several units of Israeli forces entered Beit Ommar. They barged into more than a dozen homes, ransacking them, and eventually arresting 7 youth. The young men, ages 17 to 21, were from the Abu Maria, Awad, and Ikhlayl families. Israeli forces have once again begun a series of raids of the village, home to 17,000 people, both during the day and in the night. For the past three days, Israeli soldiers have set up flying checkpoints in the Tariq Al-Ayn section of Beit Ommar, near the Palestine Solidarity Project home and center, detaining drivers, stopping and searching random residents, and otherwise harassing local men. The reasons for the … Continue reading