Sydney-based Palestinian activist Khaled Ghannam recently travelled to the occupied West Bank in Palestine. This is the first part of his account.
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When I arrived in Ramallah City in February, I felt how fierce the campaign is against anyone trying to visit occupied Palestine.
Official Australian warnings consider it a very dangerous area. Jordanian tourism agencies do not provide tourism services due to the difficult security conditions and boycott campaigns against Israel.
Even internet services are severely misleading, indicating that the Israeli government is seeking to isolate occupied Palestine from the outside world.
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Control
The occupied West Bank is divided by the Israeli occupation army into three different zones: Zone A, which is under the control of the Palestinian security services; Zone C, which is under the control of the Israeli occupation army; and Zone B, which is under joint control.
However, last year in the occupied West Bank, new military gates were built at the entrances to occupied Palestinian villages and towns, closing the roads leading to and from them and isolating them from the rest of the occupied West Bank. There is no set time for opening or closing these gates.
Consequently, Palestinians turn to social media, especially Telegram, to exchange information about military gates and checkpoints, to know how to get to work or university and find out how to return home.
Often, this means taking a very long journey to reach your destination, at higher cost.
But even this isn’t always possible, especially when the Israeli occupation army deliberately closes military checkpoints and blocks roads.
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One evening I saw hundreds of Palestinian ministry employees trying to leave Ramallah City for their villages after work. They sat in the streets and cafes of downtown Ramallah for hours waiting for the roads to be reopened. One night, a road was blocked until 11pm.
My experience dealing with Israeli occupation soldiers at military checkpoints made me feel that the orders from the officers were very strict, with no room for discussion or inquiry. Soldiers were unwilling to provide me with even the simplest information, such as when the checkpoint would open or which alternative route was open.
Frankly, my Australian passport was no help in getting past the closed military checkpoints. In fact, some soldiers told me I had to leave the occupied West Bank and head to an Israeli city.
Dr Ramzi Odeh, head of the International Academic Campaign Against Israeli Occupation and Apartheid, told me: “Waiting long hours at checkpoints has caused a radical change in the social concepts of the people of the West Bank.
“We often see some cars decide to cancel their trip and withdraw from the long queue of cars to return to where they came from.
“This may be due to many reasons, including going to the bathroom, difficulty controlling children for long hours in a confined space or the pressure of another engagement.”
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In a shocking incident in Nablus city, the car I was travelling in was stopped at a military checkpoint at the entrance to the Palestinian Jewish “as-Samra” area.
Israeli occupation soldiers told us we could not enter as it was an Israeli area, and my fellow passengers — Dr Raed Al-Dabai, head of the Political Science Department and official spokesperson for An-Najah National University, and Engineer Ramzi Harb from The Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission — were banned from entering Israel for security reasons.
When Al-Dabai told them he had an appointment to meet with the priest, the soldier arrogantly responded: “You are prohibited from entering Israel. Move quickly from here, as you are obstructing me from doing my job.”
Al-Dabai responded: “Is this a new decision to annex lands within the city of Nablus?”
The soldier waved his weapon at us, indicating the need to turn around and open the road for cars.
In another incident, my friends were trying to enter Tulkarm city to offer their condolences to a friend who had lost a relative in the Tulkarm refugee camp incidents.
Israeli soldiers were setting up checkpoints at all entrances to the city, preventing anyone but residents from entering. When my friends tried to enter repeatedly through several checkpoints, they were warned that they would be arrested if they did not leave the area immediately.
Activist Issam Harb told me that the occupation’s arbitrary measures are not always logical. Some of them have no security necessity and serve no purpose other than to oppress Palestinian society.
For example, the people of Salfit town used to sit in an open area to spend the summer evenings outside their homes — a simple outlet to relax. But the occupation army prevented this without giving any reason, and did the same in several other areas.
The occupation army doesn’t want Palestinians to feel free and able to relax in their homeland.
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Defiance
The experience of Palestinians trying to pass through the revolving security gates (maata) in the cities is a thousand times more difficult than the military checkpoints on the roads, according to Osama Taha, chair of the Palestinian Engineering Association in Ramallah. Taha told me about a recent trip he made with colleagues to perform Friday prayers at the Ibrahimi Mosque.
About 100 people were trying to go through the gates set up by the Israeli occupation forces at the entrance to the mosque. A soldier at the gate said to them: “Go back to your homes, enough worshippers have entered.” He closed the revolving gate with an electronic button.
People started laughing at the soldier, saying to him: “These are your manners, okay, we will pray here in the street, you will not prevent us from praying here.”
Another group mocked the soldier, telling him: “We’re here to eat Turkish delight. Did you know there have been Turkish delight factories here for 500 years?”
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Taha was among a group that insisted on going inside the mosque to pray. In the middle of the prayer, the soldier opened the door of the prayer hall and said: “Now you can pass through without being searched.” It was a very provocative move, but the worshippers continued praying, ignoring him.
On the other hand, Israeli occupation soldiers raid the homes of villagers along the apartheid wall to ensure that only the residents of the house are inside. If they find a guest is visiting, they begin a barbaric search of the house, claiming that there is a strong possibility of weapons or explosives being found.
In my village, Ni’lin, homes are subjected to repeated attacks by Israeli soldiers searching for “vandals”. However, this does not prevent villagers from challenging these violations of their privacy. Many guests openly spend the night in the homes of Ni’lin residents, and this repeated act of defiance has led Israeli soldiers to turn a blind eye to the excessive use of violence against them.
This is what the great activist Ayed Murar, advisor to The Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission, meant when he said that Palestinian awareness drives Palestinians to reject the occupation and its authority, and that any restrictions imposed by the occupation must be broken by Palestinians by refusing to be subjugated by the occupation soldiers.
Indeed, Palestinians rebel with mockery against all punitive measures imposed against them.
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Economy crippled
However, this doesn’t help traditional Palestinian industries, which are suffering a severe recession. Tourism has ground to a halt due to the war on Gaza, and the occupation government is placing significant obstacles to the export of Palestinian products to international markets.
For example, when I visited the Touqan soap factory in downtown Nablus city, they had not been able to make any soap this year.
I was accompanied on the visit by Abdul Rahman Al-Maghribi, chairperson of the General Union of Palestinian Historians and Archaeologists. He told me the factory has been operating continuously for more than 150 years, and is considered an important part of Palestinian industrial history, as it was one of the first to use diesel generators for industrial purposes.
In another example, in the city of Hebron, Abu Wahid, the manager of the Canaan Land Glass Factory, told me that he had not lit the furnace since the outbreak of the war on Gaza, as international orders had stopped.
Due to the Israeli government’s restrictive measures on exports, and the tourism sector having come to a standstill, these products need foreign markets — becoming more of a souvenir than a household item for everyday use.
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