The grotesque horror of a school field trip arriving at this location from two hours away to watch the mass slaughter from an observation deck was a shock I am overwhelmed by. The first wave of boys pumped celebratory firsts and thrust middle fingers upon their sight of Gaza.

By Matt Hoh
Matt’s Thoughts on War and Peace (11/18/24)

That is Gaza behind me.

 

The fence line is 600m away. The northern part of Gaza, where Israel is carrying out a genocide within a genocide, systematically starving 300,000 Palestinians to death, is about 2km further.

The absurdity and the obscenity of being able to be this close to 20,000 murdered children, their bodies “prophetic voices from under the rubble” as a colleague called them, is difficult to accept.

The grotesque horror of a school field trip arriving at this location from two hours away to watch the mass slaughter from an observation deck was a shock I am overwhelmed by. The first wave of boys pumped celebratory firsts and thrust middle fingers upon their sight of Gaza.

There were no warplanes or drones visible. The school kids and other audience members of a genocide who gawked and put money into a telescope left disappointed as they saw no bombs or missiles, no artillery or tank fire. There were no blast waves from controlled demolitions to wash over them, and the numbers of smoke pillars from smoldering and cratered homes and schools were in the single digits, their fires not vigorous enough to be smelled. It must have been underwhelming and a let down; not much to boast about or revel in on the school bus ride home.

It was quiet. The sounds of those buried under rubble don’t reach the observation deck. No torn and wrecked bodies could be seen, no sunlight reflected in pools of blood, and no strips of clothes snagged on exposed bones fluttered in the strong wind. We were as close as we could be but so separate and so safe from it. It was sanitary and septic, picturesque.

I felt I was a voyeur, a tourist, a spectator. I felt disgust and disbelief. And I felt an absence within me that I cannot articulate.

To be that close to the cleansing and destruction of 2.2 million people and to be centering now my words on my feelings doesn’t escape me. Perhaps a well-achieved purpose of that observation deck of genocide.

The Nietzsche-ism, stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you, struck me as I stood there.

Stare into Gaza and Gaza stares back is what I am left with now, comfortable in my Jerusalem hotel, just hours after looking into their genocide as if I were on a platform at a national park or on the boardwalk at the shore.

The horror of the genocide I expected but did not see. I thought I might curse and cry. I did neither. The cruel and so very human spectacle of a caged people being destroyed as a display for school children was what I encountered. I did not expect that and I don’t know how to respond.

Note: Americans partially funded this observation deck.

The observation deck in Sderot looking into Gaza.

A school field trip assembled at the observation platform overlooking Gaza.

These are my first thoughts on standing that close to Gaza. I may need to revisit them.

I am in Palestine this week as part of a delegation to be in solidarity with and learn from those engaged in Palestinian liberation. Today, in addition to this visit to the border of Gaza, we met with Rabbis for Human Rights and an October 7th survivor in the Sderot settlement, as well as a Palestinian Lutheran minister in Bethlehem.

Yesterday, we were in Jerusalem’s Old City. Here are my reflections from that visit: [NOTE: I could not found the link Matt mentioned. I have sent him a note asking if he can send it. I will post it when I get it. — MT]

Matthew selfie with Palestine in background.

 

Please comment and share. I will try and post more from this visit.

Viva Palestina.

Link to story

Matt Hoh Reports From Just Beyond The Ragged, Bloody Fringe Of Civilization — Israel

26-minute video

Palestinian Olive Farmers Threatened & Attacked By Israelis Gangs & Military

Hanan Abu Salameh, 59, was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier while she harvested olives.

By Wyre Davies
Reporting from the West Banl Umm Safa
BBC News (11/20/24)

On a Thursday afternoon towards the end of last month, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman set out to gather olives on her family’s land near the village of Faqqua, in the north of the occupied West Bank.

It was something that Hanan Abu Salameh had done for decades.

Within minutes, the mother of seven and grandmother of 14 lay dying in the dust of the olive grove, with a bullet wound in her chest - she’d been shot by an Israeli soldier.

Even though the family had co-ordinated their intention to pick olives with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), according to her son Fares and husband Hossam, the soldier fired several shots as other family members fled for cover.

The IDF says it’s investigating the incident (Hah! as usual!), but Hanan’s grieving relatives have little hope or expectation that her killer will be brought to justice.

This wasn’t an isolated incident.

Harvesting olives is an age-old ritual and also an economic necessity for many Palestinians, but, according to the UN, it is increasingly precarious.

Farmers across the West Bank - internationally regarded as Palestinian land occupied by Israel - face heightened risks, like organised attacks by Israeli settlers seeking to sabotage the olive harvest, along with the use of force by Israeli security forces to block roads and Palestinians' access to their lands.

“Last year we couldn’t even harvest our olives, except for a very small amount,” says Omar Tanatara, a farmer from the village of Umm Safa.

“At one point, the army came, threw the olives we’d already gathered on the ground, and ordered us to go home,” says Omar, who is also a member of the village council.

“Some people were even shot at and olives trees were cut down with saws – that’s how we later found them,” adds Omar, as he and other villagers use small hand-held rakes to pull this year’s harvest from their remaining trees while they can.

No guarantee of safety

Zuraya Hadad instinctively winces as we watch a video of the incident in which her ribs were broken by a masked man wielding a large stick.

The Israeli peace activist had been helping Palestinian farmers pick their olives when she was assaulted without provocation.

Rather than arresting her attacker, Israeli soldiers, who’d accompanied settlers to the site, just told him to move on.

“Even when we come to help, it doesn't guarantee that the Palestinians can harvest their olives,” Zuraya tells me as she recovers from her injuries at home.

“We try to raise awareness, but in the end it's either the settlers steal the olives or cut the trees, or they remain unpicked and go to waste.”

Land is at the heart of the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians - who controls it and who has access to it.

For thousands of Palestinian families and villages, cultivating and harvesting olives is a big part of their economy.

But many say that, in recent times, access to trees on their land has been impeded, often violently by Israeli settlers.

Hundreds of trees - which can take years to reach fruit-bearing maturity - have been deliberately burned or cut down, says the UN.

More than 96,000 dunums (approximately 96 sq km; 37 sq miles) of olive groves in the West Bank also went uncultivated in 2023 because of Israeli restrictions on access for Palestinian farmers.

Israeli peace activist Zuraya Hadad was attacked by a masked man as she accompanied Palestinian farmers to the harvest.

After being gathered by hand, villagers from Umm Safa take sacks full of olives to the nearby factory, where the presses have restarted this season.

Olives are the most important agricultural product in the West Bank. In a good year, they're worth more than $70m (£54m) to the Palestinian economy.

But income was well down last year and this year will be even worse, says factory owner Abd al-Rahman Khalifa, as even fewer farmers are able to harvest their crop owing to attacks by settlers.

“Let me give you an example,” he tells me.

“My brother-in-law in Lubban - next to the Israeli settlement - went to pick his own olives, but they broke his arms and they made him leave along with everyone who was with him.”

“We, as Palestinians, don’t have petrol or big companies. Our main agricultural crop is olives,” he adds. “So, like the Gulf depends on oil, and the Americans on business, our economy is dependent on the olive tree.”

On the hill overlooking the olive groves of Umm Safa stands an illegal settler outpost - a farm.

The extremist settler who runs it, Zvi Bar Yosef, was sanctioned this year by the UK and other Western governments for repeated acts of violence against Palestinians, including twice threatening families at gunpoint.

Over the last year of the war in Gaza, Jewish settlers have been emboldened by the support of far-right Israeli ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir.

As national security minister, he has given out free firearms to hundreds of settlers and has encouraged them to assert their right to what - they say - is their "God-given" land.

Ben-Gvir has also been accused of openly supporting the disruption of olive harvesting on Palestinian land.

At the olive press, farmers wait patiently in the yard to witness the transformation of the olives they’ve been able to gather this year into "liquid gold".

The olive tree has been a symbol of this land for centuries.

For generations of Palestinians, it is their link to the land - a link that is under threat now more than ever.