Take Me to Palestine
Moon, oh moon take me to Palestine, where there are mothers with tears on their chin where there are fathers with steel in their eyes where there are brothers with stones in their hands where there are sisters with hope…
The Olives of Beit Furiq
On Saturday 28 October IWPS and ISM joined farmers from the Palestinian village Beit Furiq who were picking olives near the settler road leading to the nearby Itamar illegal settlement. This Orthodox settlement is known for its history of violent…
Olive Harvest: Occupied
Kufr Qalil is one of the most dangerous places to pick olives north of Ramallah. Several years ago fanatical illegal settlers from Bracha descended from the top of a hill and broke a jaw of an elderly olive picker. Ever since the Kufr…
“I Am Just Not Afraid” said the Palestinian”
It seems that the machine gun wielding settlers are the only law in the occupied West Bank nowadays. Today, as many times before, I picked with Abu Said from the village of Haris, on his land near the illegal Revava settlement. That…
IWPS’ 2018 Calendar is here!
These A4 calendars are professionally created from pictures taken by our volunteers in Palestine. When you purchase a calendar you are helping us raise funds for our work in Palestine, and you raise awareness about Palestine when you display a…
Death of Fouad Eid, a Wonderful Activist and a Friend
A few days ago devastating news arrived via Facebook about the violent death of a young guy form Burin called Fouad Eid. I met Fouad in Palestine in October’15 when he coordinated the international presence of ISM/IWPS volunteers in…
Shadi, the youngest prisoner in Palestine
In December 2015, Shadi and his friend Ahmad were arrested at a bus stop in Jerusalem because a group of East Jerusalem settlers had called the police on suspicion of the boys being Palestinian. During the ensuing process of arrest,…
Thousands of Settlers from Near and Far in Occupied Al-Khalil
The weekend of 25th and 26th of November 2016 in Al-Khalil, which Israel calls Hebron, brought thousands of extremist Jews and settlers from all over Israel and abroad to celebrate the week’s Torah study on Chayei Sara (Life of Sarah),…
Umm al-Hiran, a village off the maps
Umm al-Hiran is a Bedouin village in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The village is surrounded by open landscape, the only structures in sight line. About fifteen minute drive away is a small city called Hura, where the children…
Nabi Saleh Conference: Family trauma under occupation
This is the last of our reports from the Nabi Saleh Conference 11-12 November 2016. The last day saw the presentation of portraits of people who had been killed by Israeli Forces, or by settlers. They had been painted by…
A note on BDS from “Occupation: The enemy of religions and humanity”
This is another report from the two-day conference in Nabi Saleh “Occupation, the enemy of humanity and religions”. The second day began with a very good introduction to the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement by Jamal Juma from Stop…
Conference notes from “Occupation: The Enemy of Religions and Humanity”
November 11 and 12, 2016 the village of Nabi Saleh launched of a 2-day conference to discuss the resistance to the Israeli occupation. With the theme “Occupation: the Enemy of Humanity and Religions” speakers from Palestine, Europe, USA and Israel shared…
The battles of Burin
People in Burin have a very difficult life surrounded by the illegal settlements Yitzhar and Bracha. What I was not aware of until yesterday, when we again returned to help with the olive harvest, was that there is also an additional, small…
Hares boys: an update
On the 28th of January 2016, five teenage boys from Hares were officially sentenced to 15 years imprisonment following an accident in which a settler’s car was involved. The only evidence to convict these 16-year old boys was confessions written…
A prayer under an olive tree
Nsaf wakes up early this morning to get ready for her daily hour walk to her olive grove. Earlier in the week some IWPS volunteers joined her, a mother-of-nine now 61 years old, to pick olives with her husband, her…
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