Palestinian children: Imprisonment & torture – a new policy.

saleh on November 29th, 2005

Under 17′s form over 50% of the population here & I’ve been quite disturbed by the many accounts of arrest and torture of Palestinian children whilst here. My time spent in the village of Marda and elsewhere a tangible sense of restlesness, internalised anger & alienation was evident amongst children. This was new, harvest teams…

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Upcoming Zaytoun Stalls

heather on November 28th, 2005

29 November Congress Centre will serve lunch inspired by the tastes and ingredients of Palestine and the Middle East (£3.50 for non-TUC staff) between 1200 -1400. Great Russell St. 2/3 December ? World Fair @ The Camden Centre http://www.worldfair.org.uk/index.html 5 December Oxfam’s Fairtrade Market in Oxford 11am – 3pm Details on how to get to…

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They blew up the hill we were picking on !

saleh on November 27th, 2005

One afternoon whilst the Zaytoun harvest team were picking olives high up on the steep rocky hills of Marda we were ordered to, by someone on a loudspeaker at the bottom, to move along 100 metres as they were about to blow up a section of the hill in 10 minutes ! In disbelief we…

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Marda a typical Palestinian farming village

saleh on November 27th, 2005

Marda was one of the villages where the Zaytoun harvest team supported farmers harvesting their olives. It’s a beautiful village with a natural spring both dating back to Roman times. The village lies in the shadow of West Banks largest Israeli settlement, Ariel, making it difficult & dangerous for farmers to tend to their trees…

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Nablus & the ancient art of making olive soap slowly dying under the Occupation

saleh on November 26th, 2005

Nablus is famous for its traditional olive soap industry which dates back many centuries. The soap is produced in stunning old buildings with exquisite architectural detail and the crumbling facade betraying its historical grandeur. A disused Olive soap house in the centre of Nablus’s old city Nablus’s olive soap contains over 70% olive oil and…

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Balata refugee camp in nablus & project Hope

saleh on November 25th, 2005

School children in the Balata Refuge camp, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank by population. It has three schools run by the United Nation’s agency UNRWA. Whilst in Nablus i met with Abdul Hakim from Project Hope, a non-profit volunteer organization based in nablus. Project hope has led a pioneering effort to bring…

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The ancient city of Nablus destroyed

saleh on November 24th, 2005

I’ve just returned from the Palestinian city of Nablus. A city which has suffered terribly under the intifada from arial bombardments, tanks and on the ground Israeli millitary. Nablus is one of the oldest cities in the world, dating as far back as 9,000 years. It is also one of the largest cities in the…

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Arrest and Torture of innocent children

saleh on November 24th, 2005

Many Palestinian’s I speak to tells me stories of systematic arrest and torture, in particular of children between the ages of 12 and 18. Their stories are backed up by an article in The Washington Post in June 2005 which reported that the accounts of physical abuse of Iraqis by American soldiers at the notorious…

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Palestinian farmers face daily harrasement from settlers

saleh on November 24th, 2005

Six settler girls from Benjamin, a settlement Northwest of the West Bank city of Ramallah, attacked Palestinian farmers while they were working in olive orchards in the nearby village of Sinjil. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, of the organization, Rabbis for Human Rights (which assists Palestinian residents in the region with the annual olive harvest) said that…

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A brief report from the European volunteer team participating in the Palestinian olive harvest 2005

saleh on November 22nd, 2005

Zaytoun 2005 harvest report by Dave Owen On Sunday, 6th November a group of volunteers set off from Jerusalem for a West Bank village in the Salfit region to pick olives with Palestinian farmers. The core group of ten (eight British, one Irish, one German) was joined by others over the following two weeks, including…

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