As its name suggests, Beit Arabiya belongs to Arabiya Shawamreh, her husband Salim, and their seven children — a Palestinian family whose home has been demolished four times by the Israeli authorities and rebuilt each time by ICAHD’s Palestinian, Israeli, and international peace activists before being demolished again last night.

At around 11p.m. Monday, a bulldozer accompanied by a contingent of heavily armed Israeli soldiers appeared on the Anata hills to promptly demolish Beit Arabiya, along with residential and agricultural structures in the nearby Jahalin Bedouin compound. Three family homes were demolished along with numerous animal pens; 20 people including young children were displaced, left exposed to the harsh desert environment. While standing in solidarity with Palestinians, ICAHD staff and activists were repeatedly threatened by Israeli soldiers. ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain was beaten and sustained minor injuries.

Beit Arabiya was issued a demolition order by Israeli authorities back in 1994, following Israel’s refusal to grant a building permit. It has since been demolished four times and rebuilt by ICAHD activists four times. Last night’s fifth demolition came following a reissue of the demolition order last Thursday. ICAHD Director Dr. Jeff Halper, standing astride the ruins, vowed to support Salim and Arabiya in rebuilding their home. “We shall rebuild, we must rebuild as an act of political defiance of the occupation and protracted oppression of Palestinians,” said Halper.

Beit Arabiya has become a symbol of resistance to the Judaization of the Occupied West Bank and Israeli demolition policy. “ICAHD is as determined as always to rebuild [Beit Arabiya] and [persevere] in its struggle to bring about justice and peace,” added Halper.
Salim and Arabiya, along with their neighbors and friends, stood last night and watched as this tragedy unfolded once again. Arabiya and Salim have dedicated their home as a center for peace in memory of Rachel Corrie and Nuha Sweidan, two women (an American and a Palestinian) who died resisting home demolitions in Gaza. In the past decade ICAHD has hosted numerous visitors at Beit Arabiya and based its annual rebuilding camp at the house, rebuilding 185 demolished Palestinian homes.

Earlier this month, ICAHD extended an invitation to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to visit Beit Arabiya during her country visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory scheduled for later in the month. “It is our hope that while we cannot extend the same hospitality to the Special Raportueor, Prof. Raquel Rolnik will visit the ruins of Beit Arabiya and report on the utter cruelty and illegality of Israeli policies and practices, and that members of the international community will follow in her footsteps,” said ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain.

For more information and coordination of visits to Beit Arabiya, please contact Itay Epshtain at itay@icahd.org or +972-54-2623306

Slider Photo Credit: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/MCC

The construction of the Abu Omar family home, long waited since the 2005 demolition by Israel, was completed on  July 24th 2011, exactly six months ago. The keys to the home were handed over to the family in a celebratory dedication ceremony marking the end of a two week rebuild. Volunteers were joined by members of the larger Anata community, civil society activists and Palestinian Authority high ranking officials, as family members began life in their rebuilt home. ICAHD staff visited with the family shortly after the demolition of their home took place to find them somber, traumatized, and grief stricken. ICAHD has vowed to support the family in rebuilding their home, once more. This is the second ICAHD rebuilt home demolished within 24 hours, in what seems like a concerted, yet futile, effort to discourage ICAHD from rebuilding demolished Palestinian homes.

The Abu Omar family home, rebuilt by ICAHD in 2011

ICAHD Summer Camp volunteers outside the newly rebuilt home in July, 2011

The remains of the Abu Omar family home, January 24, 2012

Rebuiling of Palestinians homes that was demilished by Israel. (Photo: ActiveStills / Archive)

Rubble covers the tile floor at the site of the demolished home we are beginning to rebuild in the East Jerusalem section of Anata, a Palestinian town divided between occupied “East” Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Activists from the United States, Britain, Germany and Iran, reinforced daily by local Palestinian and Israeli activists, have gathered here for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD’s) eighth annual summer rebuilding camp. They will spend two weeks rebuilding a Palestinian home that has been destroyed by the Israeli authorities.

This year’s house belongs to the Hamdan family, which was first demolished in 2005. In 2007, ICAHD activists began rebuilding the home, but because it was located near a section of Israel’s apartheid wall that was being constructed around Anata, battles of stone-throwing, tear gas, shooting and arrests erupted between the Palestinian residents resisting their virtual imprisonment behind 8m/26′ concrete blocks and the Israeli army and police. Feeling endangered, ICAHD suspended the effort for an alternative site. In 2008, the ICAHD camp came back to the Hamdan home and completed its reconstruction. The house, however, was demolished again within a few months. Since our rebuilding constitutes political acts of resistance to occupation and not “humanitarian gestures,” we try to rebuild every home that is re-demolished.

As we cleared the rubble from the foundation this morning, I noticed the tile floor that remained underneath. I was struck by the fact that the tiles were the same pattern as those we used last summer, when I participated in the ICAHD effort to rebuild a house a short distance away. I thought about the volunteers in 2007 and 2008, who had worked in the summer heat to build this home, only to have their work destroyed shortly after the family moved in.

Because the Spanish government is sending 45 volunteers this year to rebuild, a wonderful thing but something that would make a combined work camp unwieldy, ICAHD decided to operate three camps: this one in Anata with about 20 volunteers, one in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina and one in the West Bank, near Hebron (more on those camps when they begin next week). Altogether we will build four houses this summer.

We made measurable progress today. After a nonviolence training session by members of the Palestine Solidarity Project based in Beit Umar near Hebron, we took a walking tour of Anata, guided by Salim Shawamreh, ICAHD’s Field Coordinator and resident of Anata, whose own home has been demolished four times. We met residents on the way and got a feel for the place where we will be spnding the next two weeks. On the tour, ICAHD Director Jeff Halper gave a broad political context, explaining how part of the village is under joint Palestinian-Israeli control (Area B), and part under full Israeli control (Area C and Jerusalem). Many of the homes in Anata are under constant threat of demolition because Israeli authorities claim they were constructed without the proper permits – which are virtually impossible to acquire. In fact, THREE Israeli government authorities demolish homes in Anata: the Jerusalem municipality, the Ministry of Interior and the “Civil” Administration, Israel’s military government over the West Bank

In the afternoon, the whole crew of volunteers went to the building site and got down to work, first cleaning the site, then forming human chains to pass along a seemingly endless stream of buckets of concrete to pour into molds for the foundation and pillars. At the end of the day we were treated to a sumptuous tray of baba ganoush, hummus, pickles and fresh-baked bread sent out to us by the mother of two teenaged girls who had been watching our efforts.

We dragged our sweaty bodies home for dinner and a presentation from Jeff and Salim about the Israeli occupation and the history of Beit Arabiya, the house where we are staying. Salim explained the nightmarish and expensive process he repeatedly undertook in unsuccessfully trying to get a permit to construct the house, named after our hostess, Arabiya. Their house has been standing since it was rebuilt by ICAHD in 2003, but because the family has Jerusalem residency and the home is in the West Bank, they will lose their right to enter Jerusalem if they move into their home – something especially worrying since there is currently another demolition order against it and they might be left without a home entirely. So now it is used as a strategizing center, and the Shawamreh family only stays here during the ICAHD summer camp. More than 24,000 homes have been destroyed since the Israeli occupation began in 1967. ICAHD has rebuilt 165 over the past decade; only about 15 have been re-demolished.

Most camp participants are already involved in this work, but they come home from their experiences here energized and more determined to carry on their efforts. As Alaina, a volunteer from Portland, Oregon put it, “As Americans, there’s only so much we can do here, but there’s a lot we can do back there, because our tax dollars are funding this whole thing.” The ICAHD camps will send back into the world 65 effective advocates against the Occupation and for a just peace by the end of work camp schedules. And four families, numbering several dozen people, will have homes.

This progress is of course down to the hard work of the local Palestinian builders who have worked long days, hours after the ICAHD volunteers end their working day. Just like us they need water and hot tea and the occasional ice cream to boost their energy. They are so good-natured; they are grateful for our presence and they ensure we mix the cement so that it is fit for purpose.

Their craftsmen carry out skilled work we volunteers of course don’t have the skills or knowledge to do, but as a team we are achieving the completion of another physical expression of our rejection of this morally repugnant and inhumane subjugation of the Palestinian people by a Zionist-driven Government that scoffs at international law and international humanitarian law in the ideological pursuit of ethnically cleansing ‘Greater’ Jerusalem.

What was encouraging and interesting for us all at the building site was the welcome presence of international media. There were four different media groups; these included two television film crews, a radio journalist from Australia and France. There was also the curious presence of the Jerusalem Post free-lancer who was trying to pull together a story for Jerusalem Post online, which compares us to the settlers, his question to Lucy was ‘ironically, many people compare what you are doing with the settlers actions’ in relation to both groups building houses and condemning each others actions.

Lucy replied emphatically that, in her opinion, there was no comparison whatsoever. This, Lucy explained was because settlers force Palestinians off their own land for which they have worked hard for, can prove legal ownership of, may have raised many generations of their family in, and have lived in for many years before the settlers first arrived. The settlers are often given houses very easily, for which they have subsidized taxes, a better supply of water and electricity and protection from the Israeli Army and Police.

Other ICAHD participants also emphasized to the Australian and French journalists that they were disappointed at their own national governments for doing so little to oblige Israel to carry out its obligations that it signed up to in enabling the Palestinians to build a Nation State. Every time the Israeli Army and MagAv (the Israeli border guards) harass, intimidate, and subjugate Palestinian men, women and children, they erode any hopes for peace.

In the evening, the highly respected professor Ilan Pappe gave a conference in Anata’s Town Hall to a large audience of not only ICAHD, but other interested parties on the subject of the roots and future direction of conflict in Israel. His talk was very insightful, useful and thought provoking, especially for a newcomer to the issue.

After the excitement of the South Hebron Hills, it was nice to return to Beit Arabiya and both of our work sites in Anata. We began the day with a lecture on the economy of the occupation from Shir, of the Alternative Information Center. We talked extensively about the Global BDS campaign (Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions), with plenty of questions and disagreements about its potential. That night, representatives from the Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance Movement came to talk about the demonstrations in Bil’in, as well as demolitions and water inequality in the Jordan Valley.

We devoted the rest of the day to the work sites, and are making excellent progress, working right on schedule, and the group is feeling quite optimistic.

Anxela, form Spain, and the coordinator of this year’s summer camp, says that she feels happy about the camp’s progress. “I think we have a great group, and people are working very hard. We have also encountered a lot of good experiences to help us understand the situation here.”

Cody, from America, and the construction coordinator, agrees. “The camaraderie and the spirit of the camp and the construction site is amazing. It’s a testament to what can happen when we all work hard together.”

Arzu, from Turkey, is “impressed because everyone really is putting a lot of effort into the construction. I didn’t expect this kind of dedication.”

Hara, from Greece, says that the collaboration between the international participants and the Palestinians is her motivation for working hard. “We have a nice mix between the families of the homes and the volunteers. When I see the families sweating alongside me, I want to keep working, instead of stopping for a cigarette.”

Saleem, who has welcomed the participants into the home of him and his wife Arabiya, says that this year’s camp is “…fantastic! Our volunteers are cooperating very well. The languages are not the same, but through signs we can understand each other. The feeling is very good because of our progress on the houses.”

On our last morning in South Hebron Mountain, breakfast was interrupted by Israeli settlers advancing on shepherds outside of the Palestinian village of Susia. This happens here every couple of days, and the situation is usually diffused before a confrontation breaks out. Today, the settlers turned around and returned to the ideological Susia settlement, escorted by soldiers, after a short interaction with villagers and internationals. Still, this occurrence set a mood of claustrophobia for the internationals here, as we began to understand the lives of Palestinians whose lands are threatened from all sides.

After a couple hours of completing work in Susia (Such as clearing sand out of a cave and digging holes for future toilets and water storage), we left on a tour of H1, the area of Hebron City where Palestinians are allowed, and settlers are not. We walked first through the Old City, where the majority of shops were closed and boarded up, and we were followed by particularly unrelenting young vendors, shoving into our paths pendants of Handala, the iconic Palestinian cartoon of a 5-year old 1948 refugee. Our tour guide later explained the desperate economic situation of the Old City here, where hundreds of shops have been evicted by the army since the Second Intifada, and thousands of residents have left the city because of checkpoints and curfew, which lasted from late 2000 to late 2003. Curfew in the West Bank is not only at night, it is a 24-hour house arrest, with slots each week of a few hours when residents can leave their home to buy supplies. Needless to say, Hebron’s economy is still suffering greatly.

Walking through the city, evidence of settler violence is everywhere. Some areas of the market are situated below settlement apartments, so Palestinian shopkeepers have constructed roves of metal screen to protect people from objects thrown by settlers from windows. As you walk under the screens, you can see large rocks, metal poles, plastic bags (apparently, originally filled with stink water or urine), and layers of garbage. Around many corners, roads are blocked off to separate H1 and H2.

We also visited the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the religious site that theoretically began all of the violence. We entered the mosque half, where bullet holes are still visible from Baruch Goldstein’s attack, a settler who shot and killed 29 Muslims during prayer. It was this attack, in fact, that led to the curfew of Palestinians in Hebron, not an attack by Palestinians against settlers. Of six tombs, two each are situated in the Mosque and the adjacent synagogue, but the tombs of Abraham and Sarah can be viewed through windows from each side. Peeking in from the mosque, we could see Jewish worshippers through another window, and a pane of bullet-proof plastic between the windows. On our way out of the tomb, we passed a group of trainee Israeli soldiers on a tour of the mosque (a mat was laid down for them because they wore shoes inside). Hebron City certainly is one of the most disturbing places I have ever been.

We returned to work at Omer Kher, the Bedouin village beside Karmel settlement. This village has been here since 1980, and the settlement since 1986, and today the village has 22 families, about 150 people. Over the last five years, about 18 structures have been demolished. We originally planned on building a dozen toilets for the village, but a few days before construction began, the military confiscated out building supplies and threatened to demolish all illegal structures: basically, the entire village. Instead, we helped to clear fields, build a new chicken coup, and repair a road leading from one section of the village to another. The village was incredibly hospitable and welcoming, serving us delicious rice, tea, and traditional Bedouin bread. The children of the village were especially excited, following us through the worksite while giggling and giving us hugs. During work breaks, I spent time with a kind and charismatic 16-year old girl from the village, who happily showed me around and brought me into the hills with a donkey to gather water. Many villagers here are highly educated and ambitious, an interesting contrast to their extremely modest living conditions. Because many of their structures are demolished, they live in tents of sheet metal and canvas. Electricity is top priority for the village: electric lines run right over them into the settlement, although they are not permitted to have electricity. In a village like this, it is clear how the military takes extraordinary steps to stunt economic development.

After about an hour of work, a few military vehicles pulled into the village, and soldiers and one settler told us to stop working on the road. It was illegal to lay down gravel, so for a while we continued clearing rocks, to which the soldiers also objected. Ezra, an Israeli activist, wanted to continue working, but the villagers were understandably nervous about further demolitions. Without much resistance, we stopped working, leaving our work unfinished. The villagers thanked us for our solidarity, even though the concrete results of our help were miniscule, and we all had a renewed sense of respect for Palestinians who continue to resist amidst great risk and frustration. This was a sad end to our activism in South Hebron, but it was a telling example of military treatment of Palestinian villages here. We returned to Anata, disappointed and shocked.

Up at 6am after quite a restless night (alarms going off, people talking in their sleep, snoring, fans rotating loudly – all things to be expected in a room of 40 people…), coffee at cafe Salim (the little corner to the right of the house just inside the gate), filling our bellies (when we thought we could eat no more after three huge meals a day for the last week) with egg and falafels and other such wholesome food and off to work around 9am. We spent the morning on site – I’m with the group working at the house of Abu Hussein, whose son was at the house today helping to co-ordinate the building work. When he’s not at the house, he’s working at Modi’in, one of the biggest settlements in the West Bank (on the green line) between Ramallah and Tel Aviv, building the new settlements which Israel agreed to stop expanding at Annapolis. With a heart-breaking sense of resignation and helplessness, he told me “We build their settlements while they destroy our houses…” The irony of the situation is what is so devastating. So many Palestinians are forced into taking work not only on the settlements but also on the wall – they are themselves helping to build their own walled prison. It’s impossible to imagine that people would do this but the economy leaves many with little choice. The Israeli government has closed Palestinian banks, shops and much else besides. Since the early 1990’s Israel also closed its borders to the 150,000 Palestinians that used to come each day to work in Israel.

On top of this, inside the Occupied Territories there are the checkpoints, the road closures and the settler-only roads which make it extremely difficult for Palestinians to get from one place to another in the West Bank, making trade virtually impossible. As a result, 70% of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories now live on less than 2 euros a day and most rely on humanitarian aid to survive. They work on settlements and the apartheid wall when work comes along – which is frequent and overlooked by the Israelis despite it being illegal because it’s cheap labour, and it is often taken by Palestinians needing to feed their families and to survive. There are Palestinians who don’t share this view. I spoke to a man in Sucia, a village in the surrounding region of Hebron, who was strongly against Palestinians working on the wall – “People should find other work in Israel if they need to, any work but the wall… Will we be able to enter Israel to even work after the wall is finished?”

We didn’t build in the afternoon on Thursday – instead we went to Ramallah to visit Yasser Arafat’s tomb and hear a presentation by a representative of the PLO – the Palestine Liberation Organisation. As well we were able to spend some time downtown Ramallah, the economic capital of the West Bank. It’s a buzzing place, so vibrant and full of energy, colourfulness and delicious smells. There are people and cars everywhere, kebabs and falafels, street vendors, children, bright lights and even a couple of ‘Stars and Bucks’ as a familiar reminder of home…

The presentation was held at the Quaker Peace Centre. The Quakers have been in Palestine since the 1850’s. In 1869 they established the Friends’ Girls School, which continues today as a co-ed school for Palestinian boys and girls. This center, built in 1910, alongside a place of worship and a youth group, is also a meeting place for people coming to learn more about human rights issues and life under the Occupation. The PLO representative shared some of the key facts on the ground from past to present, from the UN partition plan in 1947 through to the on-going siege of Gaza.

Some of the figures pre- (between Dec 06 and Nov 07) and post- (Dec 07-Nov 08) Annapolis (the Bush-Olmert-Abbas negotiations – the first in seven years – held in 2007) were astounding:

• 137 settlements had been tendered pre-Annapolis. Despite an agreement that settlement expansion would freeze, 2,300 settlements have since been tendered.
• Pre-Annapolis 704 Palestinian building permits had been blocked. Since, 1926 have been refused.
• Pre-Annapolis there were 563 road closures (roadblocks, checkpoints etc). Since there have been 630.

Given these statistics it’s hardly surprising that they believe Israel is showing its lack of seriousness about reaching a peaceful resolution and that Israeli attempts to isolate Gaza and fragment the West Bank are seriously threatening any possibility of a Palestinian state and a peaceful end to this horrendous conflict.

Back to Beit Arabiya and to the 65 or so other people who share the camp, the house, the building work, the five showers, the food, the washing and pretty much everything else. We have become a big family this past week.

Yesterday I spoke with a Jerusalem Post reporter, and invited her to come and see the camp in Anata for herself. She couldn’t, she told me, “because we’re not allowed to go to the West Bank.”

And that’s a shame, because that means she won’t be able to see and report on so many things that might help her audience understand what occupation means to the more than 2 million residents of the West Bank.

She won’t see the curious children who come to our construction site near the Israeli “security fence,” the wall that snakes through the West Bank, cutting through villages, separating farmers from their land, and even splitting in two the campus of Al Quds University (Al Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem). Some of the children began throwing stones at the soldiers by the wall the other day, drawing attention from the police and making us nervous that they might shut down our project, a home for the Sbaih family, whose previous house was demolished by the Israeli authorities. (Some 15 percent of the 162 houses that ICAHD has reconstructed over the last seven years have been re-demolished by the Israeli military—the reconstruction work is at least as much a statement of resistance as it is an effort to provide homes for Palestinians, and the families who participate do so with this understanding.)

The Jerusalem Post reporter won’t see the contrast between the illegal Israeli settlements here — lush green landscaped communities with municipal swimming pools and well-maintained roads — and the Palestinian villages, whose narrow streets, if they are paved at all, are so uneven that the vans we cram into to go to our worksites can only travel at five or ten miles an hour most of the time.

Jeff took us on a tour of one of these communities yesterday — Ma’ale Adumim. It encompasses land stretching all the way to the Dead Sea, and, when construction finishes, it will nearly bisect the West Bank. It includes an industrial park and an aeronautics and space college. This school is intended to turn out technicians to work at the airport that is planned to serve “Greater Jerusalem,” itself a sprawling swathe of land with settlements topping the hills and dividing the surrounding Palestinian villages from each other. Most people live in Ma’ale Adumim more for economic than ideological reasons; unlike the religious settlers who believe the land was deeded to them directly from god, they moved to the settlement because government subsidies make it financially attractive and they feel alienated from the Orthodox population that is ever more dominant in Jerusalem.

Residents drive to work in the city every day, as they do in suburban bedroom communities in the United States, but here they use four-lane highways reserved for Jews, while Palestinians must travel on smaller side roads, going through checkpoints that the settlers never see. The ubiquitous checkpoints that can cause a trip of 10 miles to take hours are tucked out of sight in the tunnels where the Palestinian roads pass under the settler highways. Even the wall itself is constructed so that it is not so intrusive from the Israeli side. While Palestinians are greeted by a 25-foot concrete barrier, often on the Israeli side, the area approaching the wall is a gentle slope with landscaping.

The Israeli journalist won’t see the irony of the acres and acres of stumps from Palestinian olive trees that have been cut down by the military, while other ancient trees with thick gnarled trunks have been uprooted whole and transplanted to beautify the grassy traffic circles in the settlements. “Imagine seeing a 400-year-old olive tree that has been in your family for generations planted in a Jewish settlement,” says Jeff. These green oases with their grass- and tree-lined streets are a tremendous drain on the water resources of the region. Israel and its settlements in the West Bank use 85 percent of the water from the West Bank, while in many Palestinian villages and cities, municipal water comes only two days a week.

And it’s too bad the reporter won’t come to our construction site to see what a small group of people, fueled by a passion against injustice, can accomplish. In only a few days, we have gone from a bare foundation to a structure with four walls and a roof, with the beginnings of interior walls tracing out the rooms where a family will raise children, eat, drink, sleep, and, we hope, grow old together.

Yes, with a little effort, it’s possible to go through life in Israel and the settlements without ever seeing a Palestinian. And that’s the real shame.

Summer Camp 2009: Dreams & Reality

On the second day of the building camp, work continued as usual, sandwiched by a nonviolence training by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and a presentation on the history of Beit Arabiya from Saleem and Jeff.

Controversy erupted, however, over the presence of Anata children at the building site. Throughout the construction of both houses, young boys were close by, either assisting with work, interacting with international participants, standing back and watching, or in one case, throwing rocks at nearby soldiers, guarding construction of the Israeli “separation barrier.” The soldiers fired back teargas, and then observed the building camp atop a nearby hill for the following three hours.

This incident in particular brought up discussion in the group, over whether children should be allowed on the site. Participants had felt anxious about the soldiers, said one participant from California. They worried that these boys’ form of resistance to the occupation, regardless of its legitimacy, could impede ICAHD’s form of resistance.

Summer Camp 2009: Dreams & Reality

Participants who had not even witnessed the rock-throwing were concerned about the safety of kids helping on the work site, because small children have taken the initiative to carry heavy materials without much supervision. The children might also distract participants from their own work. One participant from Turkey disagreed, seeing the boys as curious and polite, and enjoying their company.

The group concluded that the best solution was to involve the Anata community. Salim Shawamreh spoke with families in the area, explaining ICAHD’s form of resistance and recommending supervision of the kids. Some participants also bought paper and crayons to engage the children while participants worked.

Even with small disagreements, building has continued on schedule, and the houses are looking promising!

Each day, a different participant will post a piece of writing to the website, describing their perspective on the day. Today’s entry was written by a volunteer from Spain.

4:30 AM: During my sleep, something sounded new, blended with my dreams but still stuck in reality. The sound soon became recognizable as praying, sounding from a nearby mosque. Small time spaces between each phrase made it a conversation that had suddenly erupted. Although reality had already replaced dreaming, it wasn’t clear yet which one was better: If I was still dreaming, I would be distracted from the terrible situation faced by this place and its people. Yet the prayers were real, but still magical, recognized by me, neither a Muslim nor Arabic-speaker, as a statement of hope and a pursuit for peace, shared between us (The ICAHD group) and everyone living here in Anata.

During the day, I experienced in practical terms what I had heard at night. Walking through Anata (and its destroyed houses and streets filled with what no being should even have to deal with) it was clear to me that we are expected here, respected here and above all, given as much as possible here.

That made me wonder whether we, as Westerners, have given as little as a thought toward these families and their children, that play with handmade toys and ride broken bicycles, with the same joy that they use to welcome us in here, using big smiles, strong handshakes, and spontaneous football games. Yes, even with their rotten bikes these children smile!

It was this hope, and this feeling of homecoming, that started my day and reassured me that yes, these people deserve it, yes, hope exists, and yes, I am here!

* Some camp volunteers prefer to write anonymously to avoid potential problems with Israeli authorities during their time in Israel/Palestine.

Every year dozens of volunteers come to Anata, in east Jerusalem, to reconstruct houses destroyed by Israel. Jerusalem municipal councilman also partakes in rebuilding process, hoping it will ‘build foundation to help us live together in peace’.

On the backdrop of the eviction of Arab families from east Jerusalem and tensions with the United States and the West, a group of some 80 Israeli, Palestinian and foreign activists have embarked on a unique mission to rebuild the houses that were destroyed.

The activists, who come each year to a “summer camp” in the Anata neighborhood in the northeast section of Jerusalem, are rebuilding two family homes that were destroyed in an eviction by Israeli authorities during the families’ eviction. [Read Summer Camp blogs here.]

“Sometimes there are situations in which civilians must rise up against injustice and do the things the government refuses to do,” Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, said to Ynet.

The activity is not legal, but Halper said that it is vital and important nonetheless: “This isn’t just the humanitarian work of helping unfortunate Palestinians. This is an act of political resistance to the occupation. We do it out in the open. If you do it like a thief in the night, it is not a protest,” said Halper.

‘Like brothers and sisters’

Sixty of the 80 activists who came to the summer camp this year are volunteers from abroad, 40 of them from Spain. The Spanish government gives full sponsorship for their participation in the project.

“Democracy is not just the right to vote. It is social consciousness and opposition to injustice,” explained one of the volunteers. “The Israeli public doesn’t really know what is going on here. Everything is done away from the public eye. The Palestinians can’t be chased off the land. Even if the government continues to destroy, we will come and rebuild.”

On a hill facing the construction site, sat Younis Sabiyah, watching his demolished house be rebuilt. Sabiyah has lived in Anta for 16 years together with eight of his family members. Last year, his house was demolished. Since he has been renting.

“God willing, I believe the house will be erected and they won’t destroy it. The people here are not just friends, they are like brothers and sisters to me,” said Sabiyah.

‘Building bridges for coexistence’

The young volunteers received surprising support in a Jerusalem municipal councilman. Meir Margalit (Meretz) came to help the group rebuild. “I am not trying to hide. I am acting openly against the city’s policy and building houses it has demolished. It is my deep commitment to humanitarian values,” Margalit said to Ynet.

“With every house destroyed by the state, it damages the central pillars on which it is based. What I am doing is a desperate attempt to save the country from itself, to dismantle the mechanism of self-destruction that has been in motion in this country since ’67. My basic motivation is to try and put the State of Israel back on the path of sanity,” explained Margalit.

Margalit takes an active part in the rebuilding project and takes part in the building. “The main objective is not just philanthropy. In addition to a house, we are also building a bridge for coexistence. We ultimately will live side by side in independent states, and now we are building the foundation that will help us live in peace,” said the councilman.