Behind the Wall

Rich Wiles is a photographic artist who has been living and working in Palestine for some years. His photographic work has been shown around Europe, the US, Australia and in Palestine itself. Since 2006 he has been writing from Occupied Palestine under the title Behind the Wall. Much of this work is based in and around the refugee camps in Palestine, highlighting daily life and memories of refugees who still live in forced exile for over 60 years since al Nakba (The Catastrophe). www.richwiles.com

hunger strike ends

On the evening of 14 May, Palestinian prisoners' ended their hunger strike. The prisoners' committee representing the hunger strikers announced the agreement that they had won: an end to the use of long-term isolation of prisoners for "security" reasons - with Israel currently keeping Palestinians in isolation for up to 10 years; for an end to the denial of family visits; and that no new administrative detention orders or renewals of administrative detention orders will be issued for the 308 Palestinians currently in administrative detention, unless the secret files, upon which administrative detention is based, contain "very serious" information.

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh spent an incredible 77 days on hunger strike, and over 2000 spent almost a full month without food. The steadfastness of those hunger strikers was inspirational - and your support was critical. As with any non-violent direct action, international support and solidarity was essential in raising the issue on a global stage, and increasing pressure on the Israeli government to abide by human rights law. Despite the mainstream news media's silence, the creative use of social media including twitter, with #75DaysVSApartheid trending internationally, successfully broke the silence, and spread the word about the protests inside Palestine, and internationally.

As Richard Falk points out: ‘the animating hunger of these Palestinians is for peace and justice, for love and dignity, and that their heroic strikes would have impossible without cherishing life and future freedom for the people of Palestine'.

This report: from Palestine Solidarity Campaign

More land-grabbing - Olive trees in jeopardy

Ousra loses more land to the ever-expanding colonies

Sunday, April 29, a group of settlers bulldozed agricultural lands belonging to the village of Qusra, in Nablus district. In the morning hours, the settlers went to the piece of land, which is even located far from the settlements surrounding the village but had been targeted before by the settlers. Many times, the area was a location of clashes between the people from Qusra that were out there to protect their lands against the settlers’ usurpation.
link to www.stopthewall.org

IOA plans to uproot 1,000 olive trees

The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has informed Palestinian farmers in Wadi Qana in Deir Estiya village, west of Salfit, that one thousand of their olive trees would be chopped off.

May Day illustration by Majed Badra

link to www.palestine-info.co.uk