And a little more

Hell, two very loud volleys of automatic gun fire really close by just now.
Coming from a slightly northern direction as in "the other side of the building", as in my building, the one i live in.

Hamude Shakra, victim, yet another murder victim in Jaffa.

Yesterday i wrote about the murder of a man in Jaffa, not realizing i know the victim and his family quite well. His mother and sisters are friends and i had coffee at their place only a week ago, chatting away about this and that. Hamude's young son playing around in the living room. 

The personal side of the story isn't interesting. However, i suddenly realized this is all so close by. So many young men in Jaffa have been murdered over the last few years. In a few cases i knew them personally, had seen them grow up from sweet kids to awkward teenagers to young men, sometimes angry young men, involved in things better not to be involved in.

I know their families and, in the current case, I can only try to imagine what Hamude's mum and sisters and young wife must be going through. The police state he was involved in shady car deals and i realize that may well  be true. But he was their son, husband or brother, father to a little son who probably doesn't  understand too much as yet.

I remember him always tinkering at this or that car, close to the family's home. Music nearby, preferably loud. Friends sitting around waiting for their car to be fixed. Hamude's legs sticking out from below the car or his back bent over the hood fixing something, while joking in a loud voice. Playing around with his son, a big smile on his face, the kid happy and excited.

This is Jaffa, this is Ajami and things often don't go here they way they should go for young guys: finishing high school, going on to further studies, starting your career or trying to figure out what you should be doing in life, trying out this and that, travelling around a little, taking up a cause. Life isn't like that in Ajami, or perhaps only for a few, the lucky few.

The public school system in Ajami is terrible. And your family doesn't have the money for private education or  private teachers when you fall behind. Often you don't have the books you need, because your family cannot afford to buy them. You don't go on school trips because your family hasn't yet paid for last year's trip . (yes i know it's illegal to exempt kids from their school trips because of a debt but say that to any Jaffa school principal, or just come and see how many kids are left behind when the buses take off, half empty). At some point you drop out, thinking it makes more sense to try and make some money, not to live in poverty. But finding a job is difficult when you have little schooling. And it's quicker and easier (or so it seems) to make quick money on the streets.

Hamude loved cars and spent much time repairing them, his own, his friends',  the neighbours, turning old wrecks into driving things. Slowly moving up from wreck to something far better. Cars play a big role in Jaffa's young men's status game.

And quite obviously the majority do not have the money to buy these cars, unless on credit schemes which over time will put them and their families in throttling debt and poverty. Ownership of a car with a loud and powerful stereo system is the big thing for many young men here. 

It's easy to sink into street dynamics, in some cases it's unavoidable, it happens without you wanting or choosing it. If your brother is in, you are in. If your friend is in, you are in. That's how it works. Easy to get on, hard to impossible getting out. The laws of the street result in much pain and hard statistics. Hamude's has many sisters and brothers, some of them still very young kids. I fear for their future. It's a cycle and unless it is somehow (HOW?) broken, how can they get out?

Some two years ago someone shot at the family's home and that wasn't for the first time. Then someone aimed his gun at a car Hamude's brother was sitting in, wounding a friend but the brother got away unhurt this time. 

Hamude's funeral is today at 12.00. 

Murder in Jaffa

About an hour and a half ago an as yet unidentified man apparently in his late twenties was shot and killed in the area close to the Wolfson Hospital. Initially he appeared to be wounded lightly but upon arrival in the hospital he died of his wounds.
The drive-by shooting took place in a car wash place in south Jaffa.
The police claim the victim "is known to them", but what does that exactly mean in Jaffa?

Playing with fire in the Ajami mosque

Yesterday morning a group of armed settlers entered the compound of the Ajami mosque (next to the Hasan Arafe primary school) in the framework of their tour of Jaffa.

One wonders about the true purpose of that visit. Was it to repectfully view the grave of Ibrahim Ajami? The ajami mosque, unlike some other beautiful Jaffa mosques, is not of great beauty. Not a place a tourist wold go out of his or her way to visit.

Thus, the armed settlers' visit raises serious questions as to their purpose. A  provocation?

The Jaffa community turned to the police and the municipality for protection against this kind of most unwanted "attention".

Drug related arrests and other trouble in Jaffa

Over the last few months the police used a drug-addict as their agent. A violent young man, an only son, pampered by his doting parents until it was too late.

A good football player, an intelligent boy, good-looking too. But something went horribly wrong. Violent towards friends as well as towards his sisters and then  his parents. Drug-addicted. Then drug-dealing himself. Home turned into hell. 

The police selected this unstable character as their agent. Last week the police informed the public they had arrested "28 drug-dealers"  in Jaffa. At least  some of them are addicts, not dealers. So several were released the same day, some the next. And indeed, some are still under arrest. 

One of them, in spite of his addiction a gentle man and a great father, was arrested in carried away hand and leg-cuffed in face of his terrified young children. Their home turned upside down in a search which turned up nothing. An addict yes. Someone who needs aid yes. But not a dealer. The police caused much harm to the family's meagre possessions. Some of it unrepairable. But the worst was the harm caused to the children.

And the big dealers were not touched, they continue driving around in their big cars.And selling, wholesale.  The smaller dealers as well. We all know them and they are still walking around. Who do the police think they're fooling? 

The house of the agent was torched.  

First of all a terrible punishment for his parents, those well meaning hard working people, and his sisters, nice girls.

The agent has been on a hit-list for a long time. He was shot at, about a year and a half go. Had been in hiding for quite some time. 

Maybe that's what turned him into an agent, the hope of a ticket to "elsewhere", a new name, some money. But we are talking about a seriously disturbed young man. An addict with few personal resources beyond a little personal charm. And quite paranoid to begin with. Now he has a real reason for feeling hunted. Police agents have a short life span in Jaffa and Jaffans have long memories. 

How misunderstandings can mess up a community

Last friday there was an event at the Ajami Orthodox club, a favourite hang-out of Jaffa's Christian Palestinian community.

Someone had a little too much alcohol and went into a nearby grocery, unable to hold his drink.  Before quite gettig out of the door, the drunk threw up. One of the grocery guys decided to punish him and beat him up quite badly. Result: the drunkard is in intensive care.

That very same evening the grocery store caught fire. Rather a coincidence.

So on the next day, sunday, close to the orthodox church, when the family went to pray, shots were fired, barely missing the people but causing some damage. Right now tension is high in Jaffa.

Shooting nearby, right now

Being at home, a little ill, i was woken up by the sound of fighting near by about half an hour ago, then shots and shouting just now.

A young guy climbing over the wall and running away over the roof of a neighbouring house, while hiding something (a gun? a knife? or maybe just his cellphone?) in the top of his pants.

Screaming. The muezzin is singing out the last sentences and my neighbours are about to sit down for dinner.

A police car arrives. Another neighbour pulling something from under his shirt and hiding it.

More shouting. Another siren getting closer. It could be police or it could be an ambulance, although in Jaffa victims are usually transported to nearby Wolfson hospital by the first available car.
Another police car arrives close to the house of my neighbours.

Several policemen are now carrying out a search outside my neighbours' house and some climbed over the wall, to search inside the yard and the house itself. They seem to know where to go. But not exactly.
The search goes on.
They are taking the house apart or so it  seems. One of the children just returned home. Not a pleasant situation.
All the neighbours stand outside on the balconies and rooftops to watch the show.

In case someone was wondering, this is the police climbing over the wall to search the yard.

Thursday morning update: police are searching all over the nearby roof tops.

Another Jaffa family out in the streets

When R. and her 5 children came home this afternoon, they found all their furniture out in the street, much of it severely damaged and broken. The doorlock had been changed.
The house owner, well known and very wealthy Jaffa property tycoon Walid Aboulafia (of bakery fame), had abused R's absence from the hovel she had been renting from him for some three years, to evict her, illegally, without a court order.
R. asked the police to come, but the sinlge police man did not help her. "There was nothing he could", do he said. R. was under so much pressure by then, that she forgot to take his details.
In fact, it is Mr. Walid Aboulafia who broke the law by evicting her illegally, without a court order.

The flat R. rented was a 2 1/2 room affair in Jaffa's Al Ajami neighborhood. Damp, it's walls blackened by fungi. In the winter the rain entered through the cracked walls. The kitchen sink was not connected to the sewage, so R. used a bucket instead.
For over a year she and her kids had their daily shower at R's mother's tiny house, as the shower in R.'s house didn't function and the owner, rich Walid Aboulafia, refused to repair it.

R. who paid a very high rent relative to the ugly state of the house she lived in, stopped paying the rent. The owner cut off her water and electricity supply. It was easy for him to do so, because in the past, the flat had been larger and he subdevided it, one assumes without a permit. As a result R. shared the electricity and water bill with her neighbors, so it was very easy to punish her.

R. started looking for a new place, but the rents in Jaffa have gone up and all she has is her social security payments. Also many houseowners want all kinds of guarantees, which when you live on social security, you cannot easily get.

The beds were literally broken, as if they had been thrown from the second floor where she lived. Maybe they were.

Due to the Ramadan, Jaffa's streets are very quiet, so we have no witnesses to the method of furniture removal. The broken aquarium says it all, i will not ask questions about the fish. Volunteers from the Islamic movement helped R. to move her stuff (or rather that part worth salvaging) to Esther's house. Esther who's always there to help each and everyone. But the damage has been done. Five children out in the streets. Next week the schoolyear starts. I wonder how R.'s children will cope. We could not find their new schoolbooks in the mess.

Ramadan, Jaffa 2009

Mourning

Dressed in black, but for soft crying, now and then, all is quiet in the women's mourning tent.
The imam' s voice can be heard from the men's tent, just a few meters away.
Dry figs and endless small cups of bitter coffee are handed out.
The mother clutches her dead son's picture to her chest.

Why?

Another murder on Yefet Street

Saturday evening, 21.00, enjoying a mellow evening with my friends and their kids, while trying to do some work on an article, gotta deadline coming up.

A few hundred meters from where we sit, shots on Yefet Street, 2 young men are hit, one of them dies a little later in the hospital. The other, lucky, one was wounded.

It has become so common, most newspapers do not even mention it. Another murder, another young life finished, Jaffa, who cares?
Well, we do care. The murder victim belongs to one of the prominent families, but that didn't help him very much. I know this family, my heart goes out to them.

As usual there's a lot of border police around on Jaffa's streets today.

Extremist settlers in Ajami, will they ever stop?

Not too long ago a "hesder" yeshiva was opened in Ajami, in an old synagogue that had been standing neglected for some 40 years. Neglected, because the Jewish community of Ajami had left to better neighbourhoods (better at the time they left, when Ajami was one of the worst slums) and there simply was no need for a synagogue. The Jews (some 20%) still living in Ajami are predominantly secular.

Palestinians and Jews in Ajami live together, quite peacefully enjoying a relation of good neighbours. My very devout Muslim neighbours have the key to my flat, in case they need to get on the roof (which can only be reached through my home) or, more often, in case i loose my keys or forgot to water the plants on a very very hot khamsin day. We often meet for a coffee to exchange the latest gossip or a good cake recipe (usually followed by and exchange of the sweet results).
We dance at marriage parties and weep at burials, rejoice in the birth of yet another daughter or son. We each have our sources of good olive oil, za'atar and the best coffee and share those, while bragging ours is just that little bit better. Neighbours.
Enter the yeshiva. Let it be said, i have nothing against religion. However, i do have a problem with religio and its institutions being abused as tools for justifying violent acts and racism.

After the disengagement from the Gaza strip, many of its expelled settlers started to see the mixed (Arab Jewish) cities (most of Israel is very segregated) as the "next front" for nationalist activity. They do not hide their ideology. Just go to their websites.
They are also supported by Lieberman's fascist ideology and extremist right-wing Jews from the US and elsewhere.
They claim they want to "strengthen the weak and threatened Jewish communities". If so, why didn't they select Yafo Gimmel, which indeed is a weakened, predominantly Jewish neighbourhood.
In Yafo gimmel, there are many ppor Jews, recent and not so recent migrants from the ex soviet union territories and Ethiopia).
Instead they selected Ajami, where there is no Jewish community to speak of and the few Jews living there tend to be well educated and economically strong and yes, also secular (some having a strong cultural and or ethnic Jewish identity) and having little interest in this particular yeshiva's brand of fundamentalism.
The very well-funded yeshiva is buying up property wholesale, in expensive Ajami, for its community, intending to turn Ajami into a religious Jewish community. Disregarding ofcourse that its Palestinian residents have no reason to close their shops and restaurant businesses on shabat, their best business day and the Jewish holidays.
The settlers like to walk around in groups, carrying flags and making a nationalist show of themselves, in absolute disrespect of the feelings of their neighbours. Part of their behaviour appears to be aimed at provoking violence, perhaps to convince more peope like themselves to come and "save" Jaffa.
Save from what? It exsists only in their imagination and ideology. We have no need of "being saved".

Last week they won a tender for a piece of public land very close to my home. Publicly owned land, which should have gone to the Palestinian community, from whom it was stolen in 1948, (and once more some 4 years ago, when the municipality closed the market which functioned on that particular piece of land) and with whom there is a legally binding agreement to construct 400 public housing units to solve the very bad Palestinian housing situation.
Yet the land went to an ultra religious building society who sell land only to religious Jewish families. Imagine a group of ultra nationalist whites in the US buying up publicly owned land in the middle of a poor black community and then selling the land only to selected similarly minded whites who publicly proclaim they want to turn the community into a whites only area.
Non-religious Jewish friends of mine contacted the company and asked if they could buy a flat. in the project. They were refused as flats are only sold to "our people".

Well, that's what is happening in Jaffa, in Ajami.
And it is happening in all the mixed cities: in Ramle, in Lod, in Acco and in Haifa.

We have seen the horrid results of this type of activities in Acco, when the homes and cars of several Palestinian families were torched by Jewish extremists.
In Acco, as a result of these actions, most Arab families left their nice homes in the middle class "Mizrach" neighborhood, scared for their lives after the days long progrom carried out against them by a mob of some thousand crazed "religious" nationalists encircling their homes for hours, until the police and the ambulances were able to save them.
It happened last year.

The Jaffa yeshiva receives support from the municipality and other offical state institutions. We are not talking about a small bunch of crazed idealists but about a very well-organized ,coordinated and well funded country-wide effort (with international financial support), aimed at creating a separate society. In other parts of the world they would call it "apartheid".

Are we next?

Another shooting nearby

Two nights ago a young guy was shot at in Ajami and lightly wounded. i was reading a book in bed, trying to fall asleep, then rudely woken up by shots, then screams from the south west more or less.
Later on i hear the details from my neighbours; another young guy, "yes these kids have guns, they don't know what they are doing, what can we do to stop it?" and so on. The regular talk the morning after, between neighbours, we had all woken up or been about to fall asleep.
About one minute ago: a volley of 7 Shots, just north east from my home, then screams. Someone must be hurt. It's still early, there are many people out in the streets, the weather is pleasant, many kids are playing outside.
Mothers come out into the streets and call their children inside, the kids protest, it's still early and they are right in the middle of a game. The mothers have no patience, "inside NOW". Reluctantly the kids go inside, they know the rules, the usual routine.
The neighbors' kids are now playing out on the roof, it's pleasant and warm. "You heard it?" they ask me through the open window. Yes i did. "Someone got hurt" the little girl tells me. "Yes i know, i heard the screams" i answer. We all know the sound, another shooting, The little girl continues her game. She waves at me, "slamat". I wave back.

Far away the sound of a siren is coming somewhat closer.

Police violence against children and women in Jaffa

Yousef (12 years old) and Ahmed (14 years old) were playing with a toy gun next to their home in Gorki street, a dead end alley in the center of Jaffa, this afternoon.
In Jaffa, close to the Jewish holiday of Purim, all toy-stores sell these guns, wildly popular with young boys who use them to shoot small colourful pellets and have fun.
Fourteen year old Ahmed broke his leg a while ago and walks with difficulty due to the heavy cast enveloping it.
Their little brothers stood around, in the hope of be allowed to join the game. A police car came by and the policeman shouted something at the boys who ran off, into their home.
Yousef's pregnant mum was playing with her youngest child, his grandmother taking care of things in the home, as was his 13 year old sister, Dunya. A few seconds after the boys had entered the home, the police burst in and started beating both 12 year old Yousef and 14 year old Ahmed, who fell due to his plaster cast. One of the policemen jumped on the plaster cast.
The mother intervened and got hit, falling on her pregnant belly.
Thirteen year old Dunya stared screaming and was hit as well, she fell, scratching her face.
Yousef was taken into the hospital, his head bloody and painful. Ahmed was taken into arrest. We just learned Ahmed has a bad asthma attack but is still under arrest, it is unclear if he will be taken to the hospital, as he is still under arrest.
Yousef and his mum have been released from hospital in the mean time, with concussion and wounds to the face, the pregnancy is OK.

Yousef's little 8 year old brother, who witnessed it all, has not stopped crying since the attack and is very upset.

Police brutality against a Jaffa teenager

Yesterday the police stopped a teenage boy close to his home in Jaffa's Karem Dalek neighbourhood and asked for his ID card.
The kid was just hanging around close to home and said he would pop over to his home and bring it, as it was not on him when they stopped him.
As an answer the police beat him up badly and left him wounded.

Home demolition this coming sunday

Although we're still fighting it in court, this Sunday (February 8) they may try to demolish Itidal's home in the "Dalek" orange grove in Jaffa.

We'll need you all there, in order to save the home of Itidal and her two school-age children.
The one parent family has nowhere to go. Itidal is seriously ill (just back from the hospital) and has no help from anywhere.

Those of you living in the area, please stay tuned in and ready for action!

Harassment in Tel Aviv's public sphere

Over the last few days i heard more and more complaints by friends and acquaintances about harassment in the public sphere. And i am not talking about isolated events.
Last week and elderly Palestinian woman donning traditional garb was attacked by people in a Dan bus in nearby Bat Yam. Her "crime"? She looks Muslim. When she tried to escape her attackers, the bus driver would not let her off the bus. She had the courage to file a complaint, but many other victims of this type of violence, which has become quite common, are not as courageous, or simply do not complain because they have no expectations from the Israel police.

Many of my friends have complained of similar events, especially women wearing a hijab. Some of the Israeli public are showing their hate openly. And they appear to receive silent support of many in their surroundings.

Palestinians employed by the Tel Aviv municipality cannot freely voice their concerns as they are being silenced by their colleagues and even threatened with dismissal. Another veiled employee was asked by her boss to wear her Islamic head-cover in a different style, as the "clients would be less scared of her" that way.

I am not implying everyone is as racist and hateful as described above, but i am talking about more than a few isolated cases. Many women from Jaffa are scared to go into Tel Aviv or Bat Yam as a result.
It appears we are entering a very dark age.

Some thoughts about the situation

Medical personnel of a Norwegian medical NGO just informed us through the media, that about 40% of the dead and wounded are women and children, which makes it quite clear that the targets are not military (not that it would be OK, IF the targets were military). there is very little food, no fuel, not enough medicine and medical equipment, nor the infrastructure to take care of the many wounded and the needy population. Israel says some aid is led through, but it has not arrived at the hospital, Israel is lying, not for the first time.
The French proposals for a temporary truce have not been accepted by the Israeli leadership.

The simplistic statement "but they started" is on the level of a 6-year old's "but he hit me first, mummy".
It seems so obvious, but when i listen to what is being said by many people, in the streets and in the media, i realize that perhaps things are after all not that obvious. After the colonists and their colonies were removed from the Gaza Strip, Israel closed off the Gaza-strip which was turned into one big prison. Nor enough food, not enough medicine and medical equipment, no schoolbooks, no gaz and often the electricity was shut off. People weren't allowed out nor in. In some cases mothers had been on a family visit in the West Bank, yet they could not return to their children. Students who had been accepted into foreign universities, often with full scholarships, lost their registration when they were not allowed to leave, whilst others, who wanted to go back home upon finishing their studies, got stuck abroad, unable to go back to their home in Gaza. The Gaza Strip became one big prison-camp. And due to the lack of everything, conditions worsened. No doubt the people from Gaza got incredibly angry. The ceasefire last several months, yet Israel made no steps towards any real political solution. Breaches of the ceasefire were regularly carried out by Israel. And yes, there were also a few Palestinian ones.
And i do not justify those, nor the Israeli ones.

The hideous Israeli attack on Gaza led to attacks on Israel, also on civilian targets. There have been a few victims and i feel awful about every single one. But these assaults do not justify the violence against Gaza. The cycle of violence is at full run.
Yet all of us know the solution can only be political. A giving up of ALL territories. Solving the refugee problem and Israel's becoming a truly democratic state.
We all know it, and i understand many Israelis feeling scared of the implications. There there is no other solution.
And the longer we wait, the more violence, the more hate, the more bloodshed.

WHY?

Israel is such a lovely and true democracy....

Since last night several Jaffa activists (all of them Palestinians) have been taken into the Salameh Police Station where they were interrogated by the internal security services, the Shabak, who behaved in an insulting and threatening way (in some cases using the good-bad guy technique) .

Amongst those interrogated was Omar Siksik, member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council and Sami AbouShade as well as Rolla and Shirin Agbariye and many others,
Rolla and Shirin have been released into three days of house arrest. Sami has been released and
Omar was released this morning but then requested to go for more interrogation, this time by the police. As of now he is still in the police station.
So much for Israeli "democracy". Arrest and intimidation are efficient ways of stopping legitimate protest.
Oh but i forget, in Israel; true protest is not legitimate, or only in a very limited way.

There is more information elsewhere

System Ali - 1 Minute of Silence

The evening started with a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the murderous attacks by the IAF in the Gaza Strip.
Amne was crying. Muhamad Ajuan and Yonatan Kunde had tears in their eyes, on stage at Jaffa's "Mandel" Cultural Center.

This was not another evening of Jaffa's leading rappers, "System Ali". It had been advertised as an evening of Jaffa poetry and rap. But how can one go to a poetry evening when people are dying just a short car-ride away?

So there were no musical instruments, no fun, no beat, no happiness. Many of the texts were written over the last 24 hours, reflecting the horror we all feel, the pain, the worry, the anger and the helplessness.

On my way, while sitting in bus nr. 10, a stone was thrown at the bus by someone in the angry crowd, gathered at the Muslim Scouts Club, where a Mourning Tent has been erected. Unpleasant, sure, but also understandable. So much anger, fear and frustration have been cropped up over the last few days.
The busdriver had to stop as a car in front of us got stuck. Some of the people in the bus started shouting at the driver to quickly drive off. "They might lynch us" they screamed, in real panic.

I have no doubt the women, who were in the bus with me, really felt scared although there was no danger at any moment. From their conversations afterwards i realized their perceived feeling of being in danger and the resulting fear, led to extremist views, of perhaps the extremist views were there before and the stone only strengthened something they already felt, based on ingrained misconcepts.
Yet a situation like that could have easily exploded. What if one of them had been armed? A guard woman on her way to her job perhaps?
Israeli society is sick and militarised and that by itself poses a grave danger.

Anti-War Demo opposite the Ministry of Defence

Some two thousand people gathered this night to protest, walking from the Tel Aviv Cinemateque to the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv's "Kiriya", shouting slogans in favour of peace and against the war-crimes committed by the Israeli government and the IAF.
The police, among them the horse brigade, tried to violently break up the demo several times, hitting the demonstrators who were trying to get away from the charging horses with their clubs and horse whips.
MK Dov Khenin adressed the gathering.

And for more information about civil action.
Video of the demo