Successful Food Convoy and Solidarity action in Beit Umar

Bryan Atinsky, Indymedia Israel Correspondent

TEL-AVIV: Today (Dec. 29, 2001), approximately 350 Israeli solidarity demonstrators (along with an international contingent of French, Americans, and others) brought over 10 tons of food-staples and clothing to the Palestinian city of Beit Umar, near Hebron. A convoy of 99 cars and trucks drove from Jerusalem, through several Israeli Army checkpoints, for reasons of humanitarian assistance and to show solidarity with the residents of the city of Beit Umar. As stated by Ta'ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership, the activity's sponsoring organization:

"The village of Beit Umar lies on the main road between Bethlehem and Hebron, 25 minutes south of Jerusalem. It has 12,000 residents of whom 4,600 are school-age children. Beit Umar has suffered repeated harassment from the Israeli military and since the second Intifada began over a year ago, the main entrance to the village has been closed, forcing its residents to use back roads, which are also frequently closed by the military."

"Beit Umar's economic crisis stems from the closure and Israel's economic strangulation of the occupied territories. Unemployment is soaring and currently ranges between 60 to 80 percent. The majority of wage earners who used to work in Israel are currently prohibited from entering the country, while those who were employed in local workshops have been laid off due to the economic depression. The residents who make their living from agriculture have been equally hurt due to the military siege, which has prevented them from marketing their produce in Israel. This summer, families watched as their grapes and plums went unpicked, and many months of work and investment went down the drain. According to discussions held this week with Beit Umar's council and charity organizations, there are well over 250 families who literally cannot make ends meet."

Beit Umar has been literally blocked off from the rest of the occupied West Bank by means of a large mound of dirt a couple of meters high, which surrounds the entire city, including the main road. The only way possible for residents to normally get in or out of the city (when there isn't a curfew) is by foot, crawling over the wall. In order to get the food into the city today, the trucks holding the food and clothing had to be unloaded on one side of the mound, and transferred hand to hand by a large chain of people across to the other side, reloading the food into trucks waiting on the Beit Umar side of the mound.

After all of the goods were transferred, the hundreds of visitors crossed over into Beit Umar, walked through the city to a large meeting hall, where a joint solidarity gathering between representatives of Beit Umar and the visitors took place.