Tawfiq Mandil, 45, stands amongst hundreds of Palestinian farmers, activists, and international supporters in the Gaza Strip\u2019s eastern Zeitoun district, about half a kilometre from the border with Israel. They are renewing a call for the boycott of Israeli goods.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres) on the last day of the attacks in 2009, as well as 20 other homes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
With signs reading \u2018Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products\u2019 and \u2018Support Palestinian Farmers\u2019, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday [9 Feb 2013] to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.<\/p>\n
Mandil believes that the boycott is his only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel. \u201cWe hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.\u201d<\/p>\n
With an Israeli surveillance blimp hovering above and within sight of a remotely-controlled machine gun tower, the significance of the rally\u2019s location near the \u2018buffer zone\u2019 was not lost. Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinians from accessing the 300 metres flanking the Gaza-Israel border. In reality, the Israeli army regularly attacks Palestinians up to two kilometres from the border in some areas, rendering more than 35 percent of Gaza\u2019s farmland off-limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy engaging in the trade of settlement produce, states are failing to comply with their obligation to actively cooperate in order to put the Israeli settlement enterprise to an end. Therefore, a ban on settlement produce must be considered amongst those actions that third party states should undertake in order to comply with their international law obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq released a position paper last month condemning the Israeli settlement produce trade. The paper, \u2018Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States Under International Law\u2019 highlights the means by which Israeli settlements benefit from the oppression of Palestinian farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the EU has been quite outspoken in condemning settlements and their expansion, they continue to import produce from these same settlements and in doing so, help to sustain their very existence,\u201d Al-Haq director general Shawan Jabarin notes in the Al-Haq press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 80 Palestinians have been injured and at least four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks<\/a> in the border regions since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian resistance,\u201d says Adie Mormech, 35, a British activist living in Gaza. This is in addition to the many Palestinians killed and hundreds injured in previous years<\/a> of Israeli army attacks on the border regions.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is simultaneous action happening in the occupied West Bank,\u201d says Mormech. \u201cThey\u2019re planting near Yitzhar colony, which is notorious for its violence against Palestinians. Around the world, an estimated 30 countries are holding actions in solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers.\u201d<\/p>\n Um Abed, 65, from Zeitoun is defiant. \u201cToday we\u2019re planting olive trees. God willing next year we\u2019ll plant lemon, date and palm trees. We grow, they bulldoze, we re-plant.\u201d<\/p>\n The boycott action follows a growing number of initiatives emerging in recent years from the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n Palestinian students in Gazan universities stepped up the Boycott call<\/a> in 2012, releasing Youtube videos<\/a> calling for political action, not aid, from international supporters.<\/p>\n