Palestine: the first LGBTQ delegation tour in pictures

Palestine: The First LGBTQ Delegation Tour in Pictures
by
Pauline Park

Day 1: Saturday, Jan. 7: Ramallah: political briefing with Leila Farsakh

Day 2: Sunday, Jan. 8: Qalandia checkpoint

Day 2: Sunday, Jan. 8: East Jerusalem: Sheikh Jarrah

Day 2: Sunday, Jan. 8: East Jerusalem: a tower in the ‘separation wall’

Day 2: Sunday, Jan. 8: East Jerusalem:

Day 2: Sunday, Jan. 8: Bethlehem: Deheisheh refugee camp

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Hebron (Al Khalil): Shuhada Street

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Hebron (Al Khalil): market grille

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Hebron (Al Khalil)

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Hebron (Al Khalil): IDS security watchtower

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Hebron (Al Khalil): settler ‘revenge’ graffiti

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Al Walejeh: Sherine Araj

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Al Walejeh: Pauline Park at the ‘separation wall’

Day 3: Monday, Jan. 9: Al Walejeh

Day 4: Tuesday, Jan. 10: Bethlehem: Deheisheh refugee camp

Day 4: Tuesday, Jan. 10: Mas-ha: Pauline Park with Abu Nidal

On the fourth day of the delegation tour of Palestine, I met Abu Nidal, a Palestinian farmer in the West Bank who courageously stood up to the Israeli occupation, objecting when Israeli authorities built an extension of the #apartheid wall between his house & his farm in order to create a legal pretext to seize his land (under Israeli law, which Palestinians are illegally subjected to in the illegally occupied West Bank, if a farmer lets his land lie fallow for at least three years, the Israeli government can seize it); the extension of the apartheid wall through his small plot of land had nothing to do with security & everything to do with land theft by illegal Israeli settlements; the media reported on Abu Nidal’s plight & the Israeli authorities constructed a door that enabled him to walk through the wall to his small acreage & resume cultivation of his tiny plot of land; but the extension of the apartheid wall still stands on his land; Abu Nidal himself painted the phoenix on the wall to symbolize his hope for a #FreePalestine liberated from Israeli occupation…

Day 4: Tuesday, Jan. 10: Mas-ha: Abu Nidal with his son at the gate to their property

Day 4: Tuesday, Jan. 10: Mas-ha: Israeli settler house next to Abu Nidal’s house

Day 5: Wednesday, Jan. 11: Lyd (Led/Lod) slum

Day 5: Wednesday, Jan. 11: Um al Fahm: Sa’ed Adel Atshan with Abu Hussam

Day 5: Wednesday, Jan. 11: the delegation standing in the ruins of Lajjun

Day 6: Thursday, Jan. 12: Tel Aviv from Jaffa (Yafa/Yafo)

Day 6: Thursday, Jan. 12: Jaffa: Andromeda Hill complex

Day 6: Thursday, Jan. 12: Tel Aviv

Day 7: Friday, Jan. 13: Nabi Saleh

Day 7: Friday, Jan. 13: Nabi Saleh: Manal Tamimi is the sister of Mustafa Tamimi, a 28-year-old Palestinian, who was shot in the head, and critically injured, with a tear gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier at very close range, on 9 December 2011. Manal explained to delegates the circumstances of Mustafa’s tragic death at the hands of the IDS.

Bilal and Manal Tamimi and the Tamimi family have become the core of the resistance to Apartheid Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh; every Friday, villagers march unarmed down the main street in the tiny village to protest the illegal occupation only to be met with violence from the army of illegal Israeli occupation.