Since 2002, the International Women’s Peace Service in Palestine (IWPS-Palestine) has been a presence in Palestine, where we document and non-violently intervene in human rights abuses carried out by the Israeli military and Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank against the Palestinian civilian population. We are the only all women team of internationals working in the Occupied West Bank.
IWPS – Palestine is located in the Salfit district, a rural area located close to Nablus. The district, as well as the nearby Nablus and Qalqilya districts, is affected by more than 20 illegal Israeli settlements located in the “Ariel settlement bloc”. IWPS-Palestine was established at the height of the Al Aqsa Intifada in response to a call from the village of Hares for an international presence in their village.
After 7 years in Hares, we relocated to the neighbouring village of Deir Istyia, which like Hares and other Palestinian villages under the occupation, continue to suffer greatly. In the past few months there have been regular attacks by settlers on farmers from Deir Istiya, particularly when accessing their land in Wadi Qana. The village which is home to just over 3100 people has already lost much of its land to Israel’s occupation and is now struggling to keep more of its land from being taken by the illegal settlements. Seven settlements surround the fertile Wadi Qana where Deir Istyia farmers grow olive trees, citrus, carob and vegetables, and graze their livestock. Villagers contend with pollution of their farmland, attacks by settlers, destruction of their crops and trees, and denial of access to their land.
Since our establishment 8 years ago, hundreds of women from around the world have joined us in Palestine. Together IWPS volunteers provide accompaniment to Palestinian civilians, including to farmers who are prevented access to their land by the Israeli military and/or illegal settlers. We also coordinate internationals teams to assist with accompaniment during olive harvest each year and host delegations who visit Palestine to learn more about the impact of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Alongside Palestinians, internationals and Israeli activists, we participate in the weekly non violent civil resistance demonstrations held across the West Bank.
IWPS has actively supported the non-violent demonstrations in the village of Nabi Saleh since the villagers began them in December 2009. The village began holding the non-violent demonstrations against the creeping settlement expansion and land confiscation by the illegal Israeli settlement of Hallamish (also known as Neve Tzuf) and each week the demonstrations are brutally attacked by Israel’s military. In the past year violence on the part of the Israeli military has increased dramatically and almost 10% of the villagers are currently political prisoners.
In the last three years, our team members have been increasingly called on to try and intervene to stop and/or document the increasing number of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian civilians and villages. While there has been a dramatic increase in the number of settler attacks on Palestinians across the Occupied West Bank, many of the worst attacks have occurred in the nearby Nablus district. These attacks by illegal settlers have included the poisoning of Palestinian livestock, the torching and burning of hundreds of dunums of Palestinian agricultural land, the invasion of Palestinian villages by armed settlers, the beating and stoning of unarmed Palestinian residents, the destruction of Palestinian property, firing of homemade missiles at Palestinian villages and the torching of mosques and schools. In response to these attacks, our team members have regularly provided a temporary international presence in the villages under attack in order to try and stop the attacks, while also documenting the attacks in an attempt to bring them to the attention of the international community through IWPS team member’s outreach.
IWPS-Palestine is run solely by volunteers from around the world and we have just issued a call for new volunteers to join us on the ground in Palestine. If you are interested in joining us in Palestine, click here to learn more and fill out an application or you can contact us as at applyiwps@gmail.com and we will send you details of our application process.
