Palestinians living under Israeli Occupation since 1967 have practically no fundamental human rights, as are anchored in international conventions to which Israel, too, is signatory. Rights that Israel denies the Palestinians as a matter of course.

The denial of Palestinians' rights is usually a-priori and inherent, so that in order to obtain them – the right to health, for example, or education or freedom of movement or livelihood or the saving of lives – they have to pay. Betray.

In other words, many of these inaliable rights often lie at the far end of a 'talk' with the General Security Services officer.

They came at eight, began demolishing at ten, and at half past ten they were already gone. About twenty soldiers, two DCO jeeps, a Hummer, a bulldozer and a truck. Something like that. First they loaded stuff. The containers which we fill with watermelons, worth about 2000 NIS. Confiscated, as it were. Then they broke everything else.
Eggs broke by the hundreds. And all the vegetables. And the cash register, crushed. And the refrigerator, smashed. I paid 2000 NIS for it. It contained food for my worker Imad who used to sleep here.
I wasn't here when they destroyed everything, but my worker was here, sleeping. He heard them speaking Hebrew. He was curled up in his blanket, in the back. When they started demolishing the stand, he realized what was happening. He leapt up, broke a plank in the ceiling and ran off. If he hadn't, the stand would probably have been demolished right on top of him.
Thank goodness he saved himself. He has his family to feed, poor guy. He's from Jabba'. Luckily he got away alive.

I've had the stand for three years now. They came a long time ago and handed me instructions to dismantle it. So I left it, for a long time, a year and a half.
Then a poor guy came along and said, I want to make a living. A guy with no money at all. He asked if he could use my stand. So I decided to try and get back to work, I like it when I earn a living and others do too. So I worked and worked and no one said anything.

Then they started threatening me. They said I have to move back a bit, not by the roadside. That it's a disturbance. So I moved my stand back. Here I am, behind the pillar. It doesn't bother the municipality, or the soldiers. Just for the sake of it. And that big sign over there, that's Abu Mazen's son, Tareq. He gets a lot of money for it. Here's the pillar, and I am behind the pillar, because I moved the stand. And he is right on the roadside, but I'm the one whose stand they demolish. Not because it's close to the road. Because it's Eyad.

So suddenly a few months ago the soldiers came and took my scales. That's worth about 600 NIS. They took them once, twice, the third time they came around, they had a pain-clothes-man with them, an officer out of uniform. This officer has already come around several times. In a white car. Here's his name, written on this piece of paper. But every one of those guys has three names. They're GSS.
What's the story? I asked the officer. What do you want? Why are you guys after my stand? I moved it. I'm clean. I'm married and have children. My worker has children. And another poor guy who works with us and has kids.
So the GSS guy tells me: I'm from Beit El (the Civil Administration HQ, another word for the GSS). Come to Beit El. We'll talk there. See what we'll do.
I said, Beit El is far for me, I can't make it.
I didn't go and I am not willing to go there. I know their answer: they'll tell me to work with them. That's their answer. Collaborate with us and keep your stand. Here's a blue (Jerusalem) ID. Collaborate and get your family unification. They want Eyad to be their eyes and ears here at the junction. Tell them who comes in, who goes out. Fuck them, and their authority. All I want is to make my own living.
About two days after that guy came, it was the very first day of Ramadan, there were exactly five workers here. Soldiers came along, got them into the stand, tied up their hands, blindfolded them and took them away in jeeps to Ramah army base. That's across the way over there, not far from here. I just got here and saw them tied up. I kept my distance. Stood over there and asked people about it. They didn't know why those five were picked up. It was two minutes before the breaking of the fast. After they went away, I came to the stand. I stood around and waited. I was worried about the guy from Gaza who is not registered at A-Ram. Poor guy, just got married.
I waited and waited, for hours. Then the first guy came. I asked him what happened. He said, I don't know but I cried and cried and they let me go. The second guy came along. What happened? He said he didn't know. That was the guy from Gaza. He was released. But they're looking for you, Eyad, he told me. Eventually they were all released and came to the stand. The last one to arrive said he was told: Tell your boss that if we catch him here, we'll show him what's what.
That's me, they're talking about.
See? They picked them up and tied them up like dogs. Why? What have they done? Throw stones? What were they, terrorists? Fuck the army.
Just because they want me. You know what those guys were told over there? "Nice holiday we gave you, huh?" On purpose and all. And how they threw them there, like dogs. Tied up. And the workers told them: We've been fasting all day. We'd like some water. And they were told: wait. You've fasted all these hours, can't you wait another two hours now?
What kind of bastards are these?

I waited for two days. I stayed in the stand the whole time. This old guy from Gaza came. Sat with me here. I decided to go to the landowner and get me a signed paper from him that he leases his land out to me. Because I keep having trouble with the soldiers. And a lawyer friend told me, get a document from him. I get back and the guy from Gaza tells me, the soldiers had just been here with their jeep, photographed the paper, photographed me and told me I better not hang around with Eyad.

Let them come to my house, it's just a few meters away. Let them come and arrest me. Why don't they come to me? They know where to find me. They know where I live. But they don't want to arrest me. They want me to collaborate with them. But I don't want to. They've been trying to get me to work with them since 1998. Even more so since 2000. I don't want to. Why should I burn myself out for them? They think I'd turn informer? I'm no informer.
They want us to keep our noses in the ground. They want us to shit in our pants the moment we see an army jeep.

My brother, they stabbed him here in the stand. The army sent the guy who did. He's a collaborator, works with them. He stabbed him. It's not the first time they're looking for me.

The Palestinians are prevented from making a living, not just as a means to pressure them into collaborating. Methodically, strategically.

At all the checkpoints, throughout the years, throughout and along the roads, soldiers of different units harass the vendors and keep them from working.

The stands keep getting demolished time and time again in the same area by soldiers.

The official reasons keep changing:

because it disturbs other Palestinians, when it is obvious that it does nothing of the kind, and since when does Israel care about Palestinians.

Because a British Mandate law (dating from the 1940's at the latest) forbids vending by the roadside. And sometimes because of rules from the Ottoman Empire period (until 1918).

And at times because it conceals something. Or reveals something.

And at times because it's prohibited, period.

The reasons vary, but the purpose is always the same. To deny livelihood.

And so, because the soldiers have been thus instructed, or just to satisfy their occasional urges, the soldiers can destroy the Palestinians' sources of livelihood in an ever-repeating routine.

And the soldiers can prevent them from working, as in Eyad's case, to get them to collaborate.

It all begins and ends with the fact that a Palestinian is not human. Not really.

If he were, it would not happen.