International Solidarity Movement

ISM organizes international participation in Palestinian-led activities, bringing volunteers, often from the United States and Europe, to the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza.[2] Its stated purpose is to strengthen Palestinian popular resistance through direct-action methods, including demonstrations and protests.[5] The movement identifies four founding principles for volunteers: Palestinian leadership, nonviolence, consensus, and anti-oppression.[3] It presents working alongside Palestinian communities, rather than operating independently of them, as central to its approach.[3]

The movement’s activities range from accompanying children to school and farmers to their fields to participating in demonstrations and staying with families facing eviction, demolition, or settler harassment.[3] Activists have also sought to obstruct Israeli settlement construction and protect Palestinians from harassment by settlers.[6] Other actions have involved confronting Israeli military forces, attempting to block construction of the Israeli security fence, or removing sections of it.[2] Documentation and publicity form another major part of the movement’s work, linking activities on the ground to audiences abroad through photographs, written reports, social media, and interviews.[3]

ISM describes itself as grassroots-funded, with volunteers paying their own expenses and without corporate or fixed sponsors.[4] It is a project of the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees, which reported income of $284,359 and expenses of $193,532 in 2022; these figures concern the association and are not identified as a separate ISM budget.[4] Its website is palsolidarity.org.[4]

Palestinian, Israeli, and American activists founded ISM in 2001.[2] Its founders included Huwaida Arraf, Adam Shapiro, Ghassan Andoni, and Neta Golan.[7][8] A movement account dates its founding to August 2001, while Arraf identified that month as the beginning of its first coordinated campaign.[3][9] In her account, more than 50 civilians from several countries participated in two weeks of nonviolent direct action.[9] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs places the founding after the outbreak of the Second Intifada and describes Shapiro as an American Jewish man and Arraf as an American woman of Palestinian origin.[10]

The movement’s first substantial media exposure came in spring 2002, during Operation Defensive Shield, when international volunteers bypassed the Israeli military siege of Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah.[2] Later that year, ISM members entered the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during the military standoff there.[2] Arraf subsequently described both actions as international-only efforts to breach military cordons, alongside the movement’s broader work supporting Palestinian civilian resistance.[9] She also recalled escorting doctors, ambulances, schoolchildren, and other civilians during periods of increased Israeli military activity.[9]

A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs account dates one group’s entry into the church to May 2 and says the activists evaded Israeli patrols while carrying rice, flour, salt, and sweets.[11] That account says ten members of the party remained inside and that Pax Christi USA provided public-relations assistance and sent a legal observer.[11] These interventions placed international participants directly within two prominent standoffs of 2002.[2]

Several activists suffered death or serious injury in 2003.[12] Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American volunteer, was killed on March 16 by an Israeli bulldozer clearing land in Rafah, Gaza.[12] She had been wearing a reflective vest and standing in front of the vehicle.[12] The movement’s account describes a three-hour demonstration involving eight ISM activists and two Israeli military bulldozers, undertaken to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home.[13] Her death subsequently became the subject of investigations and civil litigation.[12][14]

On April 7, 2003, Brian Avery, a 24-year-old American ISM activist, was shot in the face in Jenin while walking outside during curfew as an Israeli armored personnel carrier approached.[12] His injuries required considerable surgery and extended hospitalization.[12] The source of the gunfire remained undetermined in the available account, and the IDF denied responsibility.[12] An internal investigation reportedly could not determine whether the shots were Israeli or Palestinian; at the end of 2004, a petition seeking an investigation had not yet been decided by the Israeli High Court.[12]

British ISM activist Thomas Hurndall was shot by an Israeli soldier in Rafah in April 2003 while attempting to move Palestinian children to safety during clashes.[12] He died from his injuries on January 13, 2004.[12] At the end of that year, the soldier’s court-martial on a manslaughter charge remained pending.[12] These cases involved different circumstances and legal processes, rather than a single investigation into the movement’s activities.[12]

ISM’s international connections also contributed to the development of maritime campaigns concerning Gaza.[1][2] Several members helped launch the Free Gaza Movement in 2006, and that movement made repeated attempts to sail to Gaza beginning in 2008.[2] Free Gaza was a Cyprus-based coalition opposing Israel’s Gaza blockade and was described as having roots in ISM.[1] Before the 2010 flotilla, Israel had allowed its ships to dock in Gaza five times.[1]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs describes an August 2008 voyage of two small Greek-registered fishing boats from Cyprus to Gaza, carrying 44 people, as an ISM initiative operating under the Free Gaza Movement name.[10] ISM-affiliated activists subsequently helped organize and promote the May 2010 flotilla with the Turkish organization Insani Yardim Vakfi, also known as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation or IHH.[1][2] Arraf and Greta Berlin were organizers and spokespeople for that initiative.[4] A confrontation between Israeli forces and passengers aboard one ship resulted in nine civilian deaths.[2]

The same Jerusalem Center account reports that Free Gaza members joined the voyage of the ship Rachel Corrie, sponsored by the Perdana for Global Peace Foundation, and that mechanical problems caused the vessel to fall behind the original flotilla.[10] These maritime efforts connected people associated with ISM to a coalition distinct from the movement’s regular land-based volunteer activities.[1][2]

Foreign volunteers also faced detention and immigration enforcement.[5] On January 11, 2010, Israeli military and immigration officials arrested a Czech ISM activist in Ramallah; she was later deported because she lacked a valid Israeli visa.[5] On February 7, two other foreign ISM activists were detained and released the next day after agreeing not to reenter the West Bank.[5]

Italian ISM member Vittorio Arrigoni worked with farmers and fishermen in Gaza and had been traveling into and out of the territory for more than two years by 2011.[15] He was also a pacifist and blogger.[16] An account of his residence in Gaza dates his arrival to 2008 aboard a humanitarian aid boat.[17] Arrigoni described his own role in terms of providing a human shield, saying that he and his companions had come to “face the snipers.”[15]

In 2011, a group abducted Arrigoni and threatened to execute him unless Hamas released its detained leader.[16] Hamas officials subsequently announced that his body had been found, and Hamas condemned the killing.[16] A Hamas-run Interior Ministry statement identified the abductors as a jihadist Salafist group, and Hamas security forces pursued suspected participants.[17]

ISM continued recruiting foreign participants into the following decade.[2] In May 2024, it invited students involved in campus encampments to volunteer during the summer, writing: “There’s nothing quite like being here on the ground” and promising “an education you won’t get on campus.”[2] Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American volunteer who had recently graduated from the University of Washington, had participated in campus anti-Zionist activity, including a spring 2024 encampment.[2]

Eygi arrived in the West Bank on September 1, 2024, trained with ISM, and attended a weekly protest in Beita on September 6 as part of the Faz3a campaign, which seeks to protect Palestinian farmers from settler violence.[6] Soldiers fired ammunition and tear gas after prayers, protesters retreated, and townspeople threw stones.[6] Eygi was later shot in the head and died at a hospital.[6] The Israeli government subsequently considered it highly likely that an Israeli bullet had killed her.[6]

ISM members describe the organization as non-hierarchical and consensus-based.[2] Co-founder Neta Golan has continued to help guide its strategic direction and public messaging, while longtime volunteer coordinators have handled operational work, recruitment, and training.[2] Chapters in North America and Europe support activities in the Palestinian territories.[2] A 2007 movement profile likewise described a non-hierarchical structure and an expectation that international participants commit to nonviolence.[7]

Training prepares volunteers for participation in demonstrations and other activities alongside Palestinian communities.[18] A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs publication describes a two-day program in Ramallah covering nonviolence strategies and philosophy, group decision-making, and cultural considerations.[18] Golan has said that activists train not to respond to violence and practice passive resistance, while acknowledging that nonviolent resistance can involve escalation.[19]

The practical work includes joining Palestinian-led demonstrations, accompanying schoolchildren and farmers, and staying with or near families whose homes face eviction, demolition, or settler harassment.[3] A 2017 volunteer appeal identified school escorts in Hebron, attendance at weekly demonstrations, international observers, and a media office publishing reports and documentation.[20] Foreign solidarity activists have also attended demonstrations in Qalandiya, Bilin, and Nabi Saleh.[19] Some have clung to soldiers in attempts to prevent the firing of tear gas or rubber bullets.[19]

Documentation is a stated objective alongside direct action.[3] Volunteers photograph events and write reports and journals for the movement’s website and social media.[3] The stated intended audiences include local and international media, while another intended use is evidence for police or court proceedings.[3] Volunteers are encouraged to discuss their experiences in interviews and public talks after returning home.[3] This publicity work extends the reach of actions beyond the people immediately participating in them.[3]

National groups have also pursued campaigning away from the conflict area.[21] ISM Czech Republic belongs to the worldwide Palestinian-led network and has organized demonstrations, lectures, articles, and open letters.[21] Its activities have included support for boycotts of Israeli goods, cultural events, and public figures.[21] Between July and August 2014, it organized three demonstrations in central Prague against Israeli military operations in Gaza.[21] In 2015, it issued an open letter and petition seeking cancellation of the Days of Jerusalem festival in Prague and Pilsen, and in 2016 it distributed pamphlets against the festival near its venue.[21]

By 2007, a movement profile reported that approximately 3,500 activists from more than 30 countries had participated since ISM’s creation.[7] In a 2011 interview, Arraf put the cumulative number at nearly 7,500, with participants from North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.[9] These are participation figures published at different dates, rather than counts of a permanent membership or a single deployment.[7][9]

Arraf articulated four purposes for international participation: providing a protective presence during Palestinian civilian actions, influencing media coverage, bearing witness and communicating events abroad, and reducing Palestinians’ sense of isolation.[9] She argued that foreign participants might be harder to characterize as terrorists and could therefore reduce the likelihood of lethal force.[9] Golan similarly said in 2011 that the presence of international activists encouraged the Israeli military to use non-lethal methods, which she described as permitting resistance “without killing or being killed.”[19] These statements express the founders’ rationale for international accompaniment and their assessment of its effects.[9][19]

The movement’s model links local participation to international advocacy: volunteers join activities in Palestinian communities, document their experiences, and then communicate those experiences through media appearances and talks abroad.[3] Its connections to Free Gaza show a further route through which participants became involved in campaigns beyond demonstrations and accompaniment on land.[1][2] The Czech network’s lectures, petitions, and boycott activity provide another example of campaigning conducted outside Israel and the Palestinian territories.[21]

ISM’s public history also includes court proceedings that examined both an individual activist’s death and the organization’s activities.[14][22] Corrie’s family filed a civil lawsuit in 2005, and a Haifa hearing opened in 2010 with her parents seeking $324,000 from the Defense Ministry.[13][23] On August 28, 2012, the Haifa District Court rejected the suit, finding no basis for a claim that the bulldozer operator had struck her intentionally.[14] It held that her death was accidental and occurred during a legally defined “war operation,” exempting the state from liability.[14]

The court characterized the mission as ground-clearing intended to prevent terrorists from hiding in the area, rather than house demolition.[14] It found that the operator could not see Corrie because she was behind the blade and a pile of dirt, and that activists had interfered with work inside a closed military zone.[22] Israel’s Supreme Court rejected the family’s appeal on February 14, 2015.[13] Separately, after the 2003 incident, the IDF introduced safety procedures involving senior-officer oversight and closed military zones barring civilians after operations.[12]

The distinction between ISM’s methods and its founders’ views on armed resistance has been a central dispute.[2][4] In 2002, Shapiro and Arraf wrote that Palestinians had a right to resist with arms and that resistance “must take on a variety of characteristics - both nonviolent and violent.”[2] Language attributed to the movement’s mission statement also recognizes “legitimate armed struggle.”[4] In 2011, Arraf said that ISM recognized a right to armed resistance but did not engage in or actively support it, and that any armed resistance must comply with international law.[9]

Allegations concerning contacts with terrorist organizations have included a meeting between ISM members and two British suicide bombers days before a 2003 Tel Aviv bombing that killed three civilians; that account does not establish that ISM planned or carried out the attack.[2] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs additionally alleges that a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member hid in an ISM compound and that the movement indicated willingness to work with a coalition including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; these allegations are not independently corroborated in the available material.[10] In a 2023 statement, ISM said Israeli media had accused its volunteers of being Hamas supporters and described the coverage as attacks on the group.[24] ISM and associated activists were also subject to an FBI international terrorism investigation in 2004–2006; in 2020, the movement urged opposition to what it called efforts to criminalize nonviolent resistance, BDS, and Palestinian advocacy.[4]

The Corrie judgment criticized a “significant gap” between ISM’s statements and activities, characterizing some actions as interference with IDF operations, including human shields for wanted people and obstruction of demolition or sealing of suicide attackers’ homes.[22] Corrie’s family and demonstrators disputed the military account of her death and the adequacy of the investigation, while the IDF investigation found the operator was not negligent.[12] Accounts of Eygi’s killing also diverged: the IDF described firing at a threatening stone-throwing instigator, whereas ISM denied that its activists threw rocks and said she was more than 200 meters from soldiers without nearby confrontations immediately beforehand.[25] A protest participant described earlier clashes that had subsided before soldiers fired toward the group.[25]

The Czech group’s campaigns also drew criticism for Holocaust comparisons and antisemitic slogans at its 2014 demonstrations; those classifications reflect the report authors’ analytical criteria, including demonization of Israel and comparisons with Nazi Germany.[21] The same report described the 2015 festival letter’s claim as false and the campaign as an attempted boycott of an Israel-linked cultural event.[21]