Tubas Area Residents to Hold Anti-Checkpoint Demonstration on Tuesday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

At 10am residents of the Tubas area together with Israeli and international supporters will protest against Tyaseer checkpoint. The checkpoint has isolated four Palestinian villages and agricultural land belonging to four further villages.

The villages of Bardala, Ein Al Beda, Cardala and Wadi Al Malech are in an enclave in the Jordan Valley, the only entry and exit point to which is the Tyaseer checkpoint. Anyone who is not registered on their I.D. card as from these villages or has a time limited permit is forbidden to enter by the Israeli military. In order to be allowed to move freely many residents of this village have registered there addresses in Tubas itself. Now, if they leave their villages they are forbidden to return.

Hundreds of villagers from Tubas, Aqaba, Tayaseer and Tamun villages who own fertile agricultural land, on which they depend as there only source of income, have been denied permits by the Israeli authorities and can no longer access their land.

Tayaseer and Aqaba are in an area considered a “Military Zone”. Occupation officials have made no secret of their opinion that Aqaba “just should not be there”. Recently the military confiscated villagers sheep and burnt there grazing grounds. According to Ha’aretz (26th March 1999), 8 villagers from the village were killed and 43 wounded by the Israeli military between 1967 when they “adopted” it as a training facility and September 2000 when they were forced to pull after the village brought a successful case against the them to the Israeli high court. More recently, the military declared all the village homes to be “illegally built” and threatened to demolish the whole village, issuing demolition orders in the village. These efforts were defeated by international protests.

On the website of the Rebuilding Alliance you find a film by Amir Terkel about Aqaba
http://4blacksheep.com/clients/rebuilding_alliance/Aqabeh_April_2005.mov

For more information:
Ismael: 059 924 0247 (Arabic and English)
ISM media office: 02 297 1824