11 June 2011 | Jordan Valley Solidarity
At 3pm yesterday 2 army jeeps carrying 8 soldiers came to the home of the Oudeh family. They demanded that the family take down their tent house and their two animal shelters. The army did not present the family with a demolition order or any other documents requiring the family to leave their land.
The Oudeh family live near Al Hadidya, in the northern Jordan Valley. Al Hadidya is in the shadow of Roi’i settlement, and adjacent to an army training area. While the family is originally from Hebron, they have lived near Al Hadidya since before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967.
Talib Oudeh, the father of the household, refused to demolish his own home. He and his son Tariq were handcuffed, blindfolded and taken outside. Two of the women from the family were also detained. The soldiers spent over an hour taking down the family’s tent and animal shelters.
Once the soldiers had destroyed the family’s home, which is their only source of shelter from the sun, Talib was taken to the military camp near Hamra checkpoint and was detained for a further 2 hours while Tariq was taken to Tayaseya checkpoint . Both remained blindfolded and handcuffed for the duration of their detention, and neither received food or water.
Tariq was released from the checkpoint to make his own way home, while Talib was driven back to his destroyed home in an army jeep. Waiting at the site where his home used to be were a police car and a military jeep. Talib was questioned and told he had a problem with the Israeli intelligence, something he knew nothing about. The police informed him that he has until Sunday to move out of the area or they will return with the civil administration to remove him, his wife and children by force.
The family has has resurrected their tent despite the threat of eviction, and is waiting to see if the military will return on Sunday. Yesterday’s incident is yet another example of the Israel military’s zealous will to ethnically cleanse the Jordan Valley.