The Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes on their website that the Bedouin enjoy a higher standard of living than elsewhere in the Middle East. But countless Bedouin homes and villages have been destroyed by Israel. The government’s ‘township’ policy, displacing Bedouin into townships so they can be easily managed, luring them with electricity and water and cheap housing so they can be put in one place, kept under control, is what the government refers to as integration. The Bedouin are forced to choose between constant demolition of their houses and harassment by settlers and army, or being moved from the land they live upon to townships to cease practicing their culture and to conform to Israeli society.
The excuses for demolishing the Bedouin villages include making way for the building of the illegal security fence, expanding illegal settlements, making way for factories; for modernity at any cost, in an undemocratic state guilty of numerous human rights abuses in both Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel destroys Bedouin villagers, leaving them homeless, to drive them out of areas they wish to claim as Jewish.
The village of Ka’abna in the Jiflik area of the Jordan Valley is one of many examples of the government destroying a Bedouin village for no reason except for not wanting them there. The excuses for this senseless destruction of course vary, but the most common is building without a permit in a military closed zone. Permits are impossible to get. Why the land of sand and rocks at the foot of a mountain range next to a highway is of importance to the military is anyones guess. But continually destroyin
The Huwara checkpoint controlling exit from Nablus is notorious for long lines and hours-long delays, particularly on holidays. This roofed and turnstiled checkpoint, in place since the start of the current Intifada, governs traffic flowing to Ramallah, as well as to the many nearby villages outside Nablus. University students, workers, and people seeking medical treatment or coming for shopping must cross Huwara, many on a daily basis.
On Saturday, November 10, a Human Rights Worker (HRW) leaving Nablus arrived at Huwara, around 2:40 pm, to lines which crammed and extended metres beyond the tin-roofed checkpoint area. On a good day, the lines would run a third to half the length of the area. The side passage, between the roofed area and the wire fence, is normally reserved for women and children to pass through for ID checking.
Thirty minutes after the HRW arrived, the lines of waiting Palestinians had not moved; instead, they had grown, extending yet numerous meters further. Palestinians reported they had been waiting since 12:00 to pass through the checkpoint. At approximately 3:10, the HRW called Machsom Watch to report the checkpoint problems. About 10 minutes later, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers began removing some additional wire fencing which had been strung across the outer passageway normally reserved for women and children. The fencing crossed from the outer wire fence to the iron rails of the checkpoint building itself.
After removing this fencing, this ‘flying checkpoint’ within a checkpoint, IOF soldiers finally began checking IDs of the waiting Palestinians. During the period between 12:00 and around 3:20, upwards of 300-350 civilian Palestinians were made to wait, some for 3 hours or more, their day disrupted by the arbitrarily-imposed blockage. The timing of the closure coincided with the return of many university students to their homes outside of Nablus, as well as the return home of those who had gone to Nablus for shopping and other needs.
Ka’abna village, in the Jiflik area of the Jordan Valley, recently received an order for its 6th demolition in the last 5 years. Home to 80 villagers, the land on which these men, women and children live is in fact the area to which the Israeli government suggested they move when the military demolished their previous homes. Regardless, the army now claims they’ve built on a military closed zone and it has demanded that they leave. Almost 30 homes and animal enclosures will be destroyed if the demolition takes place, and the lives and education of 50 children will be severely disrupted yet again.
The villagers of Ka’abna were displaced from their land 18 years ago by one of the many settlements that illegally occupy the Jordan Valley. The homes in the village, which have been rebuilt five times in as many years, consist of concrete walls waist-high topped with fencing wire, plastic sheets and old cotton bags used for the upper walls and roofing. The village has never had access to water or electricity, and villagers pay a sum of 100 shekels every 4-5 days to transport water to their homes by tractor.
The military add to the hardships endured in Ka’abna village by placing residents under curfew on a regular basis. The villagers assume they are subject to curfews because of problems that sometimes arise at the nearby checkpoint. However, the curfew is often enforced for reasons not apparent to the villagers.
‘People cant live like this. We have no water or electricity. We just want to eat and raise our children’ said a village spokesman. But the Israeli government claims the village, which is less than a square kilometer in size, is built without permits upon military land and must be demolished. The permits to which the government refers are nearly impossible to obtain. When asked whether they will rebuild the village again, the people of Ka’abna said they will. ‘Many villagers have been detroyed in the area and they (the villagers) have rebuilt. We will rebuild. This is our land’ said the village spokesman.
The High Court last week ordered the demolition be postponed for a period of 60 days. Following this period, the High Court will review the matter and decide whether the village will be demolished. The villagers are concerned however that the military will ignore the court order and begin demolishing the village for a 6th time prior to the High Court hearing.
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE DOCUMENTARY ‘EVICTING THE BEDOUIN’
On Friday 9th November, Oday Abdel Odeh was arrested whilst attending his uncle’s wedding in the village of Azzoun, near Qalqilya. Oday, sixteen years old and from the nearby village of Kafr Thulth, was standing with a group of friends at the celebration when Israeli soldiers approached, beat the youth and arrested him, witnesses report. He is currently being held in custody in Hawara camp, although it is unclear as to whether any charges have been laid against him as his family are unable to contact him, and he has not been granted access to a lawyer.
Approximately one hour after the arrest, 30 Israeli soldiers entered the small village of Kafr Thulth, declared a curfew around the family’s residence, and proceeded to break down the doors of their house in order to search the premises. One uncle was present when this occurred, with the rest of the family still in Azzoun. The uncle reports being kicked and punched by soldiers when they entered the premises, after which they ransacked the house, destroying furniture, and emptying the contents of all drawers and wardrobes. The family has no knowledge of the reason for the raid, no clue as to what the soldiers were searching for.
It is currently unknown why the youth was arrested, or for how long he will be held. The Prisoner’s Support and Human Rights Association, ADDAMEER, has advised his family that it is likely Oday will be held for a minimum of twelve days before he is allowed access to a lawyer. From their own experiences of having been randomly arrested by Israeli soldiers, family members suppose Oday is being held in isolation, and being subject to regular beatings. As yet their only information as to his whereabouts have come from Israeli Human Rights groups, such as Machsom Watch and Hamoked. The family has made a formal complaint about the arrest to the UN through the Palestinian Democracy and Workers’ Rights Centre.
The four youths who were arrested in Azzoun yesterday, two of whom were aged sixteen, the others aged nineteen and twenty years old, were released last night. The youths who were arrested by Israeli soldiers at the Azzoun internet cafe were taken to Jein Safout, approximately 12kms from Azzoun, where they were beaten by soldiers and then released after four hours.
Update 14th November
It has been revealed that the four youths who were arrested from an internet cafe in Azzoun on 10th November were subject to prolonged beatings as they were interrogated by Israeli soldiers.
One of the youths, who is sixteen years old, disclosed that the arrestees were taken from the internet cafe where they were playing computer games, and beaten, before being lain face down on the floor of a jeep with Israeli soldiers kicking and stamping on them. They were then driven to the settlement of Karne Shomron, where they were held for four hours as soldiers interrogated them as to whom in the village had been throwing rocks; who had guns. Throughout this time, all four of the youths were blindfolded with arms bound behind their backs. They were forced to sit on the floor, bent over, while they were punched, kicked and slapped repeatedly in order to elicit information from them.
The youths were then driven off, and released by the side of a road at 8pm, approximately 12km from Azzoun. They were told by the Israeli soldiers that they would be killed if they were caught throwing rocks.
This seems to be not just an idle threat made by low-ranking soldiers. In a meeting with the headmaster of the Azzoun High School yesterday, the new Commander of the Israeli forces based at Azzoun advised the principal that no longer would youths throwing stones be met with the collective punishment of curfews, as have been forced upon the people of Azzoun for the past two weeks. From now, he advised, should any youths be caught throwing stones, Israeli soldiers will kill them.
The November 7 Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) invasion of Nablus’ Balata refugee camp left one two-story home destroyed by IOF-detonated explosions and another home damaged by a grenade and random shooting. Local sources further report that several homes in the camp were also invaded and ransacked by Israeli soldiers. Witnesses report up to 40 military vehicles having entered the camp, ending the siege with the detention of 25 Palestinians.
One family in Balata awoke at 2 am to soldiers’ firing from the street at the walls of their 3-story home. As with most of the homes throughout Balata, the family has suffered numerous IOF attacks over the years, evidenced by the grandmother’s testimony as well as the testimony of the walls themselves. The grandmother and one granddaughter pointed out deep pocket marks on the balcony of the living room from the IOF shooting days before. Similar bullet holes, even deeper, punctured the outer cement wall of a bedroom on the same side of the house. Off that wall, the balcony’s wrought iron railing was twisted, deformed from an IOF hand grenade tossed up from the road. The explosion further cut into the concrete side of the balcony.
Back inside the living room, a curtain pulled back from a window revealed a bathtub-sized hole in the neighbouring house wall from 2002 IOF attacks. Aged newspaper stuffed into gaping holes in the wall betray further evidence of earlier Israeli attacks.
In addition to the collective punishment of the entire family, three of the grandsons have directly suffered at the hands of the IOF. One seventeen year old grandson was imprisoned for a year and a half in administrative detention. This is a technical term for being kept in limbo, without being charged with anything. It is a form of detention which can last for years, the detained not even granted the basic rights prisoners are supposed to receive. The boy was finally released, still without charges. During his imprisonment, he was moved as he was suspected of being a leader in prison, and consequently kept for months in solitary confinement. When he was eventually brought before an Israeli court to again extend his administrative detention, even the judge saw the absurdity of his detention and thus, finally, ordered his release.
His younger brother walks with a limp, unable to completely bend one of his legs as the knee still suffers from being shot by an Israeli soldier years before, his entire leg bearing the marks of shrapnel wounds and broken bones from IOF shelling. A third grandson is currently imprisoned for an unknown duration, accused of resistance activities, he was arrested when he was 17.
Upstairs, the granddaughter pointed out where ISM activists had lived, where they’d stayed for years, a permanent presence which for one entire year served to prevent imminent demolition from IOF caterpillar bulldozers. One victory. At least 5 other homes that ISM activists were aware of were demolished in Israel’s ongoing policy of collectively punishing families for knowing or being related to Israel’s “wanted men.”
Buckling Walls and Homeless in the Rain
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, after 5 hours of searching and ransacking the house, the IOF exploded the back room of the ground floor, concurrently damaging two neighbouring houses’ walls as well as the upper floor of the bombed house. The targeted home houses 15 family members, who are now homeless as a result of the collective punishment. They were lucky: they were herded out of the home at 12:30 am, at gunpoint, before the 5 am explosion which took out the bedroom and damaged the weight-bearing walls. The neighbours in the home 2 meters behind were still asleep when the bomb shattered their window and damaged their own wall.
The family, now staying in 3 different neighbours’ homes, have put up support poles in efforts to compensate for the weight-bearing walls which are buckling and cracked from the explosion. According to the family, it will cost a minimum of 30,000 JD [~=$42,355] to reconstruct the house. Appraising the 2nd floor rooms, also ransacked and damaged from the invading soldiers and explosion, the father admitted the house would likely have to be demolished and completely reconstructed.
The 30,000 JD to repair the house does not include the loss of furniture, appliances, belongings, all of which were either damaged and broken in the initial IOF ransacking or later demolition. The sons in the family work as laborers, taking what work they can get. Meeting their new financial demands will be a difficult task, one which they stand to bear alone.
The pretext for this collective punishment was the IOF hunt for one of the sons, 23, a student at university who has been wanted by Israel for the last 2 and a half years for alleged resistance activity with Islamic Jihad.
This is the case with many such destroyed homes and collectively-punished families. The October 16th IOF invasion in a neighbourhood west of Nablus’ Old City, ended with the assassination of three men –one a 70 year old resident at home at the time—and the damage and destruction to homes of numerous residents of the attacked area. Residents further reported their imprisonment in inhumane conditions, where for upwards of 15 hours many were kept together in a small room and were not given water, food, or allowed to use the toilet, while the IOF conducted its “mission,” the search for a “wanted” Palestinian man.
The killing of the elderly resident, Shakher al-Wazir, came around 2 am, upon opening the door to his courtyard after having been ordered to, as well as assured of his safety, by the IOF. An Israeli soldier standing on the stairs opposite the door shot the man with between 3 to 5 bullets from a distance of approximately 3 metres.
A key resistance fighter, Basil Abu Sirriyya (“Gadaffi”), was killed. Another important resistance fighter, (Abed) Muhammad Shinawi, was critically wounded, and two weeks later died from his injuries. The men were hit by an IOF shell shot around 3 am from the neighbourhood under invasion whilst on a rooftop in the Old City.
In the same IOF early morning raid, a woman, Rania Al Shakh-sheer, sitting in her home down the street received a bullet to the back, one of a spray of 20 bullets from IOF soldiers outside the home, according to local witnesses. The bullet lodged near her heart, requiring her immediate transfer to hospital, according to a medic on the scene. She was reported to have undergone at least 5 military operations and was still listed as in critical condition at last reporting.
Two houses in particular were considerably damaged, the bottom floor of one exploded. In the first house, the one in which al-Wazir lived and died, residents reported that Israeli soldiers had entered the home around 2 am shooting live ammunition into bedrooms where family members slept. Approximately 25 residents in the multi-storied building, members of the same family, were eventually made to leave, sent to another location. Thereafter, IOF soldiers searched the house, shooting and destroying its contents as they progressed room to room. Not finding the man they sought, IOF soldiers shot a rocket from a nearby rooftop through the window of the parents’ bedroom, hitting the ceiling and damaging the room with shrapnel. The apparent reason was in hopes of killing the wanted man the IOF sought. He was never in that house.
IOF soldiers then moved to the house next door where the same routine was repeated, first emptying the house of its residents, at gunpoint, then searching room to room, destroying household objects as they moved. From after 7 am until the arrest at 6pm of Abdullah Hawwaj, 36, IOF soldiers again ransacked the different floors of the house, searching for Abdullah and his brother, a man recently having undergone surgery and in ill health.
Abdullah, who had served 10 years in Israeli jails from the 1st Intifada, was released in a prisoner exchange deal in 1999. In the early years of the 2nd Intifada, he participated in resistance activities but then quit this resistance to re-gain a normal life. His name was included on a list of 189 recently- pardoned wanted men, a deal made between the PA and Israel. Abdullah warily believed he was safe, as the day before he had gotten reassurance of his safety from an important Nablus PA authority, and was thus in his home when IOF soldiers came in the early hours of October 16th in search of him.
Abdullah’s brother was not involved in any resistance activities; according to his sister, his daily routine was: to the mosque, to work, back home. The two men were eventually found in a hiding place on basement level. In order to avoid having further damage inflicted on their home and family, they came out of hiding, volunteering themselves to soldiers. Shortly afterwards, the basement level was exploded by the IOF, a reminder of the collective punishment which will be inflicted on families of wanted men.
The blast from Abdullah’s basement rooms broke and cracked the 3 inch thick wall he shared with a basement floor neighbour. The neighbour recounted how soldiers told he and his mother to leave their home, he refusing, protesting his mother’s ill health and difficulty walking. Eventually he complied with the soldiers’ order and left, joining others from the floors above on the street. They were given no food or water from their 8:30am evacuation till release after 6pm, and were not permitted to use the toilet for most of the day. While men and women were separated, he reported how when finally allowed to use the toilet they were not permitted to close the door, embarrassing and offensive to women and men. A further insult was the refusal of IOF soldiers to allow the men to wash and pray.
Abdullah’s grandmother, surrounded by broken, shot, and damaged evidence of the IOF’s presence, made clear her feelings for non-Palestinians, non-Muslims: “After all Israel has done to us, we still just want peace.” She followed with a request: “We are not asking for financial support from you, just for justice, for people around the world to know the truth.”
Upon leaving the Balata camp home destroyed just days ago, the owner similarly expressed his wish for the world to know, thanking the visiting HRW repeatedly for showing interest in his family’s loss.
