Haaretz: Palestinian shepherds have water tank, tractor confiscated

Original Article Link.

By Amira Hass

The Civil Administration confiscated a tractor and a water tank belonging to Palestinian shepherds living in the northern Jordan Valley.

This was the only readily available water source for the approximately 60 members of the Basharat and Bani-Oudeh families and their 1,500 heads of sheep and goats.

The Civil Administration is reportedly prepared to return the equipment if its owners agree to leave the area and pay transport costs.

It said the tractor was confiscated during a regular patrol because it was being used “in the commission of the offense of presence in an area declared a closed military zone.”

The tractor driver, Ahmed Bani-Oudeh, said he was stopped near the Beka’ot roadblock when he was on his way to fill the tank with water.

After the equipment was confiscated last Sunday, the families have had to buy water at three times the price from nearby water tank owners.

The shepherds have been living for decades in the area of Hadidiya, east of Beka’ot, on lands owned by their home villages of Tamun and Tubas. After the 1967 War, Israel declared large areas in the northern Jordan Valley closed military zones.

Palestinians have been evacuated from these areas four times, including from privately owned lands.

At the end of 2006, the High Court of Justice rejected a request from the residents to rezone their land as residential, even though the settlement of Ro’i is located a kilometer away.

The High Court ordered the Palestinians to move to an area recommended by the Civil Administration in Area B, under Palestinian administrative control, which the residents rejected as unsuitable for farming and grazing.

In April, the Civil Administration destroyed their corrals, and they moved to an area south of Hadidiya.

In May, the residents were warned that their presence in the area would be considered illegal.

Serra: Settlers Threaten Palestinian Woman With Death

Zaynab Turabi, a 60 year old woman, lives alone with her sons in a small village called Serra.

From her house she can look towards the mountain on the other side of the valley, where she has her 10 dunums of land. In order to access it she has to pass a road that now only settlers and the military can use.

A settlement was built 6 years ago on the top of the mountain next to her land. One year ago she got permission from the District Command Office (DCO) in order to go to her land for the olive harvest, but when she arrived the settlers had already taken most of her olives and only one basket was left for her to fill. Shortly afterwards the settlers returned and burned down her trees.

Since this episode she has not been able to reach her olive groves. Yesterday she tried to gain access to her land accompanied by three workers with a tractor. Before they reached the land they were confronted by a group of settlers who had brought guns and dogs with them. They threatened to kill the Palestinians if they did not leave the area immediately.

Zaynab Turabi is now so frightened that she does not even dare to try approaching her land. Her only possibility is getting a new permission from the DCO which is unfortunately highly unlikely.

AFP: Israel settlement builder in dire straits

Published August 3, 2007 By AFP

Heftsiba, one of Israel’s largest firms building settlements in the occupied West Bank, is in danger of closing, according to media reports Friday.

The company, which specializes in constructing inexpensive accommodation for ultra-Orthodox families, is in debt to the tune of $200 million, the reports said.

Heftsiba has now had to halt work on thousands of homes at the settlements of Betar Ilit, Modiin Ilit, and Ma’aleh Adumim in the West Bank, as well as at Har Homa in East Jerusalem.

Because they fear that their new homes may now be seized by creditors, some buyers have already moved into unfinished apartments.

In January 2006, the supreme court ordered a halt to building work on 1,500 homes at Modiin Ilit, following an application by the Peace Now movement. The court ruled that Heftsiba had encroached on private Palestinian land in the nearby village of Beilin and also doubled the number of homes that it had been authorized to build.

“What has happened to Heftsiba shows that those who steal land from Palestinians end up stealing from Israelis,” Peace Now chief Yariv Oppenheimer said.

5 Birzeit students arrested as Israeli army continues to target student population

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Right to Education Campaign, Birzeit University, 1 August 2007

In the last 3 days, 5 Birzeit University students were arrested by the Israeli army, most of whom belong to the university’s Student Council. The detainees are; Eyad Omar Abu Arqub, Fadi Yunis Jaber, Jalal Hosni Abu Khaled, Omar Abdelrazaq Abdellatif (all members of the Student Council) and Ahmad Mahmoud Hassan.

The men were taken at night from their respective residences, 3 from their student accommodation in Birzeit village and 2 from their family homes around the West Bank.

Under the military laws of the Israeli Occupation, membership to any student branch of a political party is illegal, automatically making thousands of students subject to arbitrary arrest. In practice, this sweeping power is used by the army as a tool for inciting political tensions amongst students as it chooses to arrest members of one group more than another.

“The arrested students who worked for the Student Council focused solely on providing local academic support for students and nothing else. In reality, these arrests serve to discredit and obstruct the work of the Student Council as an institution and are not about providing security for Israel” – said Fadi Ahmad, president of the Student Council.

In fact, this is not the first time that Birzeit Student Council is targeted by the occupation forces. Since 2004, the Israeli army has arrested 6 elected representatives of the Council, 3 of whom were presidents of the Council at the time of arrest.

Birzeit University released a statement yesterday condemning these arrests and calling for an end to Israeli aggression and obstruction against Palestinian education. The Right to Education Campaign reiterates such a call and states that there are currently 99 Birzeit students in detention, 9 of which are held indefinitely without charge under the 1945 British Mandate law of ‘Administrative Detention’.

Moreover, the Campaign highlights that 60% of all arrests were made since 2004 when Israel also stopped all Gazans from studying in the West Bank and deported 4 Birzeit students back to Gaza. Since then, the army has also escalated its practice of arbitrary ‘interviewing’ where students with no political affiliation are taken for questioning about their friends and family for no particular reason. The Student Council states that at least 30% of the 2,200 students living in Birzeit village are subjected to such ‘interviews’. The psychological pressure and anxiety generated from such interviews can amount to inhumane and degrading treatment under International Law. Students who object to such questioning are then harassed at checkpoints, denied work permits and subjected to house invasions.

These forms of harassment are a breach of International Humanitarian Law which states that an occupying power should not disrupt the daily life of the occupied population (4th Geneva Convention); and student arrests, especially those under ‘Administrative Detention’, amount to a breach of the internationally recognized ‘right to education’, first enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protected by numerous UN bodies and conventions such as UNESCO, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.