On Monday 25th the first brick was laid for a new school in the Jordan Valley.
Volunteers from the Jordan Valley Solidarity working with Ras Al Auja community members have been making mud bricks for the building during the last two weeks.
On Monday morning, during the much appreciated visit of Luisa Morgantini, the Italian Parliamentarian from the Communist Party, the Jericho Governor and a delegation of more than 50 Italian people, we officially inaugurated the building of the school which has been named “Vittorio Arrigoni” in memoriam of the Italian activist from ISM (International Solidarity Movement), murdered a few days ago in Gaza.
This school in Ras Al Auja will serve to educate more than 200 children who suffer from a lack of this service around. As Ras Al Auja is located in the Area C, building needs Israeli permission, but these permits either take a lot of years or are never given.
After an emotive moment full of hugs among the volunteers, all of them joined the work, adding one or more bricks to the walls of the school while singing the lyrics of traditional Bella Ciao or the Socialist International enforcing the rhythm and the spirit of this struggle for freedom.
Building a school in Area C, the school of “Vittorio”, means a step further in resistance.
This morning the Israeli army demolished homes, wells and trees in the village of Susiya, South Hebron Hills. Two families were made homeless.
A total of five tents, two wells and a number of olive trees were demolished. Tens of troops and two bulldozers were used.
Neighbours were prevented from reaching the families, and teachers on their way to school in Susiya were stopped, and their IDs confiscated, until the demolition was completed.
The families had received their third notice of demolition in January 2011 but were not informed of the date of demolition.
Three Palestinians were arrested and two international visitors were threatened with arrest when soldiers and police arrived in the evening declaring the area a closed military zone.
The families were evicted from a nearby cave which they were using as temporary housing until the new housing could be rebuilt. They formerly lived in the cave, but later moved into tents and were forced to move to the current location because of harassment from illegal settlers and the Israeli army.
Susiya is a small farming community in the hills south of Hebron. Being close to illegal settlements, it is often the target of harassment from settlers or the army. Being in Area C under the Oslo Accords, the Israeli military has full control. Building permits are almost impossible to obtain for Palestinians, so they live in makeshift tents, most of which are constantly under threat of demolition.
Internationals assist by living in the community and by accompanying shepherds as they graze their sheep. The constant threat of home demolitions is very stressful for the Palestinian residents of the area.
The Jordan Valley is an area under urgent threat of annexation, and during the last few weeks Israel has considerably tightened its grip on the indigenous Palestinian population. On the 11th of April the Israeli military shut of the main water source to Bardala -jeopardising the village’s viability as a farming community-, on the 12th of April they declared Al Maleh a closed military zone, which prevented shepherds from grassing their animals, and on the 15th of April the Israeli military raided Al Farisiya and stole four water pumps in a further attempt to control all water resources in the area. On the 25th of April the harassment of Palestinians increased significantly as armed settlers from the strongly Zionist Maskiot settlement erected a tent only ten meters from the the Al Maleh Bedouin community.
The Maskiot settlers, who have resettled in the valley after being evacuated from the settlement of Gush Katif during the Israeli “withdrawal” from Gaza in 2005, are ideological settlers aiming to expand the Jewish presence in the area. An estimated 20-30 settlers arrived in Al Maleh at four pm on Sunday afternoon and the erection of their outpost was facilitated by the Israeli army and settler security. The settlers then proceeded to intimidate the community, which has live in the area for 25 years, by circling their community carrying guns and taking photographs and video of its inhabitants. During the first night the Maskiot tent brought in a generator and played loud music until four am -around the time when the people of Al Maleh normally rise in order to herd their sheep. By Monday evening the settler tent had already expanded to three times its original size, and lines which could not be crossed by Palestinians had been established. People from Maskiot were doing shifts in the tent, with around 10-20 settlers present at any one time. In a strong show of collective defiance, Palestinians from areas close by came to show their support with Al Maleh , and on Tuesday evening a Palestinian party with singing and dancing managed to drawn out the settlers’ amplified music. Al Maleh, as an area C community, are not allowed electricity by the Israeli occupation forces.
Soldier draws his gun in Al Maleh
Throughout the next few days army and police presence by the tent increased, with soldier frequently seen having a laugh with the settlers and enforcing the illegal “border line” drawn by them. When Palestinians attempted to cross this border and reclaim their land they were met by force from both the settlers and the army. Early on Thursday morning (29th of April), in the presence of the army, police and border police, the area was declared a closed military zone and, in a move that essentially rewarded the settlers for their illegal actions, an army official instructed that both tents be dismantled. This was done voluntarily, meaning that Al Maleh now have one less tent for their community.
Although the immediate physical threat of settler outposts have now decreased, the repression in the xalley continues. In the early hours of Friday the 30th, just one day after the Al Maleh eviction, a large amount of Israeli soldiers raided a house in Al Jiftlik, arresting a several people. Army, police and border police were present as they then proceeded to dig up the family’s front yard for “security reasons”. Needless to say, nothing was found on the scene. Cameras used by activists to film the event were confiscated by the police, after the army made it clear that there were people involved in this operation who could not be seen on film. The Israeli military are still refusing to release information about the location of Palestinians arrested on the day.
The communities in the valley, many of whom are Bedouin, are used to the slow and systematic ethic cleansing carried out by the Israeli state in the area. Nonetheless, these new developments are deeply worrying. It is high time for the international community to come and stand in solidarity with the Jordan Valley and to recognise the urgency of this battle.
For an article on the general situation in the Jordan Valley, including the establishment of Maskiot, see http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/71348
For a report from inside Maskiot, see http://www.brightonpalestine.org/node/611
A man plants an olive tree in the lands around Oush Grab.
Following the beginning of construction of a new watchtower at the site of the former military base, this week, residents of Beit Sahour and international volunteers gathered at the surrounding farmlands, on Friday, to cultivate the land, planting 250 olive trees.
The former military base at Osh Grab was abandoned by the Israeli military in April 2006, and part of the site was transformed into a public park and centre for the residents of Beit Sahour by the town’s municipality. The land private land reverted to its original owners, including the sites worked on today.
Part of the site has remained abandoned, though, as it falls inside of zone C, as designated by Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, also referred to as Oslo 2, signed in 1995. Part of the accords divided the land in the West Bank into 3 sections; areas A, B and C.
Area A is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and amounts to 17% of the West Bank. Area B is shared between the PA and the Israeli military, and amounts to 24%. Finally, area C is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Israeli military, known as the Civil Administration, and accounts for the remaining 59%.
It is worth noting that 55% of Palestinians living in the West Bank live in area A, i.e. In 17% of the land.
Due to this land being under the control of the Israeli military, the municipality of Beit Sahour has been prevented from converting the area into a children’s hospital, as was their original intention.
The site has remained highly contested, with settler’s groups, such as Women in Green, lobbying for the construction of a new settlement in the area, to be named Shdema. The groups have been active in lobbying and protesting, including regular gatherings to cultivate the lands with tree planting session of their own.
The residents of Beit Sahour are suspicious that the watchtower is a precursor for further construction in the area. Speaking to IMEMC, earlier in the week, Dr. Mazin Qumsiya, resident of Beit Sahour and member of the Popular Committee to Defend Osh Graib, had the following to say,
“They claim that it’s about a watchtower that they want to construct, but the map of the watchtower is a different map to this area; it has nothing to do with this bulldozing. My fear is that they are either going to get back the military base completely, or that they are going to have a settlement.”
Today’s activities were organized by Popular Committee, in co-operation with the Joint Advocacy Initiative and the Reclaiming The Land Project. The JAI launched their Olive Tree Campaign in 2002, with intention of planting 50,000 olive trees, to replace some of the near 600,000 trees that have been destroyed by Israeli attacks, both by the military and by settlers.
To date the project has planted 62,000 trees, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and have secured a further 1,200 to plant this season. Olive trees have the capacity to last for hundreds of years, but take upwards of a decade before they will begin to bear fruit.
The olive is vital to the Palestinian economy, with the fruit being sold to eat, to be turned into olive oil, or to be turned into soap. Furthermore, when olives have been pressed for their oil, the stones inside are crushed, and can then be mulched for fertilizer, or dried into briquettes to be used as a source of heat.
Speaking to IMEMC, the owner of the land, Tarib Jubran, expressed his gratitude to the organizers and volunteers, both local and international, for helping him secure safe access to his land and for their hard work in planting so many trees. He continued, “I will continue to cultivate, and care for my land. Olive trees are tough, they survive in tough environments. They have deep roots in the land, like Palestinians.”
Israeli occupation forces confiscated a fifth tractor from the endangered village of Khirbet Tana in the northern West Bank yesterday, January 27. The confiscation was justified by Israeli military personnel as punishment for farmers attempted to rebuild shelters on land that was razed by the occupation forces two weeks prior.
Fursa Farris Hanani, lifelong farmer and resident of Khirbet Tana, was confronted by Israeli soldiers yesterday morning as he attempted to reassemble the small stone structure that constitutes a shelter for him and his family, after its demolition by Israeli bulldozers two weeks ago. The military commander present accused Hanani of “making a challenge” for the army in his actions, by re-building on the same site as the former home. The commander informed Hanani that he was not to re-build in this area, but to move his family and their animals to another, unspecified location. The so-called challenge resulted in a hefty punishment meted out by the Israeli occupation forces – a fine of 3000 shekels and the confiscation of Hanani’s tractor, the vital tool to his and his family’s means of cultivating the land from which they survive. The commander issued a final order as the army left: that residents of Khirbet Tana generally, and the Hanani family specifically, were now only authorized to be on site during the period of Friday and Saturday. No papers were produced to verify this demand.
The bizarre punishment of confiscation of an agricultural machine and the accompanying fine has been dealt to 5 residents of Khirbet Tana since Israeli occupation forces demolished the village for the third time two weeks ago. 3 of the tractors were taken to a settlement in the Qalqilya region where they are still being held; the other 2 are in the compound of the Israeli District Co-ordination Office in the Ramallah region. Hanani states that even when he is permitted to come and collect the tractor, he will be forced to spend a further 600 shekels on the transportation of the machine from the compound outside Ramallah to Khirbet Tana in the north-west of the West Bank. “I don’t understand,” says Hanina. “I’m just trying to live here, with my family, my sheep. How is this dangerous for Irael?”
Khirbet Tana’s population, originally consisting of some 60 families, has now shrunk to only 35, the others fleeing to the neighbouring village of Beit Furik, on whose lands Khirbet Tana resides, since the demolition. Israeli efforts to ethnically cleanse the area of its Palestinian population date back to the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the situation worsening considerably since the Oslo Accords zoning scheme of 1994 deemed the entire region Area C, under full Israeli control. The village was demolished for the first time in 2005, when Israeli bulldozers razed 14 homes, 18 animal sheds and 6 animal stores to the ground, leaving only the ancient mosque standing. Using bureaucracy as a weapon, Israeli authorities then banned residents from building permanent structures on the site of their former homes by refusing to issue the necessary permits. Ramshackle tents and prefabricated structures now dot the hillsides of Khirbet Tana, as residents are forced to adopt almost a bedouin lifestyle, fearing instant demolition at the first attempt to lay concrete or stone.
Israeli bulldozers visited Khirbet Tana a second time in May 2008, once again leaving only rubble in their wake. An objection then filed by residents to the Israeli High Court of Justice resulted in the final, non-objectionable decision to demolish all structures in Khirbet Tana and evict its entire population from their lands. This was carried out on 10 January 2010, when all 25 structures remaining in the village were once again flattened by the bulldozers of the occupation forces. Neighbouring agricultural communities such as Twiyel, east of Aqraba village, have suffered similar attacks in recent months.
Khirbet Tana’s remaining population ecks out a precarious existence in the isolated hills between Beit Furik and the Jordan Valley. Like Fursa Hanina, those who stay are determined to hold rightful claim to their land in the face of Israel’s bureaucratic and military machine, and its efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestine’s rural population.
