Tag: Bir el-Eid

Letter to family and friends: Bir el-Eid, West Bank

I have now been in the village of Bir el-Eid for three weeks. This has been a great time of connecting with the people here, helping with chores with the sheep, going out in the hills with the sheep, and helping rebuild the village.

Israeli settlers attacked a flock of sheep on Saturday, November 28. About 30 Israeli soldiers and police came and did nothing except to remove all the Israeli peace activists from the area.

A major issue continues to be whether Palestinians can use the road they built and paid for back in 1984, or whether they have to drive through fields to get to town for supplies. Under legal and moral pressure, the Israeli military has agreed to allow Palestinians to use their road, but soldiers on the ground are continuing to take orders from the settlers who demand that only Jews be allowed to use the roads. I recently waited with Palestinians who were trying to bring tanks full of water to the village. Soldiers had stopped the two tractors. International activists waited with the Palestinians, while Israeli activists put pressure on Israeli military authorities. After four hours, the soldiers left and the water was brought to the village.

On Saturday, December 5, twenty Israeli activists came to work in the village. That is inspiring. The Israeli military declared the area a closed military zone, but the Israeli activists refused to leave. As a token symbol of their authority, the soldiers arrested one activist. I hid in a cave to avoid being removed from the area.

Israeli settlers invaded one of the homes I was protecting in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem on December 2. Two international friends of mine were arrested while the Israeli police protected the thieves. The settlers are now living in the Palestinian house. One by one, the settlers, with the support of the Israeli government, are taking more and more from the Palestinians. Bir el-Eid is an important exception.

I recently took two days off to visit friends in Hebron. The Sultans and Jabers are doing well, but Israeli soldiers recently stole a thousand dollars worth of irrigation pipes from the Jabers. There seems to be a military assault on Palestinian agriculture. The soldiers recently demolished eight major cisterns holding precious water for Palestinian farms in the Beqa’a Valley.

I am extremely happy here in Bir el-Eid. It is the perfect place for me right now. We might be out in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the rest of the world, but it feels like we are at the center of the universe. Activists, aid workers, lawyers, and the media are coming here. I was interviewed for TV. I sure do not feel isolated. I am experiencing the universal through the particular.

Peace, Art (Jaber) Gish

Palestinians from Bir el-Eid continue reclaiming their land in spite of army harassment

27 November 2009

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For the last 3 weeks, ISM activists have stayed with a community of cave-dwellers in Bir el-Eid, south east of Hebron, on the very border to the Negev desert. The villagers, who live off raising sheep and goats as well as seasonal farming, moved in recently, after a court order gave them permission to do so following 10 years in exile. In 1999, the Israeli army forcibly evicted 700 people living in the area, destroying stone houses and blowing up caves. Until now, attempts by the villagers to reclaim their land have been quashed by violence perpetrated by settlers from the three nearby settlements of Mezadot Yehuda, Susiya and Mitzpe Yair, all of which are illegal under international law.

The response from human rights groups has been tremendous. Tayush makes frequent expeditions to the village, the International Red Cross has supplied the villagers with tents, mattresses and cookware, among other things, and Breaking the Silence brought 30 people on a tour of the area to raise awareness of the plight of the people living there. Already, several tents have been raised and sheep pens restored, and 3 families are now living in Bir el-Eid, hopefully only the first of many.

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The success so far, however, has been met by harassment from the army. They continue to intimidate the Palestinians when they use the road that they themselves had built at great expense, instead directing them to use a dirt track that has barely been prepared at all. On Wednesday, 25 November, the village ran out of drinking water due to a miscommunication, and when Tayush attempted to bring water the next day, soldiers delayed the transport for several hours. The local DCO (District Coordinating Office) chief visited the village on the that day, reprimanding the Palestinians for using the road, saying that it bothered the local settlers. When the Palestinians referred to the court order saying that they had the right to use the road, the DCO officer said simply “I don’t care about the courts, I’m military”.

It is this blatant arrogance toward not only International, but even Israeli, law, that composes one of the main problem for Palestinians trying to live their lives in the occupied West Bank. The army takes its orders from fanatical settlers living on stolen land, not from the courts. But the villagers of Bir el-Eid are ready to face this injustice and repression, insisting to live their lives on the land that is legally theirs.

Palestinians moving back to Bir el-Eid, a village from which they were expelled in 1999

22 November 2009

After spending a week in the modern city of Jerusalem, camping out on the street with a Palestinian family that the Israeli government had evicted from their home so that Israeli settlers could move into their house, I now have been down in the South Hebron Hills for two weeks near At-Tuwani where I spent the past five winters. I know most of the people in the area.

I am now living in Bir el-Eid, an ancient village which the Israeli military forced the Palestinian residents to abandon in 1999. Through the work of Israeli peace groups, especially Rabbis for Human Rights, Israeli courts have ordered that the Palestinian residents may return to the village. Around November 1, families began to return.

The problem is, the nearby Israeli settlers are furious about the Palestinians returning to the village. The settlers are insisting that no Palestinians use the Palestinian road to the village, so access in and out is difficult. The settlers claim the Palestinian road is for Jews only. The Israeli military is taking orders from the settlers and making life difficult for the villagers. Lawyers for the Palestinians are fighting this in the Israeli courts.

One exciting part of this struggle is Israeli peace activists coming to the village every day to bring needed supplies, plus legal and moral support. There also is now a continual international presence in the village to protect the villagers from both settlers and the military. It looks like this could be a long struggle. I plan to live in the village for the rest of my time here.

The village is comprised of eleven caves which have been dwellings for centuries, most of which the Israeli military demolished in 1999. Now there is much work to do after ten years of neglect and destruction. The people here are shepherds. I have been going out in the mountains with them.

Although the differences between the primitive lifestyle (no electricity, running water, houses, etc, except for cell phones) of the people in the village and life in Jerusalem are great, the issues are the same. In both places, the Israeli government wants to remove Palestinians and Palestinians are resisting nonviolently. Bier Ed in English means “Wellspring.” There is a wellspring of hope here in the middle of so much fear and hate. It is a fantastic privilege to be part of this struggle.