This morning, Thursday 5th August, the Israeli Civil Administration authorities in the Jordan valley demolished the village of Al Farisiya for the second time in two weeks.
This morning at 6:30 the army arrived in the village with two bulldozers and 13 jeeps, evacuated the villagers and destroyed 26 homes in one hour, making an estimated 170 people homeless. They beat two people with sticks but there were no serious injuries.
The villagers had just been able to rebuild the damage that was done on 19th July when 23 homes were demolished and over 91 made homeless.
Latest reports today indicated that water pipes connected by Life Source in the last two weeks are still in tact.
When ISM activists arrived in Al Farisiya the village committee were discussing how and where to rebuild when the chances of another demolition are so high. The inhabitants are of course very angry and tensions are high. International presence will be needed there constantly in the coming weeks.
Today’s demolitions followed an incident on Tuesday when, according to the Ma’an News Agency, the army confiscated the village’s tractors.
The Jordan Valley was designated as Area C by the 1993 Oslo Agreements, along with 60% of the West Bank, giving Israeli full civil and military control. Israel justifies demolitions by stating that the buildings were constructed illegally.
Amnesty International has called on Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes, and voiced fears about an apparent policy of ethnically cleansing Area C. saying: “These recent demolitions intensify concerns that this is part of a government strategy to remove the Palestinian population from the parts of the West Bank known as Area C.”
Coordinator of the Save the Jordan Valley campaign, and village council member, Fathi Khdeiri described the demolitions as an “attack by occupation forces and an attempt to displace the residents of the Jordan Valley.”
Israeli bulldozers demolished two homes in the East Jerusalem town of Al-Isawiya on Tuesday morning, saying the buildings were constructed without permits, with a third reported by a Reuters cameraman in Beit Hanina.
Witnesses in Al-Isawiya said Israeli forces entered the town early in the morning, blocking off main streets and forcing entry into the two buildings later demolished.
The families of Sabah Abu Rmeileh and Mahmoud Abu Rayaleh reported that one woman, Sabah Abu Rmeileh, was injured during the incident, during which clashes erupted. Both homes were reportedly under construction, and a third structure serving as a small shed, was also demolished.
Reports from Reuters said a cameraman captured a third demolition in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, which the Israeli press billed as the first home demolition in eight months.
The demolitions were the first in nearly a month, following the destruction of two agricultural buildings in Abu Tur and Silwan. The last home demolition was a self-demolition, ordered by an Israeli court on Nayef Kasteru, a father of three living in the Aqbat As-Saraya neighborhood of Jerusalem’s Old City on 4 July.
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Dmitry Dliani said the demolitions, coming a day after the announcement of plans to build 32 more settlement homes in the Pisgat Ze’ev settlement, showed the “true colors of Israel.”
Dilani noted that the demolitions also came between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the US, and the nation’s Middle East Envoy’s visit to the region, expected to be his last unless proximity talks are transformed into direct peace negotiations.
In a statement about the demolitions, Dliani said the only conclusion to be drawn about the timing of the demolitions was that “the occupying power and the American administration share a common interest in harming the Palestinians of Jerusalem.”
Mohammed Tooman and Hammad Awadallah, Nakba survivors from Isdud, share memories of their destroyed village. Credit: Eva Bartlett, IPS
This is the month for Palestinians to remember their Nakba, or “catastrophe”, in which more than 700,000 women, men and children were pushed off their land and rendered homeless refugees by the Zionist attacks before, during and after the founding of Israel in 1948.
Isdud, a farming community to the north of Gaza’s current border, was ethnically cleansed, in the months after the expulsions began in May 1948. It was one of over 530 villages razed and destroyed after the residents were forced out by Zionist attacks.
After three nights of Israeli air bombardment, more than 5,000 Palestinian residents here were forcibly expelled from their houses and land. Most resettled in what are now overcrowded refugee camps in Gaza.
“Most of the houses have been destroyed; the rubble is covered with grasses and thorns,” wrote Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi.
At a Gaza City Nakba commemoration displaying the clothes, agricultural equipment and tools of Palestinian daily life, Mohammed Tooman, 83, wearing the traditional robes of Isdud, spoke of village life and their forced expulsion.
“We were farmers and grew grains, fruits and had orange and palm orchards. Isdud had a large market every week and people from neighbouring towns came to buy from us.
“With every sunrise, I expect to return to my home in Isdud. And as the sun sets, I tell my grandchildren about our home and village, to which they will return.”
Hammad Awadallah, 70, also from Isdud, keeps this call for justice alive. “My right is passed down to my sons and daughters and their children. We will not forget our villages and our history. They are instilled in our memories.”
Since 1948 the United Nations (UN) has reiterated over 130 times its Resolution 194 calling for Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. The 1974 UN Resolution 3236 specified “the inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return.”
Roughly another four kilometres east of Isdud, East Sawafir (al Sawafir al Sharqiyya) was ethnically cleansed of its thousand residents on May 18, 1948. The village had a mosque and shared a school with two other villages.
“No village houses remain on the site,” wrote Khalidi. “But some traces of the former village are still present on the surrounding lands.”
Abu Fouad was born in 1930, before East Sawafir was intentionally disappeared. After the forced expulsion from his village, he ended up in the tents which eventually became the tiny, poorly-built, maze-like concrete houses of a Palestinian refugee camp.
“My father was a farmer and had 35 dunums (a dunam is 1,000 square metres) of land, on which he grew wheat and vegetables. We had 50 sheep which I used to herd.”
East Sawafir shared a primary school with two neighbouring villages. “We didn’t go to school after 4th grade because there were no secondary schools in our area,” says Abu Fouad. “We only learned to write our name and studied religion a little, but nothing much more.”
Life was simple as were the houses. “Ours had two rooms,” Abu Fouad says, “but no bathroom: we would bathe outside. Even though we didn’t have money or the conveniences of today, we lived well, people were happy.”
Like most Palestinians, Abu Fouad has relatives spilled around the world from whom he is cut off.
“We have family in Jerusalem, Libya and Hebron. We don’t know them. And I haven’t seen or spoken with one of my brothers since he left for Libya decades ago.”
His wife Umm Fouad comes from the same East Sawafir community. Born in 1948, she was just four months old when her family fled.
“My father was a tailor and grandfather a farmer. He grew cucumbers, squash, tomatoes and other vegetables. We hand-washed our clothes and cooked food over a fire or a kerosene stove (baboor) and baked bread in the wood oven (taboon).”
Although just an infant at the time of expulsion, Umm Fouad has been told the history of her family’s land and home so much that she has internalised it as her own memory.
“We fled because the Israelis were firing on us. My grandmother couldn’t walk properly, so in the panic we had to leave her there. She must have died in the house. We left walking, carrying only a few possessions as we didn’t have cart or horse. It was days of walking until we reached Gaza.”
And dispossessions continue. Since 1967, Israel has demolished more than 24,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, says the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD).
“I still come back to the house to work a small piece of my land that is 700 metres from the border. But even then I get shot at by the Israelis,” says Jaber Abu Rjila. His home and poultry farm east of Khan Younis lie just under 500 metres from the border. They were destroyed in a May 2008 Israeli invasion into the farming community. Soon after, the family fled, renting a house to escape the regular Israeli attacks.
On May 18, Israeli soldiers set land near Rjila’s fields on fire, burning the wheat crops of the Abu Tabbash family. The Nakba is not just about memory.
Israeli bulldozers today destroyed a garden and children’s playground in Beit Jala, and 100 fruit and olive trees in Al Walaja and Beit Jala, both in the Bethlehem district, to make way for the continued construction of their illegal apartheid wall. Soldiers present used violent force to remove Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who attempted to prevent the destruction. Two Israelis were arrested immediately, and six internationals were later arrested.
In Beit Jala, this is the second time that this particular garden and playground has been bulldozed. A legal injunction preventing further destruction expired this week. Following the previous demolition, in early March, local Palestinian residents and international supporters rebuilt the playground and planted new olive trees in the garden. All these were today destroyed.
Abu Michel watching the destruction of his children's playground
Twelve people, representing six different nationalities, sat in front of the Caterpillar bulldozer as it moved up to the garden. Soldiers forcefully removed all twelve, several of whom sustained minor injuries, and one of whom was hospitalised with suspected broken ribs after his stomach was repeatedly stamped upon by one of the soldiers.
After soldiers forced everyone but the owners of the garden up to the road above, they joined approximately 50 other internationals and local residents to hold a demonstration which lasted into the evening. Overlooking the wreckage of the morning’s destruction, the protesters chanted and sang, asking only to be allowed back down to the house, where bulldozing had finished, to speak with the family there. Late in the afternoon, six activists, from the USA, Italy, Spain, Germany and France, managed to access the house via a back route, bringing food in to the family, before being arrested by Israeli Border Police, accused of illegally entering a Closed Military Zone.
In Al Walaja, Israeli military prevented any internationals or journalists from accessing the area to observe the uprooting of approximately 40 olive trees.
The International Court of Justice has ruled that the building of Israel’s apartheid wall is in violation of international law. When complete, the wall will run for over 700km, the vast majority of it passing through and effectively annexing Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Ali Salim Mousa stands in the middle of the rubble of his house, demolished on 14.04.2010, in Al Khader.In an aggravation of Israeli policy of home demolitions, a house and two shops were razed in the Central West Bank village of Hares this morning. An additional house was reduced to rubble in the village of alKhadder, West of Bethlehem and a 1,000 square meters factory was demolished in the town Beit Sahour.
In what seems as a coordinated move, Israeli forces carried out demolitions in two different areas of the West Bank today, rendering at least 16 people homeless. In recent months, international pressure has cause a significant decline in the demolition of Palestinian houses in the Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank. Israel uses its statutory authority in Area C, which spans over 60% of the West Bank, to dramatically limit Palestinian development. Palestinians fear that today’s consorted demolitions may be the opening salvo in a provocative change in Israeli policy.
Mahmoud Zwahare a popular committee member from the Bethlehem region said during the demolitions that “Israel keeps claiming it strives for peace and constantly complains about Palestinian incitement and violence. It is doing so while carrying destructive and irreversible steps on the ground against ordinary civilians. The demolitions today has nothing to do with the security of Israelis and everything to do with provocation and injustice”.
A convoy of eight armored military jeeps and a D9 bulldozer entered the village of Hares in the early morning today and advanced towards the newly built house of Maher Sultan. The house, which Sultan had just finished constructing after five years, was to be home for himself, his wife and their five children. The two story house was quickly demolished by the bulldozer, which left nothing but rubble behind it.
The demolition order was posted on Sultan’s house a month ago, citing a Mohammed Mansour as the owner of the house, which complicated to procedures to stop the demolition. At the time of the demonstration, Sultan was actually at the DCO in Tulkarem to try an negotiate an injunction, unaware that his home is being razed.
After completing the demolition of Sultan’s house, the Israeli forces continued to demolish two stores in the outskirts of the village.
Almost simultaneously, a massive contingent of Israeli forces invaded the town of alKhadder, West of Bethlehem. The massive Israeli bulldozer demolished the house of Ali Mousa, which was home to nine people, including a one year old baby, as soldiers prevented anyone from nearing the house – including the family’s lawyer, who showed soldiers a 2006 court-issued injunction on the demolition.
After completing the demolition, an Israeli Civil Administration officer who was present at the scene informed people that more house demolitions will be carried in the near future.
Shortly after the alKhadder demolition, forces lead by the Israeli Civil Administration demolished a factory in the town of Beit Sahour. Roughly a year ago, Omar Ayyoub, the owner of the factory was served a halt-construction order by the civil administration, which he complied with and have been fighting ever since. When the bulldozers arrived today he pleaded with the officer in charge to stop the demolition, or at least present him with a valid demolition order. The officer refused and ordered to remove Ayyoub from the scene.
Over 60 percent of the West Bank is currently classified as Area C, in which, under the Oslo accords, Israel has complete control, over both civil and security issues. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) some 70 percent of Area C, or approximately 44 percent of the West Bank, has been largely designated for the use of Israeli settlements or the Israeli military. The Israeli authorities generally allow Palestinian construction only within the boundaries of an Israeli-approved plan and these cover less than one percent of Area C, much of which is already built-up. As a result, Palestinians are left with no choice but to build “illegally” and risk demolition of their structures and displacement.
According to information released by the Israeli State Attorney’s Office in early December 2009, approximately 2,450 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C have been demolished due to lack of permit over the course of the past 12 years.
