At approximately 7 am this morning the Israeli army entered the village of Al Jiftlik. Soldiers went door to door ordering all tractor owners to bring their farming vehicles to the closed military zone between Miswa settlement and a nearby Israeli army base, where they had set up a temporary base.
The Palestinian farmers and their tractors were forcibly escorted to the temporary military base in the closed military zone. There they were kept under the surveillance of Israeli soldiers, police, and a private military company. Approximately forty tractor owners were questioned, and their ID’s and vehicle ownership were checked. They were made to stand next to their tractors, after which soldiers photographed and filmed the men with their vehicles. All people were informed that their tractors would be confiscated if they proved unable to provide proof of ownership.
The forty farmers had to wait in the sun for up to 7 hours to find out the army’s decision on what would happen to their farming vehicles. At 3 pm four owners were ordered to drive their tractors into the military camp (next to Al Jiftlik), escorted by military police and police vehicles. When one of the farmers refused to do so he was arrested, but released several minutes later on the condition that he would drive his tractor to the camp anyway, which he did. The four tractors were confiscated and kept inside the military camp after the farmers brought them there.
Faris, one of the farmers who had to bring his tractor into the military camp, said his tractor cost him 40.000NIS; “All the money I collected from farming, I put into the tractor.” He also indicated that he will be unable to continue farming his land without having a tractor.
Settlers erect tent 10 metres from family Yesterday afternoon the Israeli army destroyed the home of the Nabel Daraghmeh family who have been living in the Ein Al Hilwe region of the Jordan Valley for over 15 years. Three days previously, a group of armed illegal settlers descended in the middle of the night on the area where the family had their tent, setting up their own tent only metres away. In the following days the settlers intimidated and threatened the family of six, ordering them to move their home and leave the area. According to Jordan Valley Solidarity, the settlers threw rocks towards the family’s cattle pen, urinated outside their tent and water-tank, and made as much noise as possible, preventing the family from sleeping. They also put up a fence around the family’s tent and cattle pen preventing them from being able to bring their cattle in at night. The Daraghmeh family legally rent the land from the Lutheran Church, however the Israeli army ordered the family to dimantle and remove their home from the land, eventually destroying it themselves by force.
Settlers erect fence around family's home Ein Al Hilwe is located just below the illegal settlement of Maskiot which houses 28 familes. In the past years the villagers of Ein Al Hilwe have suffered from ongoing attacks from the settlers. Five days ago settlers tied a rope around the neck of a young horse belonging to villagers and attached the rope to the back of their truck, lynching the horse in front of a group of children. Two weeks previously a woman from the village was also attacked whist attempting to take water from the well
11 February 2011 | Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)
Residents in the village of Khirbet Tana will sleep in caves tonight following the demolition of their homes on Wednesday. Israeli bulldozers destroyed six homes and several makeshift shelters for sheep, which villagers had erected after demolitions in January. The army has demolished multiple structures here on four occasions in recent years, including the village school.
Farmers in the community, on the edge of the Jordan Valley, said that when Israeli soldiers arrived at 9.30 in the morning, they did not give the farmers time to remove their sheep from makeshift tents they had used as animal shelters since the previous demolitions, in January. Observers from EAPPI witnessed dead lambs among the rubble.
“I wanted to take my sheep and lambs out. I wanted to take my things out of the tent but they would not let me,” Rafi Mahmoud Hanani told EAPPI. “I said please, I want to take my stuff, I have sheep. (But) they hit the sheep with the bulldozer.”
Residents of the village prepare to move into nearby caves, after their homes were demolished by the Israeli army. (Photo: EAPPI / P Hanseid)
Usra Ahmed Hanani told EAPPI: “We spend all our time with the sheep – how can we live without them? It is not possible.” (Photo: EAPPI / P Hanseid)
A resident of Khirbet Tana after the demolitions. (Photo: EAPPI / P Hanseid)
EFORE… Rafi Mahmoud Hanani’s makeshift sheep shelter, erected following demolitions in January (Photo: EAPPI / A Farr)
… AND AFTER. Rafi Mahmoud Hanani with the wreckage of his animal shelter. (Photo: EAPPI / P Hanseid)
The sheep shelter in ruins. (Photo: EAPPI / A Farr)
The army arrived with bulldozers at around 9.30 on Wednesday morning and razed 17 structures, many of which were provided to the community in the form of emergency assistance as a result of previous demolitions.
Over 50 people lost their homes and personal belongings.
“The deliberate demolitions of Palestinian homes and other structures need for their survival must be brought to an end,” said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in a statement. Khirbet Tana is in Area C, the 60 percent or so of the West Bank the Oslo Accords placed under full Israeli control. The Israeli authorities enforce strict policies against unauthorized Palestinian construction in the area, but almost never give permits for Palestinians to build there “legally”.
This is the fourth major demolition suffered by the community in the span of a few years. Last year, the community suffered extensive demolitions in January and again in December. On both occasions, a number of homes, animal shelters and the village school were destroyed.
EAPPI observers who also visited the village back in December said Rafi Mahmoud Hanani was distraught.
“After the December demolition he showed us what had happened: his stone house was totally destroyed and his belongings buried under the rubble. Despite all this, he laughed with us and told us about his life in the Jordanian army. This time he was broken. Nothing was left of any of his home or sheep shelters that had been supplied by the Red Cross. He was alone and devastated. His concern was for his three sheep and their new lambs, and his sick wife in Beit Furik.”
“I am 66 years old and I was born up there where you see the olive trees,” said Usra Ahmed Hanani, pointing to the nearby hillside. “(My husband) is nearly 80 years old and he was born here. We spend all our time with the sheep – how can we live without them? It is not possible.”
25 November 2010 |ICHAD & Al Jazeera
Following the demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley yesterday, this morning the Civil Administration accompanied by large Army and Border Police forces demolished a mosque in the Jordan Valley and several structures in the South Hebron Hills.
Yesterday the Ministry of Interior demolished a Palestinian home in A Thuri, East Jerusalem, displacing a family of 7 including 4 children. The family had been living in their 60m/sq home for more than 8 years and were unsuccessful in years of court battles to resist the demolition. Settlers moved into another Palestinian home close-by on the Mount of Olives after a Palestinian family lost court battles to remain in their home and were evicted from the premises 3 years ago. A new court ruling this week gave the green-light to the settler take-over.
Today Civil Administration representatives along with armed border police forces destroyed a mosque in the East Tubas Bedouin village in the Jordan Valley, following the demolition of 4 structures displacing a family of 12 yesterday in the neighbouring village of Abu Al Ajaj. The recent escalation in the Jordan Valley comes after a spate of settler aggression over the last month amid attempts by the Massu’a settlement to annex adjacent lands from the Abu Al Ajaj community, in the Al Jiftlik area.
Jordan Valley Solidarity have requested volunteer assistance both with recovery and salvage from the recent demolitions, as well as to provide accompaniment for local communities at risk of settler violence. For further details visit Jordan Valley Solidarity.
Earlier this week a Palestinian family was forcibly evicted from their home by settlers in Jabal Mukabber, East Jerusalem, and the Bedouin village of Al Arakib in the Negev was demolished for the seventh time.
24 November 2010 | Ma’an News Agency & ISM ISM: demolished house, lamb injured by falling rubble which died soon afterwardAs the sun rose early Wednesday, Palestinian Bedouins living in Abu Al-Ajaj, a small village in the Jordan Valley, were surprised to see Israeli bulldozers demolishing their sheds and sheep shelters.
The incident came only two weeks after Israeli authorities confiscated lands belonging to the village slated to expand an illegal settlement.
Ma’an’s correspondent visited the village whose 135 residents are all members of the D’eis family. He said he saw demolished sheds and barracks as well as water tankers which provide water for domestic use and for animals to drink. The water was spilt on the ground. Locals told him that bulldozers completed the demolition in the early morning.
He was also told that Israeli soldiers who escorted the bulldozers attacked residents when they attempted to defend their property. Amongst those beaten by the soldiers was an elderly man identified as Shihda D’eis. The soldiers detained several people and released some of them later. Osama Omar D’eis and Ali Shihda D’eis remained in detention, according to locals.
After the demolition, military vehicles were stationed at the entrance to the village and later on Red Cross staff and international solidarity activists from the International Council of Churches arrived in the village.
Abu Al-Ajaj is a small village in the Jiftlik area which is the second largest populated area in the Jordan Valley after Jericho. About 7,000 Palestinian farmers live in Jiftlik and earn their living from agriculture and livestock.
The “Save the Jordan Valley” campaign described the attack on Abu Al-Ajaj village as “ethnic cleansing practiced before the very eyes of the whole world and international human rights institutions.”
Israeli authorities removed the village in the 1970s and built a settlement called Miswah on its lands.
A military spokesman confirmed that troops in the Jordan Valley destroyed two buildings and a tent being used by Palestinians in Massu’a, southwest of Nablus, near the border with Jordan.
The buildings, which were being used to house cattle, were demolished because they had been erected illegally on public land, the spokesman said.
