On Thursday May 26, Hamad Jaber Qut, a 66 year old shepherd from the village of Madama, was taken to hospital after being attacked by settlers with sticks and knives.
At about 16:30 whilst Hamad was herding sheep in the mountains of Madama, situated near the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, approximately 15 settlers approached him. Due to his sight problems Hamad wasn’t initially able to recognize that the men were settlers. In an unprovoked attack the settlers beat him with thick wooden sticks and knives for about five or ten minutes, until one resident of the village saw what was happening and called for help. Hamad, who was badly injured was taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, where he is still feeling very weak. He has approximately 25 injuries all over his body, especially his head and hands, and will stay in the hospital until he recovers.
Madama is a village with 2,000 inhabitants located in the south of Nablus, in the West Bank. According to its mayor, Ihab Tahsin Qut, since the construction of the illegal settlement of Yitzhar in 1985, many villagers have been attacked by the settlers and 1,000 dunams of land have already been confiscated from the village. Settler attacks on the farmers have severly effected the village’s agricultural trade in the past years.
On Thursday May 19, the Israeli army invaded Madama with many jeeps, and imposed a curfew lasting from 21:30 to 4:00am. During this time a man called Hani Muhammad Nassar was arrested and tortured inside a jeep for 3 hours.
Whilst being interviewed Hani said: “The army came when I was visiting my aunt at her house. When they entered the house and found me they asked about the reason of being at the house. I answered that I was visiting my aunt, but they did not believe me, so they held all of the family outside with Abu Firas’s family, the neighbor of his aunt, for 2 hours, through which they asked me about my ID which I did not have at the moment, so they asked me to call my family to bring it to me which I did.” After two hours Hani was taken alone to an unknown place where he was blind-folded and had his hands tied behind his back, he was interrogated here for half an hour. He adds: “They insulted me with obscene words and kept beating me on my neck with their palms and kicking me all over my body. A soldier raised me suddenly and let my head strike the ceiling of the jeep. At the end they kicked me out the jeep shouting with obscene words.”
In addition, five houses were broken into and checked during the curfew and the army shot bullets in the air to intimidate the villagers.
Israeli Occupation Forces entered the northern West Bank village of Madama last night, damaging 5 houses and terrifying residents. The military has upped their presence in Madama in recent weeks, with the harassment of female students on their way to school becoming commonplace, and the creation of a new roadblock separating hundreds of farmers from their land.
Approximately 20 soldiers entered the village late last night in military jeeps, the explosion of sound bombs announcing their arrival. The Israeli Occupation Forces remained in the village for approximately 2 hours. The exterior of 5 Madama homes were damaged during the incursion.
The Israeli army is a regular presence in the village. The girls school as become a frequent target for military harassment and intimidation, situated on the northern edge of the village and a mere 100 metres from the Israeli-only road that runs east to Yitzhar settlement. Military jeeps patrol the road, often slowing down or stopping to harass the school’s 338 students, aged from 6 to 18 years, during their breaktimes.
Curfews and flying checkpoints are also regularly established on the edge of, or inside the village, disrupting the girls’ access to school in the morning. Harrasment has increased particularly over the last two weeks, during the already stressful period of exams. Pupils now leave very promptly at the end of school, often met by parents.
Last month the Israeli army erected a giant earth mound across a crucial agricultural road that passes under the settler road and situated next to the school. The road block severely limits hundreds of farmers’ access to their lands, making transport by vehicle all but impossible dealing a severe – and intentional – blow to the village’s chief economy.
Madama’s economy has suffered greatly as a result. In addition to the creeping strangulation of the village’s agricultural livelihood, the Zone C boundary circulating the village prevents both residential building expansion and development work on the village football ground and new work in the stone quarries.
The formation of Yizthar settlement to the south of Madama in 1982 constituted the theft of over 1000 dunams (1 dunam=0.1 hectare) of vital land from Madama farmers, in addition to annexation of land from the neighbouring villages of Burin, Asira al-Qabliya, Urif, Einabus and Huwara. The entirety of Madama’s water wells are situated on the 1000 dunums, forcing the villages’ 1,800 residents to purchase their water supply from outside sources, a 90 litre tank costing an average of 120 NIS.
Madama’s location in a precarious Zone B/Zone C corridor has had a detrimental effect on all aspects of life in the village, as residents can only watch as wanton military harassment surges and creeping annexation of land gradually limits their freedom. The settlement of Qedumim stretches out to the west, Yitzhar to the south, Bracha to the north east and Itamar to the east. The erection of a new military watchtower to the village’s north, and restriction from Palestinians entering the surrounding area, may herald the development of yet another new settlement outpost.
The Israeli army erected a giant earth mound across a crucial agricultural road in the northern West Bank village of Madama this week. The road block severely limits hundreds of farmers’ access to their lands, making transport by vehicle all but impossible. The intentional crippling of the village’s chief economy comes as settler violence continues unabated in the region.
Four Israeli military jeeps and one Caterpillar bulldozer entered the village on Wednesday night to construct the road block. The targeted dirt road cuts directly underneath the speedy settler road leading west from Yitzhar settlement, where a tunnel was constructed to allow the road’s continuation to farmers’ land. The bulldozer quickly moved massive mounds of earth across the road underneath the bridge, entirely blocking it and removing the possibility of access to cars and tractors by village farmers.
ISM activists visited Madama to witness families clambering over the earth mound on foot and herding, with great difficulty, donkeys and flocks of sheep and goats across the blockage. The prevention of tractor access is critical now especially, as Palestine enters its wet season and land must be ploughed to become fertile for the new year. Approximately 500 of Madama’s farmers hold land on the other side of the road block, whose economic livelihood is severely threatened by this senseless impediment.
The road overhead, linking Israeli settlers effortlessly with their homes and work outside the settlements, cuts deeply through Madama’s land, as it has done since it was built 10 years ago. Two homes, belonging to Yasser Taher’s family, are now isolated on the other side of the highway, marking them as prime targets for settler and military harassment, leaving children traumatised and inevitably forcing the majority of the family to move to a safer home within Madama.
Madama resident Abed Al-Aziz Zeiyada became the latest victim in an endless series of settler incursions as he drove his taxi home on Friday night. Settlers of Yitzhar settlement, waiting on the side of the road, hurled rocks at his car and destroyed the windscreen. When Zeiyada reached Huwara, now without a windscreen in his car, he was stopped by Israeli forces at a flying checkpoint. Showing them the unmistakeable damage, Zeiyada was refused assistance by Israeli soldiers. He returned to Madama and paid a 700 shekel bill for the window to be fixed the next day.
Residents of Madama always have one eye fixed on the settlements that loom over the village; Bracha to the north, and Yitzhar to the south. Yitzhar alone is built on 1000 dunums of Madama’s land, including all of its water wells. Villagers are forced to spend vast amounts of their income on water, a 90-litre tank costing a crippling 125 shekels. Settler incursions also occur frequently, wrecked upon homes on the edge of the village, if not from the settlers then from the military, whose base next to Bracha send jeeps careening through the streets of Madama and neighbouring villages by night.
Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, and their network of Apartheid roads, in addition to Israeli government and military suffocating policy and presence in occupied Palestine culminate in a devastating effect on the everyday lives of Palestinians, such as residents of Madama village, whose voices all too often go unheard.
On Monday 2 November, Ma’mon Amen Fayis Nassar, a 35 year old man from Madama, near Nablus, was beaten and subsequently detained for 5 hours by Israeli soldiers with no reasoning given. In the morning, he had gone out to his family’s land some 3 km from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar and was clearing the lands of weeds while his sheep were feeding, when he was approached by three Israeli soldiers.
The soldiers promptly attacked him, striking his forehead with a riffle and kicked him while he was lying down. They shouted at him that he was a terrorist and when he grabbed a stone to defend himself with, still on the ground, they pointed their guns at him and told him that they would kill him if he didn’t drop it. He did as ordered and the soldiers handcuffed him with plastic strips, still punching him in the stomach and chest.
He was then forced into a jeep and taken to Huwwara prison, having the strip repeatedly tightened around his hands (a very painful procedure) and still being punched while he was defenseless and at the mercy of the soldiers. After this ordeal, he was put into the prison for 5 hours without any charges.
While awful, this story in itself would surprise few Palestinians. They are used to being at the mercy of the army and they know how brutal and vicious it often is. What makes this story somewhat special is that Ma’mon is mentally disabled, suffering from bouts of epilepsy and difficulty speaking and thinking after he suffered a traumatic head injury in 2004.
Yet, neither Ma’mon nor the rest of his family are unaccustomed to punishment by the Israeli army. The family told us that while their village used to be a peaceful area, there had been attacks on them every year since 2002. They recall at least 20 attacks on Ma’mon alone. Being a shepherd, Ma’mon is among the most vulnerable Palestinians, as he often has to spend a lot of time alone in the fields without other people to witness was happens to him. In 2006, he and his brother were attacked in the field and their house was soon raided by the army, killing one cow and a large number of sheep and chickens. During this ‘military operation’, all of the family was rounded up and handcuffed outside the house.
Ma’mon was put in a coma by the beatings of the army, to the extent that the army had no choice but to send him to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem. When they considered him well enough to leave the hospital, he was then imprisoned in Ofer prison, where he was subjected to torture by having a dog on a leash try to attack him, which it did succeed in several times. When he was finally released, he had to spend 3 days in a hospital before he could rejoin the family. At the hospital he had to undergo surgery due to a kidney injury caused by the treatment from the Israeli army. Still today he suffers from chest pain and heavy coughing caused by the multiple attacks.
Aside from the attacks, the Nassar family faces the constant threat of their land being attacked or even stolen by the settlers from the illegal settlements of Yitzhar and Bracha. As the Israeli legal system is an odd mixture of laws from the Ottoman period, the British Mandate and modern Israel, it is jumbled and always used for the benefit of the illegal settlers and against the local Palestinians living under occupation. One such Ottoman law states that if land is not cultivated for 3 years, other people may legally begin to work it and it will officially become theirs after a period. Therefore, the Nassar family is prevented by the army from working around 40 dunams (4 hectares) of their land around Yitzhar and the settlers are just waiting to move in and take it over.
This recent attack illustrates how the army makes it dangerous for farmers all over Palestine to work even the land that is quite far away from the settlement, a deliberate tactic to force them to leave more and more farmland unattended out of fear.
On Monday 2 November, Ma’mon Amen Fayis Nassar, a 35 year old man from Madama, near Nablus, was beaten and subsequently detained for 5 hours by Israeli soldiers with no reasoning given. In the morning, he had gone out to his family’s land some 3 km from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar and was clearing the lands of weeds while his sheep were feeding, when he was approached by three Israeli soldiers.