Tag: Qalqilya

Hundreds of Jayyous residents were prevented from protesting at the Wall on Friday 28th November when Israeli military forces invaded the village.

More than 200 Palestinian, Israeli and international activists were prevented from leaving the village to demonstrate against the new path of the Apartheid Wall, when Israeli army and police forces invaded the village, blocking roads and implementing a “Closed Military Zone”. Approximately 40 Israeli army forces blocked the road from the village to the Wall, menacingly brandishing rifles and batons.

The villagers, who will lose almost 6000 dounums of land from the new route of the wall, were undiminished in their determination to protest against the Wall, chanting “LA! LA! Li’l Jidar!” (NO! NO! To the Wall!). The protest then turned into an impromptu street party, with villagers dancing defiantly in the streets.

In response to a single stone thrown from the back of the crowd, soldiers then began to fire tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets indiscriminately into the crowd. At least two Palestinians were injured by the rubber-coated steel bullets, with many more suffering from gas inhalation.

Village youths responded to this attack with rocks, which led to a full-scale invasion of the village. Five jeeps roamed the streets, hindered by makeshift road-blocks installed by the villagers for such incursions. For two hours, soldiers terrorised villagers with sound bombs, tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and high-pitched sound devices, imposing a de-facto curfew. The young Palestinians were not, however, subdued, and the Israeli military eventually left the village amidst taunts and defiance.

Residents report that Israeli soldiers returned to Jayyous in the night, arresting one – Eyad Dubah – and destroying martyr billboards that decorate the centre of the village.

Villagers believe the implementation of the “closed military zone” for a 24 hours period was designed to prevent international and Israeli participation in the demonstration, as Israeli military roadblocks were installed on all roads into the village, allowing only local residents to pass. As one Palestinian commented, “They do not want you to see the truth with your cameras”. These measures appear to be a direct response to the success of the demonstration last week, in which villagers destroyed part of the Wall.

On Friday 21 November over 500 villagers from Jayyus and international activists gathered to take part in a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid Wall that for 6 years has separated them from their land and vital olive crop. Villagers destroyed sections of the Wall, sparking confrontations with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and the invasion of the village.

Following the Friday prayer, more than 500 protesters advanced on the Wall’s gate in the south of the village. The IOF was not present, and villagers proceeded to destroy the gate and the surrounding Wall and enter their lands.

Occupation forces arrived on the scene after the Wall was destroyed, firing on the crowd with tear gas and sound bombs as well as rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition. Upon pushing the villagers away from the Wall, the army forced its way into the village, where the demonstration continued in the village. Jeeps entered from all directions and imposed a curfew on the village. Soldiers attacked protesters in the streets openly defying the military orders.

Upon leaving the village two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Waleed A’saf and Tayseer Khalid, were detained and later released. Five internationals were also detained and later questioned at Ariel police station and released without charge. The IOF continued to maintain a strong presence in the village into the evening, undertaking house-to-house searches targeting the village youth.

In 2002 Israel began construction of the Wall that now separates the village from its agricultural land. In July 2008 Israel agreed to change the route of the Apartheid Wall near Jayyus village by replacing a 2.4km stretch with 4.9km of Wall closer to the Green Line (approximately 4km inside the West Bank).

The change in the route of the Apartheid Wall will return 2,609 dunums (out of almost 9,000 dunums) of agricultural land to its Palestinian owners, while 5,585 dunums will be confiscated once and for all and will be used for Zufim settlement expansion plans. A further 277 dunums of land will be destroyed for the new path of the Wall. Farmers will be completely cut off from their lands that are on the other side of the Wall as the gates in this section of the Wall will be completely closed. The IOF have already uprooted 200 olive trees along the planned route.

Villagers are determined to continue with weekly demonstrations. Mohammed Abu Eliees of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in the West Bank stated “it seems our battle is long” and restated the ruling by the International Court of Justice that the “Wall must be demolished. The Wall is illegal as it is on occupied Palestinian land”. The rerouting does little to reverse the devastation brought on by more than 20 years of settlement activity on village land and is merely an attempt to deflect criticism away from Occupation policy and practice.

Video courtesy of Israel Putermam

On Sunday 16th November, approximately 100 Palestinians, Israeli and international activists in the village of Jayyous were stopped in their attempt to demonstrate against the new plans to re-route the Apartheid Wall by Israeli army forces who invaded the village and blocked the streets. Israeli military Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) were patrolling the streets of the village throughout the morning, with soldiers harassing pedestrians, claiming the village was a closed military zone.

Photos courtesy of Activestills

Approximately 40 Israeli soldiers then formed roadblocks to prevent demonstrators from marching to their farmlands – the majority of which are already divided from the village by the existing apartheid wall. Many of the demonstrators were able to push through the lines of soldiers, but were blocked again further down the road, with Israeli soldiers then declaring the area near the Wall to be a closed military zone. “You can protest here in the village”, advised the commander of the units, “but you are not coming anywhere near the Wall”, despite the fact that the protest was clearly non-violent.

The roadblocks effectively created a curfew in the area, as residents were unable to return to their homes in the area. School children returning home from school were reduced to tears as they attempted to make their way through the rows of soldiers.

The villagers’ demonstration continued for over two hours, with protesters continually attempting to push through the soldiers to get to their lands. Women from the village took up the position as the front line, eventually staging a sit-in in their refusal to give up their fight to get to their lands.

The recent Israeli High Court decision to re-route the wall has been met with a revival of the struggle fought by the villagers of Jayyous when building of the Apartheid Wall first started in the village in 2002. While initially the re-routing, which moves the Wall 2km back towards the green line, may seem like a positive result for the village, the move will in fact destroy a further 200 olive trees, and permanently isolate Jayyous villagers from approximately 6000 dounums of their land, with a further 2000 dounums to be destroyed to make the path of the Wall. Currently, villagers are able to access their lands through a permit system that, theoretically, allows farmers to access their lands through the gates in the Wall. The new Wall has no planned gates. The Jayyous village land that remains on the West of the Wall, as such, will be annexed to Israel forever.

Villagers, with the support of the Jayyous municipality and other organisations, have vowed to fight this construction, declaring Sunday’s protests the first in a series of weekly demonstrations against the re-routing of the Wall.

To view the International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) website click here

On Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, a family of about 15 was harvesting its land on a slope of Jebel Mohammed north of Kafr Qaddum village, close to the eastern side of a caravan outpost of the Qedumim settlement, when they were approached by Israeli soldiers. Family members report that they already had been harassed the previous day by soldiers and settlers, who tried to take horses and a tractor from them. They say that on Tuesday at about 9 a.m. the soldiers returned in a Hummer jeep, demanding that the family should stay at least 300 metres away from the settler outpost. However, as its entire olive grove is within 300 metres of the outpost, the family refused.

The soldiers then proceeded to handcuff the men and youth and detained the entire family, including women and children, until about 15:30 on the pretext of its tractor being “illegal.” During this time family members said they were verbally abused and threatened by the soldiers, prevented from making telephone calls and exposed to a group of about 20 or more settlers who were throwing stones at them from a distance.

At about 15:30 the Qedumim settlement police arrived on the scene and, according to family members, confirmed that the tractor was not stolen and that the family had the necessary papers for it, and said the soldiers should let the family go. However, after the police left, family members said the soldiers prevented the family from leaving with its tractor and tried to detain the 54-year-old father, who was driving. When he tried to resist the obviously arbitrary arrest, a soldier beat him over the head with the butt of a rifle. The farmer fell to the ground unconscious and lay there for about an hour as the soldiers prevented them from approaching him. At about 17:00 other farmers coming home from their fields noticed the situation and called for help. A larger number of villagers then arrived on the scene and freed the injured man. He was brought to hospital in Qalqiliya, were he will stay overnight for observation.