Tag: South Hebron Hills - Page 21 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli army raid four Palestinian villages inside firing area 918, South Hebron hills

3rd November 2012 | Operation Dove, West Bank

By Operation Dove www.operationdove.org

FRIGHTENING NIGHT FOR PALESTINIAN FAMILIES

On the 1st of November Israeli soldiers irrupted in Al-Fakheit, Al-Majaz, At-Tabban and Al-Mirkez, villages of the ‘Firing Area’ 918 in the West Bank. The soldiers surrounded the villages, and internationals’ phones started to ring continuously. One by one the first news from the Palestinians arrived to the internationals and pushed them to move quickly toward the area.
All the roads to reach them were closed by military jeeps and DCO (District Coordination Office, the section of the Israeli military that works for the civil administration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories), as was seen. They called some frightened inhabitants from the villages who told them what happened. The only way to reach the area was to arrive in Jinba and to check from a distance. A lot of military jeeps were also seen moving among the hills.
According to testimonies of Al-Fakheit, Al-Majaz and At-Tabban, collected on the field, around 7:00 pm in every village almost 30 soldiers got off helicopters, pushed the people out from their houses, even children and babies inside the cradles. The soldiers took pictures of each family and each building. They checked also the IDs. The Israeli army gave them a document which accuses the local inhabitants to help illegal workers who travel toward Israel, drugs and arms dealers. They asked a lot of questions about the number of the people in each village, their names, who the owners of cars and tractors are. They also checked in their houses and tents, looking for something. In every village the inhabitants witnessed how the children were scared by the Army behaviour. During the raid, Israeli soldiers threatened the Palestinian inhabitants, urging them to leave their land and ordering them to “shut up” when the Palestinians tried to ask the reason of the night raid.
A woman of Al-Fakheit said that the soldiers surrounded all the houses scaring children and women. At the moment the majority of the men were working in Yatta, the nearby Palestinian city situated in area A. Soldiers asked a Palestinian to show his ID, but he had it in another tent, when he offered to get it the soldiers forbade it to him. While his wife was going to take their ID’s, a soldier drew his weapon on her.
The Palestinian villages of A-Tabban, Al- Majaz, Al-Fakheit and Al-Mirkez are located a few kilometres away from the Green Line. Since the 1970’s a large portion of the area around the villages is used by the Israeli army for military training and it is called ‘Firing Area 918’. On November 1999 all the villages in the area were evacuated and the people deported north past the bypass road 317. They obtained the right to return back to their homes but since then they have continued to receive military aggression and harrassment.
Since 22nd July 2012, after several delays, the State Attorney submitted a response to the Court, based on a position formulated by the Minister of Defense, according to which “permanent residence will be prohibited” in most of the area declared as a firing zone. The result of this decision will be the evacuation of 8 villages and the expulsion of almost 1500 people from their homes. On the 8th of August the High Court of Justice allowed the Palestinian inhabitants to keep on living in this area until the 1st of November, then postponed on the 16th of December.
Some cases of military activities were registered this year in the villages inside the ‘Firing Area’: on January 20th 2012, two children of 11 and 13 years old, were injured by an unexploded device, while they were grazing their flocks on Palestinian land near Jinba.
On August 7th, 2012 at 10:00 am a group of 70 Israeli soldiers raided the Palestinian village of Jinba. The Israeli army reached the place by logistical support of two military helicopters and 6 military vehicles. The battalion entered in Jinba village and threatened the Palestinian inhabitants for one hour and half ransacked their homes, that were found damaged.
On the morning of September 16th, around 8:00 am nearby the Palestinian village of Majaz, a 38 years old man was attacked and injured while travelling on his car. According to Palestinian witnesses, 4 soldiers stopped him on the road and started to beat him and to damage his vehicle. The soldiers detained him for one hour near their hummer.

On the 30th of September two Palestinian shepherds from Halaweh village were detained and threatened by the Israeli army while grazing their flock in the area of Massafer Yatta, West Bank.
The two shepherds claimed that soldiers beat one of them, sequestered their mobile-phones and pushed them away from their own land maintaining to be a military zone. Moreover the soldiers ordered to the Palestinians not to come back there, threatening that otherwise they would have killed all the flock.

The Israeli Army keeps persecuting its isolation policy aimed to restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement in that area.

Nevertheless the Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills are strongly involved in affirming their rights and resisting to the Israeli occupation choosing a nonviolent way.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the villages: http://snipurl.com/25hogy8

Thirty olive trees cut nearby the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani

20 August 2012 | Operation Dove, At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills

In the afternoon of August 16th some Palestinians discovered that an olive grove situated in Humra valley had been recently destroyed during the night, according to a Palestinian. Thirty olive trees were broken or severely damaged.

The olive grove belongs to a Palestinian family that lives in Yatta, a Palestinian town close to At-Tuwani.

The area in which the olives trees were cut is located in front of Havat Ma’on, an illegal outpost.

The amount of Palestinian trees tore down and damaged since January 2012 rises to 97: a largest number is located in Humra valley.

The olive grove’s destruction represents several problem of subsistence for Palestinians.

Operation Dove has maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

Al Mufagarah: Cave dwellers struggle to remain on their land

By VLR

21 July 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In the peaceful landscape of the South Hebron Hills, the occupation of the land is a daily struggle. Whilst life seems to be quiet and smooth the Palestinian communities often have to forget their daily life problems to focus on a bigger issue: resisting expulsion from their land.

As does 60% of the Palestinian West Bank, the South Hebron Hills lies in Area C, meaning it is under complete Israeli civil and military control. Palestinians residing in Area C live under harsh conditions, facing land confiscations, house demolitions, and access to water and electricity.

Furthermore, a 7.5 acre area within the district of Masafer Yatta, including 12 Palestinian villages, were designated in the late 1970s by the Israeli Occupation Forces as ‘Firing Zone 918’, a closed military zone. In 1999, evacuation orders were issued to remove the inhabitants of the villages, claiming that they are non-permanent residents and ignoring their ancient culture.

In Al Mufagarah, the 15 families are living in caves, tents, and a few stones houses. As their ancestors have been doing for ages, the families farm and graze. Its population, originally from the nearby village of At-Tuwani moved 4 kilometres south to set up the village of Al Mufagarah by the end of the British Mandate. At first, it seemed that nothing had changed. Secluded on a hillside, Al Mufagarah is accessible only by a rough dirt road. It stands quiet, facing the Naqab desert.

Its 160 residents, as do the 12 other hamlets of the firing zone, maintain a unique way of life with many living in or beside dug caves. Studies have shown that cave dwellers have been living in the southern Hebron hills since at least the 1830s. As families expanded, they build tents and a few stones houses. The community relies for its livelihood on growing grain and olives, husbandry of sheep and goats, and on the production of milk and cheese.

“Unfortunately, nowadays, we are facing issues my grand-father would have never expected!” said Mahmoud. “We started building a few stones houses in the ’80s; but then, with the expansion of the 4 nearby settlements, the Israeli Civil Administration wouldn’t deliver building permits anymore.

Even though in 2007, I decided to build a 60m² bricks house on the top of my cave because it is too small for my wife and my 14 children. But the 24th November 2011, the Israeli bulldozers came and destroyed my house as well as the mosque and the container for the collective power generator.”

Most of the villages of the South Hebron Hills have been forcibly displaced or demolished, often times with the building of new settlements. Moreover, according to the Israeli non-governmental organization Peace Now, between 2000 and September 2007, 94% of the building permits requested in Area C by Palestinians were turned down. While only 91 permits were issued to Palestinians, 18,472 new homes were built, illegally by international law, in order to expand the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which currently house 400,000 settlers.Heavy restrictions on freedom movement, work and business isolate these communities and have increased poverty among the population.

Furthermore, the closed area has no physical infrastructure. There are no paved roads leading from the villages. They are not linked to a power grid, telephone lines, a running-water system, or a sewage system. The normal water supply is rain, saved from the rainy season. Although the water table in the area is healthy enough to be able to build a well, the military does not permit this. Even building a structure for rainwater catchment is forbidden. As the rain water does not last through the dry season and the inhabitants have to spend roughly 10-15% of their income to buy water, brought by tanker from an Israeli company, Yatta.

The community attempted a few years ago to run electrical lines from At-Tuwani village but it was, as always, shut down by the military. Nowadays, only Mahmoud has a small power generator that he uses strictly from 7-10 p.m., and all activities needing electricity are coordinated into this time. This includes using the washing machine, charging cellular phones and flashlights, as well as watching their favourite soap opera.

“We are harassed on a daily base by settlers, soldiers, police, and border police. But I am determined to behave the opposite way of their actions. We will get Al Mufagarah back on the map and bring its people from the caves within to the outside in houses,” Mahmoud says.

On 19 May 2012, the community of Al Mufagarah, supported by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, launched a campaign called ‘Al Mufagarah R-Exist’, to build 15 bricks houses. Every Saturday since the launching, Palestinian, Israeli, and International activists have gathered to build the houses and support the community in its struggle to remain on its land.

On June 10, after only 3 houses had been completed, Al Mufagarah received orders from the Israeli Civil Administration to halt construction. On July 16, a demolition order was received concerning the first house built, which should be implemented within 3 days.

Like Susya and many other villages from Area C, the existence of this community is jeopardized.

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VLR is a photojournalist based in Palestine since 2011 reporting life under occupation.

This article was originally published with an error in the name of the village Al Mufagarah. It was corrected from Um Fagarah to Al Mufagarah on 30 July 2012.

Idhna: A family without windows

by Peige

12 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

After three years of marriage Amani and Hussein Batran wanted a house of their own, somewhere to raise their two children, 4 year old Khalil and 3 year old Layali. They took out two loans from the bank and construction began. Now, three years later, the house is still unfinished and no new work has been done for over a year. One year ago, shortly after the Batran family moved into their nearly finished house, they received an order from the Israeli military forbidding further construction, followed seven months later by a demolition order. The reason given is that their house blocks the view of a camera mounted on the illegal segregation wall Israel has constructed inside of the West Bank.

Without windows in Idhna – Click here for more photos

The sight of glass-less windows and wires protruding from half-sanded walls speaks of dreams put on hold, a family living in limbo. The Batrani family has endured the bitter cold of this Palestinian winter with only plastic sheets covering their windows. The Israeli government considers installing glass a violation of the order to halt construction. Violating the order means risking imminent demolition of their home, so the family must make do with the inadequate plastic sheets.

They know their fate will likely be the same as Ahmed Jeyowi and his family, whether or not they obey the order to halt construction. Jeyowi’s home was demolished last month when around 50 Israeli soldiers stormed the house at 6 AM whilst Ahmed was drinking tea and preparing to work his land. The soldiers forced Ahmed’s wife and six children from their beds and gave the family no time to salvage their possessions before they demolished their home.

Ahmed has since been forced to send his wife and children to live with other family members whilst he lives on the ruined site which once was his home, now replaced by a tent provided by the Red Cross. Ahmed is left with no heating or lighting, no gas, no toilet, and insufficient bedding.

Idna has suffered considerably since the Israeli occupation, particularly due to the construction of the segregation wall and the theft of some 3,000 dunums of land since the second Intifada. Idhna is surrounded by the Israeli settlements of Adora and Telem to the northeast, a bypass road that runs through the northern parts of the town, and the segregation wall that borders Idna to the north and the west. There are currently 40 homes in Idna with demolition orders.

Paige is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Israeli troops kill a Palestinian youth; Injures and arrest another

by Ghassan Bannoura

8 March 2012 | International Middle East Media Center

Twenty-two years old Zakariay Abu Iram was killed while Mohamed Rashid, 18, was injured and arrested by Israeli troops as they attacked the southern West Bank village of Yatta on Thursday afternoon.

Residents told IMEMC that Israeli troops stormed the village and tried to arrest Khalied Makhamreh. He is a Palestinian political prisoner that got released from Israeli military detention last October as part of the Egyptian mediated swap deal between Palestinian groups and Israel.

“ Soldiers stormed the house of the released prisoner to arrest him. All the village rushed to stop the military.” Mohamed from Yatta who witnessed the attack told IMEMC.

The Israeli military said that one soldier was stabbed by youth before troops opened fire killing Abu Iram and injuring Rashid. “ I did not see anybody who even tried to stab the soldier” Mohamed told IMEMC.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced that Zakariay Abu Iram was shot in the head and died on location while Mohamed Rashid got hit with a bullet in his abdomen.

Medics added soldiers did not allow them to help Rashid at first but later troops allowed medics to give him first aid after leaving him to bleed on the ground for some time. Troops then arrested Rashid and took him to an Israeli military hospital.