Tag: Tubas - Page 4 - International Solidarity Movement

Israel Confiscates 238 Dunums in Jordan Valley

Israel confiscates 238 Dunums from Bardala in Jordan Valley
from Jameel, Brighton-Palestine, 30 April 2007

Receiving the notices of confiscating 238.6 dunums by the Israeli authority yesterday was painful for the residents of Bardala in the north of the Jordan Valley, especially for those who own agricultural land. The notice said, “According to my authority as commander in the Israeli Defense Force in the area of Judea and Samaria, and since I believe the matter is necessary for military reasons … I announce confiscating these lands for military reasons to build the Security Wall.”

Bassam Sawafata, head of the Union of Agricultural Workers in the Federation of Palestinian Worker Unions in Tubas clarified that the tragedy actually began on Feb 16, 2004, the day when an order was issued by the Israeli authorities stating their intentions to build a fence preventing the land owners from working their land.

But residents and owners of the land had not lost hope, as they explored legal options. “Our hope has become true and has been broken at the same time,” one of them said. “After a long wait we received a paper from the International Committee of the Red Cross saying that the owners of the lands were allowed to enter through the gate and plant there. We received this the same day we received the land confiscation notices of our private property.” One of them commented ironically, “It starts as a joke and ends up by destroying us.”

Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, strongly denounced the Israeli decision describing it as unjustifiable and illegal and that it was part of the Israeli attempt to create new realities and facts, especially in the Jordan Valley, preceding any final peaceful negotiations.

In response to this, letters of protest will be sent to countries actively involved in the peace process, demanding that they pressure Israel to canceling its decision to confiscate the land. As well, the letters will ask the countries to call on Israel to stop these unilateral moves and rearrangements of the demographics of the land without dialogue or negotiation. The letter will affirm that the Palestinians seek a just and comprehensive peace based on the international agreements, which includes a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

IWPS: “We’re Not Moving!” (al Hadidiya)

We’re Not Moving!
from IWPS, 30 April 2007

On April 21st, an Israeli court decision ordering the demolition of all the homes of the approximately 100 inhabitants of the Bedouin hamlet of Al Hadidiya, in the northeast West Bank, came into effect.

An’am (40) and Omar (50) have seven children, of whom the two youngest, boys ages three years and seven months, are at home with them. The family is refusing to leave and move their tent-home and flock of 140 goats and 100 sheep to where the Israeli Civil Administration has suggested.

Al Hadidiya lies in the Jordan Valley, which comprises almost one third of the West Bank’s territory and provides access to the water reserves of the River Jordan. Israel regards it as strategic and a buffer between it and the Arab states to the east, and wants to keep it for itself.

Of the 2,400 square km. of land in the valley, 455.7 square km. is considered “closed military areas,” and 1655.5 square km. is occupied by 24 illegal Israeli settlements. These “facts on the ground” affect the traditional lifestyle of the Jordan Valley Bedouins and deprive them of their livelihoods. The grazing area for their animals is becoming ever smaller, and consequently the flocks are smaller than they used to be. Also, travel restrictions hinder the shepherds from going to neighboring towns to sell cheese, and reduce the number of merchants coming into Bedouin villages to buy sheep or goats. All of this has affected the earnings of Bedouin families.

Yet the confiscation of Palestinian land and the attempt to expel the Bedouins are not the only measures Israel is taking to transform the Jordan Valley into a land without Palestinians. Another element has been the isolation of the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank. Four principal checkpoints separate the valley from the rest of the West Bank, and since March 2005 only those Palestinians whose home address is in the Jordan Valley, as entered in their identity cards, are allowed to pass. This means that some two million Palestinians from the rest of the West Bank cannot enter the Jordan Valley.

An’am and Omar married and settled in Al Hadidiya two decades ago. They have already suffered two home demolitions. This time they are determined to stay in the tent and resist the demolition, even though they face a danger of being arrested. They have invited international solidarity activists to support them and possibly to document the expected brutality of the Israeli occupation, when and if the bulldozers come through. Omar’s words reflect sadness, more than bitterness, when he speaks of the previous demolition some years ago, when several of their sheep were run over by the military vehicles and An’am was assaulted while trying to prevent this. Grazing the herd and producing cheese from the milk is their way of life, and how they provide for their family.

After supper and over a glass of warm, sweet milk, An’am and Omar show family pictures and recount how Arif, their firstborn son, was killed by the Israeli army at the age of 13. He had been throwing stones at soldiers with other boys; the soldiers opened fire on the youngsters and shot Arif in the head. He died six days later, in February 2003. The couple’s four daughters and eldest surviving son attend school in the nearby town of Tammun. An’am and Omar are scared for their two smallest sons, who live with them, and Omar is aware that his resistance to demolition may get him into an Israeli jail, but he repeats they will stay in this house and “will sleep under the stars until they rebuild a new one at the same place.”

As we prepared to leave Al Hadidiya we were given homemade cheese and newly laid eggs. Despite our insistence, An’am and Omar would not take any money; smiling, they kept saying that we were most welcome. The next day, Omar telephoned to ask about our journey home to Haris. They have lost a child to the occupation, the state of Israel has been denying them their basic human rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a livelihood, freedom of movement; bulldozers may come any day to demolish their home; and yet they remain hospitable and think of their guests even after they are gone. We are humbled.

Residents of Al Hadidiya to Resist Home Demolitions

Residents in Al Hadidiya prepare to Resist the Demolition of their Homes
from Brighton Palestine, 27 April 2007

The residents of Al Hadidya have been awaiting army action since April 21st when a court ruling came into effect ordering them to leave and for the demolition of their homes. Al Hadidya is a collection of Bedouin Camps in an isolated area of countryside, deemed a military area by Israeli occupying forces, close to the illegal Israeli colony of Ro’i. International activists have maintained a constant presence in the area since Saturday and are planning to resist the demolitions.

When internationals arrived in Al Hadidya many of the villagers were in the process of moving their tents to an area three kilometres away. The new camp is situated next to a fenced off settler water pumping station but Palestinians are forced to travel to Ein al Shibli by tractor to fetch water. The new camp is a further 3km away across rough terrain from this water supply, meaning an addional hours journey by tractor a day for some families.

Those families who have been forced to move are afraid that the army will issue them with another demolition order. Residents say that there is now nowhere else to go and that they will be forced out of the area if this happens.

Several families have chosen to stay in the ir homes despite the danger of demolition. One local farmer has said that he will not move and that even if they demolish his home he will rebuild again on the same spot.

Most farmers in the area have had their homes demolished two or three times since in the last five years.

One resident, describing the previous time the Israeli military had come to demolish his house said ‘they came with ten vehicles, fifty soldiers and bulldozers to demolish my tent. During the demolition several of my sheep were run over by military vehicles, when my wife tried to protect them she was assaulted’

Despite the threat of violence villagers will not give up their land, where many have lived since before 1967, and will stay to resist the demolitions and to rebuild again.

The Israeli policy of house demolitions in the Jordan Valley is intended to ethnically cleanse the region by marginalising Palestinian access to land and pushing Palestinians out of areas where they can retain Jordan Valley IDs. The number of Jordan Valley permits, only given to permanent residents of the area, has significantly decreased since the Intifada while settler domination of the area has increased. 97% of the valley is either militarised, closed to civilians, or controlled by the settlements.

Amnesty Int’l: Al Hadidiya – Urgent Action Alert Launched

House Demolition/forced eviction
from Amnesty International, 27 April 2007

East Med Team
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 15/029/2007

On 10 April, the Israeli army served demolition orders on all the residents of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Hadidiya, in the Jordan Valley in the east of the occupied West Bank, giving them until 21 April to leave their homes. The inhabitants of the village about 100 men, women and children from several families expect the tents and shacks where they live to be demolished any time. After previous demolitions they have pitched tents again in the village but now they face being forcibly removed from the land where they have lived for decades. Since receiving the orders, some families have left the village to take refuge in other villages, while other families have decided to remain in their homes until they are forcibly evicted.

The Bedouin as a group mostly live in tents off the produce of their herds of sheep and goats. The Palestinian Bedouin residents of Hadidiya have lived in the area since before the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel occupied the West Bank.

The village of Hadidiya was previously demolished in 1997, after its inhabitants had received orders for the demolition of their tents. The residents pitched tents and rebuilt shacks and appealed against the demolitions to the Civil Administration (the Israeli military administration of the West Bank) but lost their case. Five families
living in the village decided to appeal further to the Israeli High Court of Justice. On 10 December 2006 the High Court of Justice finally turned down this appeal. Palestinian appeals to the courts against home demolitions are almost invariably rejected.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

For years Israel has pursued a policy of discriminatory house demolition, allowing scores of Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, to be built on occupied Palestinian land, while confiscating Palestinian lands, refusing building permits for Palestinians and destroying their homes. In particular, there has been relentless pressure from the Israeli army in the West Bank on Palestinians from Bedouin groups to leave the areas where they have been accustomed to live and graze their flocks for decades. The reasons given by the Israeli courts e.g. lack of planning permission, land reserved for agricultural use or land in a military zone are used against Palestinians, while Israeli settlements continue to expand on Palestinian agricultural land. The land vacated has often been used for illegal settlements, such as the vast settlement of Maale Adumim near Jerusalem, which was built on land which was once used by Palestinian Bedouin.

Palestinians, including Palestinian Bedouin, in the Jordan Valley, much of which is now a military area or taken over by some 36 Israeli settlements, have suffered particular pressure. Since May 2005 Palestinians whose identity documents do not give the northern Jordan Valley as their place of residence are not allowed to live in the Jordan Valley. House demolition has been widely used as a means to force the Palestinian population to leave the Jordan Valley; then, living elsewhere, the army will not allow such Palestinians to return . Families often receive house demolition orders written in Hebrew, a language which most Palestinians do not understand or read; sometimes these orders are not given to the families but simply left on the land.

Families often only know of the order when the army arrives to demolish their homes.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English, Hebrew or your own language:
– expressing concern that the residents of Hadidiya are facing the demolition of
their homes and calling for the demolition orders to be rescinded;
– calling on the Israeli authorities to stop immediately the destruction of Palestinian houses and other properties in the Occupied Palestinian Territories without absolute military necessity as prescribed by international humanitarian law.

APPEALS TO:
Tzipi Livni
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
9 Yitzhak Rabin Boulevard
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91035
Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 3367
Email: sar@mfa.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Minister

Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit
Military Judge Advocate General
David Elazar Street
Tel Aviv, Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366
Email: arbel@mail.idf.il
Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate General

Commander
District Coordination Office (DCO)
Jericho
Fax: +972 2 9943305
Salutation: Dear Sir
COPIES TO: diplomatic representatives of Israel accredited to your country.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat, or your
section office, if sending appeals after 8 June 2007.

Working to protect human rights worldwide

Prisoner’s Day in Tubas

Tom Hayes

Today Tubas prisoner’s society held a rally outside the Red Cross building in Tubas to commemorate prisoner’s week.

Students at Al Quds Open University in Tubas also held a vigil for the families of prisoners in the university grounds

At the university vigil students gave prisoners’ families trees to plant. Each tree was the same age as the amount of years the person had been in prison.

Palestinians in Israeli jails are political prisoners, charged under a military apartheid legal system. The detention of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has no basis in international law.

The prisoner’s club took me to meet two families of prisoners. One was the family of a man imprisoned during the Intifada. His family told me that they had been imprisoned because the army were looking for their family member and that, in 2005, the Israeli Occupation Forces attempted a targeted assassination in Tubas using an Apache helicopter killing four people, three of them children. The attack failed to kill its intended target.

Another family told me of the conditions faced by Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Prisoners used to receive money from the Palestinian Authority to pay for food in the canteen. However, since the international sanctions on the Hamas government these have ceased. Money from prisoners’ families is not getting through and prisoners are living on bread and water. One prisoners mother told me that the prison authorities often turn off the water and electricity. Family visits are severely restricted and many prisoners families cannot enter 1948 Israel to visit their loved ones.