'The One-Family Bantustan'

On Monday we went to Mas’ha where the Apartheid Wall has not only been built around a village preventing people reaching their land, it has also been built so that it excludes one house from the rest of the village leaving it trapped behind a 40m long, 8m high concrete wall on one side and a 3m high fence on the other. The Wall has been built to ‘protect’ the illegal Israeli settlement built on Palestinian land next to the village, yet its only purpose appears to be to cut off Palestinians from their land and their livelihoods and in this case to cut off one family from their friends, relatives, neighbours and the life they have lead since they built their home in 1972.

To get to their home the family in the house have to pass through a metal gate that until recently only soldiers held the keys for. While the family can now control their access to some extent, any visitors have to call or shout over the wall to be let in. When the gate is opened an alarm is sent to the Israeli military and they sometimes appear and turn the visitors away. To the side of the house is a large road used day and night by heavy military vehicles, the family have no access to the road.

Before the Wall was constructed the family had 2 dunums of land on which they ran a small restaurant and cultivated fruit and flowers for sale. The Israelis confiscated this land for the construction of the Wall and now all that remains is the house. The family own land very close to their home but instead of it taking them 2 or 3 minutes to reach it, as it used to, it now takes half an hour as they have to travel back through Mas’ha, travel around the settlement and approach it from the opposite direction. If the soldiers create problems for them or set up flying checkpoints along the road, the journey can sometimes take 3 or 4 hours.

Their neighbours are settlers living in large houses on the other side of the fence about 20 feet away. While one of the neighbours says hello from time to time the only contact the family have with the other neighbours is when they pelt the family home with rocks. The children of the family do not play outside as they are scared of the soldiers and the settlers.

The house has received a lot of international attention but no matter how many people come and sympathise with them and shake their heads at the absurdity of it all I doubt anyone can really imagine what it must be like living and growing up in a house like this. They wake up to see a huge concrete wall, they are scared to leave their home in case they get back and the military has taken it over, friends and relatives cannot just call by for a casual chat, their children cannot play happily and freely in the garden because the neighbours might throw rocks at them and they can’t rely on their land because they cannot always reach it.

We didn’t stay long, we just talked with the family, they explained their problems, we sat staring at the huge concrete wall and we shook our heads as many have done before us. The UN are aware of the situation but it seems there is nothing they can do, despite the fact that Israel is acting illegally on several levels. When we left the house I felt like I had just visited somebody in prison, a huge iron gate closing behind us as the family retreated back to their cell.

Links:

http://www.un.org/unrwa/emergency/barrier/profiles/mas'ha.html
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/bantustan.html

Wadi Qana

On Saturday we went to a demonstration / solidarity visit to Wadi Qana. This is a small valley in the Salfit district. It’s very pretty particularly during the winter months and Palestinians have used its water sources for centuries as it has numerous natural springs. Since the occupation began in 1967 the Israelis have been gradually annexing the land, forcing the Palestinians who lived in the area out and making it impossible for Palestinians in the surrounding areas to reach the land (which is owned and farmed by them) and use its water resources.

We joined local villagers, representatives of the Palestinian Authority, Israelis and other internationals on a visit to Wadi Qana and to the village of Al-‘Uyuuna at the end of the valley. We set off in cars along an awful road but were stopped after 1km by 2 Israelis jeeps. The soldiers said we were not allowed to take cars through the valley (despite the fact they’d just driven their jeeps through it). We abandoned the vehicles and set off on foot only for them to change their minds 500m down the path meaning we could all get back in the cars and continue.

On either side of the valley the hills are lined with illegal Israeli settlements, 7 in total. Not only are the settlements built illegally on stolen land but the settlers often come down the slopes and attack local farmers trying to earn a living on their own land. In addition they vandalise wells and water pipes used by Palestinians and in some cases they have completely taken over natural water springs, guarding them so that Palestinians cannot reach them. The road through the valley can hardly be described as a road and at various points we had to splash our way through overflowing raw sewage from the surrounding settlements. Not only is this disgusting but it also contaminates the natural water supplies that the Palestinians depend on.

After half an hour we reached the village of Al-‘Uyuuna. It used to have 40 buildings but 33 of these have been demolished by the Israeli military. The remaining 7 all have demolition orders on them. To look at them, I was surprised they even warranted a demolition order, they would not have looked out of place in one of those museums showing what rural life was like hundred of years ago. They look like this because the Israeli authorities will not allow the villagers to use anything other than basic stone and mud to build their homes, with a blanket ban on permanent concrete roofing. They obviously don’t want the villagers to get too settled, even though most of them have lived in the area for centuries. The other residents fled to the village in 1948 after being forced from their homes in Jaffa when the Israeli state was created. They have been waiting to return to their homes ever since.

When we left the village we headed out on the settlement road and left through the settlement gate. Anybody can leave through this gate but only those on a list held by the Israeli authorities can enter the village through the gate. Those lucky enough to have been registered at birth as belonging to the village are on the list but there are many that are not on the list as the Israelis have stopped registering people under the village, instead registering them under surrounding villages. It is clear what they want to achieve through this policy.

If not on the list villagers and visitors to the village have to travel round to the other side of the valley and make their way along the terrible road along which we came. Many of the villagers are students or work in the local towns, having to make this journey is a real struggle as they do not have their own vehicles. It also means that villagers have to continue their most basic existence, as materials and machinery that could improve their conditions cannot be brought over the road.

The visit and the plight of the villagers was summed up just by looking at the hillside, at the bottom were tiny basic mudstone buildings while at the top stood grand luxury homes with bay windows and balconies (see picture below). When we drove through the settlement and out of the gate it was like stepping into a model village, the gardens were landscaped and hanging baskets lined the roads. It is clear that the Israeli authorities see only one community living here in the future, despite the fact that their presence is illegal under international law.

Settler Attacks

On Friday we visited the villages of Burin and Azira al Qibliya.

Both villages are located at the bottom of or on the side of steep

hills at the top of which illegal Israeli settlements have been built. The villagers face a lot of problems with Israeli settlers attacking them or their property. Setting fire to Palestinians land has become a common tactic for settlers, they know what the land means to Palestinians, not only its cultural and historical significance but also because so many of them depend on it to live. They also know that there is virtually no chance that they will ever be caught. Despite a catalogue of attacks by settlers there have been no arrests let alone prosecutions for their continuing persecution in this area. Although the military now responds to calls from Palestinians they rarely intervene to stop the attacks.

I had been ill the day before but 2 other IWPS volunteers had been called to the villages because the settlers had come down the hillside and were setting fire to wheat fields and olive trees belonging to Palestinians. When we came the next day, there were large patches of black on the hillsides where crops had been completely destroyed.

As the fires raged the day before in both villages the army were called but they just watched as the settlers continued to light the fires and they would not let the Palestinians go to their land so that the fires could be put out. As a result people had to stand and watch their land and their livelihoods burn for several hours while they could do nothing about it.

In the evening the settlers started more fires at the top of the hill but Palestinians had to wait until the fires reached within 20m of their houses before they could put the fires out. This is because the settlers have created an imaginary line between the settlements and the villages (even though all of the land belongs to the Palestinians) and if Palestinians cross that line they will attack them.

On Friday we visited 2 houses that have suffered the worst attacks from the settlers as they are the furthest up the hill and so the nearest to the settlements. At the first house the family showed us numerous bullet holes from previous settler attacks and told how the settlers often came down the hill and threw stones and missiles at their home. Palestinian homes are always surrounded by children playing but there were none playing outside this house as the parents told us their children were scared to leave the house because of the settlers.

The second house we visited had been attacked the day before. Settlers had come down the hill and set fire to a fig tree next to the house and drawn stars of David on the side of the house. There were only women and children at home at the time and they had to wait for the Israeli military to turn up before they could go out and extinguish the fire.

Not only do the settler attacks affect the Palestinians economically as they have lost thousands of trees and vast areas of wheat fields have been destroyed, but the psychological impact of the attacks is terrifying. The Israelis appear to have a policy of building these illegal settlements at the top of hills and above Palestinian villages. This means that Palestinians must live every day with the fear of these people above them waiting to come down and attack them with apparent impunity. I can’t imagine living life like that.

We listened to the frustration that the local people felt because they could do nothing to stop the settlers and the Israelis refused to acknowledge the attacks and repeatedly failed to intervene when they were taking place. They then told us about one particular settler who had come from the US to live in the settlement. Employing another tactic used by settlers he had claimed that the Palestinians were attacking him (with no evidence whatsoever) and called on the US consulate to assist him. They duly sent a representative to the settlement to meet him and offer their support. I can’t really get my head around a settler who comes here because he believes that for whatever reason he is entitled to that land despite the fact it has been inhabited by other people for centuries and centuries. He then alleges this incident and calls on his representative from a country thousands of miles away to come and protect him on the basis that he is a US national in trouble in a foreign land.

In fact the whole settler issue confuses me, I can’t understand that these people go out and attack people living a couple of hundred metres from them, return home and then go out the next day and attack them again, day after day – and there is nothing being done about it.

Al Aqaba

On Tuesday we visited a village in the Jordan Valley that is under the threat of being removed from the map completely. Since 1967 when Israel took over the West Bank the area surrounding the village has been used as a military training camp. On the lands farmed by the villagers the Israelis carry out training exercises using live ammunition, tanks and helicopters, to date 50 villagers have been killed or injured as a result of these exercises including the mayor who was injured at the age of sixteen and has since been in a wheelchair.

The Israelis have issued demolition orders for 35 of the 48 buildings in the village and banned the construction of any new buildings in an attempt to annex the land from the Palestinians, expand their military bases and presumably eventually establish more illegal settlements in the area. As a result of the dangers of the military training exercises and the threat of demolition 700 people have left the village leaving a population of just 295.

The village has challenged the demolition orders in the Israeli High Court and was successful in freezing some of them, however in April 2008 the Israeli government created a zoning plan for the village. This means that the village can keep some of its structures and build new ones – in a tiny circle around the village centre that equates to 3% of their land. This means that all the buildings outside of this circle will be demolished, displacing 18 families (over half of the population). There is no room within the proposed circle to house these displaced people. It also means that 97% of their land most of which the villagers rely on as their only source of income will be lost. When the village contested this in the High Court they were told that they must accept the plan. As it stands the demolition orders within the proposed circle are frozen but the buildings that fall outside of the circle can be demolished at any time. International funding has allowed the village to build a mosque, a clinic and a kindergarten where 130 village children attend school. The Israelis have said these buildings were constructed without a permit and therefore they may also be demolished at any time.

With the danger presented by the military training, the threat of demolition to their basic services and the fact that they can simply not build houses to live in, most of the villagers, especially those with young families are being forced to leave the village. To me it is clear that what is happening is ethnic cleansing, the removal of one people to make way for another.

Arbitrary Arrests

On Sunday we visited the small village of Kufr Ein, not far from Haris, where a man had been arrested and his family did not know where he was being held. The Israeli army had visited the home he shared with his parents on 3 occasions in recent weeks, each time they had ransacked the house overturning furniture. Although they were not specifically looking for the detained man, he was in the house when they visited a 3rd time and they issued him with an order to report to the local security base two days later. They did not give a reason for this order. The next day, Tuesday he left the house to go to work at a local restaurant, the family then received a call from somebody who had seen him getting arrested at a local checkpoint. When we visited the family on Sunday they had not received any more information or heard anything about the arrest from the Israeli authorities. Although there are a number of NGOs that look for prisoners who have been arrested the family did not have his ID number so they were having great difficulty in finding him. It would appear that names mean nothing to the Israeli authorities. Even if the man is released without charge his employer has had to give his job to somebody else.

The next day we were visiting another local village, Az Zawiya when we received a call from a man whose son had been arrested by the Israelis two days ago, and again they had heard nothing about his state or whereabouts. Soldiers had turned up at his son’s house after a family member visiting from the Gaza Strip had been unable to provide the soldiers with a West Bank ID card and had given the name of a relative. When the soldiers became aggressive and began beating the relative, who was 15 years old, neighbours and family members gathered at the house and tried to intervene. The soldiers then proceeded to push, beat and kick the men women and children present. When a female relative carrying a baby tried to stop the beating and was knocked to the ground by the soldiers the man in question protested and was arrested. When his parents tried to stop the arrest the soldiers pointed a gun into the fathers chest and threatened to shoot him.

Since his arrest the family had heard nothing about where he was being held. A member of the family had visited the local security centre and been told that he was being held there. The father of the man along with 8 other elderly relatives wanted to go to the security centre to see if they could find out more about where and how he was. In the hope that an international presence may aid the soldiers capacity for communication the family asked us to go with them to the centre.

While just a few minutes along the settler highway from the village the journey was to prove difficult. There are two highways that cut across the land that belongs to the village. What is left is a small strip accessible only by crossing through a tunnel used to collect rain water underneath the highway (Palestinians are not allowed to use the highway) and walking several kilometres along dirt tracks. This means that villagers can not bring animals or vehicles to their fields making it virtually impossible to farm their land.

So after crossing through the tunnel and walking for half an hour across the small strip of land between the two settler highways we were met by two soldiers who had come down from the highway to see what we were doing. They took the ID cards from the Palestinians and tried to tell us to go back as there was nobody held at the base and they could not find any information out about the man. They then told us to climb up the steep hillside to their tent beside the highway. I found the climb hard enough and felt awful that these elderly men and women were being made to scramble up the side of a hill by soldiers who looked no older than 18. Once at the top the soldiers made a few calls and another 3 soldiers

arrived. Again they said they could not help and we would have to go back to the village. While they weren’t aggressive the soldiers were short and dismissive. The power they held over the Palestinians was clear, they told them where to stand, sit, move and when to speak. I found this hard to watch considering the soldiers were not only three or four times younger than the Palestinians but also because their presence, as Israeli occupying soldiers on Palestinian land, was illegal. At one point one of the soldiers tripped over her bag and fell backwards. While I thought to myself good it serves her right, the Palestinian women tried to get to their feet to help her despite the wrongs that have been done to them.

After a number of calls by the soldiers we were told that the man was being held in one of the surrounding settlements. We returned with the family to their house. While there we met the wife of the arrested man who is pregnant with their fourth child, she was clearly very distressed that the family had been unable to track him down. After a number of phone calls the man was eventually traced. After the family hired a lawyer the Israelis agreed to release the man for the sum of 2500 shekels (£400), this is a very large sum considering the average monthly income in the area is 500 shekels. The next evening after a number of delays the man was finally released to his family on payment of the fine (what he was fined for has not been disclosed by the Israelis). Following his release he reported that he was severely beaten during his imprisonment, as a result of the injuries he sustained he was taken to a prison hospital while being held, no medical report about his injuries has been released.

Where I Live

I have now been in Haris a week, it’s a small village in the Salfit district of the West Bank.

Although a long way from so called Israel proper,the village is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements that have been built on land confiscated from Haris and the surrounding villages. An Israeli watch tower marks the entrance of the village and a huge highway built on land belonging to village farmers runs through the fields below the village. (The picture shows the village, the the highway and the Israeli military watch tower on the the left handside)

Access to the highway is sporadic for Palestinians, they are only able to use certain sections of the highway and the Israelis can and do change this limited access at any time. The Israelis have also constructed gates at the intersection of each village with the highway. These gates can be closed at any time, or in some cases remain permanently closed meaning that villagers have to get transport from the village to the gate and then cross the gate on foot and find new transport to take them along the highway. The Israelis say the gates are a security measure but as they can be crossed easily on foot it is clear that their only purpose appears to be to disrupt, inconvenience and delay the Palestinian villagers as they try and conduct their daily business. (The picture shows the existing a highway, a new highway under construction and an illegal Israeli settlement on the top of the hill )

Bil'in

After being here a couple of days I went to my first demonstration at Bil’in, a small village near Ramallah. Israel has annexed more than 60% of the village land for illegal settlements and the Israeli ‘security’ Wall. The Wall which in Bil’in consists of a large military road with electrified fences on either side cuts right through village lands. Every week a demonstration is held by Palestinians, Israelis and internationals against the Apartheid Wall, which separates privileged settlers who live illegally on Palestinian land from villagers who now have no access to the land which they depend on as their only source of income.

There were about 100 people involved in the demonstration last week, these included villagers of Bil’in, internationals and around 35 Israelis. We walked from the village down to a section of the Wall. On the other side of the Wall we could see the illegal Israeli settlements and also a number of bulldozers and cleared land where the settlements are obviously being expanded. There were also about 5 military jeeps waiting for us.

As we crossed the fields and came within about 100 metres of the wall the Israeli soldiers began firing tear gas at us. This was my first experience of tear gas and it was not pleasant, to call it ‘tear’ gas seems a little misleading if not wholly incorrect.

My eyes began to sting violently and my nose and throat burnt to the point that I felt I could not breathe. Immediately the demonstrators dispersed and retreated, from that point it became impossible to regroup and begin, let alone continue, our non-violent demonstration as the army continuously launched tear gas and sound bombs at us. A few brave demonstrators reached the wall and stood beside it holding a Palestinian flag aloft despite being bombarded with tear gas and sound bombs.

The protest continued like this for around 2 hours. After an hour and a half, myself and my housemate returned to the village. It was only later that we heard that towards the end of the demonstration, the Israelis had used live ammunition against the demonstrators gathered at the

wall. One of them was shot 3 times in the thigh. He is currently in a critical condition in hospital in Ramallah after losing a large amount of blood. One other Palestinian and an Israeli activist were also injured.

Introduction

Although I’ve only been here a week I already feel like I have a lot that I want to tell people at home. I’ve even got to the point where I’m thinking I’ll leave out the ‘less important’ experiences or I’ll never manage to write them all down. However one of my main reasons for coming here was so that I might get the opportunity to report on the things that go on here that we don’t hear about at home. So I want to write about everything I have experienced but I will write it briefly, more detail can be found in the reports published on the main IWPS webpage.