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
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
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