The security wall & continuing land thefts
saleh on January 31st, 2005A secret Israeli cabinet decision was used to invoke 55-year-old law against Arabs separated from farms and orchards by the vast “security barrier”.
The cabinet secretly decided to seize the land in July 2004 using a law passed in 1950 allowing the state to confiscate property abandoned by Arabs who fled to neighboring countries during Israel’s independence war.
The story was broken by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on 21 January 2005.
Hundreds of million of dollars worth of land belonging to Palestinians is now the property of the State of Israel. Most of the hundreds of Palestinian families whose land has been confiscated without compensation have not been formally notified that their property has been transferred to the Israeli state. But plans have already been drawn up to expand Jewish settlements on to some of the expropriated territory.
It?s become evident that the security barrier under construction through the West Bank and Jerusalem is less for security than a move to expand Israel’s borders.
Among those who have lost their land in the recent seizures is Johnny Atik. His front room, in the Bethlehem house he has lived in for 55 years, looks on to the three hectares (eight acres) of olive groves from which he is now officially deemed absent after Israel built the “security fence” between his home and his orchard.
“What is the law of absentees when we are here before your eyes? We are not absent. The law is that any Israeli with an American or European passport who goes to live outside Israel is not considered absent. But me, who lives here, is called absent,” he said.
The village of Walaja, which straddles the greater Jerusalem border, is losing about 2,500 acres. An Israeli development firm already claims to have bought part of the land to build new homes for Jewish settlers.
The state has also appropriated a once thriving hotel, the Cliff, on the edge of east Jerusalem even though the owners live nearby. After the army finshed building the eight-metre-high concrete wall that bisects the area, The owners were told their hotel had been confiscated under the absentee property law without recompense.
Related Guardian article
News from Jayyous
heather on January 17th, 2005The Palestinian village of Jayyous, near Qalqilya, sits on some of the best farmland in the West Bank. The monstrosity alternately referred to as; The Wall, The Fence, The Security Barrier, The Separation Fence passes right through Jayyous in the form of a fence with electronic sensors. Not the inhabited parts though. The Fence separates the people of Jayyous from their lands. The lands are now on the side of Zufin (see the link for a map).
http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Jayyus%2011-01-2005/Map%20of%20location.jpg
On 9 December bulldozers arrived and began to destroy and uproot olive trees. From then until 20 December over 600 olives trees were uprooted clearing some 24 dunums of land. On 29 December the New York Times reported that many of the trees were over 600 years old. The land is to be used to found the new settlement Nofei Zufin. The land was annexed by military order in 2000 but nobody bothered to inform the owners. It is, to understate a bit, more than a little curious that the military confiscated land two years before construction of The Separation Barrier began that would be used to found a settlement on the west side of The Fence. This is the most blatant example to date that The Separation Barrier is what many have said all along, nothing but a land grab.
On 31 December a group of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals marched to the site of the destruction to replant olive trees where they were uprooted. Members of Ta’ayush, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Rabbis for Human Rights, The International Solidarity Movement, Gush Shalom joined villagers from Jayyous on both sides of the fence. Followed by a few dozens Israeli Border Police, constantly reminding us that we were trespassing and videotaping us, we replanted some 50 trees and then marched to The Fence. The gate at Jayyous where Palestinians have to cross at certain times each day if they are to cross at all was closed. With the efforts of all on both sides of The Fence we were able to negotiate a crossing for the Palestinians. That is the scale of the victories we have here as mobilizing the Israeli public to defend Palestinians is exceedingly difficult. A larger effort is being made by the Rhode Island-Qalqilya Alliance (www.riqa.info ) who have managed to get some of their representatives interested.
On 4 January we returned to Jayyous under the banner of The Palestinian Enviromental NGOs Network (www.pengon.org ) to replant more trees. It was another successful outing with no tear gas, sound bombs and rubber or live ammo being fired.
You can find out more about the situation in Jayyous here:
www.poica.org/casestudies/Jayyus%2011-01-2005/casestudies.htm
www .riqa.info/riqaupdate.htm
