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
