Monday, July 26, 2010

What life is like in the South Hebron Hills

It's rare that mainstream (and well-known) media come down and do stories on the situation in the South Hebron Hills – but it does happen. Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times was in the area recently and wrote this article about his visit.

Just this past week the New York Times also released this video about his visit, and it really shows the extremes between the standard of life available to Israeli settlers in the area and Palestinian residents.

The video opens with the Omar Abu-Jundiya family in their cave in Tuba. A couple of nights ago a teammate and I visited this family and spent the night. And as always, this is where I've had the best tea that I've ever had in Palestine! The kids in this family were the first ones that CPTers accompanied to and from school when the project in At-Tuwani village opened. The international accompaniment of the children didn't last long because of attacks by settlers. So for the past 6 years these children have been accompanied by either the Israeli military or police on part of the road they take to school as it goes in-between an Israeli settlement and an Israeli settler outpost – and the settlers have continued to harass and attack these children even while they are being escorted. It's a bit crazy – rather than hold the settlers accountable for their actions, and removing the illegal settlement outpost – the band-aid solution of a military escort continues.

Anyway, back to the Abu-Jundiya family. Part way into the Kristof video, Ahmed Abu-Jundiya is interviewed – he has just graduated from high school and often shepherds his family's flock in the early morning. He is also a videographer for the 'Shooting Back' project of B'tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. Last week Wednesday Ahmed was shepherding and several settlers came and stole one of his family's sheep. As a result of the video that Achmed took of the incident the Israeli police were able to identify the settlers and Achmed's father went with the police to retrieve the sheep from the settlement. While Ahmed and his father Omar were at the Israeli police station filing a complaint against the settlers (Ahmed for 5 hours), one of the settlers came in and filled a counter complaint against Omar (which is bogus as Omar wasn't even at the incident). At first the police didn't want to give Ahmed a copy of his complaint, but the B'tselem field worker who accompanied Ahmed insisted on a copy as if the case goes to court and Palestinians don't have a copy of the complaint that they filed the Israeli police have sometimes claimed that none was filed. And then the complaint of the settler is the only one for which there is paperwork for and the case would go badly for the Palestinians. In instances such as this with both the Palestinians and the settler filing complaints the case will mostly likely be thrown out by a judge – and the settlers will not be prosecuted for stealing a sheep. Here is the video that Achmed captured.


Friday, July 9, 2010

Destruction of Vegetable Fields

So I'm back in Palestine this summer and have been here for just over a week – I haven't quite kicked the cold that I caught the week before I left so that's left me feeling a bit low on energy. But I think I'll soon be fine for the remaining month that I'm here for.

I'm serving with CPT in Hebron for the first couple of weeks as staffing is low in Palestine at the moment and CPT decided to pull all the volunteers to Hebron until more arrive and we can return to At-Tuwani village. Our Italian partner organization, Operation Dove has been staffing the At-Tuwani project by themselves during this time. This coming week I'll be able to head down to At-Tuwani for a couple of days and I'm looking forward to that!

We've had one crazy day in the Hebron region so far – please take a look at video and the release below. Really it's maddening and also slightly disturbing that the Israeli administration in the West Bank decided that it was necessary to rip up irrigation pipes for vegetable fields. And part of me wonders, for how many weeks and days have the Israeli civil administration authorities (in control in the region of the Baqa'a Valley where these incidents occurred) driven through the valley on the Israeli settler bypass road that bisects it....and looked at how large the tomato plants were. Did they keep track of when the plants were first transplanted in the fields? Did someone flip the calendar in their office ahead a couple of months to the date when the tomato plants would be around 2 weeks from being ripe and ready to be picked for market...and schedule an 'operation' for the Israeli border police? I do really wonder, if it is the case – that's evil.

And tear gas does definitely not improve a cough.

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Israeli border police destroyed several Palestinian fields in Al Baqa'a Valley just east of Hebron on July 6, 2010, directly impacting the livelihood of more than one hundred Palestinians.

Landowners said that Israeli border police and the Israeli District Coordinating Office (DCO), responsible for the coordination of Palestinian civilian affairs in Area C, began implementing the destruction at around 8:30am. Israeli authorities, with the assistance of hired labor, damaged fields of vegetables and destroyed the irrigation systems of those fields.

When international peace activists from Christian Peacemaker Teams arrived in the area at 11:30am, about 20 workers hired by the Israeli border police and DCO had cut and disposed of the irrigation pipes laid in two fields. The fields each measured 10 dunams (approximately 40 acres) and included tomatoes, eggplant, cauliflower, and beans. In addition to dismantling the irrigation pipes, the workers also cut the twines that were holding up each tomato plant. A matriarch of the family, Aratiki Karim, said, "These tomatoes are for the kids, for the babies, to feed the kids and to sell them to buy other food for the kids." The Palestinian farmers had planted the tomato plants nearly three months ago and the tomatoes were only 20 days from being ready for market.

The border police, DCO, and hired laborers then moved to another field further along Route 60 in the Al Baqa'a Valley to perform the same procedure. The border police blocked the junction between the residential zone and the nearby fields, shooting tear gas and sound bombs to prevent Palestinians from going to the area where the hired workers were removing more irrigation pipes. Several women and children suffered from tear gas inhalation and required hospitalization.

Badran Mohammed Jabber, looking out onto his destroyed fields uttered in exasperation, "I have spent 43 years under the Israeli reign of terror. I have lived my life in fear, I never know what the Israelis will do tomorrow. They have destroyed my land, they have destroyed my life, these fields are my life."

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This is not the first time Israeli authorities have destroyed crops and irrigation equipment in the Al Baqa'a Valley. See the following links for further reading on demolitions in the Baqa'a Valley:

*"Whose water is it anyway?" http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2009/11/23/al-khaliilhebron-whose-water-it-anyway

*"This Used to be Paradise" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cpthebron/message/1255

*"Fight for survival in the West Bank" http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/2009103018216661237.html