Report - The Electronic Intifada 3 December 2010
On 24 November, two bulldozers and approximately 200 soldiers swarmed the farming village of Abu al-Ajaj in the Jordan Valley, destroying livestock pens and sheds. Ma`an News Agency reported that the demolition came two weeks after the state confiscated village land in preparation for the expansion of a nearby illegal Israeli settlement colony (`More Bedouin structures demolished in Jordan Valley,` 24 November 2010).
The Jordan Valley Solidarity (JVS) group, a network of Palestinian grassroots community organizations from all over the Jordan Valley, stated that several baby goats were killed and Israeli settlers accompanied the soldiers as the bulldozers razed the land. `Both [the soldiers and the settlers] laughed and cheered as the destruction took place,` the group reported in a news release (`The occupation forces demolished 4 barracks in the Jordan Valley,` 24 November 2010).
JVS added that an Israeli court declared a settlement expansion freeze for the nearby settlement of Massua, but the destruction happened nevertheless, and the settlers are intent on building despite the freeze. `Five years ago the settlement started to expand onto a small piece of land that belongs to the Bedouin community,` JVS reported. `Since then, settlers haven`t stopped grabbing land from the Palestinian shepherds.`
Most of the Jordan Valley is located in Area C, an area which comprises 60 percent of the West Bank. Under the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were carved up into areas A, B and C, the latter of which indicates full Israeli control. Under the Oslo regulations, Area C, which includes East Jerusalem, is administered and controlled by the Israeli government and its military. Approximately 40,000 Palestinians live in Area C.
Also on 24 November, dozens of villagers in Bani Hassan attempted to fight back against Israeli troops as bulldozers razed the village, which is near the Palestinian town of Salfit and the illegal Ariel settlement bloc. Agricultural land and land reclamation equipment was demolished, according to a report published by Ma`an (`Israel bulldozes PA-backed projects,` 24 November 2010). At the same time, near Bani Hassan in the Wadi Qana area, Ma`an reported that crews from the Israeli Civil Administration and the Society for Protecting Nature in Israel `arrived with bulldozers which demolished the Wadi Qana rehabilitation project, [costing] the Palestinian finance ministry $120,000 US.` A water canal was destroyed, as were parts of a reservoir and agricultural irrigation systems.
On the same day, in East Jerusalem, dozens of Israeli police flanked a bulldozer in the at-Tur neighborhood near the Mount of Olives as it destroyed the home of Abed Zablah. A father of five, Zablah had obtained a court order to halt the demolition of his home earlier in the day, according to a report by Agence France Presse. But by the time he had returned home from the court, Israeli forces had already leveled his house (`Israel razes Palestinian home in E. Jerusalem,` 24 November, 2010).
Al-Araqib destroyed for seventh time
Days earlier, Israeli forces once again demolished the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev) desert on 22 November, the seventh time since July 2010. In a press release, human rights group Amnesty International stated that `at least 50 of the 250 residents of al-Araqib village are again living in the ruins of their homes, attempting to rebuild them. Others are camping in tents in the village cemetery (`Israel condemned over Bedouin village demolition,` 25 November 2010).
Amnesty International added, `[a]s in previous demolitions, no eviction or demolition order was presented to the inhabitants. Israeli authorities have previously detained residents and their supporters when they demanded to see a demolition order ... Israeli media reported in early 2010 that the government had decided to triple the demolition rate of Bedouin constructions in the Negev. As the government does not recognize the villagers` land tenure, it maintains that their settlements are illegal.`
The village of al-Araqib was razed to the ground on 27 July 2010, when approximately 1,000 Israeli riot police raided the area as dozens of homes were destroyed. Villagers who returned to their land constructed shelters after the July demolition, but those were destroyed again on 4 August, 10 August, 17 August, 13 September, 13 October, and last week. Amnesty International admonished the Israeli government in its press statement. Philip Luther, Amnesty`s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: `We condemn these repeated demolitions that aim to forcibly evict the residents of al-Araqib from the land they have on lived for generations ... The fact that the village has been demolished seven times in four months shows that this is not some administrative mistake but a conscious Israeli government policy of dispossession.`
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