Community Voices
The Isolated Home of Hani Amer
Personal Testimony, PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, November 24th, 2003

Hani Amer is 46 years old from Mas-ha village, in the northwest of Salfit district. Amer and his eight family members live in a 165m² house, from the western side of the house expands the Israeli settlement Elkana; now the Apartheid Wall is being built to pass from Amer’s house and land, under the pretext as one of the many things that threaten “Israel’s security”.

Amer’s house is to be isolated from the rest of the village to the east and from the settlement from the west, thus the Occupation Military decided that they would have walls and fences surrounding the house from all sides. A concrete wall 8 meter high was built 20 meters to the east of the house which extends 40 meters. A second three meter high wire wall with a four meter barbed wire on top was built from the western side, a third wall surrounds the house from the south with a gate leading to the Wall’s road, and a forth wall from the north with a gate just next to the concrete wall. Amer’s family is only allowed through this last small gate-- opened only for them and not for other people coming to visit. The purpose from the other two gates is still unknown.

Above: Hani Amer’s home with the Apartheid Wall to the left and the settlement Elkana to the right. November 2003, PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

In a discussion with coordinators from the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Amer reported on the reality he is living:

“Of course there is a problem, we can not move whenever we want, they are restricting our movement to certain hours to which they do not maintain, they say the gates will open at eight or nine in the morning but they may not come before eleven. However in the end after all difficulties we manage to reach to some of the important places, especially our children going to school.

But if they put the Wall from the west we will not be able to move and I will not be able to reach my work in Kufur Qassem. I expect them to close all around the house, I know this house will be surrounded by walls, I live this reality. I don’t live in America, this is my reality, for fifteen years I had to have a permit to reach my land where the settlement Elkana was built, meters separate between my house and the settlement.

I have been working in pumping water for years for the Israelis, I know them very well, the Wall may be happening now, but there has been a wall here for fifteen years we understand our reality very well. It is expected that they take over the land and seal off on the people and starve them, we do not expect more from them.

Oslo was a big lie, they used it to deceive the people, what is required from us is to keep our homes and lands, life is something else. I know keeping a house or land is difficult but one’s life is at risk all the time and we have nothing to defend it with. I will do what I have to do, my duty is to stay in my house under all circumstances, which I know, will be hard but I prepared my self to handle it. My house is worth nothing in money compared to what they have offered me to leave it, but this is my house and I am satisfied with it. It is the way my consciousness is at ease, I don’t care about what they are offering, I only care about what I have.

They turned us into slaves, the day they signed the Oslo accords was my mourning day. Till that day despite all what Israel has taken we were still the people whose rights were violated by the Israeli occupation, and we could still fight for them; Oslo has made us strangers in our own land, and put the Israelis on the “right side”. Since that day we grew further from our claims and rights, the Palestinian Authority cannot be seen as an achievement, the agreements and the reality restrains the PA from achieving anything for the Palestinians.”

Above: View of the Apartheid Wall from inside Hani Amer’s home. November 2003, PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.