A change in the route of the Apartheid Wall near Jayyus sanctions the land confiscation
Latest News, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, July 28th, 2008
After a five-year battle against the Apartheid Wall, the Occupation courts presented the villagers in Jayyous with a decision that de facto sanctions both the Wall and the settlement expansion that it secures.
The Israeli Occupation Authorities agreed to change the route of the Apartheid Wall near Jayyus village to the north of Qalqiliya, by replacing a 2.4-kilometer stretch with 4.9 kilometers of Wall closer to the Green Line (approximately 4 kilometers inside the West Bank).
The change in the route of the Apartheid Wall will return 2,609 dunums (out of almost 9,000 dunums) of agricultural land to its Palestinian owners, while 5,585 dunums will be confiscated once and for all and will be used for settlement expansion plans. A further 277 dunums of land will be razed for the new path of the Wall. Farmers will be completely cut off from their lands that are on the other side of the Wall as the gates in this section of the Wall will be completely closed.
The settlement of Zufim is slated to swallow much of the annexed land together with an industrial zone the Occupation will build on the agricultural lands of Jayyous. The construction of infrastructure for the new part of the settlement called "North Zufim" has already begun. Construction of an electricity network has started and the creation of housing units is imminent.
Once again the Occupation promotes a court decision as a concession that presumably is to "legalize" the Wall. Yet, it simply seals the farmers' fate of dispossession. The Wall is not less illegal and no less a tool of colonization and settlement expansion; furthermore, Palestinians do not fight to re-route the Wall but to tear it down.
This land grab is only the most recent in a long history of colonization Jayyous has faced. After 1948, "Ra'anana" was built on part of the village's land. Later on, Zufim settlement was built on the land that remained. Using the Wall, Occupation forces have until now isolated some 70% of Jayyous' farmland and six out of Jayyous' seven artesian wells. They have uprooted over 6,000 olive trees. 85% of the people in the village were farmers working in their fields or tending cattle who are now, for the major part, unemployed.
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| Above: This map drawn up by the Occupation authorities was handed over to the people in Jayyous. The pink line shows the current path of the Wall; the blue and red line the path of the Wall approved yesterday; the yellow line a proposal that has been discarted. The green line at the bottom marks a proposed change of the Wall's path that is still under discussion in the Occupation courts. The blue areas mark Zufim settlement and its expansion areas, Zufim north and the planned industrial zone to the east. |
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