LAND CONFISCATIONS GATHER PACE IN HEBRON
Latest News, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, April 10th, 2005
The Wall Prepares to Swallow the Land of Sammu and Dhahriya
Occupation Forces have issued confiscation orders in the villages of Sammu and Dhahriya in the far south of Hebron district, in order to carry out the latest phase of the Apartheid Wall, as laid out in the new February Wall Plan.
According to sources from the municipality of Sammu, confiscation orders were given for 10,200 dunums of land. 3,500 dunums of this will be taken from Sammu village, constituting 5% of the village’s total land, with the rest - 6,700 dunums – to be taken from Dhahriya’s land in the area northeast of the village, between Dhahriya and Yatta.
The planned path of the Wall will stretch east to Sammu from the Bedouin community of Arab Ramadin in the southwest corner of the West Bank. In between it will cut north, up to ten kilometers inside the West Bank, to annex the settlements of Shim’a and Otni’el.
This section of the Apartheid Wall is a continuation of construction in western Hebron, where the Wall starts from Surif and heads south on the land of the villages of Idhna, Beit Awwa, Deir al Asal, Beit Ar Rush, and Al Burj.
Lands confiscated from Sammu by the Occupation include the neighborhoods of Khirbet Gwen, Al A’tiriya, and Marah al Konbor. These lands are owned by numerous families and are famous for their fertile soil and producing crops such as wheat and malt. The destruction and uprooting of these lands will mean the main source of income for tens of families is lost.
In the 1948 Occupation, Sammu village lost 80% of its land. Now it will lose an extra 5% for the Apartheid Wall.
More Confiscation Orders Issued in Halhul and Beit Ummar for the Expansion of Colonial Settlements
For the past 15 years, Karme Tzur settlement has been sitting on the lands of the villages of Halhul and Beit Ummar. During that period the hunger of the colonialist expansion has not receded.
On Friday the 8th of April, Occupation Forces confiscated new lands for the settlement’s benefit. A second security fence is to be built around the settlement, stretching over three kilometers and with a 26 meter wide “buffer zone” in between the first and second fences.
The confiscation orders stated that 45 and a half dunums of land are to be taken. However, when villagers studied the official military map tracing the Occupation’s plans, it became clear that the amount confiscated will in fact be at least double. The strip of no-man’s land between the two security fences will be larger than the settlement itself.
This confiscation order will also annex several settler outposts to Karme Tzur settlement. Most of these outposts, consisting of no more than a few caravans, were established on the night after Ariel Sharon’s election in celebration of his success. There have recently been growing international calls for the removal of such outposts. In fact the Occupation plans not to dismantle them, but instead to incorporate them into the enlargement of existing settlements through the confiscation of more Palestinian land.
Karme Tzur settlement serves as one of the Occupation’s main watchtowers in the Hebron district, overseeing the new settler-only bypass road system that slices through the region and assists the Apartheid Wall in isolating Palestinian communities in ghettos.
Settlers of Karme Tzur are known for frequent aggressive attacks on Palestinian villagers and also destroying grape trees and poisoning farmland with chemicals.
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| Above: Hilltop settlements act as Occupation watchtowers throughout the West Bank. The settler’s unceasing hunger for expansion has led to the confiscation of yet more Palestinian land. |
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