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Apartheid Wall destroys Beit Surik’s Lands
Latest News, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, March 2nd, 2005

Above: A woman from Beit Surik village stands on her land confiscated for Har Shmuel settlement and the Wall.

Occupation Forces have started destroying lands in Beit Surik village northwest of Jerusalem for the Apartheid Wall. The Occupation bulldozers began razing lands in the northwestern part of the village on the 26th of February next to the settlement of Haradar. Haradar was built on 1500 dunums of land stolen from the village in 1980. Occupation Forces are also working in the southern part of the village where the destruction of lands for the Wall’s path extends from the nearby village of Qatanna.

In addition to the large areas of lands already confiscated by the Occupation from Beit Surik - in the Occupation of 1948 for no mans land and for the settlements of Mevasseret Zion and Haradar - the Wall Footprint confiscates 15% of what remains of the village’s lands. Moreover, the Occupation Forces have moved the Wall onto the most fertile lands of Beit Surik, in response to the demands of settlers in Haradar that the Wall was running too close to the settlement and should be moved closer to the Palestinian village.

The people in the village have been determined not to let the Wall destroy their land and have been defiant in resistance, with several organized activities against the Wall since the 26th of February until present. Gathering on the threatened lands, villagers marked February 26th as the first year anniversary of four martyrs who were killed by Occupation Forces on the nearby Village of Beddu, People in all seven villages of northwest Jerusalem organized a huge demonstration commemorating the memory of the four martyrs, emphasizing their insistence on continuing their resistance against the Wall and Occupation.

On the 29th of February, Occupation Forces arrested village mayor Abu Sufian while he, together with the rest of the people in the village, tried to prevent the Occupation Forces from destroying their lands.

Above: The fertile land of the Beit Surik village set to be destroyed by the Wall. The settlement of Haradar in the background was built on 1500 dunums from the village land in 1980s.