Two Years in Jayyus Credit: PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. Date: December 15th, 2004.
Construction of the Apartheid Wall by Occupation Forces in the village of Jayyus, located in Qalqiliya district, began in October 2002. During the first stage of the construction of the Wall, 72% of Jayyus’ lands, some 8,600 dunums, were confiscated and now fall behind Wall. The Wall now totally separates the people of the village from their livelihood (70% of the 3,000 inhabitants of Jayyus have been totally dependent on agriculture). Tens of thousands of trees have been uprooted, and valuable water resources, olive and citrus groves, and greenhouses are isolated behind the Wall. Beginning in October 2003, orders from the Occupation Forces stipulated that the inhabitants of Jayyus are prohibited from crossing into the isolated areas unless a “permit” from the Occupation “Civil Administration” is obtained, which can only be done by land owners who “prove” that they have land residing behind the Wall or are “officially registered” workers. Now, in December 2004, Occupation Forces have begun constructing a new colonial settlement, “Nofei Zufim” (which expands on the currently-existing settlement of Zufin, established in 1993 on land confiscated from Jayyus village), on these isolated lands. The construction of this new settlement will seal the inhabitants of Jayyus into a ghetto of forced impoverishment. (See map below) During this two-year period, the people of Jayyus have continually resisted the process of destruction and land confiscation whose goal is their total demise. The photos below document the struggle against the Apartheid Wall in Jayyus over the past two years. For Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Poster Map Click Here
Above:A View of Jayyus: This photograph, taken in July 2003, shows how the zigzagging path of the Apartheid Wall is devised to isolate the people of Jayyus from their lands and ensure maximum land confiscation. Following the annexation of these lands, which the Occupation legal system has legitimized, another colonial settlement, “Nofei Zufim” (or North Zufin), has begun to be built; Occupation bulldozers have already begun working there. Because of its location, this settlement will complete the goal of totally cutting off the people of Jayyus from these lands. Thus behind each stage of this process of turning Jayyus into an isolated Bantustan can be viewed a single clear strategy for making life for the people living in the village unlivable and unsustainable.
Above:Destruction of Trees and Confiscation of Land in Jayyus: Occupation bulldozers at work uprooting and destroying citrus trees belonging to the village of Jayyus. Visible in the background are greenhouses belonging to the village that have been totally isolated from the people of Jayyus by the Apartheid Wall. The condition of these greenhouses has deteriorated terribly since they were isolated by the Wall, because the residents of Jayyus cannot reach them in order to maintain them. During the first stage of the Wall’s destruction, these areas were declared “military zones” by the Occupation Forces and were totally inaccessible to the people living in Jayyus village.
Above:Holding On to the Tree Before It Is Uprooted: A young boy stands in front of an Occupation Forces’ bulldozer as the entire area is razed to the ground for the footprint of the Apartheid Wall. The people of Jayyus have been continually defending their lands and resisting the Occupation Forces since they began the land confiscation and destruction process of building the Apartheid Wall in October 2002.
Above:October 2002: Occupation Forces use huge Caterpillar bulldozers to uproot olive trees in the village of Jayyus to prepare the construction of the Apartheid Wall. The uprooting of these trees took place in the middle of the olive harvest season, as the Occupation ensured, while destroying the people’s lands and livelihoods, that the fruits of the harvest could not be collected or used even for one last time. The Occupation similarly has targeted other villages along the Wall’s path during various harvest seasons, ensuring that the crops and their markets are completely destroyed.
Above:October 2002 : During the olive harvest season in October 2002 , the uprooting of olive trees by Occupation Forces was met with great resistance by the people of Jayyus. Here people from Jayyus village confront Occupation soldiers and bulldozers in defense of their land and trees. By October 31, 2002 , after just the first month of destruction related to building the Wall, Occupation Forces had already uprooted 750 olive trees in Jayyus.
Above:July 2003: Massive numbers of Occupation bulldozers and heavy equipment work day and night to complete the first phase of the Apartheid Wall in Jayyus. The cost of building the wall is approximately $4.7 million per kilometer; much of this money, of course, comes from funds provided to Israel by the United States and Europe.
Above:July 2003: Another view of Occupation forces hard at work on the Apartheid Wall. In the background is the settlement of Zufin; settlers and Occupation Forces have been central to the overall strategy for the violent isolation of the people of Jayyus from their land. Now the settlement is undergoing massive expansion, and a new settlement, “Nofei Zufim,” is in the process of being built on lands isolated from Jayyus.
Above:July 2003: In July 2003, families from Jayyus began sleeping in tents on their land, which has been isolated by the Apartheid Wall. Within a week, Occupation soldiers forced the families off these lands, destroyed the tents, and confiscated the identity cards of more than 40 farmers from Jayyus. By this time, some 300 families had lost their only source of income because they could not reach their land.
Above:The Isolation of Water Resources by the Wall in Jayyus: The Apartheid Wall has isolated many of Jayyus’s most important water resources, which are now inaccessible to people living in the village. A total of seven wells and one large tank with a capacity of 1,000 cubic meters (shown in the photo above) are now isolated behind the Wall. The separation of wells from land and communities by the Wall, as in Jayyus, means that isolated lands will inevitably dry up. This in turn makes possible the commonly used pretense that such lands are “uncultivated,” according to the Occupation Forces, and these lands are subsequently confiscated. So that which has not been already destroyed by bulldozers can be ruined by other means. In the background of the photo is the colonial settlement of Zufin.
Above:Military Gates and the “Permit” System: Farmers in Jayyus are forced to wait at two military “access gates,” which are open only at certain unpredictable and arbitrary hours of the day, in order to reach their isolated lands. Only those who have obtained temporary, conditional permits—which must be renewed every few months and which are available to very few people—can pass through the gates even when they are open. In reality, on many days the gates simply remained locked and no one from the village can reach their isolated lands. The gates and the permit system are simply other means by which Israel seeks to legitimize the Wall and the confiscation of Palestinian land, and intensify the humiliation which Palestinians suffer under all aspects of the Occupation in its aim to expel the Palestinian people.
Above:Jayyus Today (December 2004): An Occupation bulldozer destroying the land isolated from the village of Jayyus behind the Apartheid Wall. Occupation Forces are currently at work constructing a new settlement, “Nofei Zufim” (which expands on the currently-existing settlement of Zufin), on these isolated lands. If it is completed, this new settlement will cement the process of isolating the people of Jayyus from their lands along with the final and total destruction of their livelihoods, part of Occupation plans to eradicate Palestinian agricultural markets in their entirety. The passing of time will allow the Occupation to completely confiscate all of these isolated lands for further settlement expansion while ensuring the walled-in Bantustanization of the people. This is the reality of the Apartheid Wall in Jayyus: it is intended to cause the total demise of Palestinian life.
