Deir Ballut: Occupation Forces Begin Bulldozing Village Lands for Apartheid Wall’s Construction - Palestinians Resist Latest Wave of Ghettoization Credit: The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. Date: March 16th, 2005.
Work on the Apartheid Wall here began in June 2004. Sustained popular resistance from Deir Ballut and Zawiya villagers began at the same time as the building of the Wall with daily demonstrations by huge numbers of people from the villages. Eventually, the number of people who were being seriously injured, and the sheer resilience of the people of Deir Ballut forced the Occupation Forces to stop work on the Apartheid Wall for six consecutive months. Occupation Forces returned briefly in December to resume bulldozing with new maps for the Apartheid Wall which they claimed contained “modifications” (see map).
However there was little difference between the new maps and the original plans to expropriate and make Palestinians prisoners in their own lands. Villagers were not fooled by the Occupation Forces and their lies. Friday the 5th of March marked the return of the Occupation Forces to Deir Ballut. They are currently engaged in a colonialist project carving out more than 390 dunums of the village's lands. The Apartheid Wall which will completely isolate it from the Salfit District and the surrounding towns.
Above: Apartheid Wall Footprint: Deeply embedded into the landscape of Deir Ballut, the Apartheid Wall footprint is the first step of the Bantustanization of this region. In the western area, the Wall will ghettoize three villages in total (Deir Ballut, Zawiya, and Rafat). Forcing the area into a bantustan isolated from surrounding villages and towns, villagers will have no connection with the outside world except through the Zawiya “tunnel”, which leads to Masha village in the north. The “tunnel”, referred to as a “hole” by Palestinians, will be under control of the Occupation Forces. They will regulate and determine Palestinian life and movement through it.
Above: The Path of Destruction: Occupation Forces and their bulldozers continue the path of destruction for the Apartheid Wall. When completed villagers (assuming they have passes and are allowed to access the Zawiya “tunnel”) will have to make a mammoth journey to reach the key city of Salfit which provides essential educational, cultural, social and economic services. Villagers will be forced to detour far to Qalqiliya, then to the city of Nablus, navigating around the north of Nablus, in order to reach Salfit city. What is now a short trip will soon require a full day’s travel.
Above: Occupation Forces and their entourage of landscape architects and technical experts resume the destruction. Palestinian youth throw stones. Without any international pressure on Occupation to halt its racist project and abide by the ICJ ruling to tear down its Apartheid Wall, Palestinians risk their lives on a daily basis in their brave resistance of the ghettoization project.
Above: Demonstrators gather in the village overlooking the destruction of the Occupation Forces. The people of Deir Ballut have been continually defending their lands and resisting the Occupation Forces since land confiscation and destruction began in June 2004. Yet the painful history of land expropriation goes back much further. Before 1948, the village’s total land area was about 40,000 dunums. However, after the Nakba in 1948, almost half of the village’s lands were occupied, while another 4000 dunums were confiscated as “state lands”. During the 1980s Occupation Forces confiscated an additional 1200 dunums of Deir Ballot’s land to build a settler-only bypass.
Above: A Palestinian woman grieves over the village land confiscated by the Occupation Forces. Settlement expansion is set to escalate in the region as part of the colonial Zionist project on the West Bank.
Above: “Humanity Shame on YOU”: Demonstrations have been occurring almost daily in Deir Ballut. This one from the 26th February lambasted the international community for its complicity in the Colonial Zionist Project of the Occupation. In total the Wall costs some $3.4 billion, approximately $4.7 million per kilometer.
