Jayyus:
Gates: On June 3rd 2004 farmers coming back from working in their fields isolated behind the Wall gathered at the gate at 5:00 pm, which was the scheduled time for the gate to be opened for farmers to return to their homes. However, the Occupation Forces did not arrive to open the gate and the farmers had to wait for 45 minutes. During that time there were more than 115 farmers waiting at the gate, in addition to tractors, carriages and animals. When the Occupation Forces finally arrived, they let only a single person through the gate and then left again, leaving the rest of the people still locked behind the gate. The Occupation Forces did not return to open the gate for two hours, at which point the farmers became enraged and began screaming at the soldiers and attacking the gate in protest.
Ras Tira: On June 13th Ayed Mara’beh, 21 years old, from the village of Ras Tira was beaten by the Occupation Soldiers at the gate between Ras Tira â isolated behind the wall – and Ras Atieh. The Occupation Forces said that the Ayed did not have the required permit and began beating him until he fainted. Ayed was taken to the hospital in Qalqiliya. This is not the first time that the Occupation Soldiers on Ras Atiah’s gate have attacked the people trying to pass through.
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Qalqiliya:
Land Destruction Continues: On June 9th Occupation Forces bulldozed agricultural nurseries behind the Apartheid Wall in Qalqiliya. The nurseries are located at the entrance of Habla village southwest Qalqiliya city. The Occupation Forces uprooted 160 olive trees and destroyed the irrigation network. The nursery owned by Abd Allah Shriem from Qalqiliya city employs 28 workers with almost one million shekels in capital. Three years ago the Occupation Forces also destroyed 9 dunums of Abd Allahâs lands near Habla village for the bypass road for the settlement of Alfe Menashe.
The Occupation Forces continue to use wild boars as yet another weapon against people’s lands and as an intimidation strategy to prevent farmers from reaching their lands. Last week the wild boars released by the Occupation Forces in the isolated lands near Qalqilya attacked the farmer Omar Hanun, 50 years old. Hanun was not able to stop the boars himself, and called other farmers to help him. Jalal Zeid owns a poultry farm behind the Wall, he and his workers stay at the farm to protect it from the boars that attack in the night.
Azzun Atmeh
Isolation: The village of Azzun Atmeh has been isolated from the rest of the villages in Qalqiliya district since the completion of the Wall on the western and northern sides. The Occupation Forces have been preventing the people from entering the village unless they have ID cards that have an Azzun Atmeh address on them, which means that people living in Beit Amin and Sanniriya are not allowed to enter the village. These three villages all share the lands, many belonging to the same families, and share the same schools, yet are now separated from each other by the Wall.
The farmers from Beit Amin and Sanniriya are not allowed to access their lands in Azzun Atmeh. School children, mainly from Beit Amin, have to wait for hours until they are allowed to pass by Occupation Forces to their school.
Moreover, families are not allowed to visit each other, even during special occasions such as weddings. In Palestinian tradition, the bride’s family will take her from their village to her husband’s village, and all along the way the bride is accompanied by friends, family, and members of both villages who come to celebrate with her. However, this is no longer possible in Azzun Atmeh. If any member of the wedding party is from Azzun Atmeh, and any other from Beit Amin, or Sanniriya, then it impossible for all the family members to attend the wedding.
The Occupation Forces also prevent all vehicles from entering the village that come to deliver goods or services. Trucks delivering fuel are not allowed in under the pretext of not having a permit. The same pretext is used with Red Crescent medical vehicles which aren’t allowed to enter the village. Three times this week the Occupation Forces prevented the Red Crescent staff from reaching the village to give vaccinations to the children.
Occupation jeeps routinely chase anyone who tries to enter the village and arrest them. On June 14th Occupation Forces spotted a young man, Nabil Mustafa, 23 years old, from Sarta – a village to the east – entering Azzun Atmeh from their watch tower placed next to the Wall. Occupation Soldiers chased the young man and arrested him, and to this date no one in the village knows where he was taken.
Another Wall: Occupation administration officials have told the people in the village that they are going to give the people new confiscation orders soon. The people in the village think that the Occupation Forces are planning to put more barbed wire from the southwest side of the village to isolate and confiscate a piece of land where the settlement of Sha’are Tiqva is planned to expand.
Jenin:
***image2***A New Settler Road: For more than a month, Occupation Forces have been opening a new bypass road that will link an industrial passage planned near Zibda village with areas inside the green line. The Occupation Forces intend to use the gate as a central passage where goods can be transported, in addition turning it into a “civil administration base”.
The Occupation Forces confiscated 500 dunums for the passage. They have also uprooted thousands of trees for the new bypass road. Another bypass will be opened to connect the settlements east of the Wall, Khermesh and Dotan, with the settlements of Hinnanit, Shakid and Rihan west of the Wall.
These measures come as part of the Occupation’s plan for disengagement. The Occupation Forces are confiscating more lands and opening new bypass roads that connect settlements remaining to the east of the Wall to other settlements west of the Wall and inside the green line. The Occupation Forces are also building these “industrial gates or passages” in different areas in the West Bank where the Wall is completed, or near completion, to strengthen the Occupation’s grip on the Palestinian ghettos it is creating by building the Wall, and to maintain the dependency of the Palestinian economy on the Israeli economy.