What Will Come Next After the Apartheid Wall Is Completed?In Tulkarem: A Buffer Zone for the Wall on the Eastern Side 300 Meters Wide, New Confiscations, and New Demolitions
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What Will Come Next After the Apartheid Wall Is Completed?In Tulkarem: A Buffer Zone for the Wall on the Eastern Side 300 Meters Wide, New Confiscations, and New Demolitions

***image2***During November 2004, four new military orders were issued to the people living in the villages south of Tulkarem. These military orders emphasize the step-by-step policy pursued by the Occupation in order to impose a new reality on the ground.

The completion of the Apartheid Wall in the northern part of the West Bank did not end the targeting of Palestinians living in the Tulkarem area by the Occupation Forces. On the contrary: the Occupation Forces are carrying out new measures aimed at the residents of these villages and cities now that they have been isolated by the Wall. This is the next step in a continuous policy whose goal is the total expulsion of Palestinians from their lands and villages.

The military orders state the following:
Military Order #40/75647-2004: States that any building up to 300 meters wide on the eastern side of the Wall is now forbidden, in an area extending from Zeita north of Tulkarem to Irtah south of Tulkarem.
Military Order #04/75648-2004: States that no building is to be allowed within a 300 meter wide area on the eastern side of the Wall, in an area extending from the village of Irtah just south of Tulkarem to the village of Kafr Sur.
Military Order #04/75646-2004: States that no building is to be allowed within a 300 meter wide area on the eastern side of the Wall, from the village of Kafr Sur south of Tulkarem to the village of Jayyus in the Qalqiliya district.
Military Order #40/79/ T-2004: This military order confiscates 3.5 dunums of land from the village of Shufa; the land is being confiscated so that a new military camp can be established.

Taken together, these military orders represent a new phase targeting Palestinians in this area. Three of the orders make it clear that the bans on buildings in the “buffer zone” surrounding the Wall aim to make the destruction and demolitions carried out by the Occupation Forces permanent. A buffer zone for the Wall on the eastern side 300 meters wide, new confiscations, new demolitions: these are all steps in a plan that aims at the total expulsion of Palestinians living on these lands.

Shufa

The building of a new military camp on land confiscated from Shufa, in the southern Tulkarem District is yet an additional, devastating stage in the Occupation. The village of Shufa is situated on a high hill south of Tulkarem, looking down towards a completed area of the Apartheid Wall. It also overlooks a stretch of Apartheid road, usable only by settlers, that connects the settlement of Avne Hefetz (built on lands confiscated from the village of Shufa) and the settlement of Enav (built on the lands of the village of Anabta, east of Tulkarem). The new military camp is part of the Occupation Forces’ plan to establish “military observation points” along the Wall, located every five to fifteen kilometers along its length. This will make the lives of people in the area even harder, since it means confiscating more of what is left of their lands.

Two weeks ago, the Occupation Forces opened a new road one kilometer long and ten meters wide, just to the south of Shufa. This new road will confiscate three dunums of land and will connect to the new military camp on the village’s lands, according to what the Occupation Forces told the people of Shufa.

Because of the settlement that was built on the eastern side of the Wall, Shufa, a village inhabited by 1,200 people, has suffered isolation from the rest of the Tulkarem district for more than two years. Now the building of this new road and military camp on lands confiscated from the village makes its condition of isolation even worse, and is clearly part of an ongoing plan to steal more and more land from the villages in this area.

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