Life Resembles a Prison for WB Villagers

News, October 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Nasser Abu Baker

Agence France Presse

BARTAA, West Bank, 24 October 2003 — Cut off from the rest of the West Bank by a concrete wall to the south and forbidden from crossing into Israel to the north, the residents of Bartaa say their village has come to resemble a giant prison.

Life in Bartaa, which was first ruptured when the village was split into two at the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, took another turn for the worse when the Jewish state decided that it would be included within the contours of its controversial separation barrier.

The 5,000 residents of the village now find themselves in limbo — unable to travel freely in and out of Bartaa to other areas of the West Bank but also facing arrest if they try to cross into Israel itself. The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday for a resolution calling on Israel to halt construction of the barrier, an elaborate montage of concrete wall and wire fencing which frequently cuts deep into the West Bank.

But Israel rapidly made clear that it would press on with construction, regardless of the nonbinding resolution from a body which it sees as systematically hostile. The situation has left inhabitants at the mercy of Israeli soldiers who man a gate in the wall which is the only access in and out of the village.

“The Israeli Army is preventing the residents of the village from entering or leaving by the only door open in the wall unless they are prepared to apply for special permits by the army,” the president of the local council, Ghassan Qabha, told AFP. Qabha, whose extended family accounts for much of the local population, said that the regulations were laid down in an order sent to the council and signed by Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, head of Israel’s central command region which includes the West Bank.

“We have asked the residents to reject this order and not ask for these Israeli permits as this is an attempt by Israel to take away the village from the Palestinian territories,” said Qabha. The villagers’ sense of isolation has been further reinforced by the Israeli Army’s refusal to allow anyone who is not from the village to enter for the last three months.

“The wall has turned our village into a giant prison. We cannot come in or go out except by this gate which is controlled by the Israeli army,” said 35-year-old businessman Majdi Qabha. “Once they closed the gate for an entire week, which led to a major shortage of vital supplies and medicine.”

Their situation is further complicated by an inability to travel across the valley which separates them from their fellow “villagers” who found themselves on the Israeli side of the border post-1948. “If the army spots anyone crossing over the valley, they’re arrested for illegally entering Israel,” said Marwan Qabha.

Originally from the town of Tulkarm, which lies further south, local doctor Walid Habayeb fears that he will be unable to return to Bartaa if he leaves the village to go and see his family. “It has been several weeks since I last saw my parents in Tulkarm for if I leave I cannot come back because of the wall,” he said.

According to the residents, the situation has also disrupted life in the village’s schools, a number of whose teachers come from outside Bartaa. Thanks to its location on the Green Line which separates Israel from the Palestinian territories, the village used to be an important hub for merchants.

But the outbreak of the intifada three years ago and the construction of the barrier has hit business hard. With Jenin itself surrounded by the army since the start of the intifada, Muhammad Jaras decided some time back to move his clothes shop to Bartaa.

The villagers who planted their tent and flags there do not yet know on which side of their 2,000-strong community Israel’s separation barrier will leave them but they suspect that the army wants to use the hill for surveillance purposes.

And Palestinian residents of the small Rafha village near Ramallah set up a protest tent yesterday in a bid to prevent Israel from seizing land for the construction of its West Bank barrier. Members of the municipal council told AFP they received notice Wednesday from the Israeli civil administration that 1.6 dunams (half an acre, 0.2 hectare) would be seized “for military and security reasons”.

While it is a small area, the land affected is located on a strategic hilltop that overlooks both Jerusalem and Ramallah. The villagers who planted their tent and flags there do not yet know on which side of their 2,000-strong community Israel’s separation barrier will leave them but they suspect that the army wants to use the hill for surveillance purposes.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

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