West Bank colonisation surge

All over the West Bank, the signs are that there is no longer a feeling among the colonists that they should hide their inexorable spread into stolen land behind legalese or diplomatic pettyfoggery. Residents of Saeer village, south of al-Khalil / Hebron, said on Wednesday 29th that colonists had begun work on 1,500 dunums of lands confiscated for settlement expansion. Heavy equipment was brought to the area and lands bulldozed.

A day earlier, the Palestinian Authority cabinet condemned what it called "Israeli attacks on Palestinians and their property," saying that within the past week, in addition to the land confiscation in the southern West Bank, 40 dunums in Nablus had been appropriated by the Israeli military, and dozens of trees had been taken down as the construction of the "separation" Wall continues in Walajeh.

Also on Wednesday, several homes in the unrecognized Bedouin village of As-Sadir, in Israel's Negev region, were bulldozed to the ground, according to President of the Arab Democratic Party in Israel, Talab As-Sane.

He said the homes belonged to the Al-Freijat family, adding that the continued moves to demolish Bedouin homes in the Negev region was a "crime... wreaking havoc on the land and displacing peoples."

He accused Israel of targeting its Arab population, saying the country's "only aim is to steal the lands."

Earlier in December, 67 members of the extended Abu Eid family were displaced when their six concrete homes were demolished by police in Lyd.

The six buildings were among more than 100 in the city under immediate demolition orders, following an autumn Knesset decision to destroy an estimated 4,000 illegal housing structures in a plan said to cost millions of shekels.

Electronic Intifada reports:

More than 100 Palestinian protesters and their supporters blocked a main street in the city of Lyd on 28 December, demonstrating against the recent demolition of Palestinian homes and what residents say is a rise in racism and police brutality.

Palestinian women from Lyd sit on top of the rubble of their home after it was destroyed by Israel http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11709.shtml

On 13 December, officials with the Israel Lands Administration (ILA), the government agency that manages and leases state land, entered the Palestinian section of the segregated city flanked by bulldozers and hundreds of municipal, riot squad and border police forces. The bulldozers then demolished seven homes all belonging to the Abu Eid family in Lyd.

The demolition, which took several hours, made homeless 67 members of the entire family, including dozens of children, during one of the worst rainstorms of the season. Dozens of other Palestinian homes have been demolished over the years in Lyd, which is a few miles east of Tel Aviv inside the state of Israel.

Lyd is a so-called "mixed city," as is the neighbouring city of Ramle, with significant Palestinian minority communities living alongside the Jewish majority. Palestinian residents of these communities have been chronically discriminated against and brutalized by police.

Oren Ziv, a photojournalist with Israeli-based photography collective ActiveStills, witnessed the demolitions of the Abu Eid homes and told The Electronic Intifada that the family knew that the ILA had issued demolition orders against their homes, but they were given no notice of exactly when the destruction would take place.

"During the destruction, I climbed onto the roof of a neighbouring house and I saw several bulldozers demolishing the fourth house," Ziv said. "Many neighbours and a few activists were watching it all happen. I've been documenting [home demolitions] for seven years and this was one of the biggest demolitions I've ever seen."

Ziv added that when the bulldozers finished demolishing the seventh house, children were starting to come back from school only to find their homes reduced to rubble.

"People were trying to salvage their papers and belongings from underneath the destroyed homes," he said. "It was hard to find a solution for the family, especially during the terrible weather. They built a protest tent and a tent camp."

Ma'an News Agency reported that the homes were among more than 100 in the city "under immediate demolition orders" following a decision in the Israeli parliament to destroy an estimated 4,000 "illegal" housing structures.

Report: Israel demolishes 55 Jerusalem homes in 2010
Israel's Jerusalem municipality levelled 40 homes and forced 15 Palestinian families to rip down their homes by their own hands in the holy city in 2010, according to the Wadi Ain al-Halwa Information Centre.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k

Hebron a closed city during Jewish holiday

On Saturday 30 October in Al-Khalil much of the city was under alert for another Jewish holiday; the old city was overwhelmed with thousands of settlers and Jewish tourists. The atmosphere was tense and internationals were restricted from entering the area surrounding the Ibrahim Mosque until 4 p.m. Access to the mosque was completely denied to Muslims for the entire day as settlers had the whole mosque to themselves.

Due to the massive presence of settlers in the city, the weekly Shuhada Street demonstration was canceled. During the day a Palestinian activist working for B’tsellem was arrested while monitoring settlers and released only late that night.

On Sunday, ISM volunteers patrolled the city all day, following soldiers stopping Palestinians at random to check their IDs, and monitoring children on their way to school. Wadi Al-Hussein is a Palestinian neighbourhood close to Qiryat Arba, the settlement with a population of 5000 people.

On one of the settler-only roads, an old man approached us and told us about the situation of his 11-year-old grandson, Karam. One day while Karam was walking to school, settlers threw stones at him so he ran home scared. Shortly thereafter, soldiers arrived at Karam’s house to arrest him and bring him to prison in Ramallah. He was held for a week and released only on a bail of 2,000 shekels and house-arrest. He’s spent the last five months confined to his uncle’s home. Once a week the teacher brings the whole class to have a lesson with him. His family goes to visit him regularly but his mood is very low.

Since there are few internationals monitoring that particular area regularly, the ISM is going to step up its presence there. We (of the International Solidarity Movement) spoke to the headmaster of the school who told us that sometimes during the night, settlers break into the school to destroy property and shoot live ammunition. Teachers are often stopped by soldiers on their way to school, and have been strip-searched, or forced to drop their trousers, take off their shirts, and stand for an hour in front of the school while kids pass by. Israeli Soldiers often interrupt lessons by coming into the school, and in one case broke a teacher’s hand.

First published by http://palsolidarity.org

Hebron quietly stands against the colonials

The Israeli occupation authority resumed construction in the Revava colony, established on land of the Hares and Deir Estiyya villages north of Salfit district on Sunday. Eyewitnesses said that bulldozers were digging land in the southern sector of the colony in preparation for establishing new housing units.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/

The day before, demolition orders were made in a community in the Hebron district on Saturday, according to a land research centre. The An-Nawaj'ah family was ordered to remove tents in Wadi Ijheish south of Yatta. A family of 20, including 10 children, live in the tents. The family was also ordered to destroy troughs for livestock south of Susiya village, so that in all, 10 structures were slated for demolition, all vital to the community's survival. The centre said Israeli authorities were carrying out arbitrary demolitions to force Palestinians to leave their land, which would be requisitioned to build more colonies. Of course the citizens of Hebron / Al-Khalil will not take this lying down, as this quiet demonstration by a few brave men and boys, demanding the re-opening of Shuhada street shows:

Hebron is the West Bank in miniature

By Ulrike Putz

While diplomats and leaders seek to find a path to Middle East peace, Jewish 'settlers' in the heart of the West Bank's second biggest city insist that they are going nowhere. Indeed, their thirst for settlement construction is far from sated.

The centre of the city, the second largest in the West Bank, is no longer the lively place it once was. Now, a Jewish 'settlement' dominates the heart of the city. Ninety families have settled here -- a right-wing, ideologically motivated group interested in "taking back" Hebron from the Palestinians.

The result is nothing short of a ghost town guarded by hundreds of Israeli soldiers. For the benefit of 800 Jews living in Hebron, a city of 170,000 people, Palestinian life in the city centre has come to a standstill.

Indeed, a visit to Hebron can destroy any hopes that the recently started Middle East peace talks might find success. It is here in Hebron that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank shows its ugliest face.

The city centre is divided into sectors. There are streets that are open to settler traffic but which may only be used by Palestinian pedestrians. Some streets are closed to Palestinians altogether. Along Shuhada Street, once a main arterial through the Hebron market, all Palestinian shops are shuttered. The Israeli military ordered them closed "due to security concerns". More than 1,800 Arab families lost their livelihoods as a result.

Peace, even conciliation, seems extremely remote in Hebron. In Kiryat Arba, a separate ‘settlement’ at the edge of town, the settlers have erected a monument to Baruch Goldstein. A Jewish doctor, Goldstein stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque -- known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- in Hebron in 1994 and killed 29 praying Muslims.

There are both religious and political reasons for why the settlers have sought out Hebron. On the one hand, the Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered as the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. Its religious importance for the Jewish people is second only to Jerusalem. On the other hand, however, the settlements are seen as recompense for the 1929 massacre of Jewish residents of Hebron at the hands of Palestinians.
"They [the Palestinians] will have to understand that they can't stay here," says David Wilder, spokesman for the Hebron 'settlers'.

MORE AT: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,719203,00.html
Picture by Rina Castelnuovo