Af Palæstina Fredsvagter
11.
februar 2004
Israelsk militær invaderer
Budrus
Vi har netop modtaget nedenstående rapport fra
internationale fredsvagter i landsbyen Budrus nær Ramallah på Vestbredden,
samt artikel fra dagens Haaretz "The village against the fence" af Amira
Hass - begge på engelsk
Muren omkring Budrus
Den
lille landsby Budrus har tiltrukket sig international opmærksomhed i sit
forsøg på at stoppe opførelsen af muren. Budrus og de omkringliggende
landsbyer Nihilin, Qibbya og Medea vil miste 90% af deres landbrugsjord ved opførelse
af muren. Muren er planlagt at blive bygget i en cirkel omkring de fire landsbyer
med kun én enkelt port hvor beboerne kan lukkes ud og ind.
Muren er på foranledning af en række menneskerettighedsgrupper til behandling i den isralekse højesteret. FN¹s generalforsamling har fordømt opførelsen af Muren på palæstinensisk område og d. 23. februar begynder den Internationale Domstol i Haag sin behandling af Muren. Både israelske myndigheder og politikere fra regeringspartierne er de sidste dage fremkommet med udtalelser om, at man måske nok bør flytte linieføringen af den fremtidige mur samt flytte dele af den allerede eksisterende tættere til den grønne linie. Til trods for den overordnede mangel på afklaring på murens fremtid, fortsætter opførelsen ved bl.a. landsbyen Budrus. Befolkningens stædige og vedholdende modstand her har gennem de sidste fire måneder forsinket opførelsen.
I morgen kl. 11 dansk tid gennemføres endnu en stor demonstration ved Budrus. Lokale beboere støttet af israelske fredsaktivister og internationale fredsvagter vil med fredelige midler forhindre murens opførelse.
Israeli Military Enters Budrus
February 11, 2004
Report
from the International Solidarity Movement
By: S'ra and Erik
The Israeli military entered Budrus, a rural village 3 kilometers from the Green Line in the Ramallah district in the West Bank, at least four times yesterday. Budrus is earmarked to be encircled by the Apartheid Wall in the coming weeks. Each time one to four army vehicles were present. During the incursions the Israeli soldiers used live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas.
Tear gas filled many
homes in the center of the village, making it very difficult to breath. Many elderly
people and children were badly affected.One 75-year old woman said, "I
thought I was going to die from the tear gas, it was so strong." Her
16-year old nephew was beaten by six Israeli soldiers while walking from the store
to his home, just meters away.
According to eyewitnesses the boy did nothing
to provoke the soldiers. The military entered one Palestinian's house by breaking
down the door but no one was home. One boy and one man were injured by rubber
bullets.
One home had a window shot out by a rubber bullet, the type filled
with metal and coated with a thin layer of rubber. These types of rubber bullets
are especially lethal and have caused fatalities. The hole in the window was exactly
at height of a person's head when standing. No one was hit by the bullet.
Abu Ahmed, a community leader, did not know why the Israeli military entered Budrus. "Maybe they are just trying to disrupt our lives more or maybe they have something else planned that we do not know about."
The Israeli government informed Budrus last Thursday that the construction of the wall will commence any day now. Every morning everyone in the village, both Palestinians and internationals, wake up to see if trees are being cut or if the wall is being constructed. The village does not know yet exactly where the wall will be built and if it will be concrete or fence.
In the last couple of days the preparation for the wall has increased dramatically. The workers, protected by private security forces, have been digging trenches to lay electrical wires and leveling the earth where the wall will stand. Yesterday olive trees that were donated by Rabbis for Human Rights and planted in a previous demonstration were destroyed by construction equipment.
Budrus and eight neighboring villages will be completely imprisoned by the wall. Budrus will loss 1000 of its 5000 dunums of land (4 dunums equal 1acre) due to the construction of the wall. This will include at least 3000 olive trees, much of the grazing land for the sheep and goats, and the land dedicated to the cultivation of wheat. Only one entrance gate is planned for the entire area, which will be controlled by the Israeli military.
This will almost completely obstruct the Palestinians' ability to travel to other areas in the West Bank. Families will be separated even further, there will be no access to universities, jobs, and hospitals, and agricultural products will never make it to markets. The preparations for the wall have already destroyed 60 trees in Budrus, and unfortunately more will be toppled as the bulldozers continue to invade the area.
This Thursday, February 12 at noon there will be another demonstration
in Budrus in the olive grove, next to the construction site of the wall.
Palestinians,
Israelis and internationals have participated in protests against the wall for
the last two months.
This report was based on information collected from community leaders and eyewitnesses from the village.
www.palsolidarity.org
www.stopthewall.org
www.womenspeacepalestine.org
The village against the fence
By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/392934.html
A serious-looking black dog, whose eyes looked almost hollow, freely crossed the naked strip of land west of the villages of Qibiya and Budrus, which stretches from the village of Rantis, about five kilometers to the north.
A young resident of Qibiya guiding the visitors among the olive groves and fruit orchards of his village, up to the route of the fence, hastened to cross the ditch that has already been dug on both sides of the route, and to disappear among the trees. It was soon clear why - an Israeli security vehicle was approaching from the north toward those walking on the exposed strip, as soon as it detected them.
The vehicle stopped and two men got out. One, the shorter and older, carrying a rifle, was from Kfar Yonah; the second was from a Bedouin community in the Galilee. The one with the rifle angrily demanded that the visitors who came on foot leave immediately, or he would call the police so they would explain, if you insist, that this is a closed military area, even if he had no papers to prove it. His friend, who served in the army for seven years and was discharged half a year ago, calmed things down before they heated up.
The one with the rifle asserted that
the presence of cameras encourages people to come and demonstrate, and that's
how the waves of riots begin.
"Isn't it you, by your work, who are causing
the waves of rioting?" he asked, and the question wasn't quite understood.
What are you talking about, we are doing our work, explained the younger man.
And of course I support the fence, so I won't explode with my family in a restaurant.
The "riots" the two were talking about are a series of demonstrations against the fence that have been held by the residents of Budrus for about a month. "We decided that unlike other places until now, where international peace activists conducted the battle against the fence and the Palestinians supported them, we, the residents of Budrus, would wage our own battle."
Those are the words of Ayad Murar, 42, a veteran Fatah activist, who with his brother Naim was among the founders of the popular committee in the village "for the struggle against the apartheid wall." The popular committee, he says, emphasized to the people that the battle against the bulldozers and the many soldiers and police who protect them must beconducted without violence.
Curfew and arrests
All residents answered the call to demonstrate - young and old, men and women. What began as a strike along the route of the fence reached a climax on December 30. Somebody saw a bulldozer approaching the olive grove. The speaker in the mosque quickly announced it, and everyone who was in the village ran westward, toward the grove.
School children ran out of the
classrooms, books in hand. Tear gas, rubber bullets and blows did not stop the
villagers, who dispersed and returned to stand or to sit in front of the soldiers
and the police, on the ground.
Eyewitnesses say that the female students sat
in front of the many soldiers, who retreated to their jeeps. The appearance of
several television cameras helped.
During the following days, the Israel
Defense Forces imposed a curfew on the village in order to prevent the residents
from going out to demonstrate.
Mainly young men violated the curfew and walked
to the olive grove, to prevent the bulldozers from doing their work. Up to this
week, the bulldozers have not returned to work - after they already uprooted about
60 olive trees. The people of Budrus attribute this to their stubbornness and
determination.
A few days after this demonstration, the IDF arrested Naim Murar. He was released on January 11, but didn't manage to be home for more than three days when the army came again to arrest him and his brother Ayad. The military prosecutor demanded that they be placed under administrative detention.
In the military court at the Ofer army base, the judge, Major Adrian Agassi, decided to release Ayad. "I found it proper to intervene in the decision of the military commander," ruled Agassi in his decision. "After all, we cannot allow the military commander to use his authority to order the administrative detention of a person only because of this activity [against the fence]. In my opinion, this is a mistaken decision that did not stem from clear security considerations."
But the judge decided to approve the decision of the military commander to place Naim Murar under administrative detention. As is customary in administrative detention, only the judge was allowed to peruse the classified documents given to him by members of the Shin Bet security services, and according to these documents, "the intelligence material attributes to him activity in support of terror, in the context of the Tanzim organization."
But in Budrus people are convinced that the second detention of Naim Murar - like that of eight other activists against the fence - is an attempt to dismantle the opposition in the village. From Budrus' threatened olive grove sounds of firing can be heard - sounds of training exercises. They come from the Adam military base, which is a few dozen meters to the west, 20-30 meters west of the Green Line.
In Budrus they believe that because of this army base, which is a few dozen meters from the Green Line, the route of the fence was pushed straight into the beautiful olive grove that they have been nurturing for decades. Budrus lost most of its lands in 1948 - many thousands of dunams, some count up to 20,000, remained on the western side of the Green Line.
Some land remained in the demilitarized zone, which both Israeli and Jordanian forces were forbidden to enter. Since 1967, say the villagers, the demilitarized zone has become Israeli, and they weren't allowed to return to work their land there as well.
The route that is planned according to the map of the Israeli security services looks as though it is right on the Green Line. But in reality, all the difference lies in several dozen meters east of the Green Line. Now, of the 5,000 dunams that remain to the approximately 1,400 residents of Budrus, they estimate that they will lose about one fifth.
Some of this land is being confiscated for the fence itself, part of the area of the village will remain behind the fence - between the fence and the Green Line. The villagers estimate that 3,000 olive trees, which cover anarea of about 5,000 dunams, will be lost under the teeth of the bulldozers or will be trapped in areas where entry is forbidden.
They figure that the "fence" - namely, two ditches that will be dug on both sides of it, and the two barbed wire fences, and the electronic fence with the sensors, and the patrol roads between them, and the watchtowers - will almost touch some of the most western houses in the village, including the school.
Imprisoned enclave
The occupation and preparation of the land here, west of Kibiya and Budrus, are being carried out in the context of the second stage of the building of the security fence. According to the plan, and as long as it has not been decided or proved otherwise, in the context of this stage two Palestinian enclaves will be created west of Ramallah.
These are two out of 81 Palestinian enclaves that have been created and will be created all along the fence, which are discussed in the report by B'Tselem. Some will be between the fence and the Green Line, some in small "loops" created by the fence, and some will be the result of "secondary obstacles," as the army puts it.
Budrus is one of the nine Palestinian villages that will find themselves in an enclave with an area of 53.2 square kilometers. These villages include Luban al Gharabiyeh, Rantis, Shuqba, Qibiya, Shabtin, Budrus, Midya, Na'lin and Dir Kadis. The village of Midiya will be surrounded on all sides by the separation fence, as in a loop.
According to the map of the Israeli security services, one could have concluded immediately that an enclave would be created here. The routes of the western and eastern fences are the same color, as though there is no difference between them.
Military spokesman did in fact explain to members of the support unit of the Palestinian negotiating division that the eastern fence would not be similar to the western one, and would apparently be composed of what is called a "secondary obstacle" (a system of ditches and barbed wire fences) and an eastern gate on the roads to Ramallah and the villages surrounding it - which would be locked and blocked off only in case of security alerts. But in any case, this promise does not reassure the village residents, who know that they are losing thousands of dunams of their land.
In the past three years they have already had a taste of checkpoints that prevented their access to the neighboring villages or to the district center, Ramallah. And even if the gate or the gates in the eastern, "secondary" fence are open most of the time - in Rantis, Budrus and the other villages they point to the maps and to the new political geography that is being created before their eyes.
The two small Palestinian enclaves that are being created west of Ramallah leave two large settlement blocs outside of them, which cut deep into the Palestinian territory and are joined within Israel itself, until one can no longer see that there was a Green Line.
"That's why we are fighting against this fence," says Ayad Murar from his home, talking about this new geography. "It is part of our struggle for a peaceful solution to the conflict - the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel."
Between November and December 2003, military orders began to be posted in the Rantis, Budrus and other villages, regarding the "temporary" seizure of land (until December 2005) for military purposes. According to these orders, which are signed by the chief of Central Command Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, the width of the strips of land confiscated from the villages will range from 68 to 490 meters. The entire length of the (primary and secondary) fence that will surround the nine villages in the enclave - 32.2 kilometers.
Meanwhile, some of the residents of Budrus continue to sneak into Israel on foot, to make a living, mainly in construction. Others, who have lost their jobs in Israel in recent years, have found various jobs in the Ramallah area. But if they are closed within an enclave, they are liable to lose these places of work. Palestinian employers cannot withstand the frequent incidents of lateness caused by the blocks and the checkpoints.
"Come to live in Ramallah, or leave the job," they are told. Grocery store owners are feeling the difference. People come in infrequently, buy on credit, they buy only what is essential. It's hard to imagine what else will happen when the large olive grove is crushed beneath the teeth of the bulldozers or is swallowed up on the other side of the fence, and when it won't be possible to work in Israel at all any longer.
Netavisen 11. februar 2004