Despite Protests, Israeli Settlements Still Stealing Palestinian Land
source: http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/west-bank/1655-despite-protests-israeli-settlements-st...
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Palestine, August 1, 2009, (PalTelegraph) - Representing just a tiny piece in the enormous puzzle of settlements that litter the West Bank, the settlement of Karmei Tzur is striving to expand.
Founded just 25 years ago by students from the Zionist Har Etzion Yeshiva, 120 families, or 700 settlers - out of a total settler population of roughly 500,000 - currently inhabit Karmei Tzur. However, the settlement has several obstacles in the way of its desire to increase in size, notably its distance of only 100 meters from the large agricultural village of Beit Ommar with almost 15,000 Palestinian inhabitants.
Surrounded by rich agricultural land Palestinian farmers have been using for centuries, Karmei Tzur is gradually expropriating this land through the insidious use of "security fences" guarded 24/7 by the Israeli Occupation Forces - the IDF in the occupied territories - and armed settlers. When the fence was expanded in early 2007, incorporating the land of many Palestinians, the Israelis promised that the farmers weren't losing their right to use their land and that they could continue to access it. Majdi Za'aqiq is a Palestinian who owns land on the settlement side of the fence: "They say you can go Saturday or Sunday, 'Just tell us and we will let you go,' they say... but I don't need permission to go to my land. If I want to go in the morning, in the evening, whenever, it's up to me."
The army ordered that for one person to work one day - with limited hours - on the land, the Palestinian owners would need to give two weeks notice. Knowing full well that the majority of Palestinians would refuse to collaborate with the occupying forces, thus giving up their land to be legally taken by Israelis three years later, most of the land lies fallow. "All farmers with land on the other side of the fence refuse to cooperate with the settlement security," Za'aqiq said. Even in cases where Palestinians have tried to access their land in the way proposed by the Israeli military, they were consistently denied access or harassed by the army and armed settlers. Anti-occupation international and Israeli groups like Anarchists Against the Wall used direct action tactics to destroy parts of this fence in several instances throughout 2007.
Founded just 25 years ago by students from the Zionist Har Etzion Yeshiva, 120 families, or 700 settlers - out of a total settler population of roughly 500,000 - currently inhabit Karmei Tzur. However, the settlement has several obstacles in the way of its desire to increase in size, notably its distance of only 100 meters from the large agricultural village of Beit Ommar with almost 15,000 Palestinian inhabitants.
Surrounded by rich agricultural land Palestinian farmers have been using for centuries, Karmei Tzur is gradually expropriating this land through the insidious use of "security fences" guarded 24/7 by the Israeli Occupation Forces - the IDF in the occupied territories - and armed settlers. When the fence was expanded in early 2007, incorporating the land of many Palestinians, the Israelis promised that the farmers weren't losing their right to use their land and that they could continue to access it. Majdi Za'aqiq is a Palestinian who owns land on the settlement side of the fence: "They say you can go Saturday or Sunday, 'Just tell us and we will let you go,' they say... but I don't need permission to go to my land. If I want to go in the morning, in the evening, whenever, it's up to me."
The army ordered that for one person to work one day - with limited hours - on the land, the Palestinian owners would need to give two weeks notice. Knowing full well that the majority of Palestinians would refuse to collaborate with the occupying forces, thus giving up their land to be legally taken by Israelis three years later, most of the land lies fallow. "All farmers with land on the other side of the fence refuse to cooperate with the settlement security," Za'aqiq said. Even in cases where Palestinians have tried to access their land in the way proposed by the Israeli military, they were consistently denied access or harassed by the army and armed settlers. Anti-occupation international and Israeli groups like Anarchists Against the Wall used direct action tactics to destroy parts of this fence in several instances throughout 2007.
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