Stolen Land in Idhna for Israel’s Apartheid Wall

In the town Idhna, a couple of kilometers from Tarqumia, seventeen thousand from a total of thirty-six thousand dunums have already been confiscated. Twenty-one hundred people live in Idhna and they are completely dependent on their land to survive. In 2005 three thousand dunums were stolen from the village when Israel stated to build the wall. On the other side of the wall there are seven thousand olive trees that belong to the citizens of Idhna. They can’t get to their land. Fifty wells have been either destroyed or made inaccessible at the same time as the wall was being built. The wells are on land behind the wall.

Five thousand dunums have already been stolen to establish a “buffer zone” in front of the wall. Buffer zones are established to make sure Palestinians will not be able to get close to the wall. The remaining nine thousand dunums are behind the wall.

“Missiles have not been stopped by the wall. We are no fools. We know the wall is being built by Israel because they want to steal our land and transfer the people that live here,” says Jamal, the mayor of Idhna. Twenty families have ended up on the other side of the wall. Contact with the village is difficult. “It will get worse when the wall is finished. To get to their houses, they have to ride on donkeys. There are no roads to where they live anymore. They have been destroyed by Israel,” Jamal continues. The families are being threatened with house demolitions if they refuse to move off their land.

There have been one hundred deaths in Idhna since 1956, as a result of attacks by both the Israeli army and settlers. Many people have been injured, but despite the difficult situation, Jamal only wants the occupation to end and for Palestinians to be able to live in freedom.

“We want peace between Palestinians and Israelis. We don’t want people to die.”

Palestinian “Freedom” of Movement?

Six hours. This is how long Palestinians have to wait and submit to control before they can pass the terminal at in the West Bank, which leads either into Israel or further on to the Gaza Strip. The soldiers at the terminal deny this. “All they need is a permission from the District Coordination Office (DCO) and ID-papers and they’ll get through in one minute,” says Schlomo, who is the commander at the terminal.

By three o’clock in the morning the Palestinian workers have already arrived at the terminal. In the best conditions they can pass at nine into Israel with their goods, or on to Gaza via Erez or Karni, the two possible crossings into the Strip.

Those who want to visit family members who are imprisoned in Israel also come to the terminal. Most of Israel’s prisons are in the south and no matter where you live in the West Bank, you have to pass through the terminal in Tarqumia to reach them. At five in the morning the visitors arrive. It is not until twelve midday that they can continue to visit their loved ones after submitting to humiliating security procedures and routine strip searches.

Schlomo, one of the soldiers, says, “All that’s necessary is permission from DCO and ID-papers and they’ll get through in one minute.” “It’s a lie,” says Hasan, another soldier, but changes his mind as soon as he sees us writing. Symbolically he holds his hand in front of his mouth and then says that it’s not a lie at all, and that he cannot speak about this matter.

Permission is needed from the DCO, to be able to visit the prisons. The families have to wait several months before permission is granted. The information given to us by Palestinians about their experience at the terminal conflicts with the soldiers version.

“Two days ago I saw a man who had been handcuffed, both hands and feet. They forced him to lay with his head on the ground and with his mouth open and then forced a gun in his mouth,” says Asam, who owns a car repair shop nearby.

The terminal was built ten years ago and was at that point a checkpoint. It was expanded two years ago and now Israelhas new ideas for how the terminal should function, which in practice means Palestinians will have to wait at the terminal for three days before they can go through. Because this terminal is used (in theory) to transport produce from farmers in the south to the markets in Israel, a system like this would be devastating for the Palestinian economy, which already is almost non-existent.