Author
Devlish May
Al Numan is a village in the South West Bank between Bethlehem and Jerusalem situated behind the internationally condemned, apartheid wall.
Al Numan’s existence was not considered by Israel when it extended Jerusalem’s borders to occupy Palestinian land in 1967. The people of Al Numan are now severed from the rest of Palestine by the walls’ infrastructure of electrified fences, watchtowers and army patrol roads gouged into the hillsides.
The Al Numan people now denied access to the West Bank, are not considered Arab Israeli, are barred from entering Eretz Israel, as they are not issued with blue ID cards, the necessary permit for life inside the wall.
Myself and Steve, a staff member of ARIJ (the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem) tried to gain access to Al Numan to get an update on how the village is coping with isolation.
One day previously Steve had been turned away by soldiers stationed at the village’s only opening, and was informed that entry was strictly forbidden to non AL Numan residents.
We had to gain access another way.
The illegal occupation of `Palestinian land increases day by day and one of the many processes for stealing their land goes like this:
Israeli settlers place caravans on Palestinian territory usually on hilltops, then the state installs power, pipes water and funds its own security guards. Cash incentives are offered for the settlers to remain, then the red roofed houses, or apartment buildings spring up on the ruins of stolen orchards, often constructed by dispossessed Palestinians desperate to provide for their families.
Then more checkpoints cluster around these ‘settlements’ spreading as follows:
The anatomy of checkpoint growth
Jeep plus soldiers, plus stinger equals the flying checkpoint phenomena, often developing at a strategic point, on the road near newly established caravans. Within a few weeks of everyone passing, enduring the stopping and searching, the random arrests and summary executions, between two to four concrete blocks appear, closely followed by little kiosks to shelter Israel ‘s armed militia from the intense sun.
Then as the settlement become more established, yet more army paraphernalia arrives, extra kiosks, watch towers, grey turrets, and then in a fan fare of Zionist paranoia the preparations for the tomb like wall construction on pirated border lines, replete with turnstiles and roads dynamited out of the beautiful hills of Palestine.
So the agricultural land of villages such as Bilien, is annexed by the wall, accessible only through gateways manned by bored and often volatile young soldiers granted the power to deny farmers access onto their own lands.
So Al Numan is entirely encircled with the electrified fences, watchtowers and gates, the villagers are no longer free to move.
This is the 21st century enclosures act, combined with a brutal new improved style of 19th Century colonialism as enshrined in historic memory of the genocide and land possession of the Native American people.
So we discovered an uncomfortable, and risky route into the village. On our first visit we spoke with village women who complained of food and gas shortages, since the vegetable delivery vans were prevented by the army from entering Al Numan.
On our second visit we spoke with two of the village leaders Jamal Darwari and Yousef who described their daily struggles with the enclosure, such as the destruction of Al Numan’s water pipes during the construction of the walls illegal patrol highways. The replacement pipes are just small plastic tubes of insufficient strength to contain the water pressure needed to supply Al Numan and have ruptured numerous times leaving the village without running water for ten days at a time and huge water bill.
On our first trip whilst taking tea at someone’s house I noticed that their water was taken from rain full collected in large containers.
Two ancient houses had recently been demolished for allegedly not having building permits and five more houses are due for demolition.
Israel illegally occupies the whole of the west bank without permits so this is just more of the daily dose of hypocrisy Palestinians are faced with.
E-mail