Israeli campaign of West Bank destruction moves on to region’s food basket

Ao vivo Clique aqui para pesquisar Inscreva-se Menu de navegação caret-left caret-right Recursos | Conflito Israel-Palestina Campanha israelense de destruição da Cisjordânia avança para o celeiro de alimentos da região Campos agrícolas palestinos são arrasados enquanto a expansão violenta de colonos israelenses se espalha para a Área A da Cisjordânia ocupada.

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The destruction stretched for kilometres: Whole fields of olive groves razed, structures reduced to twisted metal, Israeli flags planted as far as the eye could see – all the way to the strategically significant Arraba Junction and even past the red pylons marking the boundary of Area A, which is technically under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Al-Uraidi passed the first bulldozer completing its destructive work on the al-Fari family’s land on Thursday. Briefly, two Palestinian women from the family could be seen pleading with two soldiers, who kept them back from the machines finishing off the last of the family’s olive groves.

A família disse mais tarde que seus telefones foram confiscados durante a remoção, impedindo-os de filmar, e que seus documentos de identidade foram retirados e fotografados.

Um segundo bulldozer trabalhou simultaneamente mais abaixo da estrada, demolindo mais oliveiras; em outro terreno destruído, famílias recuperaram madeira de árvores arrancadas.

Along the road, rubble of demolished homes and structures remained – days, weeks and months after the Israeli military first began widespread razing operations here.

Often backed by Israeli soldiers, settlers have long attacked Palestinian-owned homes, businesses and farmland across the occupied West Bank. Such attacks have gathered pace after the launch of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in October 2023 and have become particularly violent in recent weeks.

Especialistas dizem que os ataques cada vez mais se encaixam na definição de pogrom.

In his office, Ahmed Arda, the mayor of Arraba, sat with his top button undone. His phone rings non-stop these days as his town is suddenly hemmed in, he said, by the Mevo Dotan settlement to the west, the newly founded Emek Dotan settlement to the north and several new Israeli settler outposts to the south.

Os assentamentos e postos avançados israelenses na Cisjordânia são ilegais sob a lei internacional.

The Arraba military camp and four settlements in the northern West Bank were evacuated as part of Israel’s 2005 disengagement – leaving the area relatively free of settler infrastructure for two decades, except for Mevo Dotan to the west.

Após outubro de 2023, Arda disse que 1. 500 dunas (1,5 km²) de terras agrícolas a oeste de Arraba e perto de Mevo Dotan ficaram inacessíveis por colonos – uma duna equivale a 1.

But the situation has deteriorated dramatically since March, when the Israeli military announced the reoccupation of the Arraba military camp to the east.

Two months later, in May, the first moves came to establish Emek Dotan, a new religious settlement on 220 dunams (0. 2sq km) of Arraba’s land to its north. Caravans and bulldozers soon arrived under military escort.

On August 9, Emek Dotan was formally inaugurated, with a ceremony attended by Israeli ministers. According to Arda, settler attacks from the new settlement commenced the same day, while settler outposts have since been built to the town’s south.

Around the same time as the opening of Emek Dotan, Arda was awoken in the middle of the night by Israeli security forces. He recounted the soldiers demanding he suppress what they called “incitement” – telling him to instruct mosque imams to stop posting updates on Facebook and stop locals from “going after” settlers.

He refused the soldiers’ demands outright. “We are people living on our land, living in our country – we want to live in peace,” he told them. “You are the ones who came at us and this land is ours.

It’s ours today, it was ours yesterday, it’ll be ours tomorrow.”.

Matando árvores que são ‘como meu próprio filho’.

A Planície de Arraba – pontilhada com fileiras de campos cultivados, estufas e oliveiras em todas as direções – é a área mais produtiva agronômicamente na Cisjordânia do norte.

Its 33,000 dunums (33 sq km) of arable land sustain not just Arraba but surrounding communities across the Jenin governorate, which annually yields the most olive oil of any governorate in the West Bank.

In recent weeks, Israeli authorities have issued notices ordering the removal of trees and vegetation along a roughly seven-kilometre (4. 3-mile) stretch, raising fears among dozens of landowners in the area of a much larger clearance in the coming days and weeks.

Separadamente, as autoridades israelenses emitiram um conjunto de ordens militares neste verão, cobrindo mais de 300 dunas (0,3 km²) na área.

Aproximadamente 250 árvores que pertencem à família al‑Uraidi ampliada também foram arrancadas nesta semana, segundo o irmão de Kamal, Ahmed, em terra classificada como Área A, em vez de Área C, que está sob controle israelense completo.

At night, residents say, armed settlers have begun destroying trees themselves and grazing animals on villagers’ land; one Palestinian was treated for gunshot wounds last month after a settler shooting.

Landowners with olive trees have been presented with notices ordering their destruction for “security purposes”; locals have been told it is to provide soldiers in the new military bases in the area a clear line of sight across the fertile Arraba plain.

At night, armed settlers have begun destroying villagers’ lands themselves. On September 1, Naim al-Sha’er lost 400 fig trees after settlers cut through his iron fence in the middle of the night.

O prefeito e os moradores dizem que a coordenação entre colonos e soldados deixa claro o propósito da campanha. “They want to destroy, they want to take control, they want to confiscate – all under the banner of these labels,” disse Kamal al-Uraidi.

According to Arda, the Arraba mayor, 220 dunams (0. 2sq km) have been confiscated for the Emek Dotan settlement. So far, an additional 223 dunams have been bulldozed during these recent uprooting operations, with more notices being presented to landowners daily.

An additional 2,800 dunams (2. 8sq km) of Arraba’s farmlands have recently been rendered inaccessible by either settler attacks or closed military zone orders, said the mayor.

Enquanto cerca de 70% da população de Arraba, que totaliza 13. 000 habitantes, depende da agricultura da terra fértil, agora, tudo isso está sob ameaça. “They want to turn most of the Palestinian people into refugees, living in camps,” said Arda.

In addition, 13 agricultural, commercial and industrial facilities have already been demolished stretching to the nearby Arraba junction, with an additional 54 demolition notices waiting to be carried out.

Cerca de um quarto das estufas na região foram danificadas, destruídas ou tornadas inacessíveis.

Al Jazeera reached out to Israeli authorities and the military for comment on the events described in this article, but no response has yet been received.

Arda sees a strategy behind the particular targeting of Arraba and its junction, a key route towards Jenin and the surrounding villages. “Look at Arraba’s geographic location,” he said.

Dror Etkes, cofundador da organização de vigilância de assentamentos israelenses, Kerem Navot, tem dedicado quase duas décadas ao mapeamento das apreensões de terras israelenses na Cisjordânia.

Ele diz que o que está acontecendo ao redor de Jenin é uma aplicação cada vez mais audaciosa de um modelo usado em outros lugares.

What stands out about the current moment, he said, is that the campaign is reaching into Area A itself. Israel has established a new military outpost in the emptied environs of the Jenin refugee camp within Jenin itself, while south of Arraba, it has issued land seizure orders for a new settler road bypassing the nearby village of Qabatiya and connecting the Mevo Dotan bloc with settlements east of Jenin, ultimately towards the Jordan Valley.

The road, Etkes said, would physically bisect the northern West Bank along an east-west axis. “This is absolutely the most extreme measure which the Israeli authorities have taken until today,” he said, arguing that it fundamentally violates the Oslo Accords, which were first signed by Palestinian and Israeli leaders in the early 1990s.

O método, disse ele, é familiar, com táticas semelhantes em andamento no Vale do Jordão, a leste: “Dissect and control – you need few settlers, soldiers, a lot of violence, and this is how things work”.

Shortly after the bulldozers finished, family members gathered beside Khalil al-Fari’s home, still in shock, on lands they had tended since their expulsion from Haifa during the 1948 Nakba.

All of the al-Fari family’s 150 trees have been wiped out completely and 300 of their neighbour’s trees have also been destroyed in recent days. “There are households depending entirely on the [olive picking] season,” said Khalil, who was also given separate demolition orders in March for a car wash he owned.

The mild chatter among the group of family members beside Khalil’s home suddenly stopped when another bulldozer approached. At a snail’s pace, it crawled its way past them.

Tudo que a família pôde fazer era sentar em silêncio e observar.

No entanto, o jovem pai permaneceu desafiante. “Para nós, é sempre a oliveira que nos mantém enraizados nesta terra. Você vem e a desarraia pensando que pode apagar nossas raízes?”.

No, you can’t erase our roots. Our roots go deeper,” said Ahmed. “Sure, you uprooted the tree and you broke the trunk and you pulled the tree out of the ground – but the roots are still there.

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