[News] Palestinians mount nonviolent resistance campaign as Israeli forces escalate land confiscation

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Palestinians mount nonviolent resistance campaign as Israeli forces 
escalate land confiscation
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1809

(Bethlehem) Najib Farag
Thursday, 01 March 2007

Israeli forces have escalated land confiscation throughout Bethlehem 
during the past several days, targeting Umm Salamuna in the south and 
Beit Jala in the west. The Israelis are building the Wall through 
Bethlehem, further isolating the West Bank from Jerusalem. Thousands 
of Palestinians will be segregated from one another, human rights 
sources report.

In the Bethlehem District's southern town of Umm Salamuna the 
confrontations continue between the large contingent of Israeli 
forces who are confiscating the land and the residents who are trying 
to stop them.

Joined by foreign and Israeli supporters, the land owners have taken 
to standing in front of heavy equipment in the  campaign of 
nonviolent resistance mounted over recent weeks.

On Wednesday demonstrators held sticks to the soldiers' machine guns. 
Israeli forces violently arrested five Israeli and two foreign 
supporters. Mahmoud Zoahrah is a member of the Wall Resistance 
Committee in southern Bethlehem. The group represents 10 area towns 
and was formed several months ago to combat land confiscation and 
Wall construction.

"The most tragic situation is occurring," Zoahrah told PNN. "The 
bulldozers raised trees from nuts and lemons, to grape vines. In a 
few months 1,500 dunams of land are isolated in Umm Salamuna, in 
addition to the complete isolation that the coming weeks and months 
have in store for the entirety of southern Bethlehem."

The western Bethlehem District will also be hemmed in by the Wall. 
Chairperson of the Committee to Defend against Land Confiscation, 
Khalid Al Azzeh, informed PNN that "the so-called Israeli Civil 
Administration distributed 11 home demolition notices in western 
Bethlehem where the Israeli settlement of Gush Etzion is encroaching."

Ibrahim Attallah is among residents of western Bethlehem's Beit Jala 
City whose home is slated for wrecking. He has two weeks to appeal 
the Israeli decision in the Israeli court system. The 100 residents 
who the Israeli authorities intend to evict in order to expand the 
settlements and Wall have agreed to collective action and say they 
will not leave their lands or homes.

In addition to destroying the stone fence surrounding agricultural 
land near the Talitha School in Beit Jala, over which the Israelis 
have under full control as Area C, Israeli forces are targeting the 
entire area for Wall construction.

Al Azzeh said that Israeli forces deliberately demolish houses during 
the early morning hours to avoid any major protest by land owners. He 
pointed that the Israelis claim the reason behind the destruction is 
that Palestinians have not solicited them for licenses for the 
existing structures. But the real reason,  says Al Azzeh, is 
completing the Wall. Beit Jala will be surrounded by settlements, the 
settler bypass road and the Wall after the land is confiscated.

The same appeal that is circulated almost daily was issued again to 
international human rights institutions to pressure Israel to abide 
international law and stop the decades of looting Palestinian lands. 
"Dredging and demolition do not enable the search for a just peace," 
commented Al Azzeh. Beit Jala's Mayor said that the demolition order 
to establish the Wall here will lead to the isolation of 
approximately 7,200 dunams of agricultural land.

The only access will be through an iron gate in the Wall, and that is 
dependent on the mood of the Israeli soldiers, forewarned sources in 
the municipality.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20070301/b4e0d281/attachment.htm>