[News] 'They destroyed our dreams': Israel’s bulldozers target Palestinian women farmers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-women-farmers-bulldozers
'They
destroyed our dreams': Israel’s bulldozers target Palestinian women farmers
Shatha Hammad <https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/shatha-hammad>22
February 2021
------------------------------

After a five-kilometre walk from her home in the northern occupied West
Bank, 49-year-old Khitam Ismail arrived on her plot of land at six in the
morning, a routine she has maintained for years, and began to work.

Her constant cries over the recent loss of her beloved olive trees, which
she has spent more than a decade growing, can be heard in the area.

'I raised the trees as if they were my children'
*- Khitam Ismail, farmer*

On 6 December, Israeli bulldozers and dozens of army personnel raided the
Khallet al-Abhar area in Deir Ballout, on the outskirts of the Palestinian
city of Salfit, and carried out one of the largest tree uprooting
operations to date in the West Bank, destroying 3,400 olive trees in one
day.

According to officials in the local council, Israeli authorities also
levelled hundreds of dunams of land with bulldozers in Area C, which
residents fear comes in preparation for mass land confiscation in the
village in the near future.

Four months earlier, in August 2020, the Israeli authorities issued a
decision to confiscate the land under the pretext that it is “state land”.
While landowners submitted a petition against the move accompanied with
documents proving ownership, Israeli authorities carried out its decision
before the Israeli judiciary made its final judgement.

Ismail had lost 750 olive trees in one day, but that did not deter her from
returning to her land, and begin work from point zero.

A mother of three, Ismail told Middle East Eye that 15 years ago, she had
rehabilitated about 35 dunams of her plot, planting it with olive trees.

“I did not receive a warning to stop farming or a land confiscation order
during all those years. I put all I have in money and gold into this land,”
she said.

"I raised the trees as if they were my children. Last year we were able to
harvest and produce about ten tanks of olive oil.

“I was expecting to come out with 50 oil tanks this year, and that the
land’s oil production would rise in the next five years to 400-500 oil
tanks annually.”

Ismail's family has become dependent on this land, extending across around
550 dunams, as the main source of income. She had hoped that, through her
land’s yield, she would be able to send her three children to college.
Destroying dreams

“In just five hours, they destroyed all the hard work we exerted over the
past few years,” she said, describing the day of 6 December when the
Israeli army razed parts of her land.

“They were not content with just that, they even confiscated the trees
after they uprooted them, and some were chopped up and sprayed with
chemical material to kill them.”

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She estimates that her losses amount to about 300,000 shekel. In addition
to her olive trees, the Israeli army also destroyed 40 of Ismail's almond
trees, 40 fig trees and 30 grapevines. Areas growing with thyme and sage
were also razed.

“I would rather be dead than see this happen to my land. I have insomnia
and I don’t get more than three hours of sleep a night,” she said.

“Whenever I wake up, I imagine this to be a nightmare that I will wake up
from,” she said. “They destroyed us. They destroyed all our dreams and
aspirations.”

Ismail is one of many Palestinian women in Deir Ballout whose livelihood is
being negatively affected by Israeli settler expansion. The village depends
largely on agriculture for income, and on the key role that women play in
running these operations at all levels - from farming to harvesting the
crops. Most men in the village work in construction and many work in
Israel, so it’s the women who primarily take care of the land.

Deir Ballout is termed locally as the Salfit governorate’s “food basket”.
In the month of May, dozens of women can be seen working on the large
plains lining the entrance of the village, about 1,000 dunam in size,
harvesting *faqqous*, a popular and local cucumber-like vegetable, for
which the village is renowned.

According to Amna Fayez, head of the Deir Ballout-based Ibdaa cooperative
association for women’s agricultural production, about 450 women make up 90
percent of the agricultural workforce.

Fayez told MEE that the village plains have recently come under threat of
confiscation and have been impacted by sewage water flowing from nearby
settlements.
Strategic importance

Aisha Abdullah, 52, is another woman whose 300 olive trees, planted across
20 dunams of land, were destroyed on 6 December by Israeli bulldozers in
Deir Ballout.

“We started gradually cultivating the land 12 years ago. My husband,
children and I worked daily on our land, planting trees and taking care of
the land so that we could harvest the crops,” she said.

'[Women] have come to feel a direct threat is surrounding them. They are on
their plots of land for long hours, guarding them'
*- Amna Fayez, head of Ibdaa*

Yahya Odeh, head of the Deir Ballout local council, explained to MEE that
the village is located in an area considered to be strategic, and
consequently under constant threat by Israel. While it is situated in the
occupied West Bank, Deir Ballout lies only six kilometres away from Lod
Airport, and straddles the 1967 armistice lines.

“The village spanned 36,000 dunams in size in 1948. Today, there are 11,000
dunams left, 95 percent of which is classified as Area C, where there are
also 400 homes at risk of demolition,” said Odeh.

The town’s master plan only accounts for 740 dunam of an already built-up
area, he noted.

Fayez highlighted that with the recent developments, Israeli authorities
are directly targeting and impacting the women of Deir Ballout, their
livelihoods, income and families, by confiscating Palestinian land and
expanding settlements.

She said that they live in a constant state of fear of losing their lands
and have been showing reluctance to plant crops that may suddenly be
destroyed by Israeli machinery at any time, and without prior warning.

According to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, a Palestinian NGO
that supports and sustains farmers, the Israeli army and settlers uprooted
over 15,300 Palestinian-owned olive, almond and forest trees across various
areas of the West Bank in January alone, while the army approved the
confiscation of about 1,000 dunams.

"The women have suffered a great deal of psychological trauma. They have
come to feel a direct threat is surrounding them,” said Fayez.

“They are on their plots of land for long hours, guarding them."
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