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<h1 class="page__title title balance-text" id="page-title">Told to
leave, determined to stay: Bedouins of the Jordan Valley</h1>
<header class="node__header">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/mohammad-alhaj"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Mohammad Alhaj</a></span>
<br>
<b><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/told-leave-determined-stay-bedouins-jordan-valley/15476">https://electronicintifada.net/content/told-leave-determined-stay-bedouins-jordan-valley/15476</a></small></small></small></small></b><br>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2016-02-02T23:44:00+00:00">2
February 2016</span></span> </p>
</header>
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<p>On the sparsely populated northern stretch of the occupied West
Bank’s <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jordan-valley">Jordan
Valley</a> live tens of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bedouins">Bedouin</a>
families.</p>
<p>Neglected by both the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-authority">Palestinian
Authority</a> and harassed by the Israeli military, these
families have to survive without running water or electricity.</p>
<p>Any water wells dug by the families themselves will likely be
destroyed by Israel, which maintains strict control over water
resources in the occupied West Bank. Israel does not issue
building permits for more permanent structures. Any attempt to
build such structures will likely end in demolition.</p>
<h2>Unanswered appeals</h2>
<p>Appeals to the PA to help Jordan Valley communities secure vital
infrastructure like roads and water pipes or access to education
and health care have so far been in vain. Bedouin children have to
travel nearly 20 kilometers or more than 12 miles to reach the
nearest schools in the towns of Tubas or Tammoun. And there are no
Palestinian emergency services in the area.</p>
<p>“We used to welcome [PA] officials when they came with
photographers and reporters,” said local resident Abdulrahim
Bsharat. But 90 percent of the promises they brought have come to
nothing, he said.</p>
<p>How hard is it for Palestinian officials to “be honest with their
people?” the 66-year-old asked. He lost a son after an accident.
With an ambulance arriving six hours later, the boy bled to death.</p>
<p>Ibrahim Ahmed Salem is tired of unfulfilled promises. The
35-year-old waited years for a solar power unit for his home, one
that might allow him to watch a few hours of TV and charge cell
phones. When his neighbor received one from the relevant
department in the PA, and he didn’t, however, he decided there was
no point in waiting any longer. He sold a number of sheep and
bought his own.</p>
<p>The last assistance he received from the PA was 40 kilograms or
nearly 90 pounds of wheat. That was in 2008.</p>
<h2>Shrinking land</h2>
<p>Sheepherders for many generations, the Bedouins have seen the
space for their traditional livelihoods diminish over the decades
since the Israeli occupation of the Jordan Valley in 1967. <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-settlements">Israeli
settlements</a> continue expanding while the army keeps
appropriating territory for training or as <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/closed-military-zones">closed
military zones</a>, excluding those who have long lived and
farmed there.</p>
<p>These practices and settlement expansion have led to the <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/jordan_valley">demolition of
hundreds of homes</a> and the <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/video/20150824/temp_evacuations_in_jordan_valley">“temporary”
displacement</a> of whole Bedouin communities. Under the latter
practice, communities have been repeatedly uprooted — sometimes
every few days.</p>
<p>Israel has made little secret of its determination to hang on to
the Jordan Valley under any final political agreement it would
strike with the PA leadership, and it has built large agricultural
settlements along the stretch that borders Jordan.</p>
<p>According to the Israeli human rights group <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">B’Tselem</a>,
<a href="http://www.btselem.org/jordan_valley">97 percent</a> of
the Jordan Valley is off-limits for Palestinian use. This is
almost 25 percent of the total area of the West Bank.</p>
<p>In January, Israel <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-idUSKCN0UY187">announced</a>
it was annexing 154 hectares or 380 acres of agricultural land
just next to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jericho">Jericho</a>
and on the northern tip of the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dead-sea">Dead Sea</a>.
It marks the largest land appropriation since 2014, when Israel
purloined 400 hectares or nearly 1,000 acres of land to the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gush-etzion">Gush
Etzion</a> settlement bloc outside <a href-="">Bethlehem</a>.</p>
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