<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<h1 class="title">Israel to move checkpoint further into al-Walaja,
cutting villagers off from spring</h1>
<div style="margin: 5px 0 10px 0;">
<div class="stamp">Nov. 17, 2017 - <font size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779487">http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779487</a></font><br>
<br>
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Israeli government has reportedly
informed the Palestinian residents of al-Walaja village, located
in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem, just
on the border of Israel’s Jerusalem municipality, that they are
to be cut off from a large portion of their lands due to the
relocation of a checkpoint in the area.<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div>Israeli news daily Haaretz <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.823113">reported</a>
that an Israeli Jerusalem district planning committee announced
that the Ein Yael checkpoint between Jerusalem and the illegal Har
Gilo settlement -- which was built on al-Walaja’s lands -- would
move deeper into Palestinian area, where it will become part of
the “Jerusalem metropolitan park.”<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Inside the land that is to be annexed, is the Ain al-Haniya
spring, the second-largest spring in the occupied West Bank
according to Haaretz. The spring is also one of the main water
sources for the residents’ livestock to bathe and drink from, and
also serves as a recreational spring for the people of the
surrounding areas, who flock to the spring to picnic and swim.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>According to Haaretz, the Israel Antiquities Authority and
Jerusalem Development Authority have already started renovation
work at the spring and the surrounding areas, and plan on
surrounding the spring with a fence, building a visitors center
and a restaurant and turning it into one of the entrances to
Jerusalem’s metropolitan park -- a park where the residents of
al-Walaja and Bethlehem would not be able to access without
special permits.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Haaretz reported that the resident of al-Walaja received
letters telling them that the checkpoint will be moved closer to
their village, some two and a half kilometers deeper into
Palestinian territory from where it is currently located.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div> The villagers were reportedly given 15 days to appeal the
decision.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Once the checkpoint is relocated, Palestinians without
Jerusalem resident papers or Israeli-issued visitor permits will
not be allowed to pass through it and will be prevented from
accessing the spring, fields, and farming terraces to which they
have tended to for generations.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div> “Ironically, the well-groomed, carefully tended terraces that
al-Walaja’s residents have nurtured over the years were one of the
reasons given by the Israeli authorities for setting up a park in
the area,” Haaretz said.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Haaretz quoted Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Israeli NGO Ir
Amim as saying that “Israelis will stroll among the beautiful
terraces, tended to and fostered by al-Walaja residents, with the
land owners locked behind a barbed wire fence a few dozen meters
away, unable to come to the lands that were robbed from them.”<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>“That’s the rightist government’s vision: instead of peace and
justice, fences and increasingly brutal oppression,” he said.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>The village of al-Walaja has long been the target of Israeli
land confiscations and mass Israeli demolitions for the purpose of
expanding Israel’s illegal settlements and advancing the
construction of Israel’s separation wall -- deemed illegal by the
International Court of Justice in 2004.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>At the end of April, Israel <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=776783"
target="_blank">resumed construction of the separation wall </a>in
the village after a three-year hiatus.</div>
<div>Residents of al-Walaja <a
href="http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/image/articles/2013/The_International_Court_of_Justice_AlWalaja_mini_profile.pdf"
target="_blank">lost over three-quarters of their lands </a>since
the state of Israel was established in 1948, when most of the
village’s residents became refugees.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>During Israel’s military takeover of East Jerusalem and the
West Bank in 1967, 50 percent of al-Walaja’s lands were annexed to
the Jerusalem municipality.<br>
<br>
</div>
Meanwhile, Israel’s separation wall encircles al-Walaja, and swathes
of land have been re-appropriated by the Israeli government for the
construction and expansion of the illegal Israeli settlements of
Gilo, Har Gilo, and Givat Yael.
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>