visit to village of Sanniriya
The drive to Sanniriya, a small village south of Azzun and Thulth, sitting on a high hill overlooking open landscapes, is a beautiful sight.
Having visited there long time ago, this time we left without any previous preparation. The way to the house of the local council climbs way up among new, showy houses to older parts of the village where the lanes are narrow and crumbling. The new council building, built about 7 years ago, is on the highest place in the village. On arriving there, we were met by the treasurer who invited us amiably to come in, brought some chairs to the airy entrance hall and notified the head of the village of our arrival.
We had coffee and exchanged pleasantries until Abu Tarek, the head of the village, arrived accompanied by a few men who joined the talk. According to him, most of the residents of Azzun Atma and Beit Amin are originally from Sanniriya and most of the lands of those villages, 12,240 Dunams (380 Acers), were the property of this village.
Today the village has about 3000 residents, some of whom work in agriculture and some are workers of the Authority, while others went as far as the Persian Gulf countries to make a living. Besides cultivating olives, they also grow vegetables in greenhouses. However, the rate of unemployment is 55 per cent.
About 150 families have lands in the seam-line zone on the other side of the fence.
Requests for passage permits through the Agricultural Gates
are submitted directly to the DCO of Qalqiliya [District Coordination Office of the IDF Civil Administration that handles passage permits], which explains why the council has no information as to their number as well as the number of those refused permits. The gates that serve the agriculture workers are the one of Azzun Atma in the south and Bir Sheli.
This visit is actually a preliminary one. We asked to meet directly with representatives of families to hear about their problems. We already heard about olive trees in the lands of Ahmed-A-Sheih that had been set on fire, the sixty beehives of Hassan Ahmed from Azzun Atma, inaccessible for him for the last two years, and the other stories about putting pressure on people to make them collaborate with the Shaba [Israeli General Security Service] in exchange for working permits.
We agreed to return to the village two weeks later.