Jordan Valley: In the morning we received notification that bulldozers were on the way to El-Hadidia

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Observers: 
Dafna Banai touring with a professor of the environment from the U.S. Translation: Bracha Ben-Avraham
Jul-21-2019
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Morning

In the morning we received notification that bulldozers were on the way to El-Hadidia.  We arrived at a shelter made of patches of sacks where the Kaabana family where the 4 adults and six children, including a 40-day old babyinfo-icon were gathered.   This was the same family whose home had been demolished last May during the Ramadan.  They had then moved from east Ach Hadidia to the western part of the area.   I had met the family previously when they lived in the Jiftlik and in 2015 and 2017 their meager tents were also demolished.  There were two living tents, two goat pens, a kitchen and a corral for the goats.  That was what the Jewish representatives of Zion brought back from the desert.   The tents that they were given last May were confiscated.

The father and two 5-10-year-old children were walking around in the sun and pointed to a tabun – an outdoor cooking stove that was still smoking, the kitchen utensils, and the pile of mattresses upon which a goat was sleeping.  Everything was sitting outside in the sun without any shelter or purpose.    No tears were shed here.  They appeared to be complacent with their fate because they have no control over it and have nowhere to go.  It is clear to them that wherever they go the most moral army in the world will chase after them and they cannot do anything about it.

I asked them where they were from originally.  The father answered, “It doesn’t matter.  We can’t go back there.”  When I persisted they said that they were from Beer Sheva.  Since they were first evicted they have continued to build and we demolish, they move on and build with a shadow of hope, and we evict them once again. 

The illegal settlement of Um Zuka in the heart of the nature reserve and military training area, is expanding and gaining control of more and more areas.  The graze their cows in the fields belonging to the residents of Samara  and destroyed 70 dunam (22 acres) of wheat.  The Palestinian shepherds live in constant terror.  They no longer enter the area of the nature preserve where they used to graze their flocks.   If they set foot there the army, who serves the settlers, arrives immediately and evicts them.   

The settlers have now laid a pipeline from the rain cistern at Samara to their two herds of cows – one is grazing on land belonging to residents of Samara and the second one is up at the entrance to the dirt road leading to the illegal settlement.  Part of the road is already paved.

The settlers have put up another illegal settlement on the mountain opposite Um Zuka west of the Alon Route directly above the community of shepherds whom I have not yet met.   There is an electric line leading from Maskiot to somewhere unclear, so they will have no trouble hooking up to it.  They can already steal water from the meager amount the Palestinians have.

In this manner, by erecting one illegal settlement after another, beneath the eyes of the  army - one watching and the other winking, the Jewish terrorist organizations are taking control of the Palestinians’ cultivated farmlands and pastures.   Where will the Palestinians go?