Creeping Annexation....

[Saudade]

...is spreading East and West from Wadi al-Ghroos

This is a periodic email update from the Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron. (It is not a copyrighted article)

By Jerry Levin

December 31, 2003



HEBRON-Settler intentions are becoming clearer with respect to the latest round of land confiscations taking place in three currently unconnected areas bordering the northwestern and northern edge of Kiryat Arba. (Kiryat Arba lying just outside the eastern edge of Hebron is the oldest Israeli settlement in the West Bank.) The probable purpose of this "creeping annexation" is to prepare the land for construction of new sections of Israel's southern "security fence."

When the sections are connected, large portions of productive Palestinian farmland, about six hundred dunams, will be swallowed up. (A dunam equals one quarter of an acre) Land clearing and leveling activities in those areas are being stopped only temporarily by 1) local Palestinian landowner appeals to military authorities and/or Israeli courts, and 2) on site protests by Palestinian and international human rights activists, including CPT.

The first of the affected areas, although small, will provide space for a short but critical section of the new fence to be erected on a narrow swath of farmland that parallels the south side of the football field length roadway connecting Kiryat Arba's main western entrance to the major north south Israelis-only bypass road linking Jerusalem to the four tiny settlements in the heart of Hebron's Old City (Tel Rumeida, Beit Hadassah, Beit Romano, and Avraham Avinu).

Although just fifteen meters wide, the fence will swallow up an already modest but fruitful plot of Palestinian farmland owned and tilled for generations by the same family. It will lie within a few feet of their house. Because of the nearness of the house and land to the intersection of the bypass road and the entrance to Kiryat Arba, settlers have been trying to scare the family into leaving for years. Harassment has included fire bombing their house, attacks on family members, sexual threats, and destruction of crops.

Years ago, when Kiryat Arba was first established, the family lost an even an even bigger portion of their meager land hold when the entrance road was built on their land.

Despite these losses, however, the family intends to stay.

The second section being prepared for the fence begins at the northwest corner of the Kiryat Arba entrance road and is being laid out to connect up with land encirclement currently in progress about a quarter mile away in
Wadi al-Ghroos. (See Hebron Release 12-18-03 "Creeping Annexation Continues
in Wadi al-Ghroos.) About four hundred dunams will be lost to Palestinian
farmers and landowners.

Work suddenly began two days ago on a third area lying to the east of the Wadi al-Ghroos activity the other side of the main settler only road connecting Harsina settlement to the north to Kiryat Arba. A bulldozer and a backhoe began carving out a zigzag swath of land outside the northeastern entrance to Kiryat Arba. It is snaking northward up the Beqa'a Valley to an already completed section of the security fence running westward up a high hill to the Harsina-Kiryat Arba connector road. When finished about a hundred dunams of land, belonging to various members of the Jaber clan, will be encircled.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT's peacemaking work, please visit our website at: http://www.cpt.org.
Photos of our projects may be viewed at: http://www.cpt.org/gallery

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