|
|
MIDEAST: Israeli Settlers Terrorise Palestinian Villagers
By Mel Frykberg
AT TUWANI, West Bank, Mar 9 (IPS) - "I couldn't run. My pregnancy was too far advanced and there was nowhere to
hide," said Amna Salman Rabaye, 31, as she recalled the terrifying incident
several months ago.
Rabaye from the Palestinian Bedouin village of At Tuwani in the southern
West Bank was grazing her sheep when she was assaulted by a security guard
from the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Ma'on.
"We saw a group of masked Israeli settlers armed with sticks and chains
heading towards us. The younger shepherds ran and managed to escape,
leaving me with the flock of sheep," Rabaye told IPS.
"It was physically impossible for me to run and I also didn't want the settlers
to kill or steal my sheep. The security guard pushed me over but I was not
injured," recalled Rabaye who was then seven months pregnant.
At Tuwani was established over 300 years ago by nomadic tribes of Bedouin
who first moved into the area seeking shelter in the nearby caves. However,
Israeli settlers built the adjacent Ma'on settlement in 1982. The nearby illegal
outpost of Havot Ma'on was built at a later date.
Outposts normally comprise small settlements ranging from a few caravans,
which are sometimes connected to water and electricity, to slightly larger
settlements. They are referred to as outposts by the media as they are
generally not recognised by the Israeli government.
The settlements, however, which are legal under Israeli law can number from
several hundred residents to small towns with thousands of inhabitants, and
all the associated infrastructure.
There are nearly 300,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and nearly
200,000 in East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli information centre for
human rights B'Tselem.
Under international law, including various UN Security Council resolutions,
the settlements are built illegally on Palestinian land.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from
transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article
49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking
permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military
needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the
benefit of the local population.
Nevertheless Israeli settlement building on the West Bank has accelerated at
an unprecedented rate in the last few years.
This has included the enlargement of already existing settlements and the
establishment of new ones, contrary to every understanding and peace
agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli human rights group Peace Now released a report several weeks ago
stating that the Israeli government is currently building an additional 73,300
illegal housing units in the West Bank. The report added that this would
increase the total number of Israeli settlers in the area by 100 percent.
International human rights organisations have argued that the motive behind
the accelerated settlement building is to establish facts on the ground and to
make the establishment of a viable, contiguous and independent Palestinian
state near impossible.
Currently the West Bank is effectively divided into three cantons by military
checkpoints and the settlements. Palestinian towns and villages are
surrounded by Israeli settlements while swathes of their land has been
confiscated to build settlers-only bypass roads.
While Israeli officials are furthering the facts-on-the-ground scenario
through official government policies, an unofficial war between Israeli settlers
and Palestinian villagers over the continued land expropriation continues
unabated.
"The settlers are carrying out a deliberate policy to try and drive us off our
land and intimidate us into leaving so that they can take our land," said Hafez
Hreini, 37, one of the villagers. Hreini's mother, 79-year-old Fatima, was left
bleeding after a settler threw a rock at her head in another encounter with
the settlers.
"It is very hard not to physically retaliate when you see people attack your
elderly mother but I know if I had done anything back, the Israelis would have
used this as an excuse to arrest me and a lot worse," Hreini told IPS. "So we
are deliberately applying a policy of non-violence and we are determined to
stay here and keep our land."
In 2006 the villagers lost over 100 sheep after the settlers sprayed pesticides
on their grazing land. Several donkeys belonging to the village were stabbed
to death. The village's water wells have also been poisoned on numerous
occasions while crops have been set ablaze. The children of the village and
the surrounding villages have been regularly attacked by the settlers as they
try to make their way to school.
A group of outraged Israeli intellectuals wrote to incumbent Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert several years ago requesting action be taken against
the settlers. This led former Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz to order the
demolition of Havot Ma'on settlement but the demolition never took place.
The Israeli Knesset, or parliament, also ordered the Israeli Defence Forces
(IDF) to escort children to and from school to protect them from the settlers.
But according to international members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams
(CPT) who live in the village, the IDF patrols are irregular, unreliable and
sometimes sources of hostility towards the children.
The CPT have created their own school escorts for the children, and have
themselves been assaulted by the settlers. One member received head
injuries severe enough to require hospitalisation.
The Israeli police seem disinterested. "It doesn't help if we go to the police
because they never do anything," Sreini told IPS.
The Israeli rights group Yesh Din has stated repeatedly that only a very small
number of settler attacks against Palestinians are investigated by the Israeli
police. These result in even fewer arrests and practically no convictions.
(END/2009)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
What is RSS?
