4th January 2012
Solidarity Visit to Broqeen & Kufr Al Deek
Today a small group of internationals visited the besieged villages of Broqeen and Kufr Al Deek. The villages are surrounded by several hilltop illegal settlements, industrial sites with polluting factories and an army base
“This is a microcosm of Palestinian suffering” stated a resident upon our arrival. Broqeen and Kufr Al Deek are “under siege” by settlers and soldiers. The villages are situated in the Oslo Agreement’s areas B and C and close to the 1948 Green Line.
Broqeen has approximately 4000 residents which includes many refugees from the Nakba. The village relies on small scale agriculture for its existence. The Israelis from the illegal settlements know this and routinely destroy the Palestinian crops often by burning olive trees. They have also released wild boars which eat the Palestinian crops and are very dangerous, especially to the young of the villages. In an act of callousness the settlers destroyed a newly bought piece of farm machinery some two weeks ago. During this attack they also burned a car and firebombed unsuccessfully the local mosque leaving threatening graffiti that they will be back.
As with many of the Palestinian villages who have suffered the injustice of having their lands stolen by Israel in order to build illegal settlements, which they continue to expand, Broqeen and Kufr Al Deek are forced to endure regular attacks from the illegal occupants of their land as well as harassment by the Israeli military. The settlers, soldiers and Israeli government work cooperatively (although the Israeli government claim otherwise) to inflict systematic and calculated terror on the residents of these neighbouring villages. The intention is they will be left with no other option but to leave their homes and join the hundreds of thousands of other refugees who were forcibly removed from their land in all over Palestine in 1948 and 1967.
There is an industrial estate, situated on top of a hill, which houses several severely polluting factories. These factories could not gain a license to be constructed inside of Israel due to the pollution that will be created but were granted permission by the Israeli government to be built within the West Bank illegally under international law. The waste from these factories is channeled in an open sewer through the villages (see photo). Since the factories began polluting there has been a sharp rise in health problems within the village including an anomaly in cancer cases. A German charity volunteered to pay for the sewer to be covered. Permission to build this cover was flatly denied by the Israelis. The pollution from the factories has severely affected the surrounding land, trees die, crops fail and the meat from animals grazed on the land cannot be sold due to fear of contamination.
Unemployment is now very high in the villages as much of the land has been taken by settlers and the military. To add insult to the pollution inflicted on the villages the Palestinians are banned from working the factories surrounding them. With more land being taken away everyday unemployment and poverty continue to rise. Yesterday an army order was issued to take another 60 dunums (1000m squared = 1 dunum) for “military purposes”. Farmers are now collating deeds to their lands in an attempt to argue their case in court.
Broqeen has lost over 8000 dunums to the illegal occupation with most of that being taken in the last 10 years. The land theft is sharply on the increase. The farm land that is left is still extremely dangerous to farm due to settler attacks and the threat of wild boars.
Not satisfied with attacking the food production the Israelis have destroyed several wells, which are vital to the well being of the villagers. The settlers have commandeered most of the water supply leaving the Palestinians with critically low access to clean water. A recent study found that the average settler uses 18 times that of one of the villagers.
In addition to the destruction of the wells several homes have been demolished including a home that the owner worked for 30 years to save enough to build.
Leaving or reentering the villages is high risk as settlers will often throw rocks at Palestinian cars. If the villagers successfully run the gauntlet they then have to pass through harassing Israeli Army checkpoints.
The villages have just begun started a weekly protest against their oppression in Kufr Al Deek. This was met last week with tear gas and thinly rubber coated steel bullets leaving 10 villagers wounded.
The protest will continue every Friday.
