Press Release: “Israeli Authorities Continue Ethnic Cleansing Campaign against Bedouins and Farmers”

The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center issued its monthly report stating that the Israeli Ethnic cleansing policy is escalating; especially, towards the Bedouins and farmers, e.g. the illegal procedures imposed on the residents of Kherbet Twal / north Aqraba in Nablus district.

The Center stated that 15 residents were notified that their residency and their animals establishments, (which is considered the sole source of their living), will be demolished.

In addition to that issued a decision to remove the sources of electricity that provides the area with the electric energy, which was considered by JLAC's lawyer Bassam Karageh a decision for making impossible, the like of the residents of the area, who had been residing the area for decades before the 1967 Israeli occupation.

 The Village Mayor sent a written letter to JLAC illustrating their situation, and that the residents of Kherbet Twal are more than 500 persons, and the agricultural and fertile area reaches 50000 Dunams, most of it in area C and has many ancient Islamic and Roman wells.

In accordance with the letter of Aqraba council, the people of Aqraba and Kherbat Twal rear more than 30000 cattle, which are an important part for food in the West Bank.

A staff from the center had visited the area to check the conditions; they realized that if the occupation authorities will implement their notices, the citizens will live under tragic conditions. The citizens are forced to build new houses, so as to find a place to live and to take care of their animals, to replace their very old houses.

Therefore, they built agricultural praxis out of blocks and zinc ceilings, since most of them don’t have enough space inside the Structural plan of the village, which is about 3391 Dunams, compared to the number of residents the approximate of 9000 individuals.

As for the electricity networks, JLAC’s staff realized that Aqraba municipality is connected to this service on the Palestinian Authority’s expenses funded by the Belgium Government, and the Israeli Authorities agreed to connect it with the Israeli network of the district, which is astonishing in a way.

The staff agreed to adopt and follow up their case in front of the specialized judicial system (The Israeli in this case), and the residents were asked by JLAC’s staff to start collecting the needed documents, to apply for building permits, insuring that the notices that they were handed by the Israeli Authorities and were built on- the totally illegal- claim that these establishments had been constructed on the “State Land”, and State Land as defined by the International Humanitarian Law, which regulates the relationship between the occupier with the occupied territories, the land that should be used and invested for the interest and benefit of the local residents, who live under the occupation and not the opposite.