Voice of Women
Issue no. 286
April 3rd, 2008
In this issue:
Rohia Al Basyouni will not leave
The Aljouri family pays the price for holding on to their land
Rohia Al Basyouni will not leave
Mohammad Al Baba, Adseh
"Anxiety and fear overwhelm us as we wait to see what our fate will be, ever since we heard that Israeli tanks have been stationed on the northern borders of Gaza near Beit Hanoun, where we live," Rohia Al Basyouni tells Voice of Women, tears streaming down her face. "Since Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 our hard work, and the work of the generations before us, has destroyed in the blink of an eye by the tanks which roll through our land uprooting our crops and orchards."
"Although our lives -- and our children's lives -- are in constant jeopardy, we will never leave our land," Basyouni says. "We will never accept the Israeli forces occupying and abusing our land. We will never leave it to become an abandoned no-mans-land. We have nothing left but this land and we will protect it in every possible way. This is the least we can do after all the blood that has been shed for it and we have been robbed of our dignity."
"We have three hectares of land which lies along the border. It is damaged every time Israeli tanks enter Beit Hanoon and place us under military closure. They uproot our trees and destroy the wells and the irrigation system."
After citrus groves belonging to Basyouni were destroyed by the Israeli military, the Union for Agriculture Relief, an agricultural development organization, began to rehabilitate the land, planting seedlings of varies types of citrus, olives and fruit trees. "Although the seedlings are growing," she says, "every time we hear shooting or a bomb exploding we are struck with fear that all of our hard work -- the days spent under the burning sun and in the freezing cold -- has gone to waste. Yet our love and attachment to our land is what keeps us strong and determined to hold on to it no matter what the price."
Basyouni believes that Israel is willing to go to great lengths to do harm to the families, along with their children, and to their land, in order to force them to abandon the land. But despite the dangers that they face, they are resolute that they will not be moved. "The more pressure Israel puts on us to leave the more determined we are to stay," she says. "The pain that they cause us does not end here: we are in constant danger even when we are in our homes. We are constantly under threat from their tanks, missiles and snipers. On several occasions Israel has sent special undercover units into our town which occupied the rooftops of the houses in order to enforce a military closure. On other occasions the Israeli army has invaded the town, breaking into the houses and arresting young and old men, as well as children.
"The worst thing is that every time the Israeli forces enter our town, or a town near by, they shoot the water tanks that are located on top of the houses, forcing the people -- and especially the children -- to endure a long drought during the closure. This is a severe form of oppression, when we face the possibility of starvation or dying of thirst. Because of the constant shooting we often have to stay huddled up with each other in one room, usually in the center of the house where it is less dangerous than the other rooms during attacks by air."
Musa Abu Hamid, an engineer and project coordinator for the Union of Agriculture Relief says, "When it was officially announced on the 13th of September, 2005, that the occupying Israeli authority was going to withdraw from Gaza and evacuate all of the settlements and remove the checkpoints that have hindered the movement of residents between towns and villages for many years now, the people were relieved to finally attain some freedom. However, the farmers living along the separating wall between Gaza and the Green Line who thought that their misery would also end once the nightmare of the occupation had been removed from their land have discovered that they were wrong."
Abu Hamid recalls that on the 28th of June, 2007, the Israeli occupying forces announced that they would expand the buffer zone to include the northeast borders of Gaza, which will make the buffer zone 58 km in length, and also increase the width of the security zone -- for the second time -- to around 1,5 km. These changes constitute a violation of the 1994 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in which it was agreed that buffer zone would be 500 m in width and 58 km in length.
The Aljouri family pays the price for holding on to their land
Samer Khourya, Nablus
The home of the Aljouri family is located northeast of Nablus, about 10 kilometers the village of Rojeeb. Opposite the house is the Hawara military checkpoint, which is also the commercial entrance through which merchandise is transported from Israel to Nablus on large trucks.The soldiers close this entrance at exactly 6 p.m., after which no cars or people are allowed through. This applies also to the Aljouri family which lives only 200 meters from the checkpoint. Near them lives the Abu Mostafa's family which includes the one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old grandmother, and a newborn baby boy who is only a few days old.
The families' struggles began early in the Al Aqsa Intifada when Israeli settlers surrounded them and attacked their houses, destroyed their cars and shot at them, injuring four people. This incident was the first in a long sequence of events; it was only the beginning of their pain and struggle. Their houses, which lie on the route connecting the village of Awarta to Nablus, overlook Jerusalem Street where there are constant clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youth. Because of this the Israeli army surrounded their houses with road blocks on every side to prevent movement between Awarta and Nablus. As the situation grew worse, Israeli soldiers surrounded Awarta itself with road blocks and later installed permanent checkpoints. Where there were once olive trees and other vegetation there is now a long fence with deep trenches. On the east side of the checkpoint the Israeli army has blocked the road to Awarta with a tank for over four years.
During the first five years of the second Intifada the people of Nablus and the surrounding villages were frequently under curfew, during which they were only permitted to enter and exit Nablus from 8 a.m. in the morning until 4 p.m. in the afternoon, after which no one was allowed to cross through. Anyone failing to meet this deadline had to return to wherever they had come from or else would have to spend the night in their car at the checkpoint. Now residents are permitted to return home as late as 6 p.m. However from 2 p.m. on Fridays until 6 a.m. on Sunday morning they are prohibited from leaving their villages because Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. Anyone who violates this order faces severe consequences.
During the first two years of the second Intifada, the two families faced frequent difficulties. Israeli soldiers entered and searched their homes repeatedly, forcing everyone outside with no consideration for whether a person was dressed properly. The searches often lasted from 11 p.m. until 4 a.m. in the morning.
"At around 11 p.m., before we had even changed into our pajamas, we would begin preparing ourselves for a long night," Ayman Aljouri recalls. "The soldiers wouldn't allow anyone to stay in the house, and so you can only imagine what we looked like -- men, women, children and even the elderly standing outside in the middle of the cold, dark night. Even my grandmother was not allowed to stay inside the house although she is over a hundred years old. However, after awhile they agreed to let the elderly, the women and the children stay inside the house and would only take the men out."
The Aljouri family found the Israeli army to be merciless; it seemed to manage to ruin every family occasion they had without fail. In 2001, Ayman decided to get married. But everyone from Nablus who attended his wedding would be risking their lives due to the obstacles they would face leaving their city. Several people who were determined not to allow these obstacles to stand in their way did attend the wedding. But Israeli soldiers fired tear gas into the ceremony, causing pandemonium as the guests ran for their lives. Eventually the wedding continued quietly, without festivities of any kind. Ayman's sister faced similar difficulties when she got married in 2006. A number of the people that were invited to her wedding were unable to attend because the Israeli soldiers refused to allow them to pass through the checkpoint.
After several complaints to the Israeli government, a new policy was put in place. The Israeli military hung copies of the identity cards of the members the Aljouri family on the walls of the soldier's room at the checkpoint so that soldiers could identity them and allow them to pass without difficulty. But the torment continued; still at times the soldiers would not allow them to pass through the checkpoint even though photo identification for them was posted on the wall.
In addition, when new soldiers were assigned to the post problems would begin again. "Every three to four months the soldiers that work at the checkpoint change," Ayman says, "which would cause problems because just when the soldiers finally begin to recognize us and become more lenient with us new soldiers are posted and our struggles start all over again. Many times they have arrested us for no valid reason. They have prevented us from transporting merchandise and they would deal with us in a very offensive manner until they finally realized that we are the residents of the houses near by, after which their behavior would become less harsh. This is the constant drama that we must deal with on a day to day basis."
The families have obtained identity cards for their children, even though they are under age, in order to make travel easier. They have also filed complaints with the Israeli police when Israeli soldiers and settlers destroyed their cars on several occasions. The police, however, did nothing, telling them that the only solution was for the families to abandon their homes and move elsewhere. But this they refuse to do.
A few months ago, Ayman's family was permitted access a to piece of their land -- only a few hundred meters away from their house – for the first time in several years. They had been restricted from access to this land on the pretext that it is located in an Israeli military area. They immediately began to weed it and planted several kinds of fruit trees. They had barely done this when the Israeli military arrived and began to argue with Ayman's father about the land. They wanted to rent it for the army for 3000 shekels per month. Ayman refused.
The Aljouri family's struggle for survival does not end here. They will continue to make every effort to raise their children with the motivation to hold onto their land, striving to be patient and to always savour the moments of joy and happiness in life, praying and hoping that God will eventually change the reality with which they live.
