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Anne Casparsson

STWR Member.
Journalist

Building the Wall

“When they started to build the wall, the IDF came to us at night. They shot and threw stones towards our house and claimed it was for security reasons. The first time it happened was in October last year. They took my husband and my oldest sons behind the house and I heard shots. I thought they killed them, and I collapsed totally. But they only wanted to frighten us, and said it was a warning”, Zareefa Abu Sahreb told us in Arabic.

Zareefa and her husband Abu Amar are Bedouins, and the only family in Jayyous who have their house outside the gate where the wall is being built.

“We have lived here for ten years”, Zareefa tells us, “and we get our income from the animals”. Her husband is a shepherd, like many other men on the West Bank, a job that takes a lot of time but only provides a small income. She says that they love their animals, and that many people want to buy their horse, but even if they needed the money, they couldn’t sell it, because it is part of the family.

The house is very simple, owned by her husband’s brother, and he also owns the olive trees around the cottage, but sometimes they rent some of the trees so they can reap them. They came originally from Beer Sheva in Israel in 1948, when they had to leave Israel and moved to the West Bank. Zareefa has diabetes and needs to take her injections in Jayyous. But she isn’t always allowed to the other side of the fence of the IDF, so sometimes she has to walk in other directions to be able to reach the village.

“I have nightmares that they one day will close the wall so we can’t stay in this house. What do we do then? I don’t even want to think about it. We are the only ones outside the wall, so I am afraid they will force us away from here. All my children go to school”, she continues, “but sometimes they are not allowed to attend school, because of the IDF”. For that reason Zareefa walks with her children to school, but often gets threatened by the soldiers. Sometimes they say that they will shoot her if she doesn’t go back.

Some of the neighbouring women have come over to see who is visiting. One of them says that they are all afraid to be transferred. The whole village is close to the wall, which means that the Israelis want more land than they have already taken. “We are also afraid that it will cost us money to cross the border. What kind of life is that?”

Everybody I speak with in Jayyous is somehow affected by the wall. Yesterday, a little boy came up to me asking why the soldiers were destroying his father’s land and cutting down his olive trees. In total 95 percent of the local income is lost, because of the wall in Jayyous. You can feel the depression and hopelessness in the village, even though the people remain generous and friendly.

“I came back in 1996 because of Oslo. I thought it was a possibility to negotiate with Israel and create peace. We had in mind to build the two states, Palestine and Israel, but the Oslo-agreement was not running well. Today people are asking, “what did we get from Oslo?”, when people are being killed, land is confiscated, settlements are growing…We found out that Oslo was just a big lie. We were supposed to be a weak state under Israeli control. But we wanted to be equal with them.” Ghazi A.I. Nasrullah was born in Jayyous in 1939 but lived for a long time abroad in Saudi Arabia. He and his wife were allowed entry again, but not their children, so today they are all living in different countries around the world. “Because of the construction of the wall, I will loose 18 dunums of land. Today it is only one road to the fields. But it’s my land! In what kind of law can they confiscate someone’s property? When I go to my land the soldiers just say “go back”.”

Ghazi says that this is their land and their country. That he thinks that Jayyous is facing a dark future, but that he hopes that the world will support them. “The people will not leave their houses, even if they kill us. Most people in Palestine will refuse to be transferred. Look at the Palestinian people in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. They are living in refugee camps and working extremely hard just to get food.”

Ghazi thinks that Palestine and Israel would be able to make peace if they went back to the agreement that was made in 1967. But he also thinks that it is important working with the refugee problem to be able to create a just peace, today there are more than five million Palestinian refugees in the world.

“These refugees still have nothing. We have to find a solution for these refugees. If we know that we have our Palestine, with a two state solution, than they can come back. I will be able to see a future when I get justice. Give my children a future in their own land. Today they are not even allowed into Palestine and I have not seen them for six years. I believe we can create peace, but it is all depending on Israel.”

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