The route of the Israeli separation wall south of Qalqilia in the northern West Bank was adjusted to separate five Palestinian villages of Ras Tira, Wadi Ar-Rasha, Ad-Dab’a, Ar-Ramadin and Abu Farda Bedouin hamlets.
According to Hadil Haneiti, an activist from the Popular Campaign Against the Wall, the adjustment came after a previous Israeli High Court of Justice decision in May 2006.
“The adjusted route leaves Palestinian residents with two bitter choices; either to be isolated between four walls and be subject to humiliation on a daily basis as they have to go through the wall’s gate every day, or to be freed of this isolation, but the price will be losing all their agricultural lands and pastures,” said Haneiti.
The route of the wall in that area will be three kilometers long, and 2,500 donums of land will be dug up, of which 70 percent is olive groves and the rest is used as pastures. Thus, the new route of the wall will exterminate the basic two sources of income for residents of these five villages, which are agriculture and livestock.
Haneiti added that the village that will suffer the most is Wadi Ar-Rasha, which will lose 80 percent of its land, while Ras Tira will lose 60 percent of its land. Both villages will have no sources of income for their residents, neither will there be any possibility for natural demographic expansion in future.
To add to their losses, Israeli authorities plan to build a new bypass road to replace the present Road 55. This road will also swallow more of the two villages’ lands and isolate the rest, the group said. The route of the wall will be 100-200 meters away from villagers’ house, which means the residents will always be in a “state of emergency” as is the case is in all other West Bank villages close to the wall.
As for Ar-Ramadin’s and Abu Farda’s Bedouins, Israeli forces will take advantage of the fact that they don’t own the lands they are camping on as a pretext to expel them, the group said.
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