In the Palestinian-Jerusalem neighborhoods, taxpayers to the municipality do not receive municipal services

Place:

'Anata-Shu'afat

Bir Nabala (Rafat)

Har Shmuel checkpoint

Nabi Samwil

Tags:

Updates during Corona

Walls and Blockades

Observers:

Kamel (driver), Netanya G., guest from the University of Prague and Anat Tueg (reporter)

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Jul-11-2021

Morning

The school demolished this week in Shuafat Camp

Photo:

Anat Tueg

Luxury building abandoned in the Beer Naballa enclave

Photo:

Anat Tueg

A well known breach in the fence

Photo:

Anat Tueg

This time the traffic light at the Shuafat refugee camp junction is working properly (a traffic router on the road to Jerusalem and Pisgat Ze'ev), but still there is a large traffic jam from the camp to the checkpoint, despite the school holidays. It is a pity that they do not think of a roundabout or a "smart traffic light" that will improve the quality of life for the many property taxpayers in the camp, who barely receive services if any. Buses for trips with children pass without inspection, while regular buses drop off passengers and check certificates and permits on the checkpoint's computer. If the inquiry is delayed, the bus does not wait for the detainee.

We drive to see the school that was destroyed this week in the Shalom neighborhood, which is part of the camp located on Jerusalem's municipal territory. It is strange that there is a lot of new construction around it, but this private school has already been destroyed twice. Even Ir Amim did not know why the school was targeted.

From here we left through Anatot Junction in the direction of Hizma. At the intersection, hawkers stand and offer charming embroidered dresses for girls ... On the outskirts of Hizma, some kind of road is being paved, and it's not clear from whence and where it will lead. Is it part of the planned apartheid roads, designed to allow settlers from Benjamin to bypass Qalandiya and Hizma?

Nabi Samuel

The school is closed and locked with a wooden fence and the village looks deserted. A number of Palestinian cars are parked near the houses. We were really concerned but were given a practical explanation from a local resident who cleaned restrooms at the archeological site. The school fence is designed to prevent vandalism during the holidays. Some of the people who usually work in the national park were moved to Gush Etzion, to a recently discovered archeological site, and the rest have not yet woken up - there is nowhere to go. The villagers cannot leave the village for Jerusalem by car, they only have a permit for the short section to the Al Jib checkpoint leading to Bir Naballah. They're enclosed in a space with the same restrictions as the Seam Zone, with residence permits and transit permits. A work permit requires a long drive to the Qalandiya checkpoint. Not allowed to build even a shed and not to plant a tree. A triple prohibition: national park + area C + Seam Zone.

Har Shmuel checkpoint

The agricultural checkpoint is locked but a breach in the fence is wide open. The Bidu checkpoint on the separation fence is a little further inland - where the sunken road for Palestinians passes to Bir Naballah and the West Bank.

Bir Naballah enclave

It's heart breaking to see this enclave of 4 villages connected by only two lower passages to the West Bank - towards the Bidu enclave and towards Rafat. It used to be a teeming area and a coveted place to live. Now the wall is suffocating on all sides and anyone who could have left for an area with an entrance to Jerusalem has left. We entered through the Al Jib checkpoint (allowed - the area is Area C, only a small part of it Area B - although the checkpoint soldiers are convinced that it is Area A - we'd learned that previously, so now we simply passed through).

We met a young and desperate guy, who lives with his mom, and wants to get a work permit. Did failed to get it and thought it was because he was not married. We told him that now even unmarried people, certainly those who work in the settlements, are given a permit, and gave him Sylvia's number for a GSS prevention check. It was hard for him to say goodbye to us, you rarely see Israelis here, and very few non-locals, and no hope of improvement in sight.

The pharmacist at the pharmacy in the center of Bir Naballah commutes daily from Tulkarm. He is married with children, was born in the West Bank, grew up in Kuwait and returned to the West Bank when as a young adult. We asked him what do the children do here, where do they study? He said there is one school for three villages, and shared the feeling of despair of the suffocated communities, the neglect and the night raids of the army in both Tulkarm and Bir Naballah. Is he sorry he returned from Kuwait to occupied Palestine? The answer was a resounding no. This is my country and here I will live.

On our way back to Jerusalem we followed those who come from the Bidu enclave, Nabi Samuel and Bir Naballah, and are forced to make a huge detour on busy and narrow roads, to be checked at the Qalandiya checkpoint on their way to Jerusalem.

Why do we take the trouble to report in Corona times as well?

Because democracy’s watchdogs have fallen asleep on their own watch, so Israeli citizens have no idea what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories, especially now.

Day and night, Israeli soldiers (as the State’s emissaries) help extreme settler-colonists take the law into their own hands, unhampered. They do not stop even in days of a raging pandemic and do not hesitate to harm Palestinians – their bodies, property, and sources of livelihood.

Unceasing harassment of the weakened Palestinian population inflicts psychological harm as well. All – from babies through and including the elderly and the ill – are open prey to Jewish violence and terrorism which the settler-colonists are only too eager to exert.

We of MachsomWatch will not cease to report, certainly not now during these Corona times and under the threat of annexation, about the settlers’ increased rampages, those who hurry to set facts on the ground helped by the Israeli army.

Israel rules the West Bank, and by force of the Geneva Convention, article no. 27, it is committed to enforcing law and order there. The inhabitants of these Occupied Territories have the legal right “to decent treatment of their body and dignity, and should be especially protected against any act of violence”.

Ironically, this is not at all upheld.

Nor shall we cooperate with the commonplace ignoring of the Palestinian people’s suffering, and with the Israeli public’s indifference to it. We shall continue to follow up closely and report the goings-on in the West Bank, in its villages and encampments.

No one should be able to say ‘We knew nothing, we heard nothing’

Location Description

Shu'afat-Anata

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The Shu’afat checkpoint is located in the northern part of East Jerusalem at the exit from the village of Anata and the Shu’afat refugee camp, which are located in the area annexed to Jerusalem in 1967. The refugee camp borders the Shu’afat neighborhood to the west, Pisgat Ze’ev to the north, the French Hill neighborhood to the south and the planned expansion of Ma’aleh Adumim to E-1 in the east. It was established in 1966 for 1948 refugees from the West Bank and was populated after the Six Day War by persons who had been expelled from the Jewish Quarter. Today its population comprises some 25,000 people holding blue ID cards and some 15,000 people with Palestinian ID cards. The camp lacks adequate infrastructure and services, and suffers from poverty, neglect and overcrowding. All its buildings are connected to the public electricity and water infrastructure, but not all are connected to the sewer system. The camp’s services are provided by UNRWA, except for those such as health clinics and transportation of pupils to schools in Jerusalem. In 2005, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a suit by the residents requesting that the route of the separation fence be drawn such that the camp would remain on the Israeli side, but conditioned its approval of the route on the establishment of a convenient and rapid crossing facility for the inhabitants of the neighborhood, most of whom are residents of Jerusalem.

A temporary checkpoint operated there until December, 2011. It was extremely congested during rush hours, and dangerous for pedestrians (especially children) because of inadequate safety provisions. The new checkpoint was inaugurated south of the old one, for public and private transportation and for pedestrians, intended solely for the residents of the camp – holders of blue ID cards, and those with Palestinian ID cards who possess appropriate permits. There are five vehicle inspection stations at the checkpoint, and two for pedestrians (one of which is currently closed) where scanners have been installed but are not yet operating. According to the army, representatives of government agencies will also be present to provide services to residents of the neighbourhood. The pedestrian lanes are very long, located far from the small parking lots, and accessible through only a single revolving gate.

Dec-20-2023

Anat Tueg

Anata: new traffic circle at the exit junction

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Bir Nabala (Rafat)

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With completion of the Bir Nabala enclave, which includes also Al Jib, Al Judeira and Beit Hanina al Balad, a checkpoint was put at enclave exit. The passage into the enclave is allowed only to the enclave inhabitants and to Ramallah District people.

Nabi Samwil

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Nabi Samauil - a village literally placed in a transparent cage.

This Palestinian village is 800 years old. It is located on top of a hill, its altitude 890 meters above sea level, and overlooks the entire area. According to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, the Prophet Samuel was buried here. In recent years the mosque has been turned into a popular Jewish prayer site. Jews use the basement for prayer, and Muslims the upper part of the mosque. New signs are placed here, containing verses from the Jewish scriptures and mention of exclusively Israeli historical times. The nearby spring has become a popular site of ritual bathing. On Iyar 28^th, every year, a mass-celebration is held in memory of the Prophet Samuel.

Until 1967 this was a well-off village that developed around the mosque, with a population of 1,000 owning thousands of dunams of farmland. In 1967 most of the villagers fled, and only 250 remained. In 1971 Israel expelled them, and until the 1990s completely razed its houses that were sitting on a Crusader and Hellenist archeological stratum, without any kind of compensation for the expelled inhabitants. Parts of the village lands are at present used for the settler-colony of Har Shmuel, another part has been declared a national park. Villagers have tried to restore their lives on their remaining lands, a short distance from their original homes, in an area that formerly held structures to house the village’s livestock.

Then the Separation Fence was erected in the West Bank, the village remained an enclave caught between the Green Line and the Fence, and its inhabitants were torn away from other West Bank villages. Any exit to the West Bank requires crossing the distant Jib checkpoint, with a permit. The movement to Israel inside the Green Line is forbidden as well. In 1995 the entire village area was declared a national park – not only around the mosque and antiquities around it which take up about 30 dunams, but an area of no less than 3,500 dunams including the new village and all of its land. Any additional construction is forbidden: any room, caravan, fence, a newly planted tree. Work permits are issued sparingly. There is a tiny school made up of several caravans.

Watch the movie by Eran Turbiner and MachsomWatch: NABI SAMWIL 1099-2099, a film by Eran Torbiner

Har Shmu'el checkpoint

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Har Shmuel Checkpoint

This checkpoint is located on the way between Bidou and the enclave villages around Nabi Samauil, and separates them. It also blocks the way for Nabi Samauil farmers headed to their own farmlands that have become ‘state land’. Further along, the way to Bidou is another unmanned barrier blocking the road to Beit Iksa. Another large manned checkpoint with a watchtower separates the Bidou enclave from Israel proper. Importantly, the entire Bidou enclave is defined Area C and C by the Oslo Accords, and its fencing-in as an enclave was carried out in order to take over Palestinian land and build settler-colonies on it.

The holes in the barrier fence close to Har Shmuel are used for pedestrians working inside Israel. The workers we have met said that the way they must take from their home inside the enclave to their workplace in Jerusalem about 15 kilometers long – through another enclave: Bir Naballah. Driving this way in part involves potholed tracks, finally landing them at the overcrowded Qalandiya Checkpoint, which they cross to their work inside Israel. Incidentally, some of the workplaces are right opposite the Bidou enclave, so their track ends up being nearly circular.