Habla agricultural checkpoint: there is no passage to nurseries and plantations

Telephone reporting with Palestinians farmers

The situation is dire – each nursery has two men irrigating and in charge of urgent care. The groves in the seam zone are not tended and the guavas are dropping to the ground.

I spoke with two nursery owners who live in Qalqiliya. The agricultural checkpoints leading to the seam zone are closed and locked. After extensive discussion with the army, it conceded to place two people in each nursery so it would not be destroyed and they would guard it. There is water in the nurseries, and the guards receive food from the Bedouins in Arab Ramadin who are permitted to cross Eliyahu Checkpoint and buy food stuffs for them.

The groves themselves are not taken care of, and the problem is acute especially for the guava groves where fruit is ripening and falling to the ground.

Exit from Qalqiliya to the West Bank is free and there are those who also exit to harvest groves inside the occupied territory, but not in the seam zone.

Right now the owners are trying to change the guards in the nurseries who have already been there for an entire week. Permission to do so has not been attained so far.

(Incidentally, Palestinian citizens of Israel come to Qalqiliya freely to do their shopping, as they always have)