Violation: The Israeli occupation reinforces closures on agricultural roads
Location: Ya'bad town, Jenin governorate
Date: June 18, 2014
Perpetrators: The Israeli military
Victims: The farmers of Ya'bad
Details:
On June18, 2014 in a new wave of escalation of Israeli violations against Palestinian land and human beings, freedoms restriction, and lands' access denial, the Israeli occupation military reinforced closure of agricultural roads in the eastern part of Ya'bad.. That comes in synchronization with Israel's military operations in the West Bank for the sake of harassing people and bringing their will down.
It should be marked that the occupation has closed the alternative agricultural roads generally founded as a substitute to the main agricultural roads after the latter were closed on May18, 2014. Residents have been active in opening new side roads to meet their agricultural needs but the Israeli occupation military closed the eight of them under the article of "reinforcing closure."
Photo of the eight recently closed roads
Persistence on the destruction of the agricultural and industrial economy of the area:
In a visit of the LRC research team to the location of the closure, the massive damage resulted by the closure of the eight side roads was obvious to the eye, not to mention the closure of the city entrance via an iron gate; the entrance is a linking point between Imreiha and Mikhail and Ya'bad, thus its closure has further resulted in difficulty for farmers to reach their agricultural lands planted with vegetables and various field crops.
During the field trip, the researcher met with a number of farmers form Ya'bad and elicited their opinions about the results of the dilemma of the closure. Farmer Ali Al Ebadi (42) stated that: "Most of Ya'bad's farmers face difficulty in letting in agricultural tools including pesticides & insecticides." The reason behind Israeli measures, as described by Ebadi, "is to force farmers to take Dotan check point; the only access point to the area where a massive force of the occupation army is always present for the sake of inspecting people thoroughly in a humiliating way and that is how the occupation controls exists and entries to the area."
Ali Turkman, a citizen of the nearby Khirbet Imreiha had the following to say: "The five hundred inhabitants of the town, located to the western part of Ya'bad, have become under siege as the town is going through a constant deprivation causing it to be considered "primitive" with no services offered and no mosques for worshiping. Because of the closure of the main street, it takes the residents of Imreiha 20km to reach the school and the clinic of Ya'bad town where it used to take only 8km before."
On both sides of the main road known as Jenin-Tulkarem road, Ibrahim Abu Rmayleh ; a vendor of the famous Ya'bad coals stated to the LRC researcher that :" The occupation soldiers are waging a psychological war against residents and farmers harassing them by frequent patrols making people prefer to buy things on the sides of the road, quickly and similarly to drive through style.
The question here is as follows: What is the role of the municipal council in minimizing residents' sufferings? Did the municipal council submit a complaint for the so called DCO to demand the agricultural roads re-opened? And how much suffering the farmers of Ya'bad are undergoing due to the closure ?
To answer all those questions, the LRC researcher met with the deputy mayor of Ya'bad municipality, Mr. Mohammad al- Abadi, to talk in depthsdetails about the crisis of the closure of the agricultural roads.
Greed:
It should be marked that the closure of the agricultural roads in Ya'bad and the eastern entrance of the town dates back in time to 2000, in the aftermath of Al Aqsa intifada. The occupation has been procrastinating to re-open the agricultural roads which serve at least 7,000 dunums including Khirbet Imreiha and Khirbet Mikhail, as al- Abadi stated.
The residents of Ya'bad town have recently opened substitute roads but the occupation military closed them eventually.
Al Abadi stated to the LRC researcher that: "The eastern part of Ya'bad is considered a focus of the occupation attention due to the presence of MevoDotan and Hermesh colonies in the nearby area. The two colonies are known of confiscating lands for the favor of colonists and to harass villagers by shutting off agricultural roads and kicking them out of their lands.
Mr al- Abadi also marked that "there is an Israeli plan to destroy the coal industry in Ya'bad as more than thirteen coal facilities were given stop-work orders within the past three years. Such facilities are considered living source for many families in Ya'bad, thus targeting them harmfully affects the already weak economy of the town."
Regarding the lawful procedures that aim at stopping "the closure of agricultural roads" policy, al- Abadi asserted that: " The municipal council in Ya'bad submitted a complaint to the so called COGAT through Jenin governorate but the result was all lies, procrastination and negligence affecting the only victim; the Palestinian farmer.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
