Halting Road Rehabilitation-  west Deir Istiya / Salfot governorate

June 25, 2020

• Violation: Halting road rehabilitation on the pretext of working without licenses.
• Location: Deir Istiya village / North West Salfit city.
• Date: June 25^th
• Perpetrator: The Israeli Occupation forces.
• Victims: Deir Istiya farmers.
• Description:

Thursday, June 25^th 2020, the Israeli Occupation forces prohibited people of Deir Istiya northwest Salfit from rehabilitating an agricultural road west the village in Hariqat Al-wad location.

A massive army force raided the area and forced the contractor to halt road rehabilitation and withdraw from the location, and threatened that in case he refused to leave, the Occupation forces will confiscate the machineries and prohibit rehabilitation.

The targeted road was implemented by Union of Agricultural Work Committee with the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture and contribution of the Deir Istiya’s village council , the road was supposed to be 2 *4 km² , the road was leveled with base course and supposed to serve more than 350 dunums of olive groves in Wad Qana that belong to number of farmers.

Deir Istiya village council head Nathmi Salman told LRC:

“Since the beginning of year 2020, the Israeli Occupation forces closed off and halted work on three agricultural roads in Dair Istiya . the new road was supposed to serve tens of agricultural dunums at the village. This is only a reflection of the occupation’s intention to take over vast areas of the town’s lands for the sake of Nofeem , Yakir, Havat Yaer and Immanuel colonies’ expansion , this also paves the road for Land Judaization , and banning farmers’ access to their lands in order to annex them later.”

Deir Istiya village: [1]

10 km north Salfit , Deir Istiya is surrounded by Ematin , Jinsafut and Kafr Laqif (north), Azzun and Kafar Thulth (west), Zita, Jama’en and Kafl Haris (east), Haris and Qaraqwat Bani Hyssan (south)

Deir Istiya has a population of (3,696) people in 2017 census.

The town has a total area of 34,125, of which 640 dunums are a built up area. 

The Israeli occupation confiscated (4,257) dunums for the following purposes:

• Bypass roads 55 and 5066 devoured 118 dunums.
• The segregation wall (1,148 m ate up115 dunums , in case its construction plan was completed it will isolate 8,408 dunums and eat up 160 dunums.

Oslo accords classified Deir Istiya as the following :

• B area : 6,132 dunums.
• C area 27,993 dunums.

[1] GIS-LRC