Wadi Fukin is a small village located to the west of Bethlehem district with a population of about 1200 people. The village is surrounded by agricultural lands cultivated with Olive and Almond trees as well as Vegetables.
Due to its location in the midst of three main Israeli settlements in Bethlehem district, Betar Illit to the east, Hadar Betar to the north east and Gavaot to the south, has made it of great importance in the eyes of the Israelis and therefore became a target of continuous colonizing violations from sealing its entrances and exits with huge ramparts of rocks and dirt, to the daily suffering of its residents at those rocks of dirt, and the erection of checkpoints and confiscation of its agricultural lands for colonizing purposes. See Photo 1
In 2001, hundreds of dunums of land in Wadi Fukin village were confiscated to continue working on the bypass road, starting from Betar Illit in the east, passing through Al-Kanesa Mountain in Wadi Fukin and ending at Zur Hadasa in the west. This mountain belongs to Muhammad Abdullah and is no longer of his possessions. See Photo 2 & Photo 3.
In the process, the Israeli bulldozers, protected by trigger-happy occupation soldiers, started confiscating and razing more than 90 dunums of land to the west of Wadi Fukin village to finish the work that has been started to link the western entrance of Betar Illit settlement with Sur Hadasa. See map…
The main reason behind this work is to avoid passing through the built-up area of Betar Illit settlement. See Photo 4 & Photo 5
Villagers of Wadi Fukin have suffered since the beginning of the Intifada from confiscation of vast areas of their lands, which are considered as their only source of income. The number of affected villagers exceeds ten from which ARIJ field workers were able to survey 7 and they are: Saleh Salman Al Hroub, Abu Sa'di Al Hroub, Issa Ahmad Al Hroub, Fakhri Sukkar, Ibrahim Awad Sukkar and Atiyya Manasra.
Increasing amounts of Palestinian lands are also threatened to be confiscated at favor of the Israeli plans to provide security and stability for the settlers of Betar Illit settlement and the nearby settlements. Expansion of the borders of Jerusalem to include more and more Palestinian villages and lands to form what is now known as 'Metropolism Jerusalem', raise in all hearts frustration, despair and revolutionary which after all lead to more violence.
Such Israeli escalation against Palestinian cities and villages to take over land near the PLO-ruled town of Bethlehem to build bypass roads, is one of a network of roads Israel has built around Arab towns and villages for Jewish settlers to prevent Palestinians from traveling to or through Jerusalem, withhold their basic services, depart them from their lands causing an increased number of homeless persons, and deny their rights to live merrily as any other nation in the world.
Israel's continued illegal actions in the Occupied Palestinian territories, including the confiscation of lands for expanding the existing Israeli settlements and building of new ones and for constructing a network of by-pass roads to link those settlements, in addition to the demolition of a large number of Palestinian houses, results in deterioration and devastation of the Palestinian social communities..
Prepared by:
The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem
