A new military order was issued on December 15th, 2004by Chief Commander of the Israeli Occupation Forces in Judea & Samaria, Moshe Kaplenski, stipulating the confiscation of about 610.5 dunums (one dunum equals 1000 M2) of land from Surif and Al Jab'a villages northwest of Hebron city. The purpose of this confiscation order is to go ahead with the construction of the Segregation Wall in this area of Hebron governorate.
The new confiscation order carries the number of T/74/04 and states the seizure of a strip of land at a length of 2253 meters and width of 271 meters, equal to 610.5 square dunums. The order gave an ultimatum of 10 days for legal objection by Palestinian land owners who, however, were informed of it two weeks after the date of issuance.
The areas targeted in the confiscation order include: Basins number 2 and 3 of Surif lands, mainly: Wadi Al Jard, Daher 'Illin, Daher ad Deir, Al Heil, Ras Hasan, Az'arura and Qurnart Al Ballut while in Al Jab'a village, areas targeted for confiscation include basin number 4, mainly Al Hur areas. All the targeted areas are located to the east of the Green Line of 1949 inside the lands of the West Bank.
It is worth mentioning here that the lands stated in the order for confiscation don't include the lands that are expected to be segregated by the construction of the Wall whose areas are estimated at 3000 additional dunums of agricultural areas planted with thousands of olive and other types of fruitful trees.
There is a great discrepancy between figures mentioned in papers by Israeli officials in regards to land confiscations and what happens on the ground once the actual work starts. In fact, much more lands are destroyed and trees uprooted as a means of stripping Palestinians off their lands.
A copy of the military order in Surif Village: the blue colored area is the land targeted for confiscation. Photo courtesy of LRC
At the end of July 2004, the Israeli military issued a military order number T/64/4 to confiscate not less than 500 dunums of lands from Surif, Nuba and Beit Ula villages to make space for Wall constructions. In reality, the area of land targeted for confiscation or seizure is much bigger than that mentioned in the foresaid orders. For example, the Surif, Al Jab'a and Ad Deir villages alone will lose about 3000 dunums, according to Surif Mayor, Mr. Mohammed Barath'iya, who confirmed that the targeted lands are mostly agricultural lands planted with thousands of olive, almond, and grape trees and threatened with uprooting or segregation.
These lands are considered the main source of living for most Palestinian families who live in the three adjacent villages, see Photo 3: an Israeli Bulldozer cutting through fertile Palestinian lands west of Surif village in preparation for Wall constructions..
Photo 4: Vine and olive trees targeted for uprooting by the Wall construction to the west of Surif village. Photo courtesy of LRC
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
