Details:
The head of the occupation forces in the West Bank, Capt. Avi Mizrahi, issued on the 14th of March, 2010, a military order calling for the continuation of placing the military’s hand on 16 dunums of agricultural lands it confiscated earlier on the 14th of March, 2003. The goal of the confiscation was to establish Al Jalama military checkpoint which separates between Jenin Governorate and the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948. The military order (No. T/34/03 Boundary Re-Alignment and Extension) will keep the land in the hands of the occupation military until the 31st of January 2011.
Photo 1 & Photo 2: The Military Order.
The new order indicated that land owners have the right to object to its content within 10 days of its issuance. Yet, the owners have received the order on the 28th of March, 2010 (i.e. after the objection period has elapsed) in violation of all international norms. It is worth noting that the confiscated land is owned by Mr. Fawzi Sadeq Abu Farha and Ahmad Sa’eed Abu Farha, both residents of the village.
Al Jalama Terminal:
Al Jalama Terminal is the only crossing point between Jenin and the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948. Palestinian works, businessmen and the relatives of Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails face continuous humiliation while crossing the Terminal. Complaints about naked searches have been reported lately.
Photo 3 & Photo 4: Traffic congestion at the Terminal due to Israeli occupation policies.
Mr. Adnan Fayez Abu Al Rub is one of the workers that use the Terminal on daily basis to reach his work station beyond the Green Line. He expressed the following to the Land Research Center (LRC)’s field researcher:
When we reach Al Jalama Terminal, hundreds of workers would be present already. Everything in the Terminal is electronic and is more complicated than the border crossings with Jordan. Rooms number 1 and 2 are a nightmare for all those intending to cross. If a soldier suspects anyone, he would order him to go into Room 1 where a naked search will be conducted. Soldiers would use cameras and speakers to order you to strip while recording the operation. It is very humiliating.
Strip searching is a terrifying experience especially for women who are trying to visit their imprisoned relatives inside the Green Line. A large number of these women refuse to be strip searched which leads them to be denied the right of visitation. The placement of cameras inside the said rooms makes strip searching out of the question. This is the case especially that female soldiers refuse to go into the rooms and hand search the women themselves. Rather, they are instructed to stay outside the rooms and view the search via cameras installed inside the two rooms.
Another facet of the agony faced by the Palestinian using the Terminal is exemplified by the insistence of Israeli soldiers to damage and destroy large quantities of personal belongings for “security reasons.” Israeli soldiers purposefully mix personal belonging together while Palestinians do not dare to protest as it might lead to the withdrawing of the work permit. In relation to this daily humiliating treatment, Mr. Abu Al Rub explained:
Israeli intelligence officers are always present at the Terminal waiting for Palestinian workers to cross it as to blackmail him. Sometime they would take the worker aside to extract information from him. If he refuses to “cooperate”, they threaten to invalidate his work permit. The same procedure is implemented with the parents of Palestinian prisoners and businessmen. Some of the permits were shredded even after the holder goes through the physical search. That is despite the fact that permits are only given to those who have no “security risks or records.”
Mr. Riyad Kameil, Director of the Legal Department in the General Union of Palestinian Workers in Jenin, expressed the following to LRC’s researcher: ‘The workers start arriving at the Terminal at 1:00 AM in an attempt to book a place for themselves. The flow of workers continues until 5:00 AM to reach an average of 1200 workers on daily basis. That is in addition to 600 businessmen and 200 of families of Palestinian prisoners. All workers have to go through the Terminal as soon as they can. Otherwise, they risk losing their work. This urgency causes overcrowding, congestion and, ultimately, injuries as all these numbers have to go through only one opening in the Wall.’
The agony and suffering in Al Jalama Terminal is not felt only by the Palestinians of the West Bank as Palestinians from inside the Green Line are affected by its obstacles while travelling from and to the city of Jenin; despite the Israeli claim that occupation forces have eased access to Jenin since November 2009, yet facts on the ground indicate otherwise. Palestinians from inside the Green Line have expressed on a number of occasions that Israeli soldiers deliberately delay them for hours as they would search their belongings and prevent them buying a long list of items. They, also, search the cars thoroughly as to send a message of not coming back to Jenin, despite the declared policy of allowing their entrance to the city.
Al Jalama Terminal is considered to be a prime example of all crossings between the Wets Bank and the Palestinian lands inside the Green Line. Humiliation and agony are the trade marks of these terminals.
Al Jalama and its Suffering due to the Wall:
The village of Al Jalama and the two towns of Sandala and Al Muqbeila (occupied in 1948) used to have social and economic ties as well as family ties as they were considered to be one unit. The clans present in these three towns include Al Omari, Abu Farha, Sahori, Sha’aban, Abu Issa in addition to the clan of Radi. These communities used to have one school and one mosque until the Nakba took place in 1948 when these communities were forcefully separated.
In terms of the Racist Isolation Wall, it was established on the villages’ lands at a length of 3.5 kilometers with a width of 50 meters. It destroyed 175 dunums of Al Jalam’s most fertile lands while isolating the village from its natural sister villages occupied in 1948.
Photo 5: The green Houses adjacent to the Racist Isolation Wall in Al Jalama
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
The Land Research Center
LRC
