Violation: blocking Hijja road.
Date: July 4, 2012.
Perpetrators: the Israeli Occupation Army.
Victims: residents of Hijja.
Location: the southern part of the village.
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Details:
Hijja, to the south east of Qalqiliya, suffers from outrageous violations against the residents rights to adequate housing and freedom of movement, rights that were granted by international conventions. Demolition threats and blocking of roads have become usual scenes in the village.
Late in June, the Village Council approved a plan to rehabilitate and widen an agricultural road which was supposed to connect the village with bypass ’55’; nevertheless, the so-called ‘infrastructure officer’ at the Israeli Occupation Authorities ordered the immediate stoppage of work in the road; they even went further when they blocked the 3-km-long, 6-m-wide road usinf earth mounds.
Photo 1 & Photo 2: The blocked road
According to the village council, the road would have facilitated the movement of the locals by serving over 200 dunums of grain fields besides the fact that these lands are a target for colonial expansion in the area. The Israeli Occupation Authorities insist on the closure of Kafr Qaddum main entrance:
The Israeli Occupation Authorities insist on blocking the southern entrance of Kafr Qaddum, claiming that it threatens ‘settlers security’. The road has been used since the Ottoman days as a caravan route; it has been closed since 2001.
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Photo 3 : Kafr Qaddum entrance – blocked
Movement of 3000 people, residents of Kafr Qaddum, has become costly and tiresome which forced many of them to seek pasture new. It must be noted that the number of notified structures in the village since 2004 has reached 49; ten had been already demolished in addition to others which were dismantled by the owners.
Hijja suffers from the limited area for construction and expansion as the village master plan of 1994 concise 822 dunums only. According to the villagers, the area is too small to handle the natural growth of population which forced them to expand to areas classified ‘C’ according to Oslo.
Hijja is located to the east of Qalqiliya. Its total area is 11718 dunums including 337 dunums of built up area inhabited by 2148 people. Villagers depend mostly on agriculture and labor work in their living.
