- Violation: damaging and stealing trees
- Location: Bir Yobak- Jayyous village
- Date: March 20, 2016
- Perpetrators: Committee of State Property- Israel Civil Administration
- Victims: farmer Fawwaz Hussein
Details:
It should be marked that the residents of Jayyous managed to restore 2450 dunums of agricultural lands that were taken by the apartheid wall in 2000. Noteworthy, the total area of taken lands by the wall reached 8000 dunums.
Organization such like Union of Agriculture Work Committees UAWC and Palestine Hydrology Group worked over the past three years to rehabilitate lands, water wells and water networks in the restored lands through a project funded by the Dutch Representative Office.
Farmer, Fawwaz Hussien, was one of the project's beneficiaries, whose 8 dunum lands went under reclamation and was cultivated with citrus trees to protect it from Israeli takeover plans.
It should be marked that farmer Fawwaz found out on March 20, 2016 that the so-called Committee of State Property- Israel Civil Administration uprooted 150 citrus seedlings and moved them to the nearby Tsofem colony, which is only 1km away from the targeted lands.
Photos 1+2: view of the wall on Jayyous lands
Photos 3+4: the isolated lands behind the wall, that were annexed to colonies
Farmer Fawwaz submitted a complaint to Palestinian-Israeli Coordination Office DCO and to Israel Police as well since he possess ownership documents on the land. The case of the farmer has been stalled and never considered. The occupation army was reported to threat the farmer of killing at times he tries to access his land.
About the apartheid wall in Jayyous:
The segregation wall isolated, in 2002, around 8600 dunums form the villages of Jayyous and Falamya. After a long tribunal procedures in Israel Supreme Court, a decision was made on September 9th 2009 to modify the wall to its final status where 2450 dunums from northwest Jayyous shall be returned to their owners.
On January 18th 2013, the modification of the wall started and was represented in ravaging new areas for the sake of establishing a new modified segment to substitute the old one. The removed segment is of 3km from the northwestern side of Jayyous. As a result, 80 dunums were left damaged after the removal.
On September 1st 2014, the work on the new segment was done and on September 7th, farmers were given access to their lands, which were returned as a matter of fact.
According to the mayor of Jayyous: " the returned lands contain two artisan wells namely( Yabok and Abu Thahir) and have more than 25dunums planted with green houses. Rest of the area is olive groves.
Noteworthy, the isolated lands have 27dunums planted with vegetables, citrus, olives and guava as well.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
