- Violation: closing an agricultural road
- Location: Al-Marhat area- Salfit
- Date: May 05, 2016
- Perpetrators: Israeli Occupation Forces
- Victims: number of farmers from Salfit
Details:
Israeli Occupation Forces sealed off on May 05, 2016 an agricultural road in the Salfit area of Al-Marhat via dirt mounds. It should be marked that Al- Marhat area is an important agricultural area for it accommodates vast area of olive groves.
Affected farmer Mahmoud Al-Zeer told Land Research Center that the occupation invests all efforts to harass farmers in all possible means to divert them from using their lands. The occupation chases and assaults farmers in their lands at time of plantations and crops reaping.
Al-Zair also said that closing the road will have a very negative impact on the area's farmers, taking into consideration that agriculture is the source of income for most of them.
Photos 1-2: the closed road in AL-Marhat area
About Salfit:
The governorate of Salfit is considered , after Hebron and Jerusalem, one of the most targeted locations by the Israeli occupation. The Israeli interests represented in colonial expansions started on the day of the occupation on the West Bank in 1967 through changing a camp relative to the Jordanian military in the area of Jabal el-Helo, west of Masha village into a camp of the Israeli occupation, which grew later to become a colony named Elkana.
It should be marked and according to the Israeli data( announced or classified) that the vast and fertile lands of Salfit were confiscated for the favor of the Israeli interests in the area. The total land area of the governorate is 202,000dunuims of which 11,624 dunums(6% of the total area of the governorate) is the built-up area whereas the total population is 76305 people until 2014.
As for the geographical location, Salfit is famous for it overlooks the occupied Palestinian shore and that it is considered a linking point between the shore and the Jordan Valley. Noteworthy, Salfit is located in the middle of the governorates of the West Bank namely Ramallah, Nablus(26km to the southwest), and Qalqiliya. The governorate is surrounded by Qalqiliya from the north, Nablus from the east, Ramallah from the south and the occupied lands of 1948 from the west.
It should be mentioned that Salfit has a huge underground water stock. More than 14 artisan wells are taken over by Israel, the water of which was moved to the state of the occupation.
Land Research Center sees in checkpoint expansion and the village's entrance closure a clear-cut violation of the right to move and a breach of the international conventions. For example :
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
- Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
- Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
- Article 13 :
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- Article 7:
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.
- Article 9:
- Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.
- Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
