Settlers shoot at children and internationals

Al Mazra’a is a village outside Ramallah of about 5,ooo people. They describe themselves as ‘peaceful farmers’, or at least they were until the settlement came. The settlement nearest the village is Talmund B. There are seven settlements of this name, a legal and propaganda trick to make it appears as if there is only one.

The mayor of al mazra describes the settlement as “spreading like a cancer”. The entire economy of the town is based on olives, the men tell how everything is based on loans until the harvest comes and then the money is paid back. The settlers are stealing more and more of the land from the village, in the last years they have taken 14,000 denums of land. (4 denums= 1 acre) They uprooted “Roman” olive trees, these are trees more than 100 years old. These trees were like family to people, not only the economic but the cultural life of the community rests on these trees. 4 years ago the settlers came and made a new settlement near the town, killing more olive trees and taking more land.

The town used legal means to have the settlement declared illegal. this year the settlers came back with a military order annexing the land for “military purposes’. It turned out that the land had been confiscated under Sharon in 1983. No one in the village had been informed of this theft. Apparently all the Israelis have to do to steal the land is leave a notice on the land, this notice can even be under a rock on the land. there is no need to actually serve the notice to a person. The village contacted all the legal channels to no avail. A settlement does not just eat the land it takes for houses and agricultural land but they demand a clear fire security zone around the settlement that they defend with live fire. In this case no one can come within 500m of the fences. this denies many families access to their families trees.

After exhausting the legal channels the village decided to try different tactics. In August the village went after Friday prayers to the land they are denied access to and pulled up the crops, grape vines, that the settlers had planted there. The demo was peaceful but afterwards the army came and arrested six men from the village. they held them for two days until the International red cross came and demanded their release, on the condition that they would not demonstrate again.

We arrived with ten internationals to join the villagers coming out of there prayers. We walked over the hills passing olive trees that families are now too afraid to harvest. In the midday sun people were suffering toiling up the hill. we reached the land where a barbed wire fence marked the boundary of stolen land. Approximately 40 young men and a few older men crossed the fence and started to remove the grape vines from the land. Also the pipes that take the stolen water were destroyed. As people were leaving the land shots rang out from the surrounding hillsides.

The group of children started to run shouting to the internationals to “hurry” “hurry”. We ran back under live fire for twenty minutes. Some of us ran ahead to try and get to the village to protect people if the army came into the village. Two older members of the party, both over sixty, could not run fast enough, and one person stayed to wait with them. they were arrested and are being held by the police on a settlement close to Ramallah. we don’t know what they are being charged with. There were no injuries but the village think the only reason there were no deaths is the presence of internationals. tomorrow the community leaders are expecting to be arrested. they still stand in resistance.