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Ali Awad is a community organizer and journalist living in Tuba, in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank.

No One To Call For Help

NOVEMBER 10, 2024 BY WORLD VIEW

WORT 89.9FM Madison · No One to Call for Help

World View talked with Ali Awad in March 2023. Ali is a farmer, community activist and protector, a translator and fixer for foreign journalists and visitors as well as a journalist himself. You can hear his earlier interview here.

After the events of October 7, 2023 in Israel, the Israeli occupation became much more difficult, not only for Gaza, but also for the occupied West Bank where there is no Hamas. In this interview Ali tells us about the situation there now, much of which involves defending agricultural lands and livestock from settlers who are aggressively attempting to steal them.

Because the settlers have been emboldened by the current Israeli government which has made many of the settlers reservists who serve as part of the local government, residents of the Masafer Yatta villages find they have no protection or security, no one to call when armed settlers come to take their flocks or slash and burn their olive trees or spoil or divert their water supply. Here’s an article about school in Masafer Yatta.

Ali mentioned the Israeli law that allows for the seizure of land as “state land” when Palestinian families cannot prove they have cultivated land for three years are at risk of losing it – which can happen when olive groves are destroyed.

Madison organizations have committed to creating the Madison-Masafer Yatta Olive Grove, making trees available to the Palestinian farmers and land-owners most at risk in the Masafer Yatta region. They have partnered with the Dutch organization, Plant een Olijfboom, or Plant an Olive Tree in English, to replace destroyed and damaged trees on Palestinian land where families are committed to remaining on their land.

You can help by sponsoring olive trees to replace those destroyed by the Israeli military and settlers. Learn more and sponsor olive trees here.

We want to thank Ali Awad for taking time to tell us his story and also Cassandra Dixon, who is also in Masafer Yatta now, for reconnecting us to Ali and for all she does in solidarity with the people there. You can learn more on the Madison Rafah Sister City Project website and the Palestine Partners facebook page.

Photo courtesy of Ali Awad