“We are staying here, herding our sheep and cultivating our land. Nothing will uproot us from our land.” —Jaber Dbabseh, Masafer Yatta
Two Hundred Fifteen Palestinian families in Masafer Yatta, near the southern border of the West Bank in Palestine, are asking us to help them resistforced expulsion from their lands. Israeli authorities have delivered demolition orders for ALL of their above ground structures, including homes, schools, agricultural buildings and energy and water installations. These demolitions are already underway.
Stop the Wall and the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) have responded to requests from these families to assist in transforming existing caves on their lands into livable environments. They have launched a campaign to purchase cement, tile, cooking and heating stoves and reinforced front doors, as well as tents and generators for temporary use after the the imminent demolitions.
Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP) has decided to raise the $2,000 needed to renovate one cave space. We hope you will join us in supporting this campaign.
BACKGROUND
About 2,000 Palestinians, more than half of them children, live in 13 Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta. Their forced expulsion by Israel would be the largest since 1967.
The area was seized by Israel in 1979 for the creation of “Firing zone 918”. Classified documents have recently shown that these firing zones — which now take up roughly 18% of the West Bank — were created in order to take large tracts of Palestinian land using false claims of “national security”.
The villages have fought orders for their removal in Israeli courts for decades, but the Israeli high court has now denied their final appeal and Israeli forces have already demolished schools and homes. Primary students in Sfai have seen their school demolished twice in recent months.
Many residents of Masafer Yatta arrived in the area as refugees after being driven from their original villages in1948. After Israeli soldiers forced 700 civilians onto trailers and demolished their homes in 1979, many returned to their lands and their flocks of sheep and goats. Since then they have waged a legal battle for the right to stay, and have resisted repeated demolitions of their homes, roads, schools, wells and agricultural buildings by Israel. They suffer frequent Israeli army live fire exercises that leave their land scattered with spent ammunition, their crops destroyed by tanks and military vehicles, and their children and animals terrified by gunfire and low flying helicopters.
Meanwhile illegal Israeli settlements and outposts have expanded, seizing more and more Palestinian land and subjecting shepherds and schoolchildren to violent attacks and intimidation. Two Israeli outposts in the area (Avigayil and Asahel), illegal under both Israeli and international law, have recently been recognized by Israel as settlements giving hundreds of settlers the right to remain in the firing zone even as Palestinians whose land they have already stolen face imminent forced expulsion.
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