we launched a new, interactive map (
https://t.co/CyV19YKaX4) showing the places and ways in which Israel and settlers violate the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority in the territories that were transferred to its control.
The violations of Palestinian sovereignty by settlers, with the support of the army, can be divided into four main categories:
1- Preventing access to agricultural land and open fields used for grazing
2- Taking over agricultural land
3- Constructing buildings and roads
4- Holding settler tours in sites located in area A or B
The map features 22 different sites that settlers visit periodically. These visits usually involve closing off the areas that the settlers are visiting, as well as severe traffic restrictions imposed on Palestinians by the army, which accompanies the settlers on their visit.
This short video (
https://t.co/pDmEkLmJka), which was uploaded by
@btselem and filmed in the village Kifl Haris, north of Salfit...
where there are three ancient sites identified as the tombs of Caleb ben Yafoneh, Joshua ben Nun, and Nun - Joshua’s father, shows how these nightmarish visits really look like.
From the perspective of the settlers involved, these tours are an opportunity to “make their presence felt,” and the statement they seek to make is clear:
all of this is ours, and we will therefore do whatever we want, wherever we want, whenever we want. In 2012, an organization called the “Joseph’s Tomb and Holy Sites Heritage Foundation” was founded in order to encourage this activity, and currently employs six people.
Here is testimony from resident of Kifl Haris Maha Dweik, given to B’tselem in January of this year, in which she describes what happens when settlers come to the village (
https://t.co/as1ZEL2arG):
“As soon as I heard on social media that the settlers were coming, I warned my two sons who live with us and work at night not to go to work, as I always do.
When these invasions happen, they sleep at home after the morning shift, so they can stay up at night while the worshippers are in town because we’re truly afraid for our lives.
We stay up all night and I even ask my son Saleh, who lives downstairs, to come up to our house with his wife because I’m scared for them.
The settlers came at around 11:00 P.M. There were more of them than usual. Every time, all the way to the tombs, they act like vandals, attacking homes and damaging our property. They threw stones at our home. My husband and children went outside.
I went after them, because I was afraid they’d get hurt. Right away, two soldiers told us to go back inside, but my husband, who speaks Hebrew, insisted their commander come. About half an hour later, a military jeep came, and the soldiers told my husband to go inside.
The commander told him he’d post soldiers near our house and that if anything happened, he’d be responsible. We went back inside and saw, out the window, two soldiers in front of the entrance.
The worshippers left town at about 4:00 A.M. On their way out, they threw stones at our house again and swore at us, right in front of the soldiers.
They’ve broken the water meter near our fence a few times, and the doorbell. After we’d fixed the doorbell almost ten times, we simply stopped fixing it.
They broke the potted plants in front of the house, too. We park our car in a storage space so that it doesn’t get vandalized.”
