OUTGOING Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the dream of a ‘greater Israel’ was over, a day after settlers raided the Palestinian village of Assira Qabaliya, in the northern West Bank, causing extensive damage and wounding several people, in what was a reprisal attack.
‘There will be no pogroms against non-Jewish residents,’ the outgoing premier told his cabinet on 14 September.
Police said an investigation had been launched but no arrests made.
The Knesset (parliament) internal affairs committee convened an urgent meeting to discuss the event, sparked when a Palestinian stabbed a boy and burned a house at a settlement outpost.
Video footage showed settlers attacking the Palestinian village with Israeli soldiers present.
‘If the army is here or not, the settlers will attack,’ a Palestinian resident told IRIN the UN agency.
The Israeli military issued a statement saying: ‘The command and commanders’ orders are that a soldier shall not stand by and will act to prevent violent disturbances.’
A security source said two firearms were confiscated from settlers who attacked the village.
Shortly after Olmert’s speech, settlers went to Awarta, another town, and burnt down more than 400 Palestinian olive trees, according to residents.
‘The trees burned for hours,’ said Asad Loolah, who said he had lost about 50 trees.
It took almost an hour for a fire engine to reach the scene, due to the Israeli-imposed restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank.
In addition, residents reported that Palestinian ambulances were delayed in reaching the injured the day before in Assira.
In August, ‘37 people were injured as a result of attacks carried out by Israeli settlers, the largest number recorded since January 2005’, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories said.
‘The lack of adequate law enforcement by the Israeli authorities seems to be a key factor contributing to the persistence of the settler violence phenomenon over years,’ the agency wrote in its recent Humanitarian Monitor, released on 12 September.
‘There is Yitzhar, there is Brakha and there is Itamar,’ Hani Darawshe, a resident said, pointing at the surrounding hilltops, each with an Israeli settlement, established on what Palestinians say was their land.
Near to each settlement lay several ‘outposts’, satellites of the main colony, taking up more Palestinian land.
‘We have been living here for hundreds of years,’ said Darawshe, adding that structures in the village dated back to Roman rule.
The land they have left is largely off limits to them.
‘I need to have coordination with the (Israeli) military to access my land,’ said Loolah.
‘They give me access only two or three days a year. I don’t have the chance to prune or water the trees and not enough time to pick the olives.
‘See, it is dried up and messy,’ he says, pointing at the inaccessible land, where he says he and 15 other families had many trees burned down.
With the olive harvest set to begin after Eid el-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadan, in early October, he is concerned about his expected yield, an important part of his livelihood.
Meanwhile Israeli soldiers have confiscated 140 dunnums (0.14 square kilometres) of land in the northern West Bank village of Bardala in the northern Jordan Valley near the Bisan checkpoint.
The land owners appealed to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to support them and insist on cancelling the confiscation.
‘This confiscation aims at changing borders before final status negotiations begin,’ said the governor of Tubas Dr. Sami Musallam.
Israel is attempting to impose a de facto situation on the negotiations map.’
He condemned the illegal confiscation which he described as contradictory to international law and UN resolutions as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention. He explained that international conventions ban the confiscation of lands from rightful property owners, and changing the demographics and geography of an occupied area by an occupying power.
‘These Israeli measures contradict . . . the efforts of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and the Palestinian negotiation team to reach a peace agreement,’ Musallam added.
He also highlighted and condemned latest Israeli confiscation of 37 dunnums in Al-Bequi’ah and Al-Farisya, both in the northern and the central Jordan Valley for enlargement of Israeli settlements such as Maskiyyot and Rotem. The Israeli Knesset approved plans for the building of a new settlement in the Jordan valley this summer.
The governor of Tubas appealed to the UN, the international community, the Middle East Quartet, the US and all UN permanent member countries to place every possible pressure on Israel to stop undermining international resolutions.
The confiscated lands belong to Muhammad and Hasan Aryan, Yahya Mujalli and Izzat Abdul-Rahman.
l A letter from detained members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to all Palestinians was read during the sermon at the Al-Aqsa mosque last Friday.
It called for leadership from the Jerusalemite community.
‘Where is the Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas?
‘Where is Salam Fayyad?
‘Where are the members of the executive committee?’ asked the letter, and wondered, ‘do they just come to Jerusalem to meet with Olmert and Livni?’ rather than to pray or lead the Palestinian people?
The PLC members, writing from the Ayalon prison near Ramle in central Israel, said more leadership for Jerusalem and Jersalemites would be a positive influence in the strengthening of Arab-Islamic relations with Palestinian leaders.
‘Our nation faces many troubles,’ continued the statement, ‘while Palestinians wait at the checkpoints to reach Jerusalem our leaders don’t bother to come and pray as a way to encourage their nation and support them with their presence.’
Three of the statement’s writers were Muhammed Abu Tiyer, Muhammed Touteh and Ahmad Atoun, who were PLC members detained since 2006.
