ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 06.06.2023
The story of Ein Samiya is not told in the Zionist mass disinformation only in Al Jazeera which very few Israelis read.
The Palestinian villagers had to abandon their village under the attacks of the Zionist settlers on them and on their flocks in the West- Bank while the goons in police uniforms watched and laughed.
The villagers dismantled their own homes and fled the relentless Israeli settler attacks on them, their children and even their flocks. The displaced villagers have lost their homes along with the elementary school, a way to make a living and a sustainable future as Bedouins in their new location.
They live now in small tents without a space for most furniture strewn outside the tents. Many structures in Ein Samiya – including its school – faced government demolition orders as well as attacks from settlers on adults, children and livestock in the village and even at the nearby spring when they went to draw water.
The decision to leave Ein Samiya came after the settler harassment and violence they had been subjected to the past five years ratcheted up to frightening levels. Constantly surveilling the Bedouins’ activities, settlers from nearby illegal outposts were attacking every night, throwing rocks, invading homes and beating villagers.
“The “killing point”, said Abu Najjeh, came when Atta Kaabneh’s flock of 75 sheep and goats was stolen in broad daylight while Israeli police watched. Settlers had gone to the police, falsely claiming Atta had stolen their sheep – a pretense to have the police detain Atta and steal all of his sheep.” [1]
The night following Atta’s detention and confiscation of his flock, children and young people keeping watch over the village and its flocks were attacked by settlers with stones. They tried to escape – only to run into other settlers positioned to attack them as well. “They felt they were being attacked from all directions,” said Abu Najjeh. “Nowhere was safe.” [2]
“In the five years since several shepherding outposts – built illegally even under Israeli law, though the Israeli government takes no effective action against them – were constructed around the community, the people of Ein Samiya saw their total flock of 2,500 sheep dwindle to 500, according to Abu Najjeh”
Bedouin communities like Ein Samiya report violent attacks from nearby settlers’ shepherd outposts up and down Allon Road, which stretches across the northern occupied West Bank in 1967. Shepherding outposts – typically comprising only one shepherd and a few volunteers each – have increased dramatically in prominence as a tool to forcibly take land from Bedouin communities since 2018. According to Israeli NGO Kerem Navot (PDF), there are now 61 grazing outposts, 50 of them created since 2018. The Palestinian Bedouin communities in this area are in what is called area C -60% of the West-Bank the Zionist state has decided to annex.
“According to a late 2021 report (PDF) from Israeli NGO Yesh Din, Israeli government documents reveal plans as early as 1981 to use grazing-permitted areas around settlements to “secur[e] reservoirs of land for future settlement” The Yesh Din report cites Ze’ev Hever, Amana’s executive director, boasting that while settlements took about 100 sq km (39 sq miles) over 50 years, shepherd outposts managed to capture double that area in three years, from 2018 to 2021.” [3]
“The police not only did not investigate [settler attacks], but they were trying to persecute those within the [Ein Samiya] community,” said Wa’il Qut, a lawyer at the Jerusalem Legal Aid Center, which oversaw many of the villagers’ legal cases. “It is a clear example of cooperation between the settlers, the army and the civil administration to force – directly or indirectly – the Bedouin communities [to leave] … this is a clear violation of international law.” [4]
Shepherd outposts are bankrolled by several organizations, including Amana – an outgrowth of Gush Emunim, an ultranationalist messianic settler movement, and the main driving force behind these outposts – HaShomer Yosh and the Jewish National Fund. Amana receives millions of shekels each year from local councils in settlements – which are funded by the government – and HaShomer Yosh – an association that sends volunteers to agricultural outposts in the West Bank – receives 65 percent of its budget from the State of Israel.
“Some of the Kaabneh clan called this forcible displacement “another Nakba”. Historically nomadic herders, Bedouins in historical Palestine faced forced sedentarization going back to Ottoman times, and this is the sixth time the Kaabneh clan – today all related through patriarchal relations – have been forcibly displaced since they were first expelled from Be’er Sheva in 1948. In spite of the series of earlier relocations, they managed to spend the last 40 years in Ein Samiya, continuing as herders there until now”
And while these war crimes continue an Egyptian soldier moved by the suffering of the Palestinians executed 3 Zionist soldiers that we do not have any tears for them.
Down with the Zionist Apartheid state of the Zionist crusaders!
For a Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] Steven Davidson Better to die there’: Palestinians mourn Ein Samiya displacement Al Jazeera Published On 4 Jun 20234 Jun 2023 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/4/better-to-die-there-palestinians-mourn-ein-samiya-eviction
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid