Collective punishment by IDF and settlers


September 4, 2015
Sarah Benton

Articles from Ma’an news and ISM. Set of photos of weekly protest from ActiveStills, +972. And a 10 year old article from the Economist on the poor outlook for Kafr Qaddum.


Israeli bulldozer advances on protesters at Kafr Qaddum. Photo from ISM.

Israeli settlers vandalize electricity tower in Kafr Qaddum

By Ma’an news
September 02, 2015

QALQILIYA — Israeli settlers on Wednesday vandalized the main transmission tower providing electricity to the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum, causing a power outage across the village for several hours, locals said.

Murad Ishtewi, a local popular committee spokesman, told Ma’an that this was the second time settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Qedumim had caused a power outage in the village.

He added that the settlers may have carried out the action in response to the protest Kafr Qaddum stages each week.

Hamza Jumaa, head of the village council, said that Israeli soldiers, as well as Qedumim settlement’s security guards, prevented an electrical technician from reaching the transmission tower to repair the damage for several hours.

Settler violence has come under international scrutiny after an arson attack carried out by settlers last month in southern Nablus killed an 18-month-old infant and his father.

Following the attack, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that the deadly attack has been “only a matter of time,” pointing to a culture of impunity for Israeli settlers.

Kafr Qaddum has lost large swaths of its land to Israeli settlements, outposts and the separation wall, all illegal under international law.
According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, more than 10 percent of the village’s land has been confiscated for the establishment of the settlements alone — Qedumim, Qedumim Zefon, Jit, and Givat HaMerkaziz.

Residents of Kafr Qaddum stage regular protests, including its weekly Friday march, to protest land confiscations as well as the closure of the village’s southern road by Israeli forces.

The road, which has been closed 13 years, is the main route to the nearby city of Nablus, the nearest economic centre. 3) map of area from Poica;

Israeli forces regularly use violent means to suppress the protests.

Below, boy from Kafr Qaddum hurls defiant stone at Israeli bulldozer during a protest against the Kedumin settlement. Photo by EPA.


Israeli forces punish Kafr Qaddum by damaging the water supply system

International Solidarity Movement
August 17, 2015

On Saturday the 15th of August 2015, the villagers from Kafr Qaddum once again demonstrated against the blockage of the road leading to Nablus as well as the nearby Kedumin settlement. In solidarity with the local people there were a few international activists and journalists to cover the demonstration.

The non-violent protest was immediately suppressed by the Israeli occupation forces by shooting dozens of teargas canisters and live ammunition. Instead of the frequently used bad-smelling skunk water, the army drove a bulldozer into the village. This bulldozer destroyed the only water pipe in the village, leaving the people Kafr Qaddum without any connection to water until the pipe is repaired. Especially during the hot summer months, water is a scarce and essential good.

Murad Shtaiwi, one of the leaders of Kafr Qaddum Popular Committee, understands the damage to the water pipe as a way to collectively punish the village for its ongoing resistance. The costs of a new pipe have to be paid for by the municipality. As Murad explains, damaging the water pipe is a deliberate attempt by the Israeli army to suppress the support amongst the villagers to continue to protests and thus block future demonstrations.



Map from poica.org


All photos weekly Kafr Qaddum protests Active Stills


Youths roll tyres during the weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum, a West Bank village located east of Qalqiliya, May 30, 2014. Locals began to organize demonstrations in July 2011 to protest the blocking of the main road linking Kafr Qaddum to Nablus.


Youth hold pictures of family members arrested and imprisoned by Israeli forces during a protest against the occupation, Kfar Qaddum, West Bank, May 30, 2014


People carry a protester shot by an Israeli soldier during the weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum, a West Bank village located east of Qalqiliya, May 30, 2014.


 Life in the armpits of Palestine

 Economist, April 2005

THESE days, the people of  Kfar Qaddum have to come  home by the back route, a  bumpy dirt track that weaves  between sickly-looking olive  trees, where cars get stuck  when it rains. Three years  ago the army closed its link  to the main road to Nablus  because, for a few hundred  metres, it runs through  Kedumim, a nearby Israeli  settlement. When the village  ambulance needs to get to a  Nablus hospital, its driver calls Kedumim’s security  people, who block the roads  into Kedumim proper with  vehicles before opening the  gates at either end of the  access road. Three people  have died waiting.

When Israel’s “security fence” in the West Bank is finished, it will run between Kedumim and Kfar Qaddum, and complete the seal (see map). Though the barrier route, revised in February, now hugs more closely the “green line” (which marked the boundary between Israel and Jordan before the war of 1967) and bites off less Palestinian land, it also extends numerous arms deep into the occupied lands, around the main Jewish settlement blocks. Caught in the armpits are dozens of Palestinian villages, places such as Jinsafut, wrapped in the embrace of the Ariel block. B’Tselem, an Israeli human-rights group, says that 53 communities will be surrounded on at least three sides by the barrier—nearly twice as many as under the previous route. And many other villages, such as Kfar Qaddum, have lost or will lose farmland and access to nearby towns.

This is the final tightening of the economic noose imposed by Israeli security measures, which have barely relaxed since the Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared a ceasefire two months ago. Farming remains the only source of income for many Palestinians. The authorities take advantage of the often murky land registry to expropriate land Palestinians say is theirs. Kfar Qaddum says it has lost 5,000 dunams (500 hectares) of its 18,000, and will lose another 5,000 to the barrier. (“Not one centimetre of Kedumim is built on land known for sure to be private,” says Shlomi Khazon, the settlement’s security officer.)

Closing roads, meanwhile, has effects that range from the obvious, such as deaths in waiting ambulances, to the subtle but insidious. For instance, getting to Nablus by public transport now costs 25 shekels ($5.70) instead of five, says Nasser Akel, Kfar Qaddum’s deputy mayor. So the 200 Kfar Qaddum students at university in Nablus now prefer to rent rooms there. But since tradition frowns upon unmarried women living away from home, women will become less likely to study.

The old barrier route called for a loop almost totally encircling the village of Nahallin, south-west of Jerusalem. That loop is gone; but it makes little difference. Nahallin sits right inside the Etzion block of settlements, with only one road out, towards Bethlehem. And on March 20th, the villagers found repossession orders hanging in their fields for nearly 2,000 dunams which the state claims as its own. It is the latest bite of a long series. One chunk, expropriated on security grounds, ended up as settlement real estate. In another case, after a long, thin strip was expropriated for building the (now cancelled) barrier, a much larger chunk behind it, though not officially confiscated, became inaccessible.

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