Small village, big fight


May 3, 2017
Sarah Benton


Young Palestinian from Pope Mountain joining the protest. Photo from Avaaz

“We shall remain”: Palestinians stand with prisoners and bedouin community to demand basic rights

By Palestine Monitor
May 03, 2017

Residents of Jabal al Baba, a Bedouin community near East Jerusalem, invited activists who wished to rally in support of the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to join them in a combined event in the hilly village last Friday.

The protest aimed at shedding light on both the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, demanding  basic rights such as seeing their families, and the fate of the Jabal al Baba community.

The protest combined support for hunger-striking prisoners and defending the Jabal al Baba community

Israeli authorities have specifically targeted this village for years and the pressure intensified over the past weeks, overlapping with the mobilization in support of prisoners.

The village’s name means ‘Pope mountain’, because when Pope Paul VI visited Palestine in 1964, Jordan – which was at the time administering the West Bank – gave him a few dunums on this land to build a church. It is said that the Pope then gave the land to the Bedouin community. Today, 300 people live there. The majority are refugees from the Naqab (Negev) desert in present-day Israel and live from sheep herding.

The community received demolition orders in February, alongside many others in this area. Israel says the houses and tents where people from Jabal al Baba live were built illegally, but the community answers that permits, when requested, are never approved. All villages located in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank under Israeli control, suffer the same fate.

An Israeli court postponed demolitions in the village until the end of April, after human rights organization campaigned against the orders.


“We shall remain” in stone blocks, built and rebuilt by the villagers, on a hill near Pope mountain

Meanwhile, more than 880,000 people have signed a petition by campaigning group Avaaz, calling on the EU to immediately intervene and halt the demolition.

Over the past years, the community has been targeted a number of times. According to the Palestinian News Network, in 2014 Israel carried out 43 demolitions in the community, which has a population of 300 people. In response, the EU and other donors have provided them with tents and houses whenever demolition occurred.

Jabal al Baba is located in the sensitive E1 corridor, an area slated for illegal settlement expansion, located between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, one of the largest settlements in the West Bank. Earlier this year, Israel’s Knesset discussed a bill to annex Ma’ale Adumim, but postponed it after an international outcry.

Two weeks ago, residents of Jabal al Baba wrote “We Shall Remain” with rocks and stones, in large letters, on top a hill near the village. The installation, which was said to be as much as 100 metres wide, was destroyed within hours as more than 150 Israeli soldiers stormed the village, according to locals. It was rebuilt in the next few days.

Fadi Quran, a Palestinian youth leader and a senior campaigner at Avaaz, said at an event at Jabal al Baba last week: “Today, the families of political prisoners and the courageous community of Jabal al Baba lit a fire of hope for all Palestinians who suffer unjust arrest, torture, demolition of our homes, and indignity simply for coming from this land”.

Petition of support Click this headline to sign the petition.

Near the hilltops of the village of Bethany, 2000 years ago, it is said that Jesus Christ brought Lazarus back to life.

Today those hilltops are home to an indigenous community who are about to be bulldozed into the ground. Their homes, land, and way of life completely wiped out.

But these brave families refuse to fade silently into the darkness. Instead, they are taking a huge risk, rising up against the bulldozers by nonviolently “sitting-in” their homes. They’re betting on a miracle: that their act of courage will inspire people around the world to help stop the bulldozers before they crush them.

We can be that miracle.

This destruction can only happen under total media darkness. Click to stand with the families, and the Avaaz team will join the community and project our names onto these homes — so when the military bulldozers come, they won’t just see a small village huddling in fear — they’ll see the world standing as a protective shield around the families of Pope Mountain.   

 

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