The Daba’a Municipality has yesterday for the first time this week been able to access village lands near the village residential area, where they found some 250 explosives, placed some 3 meters deep, that will be used to clear the rocky landscape in the area to make way for the apartheid wall. These explosives are located an average of 50 meters away from the village’s residential area, and whose blasts will cause the complete damage of a number of homes and partial damage to others. In the case of Daba’a, previous military explosions for the Wall severely damaged one of the two village school, a school which is to be located just 10 meters from the Wall itself.

Daba’a is one of the many alarming cases of communities whose residential areas are near the Wall and therefore within the Wall’s 30-100 meter “buffer zone”, which by definition sets these areas at high-risk for demolitions and expulsion. Daba’a, located in the district of Qalqiliya, is a small community of some 250 individuals. The impact of this latest move for the building of the Wall threatens the majority of the village’s inhabitants.

Since the explosives have already been placed in the area, there is legitimate fear that they will be set-off in the coming days. Due to location, it is expected that 7 homes will be completely destroyed by the impact of the explosions, and others will be partially destroyed. Seven homes in the village amounts to some 20% of the population. Residents of these houses are to become homeless and therefore to flee from their lands for mere survival. This paves the road for the confiscation of the remainder of the village lands.

Since the commencement of the Wall, Daba’a has had confiscated 250 dunums for the footprint of the Wall. In addition, the Wall is separating the village from 1,200 dunums of its land, lands located east of the Wall while the residential area is to the west, making the lands de facto inaccessible to the community due to construction and military presence. All that remains today of Daba’a village is 700 dunums, including the built-up areas, which are located alongside the Wall, in the “buffer zone”.

Ultimately, the Wall in Daba’a is to bring about the expropriation of the rest of the village lands for the construction of the Wall, the disappearance of the village itself, and the expansion of the near-by settlement of Alfei Menashe.

Since the Occupation, the village of Daba’a has depended on agriculture and the Israeli labor market for survival. Since the start of the second Intifada, as is the case with other Palestinian communities, Daba’a has suffered severe economic hardship due to the closure and curfew policy; agriculture had therefore become the only source of income and survival.

With the construction of the Wall has come the confiscation of lands and livelihoods, as well as the creation of a hermetically sealed community, which is expected to be surrounded by an 8-meter high concrete wall. As people have not been able to reach their lands, unemployment has neared 85%.

In whatever which way, Israel, through the Wall, is sealing the fate of the community.

PENGON looks at the international community with great despair at this latest Israeli measure. The setting-off of the explosives for the Wall in Daba’a is to bring about, if not expedite, the destruction of this village.

The residents of Daba’a are horrifyingly aware of the likely prospect that they themselves may soon be Palestinian refugees. We call on individuals and organizations to act immediately and mobilize to make the issue known and to help prevent the destruction of the village.

For more information please contact Jamal Juma’ at PENGON: + 972-52-285610

Related Links:

New Israeli map highlights Palestinian concerns about “security fence”, Arjan El Fassed, EI, 28 September 2002

False wisdoms about Israel’s “security fence”, Arjan El Fassed, EI, 29 August 2002

Separation Barrier, position paper B’Tselem, September 2002

Israel’s Apartheid Wall: We are here, they are there, LAW, November 2002

Appeal to halt construction of Israel’s apartheid wall denied, LAW, December 2002

11,000 Palestinians between Israel’s apartheid wall and Green Line, LAW, 23 September 2002

LAW files more petitions against Israel’s apartheid wall, LAW, 11 September 2002

LAW files petition against construction of Israel’s apartheid wall, LAW, 20 August 2002.