IWPS House Report No. 109

Shufa road block removal

On Saturday 10th May, the municipality of Shufa together with the Combatants for Peace invited Palestinian, Israeli and international activists to jointly commemorate the Nakba by removing the multiple road blocks that separate Shufa from its neighboring village Izbet Shufa.




Though east of both, the Green Line and the Apartheid Wall, the two villages are an example of the Nakba, the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land, being an ongoing process. The Israeli-only access road of the illegal settlement Avne Hafez is cuttin the street between the two closely related villages and denying the 1200 residents of Shufa their direct access to Tulkarem city. They either have to walk for about two kilometers or make a long and expensive journey by car. The settlement and its road are built on Shufa’s land, stealing about 2500 Dunum of it, while about the same amount of agricultural land is inaccessible for the villagers, as soldiers systematically prevent them reaching their land. Land loss and isolation have rendered the economical situation in the village extremely difficult. While the settlement, built on stolen land, has expanded over the years, it is impossible for young families in Shufa to build new houses. According to the Oslo Agreement Area C, where Israeli has to grant building permits but systematically refuses to do so. The illeg settlements begin right after the last houses of the village. In addition, the living conditions were deliberately worsened by the Israeli Occupation Authorities in 2001, when they cut the electricity and phone lines of the village. The village is now operating on a generator, providing only a few hours of expensive power every day. The village also suffers from water shortages, due to the refusal of the Israeli Occupation Authorities to allow the drilling of new wells. The overall situation creates a strong pressure to leave the village.
In protest of this situation and in solidarity with the refugees of 1948, the village council of Shufa invited Palestinian activists from the Tulkarem Centre for Social Services, Israeli activists from Combatants for Peace and Anarchists Against the Wall as well as internationals from ISM and IWPS to join them in the removal of the earth mounds and cement blocks that cripple the social and economical live of the village.




When about 200 demonstrators arriving from both directions to the road, they found the Israeli army already waiting on the junction with the road block directly at the Avne Hafez access road. While villagers and activists arriving from Shufa blocked the Army, the second group coming from Isbat Shufa started to dismantle the other roadblocks, initially using hands, shovels, picks and ropes. After about an hour of hard but happy joint work. A villager brought his tractor to help remove the biggest boulder and flatten out the remains of the earth mound. To the cheers of the crowd, the first Palestinian service van passed.




The demonstration then proceeded towards the road block closest to the road, but was intercepted by the soldiers. As the protestors attempted to push through, the Israeli army immediately reacted with disproportioned force, throwing sound bombs and teargas into the crowd and then shooting with plastic coated steel bullets into the retreating demonstration. 10 Palestinian, Israelis and internationals were injured, and several of them had to be transferred for medical treatment to the Tulkarem hospital. A group of four activists, including a Palestinian woman, who were lightly injured in the legs, was attacked by soldiers throwing sound bombs, as they were sitting on the ground receiving first aid. The army also attacked the press covering the protest resulting in injuring an Agence France-Presse cameraman hitting and damaging the camera of a PalMedia cameraman with a bullet.




As the road block removal was only partially successful, both Israeli and Palestinian activists and villagers confirmed their determination to jointly continue their attempts at dismantling Israeli Apartheid structures like the Shufa Road block.

For video footage of the protest see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qI9hcAcEtU