Israeli forces dismantling and seizing a house in Ras al-Ouja community in the Jordan Valley. (WAFA Images / Suleiman Abu Srour) 

By Nadim Allawi

JERICHO, Wednesday, January 08, 2020 (WAFA) – Hundreds of Palestinian residents of Ras al-Ouja, north of the ancient city of Jericho in the Jordan Valley, woke up two days ago to the sound of heavily armed Israeli forces and trucks breaking into their neighbourhood. They came to demolish and remove the 71 homes located in that area and which housed several hundred Palestinians, mainly women and children.

The army sealed off the area and declared it a closed military zone off to anyone, including the press. The residents, those who were still in their homes and have not left them early that morning to go to work and were mainly the elderly, women and children, found themselves forced to face their occupiers alone, and they did.

The residents first refused to leave their doomed homes, which sheltered them and their children from the cold and rainy conditions. The soldiers tried to remove them by force, but the residents resisted. Others gathered to prevent the demolition of their homes and faced off the heavily armed soldiers with their bare hands and bodies. Some were injured in the melee that resulted and needed hospitalization.

In the end, the resistance of the unarmed Palestinian civilians succeeded in stopping the army from removing all 71 homes, but not before demolishing and dismantling a shack, five homes and a shed for sheep and confiscating them.

“The gathering of the people inside and outside their homes have foiled attempts to demolish all the homes that have received demolition orders and added up to 71 homes,” said Ouja mayor, Salah Freijat.

According to attorney Mahmoud Ghawaneh, the Israeli measures against Ras al-Ouja and the demolition orders came after an Israeli settler known as Omer decided singlehandedly to raze land nearby in preparation to build an airport and a landing strip. Since then, he said, the army has intensified its measures against his community and its efforts to displace them at all costs with total disregard to the lives and welfare of its Palestinian residents.

Ismail Kharabsheh, also a resident of the community who was in charge of the Bedouin community in the Ministry of Local Government, said Israel wants the land in order to expand the nearby illegal Meviot Yericho settlement.

He said 400 people living in this community will become homeless if Israel proceed with its plans to displace them.

The Ras al-Ouja community is located in what is referred to as Area C, which makes up more than 60 percent of the area of the occupied West Bank and which is still under full Israeli military control. Palestinians are barred from developing or benefiting from it in any way while Jewish settlers are given free hand to do whatever they like in this area with the blessings of the Israeli government and military.

In its efforts to provide housing for some of the Ouja community, the municipality built the homes in Ras al-Ouja five months ago, funded by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Maan Development Center.

OCHA recently reported that Israel demolished 617 structures in the occupied West Bank in 2019 displacing 898 people.

M.K.