The theft of Burin’s land is a project that never falters.  Yizhar’s settlers on the hill to the south or the settlers of the Givat Ronen outpost to the north conduct a gradual, consistent pincer movement.  Step by step.  And no one stops them.  This time it’s the Yitzhar settlers.  Details follow.

Habla (1393)

13:40  Heavy vehicle traffic exits the gate with no untoward delays.  A Druze officer approaches us.  He identified himself as a deputy brigade commander, asked who we are, and engaged us in a friendly conversation.  Is everything alright?  We replied that the crossing is functioning properly today, but it’s not alright that people must go through the checkpoint daily at specified times in order to access their land.  He immediately made the expected response:  There’s also a security check at Ben Gurion airport.  We didn’t manage to explain the difference.  When you travel abroad aren’t you required to be checked, he asked?  When we said that no one goes abroad every day, and not to their farm land, he replied, “If you buy land abroad you’ll have to go through border inspections.”  Maybe there’s no point arguing with him.  He was born into occupation, and he doesn’t know that the plant nurseries are actually in Palestine, that Israel erected a fence east of them.  When we said the gate often doesn’t open on time or closes before it’s supposed to, and the DCL isn’t willing to talk with civilian organizations, he replied that it’s even more important to him than it is to us that the gate opens on time, because the IDF is the most moral military in the world.  So there’s no need for us to contact the DCL.  We parted in a friendly manner, but without having resolved our disagreement.  We continued to Burin.

On the ridge beyond Yizhar are four or five new prefabs, gleaming whitely.

Burin

As mentioned above, the gradual, systematic theft of land from the groves adjoining the settlement never ceases.  These are the usual stages:

1. Settlers burn and uproot olive trees
2. They fence the area
3. They plow and plant their own crops
4. They fence an additional area.

And the process is repeated.

That’s what’s happening with Duha’s land.

We arrived at D’s home, hoping that with the end of the olive harvest and its violent incidents we’ll be able to drink hot tea, strong coffee and taste the fruit she generously offers.  And to talk with friends, without hearing bad news.

Unfortunately, the settlements of Yizhar and Givat Ronen never rest.

Duha and her brother have some plots of land near Yizhar they inherited from their parents.  The settlers had set one afire some years ago.  For years the family couldn’t access the land.  The settlers already planted their own crops on it.  Now, after the settlers had taken it over, this morning revealed the theft continued.  They’d already fenced an additional large area, including another plot of Doha’s land.

She’d obtained from the archives in Ramallah the inheritance document for the land, and from the Burin municipality a document confirming her ownership of that specific plot.  She intends to contact an attorney.

I photographed both documents.  Perhaps Yesh Din can assist her to recover her stolen property.