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[Alfred Kagan]

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Israel Flattens 62 Shops, Devastates West Bank Village Lifeline
B'Tselem: Demolitions Constitute a Breach of International Law

22/01/2003



Palestine Media Center- (PMC)

Israeli army bulldozers razed to the ground dozens of houses and 
shops belonging to residents of Nazlat Issa village, north of the 
West Bank Tuesday, as hundreds of Palestinian women, men and children 
watched helplessly.

Israel's destruction of this small West Bank village's market is 
aimed at making way for a wall between the Jewish state and the 
occupied Palestinian territory, which has already engulfed hundreds 
of acres of Palestinian land.

Women were seen crying, while young men tried to block the way in 
front of the bulldozers, on the biggest demolition spree in the West 
Bank in years.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) razed 62 shops and market stalls, the 
mayor of the village said, accusing Israel of waging war on the 
Palestinian economy.

Seven bulldozers, guarded by about 300 soldiers, began tearing down 
shops in the village. By midmorning, 62 shops had been demolished, 
said Mayor Ziad Salem.

Dozens of foreign and local protesters threw stones at troops who 
fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Other demonstrators 
chanted, "Down with the occupation."

The 170-shop market in Nazlat Issa drew many Israeli customers before 
the outbreak of Intifada in September 2000.

The market is also deemed the lifeline of the village, providing the 
main source of income for its 2,500 residents, Salem said, adding 
that Israeli officials informed the shop owners that the entire 
market would be demolished.

Residents said that demolition orders were distributed earlier this 
month, and shop owners were told they had 15 days to file court 
appeals.

The mayor said the market has been operating for more than 10 years 
and that this was the first time the merchants received demolition 
orders.

The market contains 200 commercial shops, workshops and stools, and 
is located to the west of the military roadblock set up by the 
occupation army in the center of the village.

"This will kill the village's economy," the mayor said, adding that 
troops tear gas and sound bombs at the demonstrators.

Local sources described demolitions as a new 'Nakba' (Catastrophe), 
reminiscent of 1948, when thousands of Palestinians were forced into 
exile and on their land a state of Israel was born.

Sources added that another 'Nakba' is awaiting Palestinians; that of 
the Segregation Wall being built east of the Green Line, which in 
effect is de facto annexing more and more Palestinian land.

Its erection would result in the confiscation, annexation and 
destruction of thousands of agricultural dunums of land and the 
prevention of thousands of families from their only source of income.

A spokesman for the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity 
Movement-ISM described how the "market place on which a good chunk of 
the destroyed stores stood has become unrecognizable."

US citizen Jonathan Elsberg, who came to the village to protest the 
demolitions, said he had been hit in the leg by a tear gas canister 
and temporarily detained by IOF.

He confirmed that some 500 people including a dozen foreigners and 
Israeli rights activists protested the demolitions.

The Israeli rights group B'Tselem said it had appealed to Israeli 
'defense' minister Shaul Mofaz against the decision, warning that it 
would "severely violate the human rights of hundreds of residents and 
constitute a breach of international law which binds Israel as the 
occupying force in the territories."

Palestinian Cabinet minister Sa'eb Erekat slammed Israel over the 
demolition of the Palestinian houses and stores in Nzlat Issa, adding 
that the demolitions "reflect the fait accompli policies of Sharon on 
the ground, knocking down homes, livelihoods."

Israeli troops have demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes, many in 
the Gaza Strip, in the past 28 months. In Gaza, more than 5,700 
Palestinians have been made homeless, according to Palestinian 
officials.

Demolitions, Detention Persist in the Occupied Territories

Elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory, IOF dynamited the 
house of a Palestinian security officer near the southern West Bank 
city of Hebron and detained at least 13 citizens, Palestinian 
security sources said.

The occupation army blew up the family house of Issa Salem Darabyyeh, 
a security officer.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad movement in the northern West Bank town 
of Jenin confirmed Tuesday that two of its activists had escaped the 
Israeli army's detention camp at 'Ofer' near Ramallah.

"They have escaped Ofer and are now in a safe place," said Bassam al- 
Saadi, a local Jihad leader.

He identified the two men as Muhanna Zayud and Bilal Shaaban, both 
from villages near Jenin and in their 20s.

An army spokesman told AFP that IOF had launched a manhunt after the 
two men were found to be missing during the morning roll call.

More than 700 Palestinian detainees are held without charge in 
'Ofer', adjacent to a large army base, near the occupied city of 
Ramallah.

Also in Ramallah that day, IOF detained the wife of a Hamas activist, 
Falah Nada, Palestinian security sources said.

Alia al-Abed was detained as well as Hamas member Majed Abu Khadija, 
the sources added.

According to the Palestinian rights' group Addameer, 54 Palestinian 
women are currently being detained by Israel

Palestinian security officials also said an IOF undercover unit 
raided a building used by policemen in Ramallah, detaining two of 
them.

The two policemen were identified as Rami al-Talmas and Majed al-Haj.

In the meantime, Palestinian medical sources said that a Palestinian 
man died Tuesday of wounds he sustained last April during the IOF 
invasion of Jenin's refugee camp, in the northern West Bank.

The man was identified as Mahmud Amer, 24, an activist belonging to 
the Fatah movement.

A leader of Hamas movement, Sheikh Skakar Amara, 42, the head of the 
group in the Jericho, the only region of the West Bank not reoccupied 
by Israel since June, was also detained on Tuesday.

He was an imam at the mosque in a refugee camp in the town and was 
detained at gunpoint in the middle of the night, his wife said.

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Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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