CPTnet
January 31, 2004
HEBRON DISTRICT:Destruction of crops in and near Jinba

by Maureen Jack

Responding to reports of destruction to crops in and around Jinba, CPTer
Maureen Jack and a CPT visitor visited the remote area in the Hebron hills,
south of Yatta on Wednesday January 21, 2004 with a translator.

The land is owned by several Palestinian families. Three of the owners
reported that an Israeli plane had sprayed their crops of barley and wheat
with a herbicide four or five days before. In total, 250 acres were sprayed.

This is the third successive year that this defoliation has happened. The
military claims that the farmers are working Israeli land. However, the
farmers showed the visitors the road that marks the border between Israel
and the West Bank some considerable distance away.

The crops were already yellowing. The farmers reported that they expect
further spraying because the aeroplane seemed to run out of spray. Most of
the farmers have therefore decided not to try to sow again, but one farmer
was ploughing in his damaged crop in preparation for re-sowing.

Near to the small village of Jinba is an Israeli military training camp,
established in the early 1990s. The military authorities continur to try
to keep the farmers off their land, claiming that the land is for training.

But the farmers have documents dating back centuries confirming their
ownership. They also have a paper documenting a decision by the Israeli
supreme court on March 27, 1999 which opened for farming 9000 acres
previously closed by the military. The military does not respect this
decision and regularly causes significant damage to cultivated land by
driving over it with tanks and other heavy vehicles. The authorities have
confiscated
tractors and destroyed old houses.

The military is not the farmers' only neighbours. On neighbouring hilltops
there are two tiny Israeli settlement outposts, each housing just one
family. The settlers detain the farmers if they walk near the
settlements. The farmers' families have lived there for centuries; the
settlers arrived within the last eight years.

This is not prime agricultural land, and the farmers work hard to make it
productive. The Israeli military seems intent on making this desert wither
rather than bloom.

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