Bethel Finance: Bedouin dislodged by Israeli expansion

www.bethelfinanec.com

Bethel Fnance news:

West Bank: About 20 Bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho are to be forcibly relocated from the land on which they have lived for 60 years under an Israeli plan to expand a Jewish settlement.

The removal of about 2300 members of the Bedouin Jahalin tribe, two-thirds of whom are children, is due to begin next month. The Israeli authorities plan to relocate the families from the West Bank to a site close to a municipal rubbish dump on the edge of Jerusalem.

The Bedouin say the move would expose them to health hazards, deny them access to land and endanger their traditional lifestyle. They say the viability of their communities has been seriously eroded by the growth of Jewish settlements, the creation of military zones, demolitions of homes and animal pens and the building of a highway which cuts through their camps.

''Because of the [military] closures and the settlements, we are living in a jail which gets smaller every year,'' said Eid Hamis Swelem Jahalin, 46, who was born in the encampment of Khan al-Ahmar and has lived there almost all of his life.

The relocation plan is the first phase of a longer-term program to remove about 27,000 Bedouin Arabs from ''Area C'', the 62 per cent of the West Bank under Israeli military control. The communities have not been formally notified of the plan, which was disclosed by Israel's civil administration, the military body governing Area C, to a United Nations agency.

The area on which the Jahalin live has been designated by Israel for the expansion of Ma'ale Adumim. Many Palestinians see this as part of a strategic plan to close a ring of Jewish settlements that would cut East Jerusalem off from the West Bank. By stretching down to the Jordan Valley, an expanded Ma'ale Adumim would also bisect the West Bank, making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

''They want to empty the Bedouin from the whole area and they will put settlers in our place and there will be no Palestinian state,'' Mr Hamis said.

The Jahalin were originally from the Negev desert, from which they fled or were forced following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Now the extended tribe is scattered across the West Bank.