Accompanying Palestinian shepherds from Auja, occupied Jordan valley
6 am to 9.30 am
Accompanying Palestinian shepherds from Auja near Jericho –
The army comes after us as we park at the monument for the helicopter accident (nun-dalet), declaring it is ‘in principle’ a closed military zone. Again the army in service of the unauthorized settlement of Omer’s Farm – they go out of their way to chase us, keep us away, wasting a lot of gas driving their jeeps around, a lot of human resources, paperwork – this is what the IDF does to defend Israel.
As they do not have the order to show us, we join a shepherd across the wadi, on another hill – where there is barely any grass – but the sheep make do. The three soldiers stay at the monument, and just wait. Watching us from a distance.
Another jeep appears, much later, with the order – by then we are in the grazing lands outside the closed area – and all the army can do is ask us to move our two cars. In the meantime they have called the police, but they too cannot do anything against us.
At nine am, the shepherd starts to go home and we leave, without further incident. On the way to our cars, we notice that Omer is developing another area in the wadi below the area he has appropriated for his farm – with long water pipes to fill drinking troughs for his sheep and holds in the ground to plant more trees – complete with a watering system.
In other words, he is expanding his territory, and so will certainly try to get the army to close more areas to the shepherds.
Jordan Valley
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Jordan Valley The Jordan Valley is the eastern strip of the West Bank. Its area consists of almost a third of the West Bank area. About 10,000 settlers live there, about 65,000 Palestinian residents in the villages and towns. In addition, about 15,000 are scattered in small shepherd communities. These communities are living in severe distress because of two types of harassment: the military declaring some of their living areas, as fire zones, evicting them for long hours from their residence to the scorching heat of the summer and the bitter cold of the winter. The other type is abuse by rioters who cling to the grazing areas of the shepherd communities, and the declared fire areas (without being deported). The many groundwaters in the Jordan Valley belong to Mekorot and are not available to Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians bring water to their needs in high-cost followers.
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