‘Azzun, Kufr Thulth
‘Azzun, Thulth, Deir Istiya
‘Azzun. We stopped our friend A.’s to unload the equipment we’d brought. After a brief conversation and sweet tea we continued.
At the entrance we didn’t see the military vehicle that’s almost always there.
Thulth. We heard about a recent new initiative of the occupation authorities – paving village lands with asphalt even though the court decided a few years ago that villagers are allowed to cultivate them.
The asphalt seems this time is in retaliation for the Molotov cocktail which was thrown from near the village that injured the Israeli girl (the youth suspected of the act is from an ‘Azzun family).
We reached A.’s home. He described the background and their intention to return to court with the help of Yesh Din. And after a short while Ruti K. and Mikki arrived from Yesh Din to obtain A.’s testimony about what had occurred.
Deir Istiya. Z. already informed us in the morning that the meeting we’d hoped for with the new head of the municipality won’t take place because she again had a meeting in Salfit. We came to the village anyway for a short tour in the old section and to enjoy the entrance “liberated” after the huge boulders blocking it had been removed. Let’s hope construction of the entry arches will be completed without new “blockades.”
Men and women in the village’s narrow lanes and streets invited us to their homes. We promised to return.
'Azzun
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Azoun (updated February 2019)
A Palestinian town situated in Area B (under civil Palestinian control and Israeli security control),
on road 5 between Nablus and Qalqiliya, east of Nabi Elias village. The inhabitants are allowed to construct and improve infrastructures. The Separation Fence has confiscated lands belonging to the town's people. In 2018 olive tree groves owned by one of its inhabitants were confiscated for the sake of paving a road to bypass Nabi Elias. Azoun population numbers 13,000, its economic state dire. Its infrastructures are poor, neglect and poverty rampant. In the meantime, the town council has completed paving an internal road for the inhabitants' welfare.
Because of its proximity to the Jewish settler-colony of Karnei Shomron and its outposts, the town suffers the intense presence of the Israeli army, especially at nighttime: soldiers enter homes, arrest suspects, trash the house and sometimes ruin it, as they do in numerous places in the West Bank. At times a checkpoint closes the entrance to the town, so no one can come in or get out.
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Kufr Thulth
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Kufr Thulth is located in the western part of the West Bank, in the Qalqiliya district. According to archeological evidence, this village was inhabited as early as the Early Bronze Age. Findings have been dated there to Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine times. The village is situated on road 446, south of the Palestinian town of Azoun and north of Qanah River. It numbers 5,606 inhabitants as of 2017.
After the signing of the Oslo Accords, the built-up southern part of the village was categorized as Area B, comprising about 11% of its area, but nearly all of its farmland is classified as Area C.
Israel has confiscated 367 dunams of the village lands, and the area of neighboring village Arab Al Hula, in order to construct the settler-colonies of Karnei Shomron, Ginot Shomron, Ma’ale Shomron, and Immanuel, as well as the Separation Fence (splitting the village itself), and prevented villagers to access their farmlands lying near the settler-colonies. The authorities declared the area a nature reserve, and thus prevented access or any tending that would change the nature of the local land.
The Israeli army and the settler-colonists continue to harass the Palestinian farmers who visit their own lands, attack their herds and destroy trees and any other kind of farm crop, uproot trees and pollute water sources with sewage or toxic waste in order to make the Palestinians leave.
For further information: http://vprofile.arij.org/qalqiliya/pdfs/vprofile/kufrthulth_vp_en.pdf
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