We travelled to the Palestinian town, Duma, SE of Nablus, after we had been told that the residents of the village received 52 demolition orders on Sept 3, in the neighborhood of Shkara.  The mayor of the town, Suliman Dawabshe, said that in the period of 2 years, 200 demolition orders had been received, each time they would send 15-20.  The latest 52 orders were distributed to the residents on Sept 3.

The demolition was done by the Civil Administration and the army, a total demolition, not just of the houses but everything in the vicinity of the houses, animal pens, tearing up of trees and crops, “leveling the ground”.  The Civil Administration gave them 45 days to clear out.  The demolition included infrastructure such as roads, electric poles, plumbing and fields.

The claim of the Civil Administration was that these were State Lands.  Since the village is divided into 2 parts, part of it is found in Area B and the largest part is in Area C.  There are also a few Bedouin families in the village, who arrived from the area of Bethlehem, in order to escape the attacks of settlers.  They bought land and settled in Duma.  But, since Duma is also surrounded by the settlements of Esh Kodesh and Migdalim, they suffer from the attacks of the settlers here just like all the residents of the village.

A lone armed settler took over 500 dunams of the village’s land and built a house there and a large farm.  He also persecutes the residents, particularly the Bedouin who are closer to his area.  He destroys their crops and their animals.  His name is Elchanan and he has been living there for 2 and a half years.  He calls the settlement “Ro’im (Shepherds)”.