Translator:  Charles K.

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  *The water shortage at Faroush Beit Dajan is growing more serious.

  *Two shepherds were arrested by someone from the Nature Reserves Authority, incarcerated in Israel and released after an attorney paid money.  They don’t know how much he paid, to whom and why.

   

  *Military exercises were conducted last week and continue this week in the northern Jordan Valley.  The army forces residents to leave their homes, along with their children and flocks, and sleep out in the open in the cold and rain.  Only those living near a settlement are allowed to remain because the army doesn’t conduct exercises near the settlements.  Apartheid, anyone?

   

  11:10  Ma’aleh Efrayim checkpoint

  Soldiers inspect vehicles headed south.  They were also inspecting when we returned at 16:30.

   

  Fields between Gittit and Mechora (belonging to the Gittit settlement), in addition to being leased to a resident of Tel Aviv, are also leased to a resident of Tamra.  He’ll bring families from the Jenin area to cultivate the vegetable plots he’ll plant.

   

  Faroush Beit Dajan – The village mukhtar tells us about the serious water shortage in the village, which is becoming worse.  In recent years we’re seeing increasing numbers of abandoned orchards on both sides of the road that are no longer being irrigated.  Meqorot allocates a total of one liter of water per person per day, while a resident of a settlement is entitled to 487 liters per day for domestic consumption!!!  Their other water sources include:  7 wells that have belonged to the village since before 1967, and allocations from Ein Shibli, springs located more than 10 kilometers to the north, which are becoming increasingly polluted and aren’t suitable for domestic use.  The reason for the water shortage is, apparently, that Meqorot’s drills wells that are deeper than those of the village, and Israel controls the depth of the wells and the amount of water that may be pumped from them. 

  We were also told about demolition of buildings constructed without permits because the Civil Administration doesn’t issue building permits.

   

  Hamra checkpoint – light traffic.

   

  A visit to the K. family

  Last Wednesday and Thursday (26-27.12.2012)more extensive than usual military exercises were conducted.  All their neighbors were warned to leave their tents, along with their children and flocks.  The K. family wasn’t warned, but even if they had been – what could they do?  The family consists of an elderly couple – the wife suffers from a number of illnesses – and a young couple with two little children, aged 3 and 5, and a flock with new-born lambs.  Who’ll carry them all?  Where will they sleep at night?

   

  A visit to the D. family

  They also told us about maneuvers planned nearby next Wednesday and Thursday (2-3.1.2013), and about warnings their neighbors received to leave their tents for two days.  The Tayasir checkpoint will also be closed on those two days.  Luckily they live near the Maskiyot settlement, and since the army doesn’t dare to conduct exercises near the settlement, they’re protected.

  On Saturday (29.12.2012), two men from the hamula were arrested when they grazed their flocks near a cypress tree on Highway 90.  Amnon, from the Nature Reserve Authority, was the person who arrested them; he claimed they’d entered the nature reserve.  He took them to the Ariel police station and then to a jail in Israel (why???).  They immediately hired a well-known Nablus attorney, paid him NIS 2250, and he obtained their release without their being charged or any other consequences.  They don’t know where the money went.