Turmus Aya, five days after the pogrom
Revenge! cry out criminal posters at every bus stop. It’s a summons and license to harm innocent Palestinians who are attacked and robbed day after day. Not only is their land and liberty assaulted – their spirit, for who wishes to live such a life…
It’s the eve of Eid Al Adha today (the holiday of sacrifice), five days after the horrible pogrom at Turmus Aya village. Road 60 (“The apartheid road”) from Issawiya to Sinjil is blocked to Palestinian traffic. At the entrance to the village trying to recover, an army checkpoint denies the villagers their right to enter or exit. Naturally there is no closure at the colonies. The criminals are free. Not a single criminal is arrested. We saw some of them buddying up with soldiers standing at the temporary Sinjil checkpoint. Sure, the Israeli army supports and encourages them, whereas the victims stand in a long line in the seething heat, hoping that at some point they will be permitted to live. It’s the eve of a holiday, there are chores to complete, shopping to be done etc., but the villagers are locked down inside their village after the trauma they had undergone.
Under the racist apartheid regime, we Jews were naturally allowed to enter Turmus Aya. We came to set a new appointment for Maryam of Fasail at the eye local eye hospital. She had canceled her previous appointment because of her fear of the pogroms. Understandably we were met with suspecting, even hostile looks – 2 Jewish women… But in less than ten minutes the few people outdoors began to thaw and tell us their stories. One of them told us how they were locked into their house – 30 people, including 20 children and 5 women, while the colonists were setting the house on fire outside. Others told us about their moments of chilling anxiety and helplessness, about soldiers shooting live ammunition and killing Omar Abu Kattan. A cab driver at the entrance to the village agreed to take us to see the shocking sights. Nearly in front of every house is a black rectangle – attesting to the vehicle that stood there and was set ablaze. We saw seven totally incinerated houses, whose inhabitants will have to crowd during the holiday in homes of people who agreed to host them. Other homes were partially burnt and are already being restored. 30 vehicles were completely incinerated, whole fruit tree groves were set on fire, and the picture of the fallen Omar Abu Kattan appears on every house-fence. We wanted to bury ourselves with shame and pain…
We drove along the road connecting the Allon Road with Road 60. It is an apartheid road for Jews only. It is entered through a gate guarded who opens it only for those allowed to travel along it. The road passes by countless colonies and outposts: Eli, Shilo, Shvut Rachel, Esh Kodesh, Kida, Ge’ulat Zion, Adi and others. The main gate sports a giant poster calling for Revenge!
A Rashash – this is the encampment we used to visit until two years ago, struggling with the villagers for their right to livelihood and to water their flocks at the Ein Rashash spring. Two years ago, the shepherds gave up and began to graze their flocks close to home. Now they feed their sheep and goats with expensive purchased barley, not natural grass. How long will this last? Two days ago, at nighttime colonists came to the encampment and damaged the sheep pen and a resident shanty, terrorizing the local people. This is the real terrorism in the region. Would the Israeli army do all it can to subdue it? Demolish the infrastructures of Jewish terrorists? We were told that several sheep belonging to the shepherd who lives near the entrance to Douma village were killed on the pogrom night in Turmus Aya.
The next day, Rabbi Arik Asherman came to sleep over in the encampment in order to shield its inhabitants. That night was quiet.
Location Description
A-Rashash
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A-Rashash was founded by the patriarch of the family, Haj Suleiman, who fled in 1948 from Tel Amal near Tivon. He leased land around the valley from one of the Palestinian residents and raised a glorious family that today consists of three family heads numbering about 100 people, with electricity from solar panels and water that they bring in trailer tanks from Ein Samia. There is no school there and the children attend an elementary school in the village of Duma, which is over the mountain at a distance of about 5 kilometers, and leave when they reach high school.
The daily life of the residents of the place consists of trying to avoid the machinations and damage of the settlers of the settlements and outposts that surround their village, and to protect the grazing lands of the sheep that remain in their possession. At the same time there is the constant threat of the orders of the civil government carried out by the army. About 3 years ago the residents decided to give up the extensive grazing areas and the access to the Ein Rashash spring and they graze around the encampment and buy feed for the sheep for a lot of money.
After the outpost hooligans managed to drive out the residents of Ras a Tin, Ein Samia and Kaboun, hence began the severe day-and-night harassment of of A Rashash. Since August 2023, the Jordan Valley activists have been holding 24/7 vigils in the pastoral communities to protect them and encourage them to stay on their land. There are refreshing responses, but not enough to provide the residents with long-term protection. You are Welcome to join.
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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.
Mahdi DrarmaMar-14-2025Al Burj: destruction of a family home
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Turmus Aya
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Turmus Aya is a beautiful and well-kept Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bira governorate, located in the Shiloh Valley, about 22 km north of Ramallah. Near Highway 60 at an altitude of about 732 m. In 2016, 4,781 residents lived in the town. After the 2nd intifada in 2001, hundreds immigrated to the US, but they come in the summer to visit their families and live in the nice houses they built.
Israel expropriated 752 dunams of the town's land for the establishment of the Shiloh settlement, in 1978, and another 372 dunams for the establishment of the Shebot Rachel settlement in 1992. According to the Oslo Agreement, the built-up area of TAos Aya was classified as area B. This area constitutes 64.7% of the town's land, and the rest, 35.3%, is area C.
Starting in 2015, the town's residents often suffer from harassment from the settlers of the Adi Ad outpost, which include the uprooting and cutting of olive trees, the burning of wheat fields and the spraying of anti-Netzka inscriptions.
On June 21, 2023, dozens of young people from outposts and surrounding settlements carried out a pogrom in broad daylight after the funeral of the victims of the attack that occurred two days earlier at the gas station in the settlement of Eli. The attack took place after the Israel Defense Forces' invasion of Jenin and the killing of innocents in the process - an invasion that took place after a previous event... and so on, deep into the non-stop blood equation that is always presented in Israel as terror attacks without context. They set fire to about 60 cars and about 30 houses with their occupants and threw stones, fire grenades and even shot from guns.The IDF soldiers watched the attack but didn't intervene. A villager was killed by soldier fire. Only 3 settlers were arrested after a few days, but charges have not yet been filed against them.
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