Hamra (Beqaot), Tayasir, Thu 15.8.13, Morning

Share:
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Email
Place: 
Hamra (Beqaot)
Al-Jiftlik
Tayasir CP
Tags: 
Jordan Valley
Soldiers at checkpoints
Observers: 
Nurit P., Shula B. (reporting and taking pictures)
Aug-15-2013
|
Morning
Tyasir CP 07:35

The encampments of the Bedouins, on both sides of the road that curves up to the CP, do not yet show any signs of life. By the time we come back from the CP we'll see children running around, women walking from place to place and men busy with the sheep. On every side we see a biblical view (if we ignore the tractors). and it is still not terribly hot at this time of day.

Two big yellow taxis  and one truck loaded with bales of hay (see photo) went through to the west without any delay or inspection of documents. Apart from this it is very quiet. Our arrival provided the soldiers with some action; two of them quickly came to tell us to move the car away a bit and to try to understand who we are. The short explanation was accepted indifferently: 'ah'.

 

On the way to the Hamra CP a shepherd on a mule and a very big herd of sheep cross the Alon Road, number 578. They are on the way to some water source. "No problems," says the shepherd,"if there are problems I call Daphna or Jamila."

Most of the settlements look wrapped up in evergreen trees, vineyards, fruit orchards, and fields. The Bedouins' fields, which used to grow wonderful 'baladi' (native) vegetables, which we used to buy from the stalls that they set up at the sides of the roads, are now deserted and dried up. More and more very orderly encampments, as well as construction sites halted at various stages, dot the spectacular desert landscape.

 

Hamra CP 0830

There is traffic in all directions but no delays on either side. Most of the activity at the CP is at dawn, in the early hours of the morning, when workers from the West Bank arrive to work in the settlements in the Valley. Now everything is going on slowly. 

 

From the nearby junction it is possible to see Palestinian farming, groves and green field crops that get water from the Tirza stream (Wadi el Par'a), which generously waters the fertile Jiftlik region. 

 

Under Turkish rule, in the nineteenth century, the Jiftlik Region spread from south of Jericho (Jiftlik Jericho) unto north of Beth Shean (Jiftlik Beth Shean) on both sides of the Jordan River. Under the British mandate, the lands of the Jiftlik west of the Jordan were handed over to the Arabs from Tubas, Beth Jan and Nablus (who claimed that they were the original owners of the lands). As part of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the British handed over the Jiftlik Beth Shean region to the Jewish community and after the 1948 War of Liberation  the Jiftlik was passed on to Jordan, as part of the West Bank. During the Six-Day War, the IDF occupied the entire area west of the Jordan River including the Jiftlik and the West Bank and one after another there popped up Nahal camps and new settlements . 

And the rest is history.