Yasuf - The financial situation is very difficult. "People prefer to buy wheat to make pita bread."

Place:

Yasuf

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Updates during Corona

Observers:

Irit S. transfers a telephone report

Apr-26-2020

Morning

Ancient spring garden

Photo:

A Palestinian resident

An acquaintance from Yasuf called – he keeps us up to date about the state of the village. He has been working in Israel for years until Corona-virus stopped everything. Like us, he is waiting for the picture to clear up and for himself, to get back to work. Right now it depends on him and his decision is to avoid it personally, as his economic situation enables him not to risk it.

He is a member of the village council (that numbers 9 persons) as well as a committee of 20 that cares for families who are economically needy. This committee decides who will receive its aid if and when food parcels arrive from the Palestinian Authority, or from the district town of Salfit, or when donations are received for this end.

The economic situation in the village since the pandemic outbreak has been dire. At least 70% of the families are in a bad state – these are the people who had work inside Israel. The other 30% are employed by the PA, and even though they do not all work right now, their income so far has not been impacted. They go to their offices, rather than working online from home.

The wages that halted all of a sudden and the absolute absence of unemployment pay has found the families utterly unprepared: monthly payments for ongoing home construction, renovations, cars – all these continue and there is no income.

“Farming?” I ask him. He says the usual income from olive oil has been significantly reduced. “People prefer to buy wheat and bake flatbread.” Whoever grows vegetables uses them domestically, and even this does not cover the costs of living.

In one of our previous conversations about recipes and dishes, I asked him what he barbecues in his yard and he said he doesn’t so that the scent would not reach the families who suffer want.

What do the children do? I asked. Do they study at home?

Yes. His 11-year old daughter studies at home. She takes his laptop and asks not to be disturbed. What does she study? English, and there are also sport lessons.

How many families in the village have no computer? No internet? He didn’t know.

There is an old spring garden in the heart of Yasuf. Every family here has a small, well-tended plot.

Why do we take the trouble to report in Corona times as well?

Because democracy’s watchdogs have fallen asleep on their own watch, so Israeli citizens have no idea what is actually happening in the Occupied Territories, especially now.

Day and night, Israeli soldiers (as the State’s emissaries) help extreme settler-colonists take the law into their own hands, unhampered. They do not stop even in days of a raging pandemic and do not hesitate to harm Palestinians – their bodies, property, and sources of livelihood.

Unceasing harassment of the weakened Palestinian population inflicts psychological harm as well. All – from babies through and including the elderly and the ill – are open prey to Jewish violence and terrorism which the settler-colonists are only too eager to exert.

We of MachsomWatch will not cease to report, certainly not now during these Corona times and under the threat of annexation, about the settlers’ increased rampages, those who hurry to set facts on the ground helped by the Israeli army.

Israel rules the West Bank, and by force of the Geneva Convention, article no. 27, it is committed to enforcing law and order there. The inhabitants of these Occupied Territories have the legal right “to decent treatment of their body and dignity, and should be especially protected against any act of violence”.

Ironically, this is not at all upheld.

Nor shall we cooperate with the commonplace ignoring of the Palestinian people’s suffering, and with the Israeli public’s indifference to it. We shall continue to follow up closely and report the goings-on in the West Bank, in its villages and encampments.

No one should be able to say ‘We knew nothing, we heard nothing’

Location Description

Yasuf

See all reports for this place

updated for May 2015:

The village numbers 2,500 residents, and in the neighboring village of Iskaka about 1,500. Yasuf suffers from low water supply and intermittent flow - although the population has more than doubled since the Oslo Accords, the 12 cubic meters set in 1996, sometimes even less, are alternated between the two villages, summer and winter .Permits to complete the harvest are only given for a few days, and there are often roadblocks on the way to the groves and the settlers, mostly fr/om Tapuah, try to drive the harvesters away. Since 2006, the settlements have been expanded threefold from their original location, and the harassments are numerous - including vandalism of cars and spraying of hate-inscriptions on the mosque. The settlers from Kfar Tapuach took control of land belonging to the residents and planted their own trees, and the army does not allow the villagers to approach these plots.