The residents of the Ma'aniya quarter of Dir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip are entitled to leave and enter their neighborhood four times a day: between 6 and 7:30 A.M., between 10:30 and 11:30 A.M., between 1 and 2 P.M. and between 4 and 5 P.M. Three coils of barbed wire separate them from the exit from their little neighborhood, which is surrounded by barbed wire fencing, observation towers and IDF positions—and by the wall of concrete slabs that surrounds the Kfar Darom settlement, which borders their land. They are trapped between the Kfar Darom greenhouses to the east and the settlement's homes to the west…
Anyone coming into the neighborhood must present ID. The soldier checks to see if the name is on the list of 137 residents. Anyone who is not a neighborhood resident is not permitted to enter—including relatives who live on the other side of the fence. Cars are not permitted to enter. Ambulances are only permitted entrance if this is coordinated beforehand.
The Kfar Darom settlement, the army base guarding it and the settlement's hothouses are located on the eastern side of Saladin Street, the main artery connecting the northern and southern portions of the Gaza Strip. On the western side of the street is Midreshet Kfar Darom (Kfar Darom College). Surrounding the area of the settlement are the Palestinian neighborhoods of Dir al-Balah, and what were once the fields, groves and hothouses of a town that was known for its dates and its farmers.
In the wake of several suicide bombings around there and shooting incidents near Kfar Darom, the Palestinians were prohibited—as far back as the 1990s—from traveling on the section of Saladin Street running from the north to the south of Dir al-Balah. The defense of Kfar Darom residents from Palestinian shooting from surrounding buildings is evident in the fortifications that have been built around it: high guard towers and observation towers, military positions built of armored concrete, a concrete wall behind which several tiled roofs are visible, a barbed-wire fence, an iron gate.
Now it appears that the plan is to improve and fortify the defensive barrier surrounding the settlement. On January 14 and on February 3, Major General Dan Harel, commander of the IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, signed land confiscation orders affecting 18 Palestinian families. According to the orders, approximately 43 dunams will be needed to build a security fence around Kfar Darom and around Midreshet Kfar Darom. In fact, the area was taken over a long time ago. School principal Khalil Bashir says the orders were intended to impart an ostensibly legal dimension to the land grab.
He received one such order five days ago—just when the whole world was talking about an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. His three-story house sits about 30 or 40 meters west of Kfar Darom. In early 2001, it was converted into a military position. The family of eight refused to leave; they live on the first floor, where everyone must sleep in one room, which is relatively protected from the frequent gunfire from the military posts defending the settlement. A camouflage net, coils of barbed wire and cameras are kept on the roof. The family is only permitted to invite guests on rare occasions, and must request permission from the soldiers at the adjacent army post. They may not wander around near the house or in the area to the east, where their greenhouses once stood—before they were destroyed by IDF bulldozers. Of the 120 date palms they once had, only six were not uprooted. Two trees have been shot and are slowly dying…
Last Monday, at 6:30 in the morning, the Jeep did not show up and the soldiers did not move the three coils of barbed wire aside. “It was foggy, and that's dangerous,” explained one of the soldiers who arrived later, at 10 A.M. (after prior coordination with the IDF spokesman) to move the barbed wire for some Israeli visitors. S., who arrived by bicycle from Dir al-Balah, was not permitted to enter. “We open at 10:30, and then he'll be able to enter,” the soldier explained. S. works the night shift at a cookie factory in Gaza. He starts work at 11:30 P.M. and finishes at 3:30 A.M. In the morning, he has to wait three hours for the soldiers to open the barbed wire. On Monday, when he arrived at 6:30 A.M. to find the barbed wire still in place, four warning shots were fired in his direction from the army post that sits atop a sand dune.
About a week ago, a shepherd brought his sheep to graze on the grass outside the enclave. Shots were fired from the army post and several sheep were killed. The bodies of two still lay on the ground. Thus it is made clear to the Ma'aniya residents that they had better not think of moving the barbed wire themselves.
Before September 2000, they earned a living from agriculture and from working in Israel. Several hundred dunams around the area are owned by the five clans in the neighborhood. Three of the clans are refugee families from Be'er Sheva, who bought land right after the expulsion in 1948, or as soon as they understood that they would not be returning to their land anytime soon. One refugee, 72, still remembers that land; the young people sitting in a circle on plastic chairs, behind the barbed wire that encloses their neighborhood, recall what used to lie beyond the fence: “It was a paradise here. They used to send people who were depressed here, to revive their spirits. There were date palms and olive trees, and other fruit trees, and we grew vegetables in the greenhouses…”
Gradually, since the end of 2000, all their groves and greenhouses and agricultural equipment and irrigation pipes have been torn up and destroyed in the IDF's repeated “exposure” operations… |