This is brief but remarkable story about a Palestinian and his family, who for years refused to be ethnically cleansed off of their ancestral lands in the West Bank of Palestine. It’s the saga of Ibrahim Attallah, who today sits alone, isolated in the nearly destroyed village of Khallet Sakariya. His family is now surrounded by barbed wire and the observation posts that double as sniper towers, inside of the Israeli Gush Etzion Settlement bloc, which was built illegally on southern Bethlehem lands.
A last holdout, Mr. Attallah affirms his intent to stay. To people in the area, it is known as “the house of Khirbat Sakariya.”
An article about Ibrahim Attallah and his family appeared in a recent edition of the Palestinian News Network, which captured his experience in the title, Nonviolent resistance to occupation: family refuses to leave despite being surrounded by settlements (posted Tuesday March 13, 2007 by Najib Farag).
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1904
After prohibiting any development, construction or renovation, Israeli forces expected that the Attallah family would depart, leaving the land to the settlers. It has worked in many Palestinian towns were life has become too intolerable to live there anymore, due to restrictions, the settlements, and the Wall.
The road from Bethlehem City to the village is not an easy one, with about 15 kilometers driven on the settlement roads of Gush Etzion, the settlement that was built on thousands upon thousands of dunams (1/4 acre) of southwestern Bethlehem lands. The Israeli government built the settlement bloc as part of its policy to overtake Jerusalem through settlement and Wall construction, and land confiscation. Gush Etzion is positioned to be included within the limits of “Greater Jerusalem.”
IIbrahim Attallah was born in 1910. Since the 1967 war, his life has been a continuous struggle against Israeli settlements and the rule imposed by the Israeli military occupation. The village of Khirbat Sakariya sits atop a mountain, from which the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is visible. Beginning in 1967 as Israeli occupation became to difficult to bear, many left. Mr. Attallah’s family of 50 was the exception. They had lived for centuries on the family’s land of 800 dunams which, after confiscation by Israeli settlers and soldiers, dwindled down to just 50 dunams. The family size, however, increased to just over 500.
Attallah said,
We have stood as strongly as possible in the face of soldiers and settlers or else we would not have been able to keep any of our land with us. What we were able to keep are our homes in semi-demolished states and a path as a way of preserving our presence here.
Mr. Attallah recounted past efforts to retain his lands. When Moshe Dayan was Israeli Security Minister and allegedly friendly with local Arabs was approached, Dayan proposed that he accept a larger piece of land in return for relinquishing his own. Mr. Attallah refused. Numerous other Israelis tried to mediate a deal to coerce the Attallah’s into giving up their land. In 1980 the Israeli commander of the Bethlehem occupying force offered local landowners 300,000 Jordanian dinars to leave. Although others accepted, Attallah again refused. He stated he would not leave his land under any circumstance.
This nonviolent resistance won him the admiration of Palestinians throughout the West Bank, who know Attallah as a sort of folk hero.
Remaining steadfast, however, has cost the Attallahs harassment. They are surrounded from every side by Israeli settlers and soldiers and have had to endure stone throwing from settlers, theft of chickens and sheep, and destruction of their crops. The soldiers have also demolished their homes and buildings.
According to Mr. Attallah, “they play a game of cat and mouse with us. They demolish something and we rebuild it. The spirits of generations of family are here.”
A glimpse of what life is like for Mr. Attallah and his family suggests that it is harsh and tense. He reported that the Israelis installed cameras that record the movements of residents from all directions 24 hours a day. The earth is dry because it cannot be replenished easily as the Israelis will not allow renovations to the water supply system. The local mosque is falling apart, half of it demolished by the Israeli authorities, which will not allow it to be repaired. The Israeli settlers come into the village and try to enter the mosque, which they claim is sacred to them.
The educational system in the village is in shambles. Although the Education Ministry has sent a few women teachers, they eventually leave because there are not even any bathroom facilities. He points out that the settlement surrounding them has large schools with “toilets, laboratories, and swimming pools.” The Palestinian Authority has been unable to help. The local economy depends on dairy farm production. Milk and cheese is sold in Bethlehem, and even to some settlers. Mohammad, Mr. Attallah’s 48 year-old son, ran a small store for a time, but the trip to the city to replenish supplies proved too costly and time consuming.
In spite of all the hardship, Mr. Attallah’s wife put it this way, “We live on our land, despite the difficulties. We live here and we will die here.”