Settlers and army collude in ethnic cleansing: photo journal

For the last week the family of Nabeel and Ghada Daraghme have become the latest victims of Israels brutal policy of ethnic cleansing in the Jordan Valley. Jordan Valley Solidarity volunteers have been staying at the family home with other internationals over the past few days to support them. This is our photojournal, which we hope goes some way to portraying the way in which the army and settlers collude in this process of ethnic cleansing, and what it is like to be the people who are subjected to this humiliation and violence.

Nabeel and Ghada are bedouin cattle farmers, moving between Ein el Hilwe, Al Hadidiya and Tubas during the year. They have four children: Firas, the eldest, herds the cattle in the mountains every day from around 5am, whilst the others are all young and attend the school in Ein El Hilwe, run entirely by volunteers from our project.

Monday 21st March, 9 pm: The army came to Nabeel and Ghada's home. There home was situated in the same same spot where they had spent the winter for the last 15 years, and told them to leave.


Tuesday 22nd March: The following night around 100 settlers from Maskiyyot came and erected a tent right next to the family home, terrifying the family. The army arrived at the same time, looking on and making no attempt to stop them………..

Settler tent at night. The light is shining directly onto the famlies tent.

Wednesday 23rd March: We arrived in the morning to find the family exhausted after a long and sleepless night fearing the settlers might enter their home at any point……..

From the left: The famlies home, the famlies catle and the settlers tent.

Thurs 24th : Early afternoon, settlers began erecting a barbed wire fence to prevent the famly from keeping there catle in the area around their home.

Later in the afternoon the Army arrives and requested to see ID. They said they would be coming at 6am the next day even though they didn’t have a demolition order.


Friday 25th- We were all up well before 6am, expecting the worst. Nabeel had made it clear that he would not leave the land voluntarily – doing so would be giving away his right to earn a living and support his family.

All seemed quiet until we saw a series of army jeeps going up the opposite hill to Maskiyyot settlement (where it seemed the settlers who were harrasing the family came from), whilst others stopped on the road below, joined by the Israeli police. We can only guess at the discussions that went on between the soldiers and the settlers in maskiyyot, but the jeeps then came down the hill in convoy and straight up to Nabeel and Ghada’s home.

They walked en masse towards the house, calling Nabeel over to them and demanding his ID. At the same time they surrounded the house and stationed soldiers on the hilltops all around us. We saw soldier after soldier after soldier go into the small family home, where Nabeel, Ghada and the three young children were sitting, asserting their right to continue to live on the land they had farmed for years, and their right not to be driven away be violent settlers.

The army’s response was to physically drag the internationals out of the house, followed by Nabeel

– leaving Ghada and the children alone, vulnerable and no doubt scared, surrounded by young men with guns.

They forced all the internationals and photographers away from the house before they allowed Ghada and the children to leave.

With nowhere left to go the family gathered on the grass at the bottom of the hill, with those there to support them, and people brought food to share.

Not content with this the army came again, making an ad hoc declaration of a closed military area, and forcing everyone to leave the green hillside and sit on the gravel on the opposite side of the road.

Then, at about 4pm we saw the soldiers around the tent once more to take down the famly home with their things still inside.

Ghada, who had been amazingly strong throughout, could no longer hold in the distress and anguish that she was clearly feeling.

With few options left the family had to make plans for the night, and more volunteers arrived to help the build a temporary home next to the other families at the heart of Ein El Hilwe.

We cleared the stones from the ground, wooden posts and a tent made of sewn together food aid sacks appeared, stakes were hammered in, and the tent went up.

Disucssions were moving on to how enough mattresses, blankets and food could to provide for the family overnight.

One again the army arrived.

Once again they called Nabeel over and once again they took his ID, and once again they told him to leave the area and to move to the local town of Tubas (not seeming to be concerned about how he could continue to look after his cattle in the town).

To further the depth of humiliation they were inflicting, they ordered Nabeel to take down the tent that had just been put up collectively – threatening to keep his ID if he didn’t.


The internationals stayed with family overnight, then the next morning........

Saturday 26th march- they went to collect their tent and belongings at 8am – the time allotted by the army. With the help of a tractor and trailer from another farmer they moved to some vacant land a short distance away, where the landlord was known and had agreed for them to stay.

We all gathered to start building another tent, clearing the land, spreading out all the mats, bedding and clothing to dry, which had been soaked by the rain two days earlier, but which they hadn’t been able to dry.

Everyone re building the family home.

As the main structure of tent went up, we were gathered underneath to clear the land, following the lead from the family, and started to relax , chat and drink tea as we worked. Then we saw the army jeeps stopping across on the road. They came to the family, demanded Nabeel’s ID yet again, and said that the family would have to leave in 10 minutes.

When challenged they said that they would leave and return the next day with a demolition order.

In the long discussion they told Nabeel that they wanted him out of the Jordan Valley, and would come wherever he set up home for his family.

The family were left again in a state of limbo, not knowing whether to get their things organized, or just leave them all so there’d be less to pack away the next day.

The family and supporters after the family had been given 24 hours to pack up their home.

Despite the army threatening to return the next day to remove them for a third time they have not yet returned.
 with the demolition order, but that does not mean they won’t. In the meantime the family just have to try and get on with their life, but can never really relax, despite the potentially idyllic surroundings they live in.

For regular updates you can now follow Jordan Valley Solidarity on twitter at http://twitter.com/jvsolidarity
, on the Jordan Valley Solidarity(JVS) website at http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/
and the Brighton JVS website at http://www.brightonpalestine.org/


Back ground:

Since 1967 the Palestinian population in the Jordan Valley has been reduced from 325,000 to 56,000 as a result of Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing. Their methods vary, but the results remain the same. Israel has a legal duty as an occupying power to provide for the humanitarian needs of the occupied population, and to not attempt to settle its people on the occupied land. It blatently disregards both of these in its relentless mission to remove Palestinians from their homeland.

Palestinians are forced to leave the Jordan Valley by being denied access to water, electricity, education and health care. They are also forced to leave when their land is stolen by the Israeli colonists (settlers), confiscated by the Israeli army, and their homes are demolished by the occupying power.