Khirbet al-Tawil: A Model of Conflict with West Bank Settlers | Politics

Nablus- At the site of his older brother Mohammed’s martyrdom last April while defending his land in Khirbet al-Tawil, south of Nablus in the West Bank, Moataz Ibrahim Bani Jami’ continues the path his brother and his family took before, refusing to move from his land and leave it to the settlers, who have encroached on it and are working to displace its owners.

Khirbet al-Tawil, where Moataz (16 years old) and his younger brother Obaida live, has become a model for the direct conflict between Palestinians and settlers in the West Bank. Its residents also express the citizen’s steadfastness on his land and his defense of it, and his rejection of all Israeli temptations and its terrorizing policies.

Al Jazeera Net reached the place where the Bani Jamea family lives, where the two brothers, Moataz and Obeida, were confining their livestock inside the pen, returning from the pasture, the area of ​​which and the duration of grazing in which have also shrunk as a result of the settlers’ violence and attacks, in addition to the ongoing demolition of agricultural and residential facilities, the confiscation of livestock, and other things carried out by the occupation army.

The settlers move with a herd of livestock, after they built pastoral settlement outposts (the outpost is the nucleus of a new settlement) through which they took control of the entire area. The last of these outposts was less than a month ago, when the occupation issued a decision to confiscate more than 12,700 dunams of its lands, thus recording the largest confiscation operation in 30 years, according to the Israeli Peace Now movement.

In contrast, due to Israeli harassment, the number of livestock owned by the Bani Jameh family has declined. The settlers have taken over the mountaintops and have stepped up their persecution of the Palestinians by targeting the plains and preventing them from farming and grazing them. Moataz told Al Jazeera Net in response to the settlers’ actions, “We will not budge. If they are the ‘hilltop youth’, as they call themselves, then we are the plains youth.”

The situation has changed

The steadfastness of the people of Al-Tawil – after the martyrdom of three of their young men in less than a month – reflected the intensity of the conflict with the settlers. Among the people was Maher Bani Fadl, who lost his young son, Abdul Rahman, in the last confrontation with the settlers last April, in defense of the land that his father inherited from his grandfather more than five decades ago.

The area of ​​Bani Fadl’s land is estimated at about 40 dunams (one dunam equals one thousand square meters), most of which is planted with olives, and includes his sheep pens, which are targeted by settlers for killing or theft.

Bani Fadl says that Khirbet al-Tuwail has not lost a single martyr since 1967, but the martyrdom of three young men from it at once and in less than a month was a tragedy caused by the settlers to the residents of the area. He adds, “When you see your land with your own eyes and you cannot reach it, your death is better, and this is no longer just talk, but a general feeling experienced by the people of al-Tuwail.”

Over many years and through numerous demolitions, the occupation has made a major change to the features of Khirbet al-Tuwail, the most prominent of which was the demolition of the only mosque and residential and agricultural facilities, and the destruction and bulldozing of the infrastructure of roads, water and electricity lines, the most recent of which was about a month ago.

Of the more than 144 thousand dunams – which constitute the area of ​​the village of Aqraba and the villages of al-Tuwail and Yanun, which are geographically and administratively affiliated with it – the occupation confiscated more than 122 thousand dunams, either by military decisions or by direct seizure orders.

Conflict and confrontation

Aqraba Mayor Salah Bani Jaber says, “Al-Tawil embodies the true meaning of the conflict between settlers who plunder the land and kill its people, and citizens who stand firm, persevere, and sacrifice their blood for it.”

Bani Jaber added to Al Jazeera Net that displacing the people of Al-Tuwail not only deprives them of their land, but also deprives the entire town of its eastern façade overlooking the Palestinian Jordan Valley, which is of strategic geographical and agricultural importance, and thus Judaizes the entire area of ​​the northern West Bank, which lies on the edge of the Jordan Valley.

To enhance the steadfastness of citizens, Aqraba Municipality implemented a support program based on:

• Providing all infrastructure services, including roads, water, electricity, schools and health, exempting citizens from paying their prices, and providing alternative energy through solar cells.
• Rebuilding every facility destroyed by the occupation, whether residential or agricultural.
• Compensating citizens, through international and local institutions, for their losses in private property that is burned, stolen and destroyed by settlers.
• Providing livestock feed and supplies, including therapeutic vaccines and others.
• Supporting the so-called peripheral areas adjacent to the Israeli-controlled Area C, to protect them from annexation, by paving and rehabilitating roads, and providing all infrastructure services, at a cost exceeding $430,000.

Bani Jaber says, “The citizen must not pay the price of steadfastness alone, and be left alone to live the nightmare of direct confrontation with the occupation and the settlers.” He also points out that their support for the residents has created reassurance among them and strengthened their steadfastness.

Bani Jaber and the residents of Al-Tawil believe that the “struggle is long” with the settlers and the Judaization agenda, which they are trying to impose through direct and daily contact with the Palestinians, which has generated more defiance among the citizens and their insistence on existing and steadfastness on their land.

In Al-Tawil, Yanun, and the outskirts, the occupation and its settlers launched about 100 attacks, 73 of which occurred in front of the responsible authorities, who documented the settlers’ violence, according to Bani Jaber.

According to a press statement by the Minister of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Mu'ayyad Shaaban, the Israeli occupation – whether its soldiers or settlers – carried out 1,110 settlement attacks during last July, targeting Palestinians in various areas of their presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Shaaban is counting on the steadfastness and perseverance of the citizens in confronting the arrogance of the settlers, but he links this steadfastness to the material and human support provided to these citizens.