International peace activists from all around the world have become a friend of Palestinian farmers and villagers who are isolated from their orchards by the Israeli annexation Wall. Their nonviolent actions and solidarity with the Palestinians have become the target of the Israeli soldiers who want them out of the occupied West Bank.
Villagers of Jayyous, south of Tulkarem, have hosted international activists who came to support them and conduct voluntary work in an attempt to help them in facing the military violations that target their houses and lands.
Expressing their rejection to the Israeli policy of uprooting trees and orchards, several internationals planted olive bushes near the Wall and its gate.
Fayiz Saleem, a resident of Jayyous, said that soldiers barred him from reaching his orchards isolated behind the Wall but the international peace activists managed to cross and plant olive bushes there.
Last month, members of the British Council of Churches visited Jayyous and attempted to visit the Palestinian orchards isolated behind the Wall but Israeli soldiers barred them from crossing and left them waiting under the sun for several hours.
The soldiers also insulted the aged members of the council and pushed them in a provocative way.
Several members of the council said that reports they see on the suffering on the Palestinians on various news channels in the United Kingdom does not reflect the real abuse and illegal practices by the Israeli occupation forces against the farmers suffering on daily basis while trying to reach their orchards.
Hundreds of olive trees were cut and uprooted during the construction of the Wall in addition to the hundreds of orchards that the residents lost for illegal settlement constructions and expansions in the area.
One of the Council members said that he is willing to stay in Palestine in solidarity with its people suffering under the occupation and facing injustice.
“I would love to stay here, many of my colleagues also do”, the member stated, “but VISA’s in Israel are very complicated, especially when dealing with supporters of the Palestinians, many of my friends were not allowed to stay”.
Israel started constructing the Wall in Jayyous in 2002 and annexed 9,000,000 square meters of arable lands, 2,000,000 sq/m. arable irrigated lands, and more than 6,000 olive trees (the oldest tree age more than 700 years and smallest age 50 years). The trees were all citrus with fruits & vegetables, and there were 7 artesian wells.
The Wall caused the town more than $130 million in loss of lands which are the inhabitants only source of livelihood.
Residents of Jayyous have expressed their rejection to the construction of the annexation Wall, while several organizations issued dozens of reports to different media outlets.
This annexation wall is considered a new form of occupation, a new method of annexing and isolating the Palestinian orchards, isolating the Palestinians from each other and from their land. It is a Wall that allowed settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
