When the Palestinian married Naaman Asaad in 1984, he was forced to make a pergola on his father’s house in the Beit Sakarya community, south of Bethlehem, in the south of the occupied West Bank, because the Israeli occupation prohibits any building in the gathering under the pretext that it is a military area belonging to the occupation army.
The numbers of homes approaching 100 in five communities in Beit Sakarya are constant and do not change despite the doubling of the population since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967. From the occupation authority that you do not give to the Palestinians originally.
12 Surrounding Settlements
The Israeli occupation established a group of settlements that it called "the Gush Etzion settlement complex" on Palestinian lands from villages and towns south of Bethlehem and north of Hebron.
The settlement community swallowed more than two thousand dunums of Beit Sakarya lands, which today are surrounded by 12 permanent settlements at the expense of the surrounding Palestinian land.
The day before we prepared this report, the occupation demolished a small house built of bricks, built by "Asaad" during the quarantine period to protect against the Coronavirus, and he was seeking to stay on his land with eight of his family members from the children and grandchildren in two and a half dunams of dunums he inherited from his father.
Asaad tells Al-Jazeera Net that when his eldest son got married, he was forced to live in the nearby town of Artas, as there is no home for the family and the occupation prevents him from building on his land, but the home quarantine because of Corona made him go with his children to his land and stay there, so he built this small house of bricks, However, he was surprised that the occupation stormed the area and carried out the demolition process.
Forced deportation The
situation of any Palestinian youth from the Beit Sakarya gathering if he wants to marry today is the case of Asaad, who married in the eighties of the last century, so he is forced to leave the land of his parents and grandparents and buy or rent an apartment in nearby areas.
Asaad believes that what is happening in the Beit Sakarya gathering is the forcible transfer of Palestinians who are forced to leave, to form families and build homes outside the community.
Al-Jazeera Net spoke with the head of the village council of Beit Sakarya community, Muhammad Ibrahim Atallah, who confirmed that the area of the assembly was about 9 thousand dunams before 1967, and today 7 thousand dunums remain after the settlement expansion on its lands.
The geographical connection of Beit Sakarya with Palestinian villages and towns was also absent before the occupation separated them with settlement units, and it created roads that serve the settlers, so that today you cannot enter a drunken house without passing through the settlement roads. Atallah adds.
Restrictions and checkpoints
There is no public transportation in Beit Sakarya, and it is forbidden for Palestinians to walk or stand on the settlement street. Rather, the occupation from time to time puts up military barriers and closes the roads leading to it.
The village council tried to lay down a structural plan for the gathering, but the occupation, for many years, has been stalling its approval because this Palestinian community is located in areas classified (C) according to the Oslo Agreement signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which means security and civilian control of Israel over these Regions.
The occupation threatened dozens of Palestinians in Beit Sakarya by demolishing their homes and the sheds that they set up on their lands, which the head of the village council confirmed that there are too many, and despite all that, the people of Beit Sakarya still cling to their lands with love and care, despite being forced to live outside it.