Ramallah -

After days of coordinating with residents and activists in it, we were finally able to enter the village of Deir Nidham, located northwest of Ramallah, in the central West Bank.

The occupation imposed a siege on it and closed its entrances for 60 days, and only its residents are allowed to enter or leave it.

There is no direct transportation line to the village, and we had to take vehicles to the neighboring village of "Abud", and the driver had to venture into the village at the moment when the occupation soldiers were away from the entrance to "Dir Nizam" for a few minutes.

On the narrow street leading to Deir Nidham, it is possible to notice the concrete cubes that the soldiers use to close the entrance and obstruct the lives of more than 1,200 Palestinians who are the residents of the village.

To reinforce its siege, the occupation also closed an agricultural road used by the people, with earth mounds, in addition to closing two other entrances with iron gates and barbed wire.

The only thing left for the residents is the main entrance on which the Israeli soldiers erected a permanent military checkpoint two months ago.

The entrance to the village of Deir Nidham, where the concrete cubes were erected by the occupation to close the village (Al-Jazeera)

The problem... "Halmish"

We arrived at the home of the head of the village council, Nasr Mezher, who said, "For two months we have been living in a prison. The soldiers control the opening and closing of the checkpoint according to their mood."

On some days, the checkpoint is not opened until after ten in the morning, which means that employees and students in particular are denied access to their work, schools and universities as usual.

On other days, the checkpoint closes early, preventing those outside the village from returning, in addition to scrutinizing vehicles and passengers.

Mezher - in his speech to Al Jazeera Net - mentions that the "Halamish settlement", which is built on the lands of the nearby villages of Deir Nidham and "Al-Nabi Saleh", is the reason for closing the village, after its settlers turned the lives of the people of the area into hell, and that "the attacks on the residents, their homes, their livestock and their lands. The agricultural sector does not end, and all this is done with the protection of the occupation soldiers.”

Mezher, 57, mentions village life before the establishment of the Israeli settlement in 1978, as the area was a nature reserve planted with trees, a play area for children and farmers graze their livestock, especially as it contains springs flowing from rainwater.


The attacks have been going on for two decades

The occupation began with the establishment of the settlement when the settlers erected simple tents, which expanded on the citizens’ lands until they reached the borders of their homes, and now they control two thousand dunums of the village.

The first settlers attacks were in 1998, when they cut down more than 100 perennial olive trees from the lands of Deir Nidham and Al-Nabi Saleh.

Since then, the attacks, which have been intensifying and declining according to the security situation, have not stopped.

During the second intifada (2000-2005), the settlers’ attacks became permanent, as they sought by all means to constrain the people, by sabotaging agricultural lands, destroying crops, launching pigs on crops, direct attacks on homes, and closing the entrances to the village with the support of “Halamish” settlers and other settlements. nearby.

During our conversation with the head of the council, his youngest son, Mezher, 14, was by his side, and talked about his and his colleagues' suffering during their commute and return from school every day.

On his mobile phone, he showed videos documenting the firing of tear gas at the school and the detention of students.

Muzher, the son, told Al Jazeera Net, "Every day, the soldiers arrest us when we return from school, and sometimes we are interrogated for hours, before releasing us after threatening us if we throw stones."

And if Mezher is detained while returning from school, dozens of children are arrested from their homes after breaking into them in the middle of the night, intimidated and interrogated, according to the head of the council.

The child Mezher talked about their daily suffering on the way to school at the hands of the occupation forces (Al-Jazeera)

12 homes blown by annexation

The eastern area of ​​the village is considered the most threatening, with 12 homes threatened with confiscation and annexation of the adjacent settlement, the oldest of which is the house of Saleh Mustafa Mazhar, which was built by his father in 1969, and for decades stood as a stumbling block in the way of the settlement’s expansion on village lands.

At the house of Saleh Muzher, his wife Zamzam greeted us, and spoke about her daily suffering after the settlement's borders reached her home.

She was pointing beyond the wall separating her house and the settlement, and said, "All this land is ours, even after the settlement was established, we could access it and cultivate it, but years ago it was completely rebuilt and annexed."

And the wife states - to Al Jazeera Net - that these lands owned by her husband's family, were like a park intended for the people of the village, so that her wedding ceremony was held on it 36 ​​years ago, and "today we are forbidden to approach it, they stole our land and distorted our beautiful memories in it."

When confrontations erupt between the boys and the occupation forces almost weekly, settlers attack Zamzam house with stones, and soldiers break into the house, detain its residents and search it completely, and years ago they occupied the roof of the house for a whole week.

Saleh Mustafa Mazhar from the roof of his house opposite the settlement of Halamish (Al-Jazeera)

From the roof of the house, the viewer can observe the same reality experienced by 11 other families surrounded by barbed wire, and a gate set up for use by settlers and soldiers to enter their area at any time, under permanent surveillance cameras.

The family is afraid - according to Saleh Mezher - of new plans to build a road to reach the settlement in front of their house, which means annexing the house and separating it from the village.

According to the man, the settlement is expanding every once in a while by confiscating more lands, and these homes are what prevents the expansion now.

He expresses his fears of including all of them in the settlement and controlling the movement of its residents through electronic gates.

During the tour, an occupation jeep arrived and a group of occupation soldiers got out of it, so the council chairman advised us to leave before confrontations erupt or the occupation closes the barrier that controls their lives, as he says, “The permanent presence of the occupation army in the village provokes the youths who throw stones at it, which is used as a pretext for more from closure and abuse of the people.”