Since the formal end of Operation ’Stagnant Waters’ in Nablus on January 6th - which claimed 19 lives, 15 of them civilian, and resulted in over 350 injuries (mostly children) - the IDF has been staging almost nightly incursions into Nablus and the surrounding refugee camps. On many nights people are woken by the sound of IDF convoys rumbling through the streets, occasional detonations and bursts of gunfire that can be heard in the late hours. In the morning we touch base with ISMers, coordinators and other locals to take stock of how many jeeps entered the city, whether or not there was resistance, and how many young men were arrested in the night.

REPORT ABOUT TELL VILLAGE

After the chaos of a Balata morning, we find ourselves on the road leading from Nablus to Tell village. The road is broken up by dozens of earthmounds, forcing Palestinians traveling to and from Tell - and beyond - to walk for several kilometers. An ISM delegation is heading to the village of 6,000 for a meeting with mayor Abu Faruk in order to obtain more information on a recent IDF military order, dated February 10th, expropriating two dunums of land on a strategic hill overlooking the main settler bi-pass road bisecting the area. The land has been designated for a ’temporary’ and unspecified IDF military installation to be constructed there, even though there’s already an Israeli military base 1km away near a school on the eastern fringes of the village.

Since the Intifada began, Tell - and neighboring villages like Iraq Burin - have been closed in on all sides to vehicular traffic, suffering the customary deprivations of sieges as a result. Goods are laboriously brought into town by foot, makeshift carts, and vehicles drawn by donkeys every day. Travelers frequently experience long delays going to and from the village, and are often detained at the floating military checkpoints controlling major access roads. The road from Tell to Nablus, which took five minutes by car before the Intifada, is now populated by families carrying sick children to the hospitals of Nablus, old women lugging heavy loads, or university students hoping to reach their classes without being turned back.

In the mayor’s spartan office, he patiently lays out the situation for us. He notes the future sites proximity to the Rajool Arbeen - a pre-Ottoman holy site - and the way it controls access to hundreds of dunams of agricultural land on which the villagers depend for their livelihood. Tell, famous for its figs, also produces subsistence crops for local consumption and for small-scale export to Nablus like olives, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, potatoes, as well as a variety of dairy products and livestock cultivation. The new military installation stands to cripple the village’s economic base.

"Under the pretense of ’security’ they can do anything. This new order will make our lives more difficult than they already are and will prevent us from reaching our lands. The people will be frustrated and the world will not care about their pain, the soldiers will not care, the Israeli government will not care," explains the mayor.

We encounter similar concerns in the offices of Professor Mohamed Salim Shtayeh, a professor of biology at An-Najah University and President of the Biodiversity and Environmental Research Center in Tell (BERC). The two dunums in question are on Prof. Shtayeh’s land. In another era, he was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the environmental working group during the Oslo negotiations, now he is facing an uncertain future.

He informs us that the military order specifies that the site will be ’temporarily’ confiscated until 31st January 2005. The two dunums will be used for an unspecified military installation, probably a watchtower, and the building of a road 218 m long and 4 m wide. He notes that the two dunums are only for the physical infrastructure of the military installation, but don’t include the broad ’security perimeter’ and ’closed military areas’ that usually accompany such installations:

"This is a strategic position that controls the western approaches to the village and all the movement of people in the valley from the village of Djet to Huwara. They say the military position is designed to prevent ’terrorist’ attacks on the bypass road in the valley, even though there have been no such attacks. People’s main concern is that it will limit movement and prevent people from reaching their land, as well as the possibility that this ’temporary’ position will become permanent and that it will be expanded. Who knows, maybe even a settlement will be built here."

The order specifies that affected villagers can apply to the Civil Authority’s courts for compensation, but none are willing to do so, given that most fear such a move would legitimize the wholly illegal expropriation of occupied Palestinian lands. Furthermore, affected farmers will be forced to apply to the DCO for ’permission’ to cultivate their own lands beyond the new installation - a process fraught by well documented abuse, the whims of local military commanders and unnecessary delays. Many are simply denied access.

BERC’s own projects are also threatened by the confiscation order as two of them are located on lands lying beyond the site of the future IDF installation. These include an educational botanical gardens project (15,000 sq m) and the rehabilitation of a rainfall pool with the capacity of 7000 cubic m of water. Dr. Shtayeh informs us that BERC had hoped to expand these projects in the coming months, but the center’s work is now threatened by the increased military presence in the area.

"I’m a lover of peace, but it’s not peace when I feel I can’t go to my work and when my colleagues can’t visit me. Our mission here is to preserve biodiversity and play a constructive role in the community, but we can’t fulfill it under these conditions. These are local, but also in many ways global concerns. All I can say is that I’m frustrated at the moment. I told friends that the military order on my lands was like cancer or AIDS. You never think you’ll be affected by it, but suddenly it’s there."