WEST BANK / DISPLACEMENT

Forced displacement of Palestinians has increased dramatically in the West Bank inside the so-called Area C, where Israel has full military control under the Oslo Accords. So far this year, 698 Palestinians have been displaced as unchecked settler violence continues to reach a peak in the area. UNRWA

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:37
• Production Date: 29 July 2011
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES IN THE NEAR EAST - UNRWA
• Subject Topical: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; PEACE AND SECURITY; HUMANITARIAN RELIEF; REFUGEES; DISPLACED PERSONS; DISASTER PREVENTION; DISASTER PREPAREDNESS; DISASTER RELIEF
• Geographic Subject: MIDDLE EAST
• MAMS Id: U110729d

Description

STORY: WEST BANK / DISPLACEMENT
TRT: 1:37
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ NATS

DATELINE: JULY 2011, AREA C, WEST BANK

Shotlist

1. Med shot, man standing on trailer being loaded receiving mattresses from women
2. Various shots, two small children by tent
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Bedouin woman:
“You saw the little girl, how she was crying and how she got scared. Last time when the soldiers came, our boys panicked.”
4. Close up, two women lifting pots and saucepans and boxes onto trailer
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Gunness, Spokesman, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees:
“The Israeli authorities have an obligation under international law to protect these people, but what have they done? They have come and told them to go.”
6. Wide shot, Bedouin woman at distance bringing belongings to trailer with a donkey
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Gunness, Spokesman, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees:
“It took them a week to find out what was happening to them. One of the children is fourteen and the parents have been told they've got to find 7,500 Shekels (2,200 USD) for bail, which they don't have. This is a violation of international law in action. We say there has to be transparency and there has to be accountability because it's wrong and it has to stop.”
8. Med shot, tractor with loaded trailer driving away

Storyline

The forced displacement of Palestinians has increased dramatically in the West Bank inside the so-called Area C, were Israel has full military control under the Oslo Accords.

Six hundred and ninety-eight Palestinians had been displaced from Area C in 2011, as unchecked settler violence is reaching a peak in the Ramallah Governorate of the West Bank.

This week, an additional fifteen families of Bedouin herders are packing up their tents on a hillside in Area C and prepare to leave their home of up to 40 years because they are simply too afraid to stay.

A grandmother of an extended family expresses the whole community's fear of what is going to happen to them now. “Last time when the soldiers came, our boys panicked,” she added.

According to United Nations (UN) observers, this is the first time in recent years when a community has decided to leave their homestead on their own accord without being physically evicted.

Over the past two weeks, settler activity against Palestinians in the Maale Mikhmas area of the Ramallah Governorate, only a 20 minutes drive from Jerusalem, has included reports of acts of arson, physical assault, severely injured children, beatings with metal bars, prevention of access to water sources and multiple counts of psychological intimidation.

Bedouin communities and herding groups have been directly affected.

During this same period, in two Bedouin communities, Israel, the occupying power, has demolished five residential houses and four animal shelters; has confiscated tractors and trailers; has issued eviction orders and has visited the Bedouin families, tent by tent, to verbally inform them that they will have to leave the area because they are making problems for the settlers.

The Bedouin group knows that leaving the valley where many of them were born will lock them into a spiralling cycle of multiple displacements.

Wherever they re-construct their tented homes in Area C, a demolition order issued by the Israeli Civil Administration for ‘building without a permit’ will soon follow. Obliged to remain in Area C due to their livestock dependent livelihoods, the fifteen families on the move prefer to risk Israeli army bulldozers than to stay where they are, facing the increasing threat of physical violence by the Israeli settlers.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) Spokesperson Christopher Gunness said this “a violation of international law in action” adding “there to be accountability because it's wrong and it has to stop.”

Competition for the little remaining grazing land is fierce among herding communities in the West Bank. The family of the old lady, who asked to not be named for fear of harassment, see it as their only option to move onto the land of another Bedouin community in the area that will allow them to do so.