Azun Atmeh - a Village Isolated by the Wall

by Charles Lenchner · 2009-03-17 04:50:00 UTC
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Dafnah Banai is one of Israel's premier peace activists. I know her from serving on the board of Reut/Sadakah more than a decade ago; since then she became part of the core team of MachsomWatch,  a women's human rights NGO. Their work: to watch over the behavior of Israeli troops at the hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank.

Yaara Dvash is another member. Her blog, Israel’s Back Yard, features a post by Dafnah, based on a recent visit to the village of Azun Atmeh. This village is quite literally locked within the seperation wall on ALL SIDES. Call it the seperation pen:

Both checkpoints close down at 9pm. An entire village, a few thousand people, children, elderly, women about to give birth, people with heart condition – all are well-locked behind walls, fences, barbed wire, armed soldiers and guard-posts. Not terrorists, unarmed. Farmers (Azun-Atme had free passage to Israel for over two years and did not produce a single attempt for a terrorist attack). Like Qalqilya, and like many other villages that the Separation Wall has separated between them and the most fundamental right there is – the right to freedom. And as if all that is not enough, ten households of the village are on the other side of road 505, on the other side of the wall.

Each resident of those ten households is examined on the way home. The army restricts the quantity of food that residents can carry from the part of the village with the grocerty store to the part of the village across the highway: 10 pitas, a kilo of potatoes, etc. Even if it’s a person with 9 children and grandparents. Even if it’s for a household of 20 people. One can always visit the nearby city of Qalqilya, to see the local DCO (District Coordination Office), stand in line for a whole day, and then get a special permit for extra rations. But in the name of all the people, of members of my family, who are haunted to this day by the shadows of days behind barbed wire and armed soldiers, I want to ask: what has become of us?

It is very important to realize that this village is separated by the wall not from the Israeli territory, but from the West Bank itself. The separation wall, supposedly established for the purpose of defending Israel, functions here as a mean of taking over more Palestinian land, while isolating the Palestinians who still live in the area, making their lives miserable.

This is the kind of injustice that Tristan Anderson was documenting when he was shot with a tear gas canister by Israeli troops last Friday. It's the kind of injustice that fuels the growing anger at Israel.

If Israeli security requires the counting of pita at a checkpoint for ten homes, perhaps there is something wrong with the operational definition of security?

Additional resources:

http://www.btselem.org/english/separation_barrier/20061219_azzun_atmah_enclave.asp

http://www.machsomwatch.org/en/reports/checkpoints/10/03/2009/afternoon/9666

Charles Lenchner
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