Deir Ibzi, a village located north west of Ramallah, is a village of 13,860 dunams, with only 250 dunams built upon, and with a little over 2000 inhabitants. The village has been called by the name Deir 'Ibzi since the Roman era, and means "place of the well-spoken". It also has the Bubeen Spring that was established during the same Roman era. The spring is a public spring and its water is used by farmers to water lemon, pomegranate and other fruit trees, as well as to irrigate grape vineyards. Almost 25 families are dependent on its water for the farming of 35 dunams and other uses. In addition to that, local and near-by communities use it as a touristic entertainment site.
However, lately this spring has become a target of settler violence. These settlers have attacked the surrounding lands, forbiden farmers from reaching their fields, destroyed water irrigation networks in the area, cut and uprooted trees, and finally blocked the road to the spring so people can't reach it.
Isamat Samara, a farmer from the village, says "Our lands are good productive lands but there is a problem of water. Every time we try to build a water network from the springs to the fields, settlers harass us or attack us. They destroyed the water distribution pump from the spring some time ago and we had to collect money from the people of the village to be able to fix it again."
Ibrahim Abu Ali, another farmer, added: "We tried to go to DCO [District Coordination Office of the Israeli Occupation in the West Bank], the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], and human rights organizations to stop the settlers attacks on us. For a short while this worked but it didn't last long. A month ago settlers came and we had a fight with them, and they almost shot us. But the Israeli army came at the last minute and took them away. Days later, the same group came drunk at night and stole our trees."
The story of the village of Deir Ibzi is repeated on different scales throughout Palestine, and the issues of settler violence and theft of water and land is a common theme of the Zionist colonisation of the lands of the indigenous Palestinian population.
