The Apartheid Cage around Qalqiliya: Qalqiliya’s Struggle for Survival since 1948
Khaled Al Shanti, The Palestinian Farmers Union/ Qalqiliya District, August 26th, 2003
Since 1948, Qalqiliya has been systematically targeted by consecutive Israeli governments for either demolition or evacuation because of the city’s strategic location. Zionist ideology and measures reveal that the location of the city is a permanent target of Israel due to two main reasons. First, its location, which was determined in the 1948 war due to the courageous resistance of the residents which ultimately determined the boundary of the Jewish State, and which invokes extreme irritation within Israel. Located in the center of Israel, near the most densely populated Jewish areas that include Tel Aviv and its suburbs, Petah Tikva, Kafr Saba, and Ra’anana, Qalqiliya is considered a weak point by the State. The width of Israel from the city’s current location to the Mediterranean is some 14 kilometers.
Second, water, since Qalqiliya is located in the most important and water-rich area in Palestine, atop the Western Aquifer, known as the Al ’Oja Aquifer, whose area reaches some 1,795 square kilometers. Most of the area of this aquifer is located within the West Bank, with a simple stretch inside the Green Line. Israel depends upon the stealing of water from this aquifer to cover between 20-25% of its annual hydraulic needs.
The Occupation authorities have prevented Palestinians from using their own water resources by preventing the drilling of new wells or the drilling current wells to greater depth. Water extraction for each well is also specified by Israel, while simultaneously Israel drilled 7 new, deep wells on the Israeli side surrounding Qalqiliya which pump massive quantities of water, some 3,000 cubic meters. Contrary to the Israeli wells, Qalqiliya’s wells, drilled before 1967, are shallow (between 30-70 meters). Based upon the abovementioned information, the hydraulic importance of Qalqiliya is clear as it is an important strategic site for both the Palestinian and Israeli sides.
Therefore, continued plans and schemes were designed to control Qalqiliya and displace its residents since 1948 and until today. Israeli attempts to dominate the city are highlighted and summarized in the following four points:
First: 1948 (The Military Plan D- Dalet)
At the beginning of 1948, on March 10, 1948, the Israeli military authorized a plan called D-Dalet to occupy Qalqiliya and surrounding villages, which the Alexandroni Brigade was mandated to implement.. The brigade failed several times to advance towards and occupy Qalqiliya because of the steadfast resistance of Qalqiliya’s residents, who numbered 1,200 volunteers out of a population of 8,000. The resistance was trained and armed with various kinds of weapons, including armored cars that were locally manufactured. The Israeli defeat was due to the efficient defense of the residents on behalf of their city, including coordinated resistance with near-by villages. This gave Ben Gurion no choice but to annul the occupation of Qalqiliya and to abort it from the “D”, which finally took place during the defeat of the Alexandroni Brigade while attempting to occupy the nearby village At Tireh on May 13, 1948.
Shlomo Shamir, a general in the brigade, admitted in a telegram to Ben Gurion of the defeat and the low morale of his soldiers and officers in the face of the resistance in Qalqiliya. Speaking of his soldiers, “They’re worse than the civilians… they are defeatists, especially the leaders.”
Second: The Rhodes Agreement (April, 3, 1949)
The Jordanian and Israeli governments signed their second cease-fire agreement that became a permanent agreement, known as the Rhodes Agreement. According to this agreement, 400,000 dunums of the Triangle lands, between six villages surrounding Qalqiliya, were handed over to Israel; 40,000 dunums of this were the lands, farms and orchards of Qalqiliya and demarcated the “new” border adjacent to houses located in the city’s outskirts. These lands included 10,000 dunums of orchards that formed the main source of sustenance and livelihoods of the community.
The demarcation of the new border conveyed a clear and direct message to the residents of the city, which was to emigrate and look for new sources of income in other places. The response of the residents came in the form of defiance; the community immediately began working on the surrounding mountains, clearing the lands for farming and drilling 39 artesian wells. The surrounding areas became, after a few years, a stable source of income for the residents, which Israel responded to by suppressing the farmers and the community during a period of 26 months when some 624 Israeli military assaults in the area were counted, and which included ten martyrs.
Third: June War, 1967
The Israeli army began attacking the city to destroy it on June 8, 1967 by an order from General Uzi Narkis. All the residents were expelled on June 7, 1967 during a massive attack from the air and land, mobilizing various units of the Israeli army and causing virtual total destruction of the city. On June 28, 1967 Qalqiliya’s residents were able to return to their destroyed city following the help of the representatives of the five permanent member states in the Security Council. Placing tents in front of their destroyed homes, the city was rebuilt by its residents, needing two years to bring it back to life.
Fourth: Gradual Isolation Plan
This plan is based on the implementation of a number of programs that Israel began executing from 1981 until 2003 with the aim of totally isolating Qalqiliya and practicing extreme psychological and economic pressures including the forcible reduction of the income sources of the inhabitants. This plan is summarized as follows:
The Settlement Plans
Aimed at drowning Qalqiliya and the surrounding villages in a sea of settlement blocks and cantons in which Qalqiliya will appear as a small, isolated island. As Minister of Housing in 1981, Ariel Sharon adopted a plan he named “The Seven Stars” which aimed at establishing seven large settlements on the Green Line that would surround Qalqiliya for the purpose of eradicating the Green Line as a political boundary, which would then no longer be negotiable in any final agreement.
Despite the attempts at confidentiality by Israel on settlement data, the outcome of the settlement activities in Qalqiliya and the district is serious, where there are 25 Jewish settlements in the district total 53,790 settlers who total 27% of the West Bank settlers, minus Jerusalem. The numbers highlight that Qalqiliya and Jerusalem are top targets for Israeli settlements and their expansion.
The Military Enclosure
Nine military positions were erected on all sides of the city.
Inflicting Economic and Psychological Suppression
Israel has taken advantage of the Al Aqsa intifada and, under the pretext of “security,” has undertaken a number of daily measures that negatively affect the sources of living of the inhabitants, causing legitimate existential fears among the entire community. Various practices have turned into government policy in the past two and a half years, whereby people are facing, in multiple ways, virtual to total losses of income. For just one example, the total losses per farmer throughout the Intifada have reached $4,160, translating into complete bankruptcy.
Building the Apartheid Cage
Israel began, without a specified route, to build a complete cage around the city of Qalqiliya, which surrounds the city on all sides. The area between this cage and the residential areas in the western side of Qalqiliya is just a few meters, while in the northern and southern portions; it is 200 meters from the homes, and 700 meters on the east.
This cage has one entrance and exit which the inhabitants can only use under the supervision and control of the Israeli military and within specified hours. This entrance/exit is located in the eastern entrance of the city. The military issued 6 military orders that show the path of the Wall around the city. The Apartheid Wall extends the length of 13,606 meters and its width ranges between 53 to 104 meters. The Wall has eaten a total of 2,200 dunums of orchards and irrigated lands that were owned by 543 farmers.
The implications of the caging of Qalqiliya can be summarized as follows:
• Controlling water resources by isolating 18 wells whose total annual extraction is 1,888,700 million cubic meters that irrigate 3,747 dunums of land owned by 612 farmers.
• Destroying the modern irrigating network.
• Isolating 3,750 dunums of irrigated lands located inside (“behind” the Wall) in a “closed military zone” that can not be entered without a military permit.
• Fragmenting the ownership of 342 agricultural lands whose area spread over 2,150 dunums and the Wall will cut through this region. These lands are owned by 547 farmers.
• Destroying all agricultural roads and removing the boundaries of the agricultural properties in a way that demands new survey and a new sorting as well as determining the alternative agricultural paths.
• Restricting the movement of the inhabitants and isolating Qalqiliya completely from the rest of the Palestinian cities and villages, as well as placing the residents in a closed military zone around the clock.
This is one of the racist forms of discrimination forms that is typical and deep-rooted in Israeli practices and which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), the International Criminal Court (1998), and the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (1973).
Conclusion
The building the Apartheid Cage around the city of Qalqiliya is forcing its inhabitants, as well as the Palestinian people, to face serious challenges, including: Does the Palestinian National Authority –which is officially as well as historically responsible, along with the other national and Islamic parties, accept the confiscation and theft of the city and the expulsion of its inhabitants, translating into the Israeli control of 52% of the Palestinian water resources?
It would be no exaggeration to say that the future site of the battle for the establishment of a Palestinian State and gaining independence will be in the city situated atop the richest water source, the Western Aquifer. More so, this will be determined in the next five years. As for the residents of Qalqiliya, their fate today is the same as it has been the past five years, one of challenge – resistance and rebellion.
What is taking place in Qalqiliya demands national mobilization both on the official and public levels to the same extent when war is declared in self-defense.
This article was written in May 2003 for The Wall in Palestine: Facts, Testimonies, Analysis, and Call to Action PENGON 2003.
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