Situated just 50 meter from the main building of Anata high school, where 800 students are enrolled, is the construction site of the Apartheid Wall. Daily harassment of the students attending classes escalated on Monday the 5th of September when the school playground was destroyed to secure the âprotection of the Wall constructersâ. This will create a 70 meter wide âsecure areaâ for the Wall construction specialists and their military escorts, notorious for carrying out a series of cold blooded executions of Palestinian children in recent months.
Anata⦠A history of colonialism and confiscation:
Anata, home to 16,000 people owns more than 34,000 dunums of land. The majority of this has been seized since 1967 leaving their town with just 4000 dunums of land.
Settlements and military zones have sprung up to the immediate east of the village on the stolen lands. The chronology of confiscation and Zionist expansion reveals that:
- In 1979 Kfar Adumim settlement was constructed on 433 dunums of land confiscated from east Anata
- In 1981, another 656 dunums was confiscated to build an army camp immediately east the village. More land was confiscated to expand this camp later.
- 298 dunums in 1983 were taken to build the Almon settlement.
- In 1991, 125 dunums were stolen to build the Alon settlement also located east of the village.
- 4000 dunums were confiscated around Kfar Adumim and Alon to enable âsecurity areasâ.
- 2 new bypass roads were constructed on confiscated lands from the village. The Jewish-only highway (number 45) connects the Jordan Valley and Tel-Aviv. Highway 70 beginning from Sawahra and leading to up to Qalandiya in the north which will be used as an âalternativeâ road for Palestinians connecting the northern and southern ghettos.
- Later confiscations have seen the continual expansions of the settlements and their infrastructure up until the present day.
The Apartheid Wall will isolate 1200 dunums located to the north of the village and the same amount immediately to the south. This adds 2400 dunums to the already confiscated lands. Now Occupation Forces have targeted the only remaining open space for the town: the school playground.
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