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The Silent Transfer: The Case of El-Nu'aman Village

After the 1967 War, Israel annexed some 70 sq. km to the municipal boundaries of West Jerusalem and imposed Israeli law on this area. These annexed territories included not only the part of Jerusalem which had been under Jordanian rule, but also an additional 64 square kilometers, most of which had belonged to 28 villages in the West Bank and part of which belonged to the municipalities of Bethlehem and Beit Jala. Most of the inhabitants of the annexed villages were registered by the Israeli civil administration as residents of Jerusalem.

Located on a hilly terrain on the southern edge of the Jerusalem municipal border is Mazmuriah. The villagers' ancestors have lived on the land for over 150 years, and the inhabitants have titles testifying to their ownership of the land. Today they comprise approximately 200 people (20 families).

Unlike the inhabitants of the 27 other villages, the inhabitants of Mazmuriah were registered as residents of Umm Al-Tal'a, a village located 2 km away, a place were their village elder ("mukhtar") lived. Umm Al-Tal'a, however, does not fall within the Jerusalem municipality borders and, accordingly, the residents of Mazmuria did not receive Israeli identity cards which East Jerusalemites hold. Instead, they were given West Bank identity cards.

The absurd result is that the residents and their houses belong to different legal and administrative systems: the houses and land are part of the (annexed) Jerusalem municipality, while the inhabitants are residents of the West Bank.

• Until 1992, there had been only minor problems regarding the overlapping systems. That year, though, employees of the Jerusalem municipality and Interior Ministry visited Mazmuriah and told the residents that from then on all construction within the village was prohibited -- no new homes could be built.
  
  
• From 1992, the villagers no longer received building permits. The area was classified as "green land," land that no one can build on and is basically a nature reserve. Young adults who wished to build a family home were forced to choose between leaving their birthplace or building illegally, knowing that it was likely that their new houses would be destroyed by the Israeli authorities.
  
  
• In 1995, the inhabitants were ordered to take their children out of the Um-Tuba school, located within the Jerusalem municipality borders and 1 km from their homes, and to move them to a school within the West Bank. The children have been forced to attend schools that are further away from their houses even though the village Mazmuriah itself is considered by Israel to be within the Jerusalem municipal borders.
  
  
• The Jerusalem municipality and Israeli civil administration have systematically refused to provide basic services like water and sewage to the villagers, arguing that the area is classified as "green land." Yet, simultaneously, they have also obstructed the inhabitants' efforts to receive such services from the Palestinian Authority, claiming that the PA cannot provide services to areas under Israeli jurisdiction. Consequently, on a number of occasions the Israeli government has destroyed water pipes between Mazmuriah and the neighboring Al Hass, which is located in the West Bank. Along the same lines, Israeli authorities have uprooted telephone poles provided by the Palestinian Authority in 1998. Today the residents receive water services from the Palestinian Authority.
  
  
• The municipality and the administration have systematically blocked the access roads to the village. All of the roads to Jerusalem have been closed off and even the main roads to the West Bank have been blocked.

Despite all of these problems, the residents have refused to abandon their village. But now the Israeli authorities are beginning a new stage in their attack. This time, the weapon is the "separation fence" being built around Jerusalem.

    

• At the beginning of April 2003, a man, who introduced himself as Dvir, the coordinator of the Housing Ministry, Defense Ministry, and the municipality, visited the village accompanied by border policemen. He wrote down the names and the identity numbers of all of the homeowners, and announced that they would have to vacate the village since it was soon to become part of a no-man's-land between Israel and the Palestinian entity. People who had built their homes prior to 1993 would receive compensation, he said, the remaining houses would be destroyed without any compensation.
  
  
• Concomitantly, a map of the separation fence was presented to the residents, showing how the fence would surround the village on it southern side and thus separate it from the West Bank. No openings or gates were planned for this section of the fence, meaning that even if the residents are allowed to stay in their village, they will be totally cut off from the West Bank, where their children receive education, and from the PA from which they receive water services; Israel does not intend to provide these services in the PA's stead.
  
  
• If the residents were to move to the Palestinian Authority's side of the fence, they would be separated from most of their agricultural land (around 500 dunams of olive trees). The nearby Al Hass's agricultural land will also be confiscated; in this case, the village will remain part of the Palestinian Authority, but its land will be on the Israeli side of the fence. In addition, the olive groves are in immediate danger of being destroyed, since the fence and the planned road connecting Jerusalem with the Jewish Settlement Tequa will most likely pass right through these groves. Thus, the majority of the residents will be deprived of their main source of livelihood.
  

  
  

  
  
• The fence will separate the villagers of Al-Hass from their cemetery. The cemetery of Mazmuriah will also remain within the Israeli borders, and if the residents are forced to move to the other side of the fence, they will be unable to visit their dead.

Conclusions