Inbeit Ommar
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Young resident of Beit Ommar being arrested by IDF soldiers 17 Spotlight MA'AN Development Center Land Confiscations, Arrests, and Settler Violence in Beit Ommar • 74: Percentage of currently imprisoned Beit Ommar residents who are under the age of 18 • 8: Number of Israeli settlements in a 5 kilometer radius of Beit Ommar • 9: Age of youngest Beit Ommar resident to be arrested • 6: Years the Beit Ommar fruit and vegetable market has been shut down by the Israeli military • 7: Number of new demolition orders given to Beit Ommar residents on 18 June 2012 • 600: Number of dunums confiscated from Beit Ommar to expand the Israeli settlement of Karmei Tsur he Palestinian village of Beit Ommar is situated 10km north of the city of THebron in the occupied West Bank. The built up part of the village is in Area B and is home to most of the 16,000 Palestinian residents. Most of Beit Om- mar’s farmland, on the other hand, is located in Area C. Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israel has confiscated thousands of dunums of land from the Palestinian residents in order to establish Jewish-only settlements in the area. The settlements of Karmei Tsur, Kfar Etzion, Migdal Oz, and Bat Ayin were all built on land confiscated from Beit Ommar. In the early 1980s, Israel confiscated up- vated.This land can then be converted for wards of 2,000 dunums of Palestinian land settlement usage. to create the settlement of Karmei Tsur. The settlement was further expanded in 2006, Additionally, the Hebron district, which when settlers confiscated another 600 includes Beit Ommar, sees some of the dunums to construct a fence, and again in highest rates of settler attacks against Pales- 2012, when settlers built two new caravans tinian people, crops, and property. Settlers on private Palestinian land.1 Karmei Tsur take an active role in attacking the residents is not the only settlement that is currently of Beit Ommar on a regular basis, and are infringing on Beit Ommar’s land. In Febru- often joined by settlement security forces, ary 2011, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud who shot at a six-year-old Beit Ommar 4 Barak approved the expansion of a religious resident in 2010. Settlers have also attacked school in the settlement of Efrat.2 Palestinians working in a cemetery and have put wastewater on Palestinian crops in After the confiscations in 2006, the Lo- order to destroy and contaminate their pro- cal Popular Committee has worked with duce. Settlers have burned and destroyed the residents of Beit Ommar to resist the trees belonging to Palestinians and are confiscation of residents’ land and the responsible for the murder of Yousef Ikhlayl, harsh Israeli control over the area through a 17-year-old Palestinian from the area. weekly demonstrations.Since the begin- Yousef’s father even has photographs of the ning of the popular resistance movement, settlers who are responsible for shooting his thousands of Beit Ommar residents have son, but the killers have not been arrested.5 been arrested. Youth and children are, per capita, the most arrested groups in the village, and they frequently report torture or threats of abuse by Israeli interrogators. Currently, there are 78 residents from Beit (Endnotes) Ommar (58 of whom are children under 1- Palestine Solidarity Project, Settlers construct two new 18) in Israeli prisons; 2.5% of all Palestinian caravans on Beit Ommar farmland, 8 February 2012. http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2012/02/08/ prisoners are from Beit Ommar although settlers-construct-two-new-caravans-on-beit-ommar- the village makes up only0.3% of the Pal- farmland/ estinian population in the occupied terri- 2- Peace Now, Barak Approves a New Yeshiva Campus tories. From January 2012 until May 2012 Outside the Settlement of Efrat, 16 February 2011. there were 84 arrests, including 37 children 3- Palestine Solidarity Project.,Campaign for the Release under the age of 18, and 56 youths under of Ahmad Abu Hashem and His Sons, 28 May 2012. http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2012/05/28/ the age of 21.3 campaign-for-the-release-of-ahmed-abu-hashem-and- his-sons/ Many of the arrests in Beit Ommar occur 4- Palestine Solidarity Project, 6-year-old shot by settle- while farmers are attempting to access their ment security in Beit Ommar, 17 April 2012. http:// land. Much of the Beit Ommar agricultural palestinesolidarityproject.org/2010/04/17/6-year-old- shot-by-settlement-security-in-beit-ommar/ land is heavily restricted as it is in Area C. 5- Wolf, Bekah, Demanding Justice for Yousef, a Quiet Boy In restricting Palestinians’ access to their Killed by Israeli Settlers, Electronic Intifada (27 January farmland, the Israeli military is then able to 2012). appropriate the land for “military purposes” on the grounds that it is not being culti- ©MA’AN Development Center 2012 ©MA’AN Development Center 2011.