Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
what I was walling in or walling out
and to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall.
(From "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost)
This week Lars, Ciara, Gjermund and I visited Qalqiliya, a city that is completely surrounded by the Barrier. We met with Muhammad Selim, who is working with refugee issues, and Rafiq Marabi, who is the leader of the National Committee for Grassroots Resistance, an organization working against the wall and the settlements. Rafiq Marabi took us around Qalqiliya, and gave us an introduction to the situation there. He told us that 60 percent of the land belonging to Qalqiliya was taken in the war in 1948 (Israel during this war conquered more land than was given to the state in the UN partition plan, to be more precise, 78 percent as opposed to 55). Today 70 percent of the inhabitants of Qalqilya are refugees. After Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, additional land around the city of Qalqilya has been taken to settlements. Finally, in 2003, 2500 dunams (a dunam is 1000 square meters), ended up on the other side of the Barrier. The Qalqiliya that is inside the wall consists of 6500 dunams, 4000 of which is built-up area. Here's a map over Qalqilya city and the surrounding area:
As should be clear from the map, not only Qalqiliya city is divided by the Barrier, but the whole area around it. If you want to see how the Barrier is crisscrossing the entire Qalqiliya governorate, see page 4 of this UN report. All in all the wall is taking 60 percent of the land. The rest is divided by the Barrier and by settlements. "They are killing the possibility for a Palestinian state, they are killing the possibility for peace", Marabi comments.
Rafiq Marabi and Lars looking at a map.
In Qalqiliya city 45,000 people are living. But many are moving, because their lives have become so difficult. At the time 37 percent live under the poverty limit. Traditionally Qalqiliya has been a center of agriculture, because of its rich water supplies. According to Muhammad Selim, this is also why so many settlements have been constructed around it, and why the wall now is taking even more land. Farmers who have land on the other side of the wall, have great difficulties in reaching it. Many greenhouses are abandoned because farmers are not able to look after them during the day. If land is not cultivated within a period of three years, Israel can use an old Ottoman law to confiscate it. Other greenhouses had to be removed in order to make place for the Barrier.
The National Committee for Grassroots Resistance works against these Israeli policies in different ways: media work, demonstrations, working with political leaders and also legal work within the Israeli court system. In court they have managed to change slightly the route of the Barrier. What they asked for was for the Barrier to go along the so-called Green Line between Israel and the West Bank. The reason that was given why this was impossible was the settlements. If anyone wondered, the settlements are just as illegal according to international law as the Barrier is.
Back at Muhammad Selims office, we talked more about the effects of the Barrier on people in the area. Selim spoke about the difficulties of getting proper health care for the people left on the other side of the wall, and also of maintaining social ties. "If you want to have a wedding, you have to get permits for all your guests to cross the gate", Selim said, and continued: "We don't want to be animals, who just eat and work, we want to be human beings. You start to think that you are not like others, there are limitations everywhere."
The Wall in Qalqiliya.
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