State land law , also to displace Masafer Yatta

By Ali Awad

On March 30th, the day that the Palestinians call “Land Day,” we remember the colonial policies of the Israeli Occupation and how they operate to take over Palestinian land. On this date in 1976, the Israeli occupation killed six Palestinian demonstrators while they were protesting the so-called “State Land Law.” This law allows private Palestinian land to be transferred to state ownership if a Palestinian does not use his land for cultivation or grazing for more than a year. In cases of these land transfers, Israel then leases the land to settlers, so they can establish outpost settlements and prevent the Palestinian access and usage of the land. 

Today, Land Day reminds us of the extent to which Israel uses this law against us Palestinians, and the effectiveness that it has on displacing us from Masafer Yatta. In addition to home demolitions and the declaration of Firing Zones, the State Land Law is just another policy of displacement that Israel uses against us.

But we have to ask ourselves — how is it that we in Masafer Yatta, a region whose entire inhabitants are farmers, could not use our land for more than a year? How can the occupation use the pretext of this law to control the land? So, here comes the role of the settlers. The settlers are used by the State to prevent Palestinians from using their land through violent tactics, whether physically against the Palestinian farmers themselves or even by destroying their crops.  

The two pillars that the occupation uses to displace the Palestinians from Masafer Yatta are the army and settlers. On the one hand, in May of last year, the Israeli Supreme Court gave the green light to the Israeli army to train in over 12 Palestinian villages of Masafer Yatta, by declaring the region “Firing Zone 918.” Under this declaration, all these Palestinian villages are living under threat of forced displacement at any time, making it impossible for them to build and develop in their villages. 

On the other hand, Israeli has strategically built a settlement chain consisting of several settlements that separates all of these villages from the rest of the occupied West Bank. These settlements, which are built on the lands of the Palestinians from these villages, prevent residents of Masafer Yatta from using their land for agriculture and livestock grazing. 

Land Day, alongside reminding us of the injustices of the State Land Law, comes in the month that we farmers and shepherds eagerly await. It is the season in which our fields grow and become green, so that we can graze our sheep and grow the grains that we will eventually harvest and store as a food source for our animals throughout the winter. This is the only way of life that we inherited from our ancestors hundreds of years ago, it is our source of livelihood on this Land.

The practice of this way of life stands before the colonial “State Land Law.” But because all the lands that the settlers have not yet taken over are used by the Palestinians, the settlers practice violence in order to stop Palestinians from being able to cultivate their remaining land. This way,  the occupation can claim that the lands are not cultivated and easily they can declare it as “State Land.”

An example that is close to me is in the valley called al-Humra, belonging to the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta. The owners of the lands from the village planted the whole valley with olive, almond and fruit trees, some of which are now over thirty years old. However, when the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Ma’on was built on Tuwani’s land in the early 2000s, the settlers began to harass and attack the alley of al-Humra. I have witnessed these attacks since I opened my eyes to the world. 

This year, on the 14th of March, Palestinian farmers and shepherds from Tuwani reached their fields in al-Humra to find 35 olive trees were destroyed. This strategy, to destroy the Palestinian’s source of livelihood and turn the planted valley into a desert, enables the occupation to claim that the land is State land, and to further expand the outpost on it.

I am always wondering — why would a person kill a tree? But when it comes to the occupation policies, if uprooting a source of oxygen is a policy, so the occupation will do it.