Gallery - photo's from our visits
The local photographer who helps us with photographs of the wall
In memory of our murdered taxi driver, Zakhariah Daraghmeh
History - the destroyed village
Shop - cushions, embroidery, olive oil.
History / Getting the Wall moved / Connex / Facts about Beit Surik / Religion / Water
Beit Surik is a pleasant village of about 4,000 people North West of Jerusalem. In one of the most fertile areas in the region it symbolises in many ways the effects on the people of the Holy Land of the Zionist project.
It is also spelt in many different ways. If searching for information you may also wish to use the following spelling; Souriq, Soureek, Sourik. Nearby Beit Iksa is sometime spelt Beit Eksa.
Many of the villagers have fled from other areas of what is now Israel (History of Beit Surik and its people), and who have never been allowed to return. It is becoming overcrowded because villagers cannot get building permits to build new houses or to extend their homes. Even those houses which have been there for generations are being knocked down (apparently because they are not legal). Close by land seized "for security reasons" without compensation are now occupied by towns for Jewish people only.
Before the wall, there were good relations between the neighbouring Jewish (only) towns and the increasingly surrounded Palestinian villages. Palestinians would work in Israel, and Israeli's would come to shop for the wonderful organic fruit and vegetables that make this area famous. No more. Whilst you can cross over a bridge, you cannot walk through a wall. The former Mayors work in promoting good relations meant nothing when the wall started being built (article in www.stopthewall.org).
With the help of neighbouring Jewish towns an application was made to the Israeli Courts to get the route of the barrier moved. In a landmark judgement the planned route of the barrier was ruled to be unfair and moved closer to the Green line. Sadly, even those who want peace in Israel want the wall, but feel it should be on the Green Line. Whilst many in both communities want to engage, the wall has changed a lot of perceptions. Suspicions now abound.
Even the water supplies have been "colonised". There were eight springs or water sources in Beit Surik. Now as a result of land annexation (what the wall is really about), and the boring of a deep well at the bottom of a nearby valley (a common tactic), only one spring now provides water (and not much at that).
History of the people of Beit Surik
Many of the villagers came from a village in what is now Israel called Beit Shanna. It is now one of the 500 or so destroyed or forgotten villages. One of our supporters visited Beit Shanna in April 2007, together with a local man who has a pass for Israel and an Israeli Peace now activist.
Connex
More land is being lost to the new Connex built transport network being created to serve Jewish areas in and around Jerusalem. Known to campaigners as the Apartheid Tramway, it serves Jewish areas only (Connex Railway leaflet - pdf file / Good background information / www.nonautramway.org).
A map from www.urgencepalestine.ch
The stations read; Bld. of Occupation, Destruction of the Olive Trees, Theft of Water, Arbitrary Detention, Av. of the Colonies, Bld. of War Crimes, Check Points, Route of the Expelled, Place of the Assassinated, Dead end of the Wall, Stop for Apartheid.
Denied the right to work because of their race, the people of Beit Surik are now losing a large part of their land to Israel. Land is important in a society without welfare, for it is a source of food. Not only that, but anything grown can no longer be sold to Israelis, or sent to foreign markets, as Palestinians are not allowed to do this. Even selling goods within Palestinian areas is difficult because of roadblocks and the barrier. Within the external wall, 64 areas are fenced in, travel between these areas dependent on the goodwill of Israeli soldiers.
The objective seems to be to starve the local people out, no doubt to build homes for foreigners who suggest they have the right to come to the Holy Land because of their race, at the same time as denying the existing inhabitants of the right to stay in, or return to, their homes.
- Population: 3500 - 4000
- Land (now): 8500 dunums
- Confiscated Lands in 1948 war: 3000 dunums
- Confiscated Lands from 1967- up to day: 500 dunums for Haradar settlement, 200 dunums for military road and sewage pipes around the settlement and 3000 dunums by the Apartheid Wall.
Beit Surik is in the Jerusalem district, 15 km from the North West of Jerusalem and close to the “Green Line". The total village lands were 11500 dunums until 1948. 3000 dunums was annexed in 1948 and considered no mans land.
A settlement called Haradar was built on 500 dunums in the 1980's. Later, 200 dunums were confiscated to build a military road and for sewage pipes (2 km of pipes) around the settlement. Also, a new train rail is planed to be built on the confiscated lands of Beit Surik according to a decision taken on December 15th 2003 by the Occupation Administration, in order to connect Jerusalem with Lod in the 1948 areas.
The Apartheid Wall
The majority of the people in Beit Surik are refugees from the village of Beit Shanna, which was destroyed in 1948. At that time, Palestinians were forced to flee to Beit Surik, which at the time was an extension of their agricultural lands. Confiscations orders were thrown on the land after the people refused to take them from the Occupation military offices. Most of the confiscation orders were for the west, west south and east south of the village.
Ethnically cleansed villages - www.palestine-net.com
The Apartheid Wall will confiscate an additional 3000 dunums including 500 dunums for the foot print of the Wall. The Wall in that area will be 100 meters wide and 120 meters from the houses threatened in the south west with demolition. The initial uprooting and destruction began in February 2004. The house of Abed Al-Hady, which supports 35 people, is now threatened with demolition.
Farmers and villagers in Beit Surik organized a series of demonstrations to protest against the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the village and the confiscation of their lands. This was responsible for a halt in Occupation activity until June 2005. The destruction and isolation of 2,500 dunums of the village’s land began in this month and already more than 1,000 trees have been uprooted (400 olive trees and 600 peach trees).
However in an unusual case (2004), the Israeli residents of the neighbouring Israeli town of Mevasseret Zion, but within the Green Line (1967, pre-Occupation borders) asked to join the Palestinians petitioning against the Fence. A group there says they want the Fence built on their land, as they are not farmers; they do not wish their neighbours to lose all their agricultural land and their only means of existence.
The Israeli Arab lawyer representing the petitioners, Muhammad Dahla, needed an affidavit listing defence alternatives to the current route of the fence. Residents of Mevasseret Zion made contact with The Peace and Security Council, to which many former top members of the Defence establishment belong. "Listen to what the retired generals are saying," the High Court advised the Israel Defense Force (IDF) attorneys who appeared before the bench this week.
Thus, on the orders of the High Court, which gave the disputing parties one week to reach a compromise, an odd group has been marching through hill and dale to check out the controversial route of the separation fence: an IDF team, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Danny Tirza; attorney Dahla, counsel for the Palestinians; the retired generals of the Peace and Security Council; and several Mevasseret Zion residents who have become overnight strategists.
“The fence comes right up to the homes of Beit Surik and does not conform with the regulations […] The proximity of the fence is problematic for several reasons. With a built-up area close by, it will be easier to sabotage the fence and target soldiers on patrol ... Villagers will be prevented from reaching their land. Gates and crossover points will be necessary, creating friction and the kind of security threat that the fence itself is meant to eliminate or reduce ... A fence along such a route will pose serious operational problems. Any child playing ball near the fence could activate the alarm system and cause a needless military alert ... Making it harder for the residents to earn a living will only increase their bitterness and anger ... That in itself creates a serious threat to Israeli security.” Even today, say the council members, the only thing that has prevented a larger number of suicide bombings is not a lack of bombers but a shortage of explosive belts. The fence will also be difficult to oversee in the long term.
After touring the disputed area this week, Shaul Givoli, the former military governor of Nablus and now director-general of The Peace and Security Council says: "There can only be two reasons for building the fence along the current route - to grab land so that the settlements can be expanded in the future, which is one thing, or to create so much hardship that the Arabs will want to leave, which is a lot more serious."
The council, which has been working with crippling caution so as not to enhance the "leftist" image that has adhered to it, has pounced on this opportunity for legitimacy created by the Jewish residents.
From an article by Lily Galili, Haaretz newspaper, March 19, 2004
Useful word document from www.osa.ceu.hu
Over ten years have passed since the Occupation built the sewage pipes which dump the waste of the Zionist colonies upon the Palestinian land. This has destroyed many lands and created an environmental disaster for the village, destroying around 500 dunums of the fertilized lands. After the support and help from lawyers and NGO's, the village recently succeeded in forcing the settlement to change the sewage dumping far from the agricultural lands.
However the Apartheid Wall path means that the current waste disposal area of the village will be annexed by the Occupation, leaving Beit Surik no other option that to dump its waste on agricultural lands.
Water Problem
The Apartheid Wall path has been devised in order to annex most of the village water resources such as springs and wells. One major spring (Ain Al-Balad) and 7 smaller springs used for drinking water and planting will be confiscated.
In summer, the villagers will suffer from a severe water shortage and not be in a position to afford to buy water.
Agricultural information
A significant amount of the population in the village has managed to maintain farming work over the past years. However many Palestinians have been forced to look for work in the 1948 areas in addition to farming their lands. Following, the closure imposed on the West Bank from 2000, people have struggled to enter the 1948 areas and continued to rely more heavily on agricultural lands as their source of income and sustenance.
80% of the population in the village currently depends on farming as a sole life source. The land is planted with olive trees, peaches, figs and plums, together with other crops, exported from the village to the rest of the West Bank. Despite their challenging economic circumstances, villagers have already bought trees, built terraces and prepared the lands for plantation in several areas. However, people still lack many of the resources necessary to keep the lands fertile and productive.
Villagers have managed to do some work, however the costs for maintaining the land are high, and Palestinians are in need of essential resources such as irrigation water, agricultural roads and skilled workers to help in building the terraces and in harvesting the land. The people of Beit Surik are in need of support to continue their work, to reclaim their lands and to resist the Apartheid Wall.
Israeli occupying forces have carried out widespread destruction of Palestinian agricultural land in Beit Surik since October 2000. In the past four and a half years, 70% of Beit Surik's fruit trees (including more than 2,000 olive trees, 2,500 grapes vines, and 1,000 almond trees) have been uprooted by Israeli occupying forces. Approximately, 11,000 olive trees are currently threatened to be uprooted by the current construction of the Wall. (source; www.poica.org)
The village is overwhelmingly Moslem The local mosque is the Abdallah Ben Zouher Mosque. There are historical links with Christian sites in the area, most notably Emmaus.
