“Kemer came back to us with a limp, she could barely walk.” Kamar Alyan (Photo: Bassel Al-Adra)
Two years after masked men descended from the Mitzpe Yair outpost equipped with metal pipes and broke the jaw of farmer Said Aliyan, who was having a picnic with his children on his private land, soldiers are systematically preventing him from reaching his land, which is adjacent to the outpost. Every Saturday, when Aliyan tries to reach the land, the soldiers declare it a closed military area and set up surprise roadblocks on the way, in the presence of settlers from the nearby outpost.
On Saturday, March 18, an MGB police officer broke the ankle of Kemer, Aliyan’s 11-year-old daughter, when he kicked her forcefully while she tried to arrive with a group of children on the family land. Evidence indicates that MGB forces were present at the scene, stationed there in order to prevent The family members go to the land, as they have been doing almost every Saturday for the past few months. “Kemer came back to us with a limp, she could barely walk,” said her mother, Rima Aliyan. According to her, that morning the children ran ahead of their parents, reached the mountain overlooking the land and encountered dozens of police officers.
Lying on a mattress, her leg bandaged, Kemer describes what happened: “We went to the land and soldiers were waiting for us before going down to the field. They prevented us from passing. I saw behind them the settlers in our land, with clubs and sheep. Soldiers told us, all the children, to sit down. One of them grabbed the neck of my cousin, Muhammad Khaled, seven years old. We ran back, and they pushed all the children, who were sitting, by force. At that moment, a soldier kicked my leg. I felt a strong pain.” Kemer was treated in a hospital and the medical report stated that her ankle was broken.
Said Aliyan testifies that since September 2022 he has called the Civil Administration repeatedly, where they confirm to him that he is allowed to access his land, but in practice, every week again soldiers prevent him from doing so, delaying and arresting him.
Besides the harassment on the way to the plot of land, the Israeli forces work in other ways to prevent Aliyan from reaching his land. At the beginning of March, the army raided the family’s home at night, and according to him, an officer threatened him that if he continued to try to reach his land on Saturdays, “your family will be harmed by this”, without elaborating beyond that. This policy appears to be an abuse of power and an illegal use of “closed military area” orders, to allow the settlers in the outpost to take control of the area, which was defined by a legal order as the family’s private land.
On Saturday, February 10, soldiers arrived at Aliyan’s home in the village of Umm LaSifa even before he could go out to his land, and arbitrarily detained residents to put pressure on the family.
“A jeep stopped in front of my house in the morning,” Alian said, “They set up a search barrier between the house and the main road, and left it there until three in the afternoon. They stopped every vehicle that passed by, and told the villagers who passed by that Said is causing you problems These’. They told me that if I stop ‘making problems’, they won’t erect the barrier anymore.”
Said has been arrested numerous times in recent months when he tried to cultivate his land. He was usually released a few hours later at a point on the main road, near an army base or close to one of the settlements in the area. On the last two occasions, Said was arrested and also taken to the police station, where he received removal orders from his land for 10 and 15 days.
Said Aliyan is taken for medical treatment after being attacked by settlers from the Mitzpe Yair outpost, March 13, 2021 (Photo: Guy Butabia)
On Saturday 18.2, Aliyan arrived on his land accompanied by Israeli and international activists. Three of them were arrested on suspicion of violating a closed military area order. “They are doing this to scare them too, so that I will not have anyone to come to the land with,” Alian says, “They do not enforce the order on settlers, they constantly roam freely in the closed area.” The arrested left-wing activists were issued removal orders from the area.
“The way in which the army uses closed military area orders, in a systematic manner, goes against the guidelines for the use of these orders,” says lawyer Kemer Masherki-Assad, an expert on the issue of land in the West Bank. “Soldiers are supposed to close an area under certain conditions, such as when settlers and Palestinians are present in the same place, in order to prevent problems and get everyone out of the area. In this case, they prepare closure orders in advance, every week, and even before Said reaches his land. In many cases, there are no settlers on the land, But the soldiers close it and arrest Said. This policy supports the settlers who aspire to take control of the land.”
Settlers from the Mitzpe Yair outpost destroyed Said’s agricultural land in the past, and even began to sow it themselves, according to the testimony of family members. In March two years ago, about 15 settlers came down from the direction of the outpost with weapons, hit Aliyan with an iron pipe, and broke his jaw. His wife recorded the difficult moments on video, while a settler hit her in the stomach with these, and her children hid in the car.
We asked for the response of the spokeswomen of the army and the Ministry of Defense to the statements. If received, they will be published here.