Tuesday, January 21. In a scene which the foreign press is calling “the biggest West Bank demolition in years”, 63 stores in the commercial area of Nazlat ‘Isa, in the district of Tulkarem, were today razed to the ground. The Israeli military, arriving this morning with 10 bulldozers and 300 soldiers, had by mid-day destroyed ¼ of Nazlat ‘Isa’s commercial area. The military has assured of its return, both verbally and in writing, to completely demolish the commercial zone.

The military had made an unwelcome visit this past Sunday to the shops, stating that Monday, the following day, they would return and demolish the 2 stores of Ibrahim Khader Saleh and Osama Ibrahim Ahmad, and that two weeks following, some time in February, another 20 would be demolished. In a further exacerbation of an already criminal act, the military arrived to the area today without warning to the storeowners, destroying 63 edifices along with their contents—belongings, equipment, and supplies.

Demonstrators from the village and adjacent villages, including Palestinians from inside Israel, as well as international and Israeli solidarity groups were unable to deter the large-scale destruction.

Witnesses are describing the present scene as unimaginable, with shock-ridden people comforting each other while others go through the enormous piles of rubble that cover the entire length of the road, hoping to find some—any--of their belongings.

Also today, and during the same time of the demolitions, LAW-the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment met with an additional set-back in the Israeli courts when its petition to halt the demolition of 11 stores and 2 homes in the same village of Nazlat ‘Isa was rejected, with the demolition orders being renewed. The Israeli judiciary continues to play both a complicit and active role in the Occupation.

Nazlat ‘Isa, with a population of 2,500, is situated just east of the Green Line, with strong commercial, familiar and social ties with .the Palestinian villages inside Israel on the other side of the Green Line. Nazlat ‘Isa is situated in Israel’s self-proclaimed military zone between the Wall and the Green Line and is one of at least 15 villages that is to be confiscated for this zone in the northern “first phase” of the Wall. These demolitions will take place near the Green Line, while the Wall itself, which will not be even visible from the village, is being built over 2 kilometers east of Nazlat ‘Isa (and therefore over 2 kms inside the Occupied Territories).

According to the residence of Nazlat ‘Isa and to witnesses, the demolitions are not only meant to destroy the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of families, but is to seal the fate of the village and paves the road for the transfer policy of the residence, leaving them homeless, landless, hungry, and hopeless.

For more information, contact the following:

Jamal Juma’, PENGON & Apartheid Wall Campaign Coordinator: +972-52-285610

Yusef Buaqne, Baqa Al Sharqiya Municipality: +972-52-962268