Ahmed Bargouth, 63, sits in the shade of a walnut tree and contemplates the view before him.
Across the valley is Jerusalem’s zoo, which his grandchildren have never been able to visit, although they have watched animals through binoculars.
Below is the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv railway, also never traveled by the Bargouth family. Its route here marks the Green line, drawn after Israeli and Arab armies agreed an armistice in 1949, when Bargouth was aged two, which placed most of the original village of Al Walaja out of the reach of its Palestinian owners. A cluster of Israeli houses stand on land owned, inhabited and farmed by the Bargouth family and other villagers.
Behind Bargouth is the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo, built — illegally under international law — on occupied Palestinian territory and fast encroaching on what remains of the diminished village.
And in front of Bargouth’s garden, planted with figs, plums, grapes and pomegranates, is an ugly scar of raw flattened earth where Israel is erecting a section of its separation barrier that will encircle the village and cut off farmers from fields, students from places of learning and patients from hospitals.
The original route of the barrier — which Israel says is necessary for security reasons — would have cut Al Walaja in two. The community launched a legal petition to keep the village intact, which was granted — with the catch that the revised route, announced in April 2006, would completely encage the village. Al Walaja would become a tiny Palestinian enclave connected to the nearest West Bank town by one road or tunnel controlled by a checkpoint.
This spring the bulldozers arrived. To Bargouth’s dismay and anger, the barrier — which he expects to be a concrete base topped by a fence — will run through his land a few meters from his house. To create the required 100m-wide strip of restricted ground for the barrier’s route, the Israeli military uprooted 88 of Bargouth’s olive trees.
“Some were 180 years old, some were new trees,” he said.
The military offered to replant the trees, but Bargouth refused to be complicit in the action.
More than 80 percent of Bargouth’s land will be on the other side of the barrier. Going by the experience of other West Bank farmers cut off from their land by the barrier, he expects limited access. The future, he says, is bleak.
“There will be no other source of income. We are decent people, we work hard. My children and grandchildren will look at the wall in front of us and know they have stolen our land,” he said.
Just below his terraces of fruit trees lies the family cemetery where his parents and his grandmother are buried. It is directly in the path of the barrier.
“I went to court to get an order, preventing them touching the tombs,” he said.
A hearing later this month will decide on which side of the barrier the graves will end up. He said: “Not only are the living suffering, but also the dead. Why should I need a permit to visit the graves of my parents?”
According to the UNRWA, the UN body that deals with Palestinian refugees, around 70 percent of Al Walaja’s land was lost in the 1948 war.
Then, following the Six-Day War in 1967, nearly half the remaining land was annexed by Israel and placed under the expanded Jerusalem borders. In the 1970s more land was confiscated for Jewish settlements. Now even more land is being taken to construct the barrier.
Al Walaja has been the focus in recent months of protests. Bargouth hopes there will be more, despite the stiff military presence. However, he believes, non-violent protest may not be enough to save his and others’ land.
“The occupation must be resisted by all methods, from demonstrations to the gun,” he said.
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