Land Research Center

• Violation: the destruction water pipe and agricultural field.

• Date of violation: 10/02/2022.

• Location: Qa'oon Plain - Northern Jordan Valley/ Tubas Governorate.

The perpetrator: the Israeli occupation army.

• Affected party: a number of farmers in the area.

• The violation details:

The drills carried out by the Israeli occupation in the northern Jordan Valley are considered a constant threat to the agricultural sector and Palestinian farmers alike, as the occupation deliberately, through these drills, inflicts the greatest possible damage on agricultural crops, whether summer or winter, those crops that the farmers eagerly await to secure their families' livelihood in light of the lack of job opportunities.

In this regard, the Israeli army performed drills in the period between  8-10 February 2022, during which more than  20 dunums of land cultivated with ground vegetables were run over by tanks and completely damaged. The damaged fields are owned by: Mr. Ashraf Muhammad Sibai (8 dunums); Mr.  Khalil Saleh Sawafta ( 6.5 dunams); and Mr. Bajis Ahmed Sawafta (5.5 dunams).

In addition to what was previously mentioned, the tanks' tracks destroyed a section of a water transmission pipe, with a diameter of 8 inches and a length of 250 meters, which transfers water from the wells of Bardala village to the agricultural fields in the Qa'oun plain. The result was the deprivation of more than 45 dunums of water used for irrigation in summer time and winter time in that particular area.

It is noteworthy that this vandalism is not the first of its kind, but has been repeated many times over the past years, by destroying a large number of agricultural land plots and destroying  water transmission lines. It is clear that these acts of sabotage are deliberately  carried out with the aim of imposing facts on the ground and preventing farmers from continuing to cultivate those areas and, eventually, forcing them out of the area.  

Qa'oun plain:

 It covers an area of about 1250 dunums of the lands of Bardala village within the basins (134,135,136), which are located on the northern and eastern side of Tubas Governorate. In 2013, the Supreme Occupation's Court ruled out that the Palestinian farmers have the right  to access that area and cultivate it, despite the fact that the so-called Israel Property Department seized it and attached it to the “Merav” kibbutz in 1978. After the Palestinian farmers had regained their land, the occupation resorted to a new trick  to regain control of the land, that is,  military drills, as well as declaring parts of the target land closed military zones.