Violation: Demolition of an agricultural room and destruction of its contents.

Location: Qarawat Bani Hassan / Salfit Governorate.

Date of Violation: 01/04/2024.

Perpetrators: Settlers from "Hafat Yair".

Affected Party: Farmer Ahmad Mar’i.

Description:

On Monday, April 1, 2024, a group of settlers, believed to have come from the "Hafat Yair" outpost, raided the "Bir Amar" area north of Qarawa Bani Hassan. They attacked a 45-square-meter agricultural room, built of bricks and roofed with tin, owned by farmer Ahmad Awad Mustafa Mar’i, who supports a family of seven, including four females and five children.

The settlers used hand tools to demolish part of the agricultural room’s walls which is 45 square meters in size and destroyed all its contents, including furniture, farming equipment, and a generator which was inside.

It is worth noting that this attack has been repeated in the same area and with the same method, through which the colonists aim to empty the area entirely and seize it by forcing farmers to be unable to access their lands, alongside the expansion of the settlement in the region.

It is noted that at the beginning of 2014, a large number of farmers from the towns of Deir Istiya and Qarawa Bani Hassan began rehabilitating their agricultural lands in the Bir Amar area as a step to protect their lands from the ambitions of the Israeli occupation. The farmers continued their work until August 2017, when they were surprised by a force from the Israeli army arriving at the reclamation site. The occupation soldiers attempted to expel the farmers and the heavy machinery used in the reclamation process from the area, citing security reasons. However, the villagers refused the soldiers' actions and continued their reclamation work in the days that followed, using their hands instead of heavy machinery, by building retaining walls and planting the land.

This situation was accompanied by acts of vandalism in the Bir Abu Amar area specifically over the past four years, including the leveling and destruction of most of the agricultural lands in the Bir Abu Amar area, the demolition of retaining walls, and the destruction of crops by the colonists

Qarawa Bani Hassan[1]:

Qarawa Bani Hassan village is located 12 km northwest of Salfit city, bordered by Deir Istiya to the north, Biddya to the west, Deir Istiya and Haris to the east, and Sarta to the south.

Population: 5,513 (as of 2017).

Total area: 9,443 dunams, with 565 dunams designated as the village’s built-up area.

Settlements have seized 324 dunams of village land.

Bypass roads have taken 129 dunams for Road No. 505.

Land Classification per Oslo Accords:

• Area B: 849 dunams.
• Area C: 8,594 dunams.
• مشروع: حماية الحقوق البيئية الفلسطينية في مناطق "ج" SPERAC IV   - FCDO

  Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of Land Research Center and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the project donor; the Norwegian Refugee Council.

  إخلاء المسؤولية: الآراء ووجهات النظر الواردة في هذا التقرير هي آراء ووجهات نظر مركز أبحاث الأراضي ولا تعكس بالضرورة وجهات نظر أو مواقف الجهة المانحة للمشروع؛ المجلس النرويجي. للاجئين