Security fence and spread of Jewish settlement risks way of life for thousands

Rory McCarthy in Azariya
Wednesday February 28, 2007
The Guardian

The bulldozers came for Hamid Salim Hassan's house just after dawn. Before the demolition began, the Bedouin family scrambled to gather what they could: a fridge, a pile of carpets, some plastic chairs, a canister of cooking gas and a metal bed frame.

Now, with their house a wreck of smashed concrete and broken plastic pipes, Mr Hassan and his family are living in a canvas tent on a neighbour's land. Their possessions are piled outside, along with boxes of supplies, including washing-up liquid, toothpaste, corned beef, wheat flour and tomato paste, provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

His tent is small but it affords Mr Hassan a compelling view of the future. Stretched out before him are the hilltops of the West Bank where he and his family, all Bedouin shepherds who fled Israel in 1948, used to live and graze their sheep. Standing there now is Ma'ale Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements which is illegal under international law. Snaking up the hillside towards his tent is the West Bank barrier, also ruled unlawful in advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice. When complete, the steel and barbed wire barrier, which here will be 50m wide and include a ditch and patrol roads, will surround Ma'ale Adumim, attaching it to a greater Jerusalem.

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