Occupied Jerusalem - SANA
Dozens of houses in the village of Al Walaja, southwest of the occupied city of Jerusalem, are threatened with demolition by the Israeli occupation, which continues to rob the village’s lands since the Nakba in 1948 and plunder its resources and resources.
The village is 5.8 km southwest of Jerusalem and 4 km north of Bethlehem. It is one of the oldest Palestinian villages, where the Canaanite Arabs inhabited it five thousand years ago. It is characterized by the fertility of its lands, the abundance of its water, its picturesque nature, the abundance of springs and springs, and its area is 17,793 dunums, but in 1948 the occupation demolished its buildings and homes and took over On an area of 11,793 dunums to establish a settlement on its lands, then later seized 1,500 dunams to establish a second settlement and expand bypass roads to serve the settlers. Thus, the village was left with only 4,500 dunams, and the occupation is currently working on seizing it to expand the apartheid wall and establish new settlement units.
In a statement to SANA reporter, the head of the village council of Walaja, Khader al-Araj, explained that the occupation will start the demolition process on the 26th of this month, as it will extend to 88 houses, which constitute half of the houses of Ain Jweizah neighborhood, which will lead to the displacement of dozens of families and their living bitterness of new asylum, indicating that the occupation has demolished during the past years. 97 facilities and 28 homes in a failed attempt to displace the villagers who continue their struggle and struggle and confront the occupation's plans aimed at isolating Palestinian villages and displacing their people within the policy of ethnic cleansing.
Al-Araj pointed out that the occupation seized 70 percent of the village’s lands, which is now surrounded by barbed wire and the apartheid wall, and the Palestinians live in it a daily journey of suffering as they exit and enter it, as they pass under the threat of fire from the occupation forces, which have placed huge iron gates at the entrances to the village.
For his part, a member of the Committee to Follow-up on Homes Threatened with Demolition in the village of Al Walaja Ibrahim Al-Araj said that the village is experiencing continuous episodes of the Nakba, as the demolition of Palestinian homes and facilities has not stopped with the aim of seizing the lands of the village on which the occupation established settlements and surrounded it with the apartheid wall to completely isolate it from its Palestinian surroundings.
Ibrahim stressed that no matter how severe the occupation’s attacks and restrictions on the people of the village are, he will not be able to uproot them from their land. meters, and it still produces olives every year, as the villagers gather to pick them.
Director of the Office of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission in Bethlehem, Hassan Breijieh, indicated that the occupation bulldozers did not stop demolishing in the village of Al Walaja as part of a systematic plan to displace Palestinians from it, especially from the areas adjacent to the apartheid wall. In addition to that, the occupation did not allow the villagers to build new homes or Expanding their homes, and he recently threatened to demolish dozens of existing Palestinian homes and facilities.
Breijieh explained that the village of Al Walaja constitutes the main gateway to the western countryside of Bethlehem, and the occupation’s seizure of its lands will lead to the siege of the city from the western side and deprive the Palestinians of their natural resources of water and agriculture, pointing out that the occupation has established 27 settlements on Bethlehem lands and is expanding them continuously.
Mohammed Abu Shabab
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