Taysir 'Amarneh, 42 farmer and head of the al-'Aqaba Village Council

The village of al-'Aqaba is located north of Tulkarm. The village lies close to the Green Line, which borders its lands. The village has about five hundred residents , who own a total of approximately 3,500 dunams of agricultural land. Prior to the Intifada, residents of al-'Aqaba could earn a living as laborers inside Israel, and until the construction of the [Separation] Wall, residents could also support themselves through agriculture. In 2002, though, they started building the Wall on the village’s lands. About 2,500 dunams to the north and west of the village were left on the other side of the Wall. Construction on this section of the Wall was completed on 15 March, 2003. Since then, landowners have had limited access to their land. If they want to reach their land, they need permits from the Civil Administration, which has fixed criteria for granting such permits. Only a few farmers received permits to enable them to cross the barrier with a tractor.

In the 2003 olive picking season, the Civil Administration granted entry permits to thirty or forty Al-'Aqaba residents, allowing them to harvest their olives. The permits were given for 20 October until 30 November. More people requested permits than received them. As a result, the oil yield in 2003 was about twenty-five percent of the normal yield.

In 2004, village residents had no access to their lands for a period of six to eight months. During this period, we requested entry permits, but none were granted. When the summer came, the Israelis declared that any citizen seeking an entry permit would have to submit documents from the Civil Administration at Qedumim that proved their ownership of the land. The residents managed to submit the documents, but due to fees and travel expenses, the process took a great deal of time and was quite expensive. That same year, about 350 village residents applied for permits, but the Civil Administration gave only about two hundred permits to the Palestinian District Coordination Office (DCO). These permits allowed the residents to begin using their land in August 2004, and they were valid for a period of six months [until the beginning of February 2005]. Entrance to the lands was possible only through the Zabda Gate, which is far from the village. The one nearby, gate Number 6, is only open during the olive picking season, for no more than twenty to twenty-five days. The trip to Zabda Gate is long and usually requires taking taxis. Most of the people didn’t have money to pay for them, so they walked long distances on foot, sometimes three or four kilometers.

Once the permits expired, the Civil Administration didn’t renew them. Because of this, the land wasn’t tilled, and so weeds and wild bushes spread and grew to the height of trees. When this happen, all the work that we invest in the land throughout the entire season is threatened. The trees don’t get the care they need, and the thorns and bushes make it very difficult to pick the olives. Above all, there is danger that a fire will break out because of the dry shrubs.

On Friday, 20 May 2005, I went to my chicken coop and goat pen, which are located next to the [Separation] Wall. When I got there, at around 1:50 PM, I saw smoke . After about ten minutes, I could see that the smoke was coming closer and becoming thicker and heavier, and I realized that a fire had broken out on my land that lies beyond the Wall. I telephoned the DCO in Tulkarem and spoke with Ayman `Ortani from the Red Cross,. I told him what happened, and explained that the fire was putting my olive groves in danger. I asked him to call the Israelis so that they could open the gate for us to cross and put out the fire. Ayman promised to take care of the matter. Meanwhile, along with about twenty other residents of the village, I went to the old entrance to Barta, next to the Number 6 Gate. I also called the Tulkarem municipality and alerted them to the situation.

About fifteen minutes after my conversation with Ayman, he called to inform me that he had coordinated with the Israelis, and a Palestinian fire truck was already on its way to the area. The gate was closed when we got there though, and I told the soldiers there that we needed to pass through in order to put out the fire. The soldiers said that they hadn’t received any orders to open the gate, and wouldn’t do so. I tried to signal to them, to get them to see what was happening, but it was no help. At around 3:00 the fire truck arrived— I had been on the telephone with Ayman the entire time. Only at 3:15 did the soldiers open the gate, even though military vehicles were on the road opposite the Wall the entire time. We called out to them and asked them to stop and open the gate, but they ignored us. A jeep from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel also came. I recognized the green jeep. The jeep went to the site of the fire, then turned around and went back without doing anything.

When the soldiers opened the gate, they only let the firemen pass through. They said that residents aren’t allowed to enter. Only four of us, who happened to have work permits, were allowed through. The fire truck was allowed through the gate but it couldn’t reach the fire, because of work that was being done on the side of the road next to the gate. The firemen, along with the four residents that were able to cross, tried hard to put out the fire using primitive methods— for example, stifling the flames with paddles. About fifteen youth from Barta a-Sharqiya [which lies to the west of the wall] joined in to help the firemen, and helped reduce the fire’s damage. One of the youth got tired, and said he was thirsty. A Hummer jeep happened to be passing just then, and I told the boy to call out to it and ask the soldiers for water. The boy shouted towards them, and the jeep stopped, but the soldiers didn’t give him any water and just continued on their way. At that point, I started to feel awful because of what was happening. I felt helpless. I couldn’t do anything while my family’s land was burning before my eyes. I cried the whole time.

At around 4:30 PM, an Israeli fire truck came to the site, but the fire had been put out by then. The fire truck turned around and drove away. The people that had managed to cross the Wall told me that the fire had spread across 1,200 dunams of the village’s lands on the other side of the Wall. According to the estimates of those that were there, more than 4,000 olive trees were burned. There is tremendous damage, and the trees that remain are still in danger of fire. We have a lot of work before us to fix the damage that’s already occurred, and even now we still haven’t received permits.

Taysir Fathi Taha 'Amarneh, 42, father of seven, is a farmer and head of the al-'Aqaba Village Council. His testimony was given to `Atef Abu a-Rub in al-'Aqaba on 22 May 2005