Testimonies

Muhammad Zaban, farmer, aged 40, resident of Burin, Nablus District.

I have five children, aged five to twelve. I am a farmer. I cultivate land that I own and other parcels that I rent from residents of Burin. On some of the land I rent, I share the profits with the owners, and on other parts, I pay annual rent. I currently cultivate around fifty dunam [~12.5 acres]. About two-thirds belong to my brothers and me, and the other third belong to village residents. I grow olive trees on thirty dunam [~7.5 acres], and on the rest I grow wheat, barley, and sesame. I do not grow fruit and vegetables because we don't have water for irrigation. Everything I grow relies on rainfall.

My father was also a farmer. I began to work with him when I was ten, and even after his death, I continued to farm. I am very attached to the land. In recent years, I have suffered considerably from the hands of the settlers and the Israeli army. The land that I farm is located on the other side of the bypass road that separates the villagers from their land, and the village from the Yizhar settlement. Since Yizhar was established, I have had problems with the settlers, but I was able to work my land. The problem with the settlers has been particularly bad the past two years and has become unbearable.

Last year, on 15 June 2001, after I had harvested the wheat and barley crops and was ready to begin the grinding process, settlers from Yizhar came and burned up all of my crops. I filed a complaint at the Palestinian DCO, but in the end nobody paid for the damage. In January 2002, the settlers uprooted seventy olive trees. I complained to the Hawara police. I have a copy of the complaint: incident no. 15, Investigation Unit, DCO, Grizim, 16 January 2001. The investigator was Matans Hadad. The investigation never got anywhere.

In June 2002, settlers set fire to 200 of my olive trees in the area near the settlement, and in 2001 they torched one of my plot which held about 150 olive trees. In March 2002, I managed to plow 15 dunam [~ four acres]. I had rented fifteen dunam of land near the army base in Hawara and paid 150 Jordanian dinars [~1,000 shekels] as rent, but the army did not let me work the land.

From last Wednesday [2 October] to Friday [4 October], some twenty settlers came daily and picked olives in my groves. On Wednesday at about 8:00 A.M., villages witnessed the settlers picking the olives. Villagers saw settlers picking my olives. I had plowed this orchard in April and it was well cultivated. We didn't do anything about the settlers that day, because we had given up on filing complaints, which had never helped... We were sure that this time too, nothing would happen if we complained. I also thought that the settlers would only come that one time.

The settlers had all the equipment necessary to pick olives, and they finished picking about 5:00 P.M.. I watched them all day long.

The settlers returned the next day at the same time and began to pick olives. We contacted the head of the Burin village council, and he contacted the Palestinian DCO. At 2:00 P.M., army and police forces arrived, as did officials from the Israeli DCO. There were a total of about eight soldiers and police officers. They spoke with the settlers for about thirty minutes and then left. The settlers stayed and continued to pick olives.

On Friday [4 October], the settlers returned , but they finished early, around 2:00 P.M. That day, I went with my wife and our neighbor, Hakam 'As'us, to another plot of land to work. There were about one hundred olive trees on the plot, which was located some two kilometers from the village. We got there at about 6:00 A.M. Two settlers arrived at about 10:00 A.M. They stood on the hill above us, about one hundred meters away from where we were, and shouted and cursed at us in Hebrew. I couldn't understand them, or see if they had weapons. They stayed there for about half an hour. We weren't deterred by their shouts. I should note that other farmers from Burin were also working in the area.

Within ten minutes from the time that the settlers left, a Yizhar security vehicle arrived. They parked about two hundred meters away from us. The two settlers who got out were armed with Uzi rifles. They walked a few steps toward us, aiming their rifles at us as they moved. Then they went back to the car. They went back and forth like that a number of times, but their actions didn't deter us from our work. I knew, though, as did the others nearby, that something was going to happen, so we took the olives we had picked, went down the hill, and set the sacks down alongside the bypass road. We went back to picking.

About fifteen minutes later, we saw twenty to twenty-five settlers running toward us. They had clubs and the last two also had rifles. It was close to noon. They stopped around fifty meters from us. We were about fifteen farmers, and we gathered together. We moved our small children away. Then the settlers started to stone us. In response, we threw stones at them. They were higher up, so they had the advantage of location. None of us were hit. We realized that we couldn't fight them, so we began to run down the hill toward the bypass road.

We left all our equipment in the groves. We also left behind a number of sacks of olives that we didn't manage to take down the hill earlier. The settlers took all the equipment and olives. They put them in the settlement's security car and left. We returned and continued picking until it began to get dark, around 5:00 P.M.

On Saturday, other farmers and I were out working the land. The settlers did not show up that day. On Sunday, I went with my wife, a neighbor, and two of my children to pick olives in the same area that we had picked two days earlier. Six settlers appeared on a hill about 150 meters from us. They cursed at us, and we cursed at them in reply. This time, they did not throw stones at us. They stayed there for about an hour. We managed to pick seven sacks of olives, a total of around 750 kilograms. I stayed in constant touch with the head of the village council and reported what was happening. He passed the information on to the DCO.

On Monday, I worked in the groves. The settlers only watched us, and shouted and cursed like they did the day before. We continued picking. 'Abd Rasem Zakariya was working next to me. When we finished work that day, I put my two sacks of olives on the back of my donkey, and Rassem, who didn't have a donkey to carry the olives, had to carry on his back each of his three sacks and take them down to the bypass road. He managed to carry two of the sacks, and was on the way to take the third sack. I was standing with several villagers about to take a drink of water by a house that was close to the bypass road, about fifty meters from where Rasem had placed his sacks. A van with settlers inside appeared and stopped about fifty meters from us. Three settlers got out. They put one of Rasem's sacks in the van and were about to take the other one. We started to run toward them and throw stones. They got into the van and drove off along the road leading to the Yizhar settlement. The sack that they took had about sixty kilograms of olives in it.

Some of the villagers saw what happened. About one hundred of them gathered on the main bypass road. Soldiers in an army jeep came by. We told them what had happened. They said we should complain at the DCO. Then they left. Fifteen minutes later, another vehicle with soldiers came. We also told them what had happened. We gave them a description of the [security] vehicle and where it turned. They asked about the license number. We told them that we couldn't get it. But we described the vehicle, a white Subaru van that drove toward the Yizhar settlement. The soldiers ordered us to disperse and go back to the village. They threatened that if we didn't, they would call for reinforcements to disperse us. We did as they ordered, and the soldiers then left the area.

I did not work in the groves today because I went to 'Urif to press the olives that I had managed to pick. I think we are going to be facing a hard season. But we have no choice but to go to the olive groves, despite the risks involved. It is my future and the source of livelihood for my children and me.

The next time, though, I will hire laborers to do the picking, so as not to endanger my children's lives. I won't be taking my children to help with the picking any more this year.

Muhammad Raja Muhammad Zaban, age 40, is a resident of Burin. He is married with five children and works as a farmer. The testimony was taken by Raslan Mahagna in Burin on 9 October 2002.