FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006

Israel tightens grip on Jordan Valley

Richard Galpin excerpts,BBC News, Jerusalem and Jordan Times

In a recent report the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem accused the Israeli government of effectively annexing the Jordan Valley - a large strip of land which makes up at least a quarter of the occupied West Bank.

UN officials have also told the BBC they are concerned that the region is gradually being cut off by restrictions imposed on the Palestinian population by the Israeli security forces.

Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 war. Palestinians hope that the whole of the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be returned to them as part of any peace deal creating a viable independent state which would also include the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli military checkpoint - one of seven controls access to and from the region.

The soldier on duty quite openly tells us about the restrictions now being imposed on the Palestinians when we ask him whom he allows through.

"Only the ones who live nearby, all those villages nearby," he says.

"But the ones who do not live here but in Ramallah or Bethlehem, they cannot pass through here."

'Special permits'

This backs up the findings of the human rights organisation B'Tselem that only Palestinians listed as residents of the Jordan Valley can enter the area.

Everyone else must have a special permit even though it is part of the West Bank.

In another telling answer, the soldier describes Palestinian labourers entering the Jordan Valley to work on Israeli settlements as "coming to work in Israel....... these settlements are not in the West Bank".

For him the Israeli annexation has already happened.

"The Palestinians cannot use the Jordan Valley," says Najib Abu Rokaya, B'Tselem's fieldwork co-ordinator.

"It's one third of their small, poor homeland and it is closed in their faces."

A farmer, Faris, owns land and a house in a village but his identity card shows that originally he comes from a town just outside the Jordan Valley.

He says the Israeli security forces have therefore been throwing him out as an illegal resident.

"The soldiers arrested me and handcuffed me until my brother came. Then they transferred me to the checkpoint and left me there. It's happened to me five or six times."

The Jordan Valley is a fertile part of the West Bank and fruit, vegetables and flowers are all grown here.

But the restrictions on movement mean Palestinian farmers are now having problems selling their produce.

A farmer called Jamal tells us traders from the West Bank can no longer enter the region and if he sends his produce by truck to the market in Jenin it often arrives in bad condition because of delays at the checkpoints.

United Nations sources agree with B'Tselem about what is happening in the region.

"It is part of [Israel] establishing its borders," says one UN official, "and setting facts on the ground before a peace agreement is reached with the Palestinians."

'Eastern border'

The acting Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, recently stated that the Jordan Valley would not be handed back to the Palestinians and instead would form part of Israel's eastern border with the Arab world.

The Israelis have always viewed it as vital for the defence of the country.

Without it they believe Israel would be extremely vulnerable .............."The great danger to Israel would be if al-Qaeda elements that are today in Iraq and are already penetrating Jordan and Syria, would be able to marry up with a Hamas regime in the West Bank," says former Israeli government adviser, Dore Gold.


THE WEBSITE : holylandphotos.org concludes their Jordan Valley overview,"The Jordan Valley now contains only one site: Old Testament Jericho.  More will be added in the future."

IF, AS ABOVE, WE MUST ACCEPT THAT THE ISRAEL OCCUPATION IS NOW THEIVING THE JORDAN VALLEY FROM THE PALESTINIANS, WE WILL ALSO SEE WHY THEY INVADED THE JAIL IN JERICO WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF THE UK WHO WITHDREW THEIR MONITORS, OBVIOUSLY IN COLLUSION WITH OLMERT, SO THAT AN IMPORTANT PALESTINIAN, AN ELECTED GOVERNMENT MEMBER COULD BE ARRESTED - AND INFACT THE JEWS HAVE TRANSFERRED ALL IN THE JAIL TO ISRAEL JAILS AND ANOTHER ACRE OF JORDAN VALLEY IS THUS OBTAINED BY THESE PREDATORS

A daylong Israeli military assault on a Jericho prison yesterday left at least two Palestinians dead and dozens wounded:

Israeli helicopters, tanks and bulldozers surrounded the prison mid-morning after British and American monitors had been pulled out earlier in the day. Missiles from tanks and helicopters were fired at the building as bulldozers stared tearing down walls, while the Israeli commander of the operation warned prisoners they would have to surrender or “face death.”

Dozens of prisoners surrendered early in the assault stripped down to their underwear, but the main targets of the raid, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Ahmed Saadat, whom Israel accuses of masterminding the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rahavam Zeevi, and Fuad Shobaki, whom Israel alleges was behind a weapons smuggling operation also in 2001, were only seized after an eight-hour siege.

The raid caused outrage among Palestinians with most of the anger directed at Britain and the US. British and American monitors had overseen the incarceration of Saadat, Shobaki and four PFLP members — Iyad Gholmi, Hamdi Qur'an, Majdi Rimawi and Basel Al Asmar — accused of carrying out the assassination of Zeevi, after an agreement was struck in 2002 between the two countries and Israel that saw the men leave Yasser Arafat's presidential compound in Ramallah where they had been holed up to avoid Israeli assassination.

But early yesterday the British and US monitors were pulled out, leaving the way free for the Israeli army. Israeli officials had repeatedly expressed their unhappiness at the agreement and had threatened to arrest or kill the prisoners if they were ever released, something Hamas had vowed to do once in government.

JORDAN TIMES

Israeli forces have captured a senior Palestinian militant leader after storming the jail where he was held in the West Bank town of Jericho. Two Palestinians were killed when scores of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopters burst into the Jericho prison compound.

The raid began early on Tuesday, shortly after UK and US monitors left the Palestinian-run prison complaining about lax security arrangements.

Dozens of Palestinians, including Ahmed Saadat, surrendered to the Israeli troops after dark.

Saadat is to be indicted with the death of a Jewish General, Zeevi, a case which has remained unproven.

Zeevi, a far right Israeli politician, was a proponent of the “transfer” of Palestinians from all of historic Palestine to neighbouring Arab countries, and routinely referred to Palestinians as “vermin” and a “cancer.”

British Collusion with the predators of the Jordan Valley:A British diplomatic source told The Jordan Times yesterday that Britain and the US had warned the PA for several months that security arrangements for the monitors were not adequate and if they were not improved, the monitors would be pulled. “At the end of the day our primary concern has to be the safety of our own people,” the source said.Later the British foreign ministry issued a warning to its citizens to stay away from Palestinian territory.

Ahmad Sa'adaat is the secretary-general
of the PFLP.

ISM Media Group:
British and American monitors left the prison in advance of the Israeli
invasion. Their presence is an integral part of the agreement between
the PA and the Israeli government on the protection of the five PFLP
members. The abandonment of the prisoners points to cooperation of the
US and UK governments with the Israelis in this invasion.
Al Jazeera News:Ramattan news agency reported that almost 50 Israeli military vehicles besieged this morning the Jericho Prison,a few minutes after the British and American guards left it for unknown reasons.