Briefing Paper September 2019 (5)
Nakba of the Jordan Valley and Israeli military exercises Shatha Hammad MEE 15/5/19
On the floor of a residential tent in Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa, toys lay scattered. Playtime for the village’s children was cut short when the Israeli military declared the area a closed military zone and forced the Palestinian community to evacuate their homes in the early hours of Sunday. Following an eviction order four days earlier, the 98 residents were prevented from accessing their homes for three days. Throughout May and June, they will be evicted 12 times for three days each, the army informed them. Palestinians were told their homes would be within range of tank shells while the Israeli army uses the area to carry out military drills …
Fasting amid displacement and temperatures that have reached 40 degree Celsius is doubly difficult this Ramadan, said Khadija Abu Qabbash as she prepared to leave … “We escorted the children out this morning, and now the car is back to take us,” she told MEE with tears streaming down her face. “I won’t be able to cook anything for iftar. We’ll have to make do with canned food.”… Primarily a shepherding community, the families of Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa wake at 3am to milk their sheep and prepare cheese ahead of their journey to the markets in the nearby city of Tubas. Harb Abu Qabbash, 40, told MEE that each family owns around 300 sheep. Since it is difficult to transport them out of the area, many of the younger sheep stay behind when the Palestinians are evacuated and often die of hunger with no one to attend to them…
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