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This is Yanoun. I lived there for 2 months in 2012. It’s in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It’s a tiny farming hamlet. The residents mainly farm sheep, grow crops and make cheese.
Why then was the an Int Human Rights monitoring programme ( @EAPPI) based there? #Thread
Why then was the an Int Human Rights monitoring programme ( @EAPPI) based there? #Thread
In 2002 it became the first village to be forcibly displaced since 1967 in the West Bank. This was after what Ta’ayush described as “years of unrelenting harassment, destruction of infrastructure, armed patrols and threats of shooting”
The village is surrounded by 3 quite extreme settlements; Itamar, Yizhar and Bracha. Yizhar was the home of the infamous Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the author of “The Kings Torah”. The Kings Torah offers a theological basis for the killing of non-Jews.
I say this to give you a flavour. Not all all the settlers shared these views but some did and some routinely resorted to quite extreme levels of violence. They also faced violence (at times deadly) in return from Palestinians but the power dynamics are very different.
The former Mayor of Yanoun described interaction with settlers as follows: “They came with dogs and guns, every Saturday night. They beat men in front of their children. One Saturday they said they didn’t want to see anyone here next Saturday”. That was when they fled in 2002.
It goes without saying that at best the Israeli Military turned a blind eye to this behaviour and at worst facilitated it.
A permanent int human rights presence was established in 2003. Only 81 residents lived in Yanoun when I was there in 2012. There were also now borders around the village: both physical relating to IDF deemed military zones but also invisible where you risked attack from settlers
A quick note on Israeli settlements: They all remain illegal under international humanitarian law; Article 49, of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV.
As well as the constant threat of violence from settlers the occupation made life hard in other ways too. There is little access to education, no nearby health services, few job prospects and constant power and water supply problems.
There are few places I have been that are more beautiful but where daily life is so hard. I really asked myself why people stayed and the only answer I could think of is that this was their own resistance- their tiny role in a much wider war.
Something particularly heart-breaking was interacting with the few children in the village. They were full of the energy of children you find anywhere in the world but without the sense of hope that most have. They were mainly waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
While I was there @katehbuckley visited and wrote a piece for @vicenews - it captures some of what is in this thread and is worth a read if you want to know more https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/3be94y/yanun-palestine-west-bank-israel-illegal-settlements">https://www.vice.com/en_uk/art...
Lastly to add that @EAPPI and @eappiukireland are currently recruiting for people to go in 2021. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer.
