Incredible day in the Jordan Valley

Fasiyil Community

We spent six hours with Jordan Valley Solidarity (JVS) learning about the issues in this part of the West Bank. 

The Jordan Valley is an area 75 miles long by 9 miles wide, fringed by the River Jordan to the east and the mountains to the west. It constitutes 30% of the area of the West Bank and is extremely fertile. 

Jericho is in Area A, which means it is administered by the Palestinian Authority. Most of the remainder of the Jordan Valley (88%) is designated Area C, which means that it comes under full Israeli Military control. 95% of this area is not accessible to Palestinians - 49% of which has been declared "State Land", 46% closed military area, and 20% nature reserve. Some land is taken directly, some is fenced off as a military area for 3 years, and then confiscated as it has not been cultivated (under Ottoman Law). Nature reserves can be reclassified as State land when required. 

Jordan Valley Solidarity

We met JVS at Fasiyil, which is just north of Jericho. Their HQ is the oldest house in the village being over 80 years old. This is important as it helps to refute the Israeli claim that this is Jewish land to which the Palestinians have recently moved.

Rashid

Rashid is a passionate Palestinian. His family was displaced - like many Palestinian families they moved into the city and now live in Tubas. 

Adrielle is Brazilian. She is spending some time here providing practical help and support to the Palestinians. They both told us the story of the people here.

Adrielle

There are around 60,000 Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley. The vast majority live in Jericho. Around 10,000 live in 20 scattered communities through the area. 

Around 10,000 Settlers live in 39 agricultural settlements, on the land taken from the Palestinians. The vast areas of crops require water. Israel extracts water from the River Jordan and from deep wells which have been dug all over the Jordan valley - 28 out of the total of 42 Israeli wells are in the Jordan Valley. The volume of water in the River Jordan is now reduced to a muddy stream, being only 2% of the flow in 1945, due to extraction by Israel and Jordan. This means that the settlements have 45 million cubic metres of water per annum. 

Palestinians living in the few Area A villages receive piped water - just 64 litres per person per day. You can see their crops dying in the fields for lack of water. A few communities survive as they have long-standing wells.

Palestinians who live in area C do not get piped water. They have to buy water in tanks like this, which hold 3 cubic metres,  at £4 per cubic metre - an average family with a few animals requires 2 tanks per week - £24. It is too expensive to water crops with this water. The Israelis sometimes turn up and confiscate these water tanks. 

The Israeli wells are 700 metres deep. The JVS well is 60 metres deep and has run dry because of the water extraction. JVS has approval to deepen the well to 150 metres and we watched the work - they do not know yet if they will find water at this depth.

Mud bricks

All Palestinian buildings in Area C are deemed illegal and therefore subject to demolition. Part of JVS's work is to assist Palestinians to rebuild their homes when this happens. The Red Cross has, until recently, provided tents, but the military returns and confiscates these, so they have, for the time being, stopped providing tents. 

JVS is using the sustainable technique of making bricks from mud and straw. They are using these to build new structures. These are illegal without a building permit. No Palestinian gets a building permit. Israelis do not need a building permit. 

Fasiyil School

This amazing building is a school, built using mud bricks. The small communities lacked schools and so the children faced long journeys (25 kilometres) to and from school. JVS  has built this school in Fasiyil. Under the Oslo Accord, the Israeli military cannot demolish an operational school, so these are vitally important for the community. JVS has also built a health centre using the same technique of mud bricks. 

After a look around the village, we set off to visit a couple of the communities in the Jordan Valley.