Three days after Christmas, we planted the olive trees that our generous donors from Australia sponsored, as part of a team of 14 volunteers from 7 countries!
Here's the location of the field, to the south of Bethlehem district:
Here's the location of the field, to the south of Bethlehem district:
As
you can see, the field is nestled against Route 60, the main Israeli-controlled
road from Jerusalem and Bethlehem to Hebron. Israel has targeted this
area due to it's strategic location along this historic route,
controlling all traffic from the factories and farms of the southern
West Bank to the populated central cities.
This picture from the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem - http://www.arij.org/
- shows the geopolitical geography that has placed this Palestinian
land under threat. The field lies within the Efrata settlement bloc, 6km
from the 1949 Armistice line that is supposed to form the border of the
West Bank. The area falls behind the Israeli apartheid wall's route -
the red, yellow and purple line to the east of Efrat - which Israel is
using to try and annex more land in any future peace settlement. So our
donations are helping to assert Palestinian control over their land in
the face of this colonial project.
The
farmer who owns the land - Issa Salah, or "Abu Mahmoud" - was very
thankful for our donations. Here he is loading his donkey with our olive
saplings!
It's
hard work, digging up the rocky soil to the right depth for planting,
especially in a year which has been as dry as this one - we are still
hopeful for some snow on New Year's Day! But the Palestinians have a
saying that trees planted in December will grow better than those
planted in January, 11 months earlier, as they can take root through the
winter rains.
Here
are a couple of shots with the main settlement of Efrat visible in the
background. There are few places in Palestine where settlements aren't
always visible; settlers try to seize strategic land on hilltops all
around the West Bank.
Thank you so much for your generosity and solidarity with the people of Palestine!
