Latest news with #settlers
Al Arabiya
3 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
‘No life without water': Settler attacks threaten West Bank communities
From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring. So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes. 'There is no life without water, of course,' he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages. The spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110,000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it -- making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short supply. The attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources. 'The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping' water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring. 'The water just goes into the dirt, into the ground,' Olayan told AFP, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water supply. Just two days after the latest attack, Israeli settlers -- some of them armed -- splashed in pools just below the spring, while Olayan monitored water pressure and cameras from a distance. His software showed normal pressure in the pipes pulling water from the wells and the large pipe carrying water up the hill to his village of Kafr Malik. But he said maintenance teams dared not venture down to the pumping station out of fear for their safety. Since the start of the war in Gaza, deadly settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become commonplace. Last week, settlers beat a 20-year-old dual US citizen to death in the nearby village of Sinjil, prompting US ambassador Mike Huckabee to urge Israel to 'aggressively investigate' the killing. Annexation Issa Qassis, chairman on the board of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which manages the Ein Samiyah spring, said he viewed the attacks as a tool for Israeli land grabs and annexation. 'When you restrict water supply in certain areas, people simply move where water is available,' he told AFP at a press conference. 'So in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way,' he said. Since the start of the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians and officials have become increasingly vocal in support of annexing the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. Most prominent among them is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, who said in November that 2025 would be the year Israel applies its sovereignty over the Palestinian territory. Qassis accused Israel's government of supporting settler attacks such as the one on Ein Samiyah. The Israeli army told AFP that soldiers were not aware of the incident in which pipes were damaged, 'and therefore were unable to prevent it.' The damage to Ein Samiyah's water facilities was not an isolated incident. In recent months, settlers in the nearby Jordan Valley took control of the Al-Auja spring by diverting its water from upstream, said Farhan Ghawanmeh, a representative of the Ras Ein Al Auja community. He said two other springs in the area had also recently been taken over. Water rights In Dura al-Qaraa, another West Bank village that uses the Ein Samiyah spring as a back-up water source, residents are also concerned about increasingly long droughts and the way Israel regulates their water rights. 'For years now, no one has been planting because the water levels have decreased,' said Rafeaa Qasim, a member of the village council, citing lower rainfall causing the land to be 'basically abandoned.' Qasim said that though water shortages in the village have existed for 30 years, residents' hands are tied in the face of this challenge. 'We have no options; digging a well is not allowed,' despite the presence of local water springs, he said, pointing to a well project that the UN and World Bank rejected due to Israeli law prohibiting drilling in the area. The lands chosen for drilling sit in the West Bank's Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control. Israeli NGO B'Tselem reported in 2023 that the legal system led to sharp disparities in water access within the West Bank between Palestinians and Israelis. Whereas nearly all residents of Israel and Israeli settlements have running water every day, only 36 percent of West Bank Palestinians do, the report said. In Dura al-Qaraa, Qasim fears for the future. 'Each year, the water decreases and the crisis grows -- it's not getting better, it's getting worse.'
Zawya
4 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
The State of Agriculture in Zimbabwe
Droughts are frequent and in winter temperatures can drop to minus 5 degrees Celsius. In 1896 when the first foreign settlers came here, they anticipated to find gold and diamonds like South Africa, but found little evidence of both and turned to farming. They carved out of virgin bushveld several thousand farms ranging from a couple of hundred hectares to half a million. They experimented with crops eventually settling down with maize, cotton, vegetables, cattle, pigs and poultry. The country was a part of the global British Empire and in the Sterling Zone of free trade in a common currency. Beef and crop products were exported to the UK and a considerable citrus industry was established. Flue cured tobacco – a pale yellow, low nicotine filler tobacco, created a niche for itself which continues today. By the time of Independence in 1980, the industry was split into two – 30 000 large- and small-scale commercial farms and the communal or tribal sector with 700 000 farmers – both sectors managing about 16 million hectares each. They employed 350 000 workers, produced half of all exports and generated about 20 per cent of the national GDP. There were 5 world class research stations which developed crop varieties that used the harsh environment to best advantage and created record yielding varieties; they learned how to manage the many pests and diseases of Africa. The tobacco industry produced the second or third largest crop in the world, ran its own research and marketing organisations that were recognised as among the best in the world. 4 large marketing organisations – the CSC, the DMB, CMB and the GMB, employed 25 000 workers and managed purchases and sales of US$3 billion a year. Farmers were paid in 24 hours at prices negotiated each year and related to global markets. Any year end surplus was paid out to growers as an after-season payment. The 30 000 large and small scale farmers owned their land and ploughed their profits back into their farms, creating some of the most outstanding farm properties in the world. They maintained their roads, built 10 000 dams, put 500 000 hectares of land under irrigation. They managed nearly 3 million head of cattle, and we were self-sufficient in everything except petroleum fuels. Every Bank had a farm department and any farmer with equity, could go into his or her bank in March each year, negotiate a loan to cover costs, often including school fees, a new vehicle and a holiday for the family and pay for it when they sold their crops. In the Cattle industry all you needed was a lease on land for 5 years and the CSC would fund your cattle and expenses. If you wanted to invest in irrigation you went to the 'Farm Irrigation Fund' at a State owned bank for a long term loan at a reasonable rate. If you tell a farmer in Zimbabwe today that their predecessors' operated under such conditions, they will say that was impossible. But it is true, and I was a small player in that system. Today no farmer has equity unless he has equity off the farm elsewhere, he must have his own resources unless he grows a crop under contract to a firm that wants the output. When the collapse came in 2000, the international tobacco industry recognised that it could not manufacture their traditional brands without some tobacco from Zimbabwe. They came into the country with their own resources, employed many of the former tobacco growers and financed small scale and large scale production. In this way they maintained the industry. But they were the exception, everything else, except sugar, collapsed. Today we import 70 per cent of our food needs. The pig and poultry industries meet domestic demand and are 100 per cent private Agri industrial operations. The list of failed state and private sector institutions is endless – no research stations function effectively, no research or new technologies emerge. The CSC and the CMB are dead. The DMB is a shadow of its former self. Farmers are not paid on time and sometimes not at all. A third of all our timber forests are burned and not being replanted. And on top of all that we are lumbered with a compensation bill of US$3 500 000 000 for the farmers whom we robbed between 2000 and 2005. A burden for the generation that played no part in creating this mess. So, what do we do to fix this situation and why is that even important? Its important because the majority of our population depends on agriculture for subsistence and even survival. Its important because if we brought it back, we would not only be able to export our surpluses, but the cost of food would be lower for the entire population. We are a nation of extremes – extreme poverty, extreme wealth for a minority with the associated threat of instability. Part of the solution is to raise the incomes of the rural poor and that means farming. The decision to grant all the settlers on the commercial farm land that was acquired by the State between 2000 and 2005 – about 8 million hectares and to restore the title rights on the rest would create the equity needed to underwrite the recovery. In the compensation negotiations the value of the movable assets and land of the dispossessed farmers was settled at US$6,7 billion dollars of which the State took responsibility for US$3,5 billion, excluding the value of land. This suggests that the commercial valuation of the land was US$3,2 billion. For 8 million hectares of land that looks reasonable. However, no sooner had this decision been made than the vultures in our society imposed impossible costs on those applying for title. The process has stopped and if this proposal is pursued by the State, it will incite real violence and with justification. Instead, what we should do is the following: restore title rights on all land still being occupied and farmed productively by those with their original title deeds, without charge. Then grant title rights to all other settlers with a small bond over the property reflecting its value in the region. If this was set at US$3,2 billion it would amount to US$400 per hectare. This would need to be reduced substantially in the arid and semi-arid non cropping areas without irrigation and increased in the better cropping areas. The bond to be paid to the State over 20 years at a low interest rate. Annual payments on this basis would be US$240 million a year or US$30 a hectare. Adjusted for region this should be very affordable, even for cattle ranching. The bonds over all 8 million hectares should be registered by a State-owned bank with responsibility to finance agricultural recovery. This would immediately give such a bank a major capital asset base in the form of titled land and US$240 million a year in revenue. In the Communal farm areas, we should adopt the recommendations of the Rukuni Commission and give some form of title to Villages in Communal Areas. In fact lets put Rukuni in charge of the whole thing. The task of rebuilding marketing institutions and support infrastructure such as research stations should begin immediately. Road and water infrastructure restored, and a million hectares of land brought under irrigation. Then, and only then can we expect a recovery of our farming sector. © Copyright The Zimbabwean. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Huckabee visits Christian church in West Bank that was target of arson attack
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday visited a Christian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and urged accountability for an attack on an ancient church, which residents have blamed on Israeli settlers. In early July, the village of Taybeh was hit by an arson attack in the area of the ruins of the Byzantine-era Church of Saint George, which dates back to the fifth century. Residents blamed settlers for the fire, which comes as violence soars in the West Bank and last week saw an American-Palestinian man killed near Ramallah. Israel has so far not responded to CBS News' requests for information about the incident. Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and staunch advocate for Israel, said his trip to Taybeh aimed to "express solidarity with the people who just want to live their lives in peace, to be able to go to their own land, to be able to go to their place of worship." "It doesn't matter whether it's a mosque, a church, a synagogue," he told reporters. "It's unacceptable to commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship." "We will certainly insist that those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh or anywhere be found, be prosecuted, not just reprimanded. That's not enough," he said. "People need to pay a price for doing something that destroys that which belongs not just to other people, but that which belongs to God." In the villages and communities around Taybeh, Palestinian authorities reported that settlers had killed three people and damaged or destroyed multiple water sources in the past two weeks alone. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence has surged in the territory since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Huckabee, who has for years been an outspoken supporter of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories, on Tuesday demanded an aggressive investigation and consequences after settlers beat to death a Palestinian-American in the West Bank. It was a sign of rare public pressure against U.S. ally Israel by the Trump's administration. Would you go on a retirement cruise? Wall Street Journal reports Trump sent "bawdy" birthday letter to Epstein, Trump threatens to sue Artist creates massive designs, visible only until the tide rolls in
Washington Post
5 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Killings near a West Bank village show even Americans aren't immune
AL-MAZRA'A AL-SHARQIYA, West Bank — The killings of two young men from this village this month, including a 20-year-old American citizen, marked a notable escalation in the battle being waged by Israeli settlers for Palestinian-owned land in the rolling hills of the West Bank. Al-Mazra'a Al-Sharqiya, a picturesque village where most residents are U.S. citizens, had for years escaped the worst of the violence roiling the occupied West Bank. But its residents had watched as settlers toted M-16s and Israeli security forces transformed the neighboring hamlet into what its mayor describes as an 'open-air prison' encircled by barricades and fences.
CBS News
6 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Huckabee visits Christian church in West Bank that was target of arson attack
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday visited a Christian village in the occupied West Bank and urged accountability for an attack on an ancient church, which residents have blamed on Israeli settlers. In early July, the village of Taybeh was hit by an arson attack in the area of the ruins of the Byzantine-era Church of Saint George, which dates back to the fifth century. Residents blamed settlers for the fire, which comes as violence soars in the West Bank and last week saw an American-Palestinian man killed near Ramallah. Israel has so far not responded to CBS News' requests for information about the incident. Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and staunch advocate for Israel, said his trip to Taybeh aimed to "express solidarity with the people who just want to live their lives in peace, to be able to go to their own land, to be able to go to their place of worship." "It doesn't matter whether it's a mosque, a church, a synagogue," he told reporters. "It's unacceptable to commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship." "We will certainly insist that those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh or anywhere be found, be prosecuted, not just reprimanded. That's not enough," he said. "People need to pay a price for doing something that destroys that which belongs not just to other people, but that which belongs to God." In the villages and communities around Taybeh, Palestinian authorities reported that settlers had killed three people and damaged or destroyed multiple water sources in the past two weeks alone. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence has surged in the territory since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Huckabee, who has for years been an outspoken supporter of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories, on Tuesday demanded an aggressive investigation and consequences after settlers beat to death a Palestinian-American in the West Bank. It was a sign of rare public pressure against U.S. ally Israel by the Trump's administration.
