A few days ago I told you about the inhabitants of Homsa (in the Palestinian Jordan Valley) who were ordered away from their homes in early June (5-6 June) in favor of a military maneuver in the area. Today (June 26-27), they were ordered away once again, thrown out in the middle of the desert exposed to the sun and heat exceeding 40 degrees centigrade, without a bit of shade, with their children and babies – on each of these two days from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. This is the fourth time in recent months that they are “temporarily” evicted – an act aiming to “cleanse” the area of its legal inhabitants and giving it over to Jewish settler-colonists. As an Israeli senior officer explained: “Wherever soldiers march no wild weeds ever grow again”.
Dunya Abu Al Kabash, 34-years old, married and mother of seven, testified on May 13, 2018:
“Every time we were evicted, the soldiers drove behind us, leading us as if we were sheep, without a drop of human compassion. We were in such a hurry that we forgot to take along any food and drink. I am a mother of seven small children. I have a child suffering from Downs Syndrome and a baby under one-month of age. Outdoors here it is either extremely cold or extremely hot, what are we supposed to do? The first two times we were evicted this year, we remained exposed outdoors in the open air from 6 a.m. until the afternoon. Once we received two tents from the Red Crescent and that was a bit of a relief. But we were terribly concerned for the homes and property we left behind. We heard shots fired and it was very scary. The children were horrified and trembled with fear. We felt it took an eternity until we were allowed back home.
At the eviction of May 5, 2018 the soldiers urged us on with shouts and did not let us take a tent that we wished to bring along nor anything else. We left running because the soldiers scared us saying they would open fire right away. We saw the soldiers patrolling the area and heard the shots. It sounded like war. In every previous eviction we returned to our tents exhausted, and each of us began to check their home and belongings and count the sheep. The scariest part was the danger of bomb shells falling next to us and not exploding, and that is why we make thorough checks everywhere.
Every time we came back after an eviction, our tents did not look like places where human beings used to live. Everything was ruined, things scattered, mattresses thrown on the floor. The little children were so exhausted when we return that they simply lie down in the midst of this chaos on the floor and fall asleep immediately. The little lambs that we cannot take with us when we’re evicted are in real danger for they are still suckling and remain there for hours without food or drink. We don’t know what to do. They want to chase us away from here but we have nowhere to go. We keep moving from one place to another. They want to cut off our livelihood and harass us until we leave, until not one soul remains in this area.”