Israeli Reservoir Pressure In West Bank Villages Triggers Aneksation Concerns

JAKARTA - Just a few meters from the last home in Bardala, a Palestinian village on the northern tip of the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers bulldozed land roads and ditches between the community and open grazing grounds in the hills behind it.

The Israeli military told Reuters the work was carried out for security and allowed them to patrol the area following the killing of an Israeli civilian in August near the village by a man from another city.

However, Israel did not specify what was being built there.

Farmers from fertile villages in Jordan Valley are concerned that army patrols and arrivals of Israeli settlers will exclude them fromures feeding about 10,000 sheep and goats, as has been the case in other regions of the West Bank.

This weakens their livelihoods and eventually leaves the village.

Israeli settlers' posts have appeared around the village since last year, with a collection of blue and white Israeli flags just flying from the top of nearby hills.

The settlers intimidated the semi-nomaden Bedouin herders from leaving their camps in the region last year, four Bedouin families and Israeli human rights NGOs told Reuters.

Tighter military control in the Jordan Valley and the arrival of settlers' posts in the region over the past few months are new developments in the West Bank region, which largely avoids an increase in Israel's presence in the central region of Palestine.

With the development of Israeli settlements and highways increasingly becoming increasingly divided, thus further weakening the prospects for adjacent territories where Palestine can build sovereign countries. Most countries consider Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as illegal.

Over the past few weeks, die and shelters have started popping up in the bush-covered hills several hundred meters west of Bardala, on the mainland behind the new line, according to a Reuters journalist report.

The temporary shelter is the first sign of the construction of outposts.

Ibrahim Sawafta, a member of Bardala village council, said two dozen farmers would be prevented from reaching grazing grounds if soldiers and settlers' posts hindered their free movement. Because they were unable to keep their livestock in large quantities at home in the village, they were forced to sell it.

Bardala akan menjadi penjara kecil, katanya sambil di tangk di luar rumahnya di desa dilansir Reuters, Rabu, 5 Maret.

He said his overall goal was to limit people, to force them to leave the Jordan Valley.

Responding to a Reuters question, the army said the area behind the land road outside Bardala was designated a firing zone but included a crossing' guarded by Israeli soldiers, indicating restrictions on free movement in the area.

The road will allow the continuation of daily life and the fulfillment of the needs of residents, without providing further details.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office as well as the Yesha Council and the Jordan Valley Council, representing settlers in the West Bank, did not respond to a request for response to this news.

Sawafta said gunmen came to the region from cities to the west and the barrier appeared to be meant to complicate access and force traffic through main roads with security checkpoints under Israeli control.

However, he said the impact of the action was hampered access to land, which in some cases belonged to villagers.

Activities around Bardala are part of Israel's broader efforts to reshape the West Bank.

More than a year and a half since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, residential activity has increased in areas seen as the core of the Palestinian state in the future.

Meanwhile, pro-common Israeli politicians are bolder with Donald Trump's return to the White House which has proposed that Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned in the Middle East and its surroundings as an attempt to clean up Palestinian territories ethnically.

In recent weeks, raids on soldiers in refugee camps near the volatile cities of the West Bank, including Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas, near Bardala, have caused tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, sparking fears of permanent evacuation.

The raid comes amid renewed pressure to officially make the West Bank part of Israel, a proposal backed by some of US President Donald Trump's aides.

The Israeli military has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East war.