The Jayyous ones were taken during the first week of October 2004, during olive season.
The pictures of olive trees being uprooted and stolen by Israeli earth-moving
equipment
were taken the first week of December 2004, and the theft is ongoing.
High spirits in Qalqiliya
Fadi from Jayyous, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Mustafa from Jayyous, and me.
Israeli soldiers refusing to let Dr. Mustafa enter Hebron's Old City
Nice view of Jayyous
Jayyous next to its most devastated hillside
This used to be a whole hill of olive groves, and kids used to play on
top of this hill every day. Now it's a base for military Jeeps,
and the path you see carved and dynamited torturously out of it is
for the Apartheid Fence and armored patrol vehicles.
"With the wall, Israel is taking 75% of Jayyous' most fertile land, including all our
irrigated farmland, seven wells and 12,000 olive trees. Jayyous' 3,000 residents depend almost entirely
on agricultural income. So this means a loss of our livelihoods, dreams, hopes, future and heritage."
- ~Sharif Omar (Abu Azzam), Jayyous farmer
in a recent USA Today article he wrote.
Olive groves under the worst-blasted hillside
Picking olives under the shadow of devastation
(The stonework you see was built by Israelis
for their Apartheid Fence and patrol road.
Thirteen of the family's trees were destroyed here,
and countless other families', too.)
Ammar chillin'
A couple of nephews, Mahmoud on the right, grandpa in the tree
Blasted earth in the background
Ammar, Ammar's dad, and brother Ahmed
Me
Sunset
Family Tree
None of this Palestinian farmland (all of it walled off from its owners in
Jayyous by Israel's Apartheid Wall) is safe from Israeli attack and theft
Israelis uprooting Palestinian (Jayyous) olive trees, December 2004
Israelis stealing Palestinian (Jayyous) olive trees, December 2004