Democratic Palestine : 45 (ص 14)
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- Democratic Palestine : 45 (ص 14)
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Palestinian Village
This was sent to us from the occupied State of Palestine by a friend
who is currently living and working in the West Bank.
Six kilometers southeast of Nablus,
tucked among the rolling hills of the
West Bank, lies Awarta, a village of
4,000 residents, which I visited on May
8th. As the entrance to the village has
been blocked by the Israeli army with
piles of rocks and soil, and in order to
avoid any possible army checkpoint, we
decided to take a roundabout route to
the village. This road winds through
terraced hills dotted with olive trees and
a wheat field, all of which belongs to the
village of Awarta. The village owns
16,000 dunums of land, the produce of
which is the main source of income for
the villagers. In addition, some villagers
work as teachers in nearby Nablus or as
construction labourers in Israel.
Before the intifada, Awarta had been
a traditionally «quiet» village, where
only a small group of people were
politically active. These days, the village
is known as_ well—organized and
militant. Awarta is a major stronghold
of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (all the intifada graffiti in
the village is signed by this group) and a
battlefront against the Israeli
occupation. It is an example of a village
in which an_ effective alternative
structure of local control has emerged.
Early in the Palestinian popular
uprising, the local political leadership
established new procedures regulating
daily life, and popular committees
brought a measure of local control.
Every villager can tell you the story of
one of the four mukhtars of the village.
Notorious for tricking the people out of
their money by promising to improve
living conditions in the village, and for
giving the names of intifada activists to
the Israeli Shin Bet, he was ordered by
the community to come to the local
mosque to confess his crimes and to
renounce his traitorous behaviour.
When he refused, the shabab put him
under house arrest. Once a month, he
was allowed to visit Nablus from 8 am
until 1 pm. In the morning, the shabab
put him in a taxi, and the same taxi driver
drove him back to the village in the
afternoon. This went on for months; the
14
mukhtar was repeatedly asked to come
to the mosque. He never went. The man
still lives in the village, but is totally
isolated and controlled by _ the
community. On other occasions, the
popular committees settled disputes in
the village, decided that the taxi fare
from Awarta to Nablus was to be
reduced, that shops were allowed to
remain open all day, except on general
strike days declared by the Unified
National Leadership. All decisions of the
popular committees and local leadership
are made public via the mosque
loudspeaker or notices posted on the wall
of the mosque.
Health care is provided by the Union
of Health Work Committees (formerly
the Union of Popular Committees for
Health Services). They run the only clinic
in the village. Daily, a doctor and nurse
come to Awarta to render medical
services to the people. Activists of the
Palestinian Women’s Committees teach
literacy, embroidery and sewing classes
to the women and girls of Awarta.
The old part of the village, where
small, meter—thick stone houses still
stand, is being renovated, and the houses
are made available to newly wed couples.
In one of these houses, some youths have
begun to raise poultry, following the
directives of the Unified National
Leadership to strive for self —
sufficiency. There has been electricity in
the village for the past five years, but
there is no running water and residents
collect their water in wells and cisterns.
When the wells run dry, trucks carrying
large water tanks come to the village to
refill them.
The Israeli occupation authorities are
using control of water supplies to make
the population dependent and
submissive. This is what was attempted
during the 33—day-—long siege of
Awarta after the Gulf war. When the
war broke out on January 17th, the
village was subjected to the 24—hour
blanket curfew imposed throughout the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. However,
unlike other parts of the occupied
Palestinan lands, the curfew was not
lifted after the war. In fact, the village
was surprised by a military raid on
February 25th, during which the curfew
was prolonged for another 33 days!
According to one of the villagers, this
collective punishment was in response to
their cheering and singing in support of
Saddam Hussein during the war. While
settlers of the nearby settlement, Tel
Hayyim, took refuge in their sealed
rooms wearing gas masks, the people of
Awarta (who were denied gas masks
anyway) took to the streets, chanting and
whistling. This act, together with the fact
that Tel Hayyim’s telephone lines and
water supplies had been cut — allegedly
by shabab from Awarta — infuriated the
settlers who cemanded, and got,
Awarta families collecting water from cisterns
Democratic Palestine, August 1991 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 45
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