Jordan Valley, West Bank, 26th April 2010

Between 20 and 30 armed settlers from the Maskiot settlement, supported by the Israeli army and police from the settlement, yesterday erected a tent flying Israeli flags just 10 metres away from the entrance to the Palestinian Bedouin community of El Maleh and ordered the Bedouin community off the land.

Their aim is to terrify the community into leaving and claim the land to expand Maskiot settlement.

Members of Jordan Valley Solidarity including women and children have been supporting the Bedouin community since yesterday, staying overnight and sending in food, and water for the animals, as the members of the community cannot enter or leave.

Today Therezia Cooper, from the Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group, two members of the International Solidarity Movement, and other Palestinian activists are staying overnight in the tents of the Bedouin community, to give support and solidarity.

A spokesman for Jordan Valley Solidarity said: “We must help this community to resist and stay; if it is these homes being threatened today, it will be other tents tomorrow and the next day after that.”

He appealed to the Palestinian Authority to take up the case, and for the international media to publicise this latest attempt at ethnic cleansing by fanatical settlers.

This is not an isolated incident:

Just 10 days ago on 15th April the Israeli army cut the water pipes to Al Farisiya, a nearby Palestinian community, cut to intimidate villagers, destroy their crops and make their existence in the Jordan Valley impossible. On 11th April the water supply to the Palestinan village of Bardala was cut off at the critical crop growing time.