The family of 7 stood 20 meters back as the soldiers ripped bags of lentils and rice and destroyed their house

Sawaftah child doing homework in their temporary tent

This is a photo of a little girl doing her homework. She is living in a tent in the Jordan Valley. Her home in El Hama was demolished a few weeks ago on March 26th. She is the daughter of Khabis Sawaftah.

I first read about the demolition of the Sawaftah family’s home by way of Amira Hass’s article From Yamit to the Jordan Valley, the IDF continues to force Arabs from their homes.

Hass cites a report in her article and after a little googling around I was able to find the full heartbreaking documentation including photos on Machsomwatch, a site  representing a movement of Israeli women who’ve been monitoring West Bank military checkpoints and courts since 2001.

Ruins of the Sawaftah family’s house.

Machsomwatch observers Dorit Hershkowitz and Dafna Banai arrived at the ruins of what used to be the Sawaftah family home on March 29th.  The land belongs to their mutual friend Nidal, and is registered in Nidal’s name in the land registry. Khabis Sawaftah works for Nidal cultivating the fields. Sawaftah is poor. He didn’t have 1000 shekels to pay court fees to delay the January 12 demolition order (the homes of those who paid weren’t demolished).

This is in Area C. Israel has an active policy of pushing Palestinians off these lands, and rightwing member of the Knesset Danny Danon wants to annex Area C, 60% of the West Bank.

Dafna Banai’s reports:

On Monday, 26.3.12, darkness fell on Khabis Sawaftah’s family. While the family members were busy with their morning tasks, two bulldozers, 12 vehicles from the Civil Administration, Border Police personnel and about 40 additional soldiers descended on them, ordering them out of their home. Khabis, his wife and their five children stood 20 meters away, the soldiers standing between them and the house, watching Civil Administration personnel dumping their belongings, sacks of lentils and rice tearing and spilling everywhere. Blankets and mattresses, schoolbooks and clothing – all tossed around as if they were garbage.

When they finished emptying the house of its inhabitants’ lives, Civil Administration personnel entered to photograph the empty structure (to prove that the compassionate occupier destroys only empty homes and not, God forbid, their contents). Then it was the reaper’s turn; in a few minutes the home had been turned into a pile of stones, boards and plastic sheeting.

The family cat refused to abandon her kittens; the house was demolished around them. But cats, of course, have nine lives, and a few hours later the family saw the cat climbing out of the rubble, carrying her six kittens, hale and hearty. The chicken that hid in the aluminum stove also survived but, traumatized, refuses to leave it.

El Hama Ruins of the demolished bathroom

And that is how it happens in the Jordan Valley, in Area C. Just like that, a family’s life seemingly destroyed and yet they carry on, inconceivably. 

According to the OCHA report: “At El Hama and Furus Bet Dajan, on 26.3.12, six residential buildings, three structures housing animals and three storage buildings were demolished, leading to the forcible uprooting of 36 persons, including 13 children.” The army demolished an additional 12 structures housing animals at Khumsa and El Farsiyya, affecting the livelihoods of 40 people who are particularly weak and vulnerable and have difficulty surviving in any case. And during the previous week the army demolished structures at Fasi’el-al-Wista and Jiftlik.

Did you noticed the names of two villages featured in Morgan’s reflections of her bike ride last Saturday.  Jiftlik was the village hosting the Cultural Festival, and Fusayal is where the mayor spoke with them “if they built a house or dug a well or planted crops or held this meeting in Area C land, they would be met with the “same kind of hospitality we received today.””

Amira Hass :

[D]estruction and demolition continues all the time. Silence is maintained, even without coercive actions taken by the censor, and the goal of using “C” areas to prevent natural Palestinian growth is promoted all the time. New master plans developed by Israel have left the Palestinians in area C out, so building remains forbidden. Connecting to water and electrical grids is illegal, and each act of demolition is “legal” and “authorized.”

…….

Civil Administration data relayed to Haaretz indicate that desist orders for illegal building were issued on December 19, 2011, and a demolition order was passed on to the family weeks later, on January 12.

The chicken that survived the destruction

Here is a brief history of Machsomwatch (pdf). Over a decade ago one of the founders, Ronnee Jaeger, attended a talk by Amira Hass and became inspired. She went home and decided to call a meeting of women willing to consider becoming observers, that was the beginning of Machsomwatch.