JORDAN VALLEY, (PIC)
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) closed on Sunday a dirt road with earthen mounds and destroyed vital water networks in the Atouf plain located east of Tamoun town south of Tubas, in a step that comes within a series of measures aiming to restrict citizens’ movement and their agricultural properties.
Local sources reported that occupation bulldozers stormed the area and closed the main road that serves farmers with earthen mounds, coinciding with starting to destroy and sabotage water networks that feed agricultural lands in the plain.
The sources explained that these attacks fall within the context of continuous bulldozing for several months, through which occupation authorities aim to pave a new road extending over a distance of approximately 22 kilometers.
These field violations threaten to turn Atouf village and the Al-Baqia area in the northern Jordan Valley into a new and dangerous phase of existential conflict, following the issuance of an unjust Israeli judicial decision paving the way to implement wide-scale settlement and military plans in the area which historically represents the basic “food basket” for Palestinians.
Atouf village suffers from a suffocating military and geographical siege, as it is encircled by the “Beqa’ot” settlement crouching from its eastern side, while a deep earthen trench separates the village from its natural extension in the eastern lands, which transforms it into something resembling an open prison subject to arbitrary occupation military measures.
Occupation forces also exploit the military gates surrounding the village as launching points to carry out daily incursions towards Tamoun town, Tubas city, and neighboring areas, within a systemic policy to empty the land of its owners and plunder what remains of natural and water resources.
Despite these massive challenges, Khirbet Atouf and the Al-Baqia area remain the first line of defense and the fundamental pillar in confronting attempts to geographically fragment the Palestinian Jordan Valley by the occupation army and settler gangs.
The people of the area confirm their adherence to stay and remain steadfast in their lands, stressing that hand-over and confiscation policies will not succeed in erasing the deep-rooted Palestinian identity in the depths of this historical land.
