The film Wadi Fuqeen: Between Hope and Despair, by Jakob Schiller and Lubna Sharief, illustrates how the Israeli occupation deprives Palestinians of their water resources and how illegal settlements continue to pour raw sewage into the many valleys of the occupied West Bank. Villages are being imprisoned by an eight-metre-high wall, causing severe environmental and human impact.
Wadi Fuqeen: Palestinian Village between Hope and Despair
The Israeli occupation deprives Palestinians of their water resources, illegal settlements continue to pour raw sewage into the many valleys of the occupied West Bank. Villages are being imprisoned by an eight-metre-high wall, with severe environmental and human impact. There is a sense of utter despair, but in some pockets there is a little hope.
The village of Wadi Fuqeen is a valley inside the Palestinian occupied territories. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the valley as the best preserved natural heritage site of its kind in the West Bank.
But the valley is threatened by the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli separation wall. The wells in the valley have dried up and the valley is contaminated with raw sewage.
Villagers from the valley have worked together with their neighbours from the Israeli village Tsur Hadassah to campaign against the planned construction of the wall and continuous building of the illegal Israeli ultra-orthodox settlement of Bitar Illit. They are saving their shared valley together. They are doing this with the help of Friends of the Earth Middle East, an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian environmental non-governmental organization. This unique friendship gives hope for peace in times of despair.
The film follows the struggle and success of the peoples of Wadi Fuqeen and Tsur Hadassah.
It is hoped that the film will make people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict aware of the damage to the environment done by the Israeli occupation. It stresses the importance of ecological peace between Israel and Palestine. The environment knows no borders and if there is no awareness of the severe damage to the environment done by the Israeli occupation, the consequences might lead to an ultimate lose-lose situation for both sides and both peoples.
Also see:
Joshka Wessels's film, Valley of Hope and Despair, broadcast by Al-Jazeera English TV channel in November 2010 – click here to view. Director's cuts of the film available here.
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