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By a special correspondent The Palestinian village of Bi’ilin may have won a partial victory in its fight against the “apartheid wall” but other West Bank villages struggle on. Wadi Fuqeen faces the “apartheid wall”, demolition orders, sewage outflows and land grabs. Its experiences are utterly typical of so many other villages. Bi’ilin may have won a partial victory in its fight to alter the route of the “apartheid wall” but many other West Bank villages struggle on against suffocating odds. Wadi Fuqeen is one such village. A peaceful village of 1,200 people situated almost directly on the “Green Line” in the occupied West Bank, it faces the “apartheid wall”, demolition orders and land grabs. In addition, sewage overflow from the nearby Israeli settlements has affected agricultural land, causing some villagers to give up farming land their forefathers have worked for centuries. The inhabitants despair at what is happening to them. They go from one crisis to another and fatigue is setting in. The world watches, but things do not get any better for them. The “separation wall” is now mapped to isolate the village from the West Bank, with loss of land, livelihood and basic human rights. Two other nearby villages are in a similar position. The villagers' future security and livelihood is very strongly compromised. They will effectively be imprisoned and Wadi Fuqeen will be isolated from neighbouring villages, Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank, causing severe hardship and deprivation. They have even recently been refused permission to resurface the road into Bethlehem. This situation threatens the village's very existence. They fear what lies ahead. Wadi Fuqeen lies in a rich agricultural valley, but with the Israeli town of Tsoor Haddasa overlooking it on one side and the illegal settlement of Beitar Illit, with a growing population, now exceeding 20,000, fast encroaching from the other. So, what is different about Wadi Fuqeen? The answer is “perhaps nothing”. But that is the point. What is happening to it is echoed across the West Bank. The scale of the problem is overwhelming. Few people view the problem from the perspective of the individuals involved. The details often get lost when one looks at the wider political situation. And yet these are real people, with real families, real homes and very real problems.
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