Qalqilia / PNN - The Israeli military is in the process of cutting down 200 olive trees Monday that will next be uprooted in southern Jayyous. This is the first time that an Israeli Supreme Court decision to re-route the Wall is being implemented.

According to the West Bank’s Stop the Wall Campaign, “These re-routing decisions began in 2004 as a means to undermine the International Court of Justice ruling to tear it down.”

The new route in Jayyous will be two kilometers closer to the Green Line, but still four kilometers inside the West Bank. It will also be twice as long in the village and this new path does not allow for access gates. “Farmers will be completely cut off from their lands,” reports the campaign. As a result of the major confiscation of lands Jayyous farmers are largely unemployed.

The West Bank village is small with an average of 4,300 residents in the northern Qalqilia Governorate. Eighty-five percent of those people are farmers who can no longer work.
 
The new path for the Wall is being built on 277 dunams of agricultural land belonging to the village. When completed, another 5,585 dunums of land will be confiscated. Israeli forces have already uprooted 6,000 trees with hundreds others slated for destruction.

As is the case in much of the West Bank enduring similar destruction, the lands will be taken by a settlement, in this case that of Zufim. Israeli forces have begun construction on what is being called North Zufim with the electricity network being installed.