Separation Wall divides Palestinian families

The six children of Ahmad and Roqaya Al-Khateeb move between their parents houses throughout the week, spending some of their time with their mother in Jerusalem and the remainder with their father in the West Bank. However, their story is unlike that of other families torn apart by divorce.

The Israeli restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem include the Separation Wall, made of cement and towering high. It separates between families and between the Palestinian people; including the Al-Khateeb family.

The houses of the Palestinian parents, built by their ancestors, are separated by less than two kilometres, yet each one of them lies on one side of the Separation Wall. Roqaya and her children hold permits from the Israeli occupation, allowing them entry to their house in Jerusalem through one of the security checkpoints at the wall, but Israel forbids her husband from entering for security reasons.

Ahmad Al-Khateeb, 45, points out: “We cannot live the life we wish to live as a family; it’s not a normal life.”

Jerusalem represents the heart of the conflict between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinians who seek to reclaim it and establish a state with East Jerusalem as its capital. The city has been occupied by Israel since 1967, and it now claims the whole city as its capital.

There are warnings that the situation in Jerusalem is unsustainable, not least because tens of thousands of Palestinians have had their lives ruined by the wall and the Israeli regime. With many Palestinians viewing East Jerusalem as their spiritual capital, they also depend on the city to secure jobs, health care and other services.

The story of Al-Khateeb family begins in the village of Hazma in the West Bank, near Jerusalem. After the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel proceeded to expand the borders of the city into the West Bank, seizing land from over 12 villages, including that of Hazma. The Israeli occupation then proceeded to annex the expanded Jerusalem as its capital, a move that is not recognised by most of the countries in the world.

As a result, a quarter of Hazma’s land, an area exceeding 45,000 acres, was not included in this “new” Jerusalem, according to village officials. The land includes 12 acres owned by Ahmad and Roqaya Al-Khateeb’s family, who belong to the same tribe. The family members were able to move freely between their lands as the new boundaries were merely a line on the map.

Ahmad grew up in Hazma, whilst Roqaya spent her childhood in a house built by her family in Jerusalem after 1967. Describing the vicinity surrounding her house, Roqaya’s mother, Kefaya, 78, says, “It was a deserted area”.

That however all changed in the 1980s when Israel began building large settlements for the Jewish population on occupied territories to increase its hold on East Jerusalem. Pisgat Ze’ev, a settlement with 50,000 people, extends near Al- Khateeb’s family home.

During this period, the population in Jerusalem, including that of the settlers and the original inhabitants, was 800,000. In 1986, at the age of 17, Ahmad was imprisoned for injuring two Israeli soldiers in an attack by Fatah, a party which only years later led Palestinians into peace talks with Israel.

Ahmad says he was released in 1998, after his sentence was reduced for good behaviour. He then married Roqaya and had six children, aged between two and 15 years old. The family lived in Hamza however Roqaya was forced to move to her family’s home in Jerusalem to care for her two disabled siblings.

Travelling to Jerusalem became problematic after Israel began building the Separation Wall in the West Bank in 2002, in retaliation for the operations committed by the Islamic Palestinian opposition.

In Jerusalem, the wall mostly follows the municipal boundaries set post-1967, but at times dips into the West Bank to include open spaces, leaving 60,000 Palestinian residents of the city on the side of the West Bank.

Palestinians say that the wall is no different to theft of land and that the Israeli authorities admit that security was not the only requirement when drawing up the path of the wall.

Al-Khateeb family all hold West Bank identification which needs to be presented to the Israeli authorities in order to get a permit to enter Jerusalem. Ahmad says that until the end of 2008, he and his family were able to pass the checkpoint in Hazma with an unofficial agreement with the soldiers at the checkpoint. However, since then, security procedures have been tightened and individuals are required to present a permit.

Whilst the occupation authorities agreed to give such permits to the children, Ahmad was refused and is now a civil servant to the Palestinian government for security reasons which appear to relate to his term in prison.

Despite these difficulties, Ahmad wants his wife and children to maintain their life in Jerusalem, fearing that their long absence may result in their property being confiscated by the occupation forces. For that reason, the family spends most of its time split between the house in Jerusalem and the one in West Bank.

According to the United Nations statements, around 500 Palestinians who hold West Bank identification documents are living divided, in stories similar to that of the Al-Khateeb family.

Associated Press, April 29, 2014