Palestinians are installing security cameras in the village of Kisan, east of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, to catch nearby extremist Israeli settlers who regularly attack the village.
Faraj said Kisan and surrounding villages have seen more than 450 incidents involving settlers, including attacks on people and damage to Palestinian homes.
Kasan, a village cut off from other neighbouring Palestinian villages, is inhabited by 800 people and is surrounded by the two illegal Israeli settlements of Maale Amos and Avi Menahem.
Its area is about 133,278 dunams (133 square kilometres). Israeli settlers expropriated 2,201 dunams (2.2 square kilometres).
According to Reuters, one of the project’s founders, Ali Faraj, said: “The goal is to limit settler attacks on our villages, our children, our little ones, that live close to settlements.”
READ: Could this religious extremist be Israel’s future prime minister?
The cameras installed in ten locations around the village will warn residents of a breach and record alleged incidents that often go undocumented through a mobile application, explained Ahmed Essa, another of the project’s founders.
Like hundreds of other Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, Kisan is located in ‘Area C’ under the Oslo Accords, putting it under full Israeli military and administrative control.
“The [PA] cannot enter here, it is the duty of local residents to fill the gap,” Faraj said.
The surveillance system is being funded through an initiative called On The Ground, founded by Bashar Masri, a Palestinian-American who runs two of the Palestinians’ largest holding companies.
Masri, chairman of Massar International, told Reuters: “The projects are to encourage people to take matters into their own hands vis-a-vis stopping the mad expansion of the settlements.”
READ: Netanyahu orders construction of 5,000 new settlement units in West Bank