The A1 rail project constitutes yet another step in the implementation of Israel’s policy of forced population transfer (ethnic cleansing), which has displaced and dispossessed Palestinians for more than 60 years.

Israel’s A1 train project is planned to cross the lands of the Palestinian village of Beit Iksa, a community with approximately 2000 inhabitants located in the occupied West Bank, less than 10 km from Jerusalem and right next to the 1949 ceasefire line between Israel and Jordan, which then controlled the West Bank.

Israel’s AI rail project will result in the unlawful expropriation of land and means of subsistence from a Palestinian population who has already been victim to massive dispossession and displacement by Israel in the past:

• 85% of Beit Iksa’s population are Palestinian refugees who found shelter in the village after they had been forced to leave their original  homes and land near the Palestinian towns of Ramle and Lid during Israel’s ethnic cleansing operations of 1948.
• Approximately 1000 dunum of land were cut-off from the village and became part of Israeli state territory by the 1949 cease-fire line. After its 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Israel confiscated 40% of Beit Iksa’s agricultural land for the construction of the Jewish settlement of Ramot. At present, 66% of the remaining land are slated to fall behind Israel’s illegal Wall.
• On November 10 2010, the Israeli authorities handed a “land acquisition order” to the Beit Iksa Village Council, as well as a map of the area showing the plots of land to be confiscated. The order states that 50 dunums will be confiscated: 20 dunums will be confiscated for good, to build an access road to the tunnel. The confiscated land will not be returned back to the farmers.The order does not mention if and how the Palestinian farmers will be compensated. In addition, 30 dunums will be confiscated “temporarily” (according to the land acquisition order) and used as a construction site. The Israeli document states  that this land will be given back to the population but it does not say when. 500 olive trees are at risk of uprooting.

Among the inhabitants of Beit Iksa affected by the A1 rail project are at least 10 Palestinian refugee families who are registered with UNRWA. All of these families are economically vulnerable; they suffer from unemployment and rely on the olive oil they produce on the land for their their personal use. Six of these refugees families will once more have their land confiscated as a result of the A1 rail project. Another family who owns around 50 dunums of land will not see its land confiscated but will not have access to it any longer.

The A1 rail project is unlawful because it involves the illegal expropriation of the resources of the occupied Palestinian population by Israel for the exclusive benefit of its own population  - and because it constitutes yet another step in the implementation of Israel’s policy of forced population transfer (ethnic cleansing), which has displaced and dispossessed Palestinians for more than 60 years. Forced population transfer constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity under international law.

A concerted BDS effort for pressuring foreign corporations and governments to cease all complicity and for Israel to abandon the A1 rail project, respect the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties and provide reparations will help end Israel’s criminal policy of forced population transfer.

(*Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights)

Source: BDS National Committee