'We are caught between the settlers and the Palestinian fighters'

A Palestinian father will not leave his third house for fear it will be destroyed, like the first two, by Israeli settlers

ATTA JABER’S house is an unprepossessing rectangular box planted just below the summit of a rocky hillside across the valley from the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba. We park at the foot of the hill near a square of cement poured by settlers last week to assert their right to build on Atta’s land.

My guide, Salim Shawamreh, from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, points to the deep footprints hardened into the cement.

“Those are Jeff’s,” he says.

Jeff Halper, the Jewish- American committee’s founder, had gone berserk when settlers tried to make a symbolic housing start on this hillside before Sunday’s expiry of Israel’s partial curb on new West Bank settlement construction.

As we begin the climb up the rough path we pass the ruins of Atta’s first two houses, built without permits because Israel rarely gives permits to Palestinians. The Committee Against House Demolitions, which receives assistance from Trócaire, built a new house for the Jabers after the first, constructed in 1996, was bulldozed in 1998. The second was demolished the same year.

To our left, curious Israeli soldiers monitor our arrival from the roof of the only other Palestinian home on this slope.

“They took over the second storey and roof a couple of weeks ago,” Salim says.

A large Israeli flag flutters in a light breeze that lifts dark webbing which identifies rather than camouflages the soldiers’ position.

The 15-member Palestinian family who live there have been confined to the first floor.

The vegetable garden just below Atta’s current house is churned red earth. Settlers came two weeks ago and stripped away plants on which six people depend for sustenance.

Atta is a rail-thin man with sunken cheeks, greying hair and beard. He is 48 but looks 20 years older. He greets us on the veranda and ushers us proudly into the entrance hall of his personal palace.

He shelled out $20,000 for Israeli permits before beginning construction.

The shell of the house was built by the committee. Atta supplied gleaming marble floors and arched windows opening on to the green valley and the jumble of building in Kiryat Arba.

But Atta’s dream palace is furnished only with plastic chairs, a low table, and beds.

He fell ill and has no money for furniture. He relies on what he can grow on this rugged hillside for a living.

In any case, he is afraid to leave his house in case settlers or soldiers come.

While we sip sweet tea, Atta tells his story in idiomatic English. “On December 8th, 2000, settlers occupied this house for two days. They wanted to make it a synagogue. They say this is Jewish land since the time of Abraham and Palestinians have stolen it,” he says.

“We are caught in between the settlers and the Palestinian [fighters]. We did not take part in any Intifada. We do not use stones or weapons. Nevertheless, we get confiscations, demolitions, seizure of our IDs, and attacks from settlers and the Israeli Defence Forces.

“We are the seventh generation living here on this land. My grandfather had 200 acres. He divided it [among] his children. My father got 50 acres. I got 21. Now I have eight. The Israeli government confiscated the rest for Kiryat Arba. The settlers want to take the rest. I have no place to go. I will stay here with my family.”

Over the past decade Atta has made five official complaints against settlers for causing damage to his home and property. He even submitted photographs of those involved. But no cases have reached the courts.

A donkey grazing on the terrace next to the house brays as an Israeli jeep pulls up. Atta, who once worked in construction and in restaurants in Israel, walks over and speaks in Hebrew to one of the soldiers. He returns and they drive off.

“They’re just checking,” he says. “They say they want to protect me.”

He was arrested and charged with threatening behaviour when the Israelis demolished his first house.

“They said I had a weapon. But I was holding my son who was four months old,” he says.

“I was jailed but the judge threw out the case after he learned my weapon was a baby.”

When I told a friend this story, he quipped: “The demographic time bomb.”