Memorandum submitted by the Camden Abu
Dis Friendship Association (CADFA)
DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
AND THE
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN
TERRITORIES
1. Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association
would like to submit evidence for the current inquiry about development
assistance and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This submission
answers questions 1, 5, 6 and 7 asked by the committee.
2. CADFA is a small charitable body based
in Camden, London, with strong links to Abu Dis, East Jerusalem,
Palestine. Our objects are written out in full on our website
www.camdenabudis.org. This letter has been prepared with the assistance
of our co-ordinator in Abu Dis, Palestine.
3. Abu Dis is a small town in the East Jerusalem
suburb which is strongly affected by the impact of the Separation
Wall (separation barrier). The main part of this submission will
address this issue, demonstrating the effects of the Wall and
the local settlement.
4. The suspension of aid to the Palestinian
Authority has also had a strong impact on the people of Abu Dis,
aggravating the economic problems caused by the Wall. The first
part of the submission will address this issue and that of the
Israeli withholding of tax to the Palestinian Authority.
5. Included with this submission are the
following reports sent from Abu Dis and currently also on our
website:[96]
— Reports of the death of Shehadeh
Mohsen and about the difficult situation of other patients from
Abu Dis.
— Letter about the situation of Abdul
Wahab Sabbah from Abu Dis.
— Excerpts from reports sent from Abu
Dis for July, August and September 2006.
6. The suspension of aid to the Palestinian
Authority has had a severe effect on the area of Abu Dis as on
the rest of Palestine. People in Abu Dis draw our attention to
both economic and social effects.
7. People working for the PA have not been
paid for the past seven months, and this has caused great problems
for themselves and their families, and also for the economy of
Abu Dis, where shops and businesses have suffered a dramatic drop
in income.
8. Trades unions in the area had estimated
that unemployment following the Wall had gone up to 65% by 2004,
but there are many examples of businesses closing in the past
few months, so this must now be an underestimate.
9. The Palestinian health insurance is important
not only to PA employees but also to the unemployed, families
of prisoners and others. Thus the suspension of aid has had the
effect of stopping this medical help to these groups of people
as the insurance has not had the money to pay out since the aid
was suspended.
10. After six months without pay, the PA
employees began a strike on 1 September. This has created a complete
freeze on the official life in Palestine.
11. The children in the government schools
are missing weeks of education. Already the local universities
are worried about a decreasing standard of applicants as children
have lost schooling through closures during the intifadas. Now
parents of children in government schools are very worried about
the fact that their children have had no schooling since the beginning
of September, missing so far a whole month with no indication
of a solution to the crisis.
12. Poor people in the East Jerusalem used
to get some support from the Ministry of Social Affairs. This
has completely stopped its projects.
13. A number of NGOs working in the area
were supported by the EU, and they have stopped their work as
the funding has stopped. The Social Work Society which works for
the rehabilitation of drug users is now closing. The Takaful Society
has stopped its work and is considering closing completely.
14. The Al-Quds University had an agreement
with the EU to build and establish a theatre. This project has
been stopped mid-way. The Medical School at the Al-Quds University
was similarly due to expand but this has also been stopped.
15. The Israeli withholding of taxes from
the Palestinian Authority. People in Abu Dis pointed out that
this withholding of taxes exacerbates the economic and social
problems caused by the withholding of aid by the West, and also
that there had been a pattern of Israel withholding taxes for
the previous four years. For example, water bills, electricity
bills and damages of various sorts that Israeli companies and
individuals claimed were taken from the money paid to the Palestinian
Authority. Some of these are disputed. In Abu Dis, the PA has
tried to recover the money debts for water from Abu Dis—going
back several years—by recently sending a bill to the Water
Society in Abu Dis for more than 8,000,000 shekels (about a million
pounds), although there is little chance of this being paid in
the present economic climate.
16. The effects of the Separation Wall have
been very severe in Abu Dis. This Wall runs through Abu Dis on
the west and work is beginning on a branch of the Wall which will
come round the east of Abu Dis. On the east, the Wall cuts Abu
Dis away from East Jerusalem.
17. East Jerusalem used to be the main place
of employment for the suburban towns of East Jerusalem including
Abu Dis. Abu Dis workers worked in construction, in schools, hospitals,
hotels, the holy places and in the markets. East Jerusalem was
also the main market for agricultural produce. As a result of
the Wall, unemployment rose in Abu Dis to about 65%, farmers lost
their market and many commercial institutions shut, for example
an important transportation firm.
18. The price of buildings and land in Abu
Dis went down as this is no longer part of Abu Dis and there is
no demand for building. People with Jerusalem identity cards have
moved to Jerusalem, away from Abu Dis.
19. The health situation for Abu Dis is
very serious. People cannot get to their three main hospitals,
Al Muqassed, Augusta Victoria and Al Hilal, all of which are on
the west of the Wall. Before the Wall, about a hundred people
from Abu Dis went to these hospitals every day and this included
one to three deliveries of new babies. In Abu Dis, people rely
on three small health clinics, two of them private, which have
basic equipment and cannot offer emergency or out-of-hours services.
20. Many patients have been prevented from
getting through checkpoints on the Wall to go to hospital even
if their situation is very serious. We are attaching the story
of the death of Shehadeh Mohsen, a patient from Abu Dis trying
to reach the Al-Muqassed hospital, who was prevented at the checkpoint
from going to hospital. We are also attaching stories sent by
a doctor in Abu Dis about other patients who were not allowed
to go to hospital.
21. Before the Wall, nearly 2,000 students
from the area of Abu Dis and around used to go to Jerusalem schools
and about 1,030 teachers used to work in schools in Jerusalem.
These children's education and the teachers' employment has been
disrupted by the Wall, and some schools in Jerusalem have been
forced to close as a result.
22. Jerusalem is an important religious
place for people in Abu Dis, and both Christians (a minority in
adjacent Bethany) and Muslims want very much to be able to worship
in the holy places in Jerusalem. With the Wall, people have lost
their opportunity to do this.
23. There are about 800 families in the
area where husband and wife are separated by the pass system that
Israel has imposed. More detail on one of these cases is given
in the attached story of Abdul Wahab Sabbah.
24. Abu Dis has lost its main leisure places
with the loss of access to the city centre. The main theatre,
three cinemas, arts and music centres are all cut away from Abu
Dis and people cannot get to them.
25. The biggest settlement in the West Bank,
Maale Adumim, has been built on land belonging to Abu Dis and
adjacent Bethany. The Israeli E1 project is to connect Jerusalem
and the settlements of Maale Adumim, without considering the needs
of the people who live in between.
26. This settlement is expanding. Israel
plans to build 690 new units. Of the 480,000 settlers in the West
Bank, 50% now live in and around Jerusalem.
27. In order to cut this from the Palestinian
areas and link it to Jerusalem, the eastern side of the Wall is
now being marked out, and 4,600 donums of land belonging to East
Jerusalem (to the adjacent townships of Bethany, Abu Dis, Sawahreh,
Sheikh Sa'ad) have been taken by Israel to build this extension
to the Wall.
28. A waste site for Jerusalem municipality
has been built on Abu Dis land, between Maale Adumim and Beitar.
29. Israel has brought Bedouins from the
east side of the West Bank and put them on to Abu Dis land, thus
increasing the population while taking away a large amount of
land.
30. The settlement has exacerbated the problem
with water in the area. Maale Adumim has been built lower than
Abu Dis and has taken most of the local water. This has left Abu
Dis and Bethany with a small well without sufficient pressure
to give to the residents in the area, and a temporary solution
as the water in this well is not renewed.
31. Abu Dis people now feel imprisoned by
the Wall that is built in the west. They cannot move west to East
Jerusalem. The road south to Bethlehem is blocked by the Container
checkpoint where people are made to switch cars, and it is not
possible to bring commercial things through without a permit.
The road to the east is now the only way to get north too. This
will be cut off and probably replaced by a tunnel, as the Wall
is built to encircle them on the north and the east as well.
32. The human rights issues related to the
Occupation continue, and there are examples of the problems experiences
by Abu Dis residents in the July, August and September reports
attached (Copies placed in Library).
October 2006
96 Not printed. Copies placed in Library. Back
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