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Walaja’s never-ending Nakba
As the November sunset settles in, Hisham and his nephew make their way back to the village on a donkey and mule, carrying the day's harvest. The beauty of the moment is marred by the presence of the winding separation wall that encircles the area of Walaja, dividing the rural community from their agricultural lands. Previously, Hisham could reach the olive grove in just ten minutes, but now the journey, which detours around the fence, takes him an hour.
As the last light of the day fades, the two cross the fence which ends abruptly on the west and reaches home. Despite the long and winding route, they are still able to make it back to the village. However, a proposed plan for a new Jewish settlement threatens to permanently confiscate the remaining agricultural land of the village and completely enclose the community behind walls.
According to the British Survey of Palestine, in 1945, Walaja was spread across a vast 17,000 dunam area and had a population of 1650 residents. An aerial photograph from the same year shows the old Walaja and its surroundings. Until 1948, old Walaja was located across the Rephaim valley, below today’s Aminadav in the Jerusalem mountains.
The residents of old Walaja were displaced in 1948, and most of their agricultural land, about 12,000 dunams, remained in Israeli territory, beyond the green line stretched in Rephaim valley.
In 48, in the midst of falling shells near their homes, Hisham's family joined the convoy of refugees who fled from the village. They took almost nothing from the house except important documents - identity cards and a deed to the land. First, they went to al-'Arrub, on the Hebron road, where they spent a few days in what became a refugee camp. “They didn’t do well there, conditions were tough, so they went back towards the house. It was spring, so they slept under the trees near Beit Jala and waited for the war to end."
At the end of the fighting, the armistice line left only about a third of the village's land on the Jordanian side of the border, on which the new Walaja would be established by those who became refugees on their land. Most of the Abu Ali family moved to Jordan in 48. Most of their land was on the western side of Walaja which was annexed to Israel, beyond Rephaim valley. Today, the descendants of the family living in Jordan number about 1,000 people, while in Walaja and its environs, there are only 150 Abu Ali family members.
Hisham's grandfather had a plot of agricultural land on the eastern side of Old Walaja and Rephaim valley. Since these lands were very far from the village center, prior to the 48 war small seasonal structures were established on them. The stone structures were used to store agricultural equipment and products, and provided shelter for farmers for two or three weeks during olive harvesting. For the refugees who returned to their land, these old storage structures were like a palace. Families who did not own such buildings moved to natural caves in their own land until they built a basic stone structure to live in after the Naqba.
Hisham was born in a stone and mud house with a wooden roof covered in hay. We walked into the building and he led me to the house. The door, which had been changed from wood to iron, was opened by Hisham with a smile. The room was small, approximately four by four meters. It was a tight fit for his family of 16, but they were happy. "Today, everyone needs their 150 square meters," Hisham reflects. The house had an alcove in the stone wall where an oil lamp once sat.
I asked Hisham, "How many brothers do you have?" He replied, "Nine brothers. and five sisters." There were two other stone structures nearby that housed his uncles. Hisham recounted out a story from the night he was born: "It was raining heavily and the ceiling in my uncle's house collapsed. One of the beams fell next to my cousin who was sleeping, but didn't hurt her. My mother was giving birth to me -
and they all took shelter from the rain in the small room. Sometimes when the weather was bad and a sheep was about to give birth, we would bring the sheep into the room with us. It was a part of our childhood."
Hisham now uses the building to store his plowing equipment. Next to the old structures is a well that is still in use and nearly full in December. Stone drainage channels carry water from the mountain into the well. It belonged to Hisham's grandfather and was used by his family for generations. Hisham explained, "You should understand, at that time, having a well near your house meant you lived like royalty. Other families had to collect water from Ein Haniya, which was quite a journey. If another family was in need, we would offer them water, but each family generally took care of themselves."
"My father used to take me to the Old Walaja lands," says Abo-Daoud, Hisham’s cousin. "I was only 12 years old and in the sixth grade. I remember the first time I went with him, we walked three hours west, and he rode a donkey while I walked alongside him. Throughout the journey, he explained who owned each piece of land, what was grown there and everything about it. From which trees to what stone the plot stretched, and which family was responsible for it. On our way back, he would test me, asking “Whose land is this?” When I couldn't remember, he hitted me with a stick, telling me, 'Son, what I'm teaching you here, I need you to remember.' We did this 30-40 times until I was 18 and knew the Old Village land parcellation by heart. I still remember it today. I know exactly where my grandfather’s house was located, right beside Ein al-Balad in the northeast corner of the destroyed school."
In the 1950s, the building blocks of the abandoned Palestinian villages were destroyed in a joint operation by the IDF and the Israel Antiquities Authority, to prevent their Palestinian owners from returning. Ein al-Balad was the heart of the village, where daily life thrived. Today, the spring is called Ein Itamar and serves as a Mikveh and a getaway for Israelis in the Jerusalem mountains. The surviving arches and terraces of the demolished houses are silent reminders of the prosperous village.
In 1967, half of the new Walaja village was annexed by Israel. This annexation included Hisham's family home, one of the 22 houses that existed in the territory of Jerusalem’s Walaja. Today, these buildings are considered the most significant evidence in the struggle to have the northern part of the village, which was annexed to the Jerusalem municipality, recognized.
Until the early 90s, not much had changed in the area after the annexation. It seems like Israel didn’t notice the Palestinian village within Jerusalem. The residents of Jerusalem’s Walaja lived in Israel without any population census or formal status. Hisham explains that in those years he continued to graze the flock in the Old Walaja ground and pick Almonds, Olives, and Sabers in the destroyed village. “Sometimes inspectors would come and cause problems, but we would just leave and come back another day.”
However, when Jerusalem expanded south and the Biblical Zoo moved to its present location in Rephain valley, Israel became aware of the presence of the Palestinian village within the city’s municipal boundaries. In 1993, the first demolition orders were filed in the village and marked the arrival of the Israeli bureaucracy. The residents, who had built their homes on their agricultural lands, had to search for documents confirming their ownership of the land to regulate their status as residents of the city.
The Ministry of Interior required proof of connection to the area and proof of continuous residence since 1967, but many residents struggled to provide sufficient evidence. There was also confusion over which residents were being referred to - those of Jerusalem's Walaja, or those in Area C? And where exactly did the annexation line pass? Electricity and water were only brought to the village in 89 by the Palestinian Authority, which made it difficult for many to provide sufficient evidence to the Israeli Ministry of Interior. Many applications for Israeli citizenship were rejected, and only 12 households were granted temporary residency status after proving continuous habitat and land ownership. The rest of the residents of Jerusalem's Walaja, who own the land, are now considered illegal residents.
“The annexation line was drawn in the middle of the village, a very extreme example of the arbitrariness of the Israeli annexation that did not correspond to any of the realities on the ground, and actually imposed on the Walaja community a kind of administrative division; One village, one community, the same families, half find themselves under the Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Interior, an Israeli law and a half under the army, other laws, other restrictions. " explains Aviv Tatarsky from "Ir Amim" NGO ("City of Nations").
The annexation line crosses Hisham's current home. While the house itself is on the Palestinian side, most of the courtyard is on the Jerusalem side. And this is not a single case. Wandering between village houses along the annexation line raises an anomaly that has become a common reality – while the part of the house on the Palestinian side stands intact, the part on the Jerusalem side is destroyed. This is because, although the State of Israel annexed the northern part of the village to Jerusalem, it never approved a master plan for it – making any new construction illegal and intended for demolition.
Ibrahim, Hisham's cousin, a lawyer by profession, is one of the leaders of Walaja's residents' struggle to regulate the construction in the village. His home is one of the 38 houses that the Israeli High Court of Justice had extended the freeze of their demolition orders in March 2022. In 96, an initiative to create a master plan for the village was initiated by the residents themselves. The architect Claude Resenkovich submitted it to the local committee on behalf of the residents. It was not until 2009 that the plan was discussed, and rejected.
Between the 1990s and 2017, it was possible to legalize construction retrospectively through the Jerusalem Municipality by paying a fine. However, in 2017, the Kaminitz Law was passed, allowing for administrative enforcement of illegal construction without the need for legal proceedings. This resulted in a significant increase in the number of demolitions; from 1993 to 2017, around 10 homes were demolished in the Jerusalem area of Walaja, but since April 2017, demolition orders have been filed for 55 homes, which represents over a third of all homes in the Jerusalem section of Walaja.
In 2018, the residents of the area petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice, which ruled that if an attempt was made to regulate the land through an outline plan that had not been discussed in the District Court, the demolition orders should be delayed. As a result, the High Court of Justice issued an interim order to freeze the demolition orders for 38 homes. However, since then, over 15 additional homes have been built that are not protected by the interim order, many of which have already been demolished, and others are still awaiting demolition. The legal process and efforts to obtain approval for a master plan are ongoing.
The construction of the separation wall around Walaja began around 2011. The northern olive grove, located outside the barrier, is one of Hisham's favorite places. The grove is made up of trees over 40 years old that were planted by Hisham's family. As the late olive harvest season approaches, the branches of the Nabal olive trees are filled with purple fruit. Hisham harvests the olives with bare hands, without tools, to preserve the young branches. He uses his fingers to comb through every branch. The sound of the olives dropping onto the sheets below the tree can be heard. There is also a ladder repositioned on the terrace wall, next to a plant that produces small orange fruits. Hisham identifies the plant as a Crataegus and says that they make a jam called "the Fellahs honey" from the fruit.
The grove is the surviving part of a larger orchard, which had a significant portion of it confiscated, along with the uprooting of around 40 olive trees, during the construction of a security road along the separation wall. In 2013, Hisham's goat pen, a stone structure at the end of the plantation, was dismantled by the authorities claiming it was interfering with the checkpoint and the security road. However, the security road became unnecessary after the fence route was changed by the Israeli HCJ order in 2015.
"I had to sell my sheep when they built the wall," Hisham said. "I used to have 20-25 sheep and I'd take them out to pasture. There was no longer a place to let them graze, and keeping them at home was too expensive. I had to find other work. I started working in agriculture and construction, initially in renovations in Jerusalem, but I faced problems with working permits."
“Do you want to photograph the rabbits?” Hisham asks as we sit in a smoky room that serves as a kind of Liwan, a family guestroom, on a cold December evening. "Sure, I like rabbits," the token doesn't fall yet. He opens the garage door and turns on the lights in a room with huge New Zealand rabbits in cages. He explains that after they sold the sheep in the absence of grazing grounds, the family began to grow rabbits as a substitute for meat.
During the construction of the separation wall, in 2013 a masterplan for the Valley of Rephain National Park was approved. About 1,200 dunams of the National Park area were Walaja's agricultural lands that were detached from the village by the barrier. According to the masterplan - “the essence of the plan is the preservation of the landscape and the traditional agricultural heritage” and one of its goals is “maintaining the natural landscape and cultural and heritage landscapes of traditional agriculture. Encouraging traditional agriculture in the areas of the program and protecting the agricultural terraces.”
As part of the preservation efforts, Ein Haniya spring, which was used by Walaja residents for watering their flocks and for entertainment, was fenced and renovated. It was later reopened as a national park and historic site in 2018, with paid admission. However, despite the plan’s statement that a change in land use designation to a national park will not constitute expropriation or change of land ownership or land use - since Walajes inhabitants' residential status is not regulated, so does the status of their land ownership beyond the wall.
It’s a Kafkaesque reality - in practice, the plan expropriated the village lands, while it argues to encourage the preservation of the terraces and traditional agriculture by the locals, in the lands taken away from them by the plan itself.
"Almost everyone in Walaja is still farming," says Hisham. "Almost every household. It's a village of fellahin. A lot of people have land outside the wall. Not everyone gets to them, at some point they stop. We all have the same problem. I'm coming to the grove outside the barrier twice a year - to plough and to harvest. Sometimes I come to visit," he smiles restrainedly. "Before the barrier construction, it took ten minutes to get here, now it takes an hour with the donkey through the mountains. Every time I used to have free time I would come here to sit down. Now I think twice."
"The excuse of the national park is the preservation of terraces," explains Tatarsky. “The Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature describes the area as the last remaining example of a living agricultural landscape, as it was in biblical times. The Nature and Parks Authority, responsible for national parks, states that preserving such an area of 1200 dunams of terraces requires the involvement of farmers. there is no way they can treat and preserve it by themself.
However, despite the plans and investments made in the park, the problems caused by the fence and the role of Walaja's farmers in preserving the terraces and ancient agricultural knowledge are not being addressed. This tradition, this legacy, is their life, I mean, it's not just a profession. That's how their parents and grandparents lived. The state and the Nature and Parks Authority are talking about preserving tradition and heritage, which is like some kind of nature without people.” Explains Tatarsky.
The construction of the separation wall around Walaje was never fully completed, while its southern part toward Batir remained open. This is the only part of the barrier that was not built around Jerusalem and is considered to be due to a mix of reasons, such as the need to keep the agricultural lands of Walaje accessible by foot, geological rock stability issues in the southern section, and the declaration of the village of Batir as a UNESCO World Heritage Site that prohibits any damage to its surroundings. However, the residents claim that the main reason is political, as Israel does not want to create a clear border between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem.
The expected approval of the new Jewish settlement Har Gilo West is predicted to be one of the harshest blows the village of Walaje has faced since 1948. The expansion plan for Har Gilo is presented as such, but in reality, Har Gilo West will be a new outpost with 560 housing units located south of Walaje and completely cut off from the existing Har Gilo settlement. The establishment of this neighborhood will be accompanied by the construction of a 7-11 meter high concrete wall, which will finally enclose Walaje as an isolated enclave, completely separated from its agricultural land.
The majority of the land in the proposed Har Gilo West plan is classified as state land by Israel due to its rocky terrain, which is unsuitable for agriculture. While environmental concerns have been one of Israel’s main objections to the approval of the master plan for Walaja, they do not apply to the approval of the master plan for the new Jewish settlement. In September, the project’s objections submission was completed.
Three objections were submitted, including one on behalf of the residents of Walaja, the NGOs "Ir Amim" and "Bimkon". This objection focuses on the damaging impact of the plan on the residents of Walaja, the expropriation of private lands, and the severe harm to the village caused by the completion of the separation wall. It argues that "It is especially concerning that in the same area, Israel is restricting the development of a protected local population, while at the same time investing vast resources in developing new settlements for individuals who do not live in the area as proposed by the plans."
The second objection, filed by EcoPEACE and residents of Batir, focuses on the plan being located in a buffer zone for a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "The damage that will be caused to the site from the realization of the Har Gilo West neighborhood plan is enormous and probably even fatal, either because of the direct damage it will cause or because of the indirect damage caused by the domino effect, the ability of the community to sustain the unique agricultural culture that gave the site its exceptional value. EcoPeace estimates that the damage from implementing the neighbourhood's plan will put the World Heritage Site in existential danger and could lead to its downfall."
The third objection was submitted by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and residents of existing Har Gilo. They argue that the new settlement plan, touted as an "expansion," does not meet planning and environmental standards and is not connected to the existing settlement. The plan for Har Gilo West was created without a comprehensive plan and disregards the area's hydrogeological aspects, including springs. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and residents of Har Gilo view the approval of the plan without proper environmental scrutiny as "a planning scandal that should not exist in modern times."
The Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank is set to review the objections, but given the current political climate, with a new commander and members of the Jerusalem City Council openly advocating for a "Nakba now," it is uncertain if the plan will be scrapped. According to Ibrahim, "It’s a political issue, that’s what we think. As if they have some kind of plan, maybe they will connect this area with Kfar Etzion, so they don’t want Arab people over here. They need empty land here.”
Falah refuses to abandon his ancestral land, but what will happen when it is taken away? The blooming almonds beyond the wadi, where generations have picked fruits, stand as a reminder of the past. The past is frozen in time, visible yet untouchable, impossible to look away from. The ruins of Old Walaja peep through the grass, witnessing the destruction of homes and the construction of a fence that threatens to seal the circle. It seems the Nakba did not end here in 1948, and it has never truly ended. Life continues amidst it.
Hisham, still unmarried, dreams of starting a family someday. In the meantime, he continues to pass down the traditional knowledge of land cultivation from generation to generation to Ryan, his nephew and protégé. Sumud, an integral value in Palestinian culture, symbolizes the unbreakable bond between a person's identity and their land. Every morning, Hisham will continue to tend to his ancestral lands for as long as he can, as the future grows darker.
