Will Wadi Fukin Lose Its Water?
Home to around 1,300 Palestinians, the village of Wadi Fukin sits in a fertile valley close to Bethlehem, right along the border with Israel. Driving along the only road that leads into town, I’m taken by the sheer size of the nearby Israeli settlement, Beitar Illit, built just to the East. White stone residential towers housing over 45,000 Israelis rise above on the hills as my car descends into the valley. The buildings slide down towards the village, ending in a towering wall built into the hillside that looms above groves of olive trees.
Residents of this valley grow fruits and vegetables on the fertile land that has supported agriculture here for over 800 years. But in the last few decades Wadi Fukin has become squeezed in on two sides – by Beitar Illit, an adjoining industrial site to the settlement, and Tzur Hadasa, a small Israeli town just over the border with Israel to the north. Making matters worse, the Israeli Civil Administration, a governing body that controls most of the West Bank, recently declared that 370 acres, over one-third of the village, would become state land as part of a seizure that totals close to 1000 acres.
Source: www.azdarya.com