‘Every time we get a call about a demolition, it’s Twayyel, Twayyel, Twayyel’.

A member of the Palestinian National TV team based in Nablus said this to me as we stood next to a recently demolished house in Twayyel.

The small village of Twayyel (known officially as Tell Al Khashaba), is located in Area C of the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territory.

It lies in a valley just a few kilometres south of Yanoun, on the edge of the Jordan valley.

This shepherding community is dependent on the sheep they raise, and on their connections in the town of Aqraba which sits just up the hill.

Over the last four years Twayyel has been subject to repeated demolitions by the Israeli military, including of electrical wires, water pipes, animal shelters and homes.

At 7.20am on the 2nd of November, we received a call from our driver and interpreter Ghassan telling us that the Israeli military had demolished some houses in Twayyel, and were in the process of damaging unpaved roads and water pipes.

As we drove down into the valley, we could see that the Israeli authorities had created earth mounds on the road to prevent access to some of the demolition sites.

They had also damaged several of the village’s water pipes at the edge of the road.

Nearby, we observed two bulldozers in the process of damaging two of the village’s roads.

There were seven armed trucks which were Israeli border police and Israeli military, and two white vehicles that Ghassan informed us were from the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO).

When we approached, the Israeli personnel got into their vehicles, the bulldozers stopped working on the road and they then left in convoy.

As they drove past us, one of the Israeli policemen covered his face. Later, one of the Twayyel villagers asked me, ‘why would they cover their faces if they knew they were acting legally?’

The demolitions in Twayyel on the 2nd November violate both International and Israeli Law.

International Humanitarian Law applies to the whole of the West Bank, including villages such as Twayyel which are in Area C.

Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states that destruction of personal property belonging to private persons is prohibited unless ‘absolutely necessary by military operations’. 

It is unclear what ‘military operations’ required the destruction of three rooms in two private dwellings.

One of the homes destroyed belonged to a family of eleven, whose youngest child is only 18 months old.

The Israeli Military also destroyed water pipes belonging to the village. One Palestinian in Twayyel remarked, ‘do they [the Israeli Authorities] expect us to make bombs out of water?’

Israeli Law requires that the Israeli Authorities issue demolition orders to a structure in advance. 

According to the villagers, there were no existing stop work or demolition orders regarding the roads or the water infrastructure in Twayyel.

The destruction of water pipes and the demolition of two houses in Twayyel by the Israeli Authorities were illegal.

The swift exit of the Israeli Military, Police and Civil Authority, and their unwillingness to be identified at the scene only underlines the wrongness of their actions.

Rebecca has been sent by Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as a human rights observer serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).

The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the World Council of Churches.