When grown men cry...

By: Muhammed Daraghmeh

THE OLIVE TREES in the fields of Kifl Hares resemble dead bodies strewn on the ground, after the uprooting of more than 3,500 trees by the Israeli occupation forces over the last few days. Yousef Mustafa Saleh, 73, says as he walks among the uprooted trees, "They killed everything. They destroyed my olives, my life's work, my children's lives, and they turned this green land into ruins".

Haj Yousef is one of those most harmed by this mutilation of the land. He lost more than 2,000 olive trees and saplings, which he has spent his life planting and tending.

Haj Yousef has lived most of his life in a small house on this hillside surrounded by his olive groves. He recalls, "I abandoned' the village 50 years ago and came to this mountain and put up a tent. Then I put up a small house so that I could live on my land, and I transformed it from barren land to green fields. However, they came like locusts and they destroyed everything. They destroyed all the years of my hard work and they destroyed me."

Haj Yousef described his work: "I used to collect rainwater in jugs and bottles and store it until the summer came so that I could water my olive trees. There has not been one day where I have not tended these trees."

Says Haj Yousef's wife, "My husband would wake up with the dawn and, carrying the water, would go around the land. He would not leave one rock in place, in order to plant his olive trees. When our five children grew up, 'Awad, Shaheen, Najib, Iyad, and Ashraf, they followed in their father's footsteps and each one cleared a new piece of the land and planted trees on it."

Haj Yousef continues, "When finally the earth returned food to our mouths, the ravens [the Israelis] came and destroyed everything. The first day, they came in five buses with three army jeeps, and they spread out across the mountain locusts, and they began uprooting all the trees in their path.

"My wife and I ran to them and began screaming, 'What are you doing, you criminals, what are you doing?' And they shoved their guns in our faces. One of their officers approached us and said, 'This is government land and it is you who are intruding on this land.' And I said to them, 'What government and what land? This is my land. I've been here for 50 years, and this land was my father's and his father's before him. You all came from Europe so that you can share in my fruitfulness."

His wife says, "When I saw them uprooting our trees, I started to throw dirt on my face and began screaming: Beware the anger of God. What have we done to you that you uproot our trees?' But they paid no attention to us. They threatened us with guns and with prison if we did not leave them alone."

"The next day, they came in 30 vehicles and they continued with this destruction," Haj Yousef says. "I went to them again and I begged the commander. I said, 'How could you do this? What have these trees done that they should be uprooted like this?' And he answered me by saying: 'You are going to prison because you have trespassed on state land."

"Then I yelled at them: 'Kill me here and now. I want to die without my olive trees. My life is nothing without them - I have spent my whole life planting them. 'But they did not reply; they simply continued to uproot the trees and to spray chemicals on the roots to burn and life in them. That is what they did on the third and fourth days, until they destroyed everything green which was on this mountain."

As for Abu Munjid, 63, the Israeli authorities destroyed 500 young trees in his field on a hill. The trees had all been planted between five and 13 years ago. Abu Munjid says, "They brought foreign workers to uproot the trees." Abu Munjid has cried enough tears to irrigate his olive grove for that 13 years. "My children, my wife and I use to carry the young seedlings on the mule to the village , more than three kilometres away." Abu Munjid wipes away his tears with his kaffiyeh and says, "Believe me, I have never cried in my life, until I saw my trees lying like dead bodies on the land. When my parents died, I did not shed a tear. But now, I can't help but cry."

I asked Haj Yousef, "So what will you do now?" He replied, "My son, I have five children. They have nothing in this world except for this land, and if that is lost, their lives are lost. Because of this, we will not let our land be lost. We will plant as we planted before, and we will tend it as we always have."

The people of Kifl Hares do not know what the Israeli military authorities are planning by carrying out these actions. But one young man, Hussam Abu Ya'coub, who works in a plastics factory in the industrial zone of Barkan settlement, says "I heard the owner of the factory saying that he is going to build a new branch of the factory on this land, this hilltop."

Hussam adds, "I think this is what the authorities are planning, and this is the same procedure that they took when they established the industrial zone and other settlement compounds in the Salfeet area."

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This Story first appeared in the Arabic daily Al-Ayyam on August 19, 1997.

Then in the Palestine Report August 22, 1997.