Nilin

Hamoudeh Amireh participates in the resistance against Israel’s settlements through his documentation of the grassroots struggle in the occupied West Bank village of Nilin. Jody McIntyre interviews for The Electronic Intifada.

On 12 January 2010 my father Ibrahim was arrested by the Israeli army and sentenced to two years in prison for organizing and participating in nonviolent protests against the Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank. The wall cuts us off from our land and our olive groves, robbing our family of its livelihood. Saeed Amireh writes from Nilin, occupied West Bank.

Situated just west of Ramallah, the Palestinian village of Nilin has lost huge swathes of land to Israel’s settlements and its wall in the occupied West Bank. In a year and a half of resisting construction of the wall, five villagers have been murdered by the Israeli military while demonstrating. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre interviewed Hassan Mousa, a coordinator of the Nilin Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements and the uncle of Ahmed Mousa, an 11-year-old boy who was the first villager from Nilin to be killed by the Israeli army.

Thousands of hectares of land have been confiscated, hundreds of olive trees were uprooted and tens of thousands of trees were burned at the hands of Israeli occupying forces. In Palestinian villages, where social and economic development is sustained from the land, the villagers are left asking: What’s left for next generations?! Abdallah Mesleh reflects on the significance of the harvest to his besieged village of Nilin.