Testimony 2 “I am a 57-year-old farmer and a political and social activist in Deir Istiya. I am married with four children: two daughters and two sons. My eldest daughter is at university and my youngest son is in first grade [six years old]. My brothers and I lost 120 dunums of the land that we inherited from our father, in an area called Khirbet Shihadeh, which is part of Deir Istiya. We can no longer go to this land because it’s surrounded by three Israeli colonies: Novim, Yakir, and Ravava. Novim and Yakir blocked one entrance to our land in 1995, and Ravava closed the other entrance in 2001. So, we have no access our own land. We used to be able to get to our land in 50 minutes or an hour walking, but now we need five hours to reach it. Once we left the town at 9 am and came back at 8 pm. It took the whole day to walk over and back. Because of this, now I can’t farm my land. The ownership of the land has not changed in Khirbet Shihadeh. The area there is about 6,300 dunums, which is owned by many Palestinians. I own part of this land. We used to live there, graze sheep and have a life there! This was my first loss of land. There aren’t any colonies built on our land, but there is a sewage pipeline installed on it. The sewage pipeline that services the colonies of Novim and Ravava caused a lot of damage and divided my land into two, and of course, they [Israel] took some of it too, for the second time. They also uprooted olive trees that I planted there in 1986. Even after Israel took some of our land to install this pipeline, sometimes sewage from Ravava still leaks onto the land. My neighbors’ olive trees have dried up because of this. My olive trees haven’t dried, but I am affected by the roads, the bad smell and the health hazards. The colonizers set fires to our land too. They have done this to me before but I also know many other people this has happened to. Once, the land is burned you can’t do anything with it! My third loss of land happened when they installed an electricity network and an electricity generator. My land was dug up to accommodate that generator. Now I am afraid to go to my land. I am afraid to work on my land and pick my olives. My sons are also afraid to come with me. I can’t plant anything there anymore, not even okra or onions! In addition to that, my family can’t accompany me anymore. This loss was really the hardest. My father was able to cover the cost of my education when I was growing up since we raised sheep in Khirbet Shihadeh, where we used to spend the weekends. However, nowadays I am an employee. I still have the land I 60