Women in Black Uk

The International Women's Peace Service (IWPS), based in the Salfit governorate of the West Bank, warns the international community of possible ethnic cleansing in the Salfit and Qalqilya area during the forthcoming war against Iraq.

War is coming, and the fear of ethnic cleansing is growing in the Salfit and Qalqilya governorates of the West Bank.

The Salfit and Qalqilya governorates are two areas of the West Bank close to the Green Line, the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank. The region is fertile and rich in water, and Israel has long been interested in appropriating it. Since the late 1970s a policy of land confiscation and settlement building has been adopted, leaving Palestinian communities isolated. Every village is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements, and 40% of the population here is made up of settlers. Since the Al Aqsa Intifada began, the isolation of the villages has worsened due to the introduction of numerous roadblocks and checkpoints by the Israeli military.

Possession of this area is strategically important for Israel; by emptying the area of its Palestinian population Israel would be able to annex it. (See attached map by B'Tselem, downloaded from http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/index.asp; the area in question is marked in red.) For all of these reasons, the local population and Israeli peace organizations fear that while international attention is diverted by the war against Iraq, the region could become the target of Israeli violence aimed at expelling the local population from their land.

It is feared that the Israeli government and the army will give settlers the freedom to terrify the local population and carry out ethnic cleansing in the Salfit and Qalqilya areas. The use of settlers in this way would allow the Israeli government to deny responsibility. Israel has used this tactic in the past. The massacres conducted by paramilitary groups like the Stern Gang and the Irgun helped to drive out Palestinians from historic Palestine in 1948 and Lebanese Phalangists were used to massacre Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila in Beirut in 1982.

We call upon the international community and all people of conscience to pay attention to what is going on here. We call for international observers and human rights organizations to be present in this area. Urgent action is required in order to prevent these crimes from taking place.

16 March 2003

The International Women's Peace Service, Salfit governorate, Palestine.
Email:- iwps@palnet.com Website:- www.womenspeacepalestine.org
Operating in the Salfit governorate, the International Women's Peace Service
monitors and responds to human rights abuses in the area.