The agricultural lands of Wadi Fukin, a village in the southern West Bank. Above looms the illegal Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit, which occupies the hilltop directly to the south of the village.

The Palestinian farming village of Wadi Fukin (population 1,200) borders the Green Line 12 km from Bethlehem. The village's inhabitants practice a 2,000-year-old form of agriculture dependent on a system of terraces and wells that feed from rainwater and a unique local aquifer, making extensive irrigation possible. The wadi - a dry riverbed which during times of rain contains water - is lined with fields of vegetables and plots of old olive trees. Eleven large wells lie between the fields they irrigate.

When approaching Wadi Fukin, however, it's not the verdant fields or the olive groves that first catch your eye. It is the illegal settlement of Beitar Illit, which occupies the hilltop directly to the south of the village, its massive apartment blocks jarring the agricultural landscape. Beitar Illit was founded in 1985 and has since mushroomed into a booming city of over 34,000. It continues to expand towards Wadi Fukin farmland, and the sound of construction echoes almost constantly through the valley.

On the other side of the valley, across the Green Line from the village, lies the small Israeli town of Tzur Hadassah. The farmers of Wadi Fukin have lost more than 8,300 of their original 12,000 dunam of land to both Tzur Hadassah and Beitar Illit, and struggle to survive on the remaining strip of arable land in the narrow valley.

Wadi Fukin's current problems, however, relate to activities in the settlement perched ominously above the wadi. According to village representative Qays Manasra, the Beitar Illit sewage system overflows directly onto the village's agricultural land three or four times per month, polluting the crops and ruining the land for future use. In addition, building waste and loose earth is dumped down the hill from Beitar Illit, threatening precious arable land in the wadi.

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Armed settlers regularly prevent farmers from reaching their fields by blocking the roads on Fridays. One Wadi Fukin man was shot in the head and remained in a coma for forty days, ultimately spending two months in the hospital. Manasra also described how settlers had burned and felled his olive trees, which take 150 years to reach full productive maturity. Beitar Illit residents have picnicked in the fields and swum without permission in the irrigation pools, ignoring signs prohibiting such behavior and upsetting the water meters crucial to the effective operation of the irrigation system.

Perhaps the most serious problem threatening the farmers' livelihoods is the disturbances in the water system caused by construction and development in Beitar Illit. Hydrologist Lior Assaf and geomorphologist Itai Haviv (both from Tzur Hadassah) published a report on the impact of regional construction on Wadi Fukin's eleven freshwater springs. They concluded that the springs depend on rainwater collected in an area of six square kilometers. Construction and development prevents rainwater from seeping into the ground and causes the wells to dry up.

Today, springs that held water as recently as one or two years ago are dry, leaving the fields around them barren without irrigation. The planned construction of a Separation Barrier between Wadi Fukin and Tzur Hadassah, and a settler access road directly through the farmland in the wadi would both occupy more land and further interfere with the water paths feeding the springs.

To read the full article please visit The Alternative Information Center (AIC).