As we picked our way through the rubble that remained of the house, its owner, 58-year-old Rezeq Abu Nasser, ran through memories of the lush valley where it once stood. This land in Wadi Qana, in the West Bank, had been in his family for generations. It was where he first learned to swim – in that stream over there. As a child he was nearly struck by lightning here in a freak storm during the olive harvest and the wadi (Arabic for ‘valley’) kept him safe for two years as he hid from Israeli authorities in the late 1980s. He pointed to a tree he once climbed to narrowly avoid arrest.
Residents of the nearby village of Deir Istiya, like Abu Nasser’s family, use this part of Wadi Qana for small-scale farming. It’s also in Area C of the West Bank, where Israel retains control of the land and it’s almost impossible for Palestinians to get permits to do any type of building work. Abu Nasser explained that here in the wadi, Palestinians cannot even plant trees.
On 12 February 2018, Israeli soldiers arrived at 7.00am to demolish his house. Their justification? The family had put a tarpaulin on the roof, plugged some gaps in the wall with stones and laid some cement to try and level out the floor. Abu Nasser said he was given five minutes to collect whatever belongings he could carry – cigarettes, some flashlights, chargers, batteries, a few dishes.
On the day of my visit, a few months later, all is calm. Palestinian families and groups of tourists enjoy picnics, or relax on the banks of the stream. But looking up you could see the Israeli settlements, and unauthorized settler outposts, that overshadow the wadi – from which waste water pollutes the water supply, despite the area being declared a nature reserve by the Nature Reserves and National Parks Unit of the Israeli Civil Administration in 1983.
Claiming and maintaining power over land has been an important factor in oppression throughout history, and remains so. To control the land is to have control over the freedom and the life that depends on it. For Abu Nasser, Wadi Qana was a place to farm and enjoy nature – it was his land, and that of
