Palestinians see Israel's new West Bank security wall cutting off their farmland

0:00Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. On today's State of the World, the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli military is planning a new security barrier, one that Palestinian farmers say will further cut them off from their fields.

0:33You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Wednesday, February 18th. I'm Christine Arismeth. The occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank is already separated from Israel on its west side by a wall that's up to 24 feet high and more than 400 miles long. Now Israel's military says it's going to build a new stretch of border wall on the east side of the territory. NPR's Emily Fang went to see where the new wall will go up and found this story. Palestinian farmer Mohamed Sawafda looks at his wasted fields.

1:20He's pointing to the husks of faded red peppers that he wasn't able to harvest this year, so they rotted on the vine. We're moving fast because we're passing an outpost built by hardline Jewish settlers. They forbidden me to reach the area last June. Most days, the settlers watch him from just a few hundred meters away. They start attacking us, putting their hands on more and more and more area. And they threaten his workers when they try to plant or harvest, making it nearly impossible to come to his own fields. And so an entire year of crops went bad. In about 30 years I am establishing this farm.

2:03I am losing it in one moment, just in one minute. In spite, I have the ownership document of this land. Israel's own military says incidents of severe settler violence, including shooting, arson and other crimes, rose 50 percent in the last year. Illegal settlements have been proliferating for decades, but they have accelerated recently with the express purpose of driving out Palestinians. So we are in the middle here. Sowofta is pointing to a concrete separation wall in the distance. Israel started building it more than 20 years ago, much of it inside what's called the Green Line, an armistice line from the 1967 war.

2:45The line is within sight of Sowofta's farm. Now all of it is inside the wall, and outside the wall, the same thing. The wall is mostly built on Palestinian land. It cuts off the entire west side of the West Bank from Israel. And according to new Israeli military plans, another line of blockades and checkpoints is now being built on the West Bank's east side, along the fertile Jordan Valley, where I drive through part of something called the Great Rift. It goes all the way from Syria to Victoria Lake, I think, in Africa. This is Eli Avedor. He's part of a group called the Jordan Valley Activists, tracking and trying to stop the spread of illegal settler outposts and tracking the construction of what activists fear is a new separation wall.

3:38Israeli military documents describe the planned 22-kilometer-long barrier as a way to stop a surge in drugs and arm smuggling from neighboring Jordan. But Israel's already built a fence along its border with Jordan. So Avedor does not buy this reason. Now they are building way in and very close to the Palestinian villages the new fence. Israel has already served eviction notices to some Palestinian families along the barrier's planned route. So activists like Avedor know it's going to slice a Palestinian village in half and encircle another one completely called Herbat Yarza. And that's where we head next.

4:21Thirteen Palestinian families live here on Khirbet Yarza. Shepherding sheep, as their families have for generations here. And they tell NPR when we arrive that the planned border wall will trap them.

4:39This man says the planned wall will cut them off from all municipal services from the nearby town. His young children would have to cross a new checkpoint just to go to their school or to the doctor. He and the other shepherds in the story did not want to give their names because they fear retribution from the Israeli military and Jewish settlers who live nearby. What do you see here? It's a trap, another man says. We will be trapped inside the wall, he says, cutting him off from pasture lands for his sheep. But right now he has bigger problems.

5:14Every day, he says, the settlers come and harass us. And suddenly he cuts our interview short. Call the police. The settlers are coming. Because there are two settlers driving up to the village and they are angry that we're there. They covered their hands. He's covered his face.

5:41Settler is now kicking and punching the people that I'm with. The Palestinian shepherds later show me pictures they took of the same settlers shouting from just days earlier. They say this particular settler comes often on his horse to intimidate them. Eventually, the settlers calm down. But Avedor with the Jordan Valley activists worries we are trapped now. The only question is how we know we're going back. But eventually, we do find a route to drive out on. And we leave the Palestinian family behind to face the night and whatever comes in the next days on their own. Emily Fang, NPR News, here by Yarza, the West Bank.

6:26That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get wise. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.