Published: 16 June 2023
Last updated: 9 May 2025
Palestinian farmers in Wadi Fukin village near Bethlehem are living in fear of army plans to build a security fence through their community’s lands, a move they see as an economic death sentence.
“It is all people are talking about, all they are thinking about. People are asking, what is our future with this fence?” Ishaq, a middle-aged farmer, told The Jewish Independent.
He and a second farmer, Tariq, spoke inside a drab structure that lies along a twisting road past the village’s stucco houses. They are using pseudonyms out of fear of both the army and the Palestinian Authority.
Wadi Fukin, a village of about 1500 residents, is in a valley between the expanding illegal settlement of Beitar Ilit and the Jerusalem suburb of Tzur Hadassah, which is just inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
The village’s residents already felt boxed in, but now with the fence plan the feeling of being “jailed” is becoming even more acute, said the farmers.
“What really makes us afraid is the feeling that Israel does not want us to be here, that they just want Tzur Hadassah and Beitar Ilit,” Tariq said.
In late December, Major-General Yehuda Fuchs, who is in charge of Israeli troops in the West Bank, issued an order seizing 84 dunams of private property in the village for construction of a fence and a patrol road.
Left to their own devices, these Palestinians, who have no political rights under Israeli military rule, would have zero chance of stopping this project.
