Military forces which arrived at the tiny village of Aqaba, in the Jenin area of the West Bank, delivered a further four demolition orders for village houses. Aqaba is a tiny village with just some 300 inhabitants, living in a total of 45 houses – some of them homes to large families with ten children or more. Against 35 of the houses there already existed demolition orders, with the four new ones 39 of 45 houses are threatened – in practice, the entire village is slated for destruction by the army.

During the deliberations on a Supreme Court appeal lodged by the villagers, the state offered that they be allowed to build in just 3% of the village lands, The villagers rejected this idea out of hand, as being completely inadequate. However, oit seems the authorities don't keep their word even with regard to this miserable offer, with two of the four new demolition orders directed against houses in the narrow area where the Supreme Court was told that building would be permitted.

Recently, a large delegation of the European Parliament toured the village of Aaba and heard of the dire threat hanging over its inhabitants' future. Aqaba's mayor, Haj Sami Sadek, had met with Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., and is regular contact with the UD consulate in Jerusalem. After the new demolition orders were delivered, villagers urgently contacted their Israeli and international contact persons and asked them to interleaved.

"The time is over when the state of Israel and its armed forces could perpetrate dastardly deeds in backwoods villages and expect to avoid the world's notice. Nowadays, the world is carefully watching events in the Occupied Territories , and everything happening in out-of-the way West Bank villages would become known within hours in Europe, America and all over the world. Behaving as despicable, brutal occupiers is not only patently immoral. It would entail a prohibitively heavy international and political price" says the Gush Shalom movement in letters sent to Defence Minster Barak and Foreign Minister Livni, calling for the cancellation of all demolition orders and for letting the Aqaba villagers live their life without interference,

Contact: Adam Keller (Gush Shalom) adam@gush-shalom.org

Haj Sami Sadek, Mayor of Aqaba 09-2572201 or 0599-068808