Palestinian activists have started building a Palestinian makeshift village in the Jordan Valley – the second in two days – as a way of confronting Israeli settlement building in the occupied region.
“Around 70 activists from the West Bank refugee camps started building Al-Awdah village near Beesan’s checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley,” Yasser Abu Kishk of the Popular Committee to Resist Settlement was reported as saying. “This is a symbolic action for the eventual return of Palestinian refugees to their lands from which they were forced to leave in 1948,” Abu Kishk said. “It’s a stance against the [Israeli] settlement.”
Palestinian activists have been establishing symbolic villages by renovating abandoned homes or erecting tents in occupied Palestinian lands, on which Israel plans to build Jewish-only settlements. The makeshift villages usually stand for a few days before Israeli forces bulldoze them and expel the Palestinians.