The Israel Nature and Parks Authority, together with the Jerusalem Municipality, is continuing routine enforcement in the Jerusalem Walls National Park, including in Hinnom Valley (Wadi Rababa). On Wednesday this week, an order was issued to remove a camel that had been kept without authorization in a public area. A local resident, Khaled al-Zeer from Silwan, was instructed to remove the animal from the area within 24 hours, since the site is not designated for keeping private animals or livestock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khaled al-Zeer, a resident of the al-Abbasiyya neighborhood in Silwan, is a well-known figure in the Palestinian struggles over the lands of Hinnom Valley in Jerusalem. He has a long history of confrontations and arrests involving the police, security forces, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. His home, built without a permit, has been demolished several times. For a period, he moved with his family into an ancient cave, but he was removed from there as well, after renovating it for residential use despite the fact that it is an archaeological site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Zeer sees himself as someone protecting Palestinian lands from \u201ca takeover by settlers and the authorities in Israel.\u201d After the order to remove the camel was delivered to him, he was heard saying in a video he published: \u201cThey do not want us to cultivate our lands. They want us to abandon them, so they can take them over.\u201d According to him, the camel has been in the area for five years. Al-Zeer claims that the land is private property belonging to a monastery, where he serves as a guard and farmer who cultivates the land, but the authorities insist that the area is public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hinnom Valley is currently home to an educational farm – \u201cThe Farm in the Valley\u201d – focused on ancient agriculture, operated by the City of David Foundation (Elad) and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The farm, which is open to the public, includes livestock such as camels, donkeys and goats, restored agricultural terraces and experiential workshops. It is part of a broader tourism and educational development project in Hinnom Valley, which also includes a suspension bridge and promenades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Zeer asks why they are allowed to keep animals while he is not. In the eyes of Palestinian activists like al-Zeer, the farm is part of an attempt to take control of the area and push out Palestinian residents. In the eyes of Israelis and the authorities, the project is a historical reconstruction and green development in the heart of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The camel, meanwhile, remains a small but charged symbol of the struggle over every piece of land in Jerusalem in general, and in the historic basin in particular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority, together with the Jerusalem Municipality, is continuing routine enforcement in the Jerusalem Walls National Park, including in Hinnom Valley (Wadi Rababa). On Wednesday this week, an order was issued to remove a camel that had been kept without authorization in a public area. A local resident, Khaled al-Zeer from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":182154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9319","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,8730,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-8730","category-68"],"acf":{"subtitle":"A removal order for a camel in Jerusalem\u2019s Hinnom Valley has reignited the Israeli-Palestinian struggle over land in the historic basin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182158,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182156\/revisions\/182158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}