Description

Photos: Published by Haaretz

An improvised garbage dump in the village of Nu'man. The Jerusalem Municipality, while levying taxes from the locals, provides no services other than building inspections. None of the 35 dwellings even has a proper roof. Credit: Alex Levac

The are of the village where residents burn trash. They pay taxes but receive no services from the Jerusalem Municipality. Credit: Alex Levac

A gate on the outskirts of the village blocks access to the main road. Credit: Alex Levac

Jamal Dir'awi. Credit: Alex Levac
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The inhabitants of Nu'man, in southeast Jerusalem, are residents of the territories and as such are not allowed to enter the capital. Other residents of the territories are banned from visiting the village, which pays municipal taxes but receives nothing in return – except demolished homes

by Gideon Levy & Alex Levac for Haaretz
Nov 30, 2024

Here's where Kafkaesque gets a bad name, as does apartheid. A lovely village called Nu'man, perched on a hillside, is caught in a vise. Hardly anyone leaves, hardly anyone enters. The complicated policies relating to entering and leaving this internment village are obviously those of apartheid, of the occupation. There's no other place like it in the occupied territories, or perhaps in the world.

In the case of Kafr Aqeb – another village that lies within the boundaries of Jerusalem but also receives no services whatsoever from the municipality – at least residents of the territories are allowed to enter. Not in Nu'man, aka Mazmuria, its official Hebrew name. Anyone who still doubts that apartheid exists in the territories occupied by Israel, or who don't see it a clear-cut example of an apartheid state, is invited to visit any Palestinian community and Israeli settlement, and to compare the rights and services provided in each. A visit to Nu'man will suffice.

Southeast Jerusalem, with hills descending to the desert. The view is spectacular, but the reality is cause for abject despair. Thirty-five stone homes stand on the hill between Beit Sahour, a village in the territories, and Umm Tuba, a neighborhood in Jerusalem; the separation barrier lies between them, as does Nu'man-Mazmuria, on the Israeli side of the wall. Its approximately 150 inhabitants are cut off from the world. Since the war broke out in the Gaza Strip, their disconnect and internment have become even more acute.

Delivery of a refrigerator to the village from the West Bank (no such purchase is allowed from Israel) requires prior arrangement with the Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration. Only a private vehicle belonging to a local resident is allowed to transport a sick child or woman in labor to the hospital; entry by Israeli or Palestinian ambulances is effectively forbidden. The majority of people in Nu'man are residents of the territories, but people living in the territories who aren't village residents are not permitted to enter. This is a village located within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, but its inhabitants are not allowed to enter the city. It is impossible to circle the little community by foot; the only way to reach nearby Beit Sahour, 2 kilometers away, is via a bypass route of 30 kilometers. A villager can marry someone who lives in the territories, but the new partner won't be allowed to enter Nu'man.

Municipal taxes are collected, but municipal services aren't provided. Garbage trucks are barred from entering the village, health services are unheard of. If a fire breaks out, one must extinguish it by oneself. A Palestinian fire engine is not allowed to enter and its Israeli equivalent won't dare to.

Kafka simply wouldn't believe it.

After passing through Mazmuria checkpoint, which leads from Jerusalem to Beit Sahour and Bethlehem, as well as to the settlement of Nokdim, there's a road that turns right immediately. It has an electric gate, you need to honk and wait. If your car has yellow (Israeli) license plates, the gate will be lifted. If you have Palestinian plates, the gate will not move.

If you're from the village, you have had to get written confirmation from the soldiers at the checkpoint that you are from Nu'man before the gate is opened for you. No one from the territories who isn't on the checkpoint list will be allowed in – neither a grandparent with family living there, nor people wanting to pay a condolence call, nor a physician nor a boyfriend.

The homes atop the hill are old but well kept. However, each household has to burn its own garbage and blackened vestiges of it are visible and poison the air. Of course, Palestinian garbage trucks may not enter and the Jerusalem Municipality, while receiving taxes from the locals, provides no services other than those of building inspectors, who will never permit a balcony to be added. In any event, none of the 35 dwellings has a proper roof; that's forbidden by the city as well. As are sidewalks. This is a "green" zone, a sort of nature preserve where construction is banned, but the truth is that it's mainly an occupied zone. On the hill opposite, hundreds of trees were uprooted to build the Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa – not green, just egregious.

The village's plight over the years has naturally resulted in a dwindling number of residents. Instead of growing and developing, it has withered, as the occupation authorities had hoped. A quarter of a century ago, there were 250 inhabitants. Who can live under such conditions?

The remaining residents belong to the Ta'amra Bedouin tribe, whose members have lived here for over a century. Some married people with an Israeli ID card and thus became Israelis, but most were and remain residents of the territories, deprived of any sort of citizenship – or rights.

Jamal Dir'awi was born in Nu'man, like his father before him. He's 57, a father of four who works in the Palestinian Authority, as an instructor for its security forces. He has an undergraduate degree in social work and a master's in criminology. To get to his job, in Bethlehem, he has to go via the settlement of Tekoa, an hour and a quarter each way, because, following the events of October 7, the direct route to Beit Sahour and Bethlehem, and entry into and departure from those places, is blocked during most of the day – a situation that's repeated in hundreds of places in the territories, which have since become even more of a prison. Nu'man's residents have tried to obtain their rights through the courts but to no avail. In 2005, the army arrested all the men in the village, took them to the nearby Etzion facility and tried to force them to sign an agreement to leave their homes. The attempt failed, the men were released and then the separation barrier was built.

As fate and Israel would have it, the village remained on the Israeli side of the barrier because it's within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem – and since then, residents of the territories have been denied entry to Nu'man, for fear that they will sneak into Israel. The road to Jerusalem is blocked, but it is possible to reach it by foot.

Four years ago, the city of Jerusalem started to collect arnona, municipal taxes. The villagers see it as protection money that has to be paid to the mafia – and what else can it be called, given that no one gets anything back aside from inspectors who come to sabotage any attempt to add another room or floor. The newest house in Nu'man was built in 1993. In 1997, an attempt was made to build another one, but it was demolished.

Two weeks ago, a villager tried to build a path to his house; municipal inspectors showed up immediately and issued a stop-work order. Haaretz asked the Jerusalem Municipality what services the village's inhabitants receive for the taxes they pay the city. The response to our query: "Every property within municipal boundaries is subject to arnona, regardless of the identity of the person who owns and resides in the property. In recent years East Jerusalem has seen increased investment in infrastructure, in construction of public institutions, and in a vast array of services provided to residents."

As said, any Palestinian vehicle carrying supplies is barred from entering the village. Dir'awi says that if he needs a container of cooking gas, he has to travel the long road to Beit Sahour and bring it back himself. Sometimes the container is confiscated at the checkpoint because it raises suspicions. If he buys a refrigerator – after the requisite coordination and liaison process – he has to transport it himself. Forget about sheep. In the past, each family here had a small flock, but Israel forbids new animals from being brought in, and the old ones are dying off.

Friends and relatives from the territories have also stopped trying to visit Nu'man. It's impossible. If someone in the village dies, they're buried there but only a handful of residents are allowed to attend. Mourning takes place in Beit Sahour, to which those paying condolence calls have easier access. Children whose parents have blue (Israeli) ID cards attend school in Umm Tuba, which is across the road, also within Jerusalem's jurisdiction. The children of other families attend school in Beit Sahour, with the long commute.

If a daughter of the village marries a resident of the territories and then moves in with him, as is the custom, he will never be able to visit his wife's family. If a resident ventures out into the spectacular valley north of the village, where there are no fences, he will be arrested. Ibrahim Dir'awi, 28, relates that if he wants to meet a friend, he can do so only in a restaurant in Beit Sahour or Bethlehem.

As we walk through the streets of the village with Dir'awi, who's married to an East Jerusalem woman, he admits that the village is beautiful, but immediately adds, with bitterness, "We're unlucky. It's like a prison."