Municipality’s bulldozers dig a “channel” to separate the village of Esawyeh from the settlement of French Hill
The Israeli bulldozers started digging a channel this morning between the village of Esawyeh and the settlement of French Hill. Mohammad Abu Hummus, member of the follow-up committee in Esawyeh, said that the Jerusalem municipality bulldozers started digging a channel since the morning between the village of Esawyeh and the settlement of French Hill because of security reasons, noting that the channel is more than 10 meters long and the land belongs to families from Esawyeh and have been seized for years. Abu Hummus explained that settlers of French Hill lately requested the municipality to dig a channel and prevent locals of Esawyeh from reaching the French Hill, arguing that the locals do “provocative action” against them such as throwing Molotov cocktails and damaging their properties. Abu Hummus denied the settlers’ claims, stressing that the villagers and especially children suffer from settlers’ assaults as they are not allowed to play in the public gardens and are verbally abused by the settlers, noting that the locals use this way to get to the post office or to get to the town of Shu’fat. Abu Hummus also pointed out that the municipality closed the road between the village and the settlement a while ago and prevented cars from getting to French Hill, and is now digging a channel to prevent pedestrians from reaching French Hill in order to serve the settlers and to seize more lands.
