Over the past two weeks, IDF troops have been excavating land belonging to Thaer Basharat, a farmer from the village of Ras al-Ahmar in the northern Jordan Valley.

Footage from the site shows a trench roughly one meter wide and one meter deep running through the middle of Basharat’s farmland. Along parts of the route, the trench is flanked by mounds of earth topped with metal poles.

The works stretch for several kilometers, cutting a scar through lands owned by Basharat and other residents of Ras al-Ahmar, an agricultural community of hundreds who work hundreds of dunams of fields, greenhouses and groves.

Basharat recalled that army officials showed up in December to inform residents that they would be building a military road through the area.

“But this isn’t a military road — it’s a takeover of the land,” he told The Times of Israel.

According to the army, which announced the project that same month, the works are the start of a plan to construct a barrier aimed at thwarting weapons smuggling and terror attacks. The barrier will consist of a paved patrol road for military vehicles, a “natural obstacle” alongside the road, and, where necessary, trenches and earthen embankments, the IDF said.

In response to questions from The Times of Israel, the military said the project is designed to prevent smugglers or attackers in vehicles from being able to travel from the Jordan Valley into the central West Bank and toward Israel.

To build the barrier, the military issued seizure orders covering 1,160 dunams (287 acres) in the northern Jordan Valley. The orders authorize the army to seize land, including privately owned property.

According to Dror Etkes of the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors land ownership in the West Bank, more than 85 percent of the land — 989 dunams (245 acres) — is privately owned by Palestinians. The remainder is classified as state land or land whose ownership status is unknown.

The seizure orders indicate that the barrier will stretch for approximately 20 kilometers, running from an area near the village of Bayt Hassan to near Tayasir, north of Tubas. Roughly parallel to Route 578, a main north-south West Bank artery known as the Allon road, the planned barrier is replete with turns and switchbacks that will cut a jagged path through the landscape, taking it through a number of agricultural villages along the way.

While most of the projected route is in Area C, where Israel maintains full civilian and security control under the Oslo Accords, part of it also goes through Area B, where Israel retains security control but the Palestinian Authority administers civilian affairs.

While it will be possible to travel around the barrier, and the army claims farmers will have access to controlled crossings through it, the project is expected to create significant hardships for those living nearby. Those along the route fear that construction will not only expropriate and damage their farmland, but once completed, the barrier will also cut off access to fields and sever connections between neighbors.

In April, the High Court of Justice granted a state request to start working on parts of the route, despite a petition against the project submitted on behalf of 100 Palestinians and the municipalities of Tubas and Tammun.

The court has not yet issued a final ruling on the........

© The Times of Israel