Jubbet_ad-Dib

Jubbet ad-Dib

Jubbet ad-Dib

Local Development Committee in Bethlehem, State of Palestine

Jubbet ad-Dib (Arabic: جبة الذيب, also spelled Jubbet adh-Dhib) is a small Palestinian village in the central West Bank, part of the Bethlehem Governorate. It is located about 6.5 kilometers southeast of Bethlehem and is just east of the Palestinian town of Jannatah and north of the Israeli settlement Kfar Eldad.[3] Its lands border on the settlement of Havat Sdeh Bar.[4] It had a population of 144 according to the 2017 census by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).[2] Jubbet ad-Dib has a total land area of 402 dunams, of which 8 constitute as built-up area, and is situated at an altitude of 628 meters above sea level.[3]

Quick Facts Arabic transcription(s), • Arabic ...

History

The village was established in 1929 by Bedouin Arabs who had previously lived and grazed their livestock there.[3] The inhabitants were part of the Bani Harb tribal confederation based in the Arabian Peninsula.[3] The village name translates as "the Well of the Wolves." Currently, Jubbet ad-Dib's population mostly belong to one clan, al-Wahsh. There is one mosque in the village, the Hamza Bin Abd al-Muttalib Mosque.[3]

The men of the village mainly work as construction labourers in Israel, and commuting through the Separation fence is time consuming, -rising at 3 a.m. and returning only in the evening, so that they are frequently absent during the working week.[4] Tired of waiting the women eventually organized their own solution.[4] In 2002 the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) established a five-member local development committee to administer Jubbet adh-Dhib. The PNA appoints all members and there is no headquarters for the committee in the village itself.[3] In recent years the village has relied on the leadership of the Women's Committee, which has successfully found international and donors of a school, a school bus, a solar heating system, and solar electricity,[5][6] infrastructure which has also benefited from the aid and assistance of local NGOs, such as the Israel-Palestinian Comet-ME since 2016, and the Bimkom group of Israeli planners, who helped map the village confines.[4]

Economy and infrastructure

About 70% of Jubbet ad-Dib's employed workforce work in the Israeli labor market. The remainder largely work in agriculture. The unemployment rate in 2008 was 16%.[3] According to one elderly woman's memory, the villagers first asked to be linked up to a power grid in the 1970s, but in the end it required 40 years to get a connection.[4] According to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Jubbet ad-Dib's local administration first applied to be connected to the Israeli electricity grid in 1988. Israeli authorities repeatedly denied the village electricity, as the village is under Israeli administrative control in "Area C." The village did not have paved roads connecting it to other Palestinian occupied localities. Children were required to walk down muddy tracks to get to a nearby school.[4] Residents cannot afford vehicles; most residents who need services walk for transportation.[7] By 2008, there were no schools or government institutions in the village, most services were provided by nearby towns such as Beit Ta'mir and Za'atara.[3]

The Netherlands eventually provided the funds for the solar power system. Three months after its installation, the Israel military government, together with the IDF confiscated the panels in late June 2017 on the grounds that they had been installed without an Israeli permit. The loss of the equipment, consisting of 96 solar panels and electronic equipment, resulted in the loss of electricity for the 30 families living in the village. The original donor, the Netherlands government, protested the confiscation[8][9] and, after three months, in October, the equipment was returned.[4][10] The Dutch later said they would continue projects to help Palestinians, with or without Israeli permission.[11][4]

On 2a2 August 2017, six EU-donated steel cabins serving as a school in the area were demolished or removed along with school equipment by Israeli authorities on the day before school term started.[12][13] This, and other destruction of Palestinian educational facilities by Israel, were condemned by France.[14] The school served 64 villager children, and a replacement structure was erected within days, successfully, by Bethlehem activists, despite an incursion by Israeli troops who attempted to use tear gas to disperse the workers.[15]

The model the women have developed has improved women's status in the village, and they are frequently called on for advice on broader regional problems of development.[4]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Jubbet adh-Dhib. Jerusalem Media and Communications Center.
  2. [2]
    Preliminary Results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census, 2017 (PDF). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (Report). State of Palestine. February 2018. pp. 64–82. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
  3. [3]
    Jubbet adh-Dhib Village Profile. Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem. 2008.
  4. [4]
    Netta Ahituv, 'What Happened When Palestinian Women Took Charge of Their Village,' Haaretz 7 May 2019
  5. [5]
    20 minutes from modern Jerusalem, a Palestinian village is stranded in the past, Anne-Marie O'Connor, October 22, 2016, The Washington Post
  6. [6]
    Chloé Benoist, 'Palestinian women’s council takes charge: 'They depend on us',', Middle East Eye 26 October 2017.
  7. [7]
    Separate and Unequal Israel's Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Human Rights Watch. December 2010. pp.90-95.
  8. [8]
    Amira Hass,'Dutch protest Israeli seizure of Palestinian solar panels they funded in West Bank. Netherlands' Foreign Ministry requested Israel return equipment it confiscated, valued at over 40,000 euro; Israel failed to hand out demolition orders in advance,' Haaretz 1 July 2017,
  9. [9]
    Bethan McKernan, 'Israel seizes solar panels donated to Palestinians by Dutch government,' The Independent 3 July 2017.
  10. [10]
    Amira Hass, 'Electricity returns to Palestinian village, three months after Israel confiscates power system. Each family in Jubbet Adh-Dhib village is allotted only three kilowatt hours per day as Israeli-Palestinian group reinstalls hybrid solar power system taken by Israel,', Haaretz 20 October 2017.
  11. [11]
    Amira Hass, Netherlands says it will continue projects for Palestinians without Israel's OK, Haaretz 9 July 2017
  12. [12]
    Bethan McKernan,'Israel destroys Palestinian classrooms ahead of first day of school,' The Independent 25 August 2017,
  13. [13]
    Chloé Benoist, 'Torn down: Palestinian schools destroyed by Israel at start of new year,' Middle East Eye 24 August 2017.
  14. [14]
    'Palestinian Territories – Destruction of humanitarian structures,' Diplomatie France, 28 August 2017.
  15. [15]
    'Bethlehem: Activists rebuild Jubbet Ad-Dib School after Israel demolished it,' Middle East Monitor 10 September 2017
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Jubbet_ad-Dib, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.