BEIT IJZA: The Gharib family home in the occupied West Bank is encircled by an eight-meter high metal barrier. They need to pass through a gate that Israeli security forces are remotely controlling in order to get there.
Since Israel took control of the region in the 1967 Six-Day War, a Jewish settlement has grown on nearby land that the family claimed, isolating them in their one-story home on the outskirts of the Palestinian community of Beit Ijza.
Sa’adat Gharib groaned, “I don’t know when this will end.” “Nobody understands the pain my children are going through.”The family home used to be surrounded by large tracts of farmland, but it is now hidden behind a yellow gate that is guarded by Israeli troops.
The 40-year-old Gharib, who works for the Palestinian Authority in neighbouring Ramallah, said, “These years have been hard. He claims that some of the lands that were used to construct the Jewish community of Givon Hahadasha when he was a child belonged to his family.