Thirty-five years after Israeli confiscation, a Palestinian village returns to its land

Palestinian firemen from the village of Burqa near Nablus plant an olive tree sapling on land restored after a 35-year Israeli confiscation. (Photo: Allison Deger)

After 35 years, deliverance has finally come to the village of Burqa. Decades ago the West Bank hamlet on a hilltop near Nablus lost part of its agricultural grounds when it was confiscated for an Israeli army post, and then later converted into the settlement of Homesh in the 1980s. But in a first in the West Bank, Israel’s high court has restored the former settlement back to the original Palestinian owners.“Homesh was evacuated and demolished, but still the military order to seize the land remained valid, and the Palestinians could not enter,” said Burqa’s counsel Anu Deuelle Luski, an attorney with the Israeli legal rights firm Yesh Din.“In 2010 Yesh Din started legal procedures. We went to the court, submitted a petition and demanded to cancel the seizure order that dated back to 1978,” continued Luski. “After a two and a half year trail the state finally cancelled the closed military zone designation,” she said.

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