"BETHLEHEM - In the orange glow of another sunset, Awad Abu Swai, 36, stands underneath a towering fig tree, a sample of its fruit in his hand. He peels back the bright green skin to expose crimson jelly and seeds inside.
The Israeli military came inside the valley and cut about 50 apricot and walnut trees since May. And now, they are coming to cut more trees. This is all because of what they are building through this land — my land. Here, they are building a sewage channel to run raw sewage through this valley collected from four Israeli settlements near here." Abu Swai is one of approximately 4,000 residents of the Palestinian village of Artas, located southeast of Bethlehem city. Artas is known regionally for its succulent vegetables, and fruit and nut trees. But over the last few months Israeli occupation forces have brought dozens of bulldozers to the eastern valley fields of Artas to construct a wall that will cut villagers off from this fertile land, while a concrete tunnel for raw settlement sewage grows longer each day.
Efrat settlement colony, part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc that stretches around several villages and towns near Bethlehem, sits perched on a hill over Artas. Below the settlement, a colony which houses approximately 9,000 Israelis and immigrants, Israeli bulldozers and earth movers work day and night constructing the sewage channel and building the wall.
Artas villagers have kept up an active and defiant campaign over the last year after unofficial information was leaked to the community that the village was in danger. Villagers watched in shock as bulldozers kept moving down the hillsides from Efrat toward the orchards on the valley floor."
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