00:01Tomatoes of various sizes fill this greenhouse, ready for harvest.
00:05In the past couple of years, cultivation boomed, but now farmers face serious challenges.
00:12We come here to work, but settlers and soldiers arrive, inspect our ideas and prevent us from doing our jobs.
00:19Yazid works in one of more than 200 greenhouses in Beit Ajan, a small village in the occupied West Bank.
00:26A lot of people depend on agriculture to make a living.
00:30But most recently, an important water well has been destroyed by radical settlers, Yazid tells us.
00:38They put cement in the main water supply line, which brings water from the soil upwards.
00:45See, it's all cement. It's a feeling I cannot describe.
00:49All farmers here are affected. We have a lot of farmers who invested in the agricultural sector in Beit Ajan.
00:57We are in the Jordan Valley region, a gem of natural beauty in the occupied West Bank.
01:07And its lowlands are among the most fertile areas in the territory.
01:12Villages like Beit Ajan have benefited from this rich soil.
01:16Many people here moved back to the village for work after Israeli authorities revoked their permits to work in Israel post-October 7.
01:24The head of the village council here has been supporting greenhouse projects.
01:29But further expansion is on hold as access to land is becoming limited.
01:34The workers were fired in Israel.
01:39They had no source of income.
01:42So they shifted to agriculture.
01:44Our goal was to expand agriculture.
01:51We paid the price.
01:53The price is a colonial Zionist occupation, which is being backed by settlers.
02:01They have begun harassing us.
02:05The village is near an area that the Israeli authorities have declared state land.
02:10In 2024, Israel confiscated more than 20 square kilometers of the Jordan Valley,
02:17the largest land seizure in the West Bank in decades.
02:20Israel has earmarked this land for new settlements,
02:23although the international community considers settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law.
02:30While construction doesn't start right away, these official Israeli policies seem to embolden settlers.
02:36They often intimidate and sabotage Palestinian farmers nearby,
02:40and this comes on top of chronic problems.
02:42Getting tomatoes produced here, like this one, to larger markets is often very difficult.
02:48Reaching Ramallah, for example, can take so long that the produce risks rotting along the way.
02:54Restrictions on movement have significantly increased since October 7.
02:59This checkpoint here near Ramallah is just one of several they struck from Beta Jamas Cross until the tomatoes finally arrive at their destination.
03:08For many vendors across the West Bank, all these delays often lead to less income.
03:14In the past, from Nablus to here, we needed about an hour.
03:19Now we need more than three hours.
03:21At the same time, our income has decreased by half.
03:24Shops depend on the steady flow of vegetables from the Jordan Valley to survive.
03:29It means everything.
03:33It is our income.
03:36It's our life.
03:38We have nothing else.
03:40During the past decades, more than half of the Jordan Valley has been seized through Israeli settlement expansion, Nasser Jahoub explains.
03:49He has been seeking compensation from a Palestinian fund for people affected in the agricultural sector.
03:55The matter, however, extends beyond business.
03:58It's political.
03:59It is systematic because they want to build the big Israeli state without Palestinians.
04:06Only for Jewish people.
04:08Only for Israeli people.
04:10Israel continues to confiscate land in the Jordan Valley and other parts of the occupied West Bank.
04:16As we drive through the region, we see countless billboards like these advertising new settlement housing.
04:23The United States says it won't accept Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
04:29The facto Palestinians say it's taking place, bit by bit, every day.
04:35It's a beautiful visit to the West Bank.
04:36All right.
04:37It's a beautiful neighborhood of people.
04:38It's a beautiful neighborhood of them.
04:39I just live in a few weeks to this country.
04:40Are you ready?
04:41Let's see.
04:42Let's see.
04:43Let's see.
04:44Let's see.
04:45Let's see.
04:46Let's see.
04:47Let's see.
04:48Let's see.
05:01Let's see.
05:02Let's see.
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