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Wadi Qana (, he, נחל קנה, translit=Nahal Qana), is a
wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water on ...
, with an
intermittent stream Intermittent, temporary or seasonal rivers or streams cease to flow every year or at least twice every five years.(Tzoraki et al., 2007) Such rivers drain large arid and semi-arid areas, covering approximately a third of the earth's surface. ...
meandering westwards from
Huwara Huwara ( ar, حُوّارة, ''ḥuwwarah'', ) is a Palestinian town located in the Nablus Governorate of the northern West Bank, south of Nablus, on the main road connecting Nablus southwards to Ramallah and Jerusalem. It is approximately f ...
south of
Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...
in the
West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
down to
Jaljulia Jaljulia ( ar, جلجولية, he, גַ׳לְג׳וּלְיָה), officially also spelled Jaljulye, is an Arab town in Israel near Kfar Saba. In it had a population of . History In Roman times the village was known as ''Galgulis'', while duri ...
in
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
where it flows into the
Yarkon River The Yarkon River, also Yarqon River or Jarkon River ( he, נחל הירקון, ''Nahal HaYarkon'', ar, نهر العوجا, ''Nahr al-Auja''), is a river in central Israel. The source of the Yarkon ("Greenish" in Hebrew) is at Antipatris, Tel ...
, of which it is a
tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...
.


Geography and demography

Wadi Qana begins south of
Mount Gerizim Mount Gerizim (; Samaritan Hebrew: ''ʾĀ̊rgā̊rīzēm''; Hebrew: ''Har Gərīzīm''; ar, جَبَل جَرِزِيم ''Jabal Jarizīm'' or جَبَلُ ٱلطُّورِ ''Jabal at-Ṭūr'') is one of two mountains in the immediate vicinit ...
near the village of Burin in the
West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
. Lined by steep cliffs on either side, the wadi waters flow in a general ENE-WSW direction and reach the
Sharon plain The Sharon plain ( ''HaSharon Arabic: سهل شارون Sahel Sharon'') is the central section of the Israeli coastal plain. The plain lies between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Samarian Hills, to the east. It stretches from Nahal ...
near
Jaljulia Jaljulia ( ar, جلجولية, he, גַ׳לְג׳וּלְיָה), officially also spelled Jaljulye, is an Arab town in Israel near Kfar Saba. In it had a population of . History In Roman times the village was known as ''Galgulis'', while duri ...
, Israel, where it empties into the Yarkon just west of the Yarkon interchange. West of the central
anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...
, its surface and sub-
aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...
s form one of the recharging feeders of the Yarqon Tanninim basin, of which lie east of the Green Line. The Wadi Qana area of the West Bank portion of the
drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...
encompasses approximately . Harsh rocky
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when ...
and
karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ...
terrain is characteristic of the terrain north of its border towards
Kafr Thulth Kafr Thulth ( ar, كفر ثلث) is a Palestinian town located on high, flat land south of Azzoun, south of Tulkarm in the Qalqilya Governorate. The average elevation is above sea level. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, ...
. As of 2018, the population of the area of the wadi in the West Bank has been estimated at 176,580 Palestinians in 56 communities and 58,195 Israelis in 15 settlements.


Gallery

File:Nahal kana West Bank.jpg, Wadi Qana File:KanaStream1.jpg, Wadi Qana riverbed File:נחל קנה.jpg, Wadi Qana stream, 2013 File:זרימת חורף בנחל קנה.jpg, Wadi Qana winter stream


Prehistoric remains


Dolmens

In 1922, the French biblical scholar and geographer
Félix-Marie Abel Félix-Marie Abel (29 December 1878 – 24 March 1953) was a French archaeologist, a geographer, and a professor at the École Biblique in Jerusalem. A Dominican priest, he was one of the most prominent bible scholars in the end of Ottoman era ...
identified stone structures in Wadi Qana, some consisting of piles seven
courses Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...
high, as
megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...
s forming a
dolmen A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...
necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually i ...
(). Dolmens in the region, if the wider definition of the term is accepted, cover the period between the mid-4th millennium to the late-4th millennium
BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the o ...
i.e. the end of the Late Chalcolithic, and the Early Bronze Age in its entirety, including what some call the Intermediate Bronze Age (see
List of archaeological periods The names for archaeological periods in the list of archaeological periods vary enormously from region to region. This is a list of the main divisions by continent and region. Dating also varies considerably and those given are broad approximations ...
).


Wadi Qana cave

By the fourth millennium, human use of the wadi is attested by prehistorical artifacts found in a karstic cave 25 km east of the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
on the western fringe of the
Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first-c ...
hills. The existence of the cave came to the attention of
speleologist Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form (speleogenesis) and change over time (speleomorphology). ...
s from the Israel Cave Research Center (ICRC) of the
Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel ( he, החברה להגנת הטבע, ''HaHevra LeHaganat HaTeva''), or SPNI, is an Israeli non-profit environmental organization working to preserve plants, animals, and natural environments that repr ...
when some villagers from
Kafr Laqif Kafr Laqif ( ar, كفر لاقف) is a Palestinian village in the Qalqilya Governorate in the western West Bank, located 22 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of a ...
told them of a deep cave in the wadi, which they then located, 250 metres up from the wadi floor, after a two-day search the following year. It contained a cemetery. Placing mortuary sites at a distance from settlements is a characteristic innovation of the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
ine Chalcolithic period, and this one could be accessed only by crawling through a 15 metre long tunnel, which then opened up into a 500 square metre subterranean hall. Over several years, a team of Israeli archaeologists led by Avi Gopher excavated the site. Three strata were brought to light, indicating it had undergone successive occupation from the 6th millennium BCE, beginning with the Yarmukian culture, through to the Chalcolithic, down to the early Bronze Age1.


Chalcolithic gold, earliest in the Levant

The Chalcolithic remains were particularly rich, with a cemetery yielding up, aside from
ossuaries An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...
,
pithoi Pithos (, grc-gre, πίθος, plural: ' ) is the Greek name of a large storage container. The term in English is applied to such containers used among the civilizations that bordered the Mediterranean Sea in the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and ...
, churns and varieties of
creamware Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as '' faïence fine'', in the Netherlands as ''Engels porselein'', and in Italy as ''terraglia inglese''.Osborne, 140 It was created about 175 ...
, 8 ring-shaped objects, mostly cast from
electrum Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. It has been produced artificially, a ...
, with a 70% gold and 30% silver content. The archaeologists opined that the most probable source for the gold
ingot An ingot is a piece of relatively pure material, usually metal, that is cast into a shape suitable for further processing. In steelmaking, it is the first step among semi-finished casting products. Ingots usually require a second procedure of sha ...
s was
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
, where ring-shaped metallic valuables are attested from
pictogram A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and gr ...
s of imperial trade. Those in the Wadi Qana cave are the first known examples from the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
. A further significant feature from the find was that the person buried with such objects, the latter suggestive of status symbols, probably had high rank, which would mean that social development in the area in that period was more advanced than hitherto thought.


Biblical narrative

According to the biblical narrative of the allotment of territories, following Joshua's conquest of Canaan, Wadi Qana (''naḥal qānāh'', 'the brook
Kanah Kanah ( he, קָנָה, , reedy; brook of reeds) is a stream referred to in the Hebrew Bible forming the boundary between Ephraim and Manasseh, from the Mediterranean Sea eastward to Tappuah (). It has been identified with the sedgy streams that co ...
' of served as the boundary running between the northern
Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...
and the southern
Ephraim Ephraim (; he, ''ʾEp̄rayīm'', in pausa: ''ʾEp̄rāyīm'') was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph ben Jacob and Asenath. Asenath was an Ancient Egyptian woman whom Pharaoh gave to Joseph as wife, and the daught ...
. The description of the border is somewhat complicated, since they overlap with the former
Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...
Tappuah being Ephraimite but in Manasseh territory.


Modern era


Population: tradition and facts

A tradition among the population of the Wadi Qana ecosystem in the area to the north of the gully itself – an area which has a scant 139 hectares of arable land – holds that their ancestors once occupied Zakur (itself now abandoned). It has been suggested that this dispersion may have had its roots in a strong
blood feud A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, clan war, gang war, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one part ...
, and that the people of Zakur moved first to Kafr Thulth and, finding no good land available there, then spread out to dwell in five hamlets adjacent to Wadi Qana. The dominant group at Kafr Thulth itself, those with the best pastures, are the Gharaba family, who also own the best land in Wadi Qana's tributaries. Down to the mid-1980s, 50 families lived in the wadi itself, in a hamlet with rock structures adjacent to the stream, and known as Wadi Qana.


British Mandate, Jordan, and Israel/PA


British nature reserve

In 1926, the mandate government declared a nature reserve comprising 30,000 dunums of natural forest within the village boundaries of Deir Istiya in Wady Kanah. In 1943, this reserve was abolished and instead four forest reserves, Wad Qana and Wad Qana South, East and West, totalling about 12,000 dunums in the village lands of Deir Istiya, Jinsafur and Kafr Laqif were declared.


Arab settlement and agriculture

The West Bank part of Wadi Qana, surrounded by Palestinian villages such as
Deir Istiya Deir Istiya ( ar, دير إستيا) is a Palestinian town of 5,200 located in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, southwest of Nablus. The built-up area of Deir Istiya is 74 dunams, and its old city has about thirty families. Locati ...
,
Qarawat Bani Hassan Qarawat Bani Hassan ( ar, قراوة بني حسان) is a Palestinian town in the Salfit Governorate of the State of Palestine, located thirty kilometers southwest of Nablus and 8 kilometers northwest of Salfit in the northern West Bank. Accordin ...
,
Biddya Biddya ( ar, بديا) is a Palestinian city in the Salfit Governorate, located 32 kilometers southwest of Nablus and half that distance from Salfit in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Biddya ...
,
Sanniriya Sanniriya ( ar, صنّيريّه) is a Palestinian town in the Qalqilya Governorate in the western area of the West Bank, located south of Qalqilya and southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had ...
, Kafr Thulth,
Azzun Azzun (also spelled Azzoun) (, from the root word عز ''′izz'' which means honor or esteem) is a Palestinian town in Qalqilya Governorate in the northern West Bank, located 9 kilometers east of Qalqilya and 24 kilometers south of Tulkarm. Accord ...
,
Kafr Laqif Kafr Laqif ( ar, كفر لاقف) is a Palestinian village in the Qalqilya Governorate in the western West Bank, located 22 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of a ...
and Jinsafut, runs through a fertile valley and constituted one of the most notable natural attractions in terms of the beauty of its landscape, given its abundance of springs, extent of its well-watered land, and plentiful trees. The area has traditionally furnished local Palestinians with important land for grazing livestock, harvesting agricultural products, especially citrus, and for leisure (bathing). Many families also used it to dwell along the wadi's reaches. Its water was drawn in order to irrigate vegetable plots. It afforded rich grazing for flocks, carrying an estimated 50,000 sheep down to the early 1980s, compared to the 3,000 Palestinians still manage to tend in the wadi in recent years (2017). The wadi runs between the Palestinian administrative zones of the
Salfit Salfit ( ar, سلفيت) pronounced "Salfeet" is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank, and the capital of the Salfit Governorate of the State of Palestine. Salfit is located at an altitude of , adjacent to the Israeli settlement of Ariel. ...
and
Qalqilya Governorate The Qalqilya Governorate or Qalqiliya Governorate () is an administrative area of Palestine in the northwestern West Bank. Its capital or ''muhfaza'' (seat) is the city of Qalqilya that borders the Green Line. Localities Municipalities * Azzun ...
s. It is estimated that approximately 200 local farmers worked in their fields inside the Wadi Qana valley down to 1967. In that year the area came under
Israeli occupation Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...
in the wake of the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Jun ...
. In the succeeding 33 years, the number of farmers shrunk to 14.


Israeli settlement; land and water use

In the 1970s Israel began deep drilling in the wadi area with its rich groundwater resources and one consequence was that many springs and wells used by local Palestinians dried up. In 1978 it began to establish
Israeli settlements Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
on the high banks on either side of the wadi. According to
B'Tselem B'Tselem ( he, בצלם, , " in the image of od) is a Jerusalem-based non-profit organization whose stated goals are to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, combat any denial of the existence of su ...
,
Karnei Shomron Karnei Shomron ( he, קַרְנֵי שׁוֹמְרוֹן, lit. "Rays (of light) of Samaria") is an Israeli settlement organized as a local council established in 1977 in the West Bank, east of Kfar Saba. Karnei Shomron is located northeast of ...
was set up in that year on lands confiscated from four Palestinian villages: Jinsafut, Deir Istiya, Kafr Laqif and
Hajjah Hajjah ( ar, حَجَّة, Ḥajjah) is the capital city of Hajjah Governorate in north-western Yemen. It is located 127 kilometres northwest of Sana'a, at an elevation of about 1800 metres. As of 2003, the Hajjah City District had a population o ...
, while
Immanuel Immanuel ( he, עִמָּנוּאֵל, 'Īmmānū'ēl, meaning, "God is with us"; also romanized: , ; and or in Koine Greek of the New Testament) is a Hebrew name that appears in the Book of Isaiah (7:14) as a sign that God will protect the H ...
was established in 1983 taking 951 
dunam A dunam (Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...
s from Deir Istiya, and, in establishing Sha'ar Emmanuel (1981) 159 dunams were confiscated from Immatain. To the south, both Yaqir (1981) and
Nofim Nofim ( he, נוֹפִים, ''lit.'' Views) is an Israeli settlement on the western edge of the northern West Bank. Located adjacent to Yakir and about 30 km east of Tel Aviv, it falls under the jurisdiction of Shomron Regional Council. In ...
were established on territory was appropriated from Deir Istiya. After the
Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;
(1993 and 1995) and the establishment of the
Palestinian National Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,
(PA), the central sector of the wadi, east of
Qalqiliya Qalqilya or Qalqiliya ( ar, قلقيلية, Qalqīlyaḧ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank which serves as the administrative center of the Qalqilya Governorate of the State of Palestine. In the 2007 census, the city had a population of 41,73 ...
, became part of Area C, and was mostly owned by the villagers of Deir Istiya. Later, further illegal outposts such as Alonei Shilo (1999), Yair Farm (1999) and El Matan (2000) were set up in the wadi zone. All of these settlements discharged their sewage waste waters into the Wadi Qana stream, contaminating its use for Palestinian irrigation, until the recognized settlements were connected to the sewage system in 2006. The illegal Israeli outposts of Alonei Shilo and El Matan however continue to pollute the stream by discharging their wastewater directly into it. Palestinian villages nearby add to this pollution by using cesspits whose contents are then randomly discharged into open areas and valleys near the wadi's springs. In 1995 it was estimated that Yaqir, Karnei Shomron, and Immanuel alone annually generated approximately 908,700 cubic meters of wastewater directly into the Wadi. This combination of polluting discharges from settlements, and the reduced water flow caused by Israeli drilling undermined the traditional exploitation of its waters for irrigating vegetable crops, and forced some 50 families resident in the wadi to shift out, moving to Deir Istiya. The plan of Israel's "Separation Barrier" cuts out Deir Istiya from the wadi, leaving it on the 'Israeli' side of that sector of the West Bank. When the ''Kana Stream Restoration Authority'' (2006) was inaugurated, one of its purposes, according to leaders of the settlement councils, was to block what they regarded as attempts by 'Palestinian elements' to assume control of the wadi's stream. Since 2005 an annual spring walk takes place under the auspices of the Karnei Shomron Council. During the walk, local Palestinians, including landowners, are not permitted to access the wadi. Further projects, with large investments from the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund, aim at developing it as a major Israeli tourist site. That part of the wadi's village lands lying in Area C may not, under the Israeli dispensation, be used for Palestinian commercial or industrial projects: The one remaining option of using it for agricultural purposes – planting olive trees, for example, is, however, hampered by severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that such activities damage the wadi's natural flora, the topography, and the character of the habitat.' On 23 May 2021, around 15 settlers, escorted by some 5 Israeli soldiers, herded about 60 cattle into the area to graze them there. When Wadi Qana's farmers who own fields and groves there protested, they were pepper-sprayed and clubbed by settlers and one was rifle-butted by a soldier. Those not injured were prevented from leaving the valley until late at night. On returning to their homes, they found 4 of their cars damaged.


=Israeli nature reserve; conflict

= The
Israeli military order An Israeli military order is a general order issued by an Israeli military commander over territory under Israeli military occupation. It has the force of law. Enforcement of such orders is carried out by Israeli military police and military cour ...
(IMO) regarding Nature Protection (Judea and Samaria) (No. 363), 5730 – 1969, governs use of areas designated as nature reserves, based on similar Israeli laws. According to
Friends of the Earth International Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with ...
, from 1979 to 1982 the area was declared a closed military zone. On 3 May 1983 it was declared a nature reserve in accordance with the IMO. The nature reserve was established on the agricultural lands of the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya. The area around the West Bank area of Wadi Qana is a nature reserve operated by the
Israel Nature and Parks Authority The Israel Nature and Parks Authority ( he, רשות הטבע והגנים ''Rashut Hateva Vehaganim''; ar, سلطة الطبيعة والحدائق) is an Israeli government organization that manages nature reserves and national parks in Israel, ...
(INPA) A hundred Jewish homes have been built inside the park. Alonei Shilo was built as an Israeli outpost within the reserve and then subsequently gained Israeli authorization by reclassifying it as part of the Karnei Shomron settlement. Land from the reserve was also allocated to the El Matan outpost.
Amira Hass Amira Hass ( he, עמירה הס; born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper ''Haaretz'' covering Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, where she has lived for almost th ...
cites the Wadi Qana reserve as an example of Israeli efforts to "narrow the Palestinian expanse" by creating nature reserves and that the goal of the reserves is "to dispossess Palestinians". In 2011 the Israeli National Parks Authority uprooted 1,000 olive trees planted by Wadi Palestinians and issued a directive for the grubbing up of a further 1,400. The reason given was ecological. On appeal, the
Supreme Court of Israel ar, المحكمة العليا , image = Emblem of Israel dark blue full.svg , imagesize = 100px , caption = Emblem of Israel , motto = , established = , location = Givat Ram, Jerusalem , coordinat ...
handed down a judgement that the directive could apply only to saplings younger than 3 years. The following year Israeli park wardens nonetheless marked for destruction 2,100 olive trees, many of them older than the 3 year limit. On 23 January 2014, rangers with bulldozers under military escort ripped out between 500 and 800 olive trees which were then transported to an unknown location. Tear canisters were fired at the Palestinians protesting the measure. In August of that year, settlers constructed a new road, using bulldozers, through the wadi, without any permit. The master plan envisages a ring road connecting all the outposts and settlements, while blocking the one existing access road Palestinians may use. According to the
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is a United Nations (UN) body established in December 1991 by the General Assembly to strengthen the international response to complex emergencies and natural disaster ...
, Israel has destroyed Palestinian irrigation channels in the Wadi Qana area "under the pretext of environmental protection".
B'Tselem B'Tselem ( he, בצלם, , " in the image of od) is a Jerusalem-based non-profit organization whose stated goals are to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, combat any denial of the existence of su ...
reported that while the wadi area was actively being developed into a tourist site, Israeli authorities were issuing orders prohibiting any Palestinian development of the land. Friends of the Earth International reported that Palestinian agricultural projects have been destroyed by the Israeli authorities "under the guise of nature protection", calling the creation of such nature reserves "a significant tool of ethnic cleansing for the Israeli occupying forces." Outposts are often built or build inside nature reserves and in the past the INPA has done little about it even working hand in hand with the settlers. In a recent departure from this practice, the INPA, in 2018, initiated proceedings against 3 settlers from Alonei Shiloh for constructing a road partly passing through the reserve.


Notes


Citations


Bibliography

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External links

* Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14
IAAWikimedia commons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Qana, Nahal Rivers of Israel Rivers of the State of Palestine