Wadi Rabah dunes at sunset / credit: Anastasia Pozdnyakova / Wikipedia
WADI RABAH, Palestine—On August 11, the Israel Civil Administration (ICA) is expected to discuss construction of the Nahal Rabah cemetery in the occupied West Bank. Experts and activists claim the cemetery, which was approved without an environmental survey, will disrupt the region’s biodiversity in addition to harming Palestinian land.
Last week, activists from the Israeli climate justice movement, One Climate, barricaded themselves to the head office of Chevra Kadisha, the Tel Aviv burial society promoting the cemetery’s construction in Nahal Rabah (or Wadi Rabah in Arabic). Chevra Kadisha is working in conjunction with the Israeli settlements of Elkana, Oranit, and the Samaria Regional Council, the governmental body overseeing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, to build the burial site.
Led by an activist dressed as a gazelle—one of the main species at risk of losing their habitat in Wadi Rabah if development occurs—the One Climate group stormed the Chevra Kadisha office on July 26, demanding to meet with the company’s CEO, Rabbi Avraham Menela.
Israeli activists from Climate One attempted to block the head office of Chevra Kadisha, the Tel Aviv burial society promoting the cemetery’s construction in Nahal Rabah (or Wadi Rabah in Arabic) / credit: activists
“We will not leave until the CEO will provide us with an explanation as to why they are promoting a plan that seems purely geared to make profit off of field-burial plots,” said One Climate activist Tamar, who declined to give her last name. “While field burials are being phased out inside Israel, this cemetery might turn Israelis into settlers after their deaths.”
During the demonstration, activists emphasized the cemetery’s construction is part of a political agenda to create Jewish territorial contiguity between the city of Rosh Ha’ayin—in proximity to Wadi Rabah inside Historic Palestine (or modern-day Israel)—and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They said that would deepen the de-facto annexation of Area C, a region of the West Bank under full Israeli military control.
Chevra Kadisha, said the activists, is participating in the theft of Palestinian land in order to bury Jewish bodies—creating irreversible destruction in the name of Jewish supremacy.
One Climate was not able to meet with Menela on July 26, but Chevra Kadisha suggested activists call the firm to set up a meeting. One Climate contacted Chevra Kadisha to schedule a meeting, but the date hasn’t been established yet. Chevra Kadisha did not respond to Toward Freedom’s requests for comment on the cemetery’s construction as well as on the opposition.
Map of Wadi Rabah area in occupied Palestine, abutting the Mediterranean Sea / credit: Estelle Orelle / ResearchGate
A Sensitive Ecological Habitat Under Threat
Wadi Rabah is part of the central ecological corridor between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered a sensitive ecological habitat, filled with diverse animals and plants. It is also located on occupied Palestinian land, expropriated in the 1980s.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian scientist and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, explained the area is a Mediterranean hotspot of particular environmental concern because the region’s biodiversity has become rare and endangered due to a changing climate.
Qumsiyeh emphasized the area must be protected, given it is a passageway for millions of migratory birds.
Quarry Splits Palestine
The cemetery isn’t the only construction in development in Wadi Rabah. Israel’s Ministry of Defense is promoting a settlement industrial zone and the expansion of the Hanson Israel quarry, a subsidiary of German company HeidelbergCementAG. The ICA, which oversees all civilian matters in the West Bank and operates under the Defense Ministry, did not respond to press inquiries regarding these building proposals.
The existing quarry in Wadi Rabah was built on about 148 acres of Palestinian land, including private land belonging to al-Zawiya, a Palestinian village home to over 6,000 people in the West Bank. In February 2019, Israeli authorities seized an additional 24 acres of private Palestinian land belonging to the village of Rafat, which is now the site of the proposed quarry expansion. While located in Area C, the quarry was built on the Israeli side of the apartheid wall, the barrier dividing the West Bank and historic Palestine. The strategic placement of the quarry encloses it inside historic Palestine, cutting off al-Zawiya and Rafat residents from their agricultural lands.
Christoph Beumelburg, communication director at HeidelbergCementAG, told Toward Freedom that the quarry expansion is ongoing and nothing is finalized yet.
“We are confident that all regulations and processes are in coherence with applicable law within this license extension application process, including all environmental studies,” Beumelburg said.
‘Way to Control Land’
Yet, according to Moshe Perlmuter of the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), it isn’t possible to sustainably develop Wadi Rabah.
“You can’t build something that won’t cause damage in this place,” Perlmuter said. “If you build inside [Wadi Rabah], you make the natural area smaller and gazelles, especially, need a very wide area to live.”
For Qumsiyeh, the building plans in Wadi Rabah—especially the cemetery—are just another Israeli colonization attempt.
“These grave settlements are a way to control land and territory.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
Every morning, Pandurang Khondre starts his day by looking for Khandya. “He was our family member,” he said, teary-eyed / credit: Sanket Jain
For the first time in Khandya’s life as a working ox, five veterinary doctors visited him more than 30 times in one week at Pandurang Khondre’s cattle shed.
It all started in mid-2022 when Khondre saw traces of an infection on the right leg of Khandya, his strongest ox. “Khandya” is derived from the name of a local deity named “Khandoba.”
“The ox had worked without any trouble for the entire day,” the farmer recounted. “However, I saw a few red-colored nodes when I returned the next morning.” Khondre immediately called a private vet. When the doctor showed up an hour later at Khondre’s cattle shed in the Jambhali village of western India’s Maharashtra state, he suspected Khandya must have been infected with Lumpy skin disease. That began the first of eight weeks of veterinary visits for Khandya and other cattle on the farm.
Lumpy, or LSD, is a contagious viral disease that affects cattle. Certain species of blood-feeding insects, like flies, ticks and mosquitoes, transmit it. Symptoms include skin nodules, severe loss of appetite, fever, nasal discharge, watery eyes, drop in milk production, and swelling of limbs and genitalia.
In 2022, Lumpy became an epidemic in India, affecting 2.9 million cattle (1.51 percent) across 23 states. From 2022 until the first week of this month, India reported 184,447 cattle deaths. No reports in the public domain have yet to sum up economic losses for the whole country. However, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2020 risk assessment report mentions Lumpy caused $1.45 billion in direct losses of livestock and production in south, east and southeast Asia. The report added, “These losses may be higher, due to the severe trade implications for infected countries.”
As of this month, 84.19 million Indian cattle have been vaccinated against Lumpy. If going by the latest livestock census released in 2019, that would mean 43 percent of cattle.
With the lives of India’s poor having been complicated by climate change impacts and livestock diseases, many have been forced to flee their homes in search of another source of income and take on loans for living expenses, as this reporter documented in a previous article for Toward Freedom.
Pandurang Khondre’s daughter-in-law shows a photo on her smartphone of their late ox, Khandya, who succumbed to Lumpy skin disease / credit: Sanket Jain
A Tearful Ox
Lumpy’s impact is so severe that Khandya went from eating 50 kilograms of cattle feed daily to finding it difficult to swallow five kilograms. Khondre, who is in his early 50s, and his wife, Malan, in her late 40s, spent over 16 hours a day looking after the ox as he struggled with the disease.
“He wouldn’t eat anything. When asked what happened, he always responded with tears,” says Khondre.
Khandya is among the 34,711 cattle in Maharashtra who have succumbed to Lumpy, for which goat pox vaccine is being administered. While India has developed an indigenous vaccine, it has yet to be made available for commercial production.
Then, in the final 72 hours of Khandya’s life in October, the situation took a bad turn.
“He had become so stiff that whenever we touched him, it felt like we were touching wood,” Malan said. “The nodes often returned despite the regular treatment.”
The Khondres spent over 60,000 Indian Rupees ($724) over three months on the treatment.
“The Government doctors wouldn’t show up. There were times we waited for an entire day,” Khondre said.
Vishnu Kumbhar and his wife, Sarasvati, spent almost 16 hours a day looking after their cow and the bull calf infected by Lumpy / credit: Sanket Jain
A Dearth of Vets In a Country of Cattle
Public vet and livestock supervisor Raosaheb Salunkhe, working in the Danoli village of Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district, has helped save several cattle.
“During the peak of the outbreak, we were attending to as many as 80 cases daily,” Salunkhe said. “Many farmers spent a lot of money on private vets and consulted us much later, when the disease became severe.”
For the 302.79 million bovine population (as per the 2019 livestock census), India has 73,129 registered public veterinary practitioners and just 54 recognized veterinary colleges. That means 1 vet is available to care for every 4,140 cattle.
Of Khondre’s five cattle, another affected ox survived the disease. However, Khondre said the ox wasn’t the same after recovering. “After an hour’s work, he felt dizzy and kept losing balance.” Eventually, he sold the ox and bought a new one by paying another $181.
Khondre is now worried about his last stable income source drying up.
“Whenever the oxen worked in the fields, I got 800-1000 rupees ($10-12) daily. Now, with just one ox, I have to rent another, and even earning 400 rupees ($4.8) daily has become difficult.”
Buying another ox will cost him $1,000, which remains out of bounds with Khondre having taken a hit over recent years. Climate change events, such as incessant rainfall, heat waves and repeat flooding, have caused financial losses.
Farmer Vishnu Kumbhar, 70, who has been farming for over five decades, said he has never seen a disease like Lumpy as well as recurring floods, which have made farming unsustainable / credit: Sanket Jain
‘Everything Was Gone In a Few Hours’
About 30 kilometers from Jambhali village, Vitthal Kumbhar and his family recounted their own trouble with Lumpy. Of their five cattle, a 10-year-old indigenous cow and a bull calf were infected in November in their village of Bhendavade.
“Within a day, the swelling spread to all the legs,” 70-year-old Kumbhar described, “and at the same time, she was diagnosed with pneumonia.”
It took over two months for both animals to recover.
Jitendra Kurundwade, assistant commissioner of Kolhapur’s Animal Husbandry Department, explained how the district handled the contagious disease.
“There were cases where we were treating the same cattle for almost a month.”
Given the rapid movement of the virus, almost 31,000 cattle in 54 villages of Shirol block were at risk of being infected. (In India, several villages form a block. Jambhali village is part of Shirol block.)
“So, we decentralized the vaccination process,” Kurundwade said, “and vaccinated all of them in a week, which otherwise would have taken at least six months.”
Their efforts were successful, as Kurundwade shared that around 4,500 cows (14 percent) were infected and 150 succumbed. The death rate came to 0.48 percent of all cows and 3.33 percent of infected cows.
“Everything was gone in a few hours,” said Sarasvati Kumbhar about how severe climate change events, such as incessant rainfall and hailstorms, destroyed the sugarcane she cultivated on 1.5 acres / credit: Sanket Jain
A Virus and Climate Change Wreak Havoc
When the cow first showed Lumpy symptoms, Kumbhar called a private doctor from a nearby village. The vet visited once and suggested seeking treatment from the public hospital, as private hospital care is pricey. Kumbhar’s son, Ganesh, 32, transported each of the four public doctors on his bike from the veterinary hospitals on a daily basis. Collectively, they provided more than 90 injections in a month.
Before Lumpy, the cow produced daily at least six liters of milk, which they served to the bull calf. Now, they are forced to buy milk from the market or use milk from other cattle, which eats up a source of their income.
Farmers reported affected cattle took at least four months to recover. A decline in milk production and in cattle strength affected farm operations.
However, India remains the highest milk producer, contributing 23 percent to global milk production. The country produced 210 million tons of milk in 2020-21.
The dairy sector employs 80 million rural households in India, with the majority being marginal landowning farmers and the landless. For millions of farmers, dairy remains the only source of income, as climate change continues to destroy crops. For instance, in just October, Kumbhar’s 1.5-acre field was among the 2.8 million hectares (6.91 million acres) destroyed during heavy rains in Maharashtra.
In 2021, floods devastated crops on 7.79 million hectares (19.24 acres) of farmland in India, affecting 38.56 million people and killing 64,880 cattle. Further, from January 1 to September 30, 2022, climate disasters continued to wreak havoc in India, with extreme weather events on 241 out of 273 days.
Kumbhar survived the 2019 and 2021 floods, 2022 heat waves, and erratic rainfall only because of cattle milk. However, his cow barely produces milk after Lumpy, and debt is mounting fast.
His wife, Sarasvati, in her mid-60s, put things in perspective by recalling the recent disasters in their village, Bhendavade, in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district. In October, hailstorms devastated the sugarcane she cultivated on 1.5 acres.
“Everything was gone in a few hours.”
Of the 100 tons she was expecting to cut that would have been worth $3,625, she only harvested 32 tons. “I wasn’t even able to recover the cost of production.” But that wasn’t the first time. In 2019, her family harvested just 30 tons of sugarcane. Then, in 2021, severe floods left them with 10 tons to cut. “Never in my life have I reported such low production,” Kumbhar said. “Despite using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the production isn’t increasing.”
Similarly, Khondre, too, recently harvested 21 tons of sugarcane on three-fourths of an acre, compared to at least 45 tons.
“It takes about 15 months for the sugarcane to grow completely. The only thing we got from this was more debt.”
In the 2019 and 2021 floods and incessant rainfall of 2022, the Kumbhar family lost most of their sugarcane and couldn’t even recover the cost of production / credit: Sanket Jain
Mounting Debt and Losing a ‘Family Member’
Recurring climate disasters have led to mounting debts, forcing Indian farmers to cut back on fodder (animal feed). A 40-kilogram sack of maize cattle feed costs at least $17 and lasts less than a week. “If we can’t sell the cattle milk and face repeated losses in the field, how will we buy this fodder?” Kumbhar asked. Nowadays, most of the time, he skips fodder, which affects milk production.
Last year, they took out a crop loan of $1,208 and will have to take on another loan this year. With 30 tons of sugarcane, he just managed to get $1,087. In normal climatic conditions, it would have fetched him at least $3,624. “In 15 months, I couldn’t earn a single rupee. Rather, I am making a loss,” Kumbhar said.
“Just an agriculture loan is not enough now. We’ll also have to take loans from friends and private moneylenders,” said his daughter-in-law, Poonam, 28. Her husband, Ganesh, could not go to work for two months as an operator at a grinding machine in a nearby factory.
“I spent most of the time with the cattle,” he said.
Similarly, last year, Rohit Koli, Khondre’s neighbor down the road, spent over two months with his infected Holstein Friesian cow. “I couldn’t sleep properly for over 45 days. The vets treated her every day for 25 days. But, still, we lost an important family member,” the Jambhali resident said.
“For the final six days, she ate nothing, after which she passed away,” he recounted. “It will cost at least 110,000 Rupees ($1,329) to buy another Holstein cow, which we can’t afford.”
Koli recalled the cow produced at least 24 liters of milk daily, fetching him over $8. Four of the seven cows he owns were infected, of which three recovered and one died.
“Lumpy is like a corona of animals,” Koli said, referring to the novel coronavirus of 2019 that mainly affected humans. “I’ve never seen so many cattle falling sick and dying.”
Meanwhile, every morning, Khondre, starts his day by looking for Khandya. “He was our family member,” he said, teary-eyed. When the ox died, more than 100 farmers gathered to mourn. “Everyone loved Khandya,” said Khondre, looking at the ox’s photo once again on his daughter-in-law’s smartphone.
“Majha bail (My ox).”
Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.
This week, Toward Freedom’s Board of Directors bids farewell to guest editor Charlotte Dennett, welcomes Toward Freedom’s new editor, Julie Varughese, and extends a heartfelt thanks to Sam Mayfield who stepped down as President of Toward Freedom’s Board of Directors in December, 2020.
Charlotte Dennett stepped in as Toward Freedom’s guest editor last October. Her decades-long experience as a scholar, author and activist allowed Charlotte to seamlessly step into the position serving Toward Freedom’s mission, “to publish international reporting and incisive analysis that exposes government and corporate abuses of power, while supporting movements for universal peace, justice, freedom, the environment, and human rights.”
Charlotte contributed not only her editorial and writing skills, but also her great depth of geopolitical knowledge, as well as her enthusiasm for working with other writers. She went above and beyond the call of duty to mentor new writers, guiding them through the editing process, which resulted in the publication of many articles about places and issues not covered by any other English-language media. You can read Charlotte’s reflections about her time as guest editor here. Thank you, Charlotte!
Earlier this month, Julie Varughese came on board as Toward Freedom’s new editor. Julie comes to us having worked as a newspaper reporter, video producer and communications professional in a variety of settings. She has been working with the Black Alliance for Peace since its inception, supporting their impressive growth over the past four years. Julie’s strong writing, editing, video, graphics and social media skills will be a boon to Toward Freedom as we expand and grow to serve a more diverse audience and cover different parts of the world. This past week, Julie edited and published stories on Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Palestine, and drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. Please drop her a line at [email protected] with any comments or suggestions. Welcome, Julie!
Sam Mayfield led the organization during a period of transition in our operations, finances, and governance, with a clear vision and commitment to high-quality reporting and analysis of global events and grassroots movements from an anti-imperialist perspective. Her principled leadership, strong work ethic, and experience as a reporter and filmmaker were invaluable as we navigated multiple challenges over the past several years. Thank you, Sam!
Check out towardfreedom.org for all the latest, and expect to see increased presence of Toward Freedom stories on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the coming weeks.
Thanks to you Toward Freedom readers for your continued support!
On behalf of the Toward Freedom Board of Directors,
The Yemeni Army and Houthi rebels each exchanged 21 prisoners in a historic exchange on April 16 / credit: Anadolu Agency
Peace in Yemen One Step Closer After Historic Prisoner Exchange
The Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen and the rebel Houthis completed a three-day prisoner exchange on April 16. Close to 900 prisoners have been exchanged between the two warring sides through mid-April. The exchange is the result of an agreement reached in Switzerland in March as part of a round of ongoing peace and reconciliation talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia—the primary supporter of the Yemeni government.
The historic peace talks are seen as a result of the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia brokered by China. A resolution toward ending the years-long war in Yemen was reportedly one of the key issues in the Saudi-Iran rapprochement.
The prisoner exchange has been widely recognized as an important step towards peace in a war that has already claimed over 1.5 million lives, according to the Houthi-backed administration in Sana’a, and displaced millions. As a consequence of the Saudi-imposed blockade, millions of people, including at least 2.2 million children, have also suffered from acute malnutrition and hunger.
UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, who helped broker the prisoner exchange agreement in Switzerland, commented, “This release operation comes at a time of hope for Yemen as a reminder that constructive dialogue and mutual compromises are powerful tools capable of achieving great outcomes. Today, hundreds of Yemeni families get to celebrate Eid with their loved ones because the parties negotiated and reached an agreement. I hope this spirit is reflected in ongoing efforts to advance a comprehensive political solution.”
Palestinian activists take part in a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners / credit: MEMO
On Prisoners’ Day, Palestinians Stand in Solidarity With Their 5,000 Comrades in Israeli Occupation Jails
On April 16, the eve of Prisoners’ Day, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) stated that a jailed Palestinian, Khader Adnan, is in a critical state and needs immediate hospitalization. Adnan is currently on an indefinite hunger strike against his unlawful detention by the Israeli occupation forces.
Adnan, aged 45, has completed over 70 days of his hunger strike and is currently inside Israel’s notorious Ramla prison clinic, despite repeated appeals to shift him to a proper hospital. The PPS claimed that Adnan is already suffering from serious health issues and “Israel’s refusal to move him to a hospital aims at causing him chronic diseases that are difficult to treat later.”
Adnan has been arrested 12 times in the last 20 years and has spent over eight years altogether in Israeli administrative detention. He has been on hunger strike since the beginning of his present incarceration, in the first week of February. This is his sixth hunger strike and his longest so far.
Palestinians mark Prisoners’ Day every year on April 17 to express solidarity with their freedom fighters inside Israeli prisons. According to a joint report published on the occasion, there are around 4,900 Palestinians inside different Israeli prisons, including 31 women and 160 children.
Most Palestinian prisoners face widespread atrocities from the Israeli prison authorities, including denial of family meetings, restrictions on interactions with other prisoners, and torture.
