Ramallah: Israeli occupation forces have removed the Palestinian flagpole at the town of Sabastia, north of Nablus in the West Bank, as an increasing bitter game of cat and mouse between the Palestinians and the occupation forces continues.
The occupation forces raided Sabastia seven times in the past couple of days and removed the Palestinian flag and the Palestinians reinstalled their flag on the town’s hilltop which is home to several important archaeological sites which date back to ancient empires.
“Once the occupation forces withdraw from the scene, local residents would raise their flag again; but in the last raid, the occupation forces removed the flagpole,” said Zaid Al Azhari, the coordinator of the local committee in defence of Sabastia. “From tree branches, the Palestinians created a new flagpole in the destroyed pole’s same height and raised their flag on the hilltop.”
Sabastians had installed the Palestinian flag on the hilltop in 2012, when the status of Palestine was upgraded by the UN General Assembly to a non-member observer state.
The Israeli army announced the site to be open to army access at all times.
The occupation forces claimed that the Palestinian flag had illegally been hung in the site which is in area C that is under Israeli civil and military control and that the Sabastia archeological site is considered to be the site of the ancient Biblical city of Samaria.
“The last thing Israel wants is to see Palestinian flag flying above the ruins of the ancient Palestinian town of Sabastia,” Al Azhari told Gulf News.
Yossi Dagan, chief of the so-called Samarian Regional Council, said, “The waving of the Palestinian flag is the latest in a growing pattern of vandalism, where priceless archaeological relics in Sabastia are being destroyed. The authorities responsible are not doing their job, and we’ve seen more audacious acts of destruction and emerging battle to take over control of the place.
“If the authorities responsible won’t come to their senses, it will be very difficult to restore Israeli control and protect the site.”
Al Azhari said that Sabastians are fully aware that Israel works round the clock to take over their town’s hilltop. “Major Israeli excavations, supervised by the nearby Ariel University, are being conducted in Sabastia,” he said. “Israeli colonists escorted by huge occupation forces raid the site in daily incursions, pray and perform Jewish and Talmudic rituals on the hilltop of Sabastia.”
He said that Israel is sealing off Sabastia’s archaeological site stretching on 2,500 dunums of privately-owned Palestinian land. “Israel is installing a crossing (gate) to the town’s hilltop (115 dunums of land) which is home to seven major archeological sites to which Sabastia residents will strictly be denied access,” he said. “Israel will eventually take over the entire area should it control the town’s hilltop.”
“Sabastia is in great danger. A new status quo in Sabastia is currently in the making, where new facts on the ground have already been created,” he said, adding that Sabastia’s hilltop will end up a new Tal Al Rumaida of Hebron, which had come under control of the Israeli colonists.
He said that residents of Sabastia have launched a major campaign and urged the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to push for inscribing Sabastia on the world heritage in danger list of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) due to the Israeli greed.
