The real cost of Tel Aviv's insensitive expansion strategy

Beit Ijza, West Bank: The small house of Palestinian farmer Sabri Gareeb, which sits on a hilltop in the occupied Beit Ijza village in the West Bank, northwest of occupied Jerusalem, has become his prison.

Before 1978, the house sat on a 96-dunum piece of land owned by his ancestors, as legal papers show, but since that date, 45 dunums of the land were forcibly grabbed from him by Jewish colonists who settled with a caravan and then expanded to create the colony of Givon Hadashah with a population of more than 2,000.

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The rest of the land was expropriated by the separation wall - off limits to Gareeb, 72, and his family.

Gareeb's house, once surrounded by olive, peach and various other kinds of trees, is now surrounded on three sides by cottage-like stone buildings of the colony of Givon Hadashah. The house, now inside the colony, is isolated from the colonists' homes with barbed wire and an electrified five-metre wired fence.

A large metal gate monitored by the Israeli army is the only entrance to the house. A narrow corridor leading to the house is also enclosed by a fence.

Gareeb's sons, Masoud, 28, and Sulaiman, 39, said their father fought long battles in Israeli courts to regain his land and save his own home from confiscation. They said they had land deeds that proved their ownership of the land dating from the days of the Ottoman rule.

However, the land was gone, and Gareeb held on to his house despite threats, harassment from the colonists as well as enticement to sell by offering him imaginary sums of money which he rejected.

"We will never leave our house despite the harsh conditions we live in. We are prisoners in our own house," Sulaiman, a carpenter, said.

Colony construction on occupied West Bank land has obstructed Palestinian-Israeli peace talks in the past. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks can only resume after the condition of to a total colony freeze is observed by Israel.

Palestinians and the international community consider colonies illegal and an obstacle to peace.

US President Barack Obama has said he rejects the legitimacy of colonies and has called for a total freeze to help resume the peace process and convince Arabs to take steps towards normalising relations with Israel.

Under intense US pressure, Israeli officials said a temporary freeze was plausible, but last week, the Israeli defence ministry announced plans to build 455 housing units in six West Bank colonies.

Thousands of dunums of Palestinian land have been confiscated for the wall which snakes through the West Bank and isolates occupied Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. The International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled in 2004 that the construction of the wall was illegal and that the wall must be dismantled.

Palestinians say colonies and the wall, which have disrupted Palestinian movement across the West Bank, paralysed their economy and divided the Palestinian territories into isolated cantons, killed hopes for peace and prevented the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Israel says the colonies and the wall are crucial for Israel's security. Israeli leaders also say any final deal must take into consideration facts created on the ground and must include the annexation of major colony blocs to Israel.

The colonists reject any suggestion of a colony freeze.

Daniel Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of colonies in the West Bank, said it was impossible to freeze colonies in the West Bank. He said Obama would fail in his demands for a total colony freeze - just as seven of his predecessors, all US presidents, had done.

"One of the greatest mistakes in politics is to deny a reality," Dayan said last week.

Peace Now statistics show that the colonist population growth rate was five to six per cent, while the growth rate in Israel was 1.8 per cent.

Already, there are around half a million colonists living in heavily subsidised colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and in outposts.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem have recently seen an acceleration of the colonist takeover of Palestinian homes in what is seen as a political battle over the fate of the city that is at the centre of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Several Palestinian families living in houses in the luxurious Shaikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem have been ousted from their homes.

- Wafa Amr is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah