As we picked our way through the rubble that remained of the house, its owner, 58-year-old Rezeq Abu Nasser, ran through memories of the lush valley where it once stood. This land in Wadi Qana, in the West Bank, had been in his family for generations. It was where he first learned to swim – in that stream over there. As a child he was nearly struck by lightning here in a freak storm during the olive harvest and the wadi (Arabic for ‘valley’) kept him safe for two years as he hid from Israeli authorities in the late 1980s. He pointed to a tree he once climbed to narrowly avoid arrest.
Residents of the nearby village of Deir Istiya, like Abu Nasser’s family, use this part of Wadi Qana for small-scale farming. It’s also in Area C of the West Bank, where Israel retains control of the land and it’s almost impossible for Palestinians to get permits to do any type of building work. Abu Nasser explained that here in the wadi, Palestinians cannot even plant trees.
