The Popular Resistance activists Thursday announced that they have successfully rebuilt the camp village named “Jerusalem Gate” on the lands of Abu Dies and al –Eizariyah, for the sixth time after being demolished by Israeli army forces for five times.
Munther Amira, leader of the Popular Resistance Committee confirmed that the camp was demolished on Wednesday, despite numerous attempts by local and international activists to fend off the Israeli soldiers.
He told WAFA that the camp has been rebuilt in minutes as the activists were prepared for such a response.
Jerusalem Gate is a camp village which was built last week in an attempt to protect land threatened with confiscation and belong to Palestinian families and to stop Israel from emptying the area which is referred to as E1.
E1 is a 12-square-kilometer plot home to over 10 Bedouin communities, such as Jahalin and Sawahreh. Israel claims E1 is mostly an empty mountainous area with few communities, but hundreds of those Bedouins have known no other home and continue to raise cattle there as the only source of living.
Israel’s main interest in E1 is to expand the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, in which over 40,000 settlers already illegally take residence, and connect it to East Jerusalem.
Emptying the area from its residents and turning it into Israeli settlements would ultimately divide the Palestinian territories into half, making any two-state solution unfeasible.  
Amira, who is joined by over 50 of permanently staying activists in the Jerusalem Gate village and another 50 to 100 who come on regular basis, said the camp village is not just a number of basic tents. He said participating activists are regularly organizing cultural and social events that include the Bedouin community surrounding the village and residing in E1.
The scheduled activities organized by the activists will include tours aimed at both international officials and diplomats in the West Bank as well as journalists.
Jerusalem Gate is not the first of its kind. In the last few years a number of symbolic villages where erected in either E1 or other areas to protest Israel’s ongoing control of land in Area C, which is part of the Palestinian Authority’s land yet wholly controlled by Israel.
In January 2013, Palestinian activists and foreign supporters set up a symbolic camp which they named “Bab al-Shams,” or “Gate of the Sun.” Despite of its peaceful trend, the camp was nonetheless rammed and evicted by Israeli army and Border Police.
A similar camp was erected in February 2014, when 300 Palestinians and international activists gathered in an abandoned village in the Jordan Valley village. The village, Ein Hijleh, had been abandoned after Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in 1967.
The reason why this village differs from other similar unsuccessful attempts, as Amira puts it, is that this one is not symbolic.
“This is a serious initiative. We have the support of the lands’ owners. We will continue to erect the village again and again each time Israel demolishes it.”
Israel’s confiscation of E1 land will not only divide the West Bank in half, but will also destroy the social fabric of the Palestinian community of which Bedouins are an essential component, displace whole communities, and deprive families of their right their property.
According to Amira, Israeli army forces Wednesday brought along contractors whose job was to survey the area for future construction plans. He said the activists stopped them from advancing further.
Amira said that next week will witness a substantial transformation, through a wider campaign that will target more areas which are endangered of confiscation across the West Bank.