At the start of the tilling season in March 2016, the head of the village of Thulth in Qalqiliya District sought to arrange the opening of the Kharabah gate, which allows the village farmers to access their farmlands – extending over an area of some 700 dunums – which are trapped between the separation fence and the Green Line border, part of the Israeli-dubbed "seam zone". In an outrageous decision, the military’s District Coordination Office consented to briefly open the gate on five specific days, each time for just a few minutes twice a day.
On April 5, 2016, HaMoked
wrote to the military to demand the gate’s opening period be extended to a month to allow the villagers to cultivate their farmlands. HaMoked recalled that the state was required – according to the judgment of the High Court of Justice (HCJ) in
HCJ petition 9961/03, to minimize as much as possible the harm to Palestinians caused by the construction of the separation fence. But no response arrived.
On April 17, 2016, HaMoked
contacted the State Attorney’s Office to request the state’s undertaking be implemented, and that, in addition to the Kharabah agricultural gate listed on the farmers’ entry permits to the seam zone, another gate, open year-round, would be added to the permits – as the state had
guaranteed in HCJ 9961/03.
As no response arrived, HaMoked
petitioned the HCJ on April 24, 2016, in a bid to compel the military to extend the opening period of the agricultural gate and prolong the opening hours, HaMoked asserted that the harm caused to the farmers of Thulth Village was unbalanced and contrary to the HCJ’s judgment in the "permit regime" petitions (HCJ 9961/03), as it increases the scope of damage to the Palestinian farmers.