RAMALLAH, West Bank — The historic village of Kur, southeast of the city of Tulkarm, is known for its architectural heritage, including its domed buildings and castles, the oldest of which dates to the Mamluk era (1260-1516), while others were built by the Ottomans (1516-1916). According to residents, Kur's cultural landmarks suffer from general neglect, but what really concerns them is the threat to the buildings, and to their sanity, caused by a nearby stone-crushing operation. 

The citizens of Kur (pop. 350) have held numerous protests and demonstrations since the quarrying began, in 2006, between Beit Lid, Sfarin and their village. The protests were halted in 2008, when a court temporarily suspended the operation — which extracts large rocks and then crushes them into small chunks for use in construction materials — but resumed after the court's final decision allowed it to continue in 2012 due to a lack of evidence of harm. Residents staged their most recent protest Nov. 1 at the Council of Ministers in Ramallah.

Kur local Farid Jayyousi told Al-Monitor, “The town’s inhabitants are constantly feeling the ground shaking, akin to an earthquake, because of the use of dynamite to break up the rocks. We fear this shaking affecting our houses and the old buildings in the village, as they are likely to be cracked as a result of the explosions at the stone-crushing site. We have been demanding the closure of this crushing site for 10 years now. There are already cracks in some historical buildings because of the explosions affecting the integrity and strength of the buildings.”

Jayyousi explained that over the years, Kur citizens and local councils have submitted petitions about the stone crushing to several government authorities, including the Local Government Ministry, the Environmental Quality Authority and the High Planning Council. “The competent authorities do not care about this issue,” he said.