February 10, 2013 at 15:25 (Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine, Photography, zionist harassment)
A Palestinian child reacts after coming back from school to find his house destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces, east of Jerusalem, today.
All his books, toys, memories … Everything he had represented a threat for “Israel’s security” !!??!!
That look …Can you imagine how much anger he carries in his heart now ……!!!!!
July 18, 2012 at 11:02 (Activism, Home Demolitions, Israel, Oppression, Palestine, zionist harassment)
International volunteers join Palestinians and Israelis to build ‘alternative facts on the ground’ in defiance of Israeli demolition policy.
By Activestills
Arabiya Shawamreh and her husband Salim stand in the ruins of their house that Israeli authorities demolished on January 23, 2012 for the fifth time. The same night, between 11:00 pm and 4:00 am, seven other homes were demolished in Anata, displacing more than 60 Palestinians. (Photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)
Six months after Israeli bulldozers demolished the house of Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh, Palestinian workers, Israeli activists, and international volunteers gathered to celebrate their successful efforts to rebuild it. Dubbed “Beit Arabiya” (“Arabiya’s House”), and used as a peace center by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) since 2003, it has long been a gathering place for ICAHD’s efforts to resist the Israeli government’s discriminatory housing policies that systematically refuse building permits to Palestinians and then demolish houses that are built regardless.
Left: Beit Arabiya in August 2, 2007. Right: the house after it was demolished for the fifth time, January 25, 2012. Located northeast of Jerusalem in the West Bank town of Anata, it has become a symbol of resistance to Israeli demolition policy. (Photo: Keren Manor/Activestills.org)
More background from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions:
More than two hundred people gathered in the West Bank town of Anata to celebrate the rebuilding of Beit Arabiya, home of Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh family. Since 1998, this home has been demolished five times by the Israeli government but rebuilt each time by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) as a political act of resistance to Israel’s demolition policies, which are illegal under international law.
Palestinian volunteers and international activists pass floor tiles ‘hand to hand’ while rebuilding Beit Arabiya. (Photo: RRB/Activestills.org)
The home was rebuilt during ICAHD’s tenth annual rebuilding camp that attracted more than thirty internationals that stood side by side with Israelis and Palestinians who refuse to be enemies, demonstrating that there are partners for peace. Within two weeks, the pile of rubble left after the demolition of the house in the middle of night on 23 January earlier this year, was transformed into a fully functioning house with an extensive terrace, made possible by nearly one hundred additional volunteers, including international youth, part of summer delegations to Palestine who worked with temperatures soaring over 30 degrees C and with limited water supplies.
An international volunteer hands a stone to a local Palestinian contractor. (Photo: RRB/Activestills.org)
Every year hundreds of Palestinians are forced from their homes, homes built on land they own. Since 1967 Israel has demolished more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. ICAHD has rebuilt a total of 186 Palestinian homes illegally demolished by Israel and is determined to see this cruel policy stop.
An international volunteer hands a bucket of cement to a local Palestinian contractor plastering the house’s exterior. (Photo: RRB/Activestills.org)
ICAHD Director, Prof. Jeff Halper, calls the rebuilding “an overtly political act of defiance. By rebuilding, we set alternative facts on the ground.” The Shawamreh family applied three times to the Israeli Civil Administration for a building permit and was refused each time, as were 94% of Palestinian permit applications since 1993. Having no other alternative, they proceeded, as have thousands of other Palestinian families, to build their home, in which they lived for five years despite having been issued a demolition order.
Local and diaspora Palestinian volunteers take in the view atop the newly rebuilt house. (Photo: RRB/Activestills.org)
Arabiya Shawamreh embraces a supporter inside her newly rebuilt house. (Photo: RRB/Activestills.org)
Local Palestinian workers dance arm in arm with ICAHD volunteers at the dedication ceremony on July 15, 2012, just six months after the demolition of Beit Arabiya. (Photo: RRB/Activestills.org)
Activestills is a collective of Israeli, international and Palestinian photographers, united by a conviction that photography is a vehicle for social change. To stay updated on our latest images, like Activestills on Facebook or follow @activestills on Twitter. You can also visit ourflickr photostream.
December 7, 2011 at 07:21 (Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, Soldier Brutality)
by Sarah
On Monday the 5th of December, in the Azzun district of Qalqiliya, a stone factory was destroyed at 6:00 am. The owner, Hussain Anam, explained to us that the factory was built 3 years ago, but his only demolition notice was when the bulldozer came this morning. The demolition order stated that the building was built without permission. The bulldozer was accompanied by 15 jeeps and 50 soldiers to destroy the property. This factory employed 10 people and now they are asking,”Where will we work today?”
In Arab an Ramadin al Janubi, two houses were destroyed at approximately 7:30 in the morning. The demolition was executed by 50 soldiers using 2 bulldozers.
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Demolitions near Qalqilia – Click on photo for more images
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The first home belonged to the Shaour family. The home was built through donations by the 320 residents of the village. And today the Israeli Army forced this family out of their home with violence. One of the children was dragged out of the house by his throat. Their first demolition notice was sent two weeks ago and then another notice three days ago. The evicted family included 8 children and their parents. The only thing that was saved from the home was the grandmother’s medical bed. The grandmother had to watch her son’s home being demolished as she laid in her bed not able to move.
After the first demolition the soldiers continued their efforts to destroy homes. The next on the list was the home of Mohammed and his 5 children. Mohammed originally received a demolition order 10 years ago, and today the Israeli army fulfilled their threats by destroying Mohammed’s house.
He is now asking himself, “Where will I sleep tonight with my children?” All of their possessions including a refrigerator, TV, and sofa lay under the rubble of this 8 by 10 meter squared house.
“All the belongings we cumulated during these 10 years, the family souvenirs, pictures”, Mohammed said as he began to cry. They have lost everything .
In both of these home demolition cases the soldiers did not let the family save the furniture, electronics, or clothes. Now both families have no place to call home.
Sarah is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
November 26, 2011 at 18:04 (Activism, DesertPeace Editorial, Ethnic Cleansing, Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupation, Palestine)
November 26, 2011 at 15:33 (Collective Punishment, Hate crimes, Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine, Soldier Brutality)
August 23, 2011 at 10:06 (Collective Punishment, Gaza, Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine, Palestinian Statehood)
The Israeli army has increased the number of demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. (Keren Manor / ActiveStills )
RAMALLAH, Each year, hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank have their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities because they are unable to obtain permits for their buildings, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The demolitions take place in Area C, a zone designated by the Oslo accords covering 60 percent of the West Bank with a Palestinian population of about 150,000.
Israel retains military authority and full control over building and planning in Area C: as much as 70 percent of it is inaccessible to Palestinians, classified as Israeli settlements, firing zones or nature reserves.
In the remaining 30 percent there are a number of other restrictions that reduce the possibility for Palestinians to obtain a building permit, reports OCHA. In practice, Palestinian construction is normally permitted only within the boundaries of a plan approved by the Israeli Civil Administration, which covers less than 1 percent of Area C, much of which is already built-up, according to OCHA.
Many Palestinians living in Area C are left with no choice other than to build without a permit.
Israel says authorities have only demolished illegal structures, and that Jewish and Palestinian residents in Area C are subject to the same restrictions.
An August 2011 OCHA report highlights the concerns of 13 Area C communities, including restrictive and discriminatory planning and zoning policies which limit Palestinian construction and use of the land, and lack of effective law enforcement in response to settler attacks.
Also, movement and access restrictions, like those created by Israel’s wall in the West Bank, limit access to land and water resources for many communities.
Racist grafitti
Residents of Khallet Zakariya, located in Area C south of Bethlehem say Israeli authorities are demolishing their homes and settlers have destroyed their livelihoods in an effort to force the community to relocate.
Farmer Mohamed Khalil, 55, from Khallet Zakariya, says Israeli settlers ruined about half a hectare of his agricultural fields in June and spray-painted “death to Arabs” in black on the wall of his home, which is still visible.
“It’s not the first time settlers destroyed my land,” said Khalil. “It takes 3-4 years to cultivate crops of grapes and plums.”
The lost crops will affect income for three families, including 19 people. Mohamed has filed a complaint with Israeli police.
According to Khalil, officials from the Civil Administration, the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank, came and offered to relocate his community of about 350 people to an area west of Bethlehem called Nahhlin.
“My father cultivated this land — we declined,” he said.
With the Bat Ayin settlement located directly west and the Rosh Zurim settlement directly to the north, residents of Khallet Zakariya say there is a strategy to force them out to allow further settlement expansion.
However, expansion has mostly been in larger settlements over the past year, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.
20 minutes notice before bulldozing
Fatima Saed, her husband Mahmoud, and their four children had 20 minutes notice to pack their belongings and evacuate their home in Khallet Zakariya before it was bulldozed by Israeli authorities on 25 July.
“Our lawyer was not informed that we had lost our court case disputing the demolition order for our home,” said Fatima. Her family is now living at her brother’s house nearby, with 21 people crammed into two rooms.
“We built here without a permit, because my family owns the land,” she said.
In the first six months of 2011, OCHA reports that the Israeli authorities demolished 342 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C, including 125 residential “structures,” displacing a total of 656 Palestinians, including 351 children — almost five times as many demolitions and people displaced as during the first half of 2010.
Guy Inbar, the Israeli coordinator of government activities in the occupied Palestinian territory (COGAT), said: “There is no policy to move people from their homes.”
He acknowledged, however, that Israel has increased action to monitor unapproved building, both in Jewish and Palestinian sectors within Area C. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) are illegal. But Israel has created confusion by referring to settlement expansions not officially authorized by its governments as “illegal outposts.”
“A similar number of illegal Israeli and Palestinian structures have been demolished by Israel so far in 2011,” said Inbar, and “Israel is working to approve and authorize more areas within Area C that Palestinians will be permitted to live [in] and build [on].”
Few building permits
B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli said: “Israeli settlements were built in contravention of international law in the West Bank, while the Palestinian population in Area C is under occupation and protected by international law.”
Another Israeli organization, Bimkom, comprised of planners and architects to strengthen human rights in the field of planning, published a comprehensive report in 2008 detailing what it describes as separate planning systems for Israeli settlements that allow for growth and expansion.
From 2000 to 2007, the Civil Administration approved 5 percent of the applications for building permits submitted by Palestinians in Area C. The total number of building permits issued to Palestinians during these seven years was 91, an average of 13 building permits per annum, Bimkom reported.
This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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Image by Skulz Fontaine
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click on image to enlarge
March 21, 2011 at 13:42 (Complicity, Ethnic Cleansing, Home Demolitions, Israel, Land Theft, Oppression, Palestine, United Nations)
Members of the Younis family watch while their home is demolished by Israeli
bulldozers in the West Bank village of Azzun Atma near Qalqilia, January 11,
2011. The village, stranded between the Green Line, Israel’s separation wall
and two settlements, is only partially under Palestinian control. Areas of the
village near the barrier and settlements come under Israeli civil and military
jurisdiction. [MaanImages/Khaleel Reash]
The UN Relief and Works Agency recorded 70 demolitions since the start of 2011, displacing 105 Palestinians, of whom 43 were under the age of 18. The demolitions were carried out across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and ordered by Israeli police, municipal officials and by mandate of the Civil Administration.
Commenting on the jump, UNRWA spokesman in Jerusalem Chris Gunness told Ma’an that officials were concerned, comparing the number to the average of 24 demolitions per month since 2000, when the agency began monitoring.
The last two months in 2010, Gunness said in comparison, saw 29 structures demolished.
“The High Commissioner for Human Rights described this as discriminatory,” he said, referring to comments of Navi Pillay who visited the region last month. She said, “All settlement-related activities, and any legal or administrative decision or practice that directly or indirectly coerce Palestinians to leave East Jerusalem, including evictions, demolitions, forced displacements and cancelation of residence permits on a discriminatory basis, should be halted and restrictions on access to East Jerusalem by other West Bank inhabitants should be lifted,” in a statement on her final day in the region.
“Pillay clearly related these demolitions to the peace process, to human rights,” Gunness continued, calling the process of demolitions a “triple humiliation, with families forced to build illegally, faced with the demolition of their homes, a process that all too often occurs in front of the faces of their children.”
In East Jerusalem, Israel has zoned 13 percent of the city for Palestinian building, “most of which is already incredibly built up,” Gunness noted. “They are forced to build without a permit.”
In the West Bank, Palestinians are prohibited from building in zones declared by Israel to be military training zones, firing areas, state land, near settlements, or areas otherwise declared to be “Area C,” which falls under Israeli Civil Administration. According to UN numbers, more than 60 percent of the West Bank falls under one or more of these designates.
‘Slow demolition of the peace process’
In the context of peace talks stalled since September 2010, the recent announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of another 500 settlement homes in the West Bank in reported retaliation for the slaying of a settler family by unknown assailants, and the consequent spike in settler violence against Palestinians, Gunness said of the parallel increase in home demolitions:
“We are seeing the bulldozing of people’s hopes in a peaceful future and the slow demolition of the peace process itself.”
Bedouin village receives demolition orders
The most recent demolition orders to hit Palestinians were delivered to the Auda family, an extended network of Bedouins living in the Arab Ar-Rashayida village.
Family members told Ma’an on Friday that at least a dozen tents and animal shelters were included in an order delivered by representatives of Israel’s Civil Administration.
Ali Auda, the head of the family, said the orders “say we are violating the borders of Israel under the Oslo Accords … we are more than 450 meters away from where they put the signs.”
He said if their homes were taken down, the family — 50 members in all — would have nowhere else to go.
“It is the farce of the twenty-first century, imagine, an occupying state telling Palestinians they are violating their own land.”
Auda said he believed that his family was served eviction notices because “Israel wants to rid the area of its residents.”
A spokesman for Israel’s Civil Administration said he was unaware of any recent orders being delivered to the area.
March 15, 2011 at 08:20 (Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Israel, Land Theft, Occupation, Palestine, zionist harassment)
Erasing links to the land in the Negev
Hiding in the cemetery where her parents are buried, Hakma al-Turi, an Israeli citizen, has watched bulldozers demolish her village — al-Araqib — more than 20 times. The Israel Land Administration first demolished the 45 structures on this patch of land in the Negev desert eight months ago. When the 300 Israeli Bedouin who lived here defiantly rebuilt tarp-covered shacks, the Israel Land Administration demolished them again and again, the last time on March 7.
But the Land Administration inspectors and the police officers escorting them have so far been reluctant to enter the cemetery adjacent to the village, where the extended al-Turi family has been burying family members since 1907. So Hakma, a mother of nine, devised a plan to protect her most fragile possessions: she put her family photographs, children’s medicines, and a small refrigerator full of milk in an improvised wheeled cart. When the bulldozers came, her husband would tie it to their car and drag it from their house and into the cemetery.
But on January 17, as the tenth demolition took place, Hakma’s family was too slow. Police officers caught them on the way to the cemetery, commandeered their car, forced in five other “illegal” residents, and drove it at what Hakma thinks was a deliberately reckless speed over unpaved roads to the police station. “They broke the cart and most of what was in it flew out; they confiscated the rest,” Hakma told me.
The extended al-Turi family lived in al-Araqib from Ottoman times until 1952, when the Israeli army commander told them to leave for six months for military training, according to a government report citing village elders’ testimony. Israeli authorities never allowed them to return, refuse to recognize Bedouin ownership claims, and consider the village illegal.
Al-Araqib is, or was, one of 36 “unrecognized” Bedouin villages — home to at least 50,000 people — that, as Human Rights Watch documented in a 2008 report, Israel refuses to connect to basic services or infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewage treatment, and garbage disposal. Israeli officials encouraged the Bedouin to relocate to the seven state-built new towns — among the poorest communities in Israel. Many al-Araqib residents own homes in one such nearby town, Rahat.
“Those of us who could afford it bought homes in Rahat, because we wanted water and electricity,” said Dr. Awad Abu Freih, chairman of the biotechnology department at a nearby college and al-Araqib’s unofficial spokesman. “Does that justify evicting me and destroying the village where I was born?”
Hakma’s family also settled in Rahat, but moved back to al-Araqib 12 years ago after hearing that the Israel Land Administration intended to plant a forest there, which would be a de facto revocation of their claims to the land. Indeed, according to the plans the Jewish National Fund is carrying out on behalf of the Land Administration, the village is a “recreational area” designated for “forestation.”
But the government’s professed plans seem to be more about politics than forestation. In March 2010, Israel’s then-agriculture minister told the parliament that the Jewish National Fund was planting forests around al-Araqib “in order to safeguard national lands.” In January 2011, the Israel Land Administration’s development director said to Israeli news media that the agency “has begun preparing the ground for planting to guard the land.” When it first demolished al-Araqib in July 2010, the Israeli government uprooted 850 of the villagers’ olive trees, an administration spokeswoman told Human Rights Watch. All the while, Israel could easily plant forests in vast areas of the Negev where Bedouins have no land claims without erasing Bedouin links to their land.
Indeed, the day before the government first demolished al-Araqib, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at the real motive, warning in a government meeting that “if we allow for a region without a Jewish majority” in the Negev, that would pose “a palpable threat” to Israel.
As Netanyahu’s comment suggests, Israel’s attitude to Negev land rights is different when it comes to Jewish citizens. Bedouin constitute 25 percent of the population of the northern Negev, but occupy less than two percent of its land. Over the past decade, Israeli authorities have allocated public funds and large tracts of the Negev to create 59 private ranches and farms, of which only one is Bedouin-owned. These farms stretch over 20,000 acres of land, greater than the total land area of the seven Bedouin towns built to house 85,000 people. Israeli authorities have never produced a justification for this difference in treatment.
The government’s discriminatory practices in the Negev sometimes resemble its settlement policies in the West Bank, where Israel limits Palestinians’ ability to build while encouraging Jewish settlement expansion, as Human Rights Watch documented in a recent report. In a nighttime operation in January 2004, the then-housing minister had ten mobile homes constructed on land adjacent to al-Araqib for settlement by a Jewish community and promptly connected them to electricity and water. The land, previously promised to Bedouin, is now the Jewish town of Gvaot Bar.
While international entities almost uniformly oppose the construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank, however, many of the same actors appear unaware of the simultaneous land grab happening in the Negev. In December 2005 diplomats from 49 countries, including Germany and Spain attended the inauguration of the “Ambassador’s Forest,” which villagers and an Israeli NGO, Dukium, says is on al-Araqib’s land.
Meanwhile, Hakma’s family has one remaining asset: a minivan parked in the graveyard. I looked inside and saw the family’s clothes, and the younger children’s schoolbags hanging neatly on nails. “We used to have a nice house,” Hakma told me, searching for photographs to show me. Then she remembered that the police had confiscated them.
*Noga Malkin is a Jerusalem-based research assistant for Human Rights Watch.
February 7, 2011 at 08:17 (Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Ethnic Cleansing, Home Demolitions, Human Rights, Illegal Evictions, Illegal Settlements, Israel, Nakba, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine, Status of Jerusalem)
We often hear the zionists cry out that ‘the Arabs want to drive the Jews to the sea’…. but the reality remains that the zionists themselves are doing exactly that to the Arabs. One by one, family by family, Palestinian families are being driven from THEIR homes in Occupied East Jerusalem to make way for illegal Jewish settlers.
The Jerusalem Municipal Committee for Planning and Building is expected to approve Monday the construction of two buildings that will include 13 apartments for Jewish residents in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Backing the plan are settler organizations who currently occupy three homes in the neighborhood. Following the plan’s approval, it will be necessary to evict a number of Palestinian families living on the site in order for construction to commence.
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Settlers evict Palestinians from their home in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, December 1, 2009. |
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Photo by: AP
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The planning committee is also expected to approve a new access road south of Har Homa, which will enable the expansion of the neighborhood.
According to the plan to be brought today for approval, two buildings will be razed in the western part of the neighborhood where, until now, nearly no Jews live. In its place, two new buildings will be built. One will have 10 apartments and the other, three.
In both cases Chaim Silverstein, a well known figure in right-wing circles in Jerusalem, is proposing the plans to the municipality. The companies behind the project are registered in the United States, and are probably front companies set up by right-wing activists in order to transfer funds for the purchase of real estate in Israel.
Silverstein has power of attorney rights in both companies, Debril and Velpin.
For the past 18 months there has been a struggle between Arabs and Jews over the activities of settlers in Sheikh Jarrah and against efforts to evict Palestinian families from the neighborhood.
The settlers have been able to expand their hold in the neighborhood because prior to 1948 there was a Jewish neighborhood in Sheikh Jarrah. The court recognized the right of Jews who inherited properties to reclaim their properties. Since then, the settlers are working hard to convince the owners of the properties to sell them the rights so that they could evict the Palestinians and populate the area with Jewish families.
A Supreme Court ruling in 2001 included the possibility of applying for Jewish property rights in the western portion of the neighborhood, and right-wing activists announced that they intended to expand their activities in the area over that portion of Sheikh Jarrah.
“Continuing Jewish settlement in Sheikh Jarrah will seriously harm relations with the Palestinians and will break all agreements that Jewish neighborhoods will remain under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods will be under Palestinian sovereignty,” says Yosef Alalu, a Meretz city councillor.
January 20, 2011 at 07:55 (Collective Punishment, Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Human Rights, Israel, Occupation, Palestine)
Hamza Abu Eid, 17, was at school when he first heard the news that his extended family’s seven homes in Lydd — a mixed but segregated Palestinian and Jewish area of Israel — were being demolished. When he arrived to his house the morning of 13 December 2010, the rain was pouring and he was greeted by a full force of Israeli police and bulldozers destroying his family’s residence and belongings.
“The police are continuing to destroy my life,” Hamza said as he led me through his family’s rubble-covered belongings. It’s been approximately a month since the destruction of their homes, but nothing has changed. “I felt so angry, so sad, so crushed, so shocked. It’s a horrible thing.”
Hamza is one of 67 members of the Abu Eid family — among them dozens of children — who were displaced by the home demolitions in Lydd, a city that is representative of the stark contrast in living standards between Israel’s Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, during the 1948 dispossession of historic Palestine during the establishment of the State of Israel — what Palestinians call the Nakba — the Palestinian residents of the town were driven out in the aftermath of a massacre that left hundreds dead. The residents of Lydd were also forced to walk miles in brutal heat, and many more Palestinian refugees died. The Abu Eid family are originally from al-Mansoura, but were expelled during the Nakba to the northern area of Safad and then to Wadi al-Hamam before arriving in Lydd in the late 1950s.
Currently, the Jewish areas of Lydd are built-up and visibly nicer-looking, populated by many Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Palestinian residents, who make up nearly a third of the city’s population, are routinely denied permits to expand or build homes in their city and are faced with systemic discrimination. For example, the Abu Eid family had to build and expand their homes without a permit as the family grew. The family sought to obtain retroactive permits, and many appeals were made while the Abu Eid family’s case was litigated in Israeli courts.
As he stood near a tent on top of the place where he once lived, Muhammad Abu Eid, a youthful-looking 16-year-old, asked, “What would they feel if we demolished a Jewish home?”
According to members of the Abu Eid family, while the demolition was happening, Israeli police brutalized them. Police hit them with batons and kicked women and children, including a pregnant woman. The Abu Eid family also said that the police shot their dog. Sitting by a fire, 75-year-old Safia Abu Eid added that the police kicked her after she asked “Why are you demolishing, destroying our house?”
The Israeli police have also set out to intimidate the Abu Eid family by calling family members into the police station with questions about the weekly protests that have been held in Lydd since the demolitions.
Meanwhile, the winter months in Lydd are cold, and the women have been sleeping in their neighbors’ homes while the men have to sleep outside in tents.
“What [the Israelis did] was terrorism,” said Riad Abu Eid, 54. “Until now, we have no solution,” he said, explaining that the family had been living there since the 1950s.
The housing demolitions aren’t the first time the city of Lydd made headlines this year. The city garnered Israeli media attention in the wake of a spate of violent crimes in October 2010. In response, the Israeli government passed a large “emergency assistance” plan meant to “strengthen and develop the crime-ridden city,” according to the Israeli daily Haaretz (“Israel approves NIS 160 million project to save crime-stricken Lod,” 31 October 2010). Part of that plan, though, went to “enforcement regarding illegal construction” (“PM Netanyahu to Submit Lod Development Plan for Cabinet Approval on Sunday,” Prime Minister’s Office, 31 October 2010).
According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the Israeli actions were “one of the biggest demolition operations inside [Israel] this year. The houses, owned by Palestinian citizens of Israel, are located in an area which is not zoned for building despite the repeated attempts of the residents to re-zone the area in order to permit building. At the same time, large plans are already approved for Jewish-Israeli building as soon as the Palestinian houses are gone” (“Demolitions in Lod,” 13 December 2010).
The Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported that the demolished homes are among more than a hundred in Lydd that are facing demolition, and that a dozen other homes had been bulldozed in recent years. Forty-two-thousand Palestinian homes throughout Israel are also currently under threat of demolition (“Family takes stock after mass Lod demolition,” 16 December 2010).
“There is no democratic government in Israel,” said Ziad Abu Eid, 47, as he overlooked the rubble on the ground where his home once stood. “They have no feelings. There are no human rights. How are they doing this in Israel? The other countries and nations see Israel as a beautiful country, but they do not know what happened here inside Israel.”
Buthaina Dabit, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and director of the New Israel Fund Shatil’s Mixed Cities project, sees the home destructions as part of the systematic oppression that Israel’s Palestinian citizens face on a daily basis. The current right-wing coalition government in Israel has pushed a number of discriminatory bills aimed at Palestinian citizens of Israel.
“They tell us, you are the problem, and we are going to fight you,” she said.
“We are not accepted as residents here, as citizens,” Dabit added. “We need to demand international defense, to defend us from our state, in our place. We are indigenous here.”
As for the Abu Eid family, they remain defiant in the face of Israeli brutality. “We will not move from here until they give us a solution,” said the teenaged Hamza as he walked past the rubble of his home. “Give us houses, because at this time we have no houses. We have no place to sleep.”
January 18, 2011 at 08:39 (Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Human Rights, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Oppression, Palestine)
by Kim Bullimore *
The day after the demolition of their dreams, myself and my team mates from the International Women’s Peace Service visited the family to take a report. As we walked around what was once the home of the family we could see, even among the destruction and rubble which lay before us, the loving care they had put into their home. The trees in front of their home were pruned, shaped and manicured. Stepping through the rubble, their garden which was located at the back of their small home, was neat, green and well cared for. In the drive way of the neighbouring house, where they were locked and which belonged to the parents of the husband of the family, there was well-worn, but well-cared for modern style furniture which has subsequently been rescued from the demolished wreckage nearby.
The family’s “crime” was that they built their home on their own land without the permit of the Israeli military occupation administration, which is known in the Orwellian parlance of the Israeli state and its occupation forces, as the “Israeli Civil Administration”.
The administration which was established by the Israeli military to administer the Palestinian territories that Israel illegal seized in 1967 claims to administer the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the interests of the Palestinian population. According to Israeli Military decree 947 which established the administration: “We hereby establish a Civil Administration in the region [West Bank and Gaza]. The Civil Administration shall run all regional civil matters, correspondingly to this [military] degree, for the wellbeing and for the sake of [the local] population and with the purpose of providing and operating the public services, considering the need to maintain a proper governance and public order”. [1]
However, rather caring for the “well being” of the Palestinian population or governing in their interest, the Israel military occupation administration has actively enacted policies which seeks to ethnic cleanse the people they are occupying, an act which is illegal under international law. Not only has Israel, as an “Occupying Power”, violated the Fourth Geneva Convention (which outlines the role and responsibilities of an occupying power) by engaging in illegal detentions, extra-judicial killings, the transfer of settler populations in to an Occupied Territory and the transfer of the resident indigenous population out of the Occupied Territory, it has also systematically violated Article 53 of the Convention, which prohibits an “occupying power” from destroying the personal property of the people they occupy [2]
Since its 1967 seizure of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Israel has systematically demolished between 18,000 and 24,000 Palestinian homes [3 & 4]. The majority of these homes have been destroyed under the guise of an Orwellian system of “building permits”, which seeks to establish a faux legal system which prevents the Palestinian population from building homes and infrastructure. This system allows the Israeli military occupation administration to establish a “legal” precedent to demolish any Palestinian house and infrastructure built without its permission, in order to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.
In the immediate aftermath of the 1967 war, the Zionist state demolished more than 600 Palestinian homes in the Mughrabi Quarter in order to build a plaza in front of the Western (Wailing) Wall in Occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli state went onto demolish more than 6,000 other homes, including four entire villages in the Latrun area, which is now known as “Canada” Park [5]. The Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) note that in 1971, another 2000 homes were demolished in Gaza under the instructions of Ariel Sharon, who was at the time, the Commander of the South Command. The houses, which were located in the different refugee camps in Gaza were demolished to enable military control of the region. According to ICAHD, Israel destroyed another 2000 homes during the first intifada (1987 – 1993) and another 1700 during the Oslo Peace process between 1993 and 2000.
Since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, ICAHD documents that Israel has carried out numerous military operations which have destroyed Palestinian residential homes. This has resulted in up to 5000 Palestinian homes being destroyed in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities, while at least 2500 were destroyed in Gaza. According to a 2010 survey done by the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (UN OCHA oPt) between January and July 2010, 199 Palestinian structures, including 59 homes were demolished, leaving 242 people homeless [6]. UNOCHA notes that in 2009 the demolition of homes by the Israeli military left 891 Palestinians homeless, including 499 children. In 2004, international human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 50,000 Palestinians have been made homeless by military home demolitions since 1967.
Since 1967, Israel and its military occupation administration have made it almost impossible for Palestinian families to obtain building permits to build or extend their homes. This has been particularly noticeable in Area C, where Azzoun Atma is located.
Azzoun Atma is a “seamline” village located in “Area C” between the 1967 Green Line and Israel’s Apartheid Wall. Under the terms of the Oslo Accords “Area C”, which covers 62 percent of the Occupied West Bank, is under full Israeli control. Area C is home to up to 150,000 Palestinians and contains not only the area necessary for the expansion of Palestinian population centres (more than 270 communities) but also contains the bulk of Palestinian agricultural and grazing land. However, according to UNOCHA oPt, the Israeli Civil Administration (ie. The Israeli Military Occupation Administration) have continually refused to allow Palestinians to build in 99 percent of region covered by Area C, only allowing construction in only 1 percent of the region.
Similarly, according to a 2008 study by Israeli group, Peace Now, between 2000 and 2007, 94% of all Palestinian permit applications for Area C were rejected by the Israeli “Civil Administration”. [7]. During this period only 91 permits were granted. However, Peace Now noted that during that same time the number of building permits granted to settlers in illegal Jewish settlements located in Area C totalled 18, 472. According to Peace Now, during this period, the Israeli occupation forces demolished 33 percent of almost 5000 supposedly “illegal” Palestinians houses and structures, while in contrast only 7 percent of the 2,900 cases of illegal settler construction which had been place under demolition orders were torn down.
The demolition of the home belonging to the family in Azzoun Atma on January 11 had nothing to do with the lack of a “legal” building permit. Instead, it was the act of settler-colonial state which seeks to permanently cleanse the land they have occupied of its indigenous inhabitants. Not only did Israel, in the words of one member of the family, seek to “destroy our dreams” by demolishing the houses in Azzoun Atma, the Zionist state also sought to destroy the dreams of an entire people by systematically restricting their right to decent housing with the aim of pushing them of their land permanently
However, despite, the hardships faced under Israel’s brutal military occupation, the Palestinian people living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have continued to remain “sumoud” (steadfast) in the face of the human rights violations visited upon them. In Palestine, resistance comes in many forms. Not only will the family in Azzoun Atma rebuild the home of their dreams, so will thousands of other Palestinian families who have also experienced the same devastating destruction. As the slogans of resistance scrawled on Israel’s apartheid wall testify: “to exist is to resist”.
-Kim Bullimore is currently living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, where she is a human rights volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service (www.iwps.info). She writes regularly on the Palestine-Israel conflict for the Australian newspaper, Direct Action (www.directaction.org.au) and has a blog at http://www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com.
[1] http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/israelmilitaryorders/fulltext/mo0947.htm
[2]http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5
[3] http://www.icahd.org/?page_id=313
[4]http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_area_c_humanitarian_response_plan_fact_sheet_2010_09_03_english.pdf
[5] http://www.icahd.org/?page_id=313
[6]http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_area_c_humanitarian_response_plan_fact_sheet_2010_09_03_english.pdf
[7] http://peacenow.org/entries/archive4606
January 15, 2011 at 10:05 (Associate Post, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Illegal Settlements, Israel, Land Theft, Occupation, Palestine, Status of Jerusalem)
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| Israeli bulldozers demolished the Shepherd Hotel in an Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sunday to make way for a new Israeli enclave
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Israel this week demonstrated once again its determination to scuttle any genuine peacemaking effort that might lead to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.
Israeli bulldozers and huge hydraulic jackhammers descended on the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah to demolish the Shepherd Hotel, a huge complex dating back to the 1930s. Part of the structure served as home to the former grand mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The doomed structure thus had a lot of historical significance related to the history of the Palestinian struggle.
The demolition was the latest step by Israel to consolidate Jewish hegemony over the occupied Arab town and obliterate its erstwhile Arab- Islamic identity. The forced Judaisation of the city — holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews — is done feverishly through shadowy deals and dubious expropriation practices in which deception, cheating and trickery loom large.
Moreover, Zionist circles in cooperation with the Israeli government and Jewish settler interests have allocated hundreds of million of dollars for the purpose of channelling Arab-owned property to Jewish interests all over East Jerusalem. The demolition of the Shepherd Hotel took place despite international — including American — objections.
However, given the generally ineffectual nature of these objections, the Israeli government has grown accustomed to taking them lightly, calculating that they are only meant for public relations consumption and that in no way do they constitute a credible challenge to Israel’s settlement policy.
According to reliable Israeli sources in Jerusalem, the Israeli municipal authorities are awaiting an opportune time to carry out further large-scale demolitions of Arab homes in the Silwan neighbourhood. “If the government finds out that international reactions, especially US reactions, are weak as usual, then it will mean a kind of go-ahead signal for the demolitions,” said the source that was not authorised to speak to the media.
“They [the pro-settler Municipal Council of the city] want to desensitise international public opinion to accept [their] reality and come to terms with the fact that Israel will have its way in Jerusalem.”
Reactions to the latest provocation in East Jerusalem have been “normal”, whether from the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which as usual appealed to “the international community” to pressure Israel — or from EU, UN and Arab states, which more or less repeated the same old platitudes pertaining to Israel’s settlement policy being unlawful and counterproductive to peace.
Saeb Ereikat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, urged the West to act on its condemnation of Israeli provocations. “The UN and governments around the world, including the US and the UK, have already condemned plans to demolish this particular hotel. We call on the world to take a strong stand in defence of their positions. This intransigent and illegal behaviour on behalf of Israel must not be allowed to proceed unchecked.”
Speaking in desperate tone, Ereikat said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was undercutting and corroding international efforts to create a Palestinian state. “While Netanyahu continues his public relations campaign regarding the peace process, on the ground he is rapidly moving to prevent the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
“Israel continues to change the landscape of Jerusalem aiming to change its status and turn it into an exclusive Jewish city. This process of cleansing and colonisation must be stopped to change the dark reality of Israeli occupation into a free and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has been trying to give the impression that diplomatic movement was underway, probably to create a public relations counterbalance to settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Netanyahu met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo this week. He also asked for a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, ostensibly for the same reason. Mubarak did urge Netanyahu to reverse present Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the peace process. Netanyahu heard Mubarak’s appeal but didn’t listen to it. For as soon as he returned to Israel, the demolitions in East Jerusalem took place.
Meanwhile, Israel is about to dispatch an envoy to Washington to assure the Obama administration that the Netanyahu government is still committed to the peace process. This comes in the aftermath of the clarion failure of the Obama administration to convince Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, even in exchange for huge diplomatic inducements and military incentives.
Some analysts believe that the obsequious American behaviour towards the Netanyahu government, especially the excessive patience displayed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has further emboldened Israel and encouraged the Israeli leadership to ignore US pressure. “I am sure that Mrs Clinton dreads Israeli wrath and displeasure more than the Israelis dread American wrath and displeasure,” said one veteran European journalist based in East Jerusalem.
The US reaction to the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel as well as the latest coldblooded killing of innocent Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including farmers tilling their land and old men sleeping in their beds, has been characteristically hollow and wrapped in diplomatic jargon.
Meanwhile, Clinton put the peace process on the backburner as she toured Gulf Arab emirates and sheikhdoms, inciting them against Iran’s nuclear programme. Predictably, Clinton implied that Israel posed no threat to the Arabs and that the real common enemy of both Israel and the Arabs is Iran. Clinton went as far as discrediting statements by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan in which he said that Iran wouldn’t have nuclear weapons capability before 2015.
A few weeks ago, Clinton dismissed the charge that “unilateral Israel actions” were derailing the peace process. “Bilateral negotiations,” she said, “are the only way to reach peace between Israel and the Palestinians.” One PA cabinet minister commented on Clinton’s remarks, saying: “This is very much like telling a rapist and his victim to sort it out among themselves.”
Written for http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1031/re7.htm
December 2, 2010 at 08:55 (Collective Punishment, Ethnic Cleansing, Home Demolitions, Illegal Evictions, Israel, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine, Soldier Brutality, Status of Jerusalem, zionist harassment)
It seems that the only difference between the nazis and the zionists is the colour of the film used…
Israeli Army’s dog attacking a Palestinian woman!The forces used the “savage” animals, sound bombs and tear gas to suppress the protest which erupted before the Israeli troops razed two residences in the Arab neighborhood of Issawiya to the ground, the Palestine News Network (PNN) reported Tuesday. One of the protesters sustained injury from a dog attack and four other Palestinians were tear-gassed by Israeli forces, AFP reported.
Israeli military also flattened one building elsewhere in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), PNN said, adding that home owners destroyed one residence in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to avoid the demolition fee imposed by Israeli authorities.
Israel claimed its existence in 1948 during full-scale military operations against the Arab world, forcing 711,000 Palestinians to leave their homeland.
The network cited an al-Quds-based think tank as saying that 3,655 Palestinians, including 807 women and 1699 children, would be forced out of East al-Quds in the next year as a result of the demolitions.
October 27, 2010 at 10:18 (Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Illegal Evictions, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, Status of Jerusalem, zionist harassment)
Jerusalem Protest – Palestine-Info
Several Palestinians were wounded on Sunday during clashes that took place while the Israeli police was handing orders for the demolition of Palestinian homes in Silwan and Al Bustan neighborhoods, south of the Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.
Undercover forces of the Israeli army also invaded East Jerusalem and clashed with local residents.
Also on Monday, hundreds of residents protested near Bab Al Amoud in East Jerusalem, and expressed their rejection to the Israeli polices against the Palestinians, their homes and the holy sites in the city.
They also carried pictures of elected Hamas legislators in Jerusalem, who have been protesting at the Red Cross in Jerusalem since last July, after an Israeli court decided to revoke their identity cards and ordered their expulsion from the city.
October 20, 2010 at 19:00 (Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Human Rights, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, Soldier Brutality, zionist harassment)
by CPT and Ramona
Hebron – Noah El-Rajabi is a shepherd, with two hundred sheep and goats. He lives in Bani Na’im, 17 kilometres from Hebron. He is married, and has seven children.
Noah El-Rajabi’s house
Ten weeks ago the Israeli military demolished his house. His wife and younger children now live in two rented rooms in Hebron. Noah and his oldest son lived in a tent supplied by the Red Cross, so that Noah could continue to work with his flock.
On Monday 11th October, at 8.00 a.m. the Israeli military arrived without warning and destroyed his water cistern, his tent, and a small wooden structure Noah used for cooking and storage.
His oldest son, aged 14, who was with Noah, protested at the soldiers’ action, and was arrested. His son is accused of assaulting two soldiers. Noah reports that soldiers kicked and beat some of the animals and that one pregnant ewe aborted.
ISM activits, along with members from the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) met Noah in Hebron on Tuesday morning 12th October. He did not know where his son was being held, and where he could get water for his animals.
CPTers accompanied Noah to three Israeli police stations. The only information Israeli police gave was that his son was being held in Ofer military prison. They refused to accept a complaint against the Israeli soldiers for their behavior.
ISM and CPTers also visited Noah’s rented accommodation in Hebron. They met his wife and some of his younger children. ‘Please bring my son home’, his wife pleaded.
The animals are being looked after by Noah’s brother, and have been moved to another hillside, where there is water. Agencies in Hebron are trying to reconnect Noah’s water supply, but the cistern will have to be restored, and will run the risk of further demolition orders in the future.
It took Noah a week to track down his son, and he still has not been able to see him.
This incident illustrates the Israeli government’s continued intimidation and harassment techniques aimed at forcing Palestinians off of their ancestral lands in order to expand settlements, and further control the main West Bank mountain aquifer.
A recent study by the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians. Israelis use 240 cubic meters of water a person each year, against 75 cubic meters for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans. Palestinians have not been able to develop any new production wells in the West Bank since the 1967 war. Noah’s case is a clear example of the inequities surrounding water distribution, and a reflection of the wider apartheid system.
September 16, 2010 at 18:20 (Ethnic Cleansing, Eyewitness Report, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Oppression, Palestine, Photography, zionist harassment)
Children of Al-Araquib Watch as Israeli Armed Forces Prevent Non-Violent Demonstration Against the Razing of the Village. Photo by Mairav Zonszein
This morning shortly before sunrise in the wasteland of Israeli democracy, Israeli armed forces destroyed a Bedouin village in the Negav desert…for the fifth time. According to the Ma’an news agency, “On 27 July, all 40 homes in the Al-Araqib village were destroyed and 300 residents, all Israeli citizens, were evicted during the raid after an Israeli court deemed the village illegally built on state land. The Bedouin residents say they have proof of land ownership, and have been in court for several years. At least 200 children were left homeless as a result, as police removed residents property into prepared containers, and bulldozers razed buildings and sheepfolds, local activists said in a statement. Fruit orchards and olive grove trees were destroyed in the process.Israeli activists who were present at the initial demolition described the move as an “act of war, such as is undertaken against an enemy.”The Bedouin residents of Al-Araquib hold Israeli citizenship and many have served in the Israeli army. Al-Araquib is becoming a prime example of what Israel means when it calls itself a “Jewish and democratic state.” Jews receive democracy and everyone else is pushed off of their land and striped of their rights.
The Village is Destroyed. Photo by Mairav Zonszein
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The Village is Rebuilt. Photo by Mairav Zonszein
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Waiting for the Next Round of Destruction. Photo by Mairav Zonszein
August 21, 2010 at 11:13 (Activism, Ethnic Cleansing, Guest Post, Home Demolitions, Israel, Land Theft, Oppression, Palestine)
The month-long period between Netanyahu’s July 6th visit to Washington and the start of Ramadan has provided Israel with a window to “clear the table” after a frustrating hiatus on home demolitions imposed by the “old,” mildly critical Obama Administration – although there is no guarantee that Israel will not demolish during Ramadan, especially if it wants to exploit the period until the November elections, knowing that until then Obama will not overtly oppose anything it does in the Occupied Territories. In fact, the process of demolishing Palestinian homes never ceased. On June 6th, for example, a year after the demolition of more than 65 structures and the forced displacement of more than 120 people, including 66 children, nine families of Khirbet Ar Ras Ahmar in the Jordan Valley, totaling 70 people, received a new round of “evacuation orders.” A week later the Israeli High Court ordered the Civil Administration to “step up enforcement against illegal Palestinian structures” in Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control.
And so, on July 13th, upon Netanyahu’s return (Palestinian homes are not demolished without an OK from the Prime Minister’s Office), three homes were demolished in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, followed by three more homes in Beit Hanina. The Jerusalem Municipality also announced the planned demolition of 19 more homes in Issawiya this month. In the West Bank, the Israeli “Civil” Administration demolished 55 structures belonging to 22 Palestinian families in the Hmayer area of Al Farisiye in the northern Jordan Valley, including 22 residential tents and 30 other structures used to shelter animals and store agricultural equipment. According to the UN’s Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): “This week [July 14-20, the week of Netanyahu's return from Washington] there was a significant increase in the number of demolitions in Area C, with at least 86 structures demolished in the Jordan Valley and the southern West Bank, including Bethlehem and Hebron districts. In 2010, at least 230 Palestinian structures have been demolished in Area C, forcibly displacing 1100 people, including 400 children. Approximately 600 others have been otherwise affected.” Two-thirds of the demolitions for 2010 have occurred since Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama. More than 3,000 demolition orders are outstanding in the West Bank, and up to 15,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
The demolition of homes is, of course, only a small, if painful, part of the destruction Israel wreaks daily on the Palestinian population. Over the past few weeks a violent campaign has been waged against Palestinian farmers in one of the most fertile agricultural areas of the West Bank, the Baka Valley, steadily being encroached upon by large suburbs of the settlement of Kiryat Arba, in Hebron. Israel already takes 85% of the West Bank’s water for its own use, either for settlements (settlers use five times more water per capita as do Palestinians, and Ma’aleh Adumim is currently building a water park in addition to its four municipal swimming pools and the huge fountains constantly flowing in the city center) or to be pumped into Israel proper – all in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an Occupying Power from using the resources of an occupied territory.
Accusing the farmers of “stealing water” – their own water – the Israel water company Mekorot, supported by the Civil Administration and the IDF, has in recent weeks destroyed dozens of wells, some of them ancient, and reservoirs used to collect rain water, which is also “illegal.” Hundreds of hectares of agricultural land have dried up as irrigation pipes have been pulled out and confiscated by the Civil Administration. Fields of tomatoes, beans, eggplants and cucumbers are dying just before they can be harvested, and the grape industry in this rich valley is threatened with destruction. “I’m watching my life dry up before my eyes,” says Ata Jaber, a Palestinian farmer who has had his home demolished twice, most of whose land lies buried under the Givat Harsina neighborhood of Kiryat Arba and whose plastic drip irrigation pipes are destroyed annually by the Civil Administration just before he can harvest. “I had hoped to sell my crop for at least $2000 before Ramadan, but all is gone.”
Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
Trying to protect your home results in the following…
Also see THIS post by Khalid Amayreh
August 14, 2010 at 23:36 (Collective Punishment, Ethnic Cleansing, Home Demolitions, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, Photography, Soldier Brutality, zionist harassment)
Many residents had remained in their village and began rebuilding their homes following the second demolition. They had been living in temporary shelters and tents, however, these were destroyed along with dozens of small trees which had been replanted. Building materials were also removed to deter the residents from rebuilding. Further, the road to the village was seriously damaged to impede access and the unofficial sign was removed. Water trucks and tanks were removed and are still being held in an unknown location.
Four out of the seven residents who were arrested during the previous demolitions have been released under the condition that they do not return to Al Arakib. This condition was lifted on Sunday. Yesterday, however, the judge decide not to allow three of the residents to return to the village, among them the leader of the village, Sheik Sayach Al-Turi. The villagers have filed an appeal will be heard on Sunday before the Be’er-Sheva District Court.
August 1, 2010 at 10:35 (DesertPeace Editorial, Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Human Rights, International Solidarity, Israel, Nostalgia, Occupation, Palestine, Status of Jerusalem, zionist harassment)
July 28, 2010 at 00:02 (Collective Punishment, Ethnic Cleansing, Hasbara, Home Demolitions, Israel, Land Theft, Occupied West Bank, Oppression, Palestine, zionist harassment)
