- 17 mrt 2011
Palestinian Bedouins in al-Araqib: "We won't leave"
Sheikh Siyakh al-Turi in al-Araqib village (Elo B)
Reclining under a recently constructed tent in the Bedouin village of al-Araqib, Sheikh Siyakh al-Turi gestured toward the bare terrain surrounding his home. "This is a great example to the world of what Israel is doing to its citizens," he said. Only a kilometer away from one of Israel's largest highways, the village is utterly quiet; most villagers have left for their day jobs outside of al-Araqib, leaving only a few to stand watch in the event that the Israel Land Administration returns to demolish the village yet again.
As is widely known, Israel continues to deepen its claims on land in the occupied West Bank -- detaching Palestinians from their lands with Israeli-only roads, settlement expansion and the wall. However, the state is aggressively pursuing a similar project within the green line, Israel's internationally-recognized armistice line with the occupied West Bank.
Many Palestinian citizens of Israel are being displaced not with settlements and a wall, but with the planting of a forest. As it has in the past, Israel asserts that its intentions are beneficent and noble -- to make a desert bloom with trees. But these trees will be planted on land inhabited by Palestinians for many generations, and people are being violently forced out of their villages to make room for those trees.
In the Negev (Naqab) region, there are no signs to direct a visitor to al-Araqib; and even after you arrive you may still wonder if you have indeed found the village. Since 27 July 2010, Israel has conducted twenty demolitions of every home and structure in the village, leaving little tangible manifestation of a community that has lived there since the Ottoman Empire.
Not provided with water, plumbing, electricity or any other public services supplied to the rest of Israel's citizens, villagers of al-Araqib are fully tapped into the revolts around the Arab world that are challenging the stability of tyrannical regimes. Villagers insist that such a revolt will come to the West Bank and Israel soon.
With a transistor radio at his feet, Smayeh, a resident who declined to give his full name and who remembers when Israel first relocated his village in 1953, told me firmly, "Israel is more oppressive than most Arab regimes."
Pushing Palestinians off the land
Sabiyah in al-Araqib village (Elo B)
In 1951, only a few years after the mass expulsion of Arabs from the land, the head of the Israeli military government (the body that governed the Palestinians who remained in what is now called Israel, until 1966) approached the leaders of al-Araqib and asked them to relocate their community to the north so that the military could use the southern portion of their land for training. He promised the move would be temporary -- only six months.
However, six months turned into a year and then the department of agriculture obtained control of the land. During this time, the semi-nomadic villagers of al-Araqib were forced to rent their land in the north while Palestinian day laborers came to work on al-Araqib's land. The state has since used the village's nomadic nature to contend that residents have no claim to the land. Experts disagree, arguing that the Bedouins had an established system of land ownership that had been accepted by the Ottomans and British. http://bit.ly/gr4xKn
"Even when we weren't living there, we would still come back to the land and bring our animals; we never left this land," Smayeh said.
Smayeh described how in the 1990s, villagers from al-Araqib approached the workers and explained to them that this was their land and they were supporting Zionism by working on it.
"Then they left. And we moved back. We built our houses, set up running water and got a generator for electricity."
Sitting under the only trees left in the decimated village, a small cluster of pepper trees near the cemetery, I spoke to Smayeh and his wife Sabiyah five days after the Israeli army demolished all structures in the village for the 18th time on 17 February. Firing rubber bullets at men and women, young and old, the Israel Land Authority (ILA) and a special police unit had forced the villagers into the cemetery, while they proceeded to destroy their homes and confiscate their water tanks, blankets and chairs. Left with next to nothing, the villagers returned and began to rebuild their homes in what has now become a familiar routine.
With unfathomable resilience, the villagers reconstruct tents after each demolition. Devising simple structures with thin wood planks, the people can barely afford enough plastic tarp to cover the structures and provide shelter. Hakima Rashid, a woman from the village, explains that they let the children sleep in their cars at nighttime because it's too cold outside in the winter.
Many villagers have chosen to move to the nearby town of Rahat, an urban township Israel established in 1972 for the Bedouins of al-Araqib. Rahat is one of seven "rikazim" -- or concentrated towns -- the only legal place for Bedouin citizens of Israel to live. Established in the 1960s and '70s for the displaced Bedouin communities, these urban centers are considered the poorest and most densely populated villages in Israel. The government insists that all other Bedouin communities are illegal -- despite evidence that ownership of al-Araqib's land can be traced back with both British and Ottoman documentation to the al-Turi family.
Talab al-Sana, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) who advocates for the rights and recognition of Bedouin villages in the Negev, likens the living conditions of these towns to the cramped refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Approximately 200,000 Bedouins in the Negev are expected to live on 30,000 dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters); al-Sana contrasts that with the space to people ratio in Jewish cities. The Ramat municipality of the Negev, for example, provides 4,000 Jewish residents with four million dunams of land.
Yet despite these harsh living conditions, Smayeh said that many members of his community, including his sons and daughters, have all moved there to raise their children.
"Many people had to move to Rahat, especially if they have kids," he explained. "There is no food, no water here."
Nevertheless, Smayah and Sabiyah say they will remain on this land. "Why would we leave our land?" Smayah asked.
Village destroyed twenty times
Recently constructed tents in al-Araqib that villagers have not been able to cover for lack of funds (Elo B)
The Israel Land Administration first demolished the village on 27 July 2010. Over the course of the following two weeks -- the peak of summer -- http://bit.ly/gXKwOW the ILA returned to al-Araqib three more times. After each demolition, the villagers started from scratch, reassembling homes that had little chance of standing longer than a week. The coming months saw the reconstructed village demolished twenty more times by the ILA.
Since 1960, the ILA has functioned in tandem with the Jewish National Fund , an organization that has been integral in acquiring land in Palestine for Jewish settlement since 1901. The ILA allotted the JNF 50 percent representation in the agency, thus allowing them to have a strong influence in the use of "national" land. While the JNF technically owns approximately 13 percent of the land inside Israel, the ILA controls roughly 93 percent. In 2009, with a slight restructuring of Israel's land regime, now called the Israel Land Administration, the JNF has retained its grip on how Israel develops its state land (Alaa Mahajneh, "Situating the JNF in Israel's land laws," Al-Majdal, Winter-Spring 2010). http://bit.ly/elMolw
Al-Araqib is situated in Israel's desert, the Negev, which represents approximately 60 percent of Israel. Yet the JNF emphasized with pointed consternation in an interview with this author that only nine percent of the Israeli population resides there. Since 2005, there has been a concentrated effort from a coalition of Zionist organizations -- including the Or Movement, a group dedicated to Judaizing the Galilee and Negev, the JNF and the Government of Israel -- to relocate and settle Jews in the Negev.
The project is called Blueprint Negev, and as the Director of Tourism, Shaher Hermalin, told The Electronic Intifada in a phone interview, "Everything we do has to do with creating communities -- schools; rehabilitative, environmental, educational programs; tourist centers -- everything the area needs to bloom and blossom so people around the country will move there."
His rhetoric, reminiscent of that of the early Zionists, is deceitfully ironic. Since the first demolition of al-Araqib in July 2010, Israel's army has uprooted 4,500 olive trees and destroyed all of the village's wheat and barley gardens.
Smayeh noted that for hundreds of years, al-Araqib maintained agricultural lands that propagated wheat, melons and olive trees, among other vegetation. The village also grazed flocks of sheep and goats.
Today, the land of al-Araqib appears naked. Dirt hills with tractor marks running across them are peppered with intermittent tents. There is a small coop with a few goats, some sheep and one large brown horse.
Jewish National Fund role
The JNF-planted forest that borders al-Araqib village (Elo B)
The crucial facet in all of the JNF's projects is that they enable ethnic exclusivity on the land. The charter of the JNF stipulates that all of its land and activities will be for the sole benefit of Jews. In their own words in a response to a petition filed to the Israeli high court in 2004, "The JNF, as the owner of the JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state" ("The Jewish National Fund (JNF), Badil, 2007). http://bit.ly/i7OQiP
The Government of Israel and the JNF have a symbiotic relationship: by transferring state land to the JNF, the government ensures the land will be reserved only for Jews.
Al-Sana asked "What is the difference between the state and JNF? It is a game, the [Israeli government] takes the land and gives it to the JNF, and says it belongs to Jews, not Arabs. Jews from America, Canada, wherever, can own land, but not Arabs. It's just a game."
Surrounding the parameters of al-Araqib are nascent trees that the JNF, or as the organization is known inside Israel, Keren Kayemeth Le'Israel (KKL), has planted. Their trailer and office is within eyesight of where another resident of al-Araqib, Sheikh Siyakh al-Turi, and I spoke.
Sheikh Siyakh condemned the Palestinian Authority and its complicity in Israel's treatment of all Palestinians in exile, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza and in Israel.
"In the end, who sold our cause?" he asked. "The Palestinian leadership, because the leadership just collaborates ... We are the ones standing here; having no food or water and the PA is receiving so much money in international aid. We are the ones protecting the land, so they should support us."
Because the village land has ceased to provide sustenance and an economic livelihood to the village, some family members have found employment in agriculture or labor elsewhere in the Negev. In many cases, they will bring back their small daily earnings ($8-14 a day) to the village, supporting those who stay on the land during the day in case the police and ILA return.
The violence of the most recent demolition was described as escalating from previous ones: the police forces fired rubber bullets and beat women, causing the men to pick up stones in their defense.
Sheikh Siyakh pulled up his sleeve to show me a red wound where a rubber bullet hit him. Yet despite the ILA showing no signs of leaving al-Araqib alone, Sheikh Siyakh remains confident. "We won't leave," he said. It's not a matter of being optimistic or hopeful. We won't leave.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11860.shtml
Israel says trees planted on 'state land'
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration told Ma'an on Thursday that nearly 100 olive trees bulldozed near Beit Dajan the day before were planted on land that did not belong to Jamal Abu Kanaan.
The spokesman said the land in question was "state land," and said all documents necessary under law had been transmitted before the trees were uprooted and confiscated.
"This was not the first time," the official said.
Deputy to the Nablus governor Anan At-Ateera told Ma'an Wednesday that there was "no logical explanation" for the trees to have been uprooted, identifying them as belonging to Abu Kanaan from Beit Dajan.
Village council member Naser Abu Jeish said he considered the act a "blunt violation of Palestinian rights," adding that there was "not even an Israeli settlement in the area," referring to the common practice of taking down olive groves to facilitate Israeli military patrols around settlements.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369664
Israel uproots Palestinian olive trees near Nablus
NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Israeli troops blocked off access to agricultural fields near the village of Beit Dajan on Wednesday, while bulldozers tore out dozens of olive trees from privately owned property, officials said.
The trees were uprooted and confiscated, deputy to the Nablus governor Anan At-Ateera told Ma’an.
"Dozens of olive trees from the At-Tyur area east of Beit Dajan were taken ... residents were prevented from reaching the site," At-Teera said.
The official called the incident "bizzare," saying there was "no logical explanation" for the trees to have been uprooted, identifying them as belonging to Jamal Abu Kanaan from Beit Dajan.
Village council member Naser Abu Jeish said he considered the act a "blunt violation of Palestinian rights," adding that there was "not even an Israeli settlement in the area," referring to the common practice of taking down olive groves to facilitate Israeli military patrols around settlements.
A spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration did not return calls seeking comment on the incident.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369210
5 sep 2011, 15:28 , Respect -
Maria 6 sep 2011, 13:40 , Respect -
Maria 20 mrt 2011
UN: Massive increase in home demolitions
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The latest numbers from the United Nations show a two-fold increase in the number of Palestinian homes and agricultural buildings destroyed by Israel order this year, causing concern among officials.
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.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369913
8 sep 2011, 13:53 , Respect -
Maria 21 mrt 2011
UN official: Israel engaging in ethnic cleansing
Investigator Richard Falk says settlement expansion, consequent evicting of Palestinians 'intolerable'.
Israel's expansion of Jewish "settlements" in east Jerusalem and eviction of Palestinians from their homes there is a form of ethnic cleansing, a United Nations investigator said on Monday.
US academic Richard Falk was speaking to the UN Human Rights Council as it prepared to pass resolutions condemning Israeli behaviour on territory it has occupied since 1967.
The "continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation" in the part of the city previously controlled by Jordan, he said.
This situation "can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing," Falk declared.
Israel declines to deal with Falk or even allow him into the country, accusing him of bias against the Jewish state.
In a linked discussion on Israeli policies towards lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East War, Israeli and Palestinian delegates clashed over the recent murders of members of a Jewish settler family on the West Bank.
Israel's ambassador Aharon Leshno Yaar called on Palestinian leaders to condemn the March 11 murders of three children, including a baby, and their parents "without caveats or hedging" in Arabic to their own people.
Almost as shocking as the killings, "in the days following the massacre many Palestinians took to the streets celebrating the deaths of this family," Leshno Yaar said.
But Palestinian envoy Ibrahim Kraishi said the killings had already been condemned by the Palestinian Authority as "an act of terrorism" that was not part of his people's culture. "Rather, it is the culture of the occupying power," he added.
In his speech, Falk said he would like the Human Rights Council to ask the International Court of Justice to look at Israeli behaviour in the occupied territories.
This should focus on whether the prolonged occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem had elements of "colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law," the investigator declared.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4045623,00.html
10 sep 2011, 10:31 , Respect -
Maria 24 mrt 2011
Israeli Bulldozers Destroy Freedom Street in Northern West Bank Village
Salfit PNN - On Thursday morning Israeli army bulldozers destroyed Freedom Street, which connects the Northern West Bank village of Karwit Bani with the nearby city of Salfit. The head of the village council, Abbad Rayan, said that this is the second time this street has been bulldozed by the Israeli army; he added that soldiers beat up any villager who tried to reach the area while the bulldozing takes place.
Freedom Street was bulldozed two months ago by the Isreali army and was renovated by the local municipality, supervised by the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad himself.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9767&Itemid=64
13 sep 2011, 22:37 , Respect -
Maria 25 mrt 2011
Occupation hands home demolition notices in Salfit villages
SALFIT, (PIC)-- IOF troops raided the village of Broqin in the northern West Bank district of Salfit and handed demolition notices to the owners of two homes in the village on the pretext that their homes are built in area C, where Palestinians are prohibited to build.
The head of the Broqin council, Ekrema Samara said in a press statement: The village, which has been surrounded by settlements especially Barkan industrial complex, is facing serious plans aiming to confiscate more land and check the village's expansion.
He added that the villagers are already denied making use of their own lands which are confiscated for settlement building causing the village a housing crisis.
Samara also said that two residents of the village, Jad and Ahmad Baker were handed demolition notices for their homes, bringing the number of homes threatened with demolition in the village to 70 homes.
He concluded by saying that unless the Zionist drive to expand settlements is checked and demolition of Palestinian homes is stopped then matters are heading for a disaster, especially that the occupation authority classifies as zone C about 73% of the West Bank and bars Palestinians from building in those areas.
http://bit.ly/hBzPC5
Israeli forces demolish Palestinian tent in Tubas
TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Friday demolished a tent belonging to Palestinians in the northern West Bank, a day after Israeli settlers erected a tent in the same area.
On Thursday, residents of the illegal Maskiot settlement put up a tent by the Ein Al-Helwa village, north of the Jordan Valley, on land belonging to Nabil Daraghmeh.
Settlers installed barbed wire around the tent, put up Israeli flags and chanted slogans demanding the expulsion of all Palestinians, locals said.
On Friday, Israeli authorities arrived in the village and demolished the tent belonging to Palestinians, but left the settlers' tent standing, witnesses said.
Palestinian and foreign nationals were detained while protesting the demolition and taken to an unknown location.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=372267
15 sep 2011, 12:51 , Respect -
Maria 26 mrt 2011
Israel Moves to Crush the Village of Nabi Saleh
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A day after the violent arrest of Nabi Saleh Popular Committee leader Bassem Tamimi, http://bit.ly/i119tk one Palestinian, five Israelis and three international activists were arrested in Nabi Saleh on Friday. A Palestinian cameraman and three more Israelis were shortly detained.
Only a day after the arrest of the Bassem Tamimi, the coordinator of the village's popular committee, the army has escalated its attempts to suppress protest in Nabi Saleh. During the early hours of the morning, long before the demonstration had began, large groups of Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers deployed on the three roads leading into Nabi Saleh, and in the groves surrounding the village, bringing movement in and out of the village to a standstill. Three Israeli activists were detained in the groves as they tried walking in despite the siege.
At about 10 AM, dozens of soldiers moved from the entrance to the village to its main junction. When the demonstration began, protesters skirted the soldiers by walking between the houses, and managed to reach the road leading to the spring threatened by settler takeover.
When the soldiers noticed the march peacefully heading towards the spring, they immediate opened fire at it, shooting tear-gas projectiles directly at the crowd. Eventually, the soldiers managed to push everyone back into the village. At that stage, dozens of soldiers, some of them masked, have already effectively occupied the entire village, patrolling its streets and enforcing an undeclared curfew.
One Israeli activist was arrested from inside a store after soldiers showed him a closed military zone warrant and he refused to leave the village. An American protester was arrested under similar circumstances shortly after.
Soldiers then arrested 19 year-old Udai Tamimi, as he was just walking in the street of his own village, claiming they have seen him throwing stones in the past. He was cuffed, blindfolded and pushed inside a military jeep. Protesters who ran to the place sat in front and under the jeep, trying to prevent the soldiers from taking Tamimi away.
Those sitting in front of the military jeep were beaten, pepper sprayed and tear-gassed. Four Israelis, one Swede and one Danish activist were arrested and Udai was eventually taken as well.
Shortly after midnight, all Israelis and the American activists were released on condition that they do not enter Nabi Saleh for 15 days. The two other internationals are expected to be brought before the Magistrates Court in Jerusalem Saturday evening. Udai Tamimi, in a clear example of racial discrimination, will only be brought in front of a judge in eight days, where his remand hearing will be heard in front of a military judge.
The hilltop village of Nabi Saleh is home to approximately 550 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. Residents have been holding regular demonstrations against the Occupation and the creeping confiscation of their lands by the adjacent Jewish-only settlement of Halamish since December 2009. Protest was sparked after settlers, abated by the Army, forcefully took over a natural spring belonging to the village
From the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
http://josephdana.com/2011/03/israel-moves-to-crush-the-village-of-nabi-saleh/
Israeli army destroy home in Jordan Valley
Settlers erect tent 10 metres from family
Yesterday afternoon the Israeli army destroyed the home of the Nabel Daraghmeh family who have been living in the Ein Al Hilwe region of the Jordan Valley for over 15 years. Three days previously, a group of armed illegal settlers descended in the middle of the night on the area where the family had their tent, setting up their own tent only metres away. In the following days the settlers intimidated and threatened the family of six, ordering them to move their home and leave the area.
According to Jordan Valley Solidarity, the settlers threw rocks towards the family's cattle pen, urinated outside their tent and water-tank, and made as much noise as possible, preventing the family from sleeping.
Settlers erect fence around family's home
They also put up a fence around the family's tent and cattle pen preventing them from being able to bring their cattle in at night. The Daraghmeh family legally rent the land from the Lutheran Church, however the Israeli army ordered the family to dimantle and remove their home from the land, eventually destroying it themselves by force.
Ein Al Hilwe is located just below the illegal settlement of Maskiot which houses 28 familes. In the past years the villagers of Ein Al Hilwe have suffered from ongoing attacks from the settlers. Five days ago settlers tied a rope around the neck of a young horse belonging to villagers and attached the rope to the back of their truck, lynching the horse in front of a group of children. Two weeks previously a woman from the village was also attacked whist attempting to take water from the well
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/03/17196/
16 sep 2011, 21:53 , Respect -
Maria 27 mrt 2011
Israel orders evacuation for Tubas-area Bedouin
TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Evacuation and demolition orders were handed out to a Bedouin family east of Tubas on Sunday afternoon, local officials told Ma'an.
The orders come amid concern from UNRWA officials who noted a near two-fold increase in home demolitions during the first two months of 2011.
Nabil Mustafa Daraghmeh, the head of a Bedouin family in the Ein Al-Hilwa area outside of Tubas in the northern West Bank, was served papers demanding he and his family evacuate their tent home and move their herds elsewhere.
Palestinian security officials told Ma'an that several Israeli military patrol cars arrived in the area to serve the papers, which gave Daraghmeh one day to leave the area.
Bedouin herding families have recently been targeted by Israeli officials, who have begun executing orders for evacuation on areas that the Civil Administration has determined are "state land," fall under Israeli-controlled Area C, or are designated as firing or military training areas.
Areas that are not under Palestinian civil control amount to some 60 percent of the West Bank, according to assessments by the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The UN Relief and Works Agency said last week that the first two months of 2011 saw more than 70 homes and agricultural buildings destroyed on order of Israeli forces, displacing more than 100 Palestinians, almost half of which were minors.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=372845
Officials: Israel destroys ancient wells near Bethlehem
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities destroyed ancient water wells and natural reservoirs used by Bedouins southeast of Bethlehem, Palestinian officials said.
A 3,000-cubic-meter well owned by Ali Madghan Rashayida and a 225-cubic meter reservoir belonging to Majid Rashayida were demolished last week, in a move Palestinian Authority officials said was illegal and "an obvious assault by the Israeli occupation."
International and local human rights groups had been working with PA officials to help the Rashayida Bedouins rehabilitate the area, and use natural caves to collect water for domestic use and for their sheep.
Bringing water tankers to the area had been very costly, and beyond the means of the community.
By demolishing the structures, Israeli authorities deprived the community of the right to file a legal appeal, officials added, noting that the time limit given in the demolition warrants had not yet passed.
Residents of Arab Ar-Rashayida were handed demolition orders for the tents and wells in their enclave of the village during the week of 13 March.
Ali Auda, the head of the family, said if the orders were carried out in full, 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."
The partial demolition of the community will have an equally devastating effect, officials said, explaining that the Bedouin would not have sufficient water for themselves or their livestock, and would be at high risk during summer months in the desert area.
The UN has noted a sharp increase in Israel's demolitions of Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2011.
"Although the Israeli authorities maintain that these demolitions are carried out due to the lack of Israeli-issued permits, the highly restrictive and often discriminatory nature of the planning regime implemented by the same authorities rarely grants Palestinians such permits in Area C, leaving them with no choice but to build 'illegally,' or to leave the area," the agency said February in its monthly report.
"It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind the destruction of basic rain water collection systems, some of them very old, which serve marginalised rural and herder Palestinian communities where water is already scarce and where drought is an ever-present threat," said Maxwell Gaylard, who heads OCHA in the Palestinian territories.
Gaylard noted that the demolitions were illegal under international law, which prohibits an occupying power from destroying property belonging to individuals or communities except when absolutely required by military operations.
Following Israel's confiscation of nine water tankers from a community in Khirbet Tana, in Nablus, on March 7, Gaylard said, "if the authorities ultimately responsible for these demolitions could see the devastating impact on vulnerable Palestinian communities, they might reflect upon the inhumanity of their actions."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=372755
18 sep 2011, 00:28 , Respect -
Maria 28 mrt 2011
IOA orders expulsion of three Palestinian families from JV
JORDAN VALLEY, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) on Monday told three Palestinian families near Wadi Al-Maleh village in the Jordan Valley that they should evacuate their homes and leave the area within three days.
Local sources said that the IOA told the families of Mahdi Al-Amer, Abed Daraghma, and Fawzi Daraghma that their homes would be demolished after that period.
Aref Daraghma, the head of village's municipal council, said that the three families were living in the area known as Khirbat Samra for many decades.
He noted that the IOA step comes less than 48 hours after similar decisions against other shepherds in the area.
Israeli occupation forces on Sunday delivered a demolition notice to a shepherd in Ein Al-Hilweh, also in the vicinity of Wadi Al-Maleh village, to evacuate his tent and sheep pen within 24 hours or else he would be prosecuted, local sources reported.
http://bit.ly/hBGCcR
Day after evacuation warning, Bedouin get demolition notes
TUBAS (Ma'an) -- A third set of warnings was delivered to the Bedouin of Ein Al-Hilwa on Monday morning, notifying residents that their tent homes and animal shelters would be demolished.
The herding community lives next to Al-Malih, a village whose nearest neighbor is a site declared as an Israeli military training ground, in the northern Jordan Valley. The entire valley-area has recently included in a list of areas where control would not be handed over if a Palestinian state were created in the West Bank and Gaza.
Only the day before, residents said they were delivered an evacuation order, which gave families one day to leave.
The Monday morning papers were handed over on behalf of the "Top Organizing Council for Judea and Samaria," at the Civil Administration office, and addressed to Mahboub Muhammad Al-Amer, Abed Awad Daraghma, and Fawzi Abed Daraghma.
The papers said they were the third and final orders relating to the area.
Aref Daraghma, head of the Al-Malih village council, called on human rights organizations to interfere with the demolitions, and work to preserve the homes and livelihoods of the Ein Al-Hilwa Bedouin.
The Civil Administration is Israel's government arm in the occupied West Bank, which dictates regulations for civilians in zones marked as areas B and C under the Oslo Peace Accords signed in the 1990s. The body works with the military, police and liaises with the Palestinian Authority and some NGOs.
According to UN and NGO groups, the civil administration effectively blocks Palestinian development in areas under its control, which amount to some 60 percent of the West Bank.
A representative from the Civil Administration could not be reached by phone for comment regarding the latest demolition orders.
The orders come amid concern from UNRWA officials who noted a near two-fold increase in home demolitions during the first two months of 2011.
http://bit.ly/i4BM85
21 sep 2011, 12:43 , Respect -
Maria 29 mrt 2011
IOF assaults six senior citizens during demolitions east of Yatta, raids Gaza
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation forces used sticks and fired tear gas during clashes with senior citizens as they rushed in to demolish makeshift homes owned by the Al-Jabour family in the village of Um Neir east of Yatta.
The IOF rushed in Tuesday morning to tear down 12 tents and shacks used by locals when clashes erupted and the soldiers assaulted at least six men in their sixties, according to witnesses.
Palestinians have used the land near Yatta for farming and tending to livestock. Israeli occupation authorities wish to evacuate the local Palestinians and have mapped the area as a closed military zone and annexed it to three local Jewish settler towns east of Yatta.
Separately, locals said Tuesday that Israeli bulldozers have infiltrated the Gaza Strip near the Kosovim military site east of the town of Al-Qarara in Khan Younis province southern Gaza Strip.
They said they spotted four military bulldozers and three vehicles leave Kosovim east of Al-Qarara and head towards Palestinian territory where they began excavations.
The sources also saw random fire being shot at Palestinian homes from those vehicles without report of injury.
http://bit.ly/hYEf6Z
Clashes as Bedouin homes taken down, again
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Seven Bedouin were beaten by Israeli border police Tuesday morning, as Israeli officials from the Civil Administration office carried out a demolition order on 12 tents in a tiny herding hamlet in the southern West Bank.
The twelve families of Khirbet Amniyr, a Bedouin encampment southeast of Yatta, were ordered out of their tent homes earlier in the year, but remained, saying they had little choice but to stay and had nowhere else to go.
When Israeli officials came to enforce the order, local activist Rateb Al-Habour said a military closure was imposed on the area, and when residents resisted the forces they were beaten and detained.
According to observers with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, villagers said the military attempted to confiscate a tractor as well, but residents surrounded it and refused to leave.
On 22 February, the Israeli military buried homes and water wells in the hamlet. The military later prevented ICRC workers from delivering aid equipment to the families. http://bit.ly/eLrFL4
Al-Habuor said two of the young men in the village were taken away from their relatives for hours as the demolitions progressed, and returned covered with bruises.
Medics with the Red Crescent said they were called in to treat seven injured residents, adding that two were transferred to the Hebron Government Hospital for x-rays and treatment.
Those injured were identified as Mahmoud Al-Habour, 60, Halima Al-Habour, 55, Muhammad Al-Habour, 62, Issa Al-Habour, 60, Hamda Al-Habour, 65, Jibrin Al-Habour, 17, and Tharifa Al-Habour.
Residents told Al-Habour that their homes were being destroyed so that expansion plans could be carried out at the Suseya settlement, less than a kilometer away from the Bedouin herding grounds.
Locals said the expansion plans include a garden.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army was not involved in the incident, and referred the matter to the Border Guards, whose spokesman denied knowledge of the incident but said he would look into it.
The Israeli news site Ynet said the "Civil Administration accompanied by security forces destroyed four random Palestinian structures south of Mount Hebron."
CPT observers said in a statement that residents were already rebuilding their homes.
The demolitions are part of a wave of action being taken against Palestinian Bedouin, who for the most part live and herd in the countryside.
Under the Oslo Accord agreement of the 1990s, Israel retained civil and military control over areas outside major cities. Under the agreement the slow transfer of power to the Palestinian Authority was supposed to take place in the following years. The transfer was never made, however, and Israel retains control over more than 60 percent of the West Bank under the plan.
Israel's Civil Administration determines what areas of the countryside can be developed, and excludes Palestinians from areas it declares firing zones or land adjacent to settlements. It is nearly impossible for Palestinians to secure permission to farm, live or work these lands.
In the past week, Bedouin homes and agricultural buildings in Tubas and the Bethlehem areas have been demolished, displacing an estimated 100 people.
UN officials from the body's Palestinian refugee agency have noted a doubling of building demolitions since the start of 2001.
"Although the Israeli authorities maintain that these demolitions are carried out due to the lack of Israeli-issued permits, the highly restrictive and often discriminatory nature of the planning regime implemented by the same authorities rarely grants Palestinians such permits in Area C, leaving them with no choice but to build 'illegally,' or to leave the area," the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said February in its monthly report.
"It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind the destruction of basic rain water collection systems, some of them very old, which serve marginalised rural and herder Palestinian communities where water is already scarce and where drought is an ever-present threat," said Maxwell Gaylard, who heads OCHA in the Palestinian territories.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=373361
29 sep 2011, 01:55 , Respect -
Maria 30 mrt 2011
Lafta inhabitants reject Israeli plans to sell their land
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Inhabitants of the Lafta village to the northwest of occupied Jerusalem have declared their rejection of the Israeli occupation authority's plan to sell 700 dunums of their land to Jewish contractors.
A number of those inhabitants told a press conference at the Ambassador hotel in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied Jerusalem, on Tuesday that the contractors would build 212 villas on those lands.
They said that the step was in violation of UN resolutions, calling on the international organizations to preserve the village lands from Israeli confiscation.
They said that the villas would be built over 500 dunums after razing 70 buildings in the village.
The inhabitants distributed a statement affirming their insistence on their historical right to their land and heritage.
They asked the world community and human rights groups to pressure Israel into halting its policy of wiping out Palestinian heritage and landmarks.
http://bit.ly/gUZkiV
29 sep 2011, 01:58 , Respect -
Maria 31 mrt 2011
IOA planning to expropriate 662 Palestinian dunums in OJ
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is planning to confiscate 662 dunums of Palestinian land between Tur and Aissawayia villages in occupied Jerusalem.
The Israeli Ir Amim organization, specialized in monitoring the situation in East Jerusalem, said on Wednesday that the planning and construction committee of Jerusalem municipality had decided to allocate this area for establishing parks and tourism buildings.
It said that the project is expected to be endorsed by Monday, noting that the area would be allocated for construction of the so-called "National Park" that would be added to the series of parks surrounding the Old City's gates.
Ir Amim is an Israeli non-profit organization founded in 2004 that focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem. It seeks to ensure the "dignity and welfare of all its residents and that safeguards their holy places, as well as their historical and cultural heritages."
http://bit.ly/fYHDzL