- 1 mrt 2011
IOF troops raid southern Gaza, settler runs over 5-year-old child
KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) advanced hundreds of meters into Qarara town east of Khan Younis, to the south of the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday and bulldozed farmland.
Local sources told the PIC reporter that IOF troops in eight armored vehicles escorted four military bulldozers while damaging Palestinian land.
The sources said that the IOF soldiers were firing intermittently, but no casualties were so far reported.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, a Jewish settler deliberately ran over 5-year-old Palestinian child Qutaiba Al-Rajabi on Monday in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil.
Local sources said that the settler ran over the child near his family home and sped away without helping the child. Medical sources in hospital said that the child's injuries were moderate.
http://bit.ly/gbGnNX
Report: Israel to legalize tens of outposts
TEL AVIV (Ma'an) -- Israeli military officials told the nation's daily newspaper Haaretz that the government was moving to "immediately dismantle all illegal settlement outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land," the paper reported Tuesday.
The government decision also moved to legalize other outposts, which were determined to be on "state lands."
The announcement came hours after Israeli troops took down two sheds in an outpost near Havat Gilad, an illegal settlement in the northern West Bank near Nablus.
Taking down the structures sparked rage in settler communities, prompting Israeli military and police to close streets in the northern West Bank, while protests supporting settlers erupted in Jerusalem, and a series of acts of vandalism were perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians and their property.
According to Haaretz, the decision from Israel's government will be submitted to the High Court of Justice in response to 15 petitions demanding the outposts' demolition. The decision was said to affect three outposts inhabited by about 100 families.
Notably, the decision will not affect the house owned by slain Israel Defense Forces officer Eliraz Peretz, according to an exemption set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The same decision set in motion a plan to legalize other outposts. According to NGO and monitoring groups, there are some 100 settlement outposts in the West Bank.
With three set to come down, another 97 could be legalized under Israeli law according to numbers provided by Peace Now.
Under international law, it is illegal to colonize occupied lands, rendering all Israeli settlements and settlement outposts a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The settlements set for legalization are those which Israel has determined are built on "state land," which according to survey groups and reports by NGOs including Peace Now, is constituted of confiscated village lands belonging to West Bank communities and historically used for farming.
According to a 2006 report by Peace Now, over 50 percent of the lands settlements have been built on have retroactively been declared state lands. The areas in the occupied West Bank are often declared state land if it is not formally registered as private property, or if it is not cultivated for three years, under Ottoman law it can be declared state lands.
Under the British Mandate a process of registration of lands began, and continued under Jordanian rule, but was halted by an injunction by Israel when its military occupied the West Bank in 1967.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=364398
5 aug 2011, 10:01 , Respect -
Maria 2 mrt 2011
IOF troops demolish Tana for the sixth time
NABLUS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) demolished the Tana village east of Nablus city for the sixth consecutive time, eyewitnesses reported.
They said that the IOF bulldozers, escorted by army jeeps, razed houses, tents, and sheep pens at the pretext they were built without permit.
The IOF soldiers stormed the village on Tuesday and ordered citizens to leave the village because their houses would be demolished at the pretext of construction without permit.
Tana is the favorite target of IOF destruction after 18,000 dunums of its land were confiscated where a Jewish settlement was established.
http://bit.ly/eozDR6
IOF troops uproot olive trees, detain Jerusalemite and serve demolition notices
BETHLEHEM, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Tuesday uprooted tens of olive trees in Bethlehem village at the pretext they were planted in an area allocated for the army, locals said.
They added that the IOF soldiers forced Ahmed Al-Wahash in Za'tar village east of Bethlehem to uproot 40 olive trees while they damaged 25 others.
In the same district, the IOF soldiers rounded up a youth in Husan village in a sweep of a number of villages in Bethlehem during which they erected roadblocks, scrutinized IDs, and confiscated a vehicle from a workshop.
Israeli policemen arrested another youth in the central bus station in occupied Jerusalem at the pretext that he was carrying a knife.
The police statement claimed that the young man was planning to stab a policeman.
http://bit.ly/ga6mc5
9 aug 2011, 20:10 , Respect -
Maria 4 mrt 2011
Israel to Evict 2 Palestinian Families from Their Homes
JERUSALEM, March 4, 2011 (WAFA) An Israeli court ordered two Palestinian families from Beit Hanina, an East Jerusalem neighborhood, to evacuate their homes at the request of an Israeli who claimed that the land the homes were built on belong to him.
The Magistrate court said part of the land where the houses were built belongs to the Hebrew University.
According to some reports, Israel plans to build housing units for Jews on the contested property, which the two families said they would appeal the Magistrate court ruling at the Israeli High Court.
http://bit.ly/i3XClL
10 aug 2011, 09:28 , Respect -
Maria 7 mrt 2011
Troops Invade Tana Village, near Nablus, Confiscate Drinking Water
Nablus PNN - Israeli troops invaded the tiny village of Tana in the northern West Bank, southeast of Nablus, and confiscated water tanks belonging to local civilians. This comes after the Israeli army razed the village for the sixth time since 2005, claiming the houses lacked permits.
Ghassan Douglas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) official in charge of filing settler attacks in the northern West Bank, said that a number of jeeps and special military vehicles entered Tana on Monday morning and took away 20 tanks full of drinking water.
Douglas said attacks on Tana have been on the rise, citing last weeks complete demolition of the village the sixth since 2005, coming just a few weeks after it was destroyed for a fifth time on February 11. There are about 200 villagers living in Tana and 5000 sheep.
Villagers have indicated in previous encounters with the Israeli army that they will rebuild the village immediately after it his destroyed, in the meantime living in nearby caves. However, during the sixth demolition it was reported that Israeli bulldozers even collapsed caves.
An illegal Jewish settlement, Makhoura, stands atop a nearby hill. It has been named as the source of violent attacks on local Palestinian shepherds in the past. On January 27, Nablus-area settlers were suspected, but not arrested, in the shooting death of 18-year-old Adi Qaddous from the village of Iraq Burin. Residents in Tana suspect that the Israeli army commonly seen as a powerful enabler demolished the village to clear the land for further settlement.
http://bit.ly/hYlLe5
IOF troops serve demolition notices, detain ten Palestinians including children
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) served demolition notices to a number of citizens in Beit Ummar village, Al-Khalil, claiming that their houses were in proximity to the Quds-Khalil bypass road.
Local sources told the PIC that the troops allegedly wanted to prevent throwing stones at army vehicles and settlers' cars passing near the town.
The IOF soldiers rounded up ten Palestinians at dawn Monday in various West Bank areas.
Local sources said that the soldiers detained five citizens in the Bethlehem and Ramallah districts while one was detained at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus city alleging he was in possession of "combat means".
The soldiers arrested four other Palestinians in Al-Khalil city including two children the brothers Mahmoud and Suleiman Abu Ramuz, 14 and 15 years old respectively.
http://bit.ly/hUPkeW
Israeli reports reveal increase in settlement activity, demolitions
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Recent Israeli reports reveal a marked increase in settlement activity and demolitions in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities have boosted the rate of recent demolitions of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, the Israeli Yesh Din rights group reported on Monday.
The report says Israel's Jerusalem municipality and Israeli police have come to a cooperative agreement since the beginning of 2011 to accelerate demolition orders against Palestinian homes.
The municipality has increased its number of search team members, who have carried out daily operations, the report says. On Sunday demolition notices were handed to at least 24 apartments in two buildings and two other homes in north and east Jerusalem.
Because of the policies of the municipality and the Israeli government, Palestinians are forced to build without permits, the report adds. The majority of Palestinian buildings threatened to be destroyed have permits. But Israeli authorities consider small extentions as an excuse to void the entire license.
Israel has handed out a total of 106 demolition orders on homes owned by Palestinians in less than a month's time.
A second report issued by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reveals that settlement construction in the West Bank had increased by about four times since the end of the settlement freeze five months ago.
According to that data, Jewish settlers built new homes at a monthly average of 114, and they completed works on 1,175 houses started before the moratorium.
The report says settlers began works on 427 houses in the last three months of 2010, as compared to 114 in the first nine months of the year.
According to sources inside the statistics bureau, the information is partial and does not express the actual number of units built.
http://bit.ly/gJfpB8
Peace Now: 70 Israeli outposts are built on private lands in W. Bank
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Peace Now movement said that about 70 Israeli settlement outposts are built on private Palestinian lands and 16 percent of the West Bank lands has been declared as a state land and used to build settlements on them.
It added that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu last week declared his intention to evacuate illegal settlement outposts that are located on private Palestinian lands, but this declaration is problematic for it applies to at least three out of 70 outposts.
Peace Now underlined that the number of outposts on private land is 70, not three. 16 of them are fully on private land and 54 are partially on private land, noting that of the 16, 11 are on land which is fully registered as private.
The movement warned that the issue of registered land and unregistered land is key to the issue of outposts, because in many cases, the private lands on which the outposts are built are unregistered. This opens the door for Israel to eventually declare it as a state land and then begin efforts to legalize the outposts in question.
Israel has already indicated its intention to do precisely this. For example, there is the outpost of Harasha, which is built on an unregistered private Palestinian land. When Peace Now appealed to the court against the construction of some houses in Harasha, the Israeli occupation authority responded that it intended to try to declare the land as a state land and then approve the houses.
Meanwhile, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that groups of settlers intend to initiate a publicity campaign to encourage settlement activities in the West Bank.
The newspaper added on Sunday that the campaign is aimed to pressure the Israeli premier to fully expand settlements in the West Bank.
http://bit.ly/h57gfq
Jerusalem municipality threatens to tear down 36 homes in Beit Hanina
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israel's Jerusalem municipality has handed out demolition notices against dozens of homes in the northern Jerusalem district of Beit Hanina.
Meanwhile, 36 other homes in the Abbasiyya district remain under threat of demolition.
Over the past ten days, Israeli authorities have threatened to tear down two Beit Hanina apartment buildings including a total of 37 units, locals reported.
Notifications have been handed to the Umara building containing 22 units and the Al-Rashid building containing 15 units, the sources said, adding that 180 tenants have been given a short deadline to evacuate the buildings.
Demolitions are pending on 36 more apartments in the Abbasiyya district, the sources went on to say. Home owners have taken to the courts in an attempt to defend their properties.
More than 20,000 Palestinian homes have been threatened with demolition during the past few years.
http://bit.ly/fSKSBz
Notice to evacuate 15 Jerusalem apartments
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli police and Jerusalem municipality workers handed out 15 eviction notices on Sunday afternoon, affecting families in the Ar-Rashid building of East Jerusalem's Beit Hanina neighborhood.
Residents were told to be out of their homes within 10 days, after which the building would be demolished, neighborhood officials said.
Apartment owners Fakhri Haj Muhammad Al-Laftawi and Mussa Al-Qawasmi told the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights on Monday that the building was home to 150 men, women and children.
They said the block was built in 1997, and lawyers were still working to get the relevant permits. The Jerusalem center said the permit application process was begun before construction commenced.
Lawyers for the families said they were trying to convert the demolition orders into a fine, which would allow residents more time to appeal the decision, and seek retroactive permits for the property.
A representative of the Israeli-controlled municipality of Jerusalem could not be reached for comment by phone.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=366403
Israel continues to target Khribet Tana
NABLUS (Ma`an) -- Twenty portable water tankers brought into the hamlet of Khirbet Tana after Israeli forces destroyed the herder community's wells in January, were confiscated on Monday morning, an official said.
A group of Israeli military jeeps entered the hamlet and removed all of the trucked-in water carriers that residents use to store drinking water and reserves for animals.
The tanks were brought in to assist the herders, whose homes and animal husbandry infrastructure were demolished six times, with five coming since the beginning of 2011.
Israel's Civil Administration, which has authorized the demolitions, says the community was living on state land, rendering the tents and animal shelters illegal.
Ghassan Doughlas, Fatah official charged with monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an Monday morning that the herders - who continue to rebuild shelters in the area - are facing an escalation of Israeli acts against them.
On Feb. 9, 17, 20, and 22 and again on 3 March, tents donated to residents of Khirbet Tana by the International Red Cross and the Palestinian Authority were destroyed by Israeli forces.
A representative of Israel's Civil Administration said that the Feb. 17 demolitions were a part of "routine law enforcement activity against illegal building," and confirmed that approximately 19 buildings were destroyed at that time.
The official could not be reached by phone for comment on the latest action in the hamlet.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=366291
11 aug 2011, 19:55 , Respect -
Maria 8 mrt 2011
Israel: Stop Discriminatory Home Demolitions
Police Raid Arab-Israeli Neighborhood, Injure Residents
(Jerusalem) - Israel should immediately cease the discriminatory demolition of homes belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. Israel should ensure equal treatment in planning and zoning procedures for its non-Jewish citizens, and carry out demolitions only as a last resort along with compensation or alternative housing arrangements.
"Israeli authorities allow buildings that will benefit Jewish citizens while demolishing Arab houses next door," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "That obviously discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis, but officials haven't given any justification for this clear difference in treatment between citizens."
On December 13, 2010, Israel Land Administration inspectors and Israeli police demolished six homes belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Abu Tuk neighborhood of Lod, a city near Tel Aviv, displacing 67 members of the extended Abu Eid family, 27 of them children. On March 2, 2011, Israeli police entered the same neighborhood and destroyed the bases for two prefabricated homes the family had planned to erect there; displaced family members are currently staying with neighbors or living in tents. Israeli authorities say the homes lack building permits, but repeatedly refused to grant such permits; they argue that the land is zoned as "agricultural" rather than "residential" but have refused to re-classify the land as residential.
However, Israeli authorities recently rezoned land adjacent to the demolished site from agricultural to residential land, and are planning a housing development there for Israeli security service personnel. Plans for a Jewish religious college have been approved on another nearby site.
Thirty percent of the 70,000 residents of Lod are Palestinian Arabs, according to Israeli government statistics. While official figures are not readily available, more than 70 percent of Palestinian Arab homes in Lod and the nearby city of Ramle have no legal status, according to a project on Israeli cities with mixed populations run by Shatil, an Israeli nongovernmental group.
Hundreds of homes in Lod are under immediate demolition orders, virtually all of them in Palestinian Arab neighborhoods, according to the Shatil project. In addition, approximately 1,600 housing units in Lod are currently designated as "illegal," and thus subject to demolition orders, because they lack proper building permits, according to a government statement.
According to residents who are Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, however, planning authorities repeatedly rejected their applications for permits. Israeli planning authorities by contrast recently approved plans for a seven-hectare campus for a Jewish religious college immediately beside the demolished area.
Israeli officials have explained that Arab-Israeli homes have been destroyed on the basis that they lacked permits, but that raises the issue of who is being granted permits. Human Rights Watch is not aware that Israeli officials have justified why Arab-Israelis have a harder time obtaining building permits or access to residential planning solutions in general.
Approximately 500 police officers arrived in the Abu Tuk neighborhood at 8 a.m. on a rainy December 13 and evicted the residents of six buildings before demolishing them. The independent Palestinian Ma'an news agency described one case in which armed police broke down a door and "pointed their rifles" at a brother and sister aged 11 and 12 and told them, "Don't move," before forcing them outside. Other residents told Human Rights Watch that the police did not allow them to save their possessions before demolishing their homes.
The families, after salvaging some belongings from the rubble, pitched five tents that they bought with donations, and placed a sign over their plot that read, "Abu Eid Refugee Camp." For three months, male members of the family, about 30 people, have been living in five tents on the ruins of their former houses, while the women have been staying with neighbors.
The families had been planning to erect two small, prefabricated homes, but on March 2, around 200 police destroyed the homes' bases and clashed with residents, injuring several. Kawser Abu Eid, a 39-year-old mother of five whose home was one of the six demolished in December, told Human Rights Watch that three of her children were home during the March demolitions, and that her 12-year-old son was hospitalized with a leg injury. A female neighbor's arm was broken when she tried to protect the boy, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. A police spokesperson told Human Rights Watch that no police forces were injured.
Police arrested four members of the Abu Eid family and one neighbor for resisting the evictions. They were released the next day under conditions of house arrest. Israeli civil society workers who were following the case told Human Rights Watch that they were not sure how the authorities would enforce the house arrest order, since the residents' homes had already been destroyed.
According to residents, the family complained about the December demolitions to Brigadier General (res.) Ilan Harari, who until February 2011 served as the head of Lod's municipality, and who agreed to write to the Welfare Ministry, the Housing Ministry, and the Israel Land Administration requesting assistance for the families. Human Rights Watch does not know whether the letters were sent. To date, the residents say, they have received no assistance.
"My kids have no home; they can't study under these conditions," Kawser Abu Eid said. "The head of the municipality promised to care for us months ago, but nothing has happened."
Israeli planning authorities have approved residential and educational building projects intended to benefit primarily Jewish Israelis on sites next to the demolished homes. In 2008 Israeli authorities began rezoning agricultural land for residential construction in the next-door Jewish neighborhood of Ganei Aviv, according to the Israel Land Administration. An October 2010 government decision urges other government agencies to complete plans for the neighborhood within six months, and directs that the land be allocated for housing for Israeli military and other security service personnel.
Directly beside the demolished homes, Israeli authorities have approved plans for a 7-hectare yeshiva (religious college) that will, according to the Lod Municipality website, http://bit.ly/eNZfp5 "bring thousands of religious students and families to Lod." Harari said that this college will bring in "high-quality residents." On October 7, Minister of Interior Eli Yishai told Israeli media that "the thing that will help the city of Lod will be bringing another 50,000 Jews there. That's what will save and keep the city, I don't have another solution." The 50-million shekel project will be located on land previously designated as a "public open space." The Lod city council unanimously approved the allocation of the land to the yeshiva, the Lod Municipality stated.
"When it comes to housing rights in Lod, Israeli officials seem to have one rule for Palestinian citizens, another for Jewish citizens," said Whitson. "That kind of discrimination has been rejected the world over."
Members of the Abu Eid family told Human Rights Watch that they had been living in the houses in Lod since the 1950s, after Israeli authorities evicted them from their original homes in the Hula Valley region in northern Israel.
The Abu Eid family had been leasing land in Lod from the state of Israel, which controls 93 percent of the country's land and in most cases does not sell land but leases lots for 49 or 98 years. The land in question was zoned as an agricultural rather than residential area, a designation that restricted the permissible size and density of homes. Human Rights Watch has documented http://bit.ly/e565C1 that Jewish towns and neighborhoods in the Lod area were also originally zoned for agricultural use, but authorities rezoned that land to allow residential construction.
Israeli planning authorities denied the Palestinian residents' repeated requests to re-zone the area to permit residential building. As a result, the structures that residents built lacked permits and were deemed "illegal." The Israel Land Administration first issued an eviction order against the homes in 2002. In 2010 the family lost a prolonged legal struggle when the Ramle Magistrate's Court rejected their appeal against the demolition orders, finding that the homes were built illegally on agricultural land.
In addition to the Abu Eid family, another 45 Arab-Israelis with homes in the same area received notices that authorities would bulldoze their houses by the end of 2010. Authorities demolished two Arab homes in the same neighborhood in October.
Israeli law requires the owners of demolished homes to pay the municipality for the cost of the demolition or face a criminal sentence, including imprisonment. Faced with this threat, some Palestinian Arab residents in Lod have demolished their own homes.
In October 2010 the government passed a large "emergency assistance" plan meant to "strengthen and develop the crime-ridden city" of Lod, according to the prime minister's office. A quarter of the funds for that plan, 40 million shekels (US$11 million), will be used to create an "eviction authority" for "enforcement regarding illegal construction" for the next two years, with the possibility of an additional 10 million shekels in case of need. By contrast, the decision allocated only 3 million shekels (US $830,000) for projects that "advance" the Palestinian Arab community in the city, and even this part of the plan does not mention new building projects. The plan does indicate that authorities will re-zone an Arab neighborhood of Lod, Pardes Snir, from agricultural to residential, and construct housing units there, but notes that many existing Arab-owned buildings will first have to be demolished.
Throughout Israel, tens of thousands of Palestinian Arab homes lack required permits and are at risk of demolition. Israeli authorities demolished 165 houses belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel across the country in 2009, according to the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, an Israeli nongovernmental organization. Human Rights Watch has reported http://bit.ly/e565C1 on discriminatory planning procedures in the unrecognized Arab-Israeli community of Dahmash, near Lod.
http://bit.ly/ePNKsa
South Hebron community faces demolitions
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Four tent homes, four caves and four sheds will be demolished by Israeli forces in the coming weeks, orders from Israel's Civil Administration handed out to residents of the southern West Bank neighborhood of Zif warned.
The third set of demolition notices handed out to Palestinians in two days, the Yatta neighborhood is also the second cave-dweller community targeted in the south Hebron hills district.
The herder community of Amniyr, located between the Suseya settlement and its outpost, was buried by Israeli forces in February, who declared it illegally built. Residents took shelter in caves after Red Cross assistance was blocked.
If the demolitions go ahead, the entire extended Abu Taha family, which inhabits the area, will be displaced.
Head of the Yatta popular committee Ratib Jabour said the Abu Taha family makes its living off the land near the caves north of Yatta, uses the sheds to house the animals and shelters in the tents. Demolishing the structures, he said, will deprive them of their living.
Those named in the demolition orders were identified as Muhammad Shehadah Abu Taha, Mahmoud Shehadah Abu Taha, Shehadah Muhammad Abu Taha, and Muhammad Mahmoud Abu Taha.
"The Israelis plan to displace the Palestinian owners and build residential units for settlers from the nearby Pene Hever settlement," Jabour accused.
A representative from Israel's Civil Administration could not be reached for comment by phone.
Zif is the third Palestinian herder village that has come under threat, with the Nablus region's Khirbet Tana demolished seven times in the last six months.
Civil Administration officials called the Khirbet Tana and Amniyr demolitions routine, noting that both were on lands where building was not permitted.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=366736
IOF troops raid southern Gaza
KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC) Israeli occupation forces (IOF) advanced into southern Gaza Strip areas to the east of Khan Younis city amidst heavy firing, Palestinian sources reported.
They added that four IOF armored vehicles escorted two huge bulldozers into the town of Khuza`a, noting that reconnaissance planes were hovering overhead.
IOF troops routinely raid Gaza border areas shooting at random and bulldozing land lots.
http://bit.ly/fyj5zA
Israel hands Jenin residents demolition orders
JENIN (Ma`an) -- Israeli military vehicles escorted crews from the Israeli Planning Department to the northern West Bank town of Barta'a Ash-Sharqiya on Tuesday, where eight demolition orders were handed out.
The village, located east of the Green like but west of Israel's separation wall, in in the northern West Bank district of Jenin, and about a kilometer away from the Israeli settlement of Rehan.
Residents with chicken coups, livestock sheds and two homes currently under construction were handed orders that the buildings would be demolished, member of the village council Tawfiq Qabaha told Ma`an.
Families targeted by the orders were identified as those of Farouq Qabaha, Muhammad Hasan Qabaha, Abed Hussein Qabaha, Shadi Mustafa Qabaha, Muhammad Qabaha, Jawad Ahmad Hussein, Muhammad Tal`at Qabaha, and Muhammad Tawfiq Qabaha.
A spokesman from Israel's Civil Administration could not be reached for comment by phone.
Homes and farm structures in areas outside of major Palestinian cities are often targeted for demolition. Applications for building and maintenance of structures in the area must be made to the Civil Administration, which almost never grants permits.
The 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.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=366565
...Read more 13 aug 2011, 20:46 , Respect -
Maria 9 mrt 2011
1,000 Palestinians take to the streets after Lod home demolition
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- More than a thousand Palestinians gathered for protests in front of the municipal building in the occupied city of Lod Tuesday night.
It was the thirteenth time they demonstrated against demolitions of seven homes owned by the Abu Eid family four months back.
They raised signs reading: no to demolition and no to taking away our right to live in dignity.
Israel has been trying to displace Lod's once majorly Arab population since its violent occupation of the city in 1948.
http://bit.ly/hhjLC8
Israel seizes large areas of land near J'lem to complete separation wall
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli army has confiscated 480,000 sq. meters of land in the town of Abu Dis near Jerusalem to be used in completing the separation wall, the Abu Dis land defense committee said.
The construction will destroy the historically-recognized Jerusalem-Jericho path and turn large swaths of land over to Israel to be used to build the apartheid wall that would isolate the area from the rest of the West Bank.
According to the defense committee, the wall's primary objective is not security, but rather to seize land and isolate the West Bank from Jerusalem and expand the settlements.
Board chairman Attorney Bassem Bahr said the wall will be erected to the east of Abu Dis, which would split the West Bank north and south and separate the two areas from the Jerusalem region. He added that the wall will separate the north and south West Bank.
http://bit.ly/fDNjaE
19 aug 2011, 21:32 , Respect -
Maria 10 mrt 2011
Human rights watch calls on Israel to stop razing Palestinian homes
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Human rights watch demanded Israel on Tuesday to cease the discriminatory demolition of Palestinian homes in the 1948 occupied territories.
Israel should ensure equal treatment in planning and zoning procedures for its non-Jewish citizens, and carry out demolitions only as a last resort along with compensation or alternative housing arrangements, HRW stated.
"Israeli authorities allow buildings that will benefit Jewish citizens while demolishing Arab houses next door," said Sarah Leah Whitson, middle east director at human rights watch. "That obviously discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis, but officials haven't given any justification for this clear difference in treatment between citizens."
According to the organization, on December 13, 2010, Israeli land administration civil servants and policemen demolished six homes belonging to Palestinian citizens in the Abu Tuk neighborhood of Lod, a city near Tel Aviv, displacing 67 members of the extended Abu Eid family, 27 of them children.
On March 2, 2011, Israeli police entered the same neighborhood and destroyed the bases for two prefabricated homes the family had planned to erect there.
The displaced family members are currently staying with neighbors or living in tents. Israeli authorities say the homes lack building permits, but repeatedly refused to grant such permits; they argue that the land is zoned as agricultural rather than residential but have refused to re-classify the land as residential, human rights watch affirmed.
However, Israeli authorities recently rezoned land adjacent to the demolished site from agricultural to residential land, and are planning a housing development there for Israeli security service personnel. Plans for a Jewish religious college have been approved on another nearby site, it added
Hundreds of homes in Lod are under immediate demolition orders, virtually all of them in Palestinian Arab neighborhoods. About 1,600 housing units in Lod are currently designated as illegal, and thus subject to demolition orders, because they lack building permits, the rights group said.
http://bit.ly/gBPNFX
IOA expels Jerusalemite family from part of its home
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation authorities are expected to force a Palestinian family to evacuate their home in Ras Al-Amud in occupied eastern Jerusalem after 11-year court battle with American millionaire and settler patron.
Hebrew daily Haaretz reported the news, adding, "Right-wing Israelis are expected to move into a room in an East Jerusalem Palestinian family's home on Monday, after a court sided with their claim".
The paper's report said:
"The Hamdallah family and American millionaire and settler patron Irving Moskowitz have been fighting an 11-year court battle over the home. Now, authorities are expected to force the Hamdallahs to evacuate a room and their yard to make way for Israelis, who are likely to encumber their neighbors' day-to-day routine.
The Palestinian family has lived in the area since 1952. Through his representatives and emissaries in Israel, Moskowitz has waged a multi-year legal battle to evict the family.
In 2005, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Palestinian family was legally obligated to evacuate parts of the home built after 1989. They would keep older parts of the home due to the statute of limitations on Moskowitz's claims.
Sixteen Palestinians live in the disputed home. A couple and a child live in the bedroom that the court ordered vacated.
"Three people live in this room," said Khaled Hamdallah, a family member. "We don't know what to do. I don't even care anymore. I feel like dying. They want to throw us out completely. The police is with them, the judges are with them. So what's the point?""
http://bit.ly/h19YXv
Israeli forces demolish barn near Beit Ummar
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished a barn Wednesday, telling the owner that it had been built too close to the main Jerusalem-Hebron road.
The Beit Ummar resident had been handed a demolition order the day before, according to a report from the town's popular committee spokesman Muhammad Ayad Awwad.
The 30-year-old barn was one of four buildings named in demolition orders handed out to residents on Monday.
A spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration said the demolition was "routine implementation of the law concerning illegal building (i.e. building without the necessary permits)."
Awwad told Ma'an that on Wednesday afternoon, Israeli soldiers accompanied by a militarized bulldozer destroyed the building, owned by Muhammad Younis Al-Alami.
On Tuesday, Awad said Ayman Salih Sabarna was informed that his one-story house on the main road to Hebron was slated for demolition.
Soldiers were reported to have delivered a demolition order to his family, in addition to three others, whose homes remain standing.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=367009
23 aug 2011, 17:25 , Respect -
Maria 14 mrt 2011
Activists inside Palestinian house in Silwan to confront its seizure
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Dozens of foreign activists and Palestinians stationed themselves since yesterday inside Hamadallah family's house in Ras Al-Amud neighborhood in Silwan district after Israeli settlers and policemen declared their intention to seize the house by force.
The family said that Israeli police officers told it that a military force would storm its house and evacuate all its 16 members, mostly children, by force.
When one of these Israeli officers was asked if he had a court order, he ignored the question and said he had orders to evacuate the house, the family added.
Local sources said the Israeli occupation forces might attack the house Monday morning.
For its part, Al-Maqdesi for society development stated that the Israeli central court issued an arbitrary decision ordering the displacement of Hamadallah family from their house and gave the family four days to vacate part of the house for settlers from Ma'ale Hazeitim settlement.
This court decision was taken after Zio-American millionaire Muskovich claimed and fabricated his ownership of the land on which the family's house was built in 1952.
Al-Maqdesi organization stressed that the Israeli court decision is part of the Zionist policy aimed at hitting the demographic balance in occupied Jerusalem and ending the Palestinian presence in it.
http://bit.ly/i73M6C
30 aug 2011, 07:44 , Respect -
Maria 16 mrt 2011
Israel to displac 13 Arab families from their homes in 1948 occupied lands
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- An Israeli court approved a petition filed by the Israeli land authority demanding the displacement of 13 Palestinian families from their homes in Dahmash village in the 1948 occupied lands.
Press sources said that the Israeli court issued a decision to demolish the homes of Abu Kishk family, composed of 60 people.
This step is part of Israel's Judaization and ethnic cleansing policy pursued against the Palestinians of the 1948 occupied lands.
The court took its decision without the presence of the families or their lawyers.
A state of extreme anger is prevailing among Palestinians in Dahmash village located between the cities of Lud and Ramle.
The homes of Abu Kishk were built before 1948 and are historically known as the palace of Dahmash.
http://bit.ly/h5rQIw