- 23 febr 2011
Israeli troops bar ICRC aid from reaching homeless Bedouin
(2:48) Israeli military destroys village - Amniyr, South Hebron Hills, West Bank
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Residents of the tiny Bedouin hamlet of Amniyr crowded into a small cave in the rocky hills south of Hebron to sleep on Wednesday night, after their tent homes were destroyed by Israeli demolition crews claiming the hamlet as state land.
Village elder Hajj Mahmoud said the three families that live in the area spent the day in the open air, trying to salvage items from the buried heaps left by Israeli demolition crews.
Hajj Mahmoud said the International Committee for the Red Cross had attempted to deliver aid and supplies, after calls from residents and observers from the Christian Peacemaker Teams to provide new shelters.
The elder said he was unsure what the ICRC had brought, however, because Israeli troops prevented ICRC crews from unloading the supplies.
An official from the ICRC sub-office in Hebron confirmed that there were difficulties delivering the supplies, which were sent back.
"We stayed out in the air until late," Hajj Mahmoud said, explaining that the families retired to a small cave.
"We found a snake inside the cave, we had to kill it before we slept."
The five tent shelters, a cistern and water well were buried on Monday, and olive trees uprooted then covered with earth.
Residents had moved back to the area during the winter, saying settler harassment at a second location one kilometer away had driven them out. Years earlier the same harassment had forced them from the location where the tents were demolished.
Ownership papers for the land existed at one point, residents said, but according to the CPT observer every week for the past month Israeli officials from the Civil Administration have delivered notices saying the community was living on state land and must evacuate.
On Tuesday morning, CPT observers published a video of the destruction in the hamlet, and issued a release saying teams would continue to have a presence in the area.
http://bit.ly/gbtnlQ
IOF soldiers destroy water wells
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) destroyed tents and water wells in Khirbat Susiya south of Al-Khalil on Tuesday night, local sources said.
They told the PIC that bulldozers escorted by IOF armored vehicles leveled eight tents and two water wells owned by four citizens in the area.
The IOF command announced the area a closed military zone, detained citizens, and confiscated their mobiles, which were used to document the demolition.
IOF troops accompanied the Israeli water authority officials while searching eastern suburbs of Jenin city along with Deir Ghazalla and Deir Abu Dha'if villages east of the city on Tuesday evening looking for water wells.
Eyewitnesses reported that the soldiers were looking for "unlicensed" water wells to destroy them, adding that the soldiers said the step was part of a new campaign to demolish wells in the area.
http://bit.ly/i3AHSk
25 jul 2011, 15:15 , Respect -
Maria 24 febr 2011
Thursday of rage in Negev to protest Israeli demolitions
NEGEV, (PIC)-- The Arab higher follow up committee has called on the Palestinian masses in 1948 occupied Palestine to participate in the day of rage against the Israeli demolition of Arab homes and villages on Thursday.
It said in a press release on Wednesday that a demonstration would start at noon Thursday from a popular Bedouin market toward Israeli government buildings in Beer Sheba.
The committee said that the march would be in protest against the repeated demolition of the Araqib village and other villages in the Negev not recognized by the Israeli authorities.
http://bit.ly/e9D8jn
Israel destroys agricultural lands near Salfit
SALFIT (Ma'an) -- Israeli bulldozers tore up recently cultivated agricultural lands north of Salfit on Thursday morning, mayor of the nearby Deir Istiya village told Ma'an.
Starting a few hours after sunrise, Mayor Nathmi Suleiman said, the bulldozers entered the village, accompanied by Israeli forces, and began destroying a stone fence separating fields in the Qattan Al-Jame area west of the village.
During its work, the bulldozer ripped out several olive trees, and obliterated the half-meter high hand-crafted stone wall.
Suleiman said the lands affected were owned by Muhammad Abdul Rahman Zeidan from the village, and had been rehabilitated through financial assistance from the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Fund.
The rebuilding of the stone wall, seed planting and tilling had been carried out by volunteers and family members, with a total cost of 20,000 shekels ($5,465).
A spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration did not answer phone calls seeking comment. The Civil Administration is a department set up by the Israeli government to administer and preside over Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank designated as "Area C."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=362997
27 jul 2011, 20:22 , Respect -
Maria 25 febr 2011
Israeli occupation bulldoze lands in Salfit, settlers attack Nablus villages
SALFIT, NABLUS (PIC)-- Israeli bulldozers continued to plough lands in various villages in the Salfit district in the central West Bank, while fanatic Jewish settlers attacked villages in the northern West Bank district of Nablus.
Nazmi Sulaiman, head of the municipal council of Deirestia said, in a statement on Thursday, that Israeli bulldozers started on Thursday morning bulldozing farming land that belongs to the village.
He added that the bulldozers which worked under IOF protection bulldozed fields to the west of the village, destroyed a number of terraces built by farmers and uprooted a number of olive trees and almond trees.
Meanwhile, fanatic Jewish settlers continue to attack Palestinians in the villages of the Nablus district.
Settlers, on Friday at dawn, set fire to a Palestinian-owned bulldozer in the village of Burin to the south of the city of Nablus.
Local sources told PIC that a group of settlers raided the village late Thursday night and set the bulldozer on fire.
Other settlers from the Yitzhar settlement attacked the village of Orif near the said settlement uprooted 25 olive aging trees, while other groups attacked the village of Jit wrote anti-Palestinian graffiti and burnt tires.
http://bit.ly/dMs4CU
28 jul 2011, 18:07 , Respect -
Maria 27 febr 2011
Before the almond trees disappear
We do not have to continue to obliterate the past of the Arabs who lived in this land. It would be better to acknowledge the pain of their loss and offer them peaceful coexistence.
In the abandoned village of Lifta, at the entrance to Jerusalem, the almond trees are blossoming, perhaps for the last time. The 50 or so abandoned stone homes, between the green terraces and the fruit trees, are about to be replaced by houses for wealthy foreigners that will be closed up for most of the year.
The Israel Lands Administration has begun marketing Lifta to private developers, without having first prepared a comprehensive preservation plan in accordance with the urban planning program approved for the site and without accounting for the reservations that were accepted by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee.
The marketing campaign violates the Israel Antiquities Authority request to postpone construction until the completion of a comprehensive survey of the village's buildings, "in order to document this disappearing construction culture and pass it down to future generations." It also runs counter to the municipality's adoption last June of a policy designed to curb the flight of young people from the capital by providing affordable housing. The plans for the new development call for homes of from 190 to 300 square meters and development costs alone - not including the building plot - of NIS 500,000 to NIS 1 million.
Lifta is a small link in Jerusalem's shrinking green necklace, its extraordinarily beautiful terrace agriculture a reminder of an extinct cultural landscape. Its land is being divided up and marketed even though no caretaker has yet been assigned to see to the preservation of its springs and green spaces. Jerusalem's treasures are being privatized and given to well-connected developers, who become rich at the expense of the public and future generations.
The village could have symbolized the hope of reconciliation. Many former residents who fled and were driven out in 1948 live in East Jerusalem. The State of Israel obliterated over 400 Arab communities to built Jews-only kibbutzim, moshavim and cities. We do not have to continue to obliterate the past of the Arabs who lived in this land. It would be better to acknowledge the pain of their loss and offer them peaceful coexistence. Lifta allows us to ask the refugees how they see the future of their village. Lifta once had thousands of dunams, on which the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the Kiryat government complex, the central bus station and Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus were built. Now, with only 55 houses, a cemetery, a spring and a few dozen almond trees left, maybe it is time to ask what kind of neighborly relations we are building between Jews and Arabs. What is Israel offering to Yaqub and Sumaya and Zakariya, born and raised in Lifta? What are we, the Israelis who were raised on the denial of the Arab existence on this land, offering our own children?
Five minutes by foot from the Chorda Bridge, dozens of almond trees and hundreds of wildflowers bloom for perhaps the last time. Lifta, which did not become an exclusive artists village like Ein Karem or Ein Hod, stands in its unique desolation, with homes whose roofs were blasted off by the army.
Perhaps it is precisely at the feet of this giant Tower of Babel, that sparkles day and night, that the anemones will continue to blossom as they did last week. A small village, where Jews and Arabs will sit together in the cafe. One place where Israelis can acknowledge the misfortune of the Palestinian people, apologize and explore paths to future coexistence. Until peace is achieved we could ask the people of Lifta, many of whom are civil engineers, architects and contractors, to preserve the village and carry out minimal reinforcement of its homes while drawing up a blueprint for the future.
So long as there is no dialogue between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem over the city's future, every new building plan is the destruction of hope. From the local zoning committee's recommendation on new construction in Sheikh Jarrah-Umm Haroun earlier this month to the Lifta plan, the trend of building on Palestinian land must stop. Jerusalemites protected Gazelle Valley; perhaps we can also preserve Lifta, in its present, green and beautiful state, for future generations?
http://bit.ly/hNkpY0
Fatah Warns of Israeli Plan to Expel 600 Jerusalemites
JERUSALEM, (WAFA) Fatah movement yesterday warned of an Israeli plan to expel 600 Bedoiun residents from Wadi Abu Hindi, a valley located between Ma`ale Adumim and Qedar settlements southeast of Jerusalem.
Hatem Abdul Qader, the Palestinian official responsible for Jerusalem affairs and member of Fatah Revolutionary Council, said the Israeli military handed eviction notices to dozens of Bedouin families in Wadi Abu Hindi valley to deport them by the end of the month.
He said the eviction orders come in parallel with scores of others to deport Bedouin families living near Adam and Ma`ale Mikhmas settlements, in order to expand the settlements of Ma'ale Adumim, Ma'ale Mikhmas and Qedar.
Shlomo Lecker, an Israeli lawyer who frequently acts on behalf of Palestinians, is going to the Israeli Supreme Court to issue injunctions against the eviction orders by the Israeli army, Abdul Qader added.
The Palestinian National Ministerial Committee on Jerusalem Affairs dedicated ten college scholarships for Bedouin students in Jerusalem and is studying other projects in the area, in order to support the Bedouin presence in the face of deportation and settlement schemes by Israel.
Israeli authorities had tried to demolish cattle feeding areas belonging to Bedouins in Wadi Abu Hindi and to deport the residents in 1997, but they resorted to the Israeli Supreme Court which ruled against the deportation orders.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15324
Israeli bulldozers raze Palestinian home in Negev village
NEGEV, (PIC)-- Israeli municipality teams bulldozed on Sunday morning a Palestinian home in Z`rura village in the Negev, occupied since 1948, in line with a campaign of demolitions in that village, local sources said.
They added that big numbers of Israeli occupation soldiers stormed the village since the early morning hours and protected the bulldozers while razing the house of Suleiman Qubiya at the pretext that he built his home without permit.
The sources noted that village inhabitants engaged in heated debates and scuffles with the police forces that blocked citizens and media from approaching the demolition site.
http://bit.ly/hBdSGU
N. Jordan Valley sit-in highlights education dilemma under occupation
JORDAN VALLEY, (PIC)-- Palestinian activists sat in at the Ain al-Halwa school in the northern Jordan Valley on Saturday with hopes to raise awareness on the Israeli occupation which has rendered meeting the educational needs of Area C impossible.
The save the Jordan Valley campaign, one of the sit-in organizers, said Israeli policies have hampered the building of schools, and military checkpoints have restricted movement of teachers and students.
Israeli authorities have pursued a policy of destruction of private and public facilities including schools, said Wahba Usfour, a sit-in coordinator, citing as an example what happened in Khirbet Tana, a village east of the city of Nablus with a population of about 300.
In October 2010, Israel leveled there 30 structures including a school, houses and animal stables. Of the 40 students frequenting the local school before the demolition, only 17 had continued to hold studies in a small tent.
Usfour said a similar situation has appeared in the Bedouin community of Ain al-Halwa in the northern Jordan Valley, where children frequenting the nearby Tayasir village school have been forced to cross a military checkpoint daily to attend class and subjected to harassment by soldiers.
Soldiers at times force students out of the buses and walk 13 km by foot to go back to their homes.
http://bit.ly/hI3TV9
1 aug 2011, 08:47 , Respect -
Maria 28 febr 2011
Paramedics wounded in Israeli shooting, as more demolition notices served
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Union of Arab Paramedics said that three Palestinian paramedics at least were wounded on Sunday during the violent confrontations that erupted between Israeli police forces and Palestinian protestors in occupied Jerusalem.
The town of Silwan in particular is witnessing escalating assaults by Israeli policemen who use live and rubber bullets in addition to teargas to quell angry protests against Israeli confiscation of land demolition of homes in the village, south of the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
Local sources said that 20 Palestinians were injured on Saturday during the confrontations.
Meanwhile, Israeli-controlled municipality of the holy city served a new batch of notices to Jerusalemites in Beit Hanina, Shufat refugee camp, Wadi Al-Dam, and Marwaha, in northern Jerusalem.
Local sources said that the municipality was imposing very high prices for requesting a construction permit that on average reach around 28,000 dollars along with other impossible conditions forcing Palestinian inhabitants to build without permits.
http://bit.ly/hO8Gxs
- 16 febr 2011
Villagers injured in 19th Araqib razing
THE NEGEV, (PIC)-- Residents of the Negev village of Araqib sustained injuries trying to protect their homes as Israeli forces leveled their village for the 19th time on Wednesday.
Bulldozers led by Israeli police and special units invaded the village Wednesday morning and leveled the makeshift homes erected over the ruins of the original homes first demolished in August 2010.
The soldiers used rubber bullets to immobilize Palestinians seeking to interfere with the demolition and forced the villagers from their homes at gunpoint.
The demolition vehicles then began digging with sights set on planting trees there and annexing the land to the Israel Land Fund (JNF).
Police banned media presence at the scene to cover the incident.
The Araqib defense committee is calling for the quick rescue of the villagers who currently have taken refuge in a nearby cemetery
http://bit.ly/fnOfxS
Israel demolishes Bedouin village
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israel demolished a Bedouin village on Wednesday, as protesters defied orders declaring it a closed zone.
Demonstrators and residents refused to leave a cemetery even as Israeli forces moved in to enforce the closed-zone order.
The village of Al-Arakib, in Israel's Negev desert, has been declared unrecognized and demolished repeatedly since 2010. Wednesday's demolition was the eighteenth since Israel first moved to enforce the order.
Taleb As-Sana, an Israeli lawmaker and head of the Arab Democratic Party, condemned the latest demolition.
As-Sana told Ma'an that the village would remain "a thorn in the throat of the Israeli government."
"The entire Arab world stands in solidarity with the residents of Al-Arakib," he added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=360535
Bedouins Barricaded in Cemetery as Israel Demolishes Village for 17th Time, Injuring Children
The residents of the Bedouin village Al Araqib were forced from their land for the 17th time Wednesday (16/2) and barricaded inside the village cemetery, as Israel continues its ethnic cleansing efforts in the Negev.
Israeli forces arrived in the early hours of the morning and immediately began shooting rubber bullets at the residents. When the first round of shooting subsided, the Special Forces pushed people from their homes and began demolishing the village for the 17th time.
When residents of Al Araqib protested, the Israeli authorities again shot them with rubber bullets, resulting in injuries. Three children were taken by ambulance to the hospital, according to Awad Abu Frieh, the village spokesperson.
The Jewish National Fund, an active participant in forcing Bedouin from their land, bulldozed the property and began working the land for the planting of a peace forest.
Israeli forces used such excessive violence Wednesday morning that residents fled their homes and entered the adjacent cemetery. JNF bulldozers then approached the cemetery in an attempt to also destroy the Bedouin burial place.
The residents of the village are currently barricaded inside the cemetery, watching as their homes are once more destroyed and hoping the cemetery is not next. All of the exits have been closed, and the bulldozers are circling the site.
One week ago (10/2), women and children of the Bedouin village of Al Araqib were beaten and gassed by Israel forces, in an attempt to halt the 16th demolition of their homes and property. http://bit.ly/dMQy2Z
Three residents were also arrested, including a sixteen year old, and they have been in jail since. There was a court hearing for them Wednesday (16/2) morning in Beer Sheva, and their detention was extended for at least another day.
Another resident was arrested in the village Tuesday night (15/2), and is currently being held by the Israeli police, though the reason for his arrest is unclear.
Israeli forces and Jewish National Fund workers entered the Bedouin village and again destroyed the residents homes, and continued preparing the land for the planting of a peace forest.
Following last week's demolition, six residents, four women and two children, were hospitalized at the Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva.
The police harshly beat the women and children who were standing in quiet protest, they simply beat women and children I stood alongside a woman who was beaten by four police officers, actual fists in her face, ears and neck, in addition to kicks until she almost lost consciousness people are sitting on the ground, in the rain, and not moving, women and children. The police shot stun grenades and foam bullets directly at the women, at point blank, reported Tamar, an activist who was present in the village.
http://bit.ly/eQ0K1p
11 jul 2011, 11:47 , Respect -
Maria 17 febr 2011
Israeli bulldozers demolish 20 shelters in Tubas
TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Israeli military bulldozers demolished 20 huts and animal shelters on Thursday, taking down the majority of buildings in the Yerda area of Tubas for the second time.
Ghassan Doughlas, a Fatah official charged with monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank, said the buildings of the Bedouin community had only been reconstructed the week before.
The spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration, which controls building rights for Palestinians in areas zoned C in the West Bank, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The Yerda demolitions come one week after Israeli military bulldozers demolished for the fourth time, barns and Red Cross tents in Khirbet Tana village.
A representative of Israel's Civil Administration said the demolitions were a part of "routine law enforcement activity against illegal building," and confirmed that approximately 19 buildings were destroyed.
According to numbers provided by the UN, the demolitions displaced six families (52 people) and affected a total of 106 people. The demolition was the third time since January 2010, and the fourth time since 2005, a UN report noted.
A statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said humanitarian organizations "are currently working on assessing basic needs and providing an emergency response."
In 2008, the community, with the help of the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights, lodged a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice, requesting the preparation of an adequate planning scheme for the village that would allow the issuance of building permits. The Court rejected the appeal in January 2009, and, shortly thereafter, the community again began receiving demolition orders.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=360919
IOF razes Araqib for 20th time
THE NEGEV, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation force (IOF) leveled the Negev village of Araqib on Thursday for the 20th time after razing it another time just yesterday.
Bulldozers uprooted tents of the enraged Araqib residents pitched near the village cemetery and surrounded them hampering their movement in the cemetery, locals reported.
Injuries had been reported in the razing yesterday.
The supreme monitoring committee for unrecognized villages said it will launch a series of steps to protest what is happening to Araqib, including a march in the city of Beersheba.
The Israeli Land Fund (JFP) has sights set on controlling Araqib and disposing of dozens of other Bedouin communities it has referred to as %u201Dunrecognized villages%u201D.
http://bit.ly/i3YhGl
18th Israeli Attack on El Araqib Bedouin Village in Photos
The Bedouin village of El Araqib was attacked by Israeli forces and destroyed for the 18th time on Thursday morning, 17 February. In the later hours of the morning, around 100 residents of the nearby Bedouin city Rahat, some formerly of El Araqib, arrived at the village to show support and solidarity.
Israeli forces, however, blocked them from entering. The men and women sat on the road, waiting for admission to the cemetery to spend time with their friends and relatives. (All photos by and courtesty of Oren Ziv, Activestills.org)
While plain clothes Israeli police officers were negotiating with the visitors from Rahat, the riot police decided that they needed to leave and began shooting men, women and children with rubber bullets.
http://bit.ly/gVDYgJ
12 jul 2011, 10:11 , Respect -
Maria 18 febr 2011
Notices of land confiscation to the west of al-Khalil
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- IOF handed a number of Palestinians from the village of Kharas to the west of the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil eviction notices demanding the surrender of a land area of 20 dunums near the apartheid wall to the west of the village.
Local sources said that the IOF claimed that the concerned land is government owned while in fact some of the land belongs to Khalil al-Horoub, a resident of the village.
The targeted land is about 300 meters to the east of the apartheid wall and is planted with olive and almond trees which have been there for long years.
There has been an increase in such notices in an attempt by the Israeli occupation to confiscate hundreds of dunums of land from their Palestinian owners.
In the same context IOF troops closed main roads around the city of al-Khalil using piles of earth under security pretexts.
The IOF also raided the Arab al-Hadhalin neighbourhood of Yatta village, asked the school's headmaster to evacuate the school which they then turned into a military post.
Local sources said that IOF troops closed the main road between Samu' and Daheria villages. They also closed entrances to the villages of Beit Amra and Wadi al-Shajnah.
http://bit.ly/dUmoXs
Occupation demolishes mosque in Toubas for the second time
TOUBAS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation authority on Thursday demolished a mosque and ten shacks belonging to farmers in Yazra, a hamlet to the north of the northern West Bank city of Toubas.
Local sources said that IOF troops in large numbers raided the hamlet and demolished the mosque for the second time in six months, adding that the IOF were not content with demolishing mosque and ten shacks, but warned three other residents that their homes and animal pens.
In the same context, occupation bulldozers protected by the IOF, on Thursday afternoon, demolished a number of shacks in Baradala neighbourhood of Toubas for the second time.
Ghassan Daghlas, PA official in charge of settlement file in the northern West Bank, said that occupation bulldozers demolished 20 shacks which were rebuilt after being demolished a few weeks back by the occupation.
The occupation targets Palestinian presence in the Jordan valley while it encourages Jewish settlement and land confiscation for military bases and settlement building.
http://bit.ly/eWk0as
Israel Supreme Court rules Hebron Jews can't reclaim lands lost after 1948
Court ruled in the past that the wishes of the owners should be taken into account in deciding the use of the properties, but rejected compensating owners of property from before establishment of Israel.
The Jewish community in Hebron celebrated this week the decision of Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar to fund Jewish heritage trips for students to the city's Tomb of the Patriarchs.
But last week, the community suffered a setback when the Supreme Court ruled that Jews could not be given property which belonged to them in the city before 1948, and that they are also not entitled to be given any compensation for it.
Since the re-establishment of Jewish settlement in Hebron in 1968, settlers there have repeatedly demanded the return of Jewish properties abandoned after the War of Independence.
The assets are extensive and include properties in the market area, at the Beit Hadassah compound, Beit Romano, Beit Hizkiya, Tel Rumeida and a plot nearby.
Abandoned Jewish property had been used in the past to establish a Jewish settlement in the city. The neighborhoods of Avraham Avinu, Beit Hadassah and Tel Rumeida were built this way.
The Supreme Court ruled in the past that the wishes of the owners should be taken into account in deciding the use of the properties, but rejected petitions to restore it to its owners.
In 1948, following the Jordanian occupation of the city, the properties were handed over to a Jordanian caretaker whose function was to deal with enemy properties.
The Jordanians razed large portions of the Jewish Quarter and in the 1960s King Hussein built up the market complex.
In 1967, then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan decided to continue the functioning of the office of the Jordanian caretaker, which now functions under the Civil Administration.
Only a small portion of Jewish-owned properties in the West Bank have been returned to their owners.
In 1997 the state decided that the matter would be decided in an agreement between the Civil Administration and the Jews claiming them. One of them was Yossi Ezra, from Jerusalem. His family was the last one to leave Hebron in 1947, the day after the UN decided on the partition plan.
Most Jews fled the city in 1929 following a massacre of 66 members of the community. Ezra is now in a legal battle to receive back the home of his parents, near the Avraham Avinu neighborhood close to the market.
It is not abandoned property but property that was taken away, he said.
The issue of Jewish properties in Hebron is also at the center of another petition to the High Court, filed by two Palestinians and Peace Now. The Palestinians had shops in the market that were closed down after 29 Muslims were gunned down at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994. Some of the shop areas were used to expand Jewish homes and the Palestinians want the settlers removed and their property rights returned.
http://bit.ly/eHKoIH
Society: Israel confiscates land near Hebron
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities on Thursday issued land confiscation orders in a village near the West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Society said.
Israeli officials handed Khalil Abed Alghani Al-Hurub a warrant ordering the confiscation of 20 dunums of his land in Kharas, west of Hebron, the society said.
The organization said Israeli authorities claimed the land was state property.
Head of the society Abed Al-Ghani Saya'reh said Israel had issued warrants for hundreds of dunums of village land, targeting areas 300 meters inside the separation wall. The land was planted with olive and almond trees, he added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=361123
14 jul 2011, 19:05 , Respect -
Maria 20 febr 2011
Jerusalem man forced to level home attachment
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- A Palestinian man from the Suwar Bahir village east of Jerusalem was forced to tear down part of his own home on Sunday.
Israeli authorities ordered Ramzi Attoun to demolish two rooms on his residence, locals said. They claimed the 80 square meter attachment built in 2008 was constructed without permit.
Authorities warned they would take demolitions into their own hands and fine the landlord 70,000 shekels ($20,000) should he fail to follow orders.
Attoun said he was surprised at receiving the notice after he applied for a building permit. The land is set aside for a street to be used by Jewish settlers.
Meanwhile, five more Palestinian families occupying tents west of Salfit were issued evacuation notices, locals reported.
Army officials passed out the notices to families that have resided and tended livestock in the Al-Mahajiz area for over eight years.
They have no other residence.
http://bit.ly/eZcA34
IOF troops bulldoze Khirbat Tana for fifth time
NABLUS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) escorted huge military bulldozers that razed the Palestinian Khirbat Tana village east of Nablus city for the fifth consecutive time, locals reported.
They said that the IOF bulldozers started at an early morning hour on Sunday in destroying tents, tin houses, and animal pens, which were built by the citizens following the last demolition ten days earlier at the pretext of building without permit.
Citizens said that the IOF soldiers "exploited the stormy, rainy day to demolish our homes to force us to leave", affirming that they would not leave their homes and village and would construct them every time they were destroyed.
Tana established over an area of 2000 dunums is only one kilometer away from the Jewish settlement of Mekhora, which was established in 1969 on 10,000 dunums of land seized from the nearby town of Beit Furik east of Nablus.
http://bit.ly/i6zf3g
18 jul 2011, 17:42 , Respect -
Maria 22 jul 2011, 10:11 , Respect -
Maria 22 febr 2011
Israeli Bulldozers Clear Land Near Bethlehem, Destroy 230 Olive Trees
Bethlehem PNN - On Tuesday, Israeli army bulldozers cleared land near Jub`a village south of Bethlehem, uprooting and confiscating hundreds of olive trees and taking them to an unknown location.
Awad Abu Sawi, Wall and Settlements Coordinator in the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, said that the land in question belonged to the Abu Latifeh family. In the operation, more than 230 trees were destroyed, 100 belonging to Azzat Abu Latifeh and 130 belonging to his brother Abdullatif.
Abu Sawi said that Israeli trucks departed to an unknown location with the uprooted trees. He said that similar operations had been going on in the region, with 40 trees bulldozed in the area around the village of Mishmas. Journalists were prohibited from traveling to the region in question.
http://bit.ly/dW0bWZ
Israel to raze more wells in W. Bank as part of water war on Palestinians
JENIN, (PIC)-- Civil servants from Israels water authority under heavy military protection stormed at noon Monday Kafr Dan village, west of Jenin, to carry out a survey of the artesian wells as a prelude to demolishing them later.
Local sources said Israeli soldiers aboard military vehicles escorted a car belonging to the water authority to protect surveyors as they were registering and taking pictures of about 70 wells.
They added that the soldiers told farmers in the village that after this process, their wells would be flattened at the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Different West Bank areas have witnessed lately the demolition of many wells in order to deprive Palestinians of their water rights and provide Israeli settlements with more water amounts.
According to studies, Israel plunders Palestinian water resources through its control over 85 percent of the existing water in the aquifer in the West Bank, and not only that, but it also controls the amounts of water supplied to the Palestinian territories and sell them at exorbitant prices.
Israel, the most racist country in the world, uses water as a weapon against the rightful owners of land and water resources.
In a separate incident, the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) notified five Palestinian farmers from Beit Ula village, west of Al-Khalil, of its intentions to demolish their structures and buildings used for agricultural purposes.
The military order received by the farmers claimed that these buildings would be demolished because they were unlicensed and near Israels segregation wall.
http://bit.ly/fGDdr4
Israeli bulldozers bury Bedouin village
HEBRON (Ma`an) -- The five tents giving shelter to some 50 Bedouin residents of Amniyr, a tiny community north of Susiya in the south Hebron hills were torn down on Monday, their olive trees uprooted and water sources covered over.
An observer with the Christian Peacemaker Teams said Israeli demolition crews arrived before sunrise, at about 5:30 a.m. and began taking down the tents, then filled a well and a water cistern with earth.
"They uprooted several olive trees and buried them under the dirt," he said.
All that was left of the small herding community was a cave, where residents took shelter during the demolition, and a small bread oven made of stone, the observer said.
Residents had moved back to the area during the winter, saying settler harassment at a second location one kilometer away had driven them out. Years earlier the same harassment had forced them from the location where the tents were demolished.
Its land residents said they had ownership papers for at one point, but according to the observer every week for the past month Israeli officials from the Civil Administration have delivered notices saying the community was living on state land and must evacuate.
"The demolition orders were delivered on 15 February," the observer said.
Residents say they are planning to rebuild, and will contact the International Red Cross to supply tents.
"We need gods help," Hajj Mohammed, a resident of the community told Ma`an, "we don`t know what we are going to do."
Representatives from Israels Civil Administration did not answer calls seeking comment.
On Sunday, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Maxwell Gaylard condemned a similar demolition targeting a community in the northern West Bank. In Khirbet Tana, residents have had their home tents destroyed four times since January.
"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," Gaylard said in a statement following the last demolition.
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UN condemns Israeli demolitions
NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Following his visit to the village of Khirbet Tana, where Israeli forces demolished tent homes and animal shelters for the fourth time this year on Monday, a UN official condemned the move, calling it illegal.
"Under international law, Israel, as the occupying power in the oPt, is prohibited from destroying property belonging to individuals or communities except when absolutely required by military operations," the UN's Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Maxwell Gaylard said in a statement.
On 9, 17 and 20 February, tents from the International Red Cross, the Palestinian Authority and the villagers were destroyed.
A representative of Israel's Civil Administration said of the February 17 demolitions, that hey were a part of "routine law enforcement activity against illegal building," and confirmed that approximately 19 buildings were destroyed.
In his statement, Gaylard wondered, "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."
The demolitions displaced all 250 residents of Khirbet Tana, which is located in the Israeli-controlled "Area C" in the Nablus municipality, near Beit Furik.
In 2008, the community, with the help of the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights, lodged a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice, requesting the preparation of an adequate planning scheme for the village that would allow the issuance of building permits. The Court rejected the appeal in January 2009, and, shortly thereafter, the community again began receiving demolition orders.
In 2010, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded at least 350 demolished structures in Area C alone.
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18th Israeli Attack on El Araqib Bedouin Village in Photos