Living in Bantustan Areas (9)

Squeeze them out

It was just another day for the Israeli army on the West Bank. Having parked its jeeps in the hills south of Hebron, a unit of soldiers checked the papers of the Palestinians who lived there, confiscated one or two, and then herded the people and their flocks off a hilltop which a nearby Jewish settlement, called Susiya, has been eyeing with a view to taking it over. “Military zone,” tersely explained an Israeli officer, who had just received a warrant declaring it such. “Off you go.”

Taking time out from their Saturday morning prayers, a few settlers looked on approvingly. “Don’t argue,” replied the officer, when a Palestinian shepherd asked why the soldiers were moving Arabs out of the newly acquired military zone but not Jews. “You have a minute to move or I’ll arrest you,” said the officer.

“Settlers are just off-duty soldiers,” mumbled the shepherd to his sons as they stubbornly continued to tend their sheep. A Palestinian mother picnicking with her two toddlers is hauled away by Israeli soldiers, while villagers plead for her release.

The signs of previous bouts of displacement ring the adjacent hills. Mobile homes for young Jewish settlers sprout on the hilltops. Armed with a list of military orders, Israeli soldiers are herding the West Bank’s Palestinians out of the rural 60% of the territory, officially known as Area C, where Israel has full military and civilian control, and into cities. On some days the Israeli army declares a patch of land to be a live-fire military zone. On other days they say the Palestinians must move because of an impending archaeological dig. The erection of hilltop stations to provide antennae for Israeli mobile phones (but not for Palestinian ones) is another oft-cited reason for pushing Palestinians out. Eight Palestinian hamlets around Susiya face demolition.

Armed Jewish settlers assist the clearance. Soon after the army did its job, a Jewish shepherdess from Susiya brought her flock onto a Palestinian field of wheat to let it graze. Someone had scratched out all the Arabic road signs. “The only weapons we have are our cameras,” says Alia Nawaja, a mother of seven turned amateur camerawoman, who lives in a nearby hamlet. Palestinian violence, however, still occasionally erupts. On April 30th a Jewish settler was killed by a Palestinian for the first time since September 2011, at the other end of the West Bank.

A barrage of reports by the UN, the European Union and assorted charities has repeatedly warned that the Palestinians in Area C are under threat. Some 350,000 Jewish settlers now inhabit over 200 settlements and outposts in the same area, usually on the high ground, twice as many people as the Palestinians in the land below. Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s new defence minister, the ultimate authority in the West Bank, backs a report commissioned last year by the Israeli government, endorsing all such Jewish settlements. Naftali Bennett, another powerful minister in the new coalition of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, wants all of Area C to be annexed outright to Israel.

In many respects this has already largely taken place. A senior Israeli officer recently testified in court that in the past 45 years of Israeli occupation the army has redistributed around 70% of the West Bank land designated as state-owned either to Jewish settlers or to the World Zionist Organisation, whereas less than 1% of supposedly state-owned land was granted to Palestinians. While Israel’s government expands Jewish settlements and ties them to Israel proper with a network of roads, it bars and sometimes reverses Palestinian development. It habitually denies housing permits to Palestinians, thus stunting the community’s natural growth, yet provides uninterrupted water to Jewish settlements. Water for the Palestinians generally comes once a week, by lorry. Israeli soldiers have destroyed scores of small EU-funded projects, ranging from wells to solar panelling, and threatened to demolish scores more.

So far this year Israel’s army has evicted almost 400 Palestinian West Bankers from their homes in Area C, the fastest rate for two years, says the UN, and has dismantled over 200 residential and work-related structures. The number of such incidents has risen sharply since a new Israeli government, with even stronger settler influence within it, took office in March. As a result, the European Union called on April 26th for an end to what it calls “the forced transfer” of Palestinians out of Area C. The Israeli army has also again demolished a restaurant, al-Maghrour, in a rural spot that was popular with Palestinians from nearby Bethlehem, which is increasingly hemmed in by settlements. In addition, some 2,300 Bedouin have recently been earmarked for removal from the strategic west-east corridor known as E1, which links Jerusalem to a big Jewish settlement, Maale Adumim, and to its smaller satellite community, Kfar Adumim, where Israel’s new housing minister, Uri Ariel, happens to reside.

Source:

http://www.economist.com

Israel earmarks vast area of Palestinian Hebron/ al-Khalil land for annexation

Posted on: Feb. 12, 2015

Israel has earmarked around 2,000 dunams (500 acres) of private Palestinian land for annexation in the Hebron district, local activists say.

Muhammad al-Halayqa, an activist in the village of al-Shuyukh northeast of Hebron, told Ma’an that Israel’s Civil Administration has posted warning notices on the land slated for confiscation.

The land belongs to the al-Halayqa, Rasna, and al-Hasasna families.

The Mayor of al-Shuyukh, Sharif al-Halayqa, says Israeli forces have prevented locals from accessing their land, adding that the areas slated for confiscation are likely going to be used for settlement building.

The village council will liaise with Palestinian officials and legal groups to try to prevent the annexation.

A spokesperson from the Israeli Civil Administration told Ma’an that the land in question was designated as “state land.”

On Jan. 27, an Israeli court issued an order to confiscate hundreds of dunams of land northwest of Hebron in the village of Beit Ula. The land is located in Area C, under full Israeli security and administrative control.

Last December, Israeli authorities declared a vast area of private Palestinian land in the northern Jordan Valley a closed military zone in preparation to confiscate the land, an official said.

Ribhi al-Khandaqji, the governor of the Tubas district, said in a statement that the land was located in the Ein al-Sakut area and measured about 10,000 dunams (2,500 acres).

Source:

http://www.juancole.com

In the West Bank’s stony hills, Palestine is slowly dying

By on February 18, 2015

In the richest of the Occupied lands, Israeli bureaucracy is driving Palestinians out of their homes.

Posted on:30 January 2010

By Robert Fisk

Area C doesn’t sound very ominous. A land of stone-sprinkled grey hills and soft green valleys, it’s part of the wreckage of the equally wrecked Oslo Agreement, accounting for 60 per cent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that was eventually supposed to be handed over to its Palestinian inhabitants.

But look at the statistics and leaf through the pile of demolition orders lying on the table in front of Abed Kasab, head of the village council in Jiftlik, and it all looks like ethnic cleansing via bureaucracy. Perverse might be the word for the paperwork involved. Obscene appear to be the results.

Palestinian houses that cannot be permitted to stand, roofs that must be taken down, wells closed, sewage systems demolished; in one village, I even saw a primitive electricity system in which Palestinians must sink their electrical poles cemented into concrete blocks standing on the surface of the dirt road. To place the poles in the earth would ensure their destruction – no Palestinian can dig a hole more than 40cm below the ground.

But let’s return to the bureaucracy. “Ro’i” – if that is indeed the Israeli official’s name, for it is difficult to decipher – signed a batch of demolition papers for Jiftlik last December, all duly delivered, in Arabic and Hebrew, to Mr Kasab. There are 21 of them, running – non-sequentially – from numbers 143912 through 145059, all from “The High Planning Council Monitoring [sic] Sub-Committee of the Civil Administration for the Area of Judea and Samaria”. Judea and Samaria – for ordinary folk – is the occupied West Bank. The first communication is dated 8 December, 2009, the last 17 December.

And as Mr Kasab puts it, that’s the least of his problems. Palestinian requests to build houses are either delayed for years or refused; houses built without permission are ruthlessly torn down; corrugated iron roofs have to be camouflaged with plastic sheets in the hope the “Civil Administration” won’t deem them an extra floor – in which case “Ro’i’s” lads will be round to rip the lot off the top of the house.

In Area C, there are up to 150,000 Palestinians and 300,000 Jewish colonists living – illegally under international law – in 120 official settlements and 100 “unapproved” settlements or, in the language we must use these days, “illegal outposts”; illegal under Israeli as well as international law, that is – as opposed to the 120 internationally illegal colonies which are legal under Israeli law. Jewish settlers, needless to say, don’t have problems with planning permission.

The winter sun blazes through the door of Mr Kasab’s office and cigarette smoke drifts through the room as the angry men of Jiftlik shout their grievances. “I don’t mind if you print my name, I am so angry, I will take the consequences,” he says. “Breathing is the only thing we don’t need a permit for – yet!” The rhetoric is tired, but the fury is real. “Buildings, new roads, reservoirs, we have been waiting three years to get permits. We cannot get a permit for a new health clinic. We are short of water for both human and agricultural use. Getting permission to rehabilitate the water system costs 70,000 Israeli shekels [about £14,000] – it costs more than the rehabilitation system itself.”

A drive along the wild roads of Area C – from the outskirts of Jerusalem to the semi-humid basin of the Jordan valley – runs through dark hills and bare, stony valleys lined with deep, ancient caves, until, further east, lie the fields of the Palestinians and the Jewish settlers’ palm groves – electrified fences round the groves – and the mud or stone huts of Palestinian sheep farmers. This paradise is a double illusion. One group of inhabitants, the Israelis, may remember their history and live in paradise. The smaller group, the Palestinian Arabs, are able to look across these wonderful lands and remember their history – but they are already out of paradise and into limbo.

Even the western NGOs working in Area C find their work for Palestinians blocked by the Israelis. This is not just a “hitch” in the “peace process” – whatever that is – but an international scandal.Oxfam, for example, asked the Israelis for a permit to build a 300m2 capacity below-ground reservoir along with 700m of underground 4in pipes for the thousands of Palestinians living around Jiftlik. It was refused. They then gave notice that they intended to construct an above-ground installation of two glass-fibre tanks, an above-ground pipe and booster pump. They were told they would need a permit even though the pipes were above ground – and they were refused a permit. As a last resort, Oxfam is now distributing rooftop water tanks.

I came across an even more outrageous example of this apartheid-by-permit in the village of Zbeidat, where the European Union’s humanitarian aid division installed 18 waste water systems to prevent the hamlet’s vile-smelling sewage running through the gardens and across the main road into the fields. The £80,000 system – a series of 40ft shafts regularly flushed out by sewage trucks – was duly installed because the location lay inside Area B, where no planning permission was required.

Yet now the aid workers have been told by the Israelis that work “must stop” on six of the 18 shafts – a prelude to their demolition, although already they are already built beside the road – because part of the village stands in Area C. Needless to say, no one – neither Palestinians nor Israelis – knows the exact borderline between B and C. Thus around £20,000 of European money has been thrown away by the Israeli “Civil Administration”.

But in one way, this storm of permission and non-permission papers is intended to obscure the terrible reality of Area C. Many Israeli activists as well as western NGOs suspect Israel intends to force the Palestinians here to leave their lands and homes and villages and depart into the wretchedness of Areas B and A. B is jointly controlled by Israeli military and civil authorities and Palestinian police, and A by the witless Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. Thus would the Palestinians be left to argue over a mere 40 per cent of the occupied West Bank – in itself a tiny fraction of the 22 per cent of Mandated Palestine over which the equally useless Yasser Arafat once hoped to rule. Add to this the designation of 18 per cent of Area C as “closed military areas” by the Israelis and add another 3 per cent preposterously designated as a “nature reserve” – it would be interesting to know what kind of animals roam there – and the result is simple: even without demolition orders, Palestinians cannot build in 70 per cent of Area C.

Along one road, I discovered a series of large concrete blocks erected by the Israeli army in front of Palestinian shacks. “Danger – Firing Area” was printed on each in Hebrew, Arabic and English. “Entrance Forbidden.” What are the Palestinians living here supposed to do? Area C, it should be added, is the richest of the occupied Palestinian lands, with cheese production and animal farms. Many of the 5,000 souls in Jiftlik have been refugees already, their families fled lands to the west of Jerusalem – in present-day Israel – in 1947 and 1948. Their tragedy has not yet ended, of course. What price Palestine?

Source:

http://www.independent.co.uk

West Bank ABC

Since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, Israel has implemented a range of different methods to restrict Palestinian access to land and other resources in the occupied territories.[1]

With the Oslo Accords – an interim agreement between Israel and the PLO intended to lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict – the West Bank was divided into three areas under different jurisdictions. Since then the West Bank has been divided into what are called Areas A, B, and C. Within these areas the Palestinian and Israeli authorities have different levels of control. The idea was that over time more and more of the responsibilities and powers would be transferred to the Palestinian Authority.[2]

This has not happened and because no permanent resolution to the conflict has been reached, the interim situation is still in effect.[3]

Area A is under full control of the Palestinian Authority and consists primarily of urban Palestinian areas. Area B is under Palestinian civil control and shared Palestinian and Israeli security control and includes the vast majority of the Palestinian rural areas. Area C is under full Israeli control. Palestinian agencies are responsible for education and healthcare.[4]

Different practices for Palestinian communities and Israeli settlements The Israeli controlled Area C constitutes about 60% of the West Bank.[5]

All construction within Area C requires approval from the Israeli Civil Administration, which is an authority under the Israeli Ministry of Defence. In practice, the Israeli authorities only allow Palestinian construction within the boundaries of a specific area that has a detailed scheme from the Israeli Civil Administration. These plans cover less than 1% of Area C and a large portion of this land is already built-up.[6]

Under the current system the Palestinians are given no influence over the division of the land within Area C. Nor can they affect the zoning of their communities or the granting of permits for construction work.[7]

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that Israel – at the same time as the country has greatly limited Palestinian construction – has established parallel practices for the settlements. The Israeli authorities have approved detailed plans for almost all Israeli settlements on the West Bank, where today over 300,000 settlers are living.[8] While Palestinians are excluded from the planning process, settlers fully participate and are generally responsible for planning and zoning activities within the settlements.[9]

This process has contributed towards the expansion of the settlements in violation of international law.[10]

Difficult for Palestinians to obtain planning permission – not for settlers

The Israeli NGO Peace Now has identified the building and demolition decisions in Area C. Between 2000 and 2007 the Israeli Civil Administration approved only 91 of 1,624 Palestinian applications.[11]

That means that over 94% were rejected. During the same period Israeli settlers built over 18,000 homes in the same area. Palestinians are denied building permits for even the most basic purposes such as building a house on their own private land.[12]

The Israeli policy does not only affect individuals. Many Palestinian villages and communities are constrained by not getting permission to carry out investments in infrastructure, like repairing roads and the electrical grid or laying pipes to connect to water supplies.[13]

Peace Now says that Palestinians living in Area C in principal face two choices: to build illegally and risk demolition or leave their homes to move to Area A or B, where Palestinian agencies administer building permits.[14]

The high proportion of refusals of applications from Palestinians indicates, according to Peace Now, that there is a policy among the Israeli authorities of implementing a “silent transfer” of Palestinians from Area C.[15]

Palestinians forced to build illegally – many buildings demolished

The Israeli authorities restrictions have resulted in that tens of thousands of Palestinians who want to build in Area C have no choice but to build illegally on their land to meet their needs.[16]

Illegal construction is threatened with demolition and people that live in these homes risk homelessness. Between 2000 and 2007, the Civil Administration issued almost 5,000 demolition orders against illegal Palestinian constructions. A third of these, over 1,600, had been executed when the study ended.[17]

The numbers demonstrate that for every building permit issued to Palestinians in Area C, 18 other Palestinian buildings are demolished and a further 37 demolition orders against Palestinian buildings are issued.[18]

The situation is different in the settlements. Only 7% of the 2,900 demolition orders that were issued against illegal constructions in the Israeli settlements between 2000 and 2007were carried out. [19]

During 2009 the Israeli authorities tore down 180 Palestinian-owned buildings in Area C, resulting in over 300 Palestinians, including 167 children, becoming homeless. Many of the demolished buildings were, according to OCHA, in some of the West Bank’s most vulnerable communities.[20]

Thousands of buildings in the West Bank risk being demolished. According to information from the Israeli state, 2,450 Palestinian buildings have been demolished over the past twelve years.[21]

Demolition orders and demolitions between 2000-2007[22]

Number of demolition orders issued for Palestinian buildings: 4,993 Percentage of demolitions carried out: 33% (1,663) Number of demolition orders issued against buildings in the settlements: 2,900 Percentage of demolitions carried out: 7% (199) The entire West Bank is influenced The Israeli control of Area C does not only influence the Palestinians who live there.

Because of the fact that Area C is the only contiguous territory in the West Bank, it is of vital importance to the entire Palestinian population.[23]

It contains valuable water sources, land for grazing and agriculture, and it contains land that is necessary for the development of infrastructure and for the expansion of the Palestinian communities that are in Area A and B. The problem becomes more serious as the Palestinian population grows and today there is a great need for more land.[24]

The World Bank claims that Israel’s continued control of planning and zoning within Area C constitutes a serious constraint on the Palestinian economy.[25]

Israel’s building policy in Area C has directly contributed to the poor living conditions for many Palestinians in the West Bank. In addition to those made homeless as a result of housing demolitions, difficulties in obtaining building permission leads to economic problems and it limits access to healthcare and education, among other things.

For example, it is hard for the Palestinian authorities to provide schooling and healthcare when it is so difficult to obtain permission to construct buildings for these purposes.[26]

Herders and farmers have only limited access to grazing land and can rarely erect buildings for their animals. OCHA claims that even the international community has trouble obtaining building permits for infrastructure projects that in various ways are intended to provide humanitarian aid to some of the West Bank’s most vulnerable areas.[27]

****************************

[1] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[2] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[3] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlments and Other Infrastructure in The West Bank, 2007 p. 122

[4] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[5] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[6] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[7] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[8] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[9] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[10] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[11] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[12] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[13] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[14] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[15] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[16] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[17] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[18] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[19] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Construction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[20] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 2

[21] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[22] Peace Now, 2008, Area C: Palestinian Contruction and Demolition Stats, http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=3159

[23] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[24] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[25] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[26] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

[27] UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, 2009, Restricting Space: The Planning Regime Applied by Israel in Area C of the West Bank, p. 3

Source:

http://www.settlerwatch.com

Acting the Landlord: Israel’s Policy in Area C, the West Bank

Posted on: June 2013

Not long ago, Israeli Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett, former chairman of the Judea, Samaria and Gaza Council, called on Israel to impose sovereignty unilaterally on Area C and then grant Israeli citizenship to Area C’s local Palestinian residents, whom he said numbered 50,000.

Children of the Jahalin tribe. Israel plans to expel the area’s Bedouin villagers to expand the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim (background). Photo: ‘Ammar ‘Awad, Reuters, 16 June 2012

The above proposal considers Area C an independent region, separate from the rest of the West Bank. Yet the division of the West Bank into Areas A, B and C does not reflect a geographic reality, but rather an administrative division made as a part of the Interim Agreement of the Oslo Accords. The division was to have been temporary and to have enabled an incremental transfer of authority to the Palestinian Authority. It was not designed to address the needs of long-term demographic growth. Nonetheless, this “temporary” arrangement has remained in force for nearly twenty years.

Some 60 percent of West Bank lands have been classified as “Area C” and are under full and exclusive Israeli control. Area C is home to an estimated 180,000 Palestinians and includes the major residential and development land reserves for the entire West Bank. Israel prohibits Palestinian construction and development on some 70 percent of Area C territory, arguing various rationales, such as being “state lands” or “firing zones.” Israel’s planning and construction policy virtually ignores the needs of the local population: it refuses to recognize most of the villages in the area or draw up plans for them, prevents the expansion and development of Palestinian communities, demolishes homes and does not allow the communities to hook up to infrastructure. Thousands of inhabitants live under the constant threat of expulsion for living in alleged firing zones or “illegal” communities. In addition, Israel has taken over most of the water sources in Area C and has restricted Palestinian access to them.

In theory, Israel retains full control in the West Bank only of Area C. In practice, Israel’s control of Area C adversely affects all Palestinian West Bank residents. Scattered throughout the vast expanses of Area C are 166 “islands” of Area A- and B-land that are home to the major concentrations of population in the West Bank. The land reserves that surround the built-up sections of West Bank towns and villages are often designated as Area C, and Israel does not allow construction or development on these reserves. Israel thereby stifles many Area A and B communities, denying them the opportunity to develop. This is one of the contributing factors to the difficulty in obtaining lots for construction, the steep price hike in the cost of the few available plots, the dearth of open areas, and the total lack of suitable sites for infrastructure and industrial zones. If, for want of an alternative, residents of these areas build homes without permits on nearby land – owned by them but classified “Area C” – they live under the constant shadow of the threat of demolition.

This report presents Israel’s policy as implemented in Area C, primarily by the Civil Administration, and explores the policy’s implications for the population of the West Bank as a whole. The report focuses on several specific locations in Area C where the policy has considerable impact on the lives of the residents:

– There are dozens of Palestinian villages in the South Hebron Hills that the Civil Administration refuses to recognize and for which it does not prepare master plans. Over 1,000 people, residents of eight of these villages, currently live under the perpetual threat of expulsion on the grounds of residing in a designated “firing zone”.
– The Civil Administration plans to uproot at least two thousand Bedouins from land near the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and transfer them to so-called “permanent communities” in order to expand nearby Israeli settlements and achieve a contiguous built-up bloc linking the settlements to the city of Jerusalem. Previously, hundreds of Bedouins from this area had been displaced for the establishment and then the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim.
– Palestinians in the Jordan Valley are subject to frequent house demolitions. They are occasionally evacuated for the benefit of military exercises and must deal with the confiscation of water cisterns that are the source of drinking water for them and their livestock.

– Al-Khader, Yatma and Qibyah are examples of Palestinian communities most of whose built-up area is located in Area B. Yet most of these communities’ lands available for construction of homes, infrastructure and public services are located in Area C, where the Civil Administration does not allow construction and development. Palestinians in these communities who, for the want of any other options, built homes on their community’s lands in Area C, face the constant threat of demolition.

Some Area C residents, harmed by Israel’s planning and building policy, have applied to Israel’s High Court of Justice for redress. However, of the dozens of petitions submitted, the court deemed not a single case worthy of its intervention with Civil Administration considerations. The court thus enabled the restrictive, harmful and discriminatory policy to carry on.

At the same time, and counter to international law, Israel encourages its own nationals to settle in the West Bank. Israel allocates vast tracts of land and generous water supplies to these settlements, draws up detailed plans that take into account both current requirements and future expansion, and turns a blind eye to violations of planning and construction laws in settlements.

Israel’s policy in Area C is anchored in a perception of the area as meant above all to serve Israeli needs. Consequently, Israel consistently takes actions that strengthen its hold on Area C, displace Palestinian presence, exploit the area’s resources to benefit Israelis, and bring about a permanent situation in which Israeli settlements thrive and Palestinian presence is negligible. Israel’s actions have brought about a de facto annexation of Area C and have created circumstances that will influence the final status of the area.

Israel’s policy in Area C violates the essential obligations of international humanitarian law, namely: to safeguard occupied territory on a temporary basis; to refrain from altering the area or exploiting its resources to benefit the occupying power; and, most importantly, to undertake to fulfill the needs of the local residents and respect their rights. Instead, through the Civil Administration, Israel pursues a policy designed to achieve precisely the opposite: the Civil Administration refuses to prepare master plans for the Area C communities and draws on the absence of these plans to justify the prohibition of virtually all Area C construction and infrastructure hook-ups. In cases where, having no alternative, residents carry out construction despite the prohibition, the Civil Administration demolishes their homes. Israel utterly ignores the reality that residents cannot build their homes legally. Israel conducts itself as though this situation were not in fact a direct result of its own policy.

As long as Israel controls the West Bank, including Area C, it must meet its obligations under international law and human rights law. First, Israel must revoke the allocation it has made of vast tracts of “state land” to the local and district councils of settlements’ – whose very existence is in contravention of international law – and also retract the classification of extensive areas as firing zones. Second, Israel must allocate lands throughout Area C to Palestinians for housing, infrastructure and industrial zones, and pursue an expert planning process whose top priority will be the needs of the Palestinians in the West Bank. In accordance with Jordanian law which was in effect in the West Bank before Israel changed it, representatives of the local Palestinian population must be included in this process. The process must also feature recognition of existing communities in the West Bank, and all Palestinian residents of the West Bank must be promptly hooked up to water and power infrastructure. Israel must work in conjunction with Palestinian Authority representatives to promote overall planning in the West Bank and to address the planning and development needs of the residents of the entire West Bank.

As long as Israel retains planning authority in Area C and does not allow Palestinians to build legally, it must immediately desist from demolishing homes, business-related structures (e.g., buildings used for agriculture or trade) and rainwater-collection cisterns. In addition, Israel must not expel people from their homes in the absence of a clear, essential and immediate military justification.

Source:

http://www.btselem.org

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Area C -The Key to the Two-State Solution

Posted on: december 2012

Introduction

The struggle for land has been determining the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since 1947, when the United Nations recommended what it construed to be a ‘more or less even’ partition of Palestine into a Jewish state on 55% and an Arab state on 45% of the country (with a special status for Jerusalem and some no-man’s land under UN supervision).This was despite the fact that only 7% of the country was owned by Jewish inhabitants, who made up only one third of the country’s population. Palestinian rejection of the Partition Plan precipitated the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-49, causing the flight of two-thirds of the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli forces and attacks, that went on to conquer 78% of the country.

In 1967, in the course of the June War, Israel occupied the remainder of Palestine, i.e., the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, comprising 22% of historic Palestine. Ever since, consecutive Israeli governments have pursued a policy that resulted in disrupting the integrity of the Palestinian community and creating apartheid-like enclaves, based on the presumption that the presence of Israeli settlements will make the withdrawal from the occupied territories a mission impossible and thus prevent the establishment of a truly independent Palestinian state.

Also in 1967, the adoption of UNSC Resolution 242, calling on Israel to withdraw from all captured territory as a basis for peace, required Palestinians to accept the remaining 22% of their homeland for an independent state. In November 1988, the Palestinian leadership formally accepted this resolution at the cost of 78% of historical Palestine, less than half the allotment of the 1947 Partition Plan.

Israel failed to consider this historical territorial compromise as a fundamental step in ending the conflict and continued to expand and establish new settlements. The drive to secure as much control over the territories as possible while restricting Palestinian access to land and other resources was even accelerated after the signing of the Oslo Accords (1993-95). The Oslo Agreement further divided the West Bank into areas A, B, and C, each with clearly defined but differing levels of civil and security control and responsibility assumed by both the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. Since then, not only has the number of Israeli settlers doubled in the West Bank (‘Area C’), but a complete new network of bypass roads has been established, and the separation barrier is further consolidating Israel’s strategy. All these measures reduce the land area, territorial contiguity and economic viability of a future Palestinian state, thus preempting its mere establishment and the realization of a two-state solution.

This bulletin aims to demonstrate that unless the Israeli government is held accountable for breaches in international humanitarian law and human rights law, Israeli policies will continue to forcibly displace Palestinians, while integrating Area C into Israel proper, thus destroying the last hope for building a viable Palestinian state and rendering a just and lasting peace in the framework of a two-state solution imposible.

To read the full document click here

Source:

http://www.passia.org

Humanitarian Factsheet on Area C of the West Bank

Posted on: Jyly 2011

Area C Fast facts

Over 60 percent of the West Bank is considered Area C, where Israel retains extensive control, including over security, planning and zoning.
An estimated 150,000 Palestinians live in Area C, including 27,500 Bedouin and other herders.
More than 20% of communities in Area C have extremely limited access to health services.
Water consumption dips to 20 litres/capita/day (l/c/d) in communities without water infrastructure, one fifth of the World Health Organisation’s recommendation.
Communities depending on tankered water pay up to 400% more for every liter than those connected to the water network.
70% of Area C is off-limits to Palestinian construction; 29% is heavily restricted.
Less than 1% of Area C has been planned for Palestinian development by the Israeli Civil Administration.
560 Palestinian-owned structures, including 200 residential structures and 46 rainwater collection cisterns and pools, were demolished by the Israeli authorities in 2011.
1,006 people, including 565 children, lost their homes in 2011, over twice as many in 2010.
Over 3,000 demolition orders are outstanding, including 18 targeting schools.
The planned expansion area of the around 135 Israeli settlements in Area C is 9 times larger than their built-up area. (B’Tselem).
Approximately 300,000 settlers currently live in Area C.

1. Most of Area C has been designated as military zones and for expansion of Israeli settlements, severely constraining the living space and development opportunities of Palestinian communities. While it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian to obtain a permit for construction, Israeli settlements receive preferential treatment in terms of allocation of water and land, approval of development plans, and law enforcement.

2. There has been a marked increase in demolitions in Area C this year. More Palestinians lost their homes in Area C in the first half of 2011 than in either of the past two years.

3. Most demolitions in 2011 affected livelihood structures, negatively affecting the sources of income and living standards of some 1,300 people.

4. In addition to restrictive planning policies, Palestinians living in Area C also have to contend with a range of other Israeli policies and practices, including restrictions on movement and access, harassment from the Israeli military and settler attacks, making daily life a struggle.

5. Demolitions drive already poor families deeper into poverty. Most demolitions in 2011 have targeted already vulnerable Bedouin / herding communities, who live in very basic structures, with no infrastructure and very limited access to services. Demolitions increase the dependency of these families on humanitarian assistance and have a range of negative psycho-social impacts, particularly on children. Many of these communities have suffered multiple waves of demolitions.

6. In some communities, families are being forced to move as a result of Israeli policies applied in Area C. Ten out of 13 communities recently visited by OCHA reported that families are leaving because policies and practices implemented there make it difficult for residents to meet basic needs or maintain their presence on the land.

Restrictions on Palestinian Access in the West Bank

Source:

http://www.ochaopt.org

Breaking the Silence

Posted on:January 2015

How are Palestinians living under the Occupation in the West Bank and Gaza?

Academic, writer and commentator Peter Slezak took a tour of the Palestinian Occupied Territories in 2012 and met with a range of Palestinians and Israelis including members of the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, who take tours around hotspots in the West Bank and Gaza.

His journey, as the son of holocaust survivors, was confronting and harrowing as he witnessed what this Occupation means in terms of the human rights abuses that occur routinely, and the annexation of Palestinian lands to large Israeli settlements and to the 700 km long Separation Wall.

Clarification: In this documentary, Peter Slezak makes reference to ‘illegal phosphorus bombs’. The ABC notes that, it has not been established that Israel’s use of white phosphorus during Operation Cast Lead was ilegal.

Supporting Information

Breaking the Silence
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

Defence for Children International
http://www.dci-palestine.org/

Gisha – Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement
http://www.gisha.org/

UNRWA – United National Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees
http://www.unrwa.org/index.php

Al Haq – defending Human Rights in Palestine
http://www.alhaq.org/

Jordan Valley Solidarity
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/

B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
http://www.btselem.org/

Peter Slezak’s blog – Independent Australian Jewish Voices
http://home2.iajv.org/taxonomy/term/8

Source:

http://www.abc.net.au

The battle for Area C

Posted on: Aug 2012

By Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

Susya, occupied Palestinian territories – Dozens of tents, made of wooden planks, small boulders and plastic tarps, cling to the rocky hilltop. Tires, garbage, shoes, children’s clothes and broken electronic equipment are strewn between the tents, home to the 400 Palestinian residents of Susya in South Mount Hebron.

More than 60 per cent of the West Bank is classified as ‘Area C’, under Israeli administrative and military control [EPA]

“I’m 66 years old. 66 years. I was on this land before Israel [was created]. I was born here,” Mohammad Al-Nawaja’ah, a community leader and elder in Susya, said from inside his family’s tent. “[Israel] is a racist state. They want to take the land from us and give it to the settlers. There is no hope.”

An Israeli settlement, also named Susya, was built in 1983 on a hilltop just across the valley from Palestinian Susya. Today, just beyond an electric gate operated by a gun-wielding Israeli soldier, the settlement has paved roads, two-storey homes, a supermarket, playgrounds and trees lining its streets.Despite being inhabited since before the creation of Israel, Palestinian Susya isn’t connected either to the electricity or water grids, and lacks school and health facilities. Israel has deemed the village “illegal”.

In June, the Israeli Supreme Court issued six immediate demolition orders for Palestinian Susya. The destruction of more than 50 structures – including residential homes, water cisterns and solar energy panels – could happen any day now, and would effectively wipe the entire village off the map.

“If they begin to demolish, we will stay in our land,” Al-Nawaja’ah said. “Where can we go? This is our land.”

Under the Oslo Accords

And Susya isn’t alone. In fact, the village’s fate is similar to nearly all other Palestinian communities located in what is known as “Area C” of the occupied West Bank.

Area C was first delineated in the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self Government Arrangements, otherwise known as the Oslo I agreement, which divided West Bank territory into three separate categories.

Area A is under the control of the Palestinian Authority and encompasses most of the major Palestinian cities. Area B comprises most Palestinian rural communities and is under Palestinian administrative and joint Palestinian-Israeli security control.

Area C is under complete Israeli administrative and military control, and comprises all Israeli settlements – including roads, buffer zones, and other infrastructure – and Israeli military training areas. Less than five per cent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank lives in Area C – yet it covers more than 60 per cent of the Palestinian territory.

In 1995, the Interim Agreement, or Oslo II, was passed. Article 27 of this agreement stipulated that in Area C, “powers and responsibilities related to the sphere of Planning and Zoning will be transferred gradually to Palestinian jurisdiction” by 1999.

But this transfer of powers has yet to be implemented.

Today, some 150,000 Palestinians live in Area C, where they face severe restrictions on planning, building and accessing services and the area’s natural resources. It is estimated that more than 350,000 Jewish-Israeli settlers now also live in Area C, an increase of more than 15,000 in the past year alone, in contravention of international law.

Inequalities in planning and construction

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that 70 per cent of Area C is off-limits to Palestinian construction, while 29 per cent is heavily restricted. The Israeli Civil Administration, the Israeli military body that oversees Area C, has planned less than one per cent of Area C for Palestinian development, OCHA also found.

According to Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, an Israeli architect and director of the Community Planning Department in Area C for Israeli group Bimkom, Planners for Planning Rights, Israeli planning laws make life unbearable for Palestinians in the área.

“The goal is not to allow any development of Palestinians in Area C besides what they must approve. They are creating all the obstacles in planning. Their wish [is] that all the Palestinians which live in Area C will move to Areas A and B,” Cohen-Lifshitz said.

According to the latest official figures obtained by Bimkom, of the 444 building permit applications Palestinians submitted in 2010 in Area C, only four (less than one per cent) were approved. Cohen-Lifshitz also said that only about 15 building plans had been approved for Palestinians in Area C over the past decade. “(Palestinians are) building houses because they don’t have any other opportunities. After they build, they receive a demolition order and after the order, they will try to achieve a building permit. It’s the only chance for them to try to save (their) house or to save time,” he said.

OCHA reported that in 2011, the Israeli authorities demolished 560 Palestinian-owned structures, including 46 rainwater collection pools, in Area C. That same year, Israel’s demolition policy made more than 1,000 people, more than half of whom were children, homeless.

By contrast, Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, are expanding at a rapid pace – and at least 125 settlement outposts, considered illegal even under Israel’s own laws, have been set up on hilltops throughout the West Bank.

“People are living their lives above themselves, for the betterment of the nation of Israel, not just because ‘here’s where I can live’,” said Ariela Deitch, a mother of six and resident of the Israeli outpost of Migron.

Perched on a hilltop overlooking the Palestinian villages of Deir Dibwan and Burqa, just east of Ramallah, 49 Jewish-Israeli families live in a series of 45-square-metre caravan homes in Migron. Set up in the late 1990s, Migron has paved roads, a large water tank, electricity and telecommunication towers, a kindergarten, playgrounds, and a horseback riding child behavioural therapy centre.

But it was illegally built on privately owned Palestinian land and the Israeli government has said it must be evacuated.
Court hearings are ongoing regarding whether 17 families, who say they recently purchased the land legally, can remain in Migron. The rest will be relocated to temporary caravans down the road – a “refugee camp”, according to Deitch – at a reported cost of at least 65m NIS ($16.3m).

“You become very quickly become part of this mountain. It becomes like tearing a tree out by the roots. It’s not going to be simple,” Deitch said. “You feel an importance in that, in that people came up here fair and square. There’s a justice to it.”

A pattern of destruction

In mid-July, the Israeli government announced its intention to forcibly displace ten Palestinian villages in Area C, in the South Mount Hebron area, in order to use the land for military training exercises.

An estimated 3,000 demolition orders remain in place in Palestinian communities of Area C. International agencies are becoming increasingly involved in projects in the area, in what appears to be an attempt to safeguard Palestinians against forced displacement.

This international support drew the ire of the Israeli government in mid-July, when it threatened to withhold work visas and travel documents for employees of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN agency that works on Palestinian humanitarian projects.

Despite this pressure, Palestinians in Area C are increasingly submitting building plans to the Israeli Civil Administration in an effort to legally develop their towns and villages.

“Master plans could resolve some things; [they] could help in freezing the implementation of these [demolition] orders and could help in the future to legalise the construction inside the adopted and approved Master plans,” said Dr Azzam Hjouj, General Director of the Department of Planning in the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Local Government.

Hjouj explained that while the PA doesn’t have direct authority over Area C, it is currently playing a consultative role and helping local Palestinian councils draft “Master Plans”. To date, almost two dozen Palestinian communities submitted master plans to the Israeli Civil Administration, and another 30 to 40 have expressed a desire to do so.

“The Israelis first, before the Palestinians, said in the final resolution… [that Area C] should return back to the Palestinian Authority,” said Hjouj. “So if the PA looks [to] this area as an integral part of its territory, and wants to help [its] communities in their essential needs – networks, roads, health and education – I think the Israeli party should collaborate in this.”

De facto Israeli annexation

In February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu established a committee to determine the legality of Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank. Known as the Levy Committee, it was composed of two Israeli former judges and an Israeli foreign ministry attorney, all major supporters of the settlement project.

The committee concluded that Israel was not an occupying power in the West Bank, that Israeli settlements were legal and that the government should legalise outposts. These findings have led many Israeli, Palestinian and international analysts to conclude that Israel is preparing to annex parts of the West Bank, namely Area C.

“They want to annex more land with less Palestinians and I think Area C gives them this opportunity,” said Shawan Jabarin, Director of Palestinian human rights group Al Haq. “They expanded their jurisdiction over the area by expanding Israeli laws on the settlers in that area, by expanding the authority and the responsibility of the Israeli official and government agencies. It’sde facto annexation.”

According to Mark Regev, spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office, however, allegations that Israel is preparing to annex Area C are “ludicrous”.

“Do you really believe these conspiracy theories that Israel wants to depopulate area C? I mean, it’s rubbish,” Regev told Al Jazeera. “We are prepared to continue peace negotiations with the Palestinians and hopefully sign new agreements. But in the absence of signing new agreements, it’s clear that Israel remains to have jurisdiction in Area C.”

Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states, however, that the protected population of an occupied territory – in this case, the Palestinians – continue to be protected by the Convention regardless of “any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories [the Palestinian Authority] and the Occupying Power”.

“Any agreement with the Palestinian side doesn’t give [Israel] the right to annex the area,” Jabarin said. “That’s the main plan: less Palestinians and annex more land.”

Source:

Al Jazeera

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Living in Bantustan Areas (9)

Supporting Information