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Life Under Occupation (48)
Posted on: 6 July 2011
Sleep-deprived and suffering from a broken leg, 16-year-old Muhammad Halabiyeh endured days of torture at the hands of
Since Israel began occupying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem in 1967, it is estimated that approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel.
Israeli soldiers and police officers, who punched him repeatedly in the face and abdomen, shoved needles into his hand and leg and threatened the Palestinian teenager with sexual abuse.
Arrested near his home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis in February 2010, Halabiyeh confessed after days of abuse and torture to the charge that he threw a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli army base. More than one year after his arrest, which was spent in Israeli custody, Halabiyeh was found guilty in an Israeli military court.
His conviction came despite the fact that the Israeli military judge in his case stated that she believed the teenager was tortured. However, the judge argued that there was no evidence that his confession was the direct result of the torture he endured. Halabiyeh’s sentencing hearing has now been postponed until 19 July.
“[The judge] said there’s no direct connection that he confessed later on in the police station because of this torture,” Sahar Francis, the director of Addameer, the Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association, told The Electronic Intifada. Addameer represented Halabiyeh in his trial at the Ofer military court.
“She didn’t believe that he was threatened the whole way [to the police station]. He said in the court that he was [afraid of more torture], but she decided not to give much weight [to this],” Francis added.
Since Israel began occupying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem in 1967, it is estimated that approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This amounts to approximately 20 percent of the total Palestinian population, and 40 percent of the male Palestinian population, in the occupied Palestinian territories, according to Addameer.
Today, more than 5,600 Palestinian prisoners remain in Israeli jails, and more than 1,500 Israeli military orders continue to govern all aspects of life in the West Bank. In fact, the Israeli military courts system controls the trial, sentencing and imprisonment of Palestinian detainees. Notably, the principal court officials including the prosecutor and the judge are Israeli army officers — which means that the Israeli occupation army is both accuser and judge of Palestinians living under its control. Moreover, this system is reserved only for Palestinians; Israeli settlers living in the West Bank are subject to Israeli civil law and civil courts.
According to a 2007 report issued by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, “of 9,123 cases concluded in the [Israeli] military courts in the year 2006, only in 23 cases – which constitute 0.29 percent of the rulings – was the defendant found to be entirely not guilty.”
While no specific figures are available, Francis explained that the use of torture against Palestinian detainees and prisoners is widespread and that often, Israeli soldiers use torture during an arrest – before the detainees are brought into the interrogation center – as a way to intimidate the detainees and coerce confessions from them later on.
“Especially in the case of juveniles, it’s threatening them before even coming to the interrogation so it will make it easier to collect their confessions. They will be really terrified. They humiliate them. They start to beat them and kick them and abuse them all the way to the detention center. It affects [the detainees’] confidence and the way they will treat the whole process of the interrogation later on,” Francis said.
Sleep deprivation, threats of sexual abuse and physical violence, prolonged periods spent in complete isolation, and the arrests of family members are some of the methods used to coerce confessions from Palestinian detainees, Francis explained. While most of the torture the Israeli authorities use is psychological in nature, she added that physical torture does take place as well.
“In some cases, they use electric shock. In some other cases, they close [their] eyes and tie [them] to the chair. They push back [their] head and then they bring a cup of water and they start to drop water on [their] face, giving a feeling like [they] can’t breathe,” she said. ”[Torture is] very common. It’s very common.”
Israel’s “ticking time bomb” loophole
The UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person” for purposes that include obtaining information or a confession, punishing the detainee or a third person for something, and for the purpose of intimidation or coercion, among others.
Article 2 of the Convention states that a state must take the necessary measures to ensure that torture does not occur in any territory under its controls, and that the use of torture may not be justified under any circumstances, “whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency.”
Further, Article 12 states that, “each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.”
According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, while more than seven hundred complaints alleging abuse of detainees by Israeli General Security Services (GSS) agents have been reported from 2001 to 2009, “the State Attorney’s Office did not order a criminal investigation into any of the complaints” (“Failure to investigate alleged cases of ill-treatment and torture”).
The GSS, also known as the Shin Bet or Shabak, according to its Hebrew acronym, conducts interrogations of Palestinian detainees. In 1987, the Landau Commission — an Israeli governmental commission charged with examining the interrogation methods used by the GSS — found that the continued use of “physical force” in interrogations was acceptable.
Twelve years later, in 1999, the Israeli high court finally prohibited torture of any kind in Israel, and outlawed certain interrogation techniques. In “ticking time bomb” situations, however, the court found that the use of physical force could be justified.
This caveat, otherwise known as “the necessity defense,” has been used to justify the use of physical force and torture by Israeli interrogators since the high court’s ruling. The GSS argues that its agents should be exempt from criminal prosecution during these types of situations due to Article 34K of Israel’s Penal Code, which states that “no person shall bear criminal responsibility for an act that was immediately necessary in order to save his own or another person’s life, freedom, bodily welfare or property from a real danger of severe injury, due to the conditions prevalent when the act was committed, there being no alternative but to commit the act.”
Still, while it should only be employed in extreme cases, human rights groups have criticized the “ticking time bomb” defense for its widespread and inappropriate use.
“In the few cases in which the Complaints Inspector found that [GSS] agents abused an interrogee, the State Attorney’s Office decided to close the file without ordering a criminal investigation, this on the tendentious grounds that the high court established, whereby in ‘ticking bomb’ cases the [GSS] interrogator may escape criminal responsibility under the ‘necessity defense,’” the B’Tselem report found.
According to a 2009 report released by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) titled “Accountability Denied: The Absence of Investigation and Punishment of Torture in Israel,” the State of Israel is not meeting its responsibilities under international law since it fails to hold accountable those responsible for torture or abuse.
“The mechanism for examining complaints does not exist in a vacuum. It is maintained alongside the systemic torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees, and alongside the silence, if not the actual support, of the legal system,” the report states.
“We believe that the State of Israel must meet standards of human dignity, justice, and equality of law and must respect its obligations under international law. A criminal investigation, with the attendant criminal and public ramifications, conveys a strong and clear message that all forms of torture and abuse are absolutely prohibited since they fatally injure human dignity and the human person. This is a message that must not be ambiguous,” the report adds.
Ending Israeli impunity
According to Addameer’s Sahar Francis, Palestinian detainees are hesitant to report instances of torture due to the fact that these claims are rarely investigated and virtually never result in criminal convictions or justice, and because they will be held in Israeli military detention while their claim is investigated.
“It’s very hard to say that you can reach justice in this [Israeli military court] system. And the case of Muhammad Halabiyeh is a very good example to see how the court always believes the soldiers and the police officers who collect the confessions and don’t trust what the detainees have to say,” Francis told The Electronic Intifada.
“Most of the cases, even if you exhaust the whole procedures, wouldn’t end up in favor of the detainees,” she added. “We can say that there’s more than 95 percent of conviction at the end, whether it’s through plea bargains or exhausting the system. Most of the prisoners prefer plea bargains because they don’t trust the system. Why waste the time and put all these efforts?”
Francis said that the issue of torture of Palestinians convicted in Israeli military courts is closely connected to the Israeli occupation, and can therefore only be solved by ending the Israeli occupation altogether.
“The solution for this is ending the occupation, putting an end to the occupation, which means Israel is not allowed to arrest Palestinians and prosecute them in their military courts. And they are then supposed to release all the Palestinian political prisoners from the Israeli prisons, where they are held illegally,” she said.
“What’s very important is to put an end to this impunity when it comes to torture of Palestinian political prisoners. This is a big demand of the Palestinian human rights NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], [and] the international community should find a way to put an end to the Israeli immunity in torture and not just in torture but all of the other violations of international law.”
Source:
http://electronicintifada.net
Posted on: 12/11/2012
By Adri Nieuwhof
Israel has held six Palestinian boys from Nablus in solitary confinement in al-Jalame detention center near Haifa, writes Defence for Children International-Palestine Section in an urgent appeal.
The boys have spent on average 14.5 days in solitary confinement, ranging from four to 29 days. Following their detention in al-Jalame, the boys were transferred to Megiddo prison. The transfer into Israel and subsequent detention of the boys violates the Fourth Geneva Convention Articles 49 and 76.
British-Danish security giant G4S has provided security equipment to both al-Jalame and Megiddo prisons, according to a March 2011 report on the firm by Who Profits.
Solitary confinement cells in al-Jalame
Since 2008, Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI) has documented 59 casesof children who report being held in solitary confinement in detention facilities in Israel, including six boys during the past five months. Interrogators used threats of prolonged solitary confinement to extract confessions.
The six boys were locked up in different cells. Their description of the cell follows below. The full story of the arrest and detention of the boys can be read by clicking on the name of each boy.
Seventeen-year-old Suleiman spent 18 days in solitary confinement, mainly Cell 36: “It is very small and has no windows. The lights were on non-stop.”
Sixteen-year-old Jamal was held for four days in solitary confinement in Cell 19. The cell had no windows and the light was left on 24 hours per day. The interrogator threatened to keep him in solitary confinement for a long time if he did not confess. “I actually believed him when he said this. My body started shaking and I felt really dizzy,” recalled Jamal. “I begged him not to put me back in the cell and I confessed to throwing stones, Molotov cocktails and grenades at military jeeps, even though I never did it.”
Seventeen-year-old Adham was held for 12 days in solitary confinement in Cell 36: “It is very small and only has room for one mattress. The mattress was very dirty. The toilet had a horrible smell and there were two holes in the ceiling that allowed freezing cold air in. The lights were dim yellow and left on the whole time. I spent 12 days in this cell. I could not tell day from night. I could not tell what time it was. I did not even see the prison guard who brought me food and passed it through a gap in the door. I did not sleep at all on the first night because I was so scared.”
Sixteen-year-old Abdullah was held for six days in solitary confinement in Cell 36: “It’s a very small cell with a mattress on the floor. There is a toilet with an awful smell, no windows and a very cold air conditioner. The lights are always on and hurt my eyes.”
Sixteen-year-old Mujahed said he was held for 29 days in solitary confinement during the 52 days detention period in al-Jalame. He was held in a number of different cells, but “all the cells looked the same but some were bigger than others. They all lacked windows. The lights were turned on the whole time. Also the toilets had a horrible smell.”
Seventeen-year-old Murad was held for 19 days in solitary confinement in three different cells. Detention Cell 1 “is miserable. It has no windows. There is a yellow dim light that is kept on all the time and hurts the eyes. I confessed on day one because I was very scared they might keep me in the cell for a long time. Cell 36 is similar to Cell 1, but is smaller and barely large enough for one person. I never saw anyone except the interrogator. The prison guard who took me to the interrogation room and back made me wear blacked-out glasses so I could not see anything. I could not tell day from night. I was in really bad shape.”
Solitary confinement inflicts mental damage
Solitary confinement inflicts severe mental damage upon prisoners, rights organizationsAddameer and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) wrote in a 2008 report. The report looked into the effect of solitary confinement on adults.
“Sleep disturbances, through depression and anxiety, to psychotic reactions, such as visual and auditory hallucinations, paranoid states, disorientation with regards to time and space, states of acute confusion, and thought disorders,” are mentioned as effects.
The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) confirmed the negative impact of solitary confinement in a 16 April 1996 report. The following quote from the IPS report is mentioned in Addameer and PHR’s report:
Research findings on the issue are unequivocal and show that imprisonment in isolation causes deep psychotic reactions. Clearly the duration of time a prisoner is held in solitary confinement has direct implications on its side effects, as holding an individual alone in a cell for one day is not the same as isolating him, as stated, for a period of three weeks, months, or years. There is no doubt that there exists a certain time limit after which most people will feel that solitary confinement is intolerable and will suffer, as a result, from long-term effects.
Addameer and PHR stress that there is no fixed time period after which mental problems will arise, because it will differ from one individual to another.
Solitary confinement is harmful for children
The potential damage to young people held in solitary confinement is much greater than to adults. In the report Growing Up Locked Down of 4 October, Human Rights Watch researched the practice of solitary confinement of youth in the US. The practice harms young people in ways that are different, and more profound, than if they were adults, says the report.
Experts assert that young people are psychologically unable to handle solitary confinement with the resilience of an adult. And, because they are still developing, traumatic experiences like solitary confinement may have a profound effect on their chance to rehabilitate and grow. Solitary confinement can exacerbate, or make more likely, short and long-term mental health problems. The most common deprivation that accompanies solitary confinement, denial of physical exercise, is physically harmful to adolescents’ health and well-being.
Children should not be held in solitary confinement
Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza, condemned Israel’s use of solitary confinement against Palestinian children in a 20 July 2012 press statement.
“Prison conditions are often deplorable, requiring children to sleep on the floor or on a concrete bed in a windowless cell,” said Falk. Israel’s use of solitary confinement against children “is inhumane, cruel, degrading, and unlawful, and, most worryingly, it is likely to adversely affect the mental and physical health of underage detainees.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez shares Falk’s view.
Solitary confinement should be banned as a punishment or extortion technique, Méndez told the UN General Assembly on 18 October 2011. The Israeli solitary confinement cells are “often lit with fluorescent bulbs as their only source of light, and they have no source of fresh air,” wrote Méndez in aninterim report.
He recommended solitary confinements for children be abolished: “it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pretrial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles.”
Update
On 12 January 2013, Defence for Children International-Palestine section has submitted complaints to the Israeli authorities on behalf of five children who were ill- treated and tortured when they were held in G4S equipped al-Jalame interrogation center. The complaints request that an investigation be opened into allegations that the children were mistreated by the Israeli Prison Service and the Israeli Security Agency during their detention in the al-Jalame interrogation center. Click here to read more.
Source:
http://electronicintifada.net
Posted on: 12 June 2005
By Defence for Children International-Palestine Section
In the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), a collaborator is understood as any Palestinian who cooperates with the Israeli security forces in the OPT or in Israel. Recruiting Palestinians as collaborators is perceived in the OPT as part of Israel’s policy to maintain control over the territory and the Palestinian people.
The Israeli intelligence services (Shabak) continually seek to recruit children as informants.
Most cases of collaboration are found in interrogation centers and prisons where detainees are put under extreme physical and mental pressure to collaborate. Palestinian children often find themselves under such pressure.1
The Israeli intelligence services (Shabak) continually seek to recruit children as informants. A field survey with former child detainees conducted in 2003 by DCI–PS, estimated that 60 per cent of the children interviewed, some of them are as young as 12, were reported to have been tortured or subjected to other forms of coercion or inducement in an attempt to make them cooperate. By late 2003 in Gaza alone there were on average 40 attempts to recruit minors every month.2
Children accused of being recruited as informants by the Israeli authorities are at risk of stigmatization, exclusion, and on occasion, retaliation. On 5 February 2002, shortly after death sentences were passed on two 17 year olds, Khaled Kamiel and Jihad Kamiel, by the Palestinian State Security Court in Jenin for the killing of a member of the Palestinian Authority security services, armed men entered the court and shot dead both boys. They had been accused of collaborating with the Israeli authorities.3
There is a growing need to prevent the use of Palestinian children as collaborators and to protect children who have allegedly been used as collaborators by the Israeli forces. Palestinian Authorities and community and religious leaders, schools, families and Palestinian and international non governmental organizations (NGOs) all have a key role to play in this prevention and protection task.
Approximately 2,800 children were arrested by the Israeli authorities between September 2000 and July 2004. At various moments, Palestinian children constituted 10 per cent of all Palestinian detainees. In 2002, one-fifth of child prisoner cases handled by DCI–PS involved children aged 13 and 14; the rest were between 15 and 17 years old.
n an interview with DCI–PS, a legal counselor of the PSF said: “The Israeli Shabak is targeting young children because they are easy preys. This month we arrested six collaborators, three of whom were under the age of 18. It is estimated that out of every ten (alleged) collaborators that we arrest and investigate, four are children. The youngest we encountered was 12.”
The exact number of collaborators, adults and children, is unknown, but in a DCI–PS field survey on 40 former child prisoners, 25 children reported that they were asked or pressured to collaborate with the Israeli occupying force. According to the alleged victims, a variety of methods were used, including beatings, threatening with long sentences, repercussions against the family, sexual assault, and public shaming. Rewards offered for cooperation included early release, money, work- or other permits, and sexual services. Most of the children interviewed by DCI–PSwere “approached” by the Shabak. The Israeli police attempted to recruit two children, two other children were pressured by Palestinian collaborators inside the prison, and, in an isolated case, an Israeli soldier attempted to recruit a child.
DCI–PS has collected testimonies of children who regretted that they gave in to the pressure to become informers. It is extremely difficult for Palestinian children to denounce attempts to make them collaborate since they are expected to report to their Israeli “superiors” or otherwise face serious consequences. The Palestinian society also has little mercy with collaborators, especially when they are connected to serious incidents leading to the death of other Palestinians or damage to the national cause.
Source:
http://electronicintifada.net
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
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
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]](/../wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/battle.jpg)
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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