Israel enforces a planning and building policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) that violates international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The demolitions of Palestinian homes, water cisterns, and other private and communal buildings are the most extreme manifestations of this policy,
According to the UN, the Israeli authorities demolished more than 270 Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2009 alone, and an estimated 4,800 demolition orders are pending. Some 600 Palestinians were displaced in 2009, more than half of them children. The families are not re-housed or compensated, so they must rely on friends, family and charities for help. Often those at risk are the most vulnerable in society, such as shepherds and farmers in Area C of the West Bank, living near Israeli settlements or military zones, and the urban poor in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Among the buildings threatened with demolition is a school built by the members of al-Jahalin community. This is a violation of the right to education.
It is also a violation of international humanitarian law. Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the destruction of property that is not justified by military necessity. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the territory it is occupying. Israel’s arguments that human rights treaties and the Geneva Conventions do apply to the OPT have been rejected by the international community.
The official reason for these demolitions is that the buildings do not have permits from the Israeli authorities. However, building permits are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain, because of obstructions related to the Israeli planning and building policy. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, continue to be built in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
The Bedouin Jahalin tribe was forcibly transferred from the Tel Arad area in the Negev to the West Bank in the 1950s by the Israeli authorities. Following Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the Israeli military restricted the tribe’s seasonal movement, rendering their traditional way of life impossible. As a result, the Jahalin established permanent homes in small encampments, prompting persistent harassment by Israeli settlers and the military authorities, who claim their tents and basic buildings are “illegal”.
The Abu Dahouk clan, made up of some 30 families, live near the community of Arab al-Jahalin by the side of the Jerusalem
to Jericho road, about 10km from the Palestinian village of Anata and just south of the Israeli settlement of Kfar Adumin.
Until 2009, the children had to make the dangerous road journey to Anata, or even further to the refugee camp of Iqbet Jaber near Jericho, to go to school. At around 200 shekels (US$53) a month for each child, these travelling costs were prohibitive for many.
In mid-2009, the Abu Dahouk clan, with the help of the Italian non-governmental organization Vento di Terra, began to build a local school. The basic buildings, on a 300-square-metre plot of land, were made of used tyres filled with soil, joined together with mud and made waterproof with old cooking oil. Roofs of wooden beams and corrugated iron allow air to circulate in stifling temperatures. Anxious to complete the buildings in time for the new school year, residents worked for up to 12 hours a day and employed 15 local workers.
Then, on 24 June, the Israeli military authorities ordered the work to stop. The community, however, ignored the order and 75 local Jahalin children began classes at the primary school in late August 2009. In February 2010, the Jahalin tribe petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to grant legal authorization for the school to continue to function. On 3 March, the Supreme Court ruled that the school could remain open until the end of the school year on 1 June 2010, but rejected the residents’ appeal to “legalize” its presence through a permit. With the school facing demolition, a further court session will be held after 1 June to determine the school’s future. Children in the Jahalin school told Amnesty International that the school was “a hundred times, a thousand times better” than the distant school in Iqbet Jaber, and feared that they would be unable to continue with their education if it were destroyed.
BACKGROUND
In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – areas subsequently known as the OPT –
at the end of the so-called Six Day War. Immediately after the occupation, Israel illegally annexed over 70 square kilometres
of the West Bank and classified it as part of the Jerusalem municipality. Palestinians living in the expanded “East Jerusalem”
did not become Israeli citizens although they were placed under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality and required to pay municipal taxes.
The remainder of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were governed by the Israeli military authorities from 1967 until the mid-1990s, when the conditions of the Israeli occupation were altered as part of the Oslo Accords. These agreements established the Palestinian Authority (PA); divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C; and
transferred partial jurisdiction of some areas in the OPT to the PA while overall security remained under Israeli control. In line with the Oslo Accords, 17.7 per cent of the West Bank was designated as Area A in which the PA had civilian and security responsibility. Area B, in which the PA had civilian and public order responsibility and Israeli had overriding security responsibility, made up 18.3 per cent of the West Bank.
The remainder of the West Bank, more than 60 per cent of the total West Bank area excluding Jerusalem, was classified as Area C in which Israel had both civil and security authority.
If you wish to take action, follow this link.
For information Amnesty International about many other concerns about other house demolitions cases, read the report As Safe as Houses? Israel’s Demolition of Palestinian Homes. It was accompanied by a press release.
If you wish to take action on these cases, please contact
Jim Joyce for additional letter-writing detiails and suggestions about additional activities.
