Tag: House Demolition

Israeli army demolishes homes in Khirbet Tana for the fifth time

20 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

The villagers in Khirbet Tana, near Beit Furik in the Nablus region, once again faced Israeli bulldozers destroying their homes. Only ten days after the last demolition, the Israeli army arrived in the village, and jeeps full of soldiers blocked the roads to the village whilst the bulldozers and diggers completely destroyed ten structures, including homes and animal shelters. A sheep was found on the ground that had been crushed by a bulldozer and was left dying. One tractor was also destroyed, and it has been reported that another one was confiscated by the army.

Two of the tents that the Red Cross had provided the families with after the last demolition were seized by the Israeli army, leaving them without shelter.

Palestinian man sits amongst the ruins of his home

The soldiers blocked the road and prevented anybody that wanted to go to the village during the time the demolition was going on. Around a dozen men from the village had to wait on the road while the army destroyed their homes, and were prevented from going to their families.

One asked: “What are you doing here?” The soldier answered: “We are carrying out orders from the Israeli government, army business. These houses are illegal; they don’t have permission to live here.” When asked, “Permission from whom? Do you have any proof which says these houses are illegal? Do you have papers that say you are allowed to destroy these homes and to make these people homeless?” The soldier answered, “We don’t need a permission, we don’t need a paper, I am your paper, I am a soldier.”

One of the people that had their home destroyed was Radi Mahmoud Hanani. Sitting in the remains of his home, he asked: “Where will we cook now? Where will we eat? Where will we sleep?”

The residents of Khirbet Tana are determined and soon after the Israeli army departed, they commenced with rebuilding the structures with what materials they could salvage.

More demolitions in Khirbet Tana

10 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

The village of Khirbet Tana, near Beit Furik, Nablus region, once again faced Israeli bulldozers yesterday. Several structures, including homes and animal shelters were demolished when the army arrived with six jeeps and two bulldozers. No notice was given of the destruction.

The villagers have been through this many times, the last time only a month ago. They will not be deterred though, and each time they set about rebuilding; Fozan Mousa Esai, an old farmer, says that he will rebuild his shelter for around two hundred sheep once again. He will, however, have to
sell some of them to be able to do it.

Villager stands by the site of the demolition

Many of Khirbet Tana’s population, originally consisting of some 60 families, have fled to Beit Furik, on whose lands Khirbet Tana resides. Israeli efforts to ethnically cleanse the area of its Palestinian
population dates back to the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the situation worsening considerably since the Oslo Accords zoning scheme of 1994 deemed the entire region Area C, under full Israeli control. The village was demolished for the first time in 2005, when Israeli bulldozers razed 14 homes, 18 animal sheds and 6 animal stores to the ground, leaving only the ancient mosque standing. Using bureaucracy as a weapon, Israeli authorities then banned residents from building permanent structures on the site of their former homes by refusing to issue the necessary permits. Ramshackle tents and prefabricated structures now dot the hillsides of Khirbet Tana, as residents are forced to adopt an almost Bedouin lifestyle, fearing instant demolition at the first attempt to lay concrete or stone.

Israeli bulldozers visited Khirbet Tana a second time in May 2008, once again leaving only rubble in their wake. An objection then filed by residents to the Israeli High Court of Justice resulted in the final, non-objectionable decision to demolish all structures in Khirbet Tana and evict its entire population from their lands. This was carried out on 10 January 2010, when all 25 structures remaining in the village were once again flattened by the bulldozers of the occupation forces, including the school. Neighbouring agricultural communities such as Twiyel, east of Aqraba village, have suffered similar attacks in recent months.

Khirbet Tana’s remaining population ekes out a precarious existence in the isolated hills between Beit Furik and the Jordan Valley. Like Fursa Hanina, those who stay are determined to hold rightful claim to their land in the face of Israel’s bureaucratic and military machine, and its efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestine’s rural population.

EAPPI: Army makes fifty homeless in Jordan Valley demolitions

11 February 2011 | Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)

Residents in the village of Khirbet Tana will sleep in caves tonight following the demolition of their homes on Wednesday. Israeli bulldozers destroyed six homes and several makeshift shelters for sheep, which villagers had erected after demolitions in January. The army has demolished multiple structures here on four occasions in recent years, including the village school.

Farmers in the community, on the edge of the Jordan Valley, said that when Israeli soldiers arrived at 9.30 in the morning, they did not give the farmers time to remove their sheep from makeshift tents they had used as animal shelters since the previous demolitions, in January. Observers from EAPPI witnessed dead lambs among the rubble.

“I wanted to take my sheep and lambs out. I wanted to take my things out of the tent but they would not let me,” Rafi Mahmoud Hanani told EAPPI. “I said please, I want to take my stuff, I have sheep. (But) they hit the sheep with the bulldozer.”

The army arrived with bulldozers at around 9.30 on Wednesday morning and razed 17 structures, many of which were provided to the community in the form of emergency assistance as a result of previous demolitions.

Over 50 people lost their homes and personal belongings.

“The deliberate demolitions of Palestinian homes and other structures need for their survival must be brought to an end,” said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in a statement. Khirbet Tana is in Area C, the 60 percent or so of the West Bank the Oslo Accords placed under full Israeli control. The Israeli authorities enforce strict policies against unauthorized Palestinian construction in the area, but almost never give permits for Palestinians to build there “legally”.

This is the fourth major demolition suffered by the community in the span of a few years. Last year, the community suffered extensive demolitions in January and again in December. On both occasions, a number of homes, animal shelters and the village school were destroyed.

EAPPI observers who also visited the village back in December said Rafi Mahmoud Hanani was distraught.

“After the December demolition he showed us what had happened: his stone house was totally destroyed and his belongings buried under the rubble. Despite all this, he laughed with us and told us about his life in the Jordanian army. This time he was broken. Nothing was left of any of his home or sheep shelters that had been supplied by the Red Cross. He was alone and devastated. His concern was for his three sheep and their new lambs, and his sick wife in Beit Furik.”

“I am 66 years old and I was born up there where you see the olive trees,” said Usra Ahmed Hanani, pointing to the nearby hillside. “(My husband) is nearly 80 years old and he was born here. We spend all our time with the sheep – how can we live without them? It is not possible.”

Thirteen homes and three school buildings destroyed by Israeli forces

12 January 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

Dkaika children outside their destroyed classroom

More than 13 homes and three school buildings were bulldozed this morning by occupation forces in the small Bedouin village of Dkaika near Yatta south of Hebron. One eye witness – an English teacher at the school – said “the Israeli army arrived at the village at around 7:30am with over fifty military vehicles and at least six bulldozers before forcibly removing the children from the school and destroying three classrooms.” He went on, “the children, some of whom are as young as seven years old, were crying and shouting at the soldiers to stop.”

In addition to the destruction wrought upon the school, ISM representatives were led by the crushed earthen tracks and violent gouge marks left by bulldozers to the tell tale piles of rubble and twisted steel which littered the surrounding area. If there had been any doubt that each had once been a home, then the hurriedly assembled mounds of personal possessions, furniture, and children’s toys which accompanied each pile of rubble surely testified to the fact that these were dwellings.

As it was, there were plenty of family members eager to testify themselves, and in the moments following the re-opening of the village’s only road, EAPPI and ISM members– who had been prevented by road blocks from accessing the scene – moved in to speak to those left homeless by the action.

When asked what reason was given for the demolition, the above witness, visibly upset, replied “they do not want us to live here, that is the reason. I would like to tell you that this community has been here since before the establishment of the Israeli [state]. They took most of our land during the Nakba and they would like to dismiss us from here completely”.

Thirteen homeless after home demolition in Ras al Ahmud

23 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Tuesday, Israeli authorities demolished a Palestinian home in Ras al Ahmud, East Jerusalem. ISM activists interviewed family members left homeless by the senseless demolition.

On December 19, 2010, Israeli soldiers entered the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al Ahmud and left a demolition notice on the window of a Palestinian home. The families inside were faced with a wrenching decision: demolish their own home and pay a fine of 60,000 shekels or refuse and watch as soldiers demolish their house and punish them with a fine of 120,000 shekels. Soldiers showed up outside with a bulldozer. Finally, on December 21, they tore down their own house.

“It felt so bad to take the house down. To even think for one minute that we wouldn’t have a home – what do you do? My father bought this land over 40 years ago,” explained Rami.

Three families lived in the house, a total of 13 people, including 4 small children.

The Red Cross donated tents and some supplies to the family. Later, a representative from the UN visited the site.

\On Thursday, the families were living in two white tents and a makeshift shelter. Two days had passed since the demolition. A heap of metal and the frame of the roof lay on the dusty ground where their house once stood. Off to one side, stacks of their possessions were exposed to the elements – boxes of clothes, drinking glasses, a refrigerator. Some doors and wood paneling were leaning against a fence.

“A big problem now is the bathroom,” said Rami, “We don’t know how we will pay the 60,000 shekels. We are sleeping here in these tents and we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Just this week in East Jerusalem, demolitions in Nu’man Village, Sur Baher, and Ath Thuri have left 11 other Palestinians homeless.