Tag: House Demolition

Palestinians protest razing of homes

Sharon Roffe-Ofir | YNet News

15 August 2009

A few hundred people gathered Saturday outside of Umm al-Fahm in order to protest the destruction of homes in Arab areas. Protestors blocked Highway 65 for a few minutes and then held a rally near a commercial center torn down a few weeks ago.

High Arab Monitoring Committee Chairman Mohammad Zeidan said during the rally that “you can’t throw a person into the sea and then tell him not to get wet; this is deliberate government policy”.

He added, “We cannot accept the fact that another 40,000 homes are still in danger of being destroyed.”

After the Arab town’s commercial center was destroyed the High Arab Monitoring Committee decided to hold a rally on the main road. However Northern District Police objected and the case was brought before the High Court of Justice, which ruled that the protestors would be permitted to cross the road.

Though police deployed 500 officers to the protest in anticipation of a riot, the events remained non-violent.

Umm al-Fahm councilman Raja Agbariyeh organized the rally. “We are protesting the destruction of homes,” he said. “For the 61 years Israel has existed it has refused to approve construction and development plans on one hand, and on the other continues to destroy homes. We will not agree to such a situation.”

After the rally, Zeidan told Ynet he intended to send a memo to Interior Minister Eli Yishai in which he would request the freezing of destruction orders and the legitimization of construction plans.

Israeli forces deliver demolition orders to Nablus-area homes

11 August 2009

In the West Bank village of Yetma, south of Nablus, around 17 houses were given demolition orders from the Israeli government, issued the 27th of July 2009. All houses were built after the Oslo process, and are located in the only part of the village that is considered to be area C according to the Accords. Therefor the Israeli government is claiming that these houses are considered as having been built without a permit. This is the official reason for issuing the orders. However, the area is located no further than approximately 2 km from the border of the Israeli settlement Rahel. Neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Israeli Government will give the house owners licenses saying that they own the land on which the houses are built.

The 6th of August, however, after having issued an official complaint about the demolition orders, 3 of the houses had their court case. The decision became that the legal process would be postponed until the 13th of August when a new court case will be held.

According to the demolition orders issued to 9 of the other houses, the final date on which the Israeli Government can come to evict the houses is dated the 20th of August. The house owners of these houses too, made an official complaint about the decision, but their court case will be held as late 9 o’clock on the 20th of August, which makes it possible for Israel to fulfill the evictions before the legal procedure takes place.

The Red Creset will provide the families with food and tents after the demolitions.

Five new house demolition orders issued in Silwan, East Jerusalem

Alternative Information Center (AIC)

10 August 2009

Israeli forces issued five new house demolition orders in the al-Bustan section of Silwan in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, 5 August, injuring eight Palestinians in the process and seizing the identification card of Musa Odeh, a member of the al-Bustan Committee working to non-violently oppose the demolitions.  Authorities also deployed tear gas to prevent residents from confronting the soldiers ordering the demolitions.

The orders augment the 90 demolition orders already standing in Silwan, a densely populated village located on the southeastern slopes of the Old City of Jerusalem.  The area, which is located near the biblical site of Siloam and which houses approximately 55,000 residents, was annexed by the state of Israel in 1967; since then, the Municipality of Jerusalem has nearly uniformly refused Palestinian residents building permits to develop the neighborhood, typifying Israeli urban planning policy in East Jerusalem for the past 42 years.  In 2004, a directive was issued from the Municipality’s building supervision department to demolish all the homes in Silwan in order to build the “King’s Valley” archaeological park, which is currently under the administration of the fundamentalist settler group Elad.  If completed as planned, the Silwan demolitions would constitute the largest scale demolition program in the city of Jerusalem since the leveling of the Maghrebi quarter the night after Israel’s seizure of East Jerusalem in 1967 in order to build today’s Western Wall plaza.

CPT/Operation Dove: Israeli DCO delivers demolition order for electricity pylons

At-Tuwani – On Tuesday, 28 July, members of the Israeli District Coordinating Office (DCO) – the branch of the Israeli army that administers civilian affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)- issued a demolition order to the six newly constructed electricity pylons in the village of At-Tuwani, located in the South Hebron hills.

On 19 March 2009, Tony Blair, special middle east envoy of the Quartet, visited At-Tuwani (see AT-TUWANI: At-Tuwani hosts former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair to address Israeli occupation and violence in the southern West Bank). During his visit, Blair assured villagers that oral permission had been given by the DCO to carry out the electricity construction work.

On 25 May 2009, the DCO entered the village of At-Tuwani and ordered villagers to halt construction work on new electricity pylons in the village. No written orders were delivered. (see AT-TUWANI URGENT ACTION: Demand that Israeli occupying forces allow At-Tuwani to bring electricity into their village).

On 26 May 2009, Saber Hreini, head of the At-Tuwani Village Council, wrote to Blair requesting written permission for the electricity work to continue.

We hope that in your role as envoy for the Quartet, you can be of assistance to us in contacting the Israeli government with the hopes of procuring written permission for these projects. We fear without written permission our problems will continue.

The Office of the Quartet has been informed that the demolition orders were delivered, and are responsible for guaranteeing that Blair’s assurances are honored in the At-Tuwani villagers plan to bring electricity to the village.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The Quartet is the body consisting of representatives of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia responsible for facilitating peace talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Tony Blair is currently the special envoy for the Quartet to the Middle East.

Currently At-Tuwani receives only four hours electricity a day, supplied by a diesel generator operated and paid for by the villagers. The illegal Israeli settlement and outposts of Ma’on, Havat Ma’on, and Avigail, located within 2km of At-Tuwani, are supplied by electricity from the main Israeli power grid.

Israel, as the occupying power*, is responsible for the general welfare of the occupied Palestinian civilian population. Whilst providing electricity and water to Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian territories they fail to supply these basic services to Palestinian towns and villages. In this most recent move they are now threatening to demolish the villagers attempts to improve their living conditions.

* International Humanitarian law (1907 Hague Regulation and 1949 Fourth Geneva Conventions) obliges the occupying power to ensure the welfare of the occupied population.

Protest over Sheikh Jarrah house continues

Abe Selig | The Jerusalem Post

27 July 2009

A woman was arrested in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on Monday evening, after a scuffle broke out between police and foreign left-wing activists who were protesting the entry of Jews into a nearby home the previous day.

The house is the subject of a legal dispute in which the Jewish claimants, who say they purchased the property legally, have been granted the right to enter the premises, although a stop work order had been issued for the property and was scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

Sheikh Jarrah residents, however, said on Monday that the home had belonged to an elderly woman, Mrs. Hijazi, who had recently passed away, and that the Jewish claimants had falsified their ownership papers for the house.

“We have papers dating back to the Turkish government that show this home to be Palestinian property,” said Mitri Nasrawi, who works for the Coalition for Jerusalem, a Palestinian group.

Monday’s protest followed a larger demonstration in front of the house on Sunday afternoon, in which seven people were arrested – including a former Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem affairs, Hatem Abdel Kader – after activists and Arab residents clashed with police and the Jews, who had arrived to begin renovating the property.

Activists and locals residents said on Monday they would not stop their protests until the group of Jews had left.

Yelling “settlers out!” and “thieves!” the protesters congregated outside the home as police barred them from entering.

After more than an hour, police began to push back the demonstrators, who were banging on sheet metal walls that had been set up around the property, setting off the scuffle.

“You’re terrorists!” some of the activists yelled as police began to clear the area. “We are here because you are fascists and terrorists!”

But the feelings of local residents ran the gamut from dismay over the new Jewish presence in their neighborhood to downright outrage.

One elderly man approached an Israeli reporter and asked him if “he was a Jew.”

“Yes,” the reporter replied, as the man made a disgusted hand gesture and walked away.

“I don’t have any problem with Jews, I work with them and grew up around them,” another resident, Osama Kedek, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “But this is just a provocation here. What would happen if a secular Jew went to live in Mea She’arim? I think there would be protests there as well.”

Kedek also said that while he appreciated the concern of the foreign activists, “it would be better if they used their energy to show their governments what Israel is doing to our neighborhoods.”

A handful of foreign reporters and even a French Embassy worker were on hand to document the demonstration.

Etgar Lefkovits contributed to this report.