31 aug 2013
Ahrar center for human rights said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) killed six Palestinian citizens and detained 250 others in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during August. According to a monthly report released by the center, five Palestinians from Gaza were among the detainees during the reporting month, including journalist Alaa Mukbel, director of the Palestinian information authority.
Five Palestinians were also killed by the IOF during West Bank events in different areas, and another one was killed in central Gaza.
The report noted that 20 Palestinians, mostly in the West Bank, have been killed since the start of the current year.
In an earlier incident on Thursday morning, a group of Jewish settlers physically attacked Palestinian citizens from Qasra village near Nablus and stole a tractor belonging to a citizen.
Director of settlement affairs in the northern West Bank Ghassan Daglas said that Jewish settlers trespassed on Palestinian-owned lands and attacked their owners with sticks and stones.
Daglas added that Mohamed Shehadeh and Mahmoud Awdeh sustained injuries in different parts of their bodies and received medical treatment in hospital, noting that the settlers also stole a tractor.
Five Palestinians were also killed by the IOF during West Bank events in different areas, and another one was killed in central Gaza.
The report noted that 20 Palestinians, mostly in the West Bank, have been killed since the start of the current year.
In an earlier incident on Thursday morning, a group of Jewish settlers physically attacked Palestinian citizens from Qasra village near Nablus and stole a tractor belonging to a citizen.
Director of settlement affairs in the northern West Bank Ghassan Daglas said that Jewish settlers trespassed on Palestinian-owned lands and attacked their owners with sticks and stones.
Daglas added that Mohamed Shehadeh and Mahmoud Awdeh sustained injuries in different parts of their bodies and received medical treatment in hospital, noting that the settlers also stole a tractor.
30 aug 2013
The Israeli government should announce an immediate moratorium on demolitions of “illegal” homes of Bedouin citizens. The government demolishes Bedouin homes based on discriminatory laws and rules, and without respect for the Bedouins’ dignity or the country’s human rights obligations.
The government should also withdraw proposed legislation that would discriminate against Bedouin with harsh rules on land and property rights and authorize large-scale displacement of Bedouin from generations-old communities, while severely restricting their ability to appeal. Government officials have estimated that implementing the law would displace 30,000 Bedouin, while Israeli rights groups say the figure could be 40,000 or more.
“Israel has been shoving Bedouin out of their communities and into ever-shrinking space while encouraging and even helping Jewish Israelis to move in,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Netanyahu should end the appalling discrimination against Israel’s Bedouin citizens, not support legislation that enshrines it.”
According to government figures, 200,000 Bedouin live in the country’s southern Negev region, the majority in 7 government-planned townships, and several thousand more in 11 Bedouin communities that the government is in the process of “recognizing.” However, Israeli state planning documents and maps exclude 35 “unrecognized” Bedouin communities, where the government estimates that 70,000 to 90,000 people live.
Israel demolishes Bedouin homes in the Negev on the basis that they were built without permits, often in unauthorized communities. Israel has for decades refused either to legally recognize these communities or to allow their residents to gain title to ancestral land. The Israeli government has rejected or delayed discussion of proposed plans submitted by groups seeking authorization for Bedouin communities, making it impossible for residents to obtain building permits. In contrast, the government takes an active role in planning and expanding Jewish communities in the region, and has retroactively authorized construction there by Jewish citizens.
Bedouin have ancestral claims to lands on which their families have lived for generations. However, Israeli authorities do not recognize Bedouin land claims without official ownership documents, which few have. Israel claims state ownership of Negev lands that are not registered to individual owners. While Israel has frequently granted Jewish communities and individual Jewish farmers long-term leases to use “state lands,” including lands expropriated from Israeli Bedouin, it has largely refused to grant Bedouin similar use.
Human Rights Watch has long documented the Israeli authorities’ discriminatory practices toward Bedouin and the discriminatory demolition of their homes. Since March 2013 Human Rights Watch has documented demolition of 18 Bedouin homes and 11 other structures, including 8 tents where victims of previous demolitions were living.
Many of the demolitions have been in Atir, a community of about 500 people near Beer Sheva. Bedouin have lived in Atir since Israeli authorities relocated them there in 1956, but the authorities have refused to recognize the village or connect it to electricity or water networks, and plan to plant a forest there. Security forces demolished the homes of about 70 people there on May 16, and returned on May 29 and June 27 to demolish tents in which the displaced were living.
In one case, security forces demolished the home of a family with two children with disabilities without allowing their parents time to retrieve the children’s medication, hearing aids, and an oxygen canister. R., 26, said that an Israeli security official refused his and his wife’s requests for more time before their home was bulldozed and the rubble trucked away to a dump: I tried to reason with the guy. My wife held out the form that said our kids are handicapped and asked to get some things from inside the house, but he threw it on the ground and said, “I don’t care.”
Israeli authorities contend that they are simply enforcing zoning and building codes and encourage Bedouin to purchase land and housing in seven existing government-planned Bedouin communities. Israel has allocated funding for an economic development program to benefit the Negev Bedouin, and designated Bedouin communities as among the “national priority areas” eligible for other subsidies.
Many Bedouin have rejected relocating to the townships because the government requires them to renounce land claims that they have passed down over generations. The townships, seven of the eight poorest communities in Israel, also have insufficient land for traditional livelihoods such as grazing livestock.
On June 24 the Israeli parliament approved the draft Law on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, prepared by the prime minister’s office, at its first reading. It will become law if approved at two further readings. The proposed law is intended to resolve the residency status of Bedouin in “unrecognized” communities. The law could regularize some communities that meet certain criteria, but creates administrative procedures that could fast-track demolitions in communities that do not. Currently, Israeli courts approve government requests for demolition orders against Bedouin homes individually.
Israel ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1991, requiring it to guarantee the right to housing. The committee responsible for interpreting the covenant has said this right means governments can carry out forced evictions only in “the most exceptional circumstances,” and then only in accordance with human rights principles requiring the government to consult with the affected individuals or communities, identify a clear public interest requiring the eviction, ensure that those affected have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the eviction, and provide appropriate compensation and adequate alternative land and housing arrangements.
International human rights law prohibits countries from discriminating against minority groups, including with regard to land and housing rights.Governments must demonstrate that any differential treatment negatively affecting a group is proportionate to a legitimate aim.
The government should fully compensate Bedouin whose homes and property it has destroyed in violation of the right to housing and non-discrimination, Human Rights Watch said. The government should allow them to return to their villages pending a final agreement with the displaced Bedouin that respects their rights under international law.
“The prime minister’s office has led the drive to push through this law that will forcibly displace thousands of Bedouin families,” Stork said. “Israel’s allies should tell the prime minister in no uncertain terms to shelve this discriminatory law.”
For more information on the draft law, international law, and recent demolitions, see below.
The Draft Law
The draft law is based on plans that the government developed over several years, beginning with the Goldberg Commission, headed by a former supreme court justice, which published a final report in 2008. In 2009 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tasked Ehud Prawer, a National Security Council official, with developing a plan to implement the report. In 2011 Netanyahu appointed a minister-without-portfolio, Ze'ev Begin, to finalize the Prawer plan. Begin submitted his plan in January 2013.
The law would establish an administrative mechanism to resolve the land claims of Bedouin citizens and to order the demolition of “unlawful” structures. It would sharply restrict Bedouin access both to the courts to contest demolition orders on an individual basis, and to planning bodies to petition against plans that exclude Bedouin communities. Courts have rejected all Bedouin land claims made on the basis of historical land usage, while planning bodies have refused to recognize most Bedouin communities, with the partial exception of 11 “recognized” villages.
The proposed legislation offers the possibility that some additional Bedouin communities could be recognized, although it does not specify any. However, by eliminating Bedouins’ recourse to courts and other procedures, the proposed legislation would accelerate ongoing demolition and displacement.The draft law provides for increasing the number of security forces to carry out evictions. Officials have said that if the law passes, the evictions that it authorizes would be fully implemented by 2016.
The government says that the displacedwould be offered housing in planned townships, to which they have resisted moving, citing the poverty of these townships and the lack of space to pursue their traditional economic activities. Bedouin have also refused to participate in governmental relocation plans that would, in effect, require them to claim ownership of another community’s land.
The law would allow some of the Bedouin whom Israeli forces did not displace in the 1940s and 1950s and who are still living on their ancestral lands to claim land ownership rights. However, it arbitrarily restricts eligibility to Bedouin (or their heirs) who applied to register their land between 1971 and 1979 – the only period when Israel allowed Bedouin to file land claims, although the officials did not rule on any of these claims.
Further, virtualy the only eligible claims under the draft law would be for lands that Bedouin lived on or cultivated at the time they applied to register, but the criteria could be met only by evidence provided by the government on the basis of state land surveys and other official records. Bedouin would also be ineligible to claim lands that a court has already determined belonged to the government, which has been the result in all of the roughly 200 court cases filed by Bedouin claiming traditional ownership without official deeds.
Bedouin who have been displaced from their ancestral lands would be eligible to file for compensation, but under the plan’s restrictive criteria, very few would be eligible to claim land. They would be eligible for compensation only if they agreed to be relocated and to waive any claims to their ancestral lands.
Bedouin whose claims survive these tests would be eligible to receive title to land, at a rate determined by the government, equivalent to a maximum of 62.5 percent of the area claimed, subject to further restrictions. However, they would not necessarily receive any of their own land, but only “comparable” land, and only when state authorities deem it “possible” to allocate such land.
The law does not specify where the displaced Bedouin would be relocated but implies that they could be moved to Bedouin communities that Israel would then legally recognize, to the 11 Bedouin communities that Israel has already recognized, or to the seven government-planned Bedouin “townships.” The claimants could also be eligible for compensation at a rate determined by the government.
Under the proposed law, government authorities would determine which of the 35 “unrecognized” Bedouin communities that the state regards as having been built unlawfully would be demolished, and which could be recognized, if any. The government would make that determination on the basis of whether a Bedouin community’s location conforms to the master plan for the area, and is of sufficient “size, population density, continuity, and economic capability.”
Such criteria do not otherwise exist in Israeli planning laws and regulations, and Israel has not applied them when it retroactively granted authorization to Jewish residential buildings and privately owned farms in the Negev. Human Rights Watch has reported on dozens of such cases.
The Bedouin say that Israel did not consult them about the proposed law, and thousands have demonstrated against it. The government contends that it consulted with Bedouin during a three month period. But that was after September 2011, when the government approved key aspects of the proposed legislation that it has not altered.
The Bedouin Communities and Israel’s Master Plan
Tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens in the Negev live in “unrecognized” communities. Because the government considers the villages illegal, it has not adequately connected them to basic services and infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewage treatment, and garbage disposal. Although the villages do not appear on official maps, some existed before the state of Israel was established in 1948. Others were established after the Israeli army forcibly displaced Bedouin tribes from their ancestral lands immediately following the 1948 war.
Israel passed laws in the 1950s and 1960s enabling the government to lay claim to large areas of the Negev desert where the Bedouin had formerly lived or used the land. Planning authorities, when they created Israel’s first master plan in the late 1960s, did not include any of the existing Bedouin villages in the Negev.
Various groups of Bedouin residents of the Negev, working with nongovernmental Israeli planners and rights groups, have repeatedly objected to their communities’ exclusion from master plans. In February 2012 Bedouin residents and rights groups submitted to Israeli planning authorities an alternative plan under which the authorities would recognize all the Bedouin communities. Israeli authorities have not responded. The Israeli government’s explanation of the draft law on the Bedouin, published on January 23, 2013, dismissed the Bedouin communities’ alternative plans as “proposals that disregard reality,” without elaborating.
The government has stated that the proposed law would require the displacement of Wadi al-Na’am, the largest “unrecognized” Bedouin community with 14,000 residents, and of “fewer than 3,000 other families” who live in other unrecognized communities. In September 2011, Eyal Gabai, at the time director general of the prime minister’s office, estimated that 30,000 people would be displaced.
Israeli authorities have carried out demolitions of Bedouin homes and other structures without meaningful prior consultations with residents. Israeli officials have invoked the public interest in enforcing building codes as a justification for demolitions. With the exception of 11 Bedouin villages that Israeli authorities are in the process of recognizing, they have refused to consider alternatives to demolitions in the other 35 unrecognized villages, including rezoning existing Bedouin communities as residential areas. In many cases, Israel had displaced Bedouin to these locations in the 1950s, and in other cases, the communities predate the establishment of the state in 1948.
Even in the “recognized” and planned villages, Israeli authorities demolish new buildings on the basis that they are not provided for in the villages’ “outline plans.” Bedouin and planners say that the government should revise those plans to provide for new buildings and natural growth.
Recent Demolitions in Atir
In Atir, where many of the recent demolitions have taken place, Israeli planning authorities regard the roughly 500 residents as squatters. Residents are members of the Abu al-Qi’an clan, which Israel expelled in 1948 from their lands to the northwest. Kibbutz Shoval has since been established there. The state prohibited them from returning and blocked their attempts to settle in several other locations until 1956, when the military leased to the clan 7,000 dunams (700 hectares) in Wadi Atir, the valley in which Atir is located, according to military records obtained by Adalah, a nongovernmental legal center that advocates for Arab minority rights in Israel.
Israeli authorities have not connected Atiir to water or electricity networks or issued permits for the buildings there. Since the 1960s, the Israeli government has designated an ever-larger portion of the land in Wadi Atir as forests, to be planted by the Jewish National Fund. In the 1980s the Israel Land Administration, to which the military had given the file, cancelled the Abu al-Qi’an clan’s lease for the land. In February 2013 a district planning body approved plans to plant the “Yatir Forest” on the site of Atir. Two Israeli rights groups, Adalah and Bimkom, appealed the plan, which does not acknowledge that the site is inhabited and provides no alternative housing for residents.
At around 7 a.m. on May 16 a large number of Israeli security forces demolished 18 buildings in Atir, including 16 residential structures, a large animal pen, and a communal tent, as well as 4 solar panels, and about 700 olive, fig, pomegranate, and citrus trees, residents told Human Rights Watch. Residents said that they had been aware of demolition orders for only three of the structures.
R., 26, said security forces demolished the cement-walled home he built in 2007, where he lived with his wife, who suffers from thalassemia, a blood disorder, and their sons, aged 1 and 2, who have congenital illnesses including Bartter syndrome, which affects the kidneys:
They came and surrounded the whole area, a huge number of forces. It happened extremely quickly. My wife was about to bathe the kids and had taken out their hearing aids and put them in a drawer, when someone in a green uniform came into the house and told us we had to leave immediately. I grabbed the bag that I always keep everything in, documents, medical papers, IDs, and money, and went outside. It happened so fast. They entered, took us out, and began bulldozing the house. We had no time to remove anything except that one bag. They bulldozed the house with everything in it, the refrigerator and everything, and then they took it all away to the dump. Inside the house there was an oxygen tank and the two ear pieces, one for each of my kids, and the five different types of medication they both need.
Israeli authorities returned to Atir on May 29 and demolished nine tents where victims of the May 16 demolitions were taking shelter, as well as two other homes, and confiscated two electricity generators. Residents said they had been aware of demolition orders against only one tent and one other residential structure.
Human Rights Watch observed residents constructing two large tents during a visit to the site on May 31. On June 1 Israeli authorities notified people to evacuate the new tents within 48 hours, but did not demolish them. During a phone conversation on June 8, R. told Human Rights Watch that residents whose homes and tents had been demolished were living together in the large tents, so that Israeli forces would carry out fewer demolitions in the future than if residents rebuilt multiple, smaller family residences. “After they bulldozed our tents the second time, we’ve been living in a tent that’s five by five meters,” R. said. “But it’s hard. It’s always so hot, so we always need to be inside. Today it was 40 degrees.”
R. said that he and his wife had sent their children to live with their mother’s parents in another community, where he sees them once a week. “They are not healthy enough to live in the tent where I am living now,” he said. “But they are back on their medicine again. When the house was destroyed the first time they had to live a week without any medicine, until I could get it again. We had the oxygen tank in case they had a breathing emergency. Now, we don’t.”
Human Rights Watch observed the results of further demolitions that took place in Atir on June 27. Residents said that Israeli forces returned at 9 a.m. and demolished a residential structure. One resident, Im Rasim, told Human Rights Watch that villagers also disassembled four residential tents before security forces arrived, to prevent them from being torn down. “We saw the security forces coming and residents took down the four tents themselves, but the forces confiscated the metal poles for one of the tents anyway,” she said.
A., 25, said that Israeli forces destroyed his home in Atir on May 16, and tore down the tent he was living in on May 29. “I was living in one of the tents with my wife and my kids, a 1-and-a-half-year-old son and a 6-month-old daughter,” he said. “We took whatever we could out of our home in the few minutes they gave us, and the rest they took away in trucks, to the dump.” Another resident, N., 18, said that on May 16 Israeli authorities demolished the home where he had lived with his parents and seven siblings. In total, the demolitions displaced about 70 people, residents said.
Atir residents told Human Rights Watch that officials from the Israeli government’s Bedouin Authority had approached them in March and encouraged them to move to Hura, built in 1979 as one of the seven urban “townships” for Bedouins. Residents of Atir said that they did not want to move to Hura because it would not be possible to continue their pastoral and agricultural way of life.
“The government started talking to us in March,” R. said. “They’d come every day. We said, ‘We’ll go to Hura, but if we move you have to let us have what we have here.’ We don’t object to moving, but we can’t just go [without guarantees]. They didn’t get back to us.”
Other Recent Demolitions
In March Israeli authorities demolished the home of A., 51, in the unrecognized Bedouin community of Wadi al-Meshash. A., who drives a forklift in a chemical factory in Ramat Hovav,said he built his home 18 years ago, but authorities issued a demolition order when he renovated and expanded it two years ago to accommodate his growing family. The youngest of his ten children is 6. “They said, ‘You either demolish the house yourself or we’ll demolish it.’ It had a cement floor. They jackhammered it.”
Israeli authorities told A. to move to Segev Shalom, one of the towns that Israel established for Bedouin, or to Bir Haddaj, one of the “recognized” villages. A. objected. “There’s not enough land in Segev Shalom. I know people who moved there and then moved back,” A. said. “And they’re demolishing houses in Bir Haddaj even though they recognized the village.”
In another case, N., a resident of the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Rahama, said that he had built a home 22 years ago that had been damaged, but that he was afraid to renovate it. “A few months ago,” he said, “there was a high wind that destroyed 40 houses around here. It damaged the roof of my house, too, which was zinco [sheets of corrugated metal], but I can’t fix the old roof, or they’d destroy the whole building.” N. said that in numerous similar cases, Israeli authorities demolished “illegal” buildings after their owners renovated them. N. said it would be impossible for him to obtain building permits for his home or its roof.
In Wadi al-Na’am, the largest “unrecognized” Bedouin community, on April 18 Israeli forces demolished a market that had been owned by Mousa al-Jiljawi, who died in December 2012 at the age of 40. The 32-square-meter store remained the main source of income for his widow and eight children, residents said. Sheikh Attiya il-Jiljawi, 76, Mousa al-Jiljawi’s uncle, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli authorities had issued a demolition order for the store two years ago. Immediately before they demolished it, the authorities told his nephew to remove everything in the store.
Israeli authorities have carried out numerous other demolitions. According to the Negev Coexistence Forum, an Israeli rights group, on August 21, Israeli forces destroyed tents in the Bedouin village of al-Arakib for the 52nd time since 2010 . Al-Arakib residents have resisted repeated demolitions by returning to the site.
In addition to the 29 demolitions that Human Rights Watch documented, the Negev Coexistence Forum documented 44 home demolitions and 9 demolitions of stores, animal shelters, and other structures in Bedouin communities in the Negev as of August 26, 2013. Israeli forces carried out 26 of the demolitions in “recognized” or planned Bedouin communities.
International Legal Standards
Human Rights Watch documented the systematic discrimination that Bedouin citizens face in a 130-page report, “Off the Map,” released in March 2008.
The right to procedural protections against forced or compelled eviction derives from the right to adequate housing as provided by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICECSR), to which Israel is a state party. The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, established to oversee compliance of state parties with the ICESCR, has defined forced evictions as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families, and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection.”
The committee has emphasized that for evictions to be lawful, they must be “solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society” and carried out “in strict compliance with the relevant provisions of international human rights law and in accordance with general principles of reasonableness and proportionality.”
The committee has also stressed that “instances of forced eviction are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law.”
The committee noted that as a way to minimize the need for force, “all feasible alternatives” to eviction must have been “explored.” This process, “particularly in cases involving large groups,” must have been conducted “in consultation with affected persons.” If the decision to evict stands, “legal remedies or procedures should be provided to those who are affected by eviction orders,” and “individuals concerned have a right to adequate compensation for any property, both personal and real, which is affected.”
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965 obliges countries to “guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law,” including the right to equal treatmentbefore tribunals and courts and the right to housing. In its general recommendation no. 23 (1997), the committee called on states parties to recognize and protect the rights of indigenous peoples “to own, develop, control, and use their communal lands, territories, and resources” and to take steps to restore the lands if the inhabitants have been deprived of it without their consent. In March 2012 the committee called on Israel to withdraw the “discriminatory proposed Law for the Regulation of the Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, which would legalize the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities.”
The government should also withdraw proposed legislation that would discriminate against Bedouin with harsh rules on land and property rights and authorize large-scale displacement of Bedouin from generations-old communities, while severely restricting their ability to appeal. Government officials have estimated that implementing the law would displace 30,000 Bedouin, while Israeli rights groups say the figure could be 40,000 or more.
“Israel has been shoving Bedouin out of their communities and into ever-shrinking space while encouraging and even helping Jewish Israelis to move in,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Netanyahu should end the appalling discrimination against Israel’s Bedouin citizens, not support legislation that enshrines it.”
According to government figures, 200,000 Bedouin live in the country’s southern Negev region, the majority in 7 government-planned townships, and several thousand more in 11 Bedouin communities that the government is in the process of “recognizing.” However, Israeli state planning documents and maps exclude 35 “unrecognized” Bedouin communities, where the government estimates that 70,000 to 90,000 people live.
Israel demolishes Bedouin homes in the Negev on the basis that they were built without permits, often in unauthorized communities. Israel has for decades refused either to legally recognize these communities or to allow their residents to gain title to ancestral land. The Israeli government has rejected or delayed discussion of proposed plans submitted by groups seeking authorization for Bedouin communities, making it impossible for residents to obtain building permits. In contrast, the government takes an active role in planning and expanding Jewish communities in the region, and has retroactively authorized construction there by Jewish citizens.
Bedouin have ancestral claims to lands on which their families have lived for generations. However, Israeli authorities do not recognize Bedouin land claims without official ownership documents, which few have. Israel claims state ownership of Negev lands that are not registered to individual owners. While Israel has frequently granted Jewish communities and individual Jewish farmers long-term leases to use “state lands,” including lands expropriated from Israeli Bedouin, it has largely refused to grant Bedouin similar use.
Human Rights Watch has long documented the Israeli authorities’ discriminatory practices toward Bedouin and the discriminatory demolition of their homes. Since March 2013 Human Rights Watch has documented demolition of 18 Bedouin homes and 11 other structures, including 8 tents where victims of previous demolitions were living.
Many of the demolitions have been in Atir, a community of about 500 people near Beer Sheva. Bedouin have lived in Atir since Israeli authorities relocated them there in 1956, but the authorities have refused to recognize the village or connect it to electricity or water networks, and plan to plant a forest there. Security forces demolished the homes of about 70 people there on May 16, and returned on May 29 and June 27 to demolish tents in which the displaced were living.
In one case, security forces demolished the home of a family with two children with disabilities without allowing their parents time to retrieve the children’s medication, hearing aids, and an oxygen canister. R., 26, said that an Israeli security official refused his and his wife’s requests for more time before their home was bulldozed and the rubble trucked away to a dump: I tried to reason with the guy. My wife held out the form that said our kids are handicapped and asked to get some things from inside the house, but he threw it on the ground and said, “I don’t care.”
Israeli authorities contend that they are simply enforcing zoning and building codes and encourage Bedouin to purchase land and housing in seven existing government-planned Bedouin communities. Israel has allocated funding for an economic development program to benefit the Negev Bedouin, and designated Bedouin communities as among the “national priority areas” eligible for other subsidies.
Many Bedouin have rejected relocating to the townships because the government requires them to renounce land claims that they have passed down over generations. The townships, seven of the eight poorest communities in Israel, also have insufficient land for traditional livelihoods such as grazing livestock.
On June 24 the Israeli parliament approved the draft Law on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, prepared by the prime minister’s office, at its first reading. It will become law if approved at two further readings. The proposed law is intended to resolve the residency status of Bedouin in “unrecognized” communities. The law could regularize some communities that meet certain criteria, but creates administrative procedures that could fast-track demolitions in communities that do not. Currently, Israeli courts approve government requests for demolition orders against Bedouin homes individually.
Israel ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1991, requiring it to guarantee the right to housing. The committee responsible for interpreting the covenant has said this right means governments can carry out forced evictions only in “the most exceptional circumstances,” and then only in accordance with human rights principles requiring the government to consult with the affected individuals or communities, identify a clear public interest requiring the eviction, ensure that those affected have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the eviction, and provide appropriate compensation and adequate alternative land and housing arrangements.
International human rights law prohibits countries from discriminating against minority groups, including with regard to land and housing rights.Governments must demonstrate that any differential treatment negatively affecting a group is proportionate to a legitimate aim.
The government should fully compensate Bedouin whose homes and property it has destroyed in violation of the right to housing and non-discrimination, Human Rights Watch said. The government should allow them to return to their villages pending a final agreement with the displaced Bedouin that respects their rights under international law.
“The prime minister’s office has led the drive to push through this law that will forcibly displace thousands of Bedouin families,” Stork said. “Israel’s allies should tell the prime minister in no uncertain terms to shelve this discriminatory law.”
For more information on the draft law, international law, and recent demolitions, see below.
The Draft Law
The draft law is based on plans that the government developed over several years, beginning with the Goldberg Commission, headed by a former supreme court justice, which published a final report in 2008. In 2009 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tasked Ehud Prawer, a National Security Council official, with developing a plan to implement the report. In 2011 Netanyahu appointed a minister-without-portfolio, Ze'ev Begin, to finalize the Prawer plan. Begin submitted his plan in January 2013.
The law would establish an administrative mechanism to resolve the land claims of Bedouin citizens and to order the demolition of “unlawful” structures. It would sharply restrict Bedouin access both to the courts to contest demolition orders on an individual basis, and to planning bodies to petition against plans that exclude Bedouin communities. Courts have rejected all Bedouin land claims made on the basis of historical land usage, while planning bodies have refused to recognize most Bedouin communities, with the partial exception of 11 “recognized” villages.
The proposed legislation offers the possibility that some additional Bedouin communities could be recognized, although it does not specify any. However, by eliminating Bedouins’ recourse to courts and other procedures, the proposed legislation would accelerate ongoing demolition and displacement.The draft law provides for increasing the number of security forces to carry out evictions. Officials have said that if the law passes, the evictions that it authorizes would be fully implemented by 2016.
The government says that the displacedwould be offered housing in planned townships, to which they have resisted moving, citing the poverty of these townships and the lack of space to pursue their traditional economic activities. Bedouin have also refused to participate in governmental relocation plans that would, in effect, require them to claim ownership of another community’s land.
The law would allow some of the Bedouin whom Israeli forces did not displace in the 1940s and 1950s and who are still living on their ancestral lands to claim land ownership rights. However, it arbitrarily restricts eligibility to Bedouin (or their heirs) who applied to register their land between 1971 and 1979 – the only period when Israel allowed Bedouin to file land claims, although the officials did not rule on any of these claims.
Further, virtualy the only eligible claims under the draft law would be for lands that Bedouin lived on or cultivated at the time they applied to register, but the criteria could be met only by evidence provided by the government on the basis of state land surveys and other official records. Bedouin would also be ineligible to claim lands that a court has already determined belonged to the government, which has been the result in all of the roughly 200 court cases filed by Bedouin claiming traditional ownership without official deeds.
Bedouin who have been displaced from their ancestral lands would be eligible to file for compensation, but under the plan’s restrictive criteria, very few would be eligible to claim land. They would be eligible for compensation only if they agreed to be relocated and to waive any claims to their ancestral lands.
Bedouin whose claims survive these tests would be eligible to receive title to land, at a rate determined by the government, equivalent to a maximum of 62.5 percent of the area claimed, subject to further restrictions. However, they would not necessarily receive any of their own land, but only “comparable” land, and only when state authorities deem it “possible” to allocate such land.
The law does not specify where the displaced Bedouin would be relocated but implies that they could be moved to Bedouin communities that Israel would then legally recognize, to the 11 Bedouin communities that Israel has already recognized, or to the seven government-planned Bedouin “townships.” The claimants could also be eligible for compensation at a rate determined by the government.
Under the proposed law, government authorities would determine which of the 35 “unrecognized” Bedouin communities that the state regards as having been built unlawfully would be demolished, and which could be recognized, if any. The government would make that determination on the basis of whether a Bedouin community’s location conforms to the master plan for the area, and is of sufficient “size, population density, continuity, and economic capability.”
Such criteria do not otherwise exist in Israeli planning laws and regulations, and Israel has not applied them when it retroactively granted authorization to Jewish residential buildings and privately owned farms in the Negev. Human Rights Watch has reported on dozens of such cases.
The Bedouin say that Israel did not consult them about the proposed law, and thousands have demonstrated against it. The government contends that it consulted with Bedouin during a three month period. But that was after September 2011, when the government approved key aspects of the proposed legislation that it has not altered.
The Bedouin Communities and Israel’s Master Plan
Tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens in the Negev live in “unrecognized” communities. Because the government considers the villages illegal, it has not adequately connected them to basic services and infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewage treatment, and garbage disposal. Although the villages do not appear on official maps, some existed before the state of Israel was established in 1948. Others were established after the Israeli army forcibly displaced Bedouin tribes from their ancestral lands immediately following the 1948 war.
Israel passed laws in the 1950s and 1960s enabling the government to lay claim to large areas of the Negev desert where the Bedouin had formerly lived or used the land. Planning authorities, when they created Israel’s first master plan in the late 1960s, did not include any of the existing Bedouin villages in the Negev.
Various groups of Bedouin residents of the Negev, working with nongovernmental Israeli planners and rights groups, have repeatedly objected to their communities’ exclusion from master plans. In February 2012 Bedouin residents and rights groups submitted to Israeli planning authorities an alternative plan under which the authorities would recognize all the Bedouin communities. Israeli authorities have not responded. The Israeli government’s explanation of the draft law on the Bedouin, published on January 23, 2013, dismissed the Bedouin communities’ alternative plans as “proposals that disregard reality,” without elaborating.
The government has stated that the proposed law would require the displacement of Wadi al-Na’am, the largest “unrecognized” Bedouin community with 14,000 residents, and of “fewer than 3,000 other families” who live in other unrecognized communities. In September 2011, Eyal Gabai, at the time director general of the prime minister’s office, estimated that 30,000 people would be displaced.
Israeli authorities have carried out demolitions of Bedouin homes and other structures without meaningful prior consultations with residents. Israeli officials have invoked the public interest in enforcing building codes as a justification for demolitions. With the exception of 11 Bedouin villages that Israeli authorities are in the process of recognizing, they have refused to consider alternatives to demolitions in the other 35 unrecognized villages, including rezoning existing Bedouin communities as residential areas. In many cases, Israel had displaced Bedouin to these locations in the 1950s, and in other cases, the communities predate the establishment of the state in 1948.
Even in the “recognized” and planned villages, Israeli authorities demolish new buildings on the basis that they are not provided for in the villages’ “outline plans.” Bedouin and planners say that the government should revise those plans to provide for new buildings and natural growth.
Recent Demolitions in Atir
In Atir, where many of the recent demolitions have taken place, Israeli planning authorities regard the roughly 500 residents as squatters. Residents are members of the Abu al-Qi’an clan, which Israel expelled in 1948 from their lands to the northwest. Kibbutz Shoval has since been established there. The state prohibited them from returning and blocked their attempts to settle in several other locations until 1956, when the military leased to the clan 7,000 dunams (700 hectares) in Wadi Atir, the valley in which Atir is located, according to military records obtained by Adalah, a nongovernmental legal center that advocates for Arab minority rights in Israel.
Israeli authorities have not connected Atiir to water or electricity networks or issued permits for the buildings there. Since the 1960s, the Israeli government has designated an ever-larger portion of the land in Wadi Atir as forests, to be planted by the Jewish National Fund. In the 1980s the Israel Land Administration, to which the military had given the file, cancelled the Abu al-Qi’an clan’s lease for the land. In February 2013 a district planning body approved plans to plant the “Yatir Forest” on the site of Atir. Two Israeli rights groups, Adalah and Bimkom, appealed the plan, which does not acknowledge that the site is inhabited and provides no alternative housing for residents.
At around 7 a.m. on May 16 a large number of Israeli security forces demolished 18 buildings in Atir, including 16 residential structures, a large animal pen, and a communal tent, as well as 4 solar panels, and about 700 olive, fig, pomegranate, and citrus trees, residents told Human Rights Watch. Residents said that they had been aware of demolition orders for only three of the structures.
R., 26, said security forces demolished the cement-walled home he built in 2007, where he lived with his wife, who suffers from thalassemia, a blood disorder, and their sons, aged 1 and 2, who have congenital illnesses including Bartter syndrome, which affects the kidneys:
They came and surrounded the whole area, a huge number of forces. It happened extremely quickly. My wife was about to bathe the kids and had taken out their hearing aids and put them in a drawer, when someone in a green uniform came into the house and told us we had to leave immediately. I grabbed the bag that I always keep everything in, documents, medical papers, IDs, and money, and went outside. It happened so fast. They entered, took us out, and began bulldozing the house. We had no time to remove anything except that one bag. They bulldozed the house with everything in it, the refrigerator and everything, and then they took it all away to the dump. Inside the house there was an oxygen tank and the two ear pieces, one for each of my kids, and the five different types of medication they both need.
Israeli authorities returned to Atir on May 29 and demolished nine tents where victims of the May 16 demolitions were taking shelter, as well as two other homes, and confiscated two electricity generators. Residents said they had been aware of demolition orders against only one tent and one other residential structure.
Human Rights Watch observed residents constructing two large tents during a visit to the site on May 31. On June 1 Israeli authorities notified people to evacuate the new tents within 48 hours, but did not demolish them. During a phone conversation on June 8, R. told Human Rights Watch that residents whose homes and tents had been demolished were living together in the large tents, so that Israeli forces would carry out fewer demolitions in the future than if residents rebuilt multiple, smaller family residences. “After they bulldozed our tents the second time, we’ve been living in a tent that’s five by five meters,” R. said. “But it’s hard. It’s always so hot, so we always need to be inside. Today it was 40 degrees.”
R. said that he and his wife had sent their children to live with their mother’s parents in another community, where he sees them once a week. “They are not healthy enough to live in the tent where I am living now,” he said. “But they are back on their medicine again. When the house was destroyed the first time they had to live a week without any medicine, until I could get it again. We had the oxygen tank in case they had a breathing emergency. Now, we don’t.”
Human Rights Watch observed the results of further demolitions that took place in Atir on June 27. Residents said that Israeli forces returned at 9 a.m. and demolished a residential structure. One resident, Im Rasim, told Human Rights Watch that villagers also disassembled four residential tents before security forces arrived, to prevent them from being torn down. “We saw the security forces coming and residents took down the four tents themselves, but the forces confiscated the metal poles for one of the tents anyway,” she said.
A., 25, said that Israeli forces destroyed his home in Atir on May 16, and tore down the tent he was living in on May 29. “I was living in one of the tents with my wife and my kids, a 1-and-a-half-year-old son and a 6-month-old daughter,” he said. “We took whatever we could out of our home in the few minutes they gave us, and the rest they took away in trucks, to the dump.” Another resident, N., 18, said that on May 16 Israeli authorities demolished the home where he had lived with his parents and seven siblings. In total, the demolitions displaced about 70 people, residents said.
Atir residents told Human Rights Watch that officials from the Israeli government’s Bedouin Authority had approached them in March and encouraged them to move to Hura, built in 1979 as one of the seven urban “townships” for Bedouins. Residents of Atir said that they did not want to move to Hura because it would not be possible to continue their pastoral and agricultural way of life.
“The government started talking to us in March,” R. said. “They’d come every day. We said, ‘We’ll go to Hura, but if we move you have to let us have what we have here.’ We don’t object to moving, but we can’t just go [without guarantees]. They didn’t get back to us.”
Other Recent Demolitions
In March Israeli authorities demolished the home of A., 51, in the unrecognized Bedouin community of Wadi al-Meshash. A., who drives a forklift in a chemical factory in Ramat Hovav,said he built his home 18 years ago, but authorities issued a demolition order when he renovated and expanded it two years ago to accommodate his growing family. The youngest of his ten children is 6. “They said, ‘You either demolish the house yourself or we’ll demolish it.’ It had a cement floor. They jackhammered it.”
Israeli authorities told A. to move to Segev Shalom, one of the towns that Israel established for Bedouin, or to Bir Haddaj, one of the “recognized” villages. A. objected. “There’s not enough land in Segev Shalom. I know people who moved there and then moved back,” A. said. “And they’re demolishing houses in Bir Haddaj even though they recognized the village.”
In another case, N., a resident of the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Rahama, said that he had built a home 22 years ago that had been damaged, but that he was afraid to renovate it. “A few months ago,” he said, “there was a high wind that destroyed 40 houses around here. It damaged the roof of my house, too, which was zinco [sheets of corrugated metal], but I can’t fix the old roof, or they’d destroy the whole building.” N. said that in numerous similar cases, Israeli authorities demolished “illegal” buildings after their owners renovated them. N. said it would be impossible for him to obtain building permits for his home or its roof.
In Wadi al-Na’am, the largest “unrecognized” Bedouin community, on April 18 Israeli forces demolished a market that had been owned by Mousa al-Jiljawi, who died in December 2012 at the age of 40. The 32-square-meter store remained the main source of income for his widow and eight children, residents said. Sheikh Attiya il-Jiljawi, 76, Mousa al-Jiljawi’s uncle, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli authorities had issued a demolition order for the store two years ago. Immediately before they demolished it, the authorities told his nephew to remove everything in the store.
Israeli authorities have carried out numerous other demolitions. According to the Negev Coexistence Forum, an Israeli rights group, on August 21, Israeli forces destroyed tents in the Bedouin village of al-Arakib for the 52nd time since 2010 . Al-Arakib residents have resisted repeated demolitions by returning to the site.
In addition to the 29 demolitions that Human Rights Watch documented, the Negev Coexistence Forum documented 44 home demolitions and 9 demolitions of stores, animal shelters, and other structures in Bedouin communities in the Negev as of August 26, 2013. Israeli forces carried out 26 of the demolitions in “recognized” or planned Bedouin communities.
International Legal Standards
Human Rights Watch documented the systematic discrimination that Bedouin citizens face in a 130-page report, “Off the Map,” released in March 2008.
The right to procedural protections against forced or compelled eviction derives from the right to adequate housing as provided by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICECSR), to which Israel is a state party. The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, established to oversee compliance of state parties with the ICESCR, has defined forced evictions as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families, and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection.”
The committee has emphasized that for evictions to be lawful, they must be “solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society” and carried out “in strict compliance with the relevant provisions of international human rights law and in accordance with general principles of reasonableness and proportionality.”
The committee has also stressed that “instances of forced eviction are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law.”
The committee noted that as a way to minimize the need for force, “all feasible alternatives” to eviction must have been “explored.” This process, “particularly in cases involving large groups,” must have been conducted “in consultation with affected persons.” If the decision to evict stands, “legal remedies or procedures should be provided to those who are affected by eviction orders,” and “individuals concerned have a right to adequate compensation for any property, both personal and real, which is affected.”
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965 obliges countries to “guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law,” including the right to equal treatmentbefore tribunals and courts and the right to housing. In its general recommendation no. 23 (1997), the committee called on states parties to recognize and protect the rights of indigenous peoples “to own, develop, control, and use their communal lands, territories, and resources” and to take steps to restore the lands if the inhabitants have been deprived of it without their consent. In March 2012 the committee called on Israel to withdraw the “discriminatory proposed Law for the Regulation of the Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, which would legalize the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities.”
Palestinians wounded in the Israeli attack in Qalandia
In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 22 - 28 August 2013, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that Israeli forces killed 3 Palestinian civilians and wounded 18 others, including 5 children, in Qalandya refugee camp. In addition, a child was wounded by a live bullet to the head at the entrance of 'Ayda refugee camp.
Israeli forces have continued to use excessive force against peaceful protesters in the West Bank. 5 protesters were wounded during 2 protests in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah, and Kofur Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqilia.
Israeli attacks in the West Bank:
During the reporting period, Israeli forces escalated their attacks against the Palestinian civilians, especially in the West Bank. Israeli forces killed 3 civilians and wounded 23 others, including 5 children. 3 civilians were killed and 18 others, including 5 children, were wounded during an Israeli incursion into Qalandya refugee camp, north of occupied Jerusalem.
In the West Bank, on 26 August 2013, in an excessive use of lethal forces, Israeli forces killed 3 Palestinian civilians and wounded 18 others, including 5 children, in Qalandya refugee camp, north of occupied Jerusalem, in the centre of the West Bank. This crime was committed when Israeli forces moved into the camp to launch an arrest campaign, but dozens of Palestinians gathered and threw stones at them. Israeli forces immediately fired live ammunition, sound bombs and tear gas canisters.
As a result, 3 civilians were killed and 18 others, including 5 children, were wounded.
On the same day, a child was wounded by a rubber-coated metal bullet to the head while others suffered tear gas inhalation during clashes at the entrance of 'Ayda refugee camp near Bethlehem.
Israeli forces conducted 49 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which at least 29 Palestinian civilians, including 4 children, were abducted.
Israeli forces established dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank. 4 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, were abducted at checkpoints in the West Bank.
Israeli forces forcibly transferred a former prisoner from Hebron to Gaza.
During one of this week's 49 invasions, into the Al-Arroub refugee camp, Ta’ayeed al-Bedawi, who was attacked by Israeli soldiers, said to a PCHR fieldworker that:
“I live in al-Titi neighbourhood in the centre of al-‘Arroub refugee camp and I am a government employee. At approximately 16:00 on Sunday, 25 August 2013, I received a phone call from my cousin, ‘Anan Ahmed al-Badawi (19), who told me that Israeli forces fired at their house tear gas canisters, which penetrated windows. Thus, they suffered severe gas inhalation. He then asked me to tell my brother, Mohammed (28), who is a paramedic at the Palestinian Red Crescent Association, to head quickly to them. I tried to search for my brother, but I could not find him.
I then took a perfume with me and ran quickly to my uncle’s, ‘Abdel Qader Zakout, house, which is 400 meters away from our house, in order to save the house residents. When I arrived, a lot of gas clouds filled the place and 3 soldiers were near the house. I pushed the door and entered the house, where the gas looked like a huge cloud through which you cannot see. I went to the stairs, which lead to the second floor.
I found Mohammed (14) and ‘Anan (19) sitting on the stairs and their condition was very difficult. I carried them and took them to the street, where I gave them first aid. Meanwhile, one of the soldiers held his neck and pushed him away from them saying that: You were throwing stones at us.
Another soldier then grabbed my cousin, Mohammed, and wanted to arrest him on the same charge. I then told the soldier that 'I came here to give them first aid, and none is throwing stones here' as I was bare feet. The soldier then tried to tighten my hands to the back in order to arrest me after my attempt to rescue Mohammed from the soldier, who held him, till he managed to escape to the nearby houses.
At that moment, one of the soldiers hit me with the gun’s but on my chest and shoulder several times in a row. I tried to escape from the soldier as a number of boys gathered and threw stones at the soldiers, who then kept distance from the place and started heavily firing tear gas canisters amidst houses. One of them heavily fired tear gas canisters at us to the extent that the soldiers fired at least 30 tear gas canisters in less than 10 minutes.
At that moment, Mohammed (28), my Paramedic brother, arrived and offered us first aid. Before I went home, I went to check on my uncle’s house, which was subject to gas canisters.
We found on the first floor a completely burnt carpet, pieces of broken window glass boards, which overlook the Main Street, and pieces of burnt plastic, which covered the ground on the second floor. We collected 6 tear gas canisters from the house. The next day, I went to the medical military services where it was found out that I sustained bruises, one of which left a 10-centimeter scar in the chest.”
Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip:
Israeli navy forces continued targeting Palestinian fishermen in the sea. Israeli navy forces opened fire at fishermen in the northern Gaza Strip.
In the Gaza Strip, on 22 and 23 August 2013, Israeli gunboats stationed off al-Waha resort, northwest of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats that approached the border about 2 nautical miles off the shore. The fishermen were frightened and fled back to the shore fearing of being abducted or injured. However, neither casualties nor material damage were reported in both incidents.
Israeli settlement activities:
Israeli forces have continued to support settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.
On Sunday, 25 August 2013, the financial committee of the Israeli municipality approved the budget to prepare the infrastructure of 1,500 settlement units to expand "Ramat Shlomo" settlement, north of occupied East Jerusalem.
On 26 August 2013, Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers and officers from the municipality moved into Khellet al-Ein area in al-Tour village, east of occupied Jerusalem. They surrounded a house belonging to the family of Zakariya al-Daya (30) and demolished the house. The 140-square-meter house shelters 2 families comprising of 10 members. Israeli bulldozers then demolished another house belonging to the family of Maher Abu Sbaitan.
On the same day, Israeli forces levelled a piece of land belonging to 2 brothers: Zakariya and Adnan Darweesh from al-Za'farana area in al-'Esawiya village. They also damaged trees and retaining walls. Israeli forces demolished a scrap shop belonging to Nidal Geith and a retaining wall belonging to Marwan Hamdan.
On Tuesday morning, 27 August 2013, some settlers punctured tyres of 10 vehicles belonging to Palestinians in Beit Safafa village, south of the city. According to Israeli sources, settlers wrote "Paying the price" in Hebrew on the walls of that area.
Israel has continued its settlement activities in the oPt, a direct violation of international humanitarian law, and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.
On 25 August 2013, Uri Ariel, the Israeli Minister of Housing and a member of the Knesset for the "Jewish Home" laid the foundation stone for "Leshem" settlement, west of Salfit, north of the West Bank. The Israeli Ministry of Housing claimed this settlement is an expansion of "Ali Zahav" settlement that was established in 1982.
On the same day, a group of settlers damaged and cut 25 olive trees in Abu Hanoun area 600 meters away from "Bracha" settlement, southeast of Nablus. This is the second time this year these trees are attacked and cut.
On 27 August 2013, Israeli forces moved into Kherbet Um al-Khair, east of Yatta, and deployed between the tents. They prevented civilians from working in an under-construction house under the pretext it is built on a seized land, where nothing can be built without a prior permit from the Israeli civil administration as this land belongs to "Carmiel" settlement that is established on lands of al-Hathaleen family in Kherbet Um al-Khair.
On the same day, Israeli forces accompanied by a civil administration officer moved into Deir Ma'lla area, east of al-Daheriya village, south of Hebron. The civil administration officer put 4 notices to halt construction works in front of 4 occupied houses and photographed them before he left. The notices gave the houses' owners a period of time until 30 September 2013 to present their evidence documents and to adjust their legal status.
On 28 August 2013, Israeli forces accompanied by civil administration officer moved into Um Sarrara (Musafer Yatta) area, southeast of Yatta, south of Hebron. The civil administration officer put 8 notices to halt construction works near 8 water wells with a capacity ranging between 100-200 cubic meters that are used for human and agricultural purposes.
Israeli attacks on non-violent demonstrations:
5 civilians were wounded in peaceful protests against settlement activities in the West Bank. Moreover, dozens of civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises.
During the reporting period, Israeli forces continued the systematic use of excessive force against peaceful protests organised by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank.
As a result, 5 Palestinian civilians were wounded, dozens suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises. 3 civilians were wounded in Bil'in weekly protest, west of Ramallah, and 2 others were wounded in Kofur Qaddoum weekly protest, northeast of Qalqilia.
Recommendations to the international community:
Due to the number and severity of Israeli human rights violations this week, the PCHR made several recommendations to the international community. Among these were a recommendation that the international community act in order to stop all Israeli settlement expansion activities in the West Bank through imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements and criminalizing trading with them;
In addition, the PCHR calls upon the UN General Assembly to transfer the Goldstone Report to the UN Security Council in order to refer it to the International Criminal Court in accordance with Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute.
For the full text of the report, click on the link
In its Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the week of 22 - 28 August 2013, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) found that Israeli forces killed 3 Palestinian civilians and wounded 18 others, including 5 children, in Qalandya refugee camp. In addition, a child was wounded by a live bullet to the head at the entrance of 'Ayda refugee camp.
Israeli forces have continued to use excessive force against peaceful protesters in the West Bank. 5 protesters were wounded during 2 protests in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah, and Kofur Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqilia.
Israeli attacks in the West Bank:
During the reporting period, Israeli forces escalated their attacks against the Palestinian civilians, especially in the West Bank. Israeli forces killed 3 civilians and wounded 23 others, including 5 children. 3 civilians were killed and 18 others, including 5 children, were wounded during an Israeli incursion into Qalandya refugee camp, north of occupied Jerusalem.
In the West Bank, on 26 August 2013, in an excessive use of lethal forces, Israeli forces killed 3 Palestinian civilians and wounded 18 others, including 5 children, in Qalandya refugee camp, north of occupied Jerusalem, in the centre of the West Bank. This crime was committed when Israeli forces moved into the camp to launch an arrest campaign, but dozens of Palestinians gathered and threw stones at them. Israeli forces immediately fired live ammunition, sound bombs and tear gas canisters.
As a result, 3 civilians were killed and 18 others, including 5 children, were wounded.
On the same day, a child was wounded by a rubber-coated metal bullet to the head while others suffered tear gas inhalation during clashes at the entrance of 'Ayda refugee camp near Bethlehem.
Israeli forces conducted 49 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which at least 29 Palestinian civilians, including 4 children, were abducted.
Israeli forces established dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank. 4 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, were abducted at checkpoints in the West Bank.
Israeli forces forcibly transferred a former prisoner from Hebron to Gaza.
During one of this week's 49 invasions, into the Al-Arroub refugee camp, Ta’ayeed al-Bedawi, who was attacked by Israeli soldiers, said to a PCHR fieldworker that:
“I live in al-Titi neighbourhood in the centre of al-‘Arroub refugee camp and I am a government employee. At approximately 16:00 on Sunday, 25 August 2013, I received a phone call from my cousin, ‘Anan Ahmed al-Badawi (19), who told me that Israeli forces fired at their house tear gas canisters, which penetrated windows. Thus, they suffered severe gas inhalation. He then asked me to tell my brother, Mohammed (28), who is a paramedic at the Palestinian Red Crescent Association, to head quickly to them. I tried to search for my brother, but I could not find him.
I then took a perfume with me and ran quickly to my uncle’s, ‘Abdel Qader Zakout, house, which is 400 meters away from our house, in order to save the house residents. When I arrived, a lot of gas clouds filled the place and 3 soldiers were near the house. I pushed the door and entered the house, where the gas looked like a huge cloud through which you cannot see. I went to the stairs, which lead to the second floor.
I found Mohammed (14) and ‘Anan (19) sitting on the stairs and their condition was very difficult. I carried them and took them to the street, where I gave them first aid. Meanwhile, one of the soldiers held his neck and pushed him away from them saying that: You were throwing stones at us.
Another soldier then grabbed my cousin, Mohammed, and wanted to arrest him on the same charge. I then told the soldier that 'I came here to give them first aid, and none is throwing stones here' as I was bare feet. The soldier then tried to tighten my hands to the back in order to arrest me after my attempt to rescue Mohammed from the soldier, who held him, till he managed to escape to the nearby houses.
At that moment, one of the soldiers hit me with the gun’s but on my chest and shoulder several times in a row. I tried to escape from the soldier as a number of boys gathered and threw stones at the soldiers, who then kept distance from the place and started heavily firing tear gas canisters amidst houses. One of them heavily fired tear gas canisters at us to the extent that the soldiers fired at least 30 tear gas canisters in less than 10 minutes.
At that moment, Mohammed (28), my Paramedic brother, arrived and offered us first aid. Before I went home, I went to check on my uncle’s house, which was subject to gas canisters.
We found on the first floor a completely burnt carpet, pieces of broken window glass boards, which overlook the Main Street, and pieces of burnt plastic, which covered the ground on the second floor. We collected 6 tear gas canisters from the house. The next day, I went to the medical military services where it was found out that I sustained bruises, one of which left a 10-centimeter scar in the chest.”
Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip:
Israeli navy forces continued targeting Palestinian fishermen in the sea. Israeli navy forces opened fire at fishermen in the northern Gaza Strip.
In the Gaza Strip, on 22 and 23 August 2013, Israeli gunboats stationed off al-Waha resort, northwest of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats that approached the border about 2 nautical miles off the shore. The fishermen were frightened and fled back to the shore fearing of being abducted or injured. However, neither casualties nor material damage were reported in both incidents.
Israeli settlement activities:
Israeli forces have continued to support settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.
On Sunday, 25 August 2013, the financial committee of the Israeli municipality approved the budget to prepare the infrastructure of 1,500 settlement units to expand "Ramat Shlomo" settlement, north of occupied East Jerusalem.
On 26 August 2013, Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers and officers from the municipality moved into Khellet al-Ein area in al-Tour village, east of occupied Jerusalem. They surrounded a house belonging to the family of Zakariya al-Daya (30) and demolished the house. The 140-square-meter house shelters 2 families comprising of 10 members. Israeli bulldozers then demolished another house belonging to the family of Maher Abu Sbaitan.
On the same day, Israeli forces levelled a piece of land belonging to 2 brothers: Zakariya and Adnan Darweesh from al-Za'farana area in al-'Esawiya village. They also damaged trees and retaining walls. Israeli forces demolished a scrap shop belonging to Nidal Geith and a retaining wall belonging to Marwan Hamdan.
On Tuesday morning, 27 August 2013, some settlers punctured tyres of 10 vehicles belonging to Palestinians in Beit Safafa village, south of the city. According to Israeli sources, settlers wrote "Paying the price" in Hebrew on the walls of that area.
Israel has continued its settlement activities in the oPt, a direct violation of international humanitarian law, and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.
On 25 August 2013, Uri Ariel, the Israeli Minister of Housing and a member of the Knesset for the "Jewish Home" laid the foundation stone for "Leshem" settlement, west of Salfit, north of the West Bank. The Israeli Ministry of Housing claimed this settlement is an expansion of "Ali Zahav" settlement that was established in 1982.
On the same day, a group of settlers damaged and cut 25 olive trees in Abu Hanoun area 600 meters away from "Bracha" settlement, southeast of Nablus. This is the second time this year these trees are attacked and cut.
On 27 August 2013, Israeli forces moved into Kherbet Um al-Khair, east of Yatta, and deployed between the tents. They prevented civilians from working in an under-construction house under the pretext it is built on a seized land, where nothing can be built without a prior permit from the Israeli civil administration as this land belongs to "Carmiel" settlement that is established on lands of al-Hathaleen family in Kherbet Um al-Khair.
On the same day, Israeli forces accompanied by a civil administration officer moved into Deir Ma'lla area, east of al-Daheriya village, south of Hebron. The civil administration officer put 4 notices to halt construction works in front of 4 occupied houses and photographed them before he left. The notices gave the houses' owners a period of time until 30 September 2013 to present their evidence documents and to adjust their legal status.
On 28 August 2013, Israeli forces accompanied by civil administration officer moved into Um Sarrara (Musafer Yatta) area, southeast of Yatta, south of Hebron. The civil administration officer put 8 notices to halt construction works near 8 water wells with a capacity ranging between 100-200 cubic meters that are used for human and agricultural purposes.
Israeli attacks on non-violent demonstrations:
5 civilians were wounded in peaceful protests against settlement activities in the West Bank. Moreover, dozens of civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises.
During the reporting period, Israeli forces continued the systematic use of excessive force against peaceful protests organised by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank.
As a result, 5 Palestinian civilians were wounded, dozens suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises. 3 civilians were wounded in Bil'in weekly protest, west of Ramallah, and 2 others were wounded in Kofur Qaddoum weekly protest, northeast of Qalqilia.
Recommendations to the international community:
Due to the number and severity of Israeli human rights violations this week, the PCHR made several recommendations to the international community. Among these were a recommendation that the international community act in order to stop all Israeli settlement expansion activities in the West Bank through imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements and criminalizing trading with them;
In addition, the PCHR calls upon the UN General Assembly to transfer the Goldstone Report to the UN Security Council in order to refer it to the International Criminal Court in accordance with Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute.
For the full text of the report, click on the link
29 aug 2013
Gaza patient referrals by the Ministry of Health for treatment outside the Gaza Strip was the highest in July since 2006 with almost 1300 patients seeking permit to cross Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing with Israel to reach hospitals in Israel, East Jerusalem or the West Bank, The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday in its monthly report on Gaza patient referrals. It said 85% of patients’ applications for permits were approved, 7% lower than the 2012 average rate.
Seven patients, all males, were denied permits, compared to six denied from January through June. In addition, 186 patients (14.32%; 56 females and 130 males) received no response, including 61 children, which delayed medical treatment, said WHO.
Nevertheless, the number of permits approved during July was the highest monthly total in the last eight years, it said.
According to the report, the Israeli authorities interrogated 21 male patients who had applied for permits to cross Beit Hanoun checkpoint and were requested to appear for Israeli security interviews. None were later granted permits.
Two patient companions were detained while travelling through Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint; one is still in detention.
The report said 141 patients were referred to Egypt, a drop of more than 50% of the usual number and only two were referred to hospitals in Jordan reflecting a June 2012 decision by most Jordanian hospitals to halt new Ministry of Health referrals due to outstanding Palestinian Authority debts.
Seven patients, all males, were denied permits, compared to six denied from January through June. In addition, 186 patients (14.32%; 56 females and 130 males) received no response, including 61 children, which delayed medical treatment, said WHO.
Nevertheless, the number of permits approved during July was the highest monthly total in the last eight years, it said.
According to the report, the Israeli authorities interrogated 21 male patients who had applied for permits to cross Beit Hanoun checkpoint and were requested to appear for Israeli security interviews. None were later granted permits.
Two patient companions were detained while travelling through Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint; one is still in detention.
The report said 141 patients were referred to Egypt, a drop of more than 50% of the usual number and only two were referred to hospitals in Jordan reflecting a June 2012 decision by most Jordanian hospitals to halt new Ministry of Health referrals due to outstanding Palestinian Authority debts.
Palestinian Consultative Staff for developing NGOs (PCS) launched, within the scope of its human rights program, an independent progress mechanism on the protection and promotion of the rights of people with disabilities (PWDs) at national level, PCS said in a press release Wednesday.
This action is based on the role of civil society organizations that monitor and document basic rights violations against PWDs with a focus on social and economic rights as fundamental rights that contribute to real social change.
It is part of the project "Enhancing and Protecting The Rights of Persons with Disabilities in The Palestinian Territories" funded by the European Union through the European instrument for human rights and democracy. The project aims to build upon regional and international actions by developing and activating the national procedures relating to the fundamental rights of PWDs.
A unit in charge of monitoring and documenting violations against PWDs will be put in place which it will receiving complaints and following up legally and judicially with the responsible governmental and non-governmental organizations
PCS will also work on the development of the principle of cooperation with civil society organizations through partnerships with Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank governorates, such as "the Palestinian General Union of people with disabilities", "Human Society", "CBR" in Jenin, "ASWAT for Supporting the Intellectual Disability", "CBR" in Nablus, "Tubas Charitable Society" in Tubas, "The Association of Committees of Social Work" in Tulkarem, "Cultural Forum Society "in Qalqilya, and "Charitable Marda for Development" in Salfit. The objective is to activate their role in promoting the rights of PWDs and following up on rights violations, as well as to raise awareness among civil society activists to develop mechanism for monitoring and documenting violations through lobbying and advocacy.
Priority will be given to marginalized Palestinian areas in the West Bank, especially in Areas C, which suffer from access to services and exercise of their economic , social, cultural and human rights.
PCS is ready in the coming period to become fully operational by documenting and monitoring complaints through field visits and phone calls. The complaints can be received via the hotline 042434404 or 042501989 located at the headquarters of the Commission in the city of Jenin or via e-mail: hrcomplaint@pcs-palestine.org. Partner organizations in the West Bank can also receive and document complaints in their respective locations.
PCS emphasized that dealing with violations against PWDs will be done from a human rights perspective, and not from the perspective of compassion or begging, and based on the terms of disabled Palestinians rights law No. (4) of 1999 and the Palestinian Basic Law.
PCS will also prepare an annual report on the human rights situation of PWDs in Palestine and announce the outcome of the report at the end of the current year. The report will document the violations and abuses highlighted in the application of law and fundamental rights.
This action is based on the role of civil society organizations that monitor and document basic rights violations against PWDs with a focus on social and economic rights as fundamental rights that contribute to real social change.
It is part of the project "Enhancing and Protecting The Rights of Persons with Disabilities in The Palestinian Territories" funded by the European Union through the European instrument for human rights and democracy. The project aims to build upon regional and international actions by developing and activating the national procedures relating to the fundamental rights of PWDs.
A unit in charge of monitoring and documenting violations against PWDs will be put in place which it will receiving complaints and following up legally and judicially with the responsible governmental and non-governmental organizations
PCS will also work on the development of the principle of cooperation with civil society organizations through partnerships with Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank governorates, such as "the Palestinian General Union of people with disabilities", "Human Society", "CBR" in Jenin, "ASWAT for Supporting the Intellectual Disability", "CBR" in Nablus, "Tubas Charitable Society" in Tubas, "The Association of Committees of Social Work" in Tulkarem, "Cultural Forum Society "in Qalqilya, and "Charitable Marda for Development" in Salfit. The objective is to activate their role in promoting the rights of PWDs and following up on rights violations, as well as to raise awareness among civil society activists to develop mechanism for monitoring and documenting violations through lobbying and advocacy.
Priority will be given to marginalized Palestinian areas in the West Bank, especially in Areas C, which suffer from access to services and exercise of their economic , social, cultural and human rights.
PCS is ready in the coming period to become fully operational by documenting and monitoring complaints through field visits and phone calls. The complaints can be received via the hotline 042434404 or 042501989 located at the headquarters of the Commission in the city of Jenin or via e-mail: hrcomplaint@pcs-palestine.org. Partner organizations in the West Bank can also receive and document complaints in their respective locations.
PCS emphasized that dealing with violations against PWDs will be done from a human rights perspective, and not from the perspective of compassion or begging, and based on the terms of disabled Palestinians rights law No. (4) of 1999 and the Palestinian Basic Law.
PCS will also prepare an annual report on the human rights situation of PWDs in Palestine and announce the outcome of the report at the end of the current year. The report will document the violations and abuses highlighted in the application of law and fundamental rights.
PCHR Calls for Investigating Man’s Death during Fire Exchange in ‘Askar Refugee Camp, East of Nablus
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) calls upon the Attorney General's office to seriously investigate the death of a Palestinian by a live bullet to the head during an exchange of fire between members of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service (PSS) and 3 gunmen in 'Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, which was followed by destruction of private and public property.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 19:45 on Tuesday, 28 August 2013, a number of PSS officers traveling in a civilian vehicle arrived in 'Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus, to arrest a wanted person. Once the wanted person noticed the security officers on the main road in the camp, he and another two gunmen fired at them, and the security officers returned fire. During the exchange of fire, Amjad Falah 'Ouda, 40, a carpenter who was in his workshop at the main road, was killed by a live bullet to the head.
Soon after, dozens of young men set fire to a guardroom of the Palestinian National Security Forces in the Industrial School near the camp, and a guardroom of the Palestinian police near Balata refugee camp. Other young men destroyed traffic lights, an ATM of Cairo-Amman Bank in Amman Street, and an ATM of Bank of Palestine at al-Ghawi intersection between 'Askar and Balata refugee camps. The protestors also set fire to the medical compound of the Palestinian security medical services in 'Askar refugee camp. In Rafidya Hospital, where 'Ouda's body was transferred, a number of young men from 'Askar refugee camp damaged a number of cars near the hospital and set fire to a security vehicle. They also threw stones at security officers. Moreover, dozens of young men closed the entrance of al-Far'a refugee camp, south of Tubas, on Tubas-Nablus road, and set fire to rubber tires in protest against 'Ouda's death.
PCHR condemns 'Ouda's killing and calls upon the Attorney General's office to investigate the circumstances of his death, and subsequent attacks against private and public property and bring the perpetrators before justice. PCHR confirms its position rejecting any attacks against private and public property.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 19:45 on Tuesday, 28 August 2013, a number of PSS officers traveling in a civilian vehicle arrived in 'Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus, to arrest a wanted person. Once the wanted person noticed the security officers on the main road in the camp, he and another two gunmen fired at them, and the security officers returned fire. During the exchange of fire, Amjad Falah 'Ouda, 40, a carpenter who was in his workshop at the main road, was killed by a live bullet to the head.
Soon after, dozens of young men set fire to a guardroom of the Palestinian National Security Forces in the Industrial School near the camp, and a guardroom of the Palestinian police near Balata refugee camp. Other young men destroyed traffic lights, an ATM of Cairo-Amman Bank in Amman Street, and an ATM of Bank of Palestine at al-Ghawi intersection between 'Askar and Balata refugee camps. The protestors also set fire to the medical compound of the Palestinian security medical services in 'Askar refugee camp. In Rafidya Hospital, where 'Ouda's body was transferred, a number of young men from 'Askar refugee camp damaged a number of cars near the hospital and set fire to a security vehicle. They also threw stones at security officers. Moreover, dozens of young men closed the entrance of al-Far'a refugee camp, south of Tubas, on Tubas-Nablus road, and set fire to rubber tires in protest against 'Ouda's death.
PCHR condemns 'Ouda's killing and calls upon the Attorney General's office to investigate the circumstances of his death, and subsequent attacks against private and public property and bring the perpetrators before justice. PCHR confirms its position rejecting any attacks against private and public property.
PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department issued in a press release on Thursday 29th August, a recent factsheet titled: "Caving" Under The Pressure: Israeli Policies In EJ & The Prospects Of Peace.
The focus of this fact sheet is Jerusalem, but major violations continue to take place throughout the occupied State of Palestine. Recent attacks by Israeli military forces on innocent and vulnerable people in refugee camps in Jenin and Qalandia, among others, have resulted in the death of four people and injury of seventeen (six severely) from these two attacks alone.
Between January and August this year, 2930 men, women and children have been arrested by foreign Israeli forces in their own homeland. Israeli settlers, living illegally on land stolen from Palestinian families, have mercilessly attacked people, homes, cars, places of worship, burned farmland and slaughtered livestock in 655 separate acts of terrorism. These horrific acts are aimed at forcing the Palestinians from yet more of their own land through sheer intimidation. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have demolished 116 family homes and structures since the beginning of this year.
The list goes on Needless to say, these terrible acts are things that no human being should be made to suffer. On a political level, it is also clear that these isolations on the ground are in no way conducive to peace and damage the atmosphere required for positive and progressive negotiations.
Link to Fact Sheet "Caving" Under The Pressure: Israeli Policies In EJ & The Prospects Of Peace. [PDF]
The focus of this fact sheet is Jerusalem, but major violations continue to take place throughout the occupied State of Palestine. Recent attacks by Israeli military forces on innocent and vulnerable people in refugee camps in Jenin and Qalandia, among others, have resulted in the death of four people and injury of seventeen (six severely) from these two attacks alone.
Between January and August this year, 2930 men, women and children have been arrested by foreign Israeli forces in their own homeland. Israeli settlers, living illegally on land stolen from Palestinian families, have mercilessly attacked people, homes, cars, places of worship, burned farmland and slaughtered livestock in 655 separate acts of terrorism. These horrific acts are aimed at forcing the Palestinians from yet more of their own land through sheer intimidation. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have demolished 116 family homes and structures since the beginning of this year.
The list goes on Needless to say, these terrible acts are things that no human being should be made to suffer. On a political level, it is also clear that these isolations on the ground are in no way conducive to peace and damage the atmosphere required for positive and progressive negotiations.
Link to Fact Sheet "Caving" Under The Pressure: Israeli Policies In EJ & The Prospects Of Peace. [PDF]