Israel ramps up demolitions of Palestinian structures

The Israeli military has tripled its demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied territories over the past three months, a United Nations' report says.

Figures collated by the UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) - which operates in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - show from an average of 50 demolitions a month in 2012-2015, the number rose to 165 since January, with 235 demolitions in February alone.

On Thursday, Israeli authorities demolished Palestinian buildings in al-Khan al-Ahmar village near the West Bank city of Jericho, and in Khirbet Tana village near Nablus.
One of the owners of the demolished structures in al-Khan al-Ahmar, Hussein Kaabneh, said the demolition team came in the morning without warning.

"I was surprised by the police and army … so I was very mad. I asked them, 'Why do you want to demolish it?' I did not get a warning or anything. And he told me, 'you are [your structure is] not legal'," Kaabneh told Reuters news agency.

The Israeli military, which has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East war, says it carries out the demolitions because the structures are illegal: either built without a permit, in a closed military area or firing zone, or violate other planning and zoning restrictions.

The UN and rights groups point out that permits are almost impossible for Palestinians to acquire, that firing zones are often declared but seldom used, and many planning restrictions date from the British Mandate in the 1930s.
The UN report on demolitions has alarmed diplomats and human rights groups over what they regard as a sustained violation of international law.

"It is a very marked and worrying increase," said Catherine Cook, an OCHA official based in Jerusalem who closely monitors the demolitions, describing the situation as the worst since the UN body started collecting figures in 2009.
"The hardest hit are Bedouin and Palestinian farming communities who are at risk of forcible transfer, which is a clear violation of international law," she said.

The demolished structures include houses, Bedouin tents, livestock pens, outhouses and schools. In an increasing number of cases, it also includes humanitarian buildings erected by the European Union to help those affected by earlier demolitions.

Appearing before a sub-committee in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, Major-General Yoav Mordechai - coordinator of the Israeli government's activities in the West Bank - defended the demolition policy and told politicians he was doing all he could to carry out 11,000 outstanding destruction orders.
The politicians summoned Mordechai to the hearing because of concerns he is not doing enough to dismantle Palestinian structures, and focusing instead on removing unauthorised Israeli construction in the West Bank.

"I want to state unequivocally that enforcement is more severe towards the Palestinians," Mordechai told them.
"Moreover, much of the enforcement with regard to the Palestinians takes place on private Palestinian land."

According to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, Mordechai's admission appears to confirm that Israel's policy discriminates against Palestinians.

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The Israeli military, which has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East war, says it carries out the demolitions because the structures are illegal: either built without a permit, in a closed military area or firing zone, or violate other planning and zoning restrictions.

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A new report by Israeli nonprofit Kerem Navot, which monitors Israeli land policies in the West Bank, shows in detail how the system works, through the issuing of closure orders for large tracts of land that become closed military zones.

The original justification for the land closure procedures, which began immediately after the war in 1967, was on security grounds. However, since then, many other considerations have been added, primarily benefitting the settlement project. The bottom line is that currently nearly 1,765,000 dunams (about 436,000 acres) – nearly one-third of the land in the West Bank – is closed to the Palestinians, on the grounds that these are military zones.

The justification is not entirely consistent with the reality, according to the report, in that about 78 percent of the land closed for military maneuvers is not being used for that purpose at all. The report says the rest of the land is divided between areas that the army makes frequent use of (more than one training exercise every three months – about 10 percent of the closed areas) and land for which little use is being made (about 12 percent have, on average, less than one training exercise every three months).

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The method of expropriation orders also has another important element: the absence of enforcement against Israelis. The report lists 10 outposts and settlements where houses and public buildings have been built inside closed training zones. The enforcement authorities have indeed issued demolition orders for more than 170 of these buildings, which are illegal by virtue of the definition of the land, but to date no move has been made to evacuate them. In two other cases in recent years, the state has reassigned some areas in the training zones to settlements for purposes of their expansion.

Settlers are using lands that have been designated as training zones in another way as well. Today they are cultivating about 14,000 dunams of the shuttered areas, which are also supposed to be closed to Israelis. About 73 percent of these agricultural lands have been transferred to the settlers by the authorities in areas that have, de facto, been closed only to Palestinians, along the border and in the Latrun area. Some 3,000 additional dunams of agricultural land are being cultivated by settlers without them having been given official permission to do so. Most of these sites are registered as privately owned Palestinian lands, but the authorities aren’t enforcing the law against the settlers. Indeed, according to the report, they are even supporting the settlers’ cultivation of these lands.

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"I want to state unequivocally that enforcement is more severe towards the Palestinians," Mordechai told them.
"Moreover, much of the enforcement with regard to the Palestinians takes place on private Palestinian land."

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grantza said:

this bit just does the head in:

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konfab said:

50 page thread incoming...

Israel needs to stop this BS.

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LazyLion said:

I think pretty much everyone agrees this is a dick thing to do. Even the Pro-Israelis.
Israel has so much technology and know-how. They can maximise the usage of their own land without having to resort to this.
This is nothing but arrogance and provocation.

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LazyLion said:

I think pretty much everyone agrees this is a dick thing to do. Even the Pro-Israelis.
Israel has so much technology and know-how. They can maximise the usage of their own land without having to resort to this.
This is nothing but arrogance and provocation.

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BeerIsNotGood... said:

Well when you have been attacked since inception....

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konfab said:

Them launching an airstrike against rocket launch sites is defense.
Them building a wall is defense.

Declaring an area as a firing zone is not defense.

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According to the NGO Monitor report, the group “regularly presents data in a manipulative way that erases the context of terrorism and distorts law and morality.”

OCHA fails to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and attackers, thereby amplifying Palestinian casualty claims, and drawing a false symmetry between legal Israeli self-defense and illegal attacks by terrorists, the report stated.

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lived666 said:

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/NG...nipulates-data-to-make-Israel-look-bad-450622

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konfab said:

50 page thread incoming...

Israel needs to stop this BS.

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LazyLion said:

I think pretty much everyone agrees this is a dick thing to do. Even the Pro-Israelis.
Israel has so much technology and know-how. They can maximise the usage of their own land without having to resort to this.
This is nothing but arrogance and provocation.

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Xarog said:

Well Grant, looks like I owe you an apology.

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grantza said:

for what ?


**edit
i suspect you may think i am pro israel and anti palestine - i'm not.

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some people have even assumed i'm jewish, that is also incorrect - i'm am atheist, of roman catholic family

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i firmly believe in israel's right to exist, as well as the right of the palestinians to their own land.
the continual encroachment on palestinian land and the demolition of the homes palestinian families with the resultant colonization of palestinian property by israeli's under the protection of the idf is despicable.

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Xarog said:

Nope.


Not me.


Sure. The question I have is why you attack other people who believe similarly without allowing for the fact that their belief in this regard is the primary motivation for their postings on this forum.

But if you can acknowledge that they exist and allow for their opinion (and perhaps they even go further than you and think that Israel's behaviour means that the state is illegitimate) without concluding that the motivation must be anti-semitism or similar, then I owe you an apology.

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Nick333 said:

You can't the question the legitimacy of a state because of the behaviour of it's government you utter... The de facto government of the de facto state of Palestine are Islamist, terrorists, does that delegitimise the Palestinian state?

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