| Home
Palestinians being stopped from building on own lands
Toronto News.Net
Friday 4th December, 2009
While Israel negotiates temporary stop-work orders on illegal settlements, it has for decades been preventing Palestinians from carrying out construction on their own lands.
Israel has in fact employed a planning, development, and building policy in the West Bank which has almost entirely prevented construction by Palestinians.
While at the same time, Israel has allocated broad expanses of land to establish and expand Jewish settlements, the country has, in consequence, created a situation in which thousands of Palestinians are unable to obtain permits to build on their land and provide shelter for their families, leaving them no option but to build without a permit.
In the Oslo Agreements, the West Bank was divided into three areas, Areas A, B, and C. Areas A and B, which comprise 40% of the West Bank, come within the planning and building authority of the Palestinian Authority. This land, however, is essentially the built-up area of existing towns and villages. Area C, the remaining 60%, is wholly controlled by Israel, including having jursidiction over planning and building. Area C is home to some 150,000 Palestinians, who live in 149 towns and villages, and almost all the land reserves of the Palestinian communities, including those of Areas A and B, are located there. The Israeli Civil Administration has adopted a policy not to issue building permits to Palestinians in these areas, and does not provide a planning solution for Palestinian land development.
In recent weeks, the Civil Administration has increased its action against Palestinian building in Area C, contending that the construction was illegal.
Examples of the Civil Administration’s actions include the Al-Birah Stadium (pictured). In 1996, the municipality of al-Birah, which is located next to Ramallah, built the National Palestinian Stadium on land lying within the municipal borders of the town, but in Area C. In 2006, the stadium was improved and the finishing touches are currently being made to conform it to meet the standard required for international football matches. The stadium, which cost approximately €3 million, was built with the financial assistance of France, the German Development Bank, the UN Development Agency, and FIFA, the international football federation.
In mid-October, the Israeli Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council issued stop-work orders on the construction, an unusual step since the Civil Administration had not previously interfered in the town’s planning matters, leaving the municipality the powers to initiate and approve building projects in areas within its borders. Shortly afterwards, the P’sagot settlement, which is situated a few hundred meters from the stadium, and the Regavim Organization petitioned the High Court of Justice. The petitioners demanded that the stadium be demolished, arguing that it had been built without a permit and that it “significantly increases security problems” in the area. The municipality has, for the time being, ceased construction work on the stadium.
Another incident came in late October when Israeli Civil Administration inspectors served stop-work orders on construction work being done on nine houses in Kafr ‘Aqab, a village located north of Jerusalem. Fifteen families live in the houses. Most of the village lies within the boundaries of the Jerusalem Municipality, but since that portion lies east of the Separation Barrier, the municipality provides almost no services to the village. The remaining village land lies in Area C. In the same area, the Civil Administration had previously issued stop-work orders on twenty other buildings, and the area contains dozens of other buildings. The Jerusalem Municipality, like the Civil Administration, has never prepared an outline plan enabling development of the village.
Yet another example: In early November, Israeli Civil Administration inspectors issued 11 stop-work orders on all construction in the Beduin community of Khirbet Umm al-Kheir, which lies in the southern Hebron hills. Residents of the village, most of whom are refugees of 1948, arrived in the village in the 1970s after having been forced to leave their homes in the area of Arad. In 1981, the Carmel settlement was built adjacent to the village. The buildings on which the stop-work orders were issued lie in two sections that border the settlement on the east, and are built on private Palestinian land or on Survey Land (land whose ownership has not been decided). About six months ago, the Civil Administration demolished four sheds and two stone houses in the village.
Seprately in mid-November, Israeli Civil Administration inspectors issued stop-work orders on 12 structures in Rujeib, a village southeast of Nablus. Five of the homes, which lie on the southern edge of the village, were already inhabited. Another six, and a chicken coop, were under construction.
The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem says the Israeli Civil Administration’s intensive enforcement activity violates Israel’s obligation, as the occupying power, to meet the planning needs of the Palestinians, and breaches the Fourth Geneva Convention, which permits the occupying power to destroy the property of civilians only when an imperative military need exists.  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Neale
12-05-09, 08:17 AM |
Freeze on Palestinian construction decades long
This illegal acts are happening due to occupation power and misusing International Laws.
|
erap
12-05-09, 03:35 PM |
no such creature as a 'palestinian'
Anyone else find it ironic that there never was a such thing as palestinians until the jews were given the territory to manage? The native peoples in that region have more Greek blood in them than middle eastern. The went all these hundreds and hundreds of years being lazy and filthy poor, content to do nothing until someone else is in charge, now they demand equal rights under MODERN laws and technologies that they shunned all this time.
Just a bunch of stupid beggars, wanting something for free.
|
` ~galljdaj+
12-05-09, 04:31 PM |
Beggars being two cuts above a hogeyed poster of 3:35pm
And the same two cuts above the thieves that came into their land and began killing to steal!
A hogeyed man can’t read, and is left to be a messianic believer. An easy mark for the jews! If the hogeyed man could read, either the Christians' record(bible) or the jews' record(Torah) would present the history of Abraham. the history of his lies incest slavemastery animal sacrafices murder and thievery. The gross attempt to inflict damage on the Egyptian King is a classic jewish lie!
What kind of person calls innocent peoples 'stupids'? The kind of person that killed native Americans and stole their lands! A racist bigot! Or a hogeyed messianic believer.
|
Portable Storage
01-20-10, 05:36 PM |
Re : Nothing temporary about freeze on Palestinian construction
I thing that Israel has not in the mood of freezing the construction in the East Jerusalem.Because there are no talks going on this issue and Israel administration has given an approval for some new construction project.
|
Have your say on this story
|
|
