Israel Carries Out Massive House Demolitions Throughout West Bank

by Maureen Meehan

The entire West Bank is under attack as Israel goes on a house demolition rampage in its attempt to transfer thousands of Palestinians living in rural areas under Israeli control while confiscating as much land as possible before final status talks get underway. Seven hundred homes are targeted for destruction.

Following its Jan. 15th partial redeployment from Hebron, Israel announced it was lifting an unofficial freeze on house demolitions that had been in effect during the negotiations that led to the Hebron deal. Since then an average of two homes per day were destroyed in the West Bank, especially near Hebron, over a period of several weeks until winter storms slowed down the pace of the bulldozers.

Palestinian homes throughout rural areas, especially near Hebron, are once again being bulldozed without warning.

The Israeli military administration generally justifies its demolitions of houses on the basis that they were built without permits. Such permits, however, have been virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain since the Israeli occupation began in 1967. Meanwhile, according to maps prepared by Israeli military authorities, most of the houses being destroyed are near military areas, Jewish settlements and settler bypass roads.

In mid-February near the settlement of Susiya, outside Hebron, bulldozers destroyed the 100-year-old home of Mohamad Abdel Rashid, the foundation of which was built on caves used by shepherds from the time of the Romans. Such construction is common in the area.

“About 100 soldiers plowed down our homes, then pushed the rubble into the cave so we would have nowhere to go. But we’re not leaving, I’ll sleep under the stars before I will leave here,” said Abdel Rashid who, along with neighbors who suffered the same plight, now is living in a tent. They were warned by Israeli soldiers on several occasions not to clean out the rubble and return to the shelter of the caves.

The shiny green tents and collapsed stone walls that dot the landscape for miles around give one the impression that a terrible war is underway with refugees huddled under Red Cross shelters after aerial carpet bombing. But then one sees the pristine and sterile clusters of Jewish settlements flourishing just beyond the tents.

“It reeks of ethnic cleansing. They’re making it clear that as long as they have the power to enforce it, only Jews can live on this land,” said Abdel Rashid’s son Wahid, who is the local schoolteacher.

The women of Abdel Rashid’s family are outraged that soldiers accompanied by armed settlers destroyed their cistern and their ceramic stove for baking bread, and plowed under hundreds of newly planted grape and olive trees, the village’s livelihood in addition to raising sheep.

“They actually destroyed the entire villageand they’re not finished,” said Moussa Makhamri, an attorney for the Hebron Land Defense Committee.

Further down the windy hill, Mahmoud al-Gemel, whose father was shot and killed by Jewish settlers in 1991, points to the same destruction that is going on all over the West Bank as Israel attempts to remove any Palestinian presence in areas that will likely remain in Israeli hands.

Area C, which comprises 70 percent of the West Bank, is under total Israeli control. Bitter arguments within the Likud government of Binyamin Netanyahu are underway as to how much, if any, and when, if ever, should be handed over to the Palestinian Authority.

“Regardless of what is negotiated in the final status talks, it is all rendered meaningless as Israel continues to destroy homes, confiscate land and build Jewish settlements,” said Makhamri.

“In addition, these demolitions that are occurring without any warning are leaving thousands of already poor people homeless,” he added.

Allegra Pacheco, Israeli attorney with the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, points out that even legally built homes are being threatened with demolition. Five homes within Hebron’s city limits, including that of the vice president of Hebron University, Dr. Awni al-Khatib, were served demolition decrees issued by the Israeli military ostensibly because they were built without permits.

When the owners produced legal building permits, the army backed off. Then later it re-ordered the demolition, stating this time that the purpose was to clear the area in order to continue an extension of a Jewish-only bypass road. Pacheco explains that this type of demolition order allows for no right to appeal and can occur at any time without warning.

“Legally built homes can now be demolished as a result of a unilateral Israeli army decree,” said Pacheco, adding that the demolitions underway in the West Bank are “part of the racist anti-Palestinian policy of the Israeli occupation in that it attempts to remove the Arab population from large areas of the West Bank in order to expand Jewish settlements.”

Pacheco points out that under the Oslo agreement the Palestinians agreed to defer the status of Jerusalem in exchange for an Israeli commitment to preserve the territorial integrity of the West Bank and Gaza.

“Two years later, Palestinians watch this promise unraveling before their eyes as the Israelis continue to expand the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and undermine what is left of the area’s territorial integrity.”

SIDEBAR

Israeli Death Squads Still Active in West Bank

Mohamad Abad al-Aziz Hilu, 57 years old and the father of 10 children, was murdered last month by an Israeli undercover squad known as Mistaraviman elite, dangerous, trigger-happy, secret group of soldiers who dress like Palestinians, infiltrate their towns and kill people with almost total impunity.When Mr. Hilu and several other villagers discovered the squad in their village of Hizme, the three undercover agents fired at the men, wounding four of them in the legs, including Mr. Hilu, who they then grabbed and forced to the ground. One soldier sat on the back of Hilu’s neck while another beat him on the head with a radio transmitter, according to testimony. Hilu was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.Later, an Israeli army spokesperson announced that Hilu had been shot and killed “by accident.” Yossi Shoval, a spokesperson at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, said “the cause of death can only be known after an autopsy; however, the physicians consider it very unlikely that he [Hilu] died from a wound to his knee.” The IDF contend the family opposed an autopsy. Hizme, a small West Bank village near Jerusalem, is entirely surrounded by Jewish settlements and has a newly built bypass road running right through the middle of it.Now Mr. Hizla’s widow finds herself not only alone with 10 children, but also facing house demolition orders. Israeli authorities plan to tear down her shack-like home and run her off the land where she and her children tend their sheep, their only source of income.She explained that demolition orders were issued last year when the house was declared illegal and a $7,000 fine was imposed on the family. Five of the Hizla family’s neighbors are in the same situationfacing demolition. In the same area, seven houses and a mosque were demolished last year.As they worry about the pending demolitions, people in Hizme are asking why Israeli undercover death squads are roaming around their village and nearby areas.According to Israeli press reports, 159 Palestinians have been killed by Mistaravim squads, 30 since the signing of the Oslo agreements. Rumors circulate persistently about how Mistaravim soldiers are sent out on assassination missions. Their orders are to carry out death sentences imposed by Israeli authorities in the absence of trials. And these death squads make mistakes. As punishment for one such mistake in which they killed the wrong Palestinian at a checkpoint last year, it was widely reported recently that several officers were fined less than one penny. Not surprisingly, with such high-level protection these death squads have become elite units, with a waiting list of young applicants for every vacancy that opens up. —M.M.