The Abu Omar family home prior to demolition, rebuilt by ICAHD in July 2011

As has become routine, I alerted our activists, plus journalists and foreign diplomats, and we rushed out to Anata. We knew we could not save the homes, but we could resist; stand in solidarity with the families, soaked, with their belongings, in the rain; document what was happening and broadcast this latest war crime to the world. It was another of those thousands of attacks on Palestinians that occur daily but never reach the newspapers – probably because there are so many and they are so routine by now that they are not, in fact, “news.”

By the time we reached Salim’s house – which we rebuilt in 2003 and have called Beit Arabiya ever since, the “house of Arabiya,” home to Salim’s wife and mother of their seven children – it was gone. Salim himself was afraid to go down the hill to see it because of the soldiers, but I ran down. Even in the dark and rain I could see the ruins of the home, and the family’s belongings that had been thrown out. But I couldn’t tarry. The bulldozers had moved up the hill and were in the process of demolishing a Jahalin Bedouin enclave there – part of the Jahalin tribe that was being removed and relocated on top of the Jerusalem garbage dump near Abu Dis.

ICAHD volunteers standing in front of the rebuilt home, July 2011

Our activists were already there, scuffling with the army and trying to reach the bulldozer to hamper its destruction. The soldiers, claiming that this was a “closed military area” but unable to produce any proper military order, attacked the activists physically and verbally. Itay Epshtain, ICAHD’s Co-Director, was hit with a gun and thrown to the ground. All the while, the soldiers cursed at “the anarchists and leftists.” One yelled at Rabbi Arik Aschermann from Rabbis For Human Rights to take of his skullcap because “he was a disgrace to Judaism.” But it was the women who received the most violent verbal abuse, in addition to physical. “May the Arabs here rape you!” one soldier yelled at an activist.

In the end, Beit Arabiya, six Jahalin homes and most of their animal pens were demolished before the army left. The bulldozer, protected by dozens of troops, belonged to a commercial contractor who was paid well for the demolitions by the Civil Administration, Israel’s military government in the West Bank that uses the word “civil” to downplay its military connections, and to make it appear that demolitions of “illegal” Palestinian homes are simply part of “proper administration.”

After staying with the families and promising to rebuild, we finally left to send out press releases; put out information on our website and social media; and begin mobilizing activists abroad and, through them, governments and UN bodies.

The Abu Omar family home after demolition, January 24, 2012

Only when we returned early in the morning did we learn that yet another house had been demolished: that of theAbu Omar family, a family of 17 people who lived in a home that had been demolished last year, which ICAHD had rebuilt in our 2011 summer rebuilding camp. We had thought the bulldozer and soldiers had left for the Border Police base on the hill opposite Beit Arabiya and the Jahalin, but in fact they had only gone around Anata. At 3:30 a.m. they pounced on the Abu Omar family, forced them out of their home, removed their belongings and demolished it. The family was so dazed by the sudden violence, terror, confusion and need to protect the terrified children that they hadn’t even thought of phoning us.

The IDF attack on three sites that for years have been identified with ICAHD’s resistance activities was clearly an official, government-sponsored, violent Price Tag assault on Palestinians in order to “send a message” to ICAHD. Out of the tens of thousands of demolition orders outstanding in the Occupied Territory, they chose these three. In fact, the “message” had already been delivered. Already at the second demolition of Beit Arabiya in 1999, Micha Yakhin, the Civil Administration official responsible for overseeing the demolitions in that part of the West Bank, told me: “We will demolish every home you rebuild.”

ICAHD has rebuilt 185 demolished Palestinian homes in the past 15 years, all as acts of political resistance -not humanitarian gestures – all funded by donations. We will rebuild the homes demolished Monday night as well. The coming together of Palestinian families and community members, Israeli activists and international peace-makers to rebuild homes is one of the most significant forms of resistance, solidarity and mobilization. But Israel demolished 200 homes last year alone in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, of more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territory since 1967. Resistance cannot keep pace with the massive Price Tag assault that is the Israeli Occupation.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

This article was originally published in +972 blog.

As its name suggests, Beit Arabiya belongs to Arabiya Shawamreh, her husband Salim, and their seven children — a Palestinian family whose home has been demolished four times by the Israeli authorities and rebuilt each time by ICAHD’s Palestinian, Israeli, and international peace activists before being demolished again last night.

At around 11p.m. Monday, a bulldozer accompanied by a contingent of heavily armed Israeli soldiers appeared on the Anata hills to promptly demolish Beit Arabiya, along with residential and agricultural structures in the nearby Jahalin Bedouin compound. Three family homes were demolished along with numerous animal pens; 20 people including young children were displaced, left exposed to the harsh desert environment. While standing in solidarity with Palestinians, ICAHD staff and activists were repeatedly threatened by Israeli soldiers. ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain was beaten and sustained minor injuries.

Beit Arabiya was issued a demolition order by Israeli authorities back in 1994, following Israel’s refusal to grant a building permit. It has since been demolished four times and rebuilt by ICAHD activists four times. Last night’s fifth demolition came following a reissue of the demolition order last Thursday. ICAHD Director Dr. Jeff Halper, standing astride the ruins, vowed to support Salim and Arabiya in rebuilding their home. “We shall rebuild, we must rebuild as an act of political defiance of the occupation and protracted oppression of Palestinians,” said Halper.

Beit Arabiya has become a symbol of resistance to the Judaization of the Occupied West Bank and Israeli demolition policy. “ICAHD is as determined as always to rebuild [Beit Arabiya] and [persevere] in its struggle to bring about justice and peace,” added Halper.
Salim and Arabiya, along with their neighbors and friends, stood last night and watched as this tragedy unfolded once again. Arabiya and Salim have dedicated their home as a center for peace in memory of Rachel Corrie and Nuha Sweidan, two women (an American and a Palestinian) who died resisting home demolitions in Gaza. In the past decade ICAHD has hosted numerous visitors at Beit Arabiya and based its annual rebuilding camp at the house, rebuilding 185 demolished Palestinian homes.

Earlier this month, ICAHD extended an invitation to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to visit Beit Arabiya during her country visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory scheduled for later in the month. “It is our hope that while we cannot extend the same hospitality to the Special Raportueor, Prof. Raquel Rolnik will visit the ruins of Beit Arabiya and report on the utter cruelty and illegality of Israeli policies and practices, and that members of the international community will follow in her footsteps,” said ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain.

For more information and coordination of visits to Beit Arabiya, please contact Itay Epshtain at itay@icahd.org or +972-54-2623306

Slider Photo Credit: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/MCC

The construction of the Abu Omar family home, long waited since the 2005 demolition by Israel, was completed on  July 24th 2011, exactly six months ago. The keys to the home were handed over to the family in a celebratory dedication ceremony marking the end of a two week rebuild. Volunteers were joined by members of the larger Anata community, civil society activists and Palestinian Authority high ranking officials, as family members began life in their rebuilt home. ICAHD staff visited with the family shortly after the demolition of their home took place to find them somber, traumatized, and grief stricken. ICAHD has vowed to support the family in rebuilding their home, once more. This is the second ICAHD rebuilt home demolished within 24 hours, in what seems like a concerted, yet futile, effort to discourage ICAHD from rebuilding demolished Palestinian homes.

The Abu Omar family home, rebuilt by ICAHD in 2011

ICAHD Summer Camp volunteers outside the newly rebuilt home in July, 2011

The remains of the Abu Omar family home, January 24, 2012

All recorded incidents have been verified and documented by partners in the Displacement Working Group (an inter-agency group under the auspices of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Protection Cluster, and chaired by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. the DWG includes over one hundred members, such as UN agencies, international and local Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, and donors. ICAHD has been an active member of the group ever since it was established in 2008).

Click here to download the article.

For more information, visit the ICAHD website.

The destructive action left twenty people homeless, including six children. Since 1967 around 2,000 homes have been demolished in East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). The Israeli authorities demolished more than 670 East Jerusalem homes between 2000 and 2008. The number of outstanding demolition orders for East Jerusalem is estimated at up to 20,000.

ICAHD estimates that about 25,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories were demolished between 1967 and 2010.

(reposted from Electronic Intifada)

ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain and ICAHD UK Director Linda Ramsden met with the Special Rapporteur staff in Geneva earlier this month, to ask of the Rapporteur to convey his grave concern of imminent displacement, and deliver the recent publication “Nowhere Left to Go: Arab al-Jahalin Bedouin Ethnic Displacement.”

Please visit the ICAHD website for more information.

ICAHD’s Jeff Halper Speaking to the Tribunal

In the case of the Israel’s 44-year Occupation, such an initiative is certainly called for. Despite the Palestinians’ acceptance of the two-state solution in 1988 and the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, in which the Arab League unanimously agreed to make peace with Israel and integrate it into the region, Israel refuses to end its settlement building or the construction of other massive, irreversible “facts on the ground,” such as a web of Israeli-only highways linking the settlements to Israel proper; the construction of a “separation barrier” twice as high as the Berlin Wall and five times longer, snaking deep into Palestinian territory; and the annexation of East Jerusalem.

Mohammad Khatib, a Palestinian from Bil’in, speaking to the Tribunal

Indeed, it is likely that Israel’s facts on the ground have eliminated the two-state solution. Israel, however, which considers the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” – an integral part of its territory – will not even contemplate a one-state solution. It is the permanent confining of the Palestinian population to tiny enclaves in the Occupied Territory under institutionalized Israeli domination and control that leads to the charge that Israel has constructed an apartheid regime. And since, as many expert witnesses testified before the Tribunal, the human and national rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel are also limited by law, regulations, and a hostile political and social climate, the reality of apartheid extends inside Israel itself.

The “crime of apartheid” is defined in international law as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them” – “racial group” being extended to “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, national, or ethnic origin.” The Tribunal took the four Articles of the Convention Against the Crime of Apartheid and invited expert witnesses to systematically address them. (The Israeli government was invited to submit testimony as well but did not deign to even acknowledge the offer.)

The two days of testimony highlighted the systematic oppression of the Palestinians. Some of the details – of restrictions on life and movement in the Jordan Valley, for instance, or the extent of Israel’s security services in vetting teachers and principals in Arab public schools inside Israel – surprised and shocked even witnesses who had worked for years in the field. My own testimony on house demolitions revealed that three times more homes are demolished inside Israel (all of Arab citizens, of course) than in the Occupied Territory.

In the end, the jury found ample grounds to conclude that “Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalized regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law…. The Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the occupied Palestinian territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid. Palestinian citizens of Israel, while entitled to vote, are not part of the Jewish nation as defined by Israeli law and are therefore excluded from the benefits of Jewish nationality and subject to systematic discrimination across the broad spectrum of recognized human rights. Irrespective of such differences, the Tribunal concludes that Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid.” The Russell Tribunal calls on all the relevant actors – the state of Israel, the international community, and civil society itself – to end apartheid in Israel/Palestine and pave the way for a just peace between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

Read the findings:

• Executive summary  
• Full findings

Villagers sort through rubble after the demolition of a Bedouin community near Jerusalem.

The Palestinian-Bedouin communities living in the hills to the east of Jerusalem are at an exceedingly growing risk of forced ethnic displacement. The communities have been informed by the Israeli authorities that they have no option but to leave the area, as part of a larger plan (to begin as early as January 2012) to relocate Bedouin communities living in Area C (Jerusalem periphery, Jordan Valley, and south Hebron Hills), where Israel retains control over security as well as planning and zoning.

The Bedouin homes are currently located in an area that holds strategic significance for further expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. This includes the E1 plan, which foresees the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim, an illegal Israeli settlement, and its linkage to Judaized East Jerusalem and Jordan Valley settlements. If implemented, these plans, along with Barrier construction in the area, risk preventing Palestinian growth and development and disrupting the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state. The forced displacement of the Bedouin would also be detrimental to their semi-nomadic way of life. As available land shrinks, Bedouin refugees are faced with nowhere to go.

Meanwhile, the Arab al-Jahalin Bedouin are seeking ways to improve their general living conditions. Communities living in the area have appealed to local and international organizations to support projects that will contribute to improving their conditions, projects designed help the Bedouin to build sustainable livelihoods and resist forced ethnic displacement and the Israeli Occupation.

A copy of the complete publication is available here.

Fifteen army jeeps and a bulldozer showed up at the rural community, in the hills east of Jerusalem, and demolished five family homes, displacing 71 people, including some 60 children. ICAHD staff arrived at the community a few short hours after the demolition to find family members mourning the loss of their homes and property. Abu Khamis, a Khan al-Ahmar community activist, told ICAHD staff: “We will not be forced off our land; if Israel demolishes, we will rebuild.”

The Palestinian-Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar (Jerusalem periphery) is fighting for survival. The 180-strong community faces the threat of imminent displacement if the Israeli authorities demolish their homes and school as planned. This may well destroy the community, one of 20 in the area, who have become victims of creeping settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing.

The land the community lives on has been slated for the expansion of settlements in the Ma’ale Adumim municipal area, in the Jerusalem periphery, despite the community’s decades’ long presence. Israeli authorities see Khan al-Ahmar and the other Palestinian-Bedouin communities in the area, more than 2,300 people in all, as a hindrance to the planned expansion of Ma’ale Adumim, Kfar Adumim, and other surrounding illegal settlements, and to the construction of the West Bank wall which would de facto annex this strategically significant area to Israel, rendering a Palestinian state unviable.

The Khan al-Ahmar Jahalin School is the only school to provide primary education to children of the Arab al-Jahalin Bedouin tribe. Built in 2009 by Italian NGO Vento Di Terra (Wind of Earth) and local NGOs, the eco-friendly school, providing schooling for over 70 students, is slated for demolition.

If implemented, the Israeli development plans would be the culmination of years of settlement expansion at the expense of the Palestinian-Bedouin communities. Since 1991, when large parts of the communities’ living areas were integrated into the expanded boundaries of Ma’ale Adumim, Israeli policies have increased the pressure on the communities to leave their homes.

The recent house demolitions are part of an ongoing policy designed to forcefully transfer Bedouin of the Jerusalem periphery, as highlighted in the ICAHD publication Nowhere Left to Go: Arab al-Jahalin Bedouin Ethnic Displacement.

House demolitions, evictions, and property confiscations, exacerbated by settler harassment and the economic effects of movement restrictions, have left these communities struggling to make ends meet and living in fear.

ICAHD calls for an immediate end to the occupation of Palestinian Territory and to demolitions of Palestinian houses, schools, and infrastructure, which cause displacement and dispossession.

ICAHD calls for the transfer of powers and responsibilities related to the sphere of planning and zoning in the West Bank, including area C, to Palestinian jurisdiction in accordance with international law and bi-lateral agreements, so as to allow for a nondiscriminatory planning system to include community participation in all levels of the planning process.

ICAHD calls for a safe return of all families forcibly displaced to their homes and compensation for any harm they have suffered, including the destruction of land, homes, and property.