Fayha’ Shalash
The Electronic Intifada / August 9, 2024
Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank is escalating.
Since 7 October, Israel has demolished just under 400 homes in the West Bank, leading to the displacement of 2,368 people, including 1,047 children.
Up until August this year alone, Israel has already demolished or forced the demolition of a total of 923 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, leading to the displacement of 1,906 people.
By way of comparison, in all of 2022, Israel demolished or forced the demolition of 954 Palestinian buildings or structures and the displacement of 1,032 people.
In the last week of June, the Israeli military demolished or forced the demolition of eight homes in different areas of the West Bank, three in the Hebron area, five in the Jericho area and one in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel claims the buildings were erected without permit, but Palestinians charge Israel with wanting to move them off the land in order to replace them with settlements.
Twice in 2024, Israel has announced land confiscations in the West Bank of record size in order to expand and build settlements that the International Court of Justice is clear are illegal and must be removed.
Dream house
Samir Abu Shakra, 51, from Bethlehem began building a new home in 2019 in the Marah Mualla area south of Bethlehem.
His current home belonged to his late parents, he told The Electronic Intifada. But the aged building is too small now for his own family of eight and is infested with insects.
So he saved up over many years working in a marble factory and began construction on a new house.
However in April, when the house was nearly ready, he received a demolition order from the Israel army.
“I was preparing to live there this summer with my family, but our dreams were shattered and gone with the wind.”
He immediately hired lawyers to stop the demolition, but his case was rejected by an Israeli court.
On 25 June, Israeli bulldozers arrived at nine in the morning, surrounded Abu Shakra’s house and then demolished it.
Abu Shakra, who is now unemployed due to the economic downturn in the West Bank, estimates he has spent over $190,000 in total to build the house and for lawyers’ fees.
“Now I will have to rent any house that I and my family can afford because life is unbearable in this house. Every day, my children cry over the house that was demolished because they had prepared their belongings to move into it.”
Just to demolish
On 18 July, the Israeli government issued a decree that it would take over civil administration of the so-called Area B of the West Bank, including planning and construction responsibilities.
Area B constitutes just over 20 percent of the West Bank and had previously, as per the 1990s Oslo agreements, come under Palestinian Authority civilian control though it was always under Israeli security control.
The move is widely understood to come after pressure from the Israeli settlement movement, which can now expand into Area B.
It also means, as in Area C, Palestinians will have to apply to the Israeli authorities for building permits that are rarely issued.
As a consequence, demolitions in those areas are likely now to dramatically increase.
And obtaining construction permits are no guarantee that homes won’t get demolished.
Tamer Abu Aisha’s house in the Hebron area had received a construction license and had been inhabited for 11 years.
That didn’t stop the Israeli military from evicting him, his wife and his six children and destroying the building.
Aisha’s brother, Nader, said Tamer, a goldsmith, had shown his license to the commanding officer on the ground when the bulldozers turned up, but the soldier had handed him the paper back.
“This is a nice paper, keep it,” he was told. Then bulldozers were ordered to demolish the house.
“It’s a war against all Palestinians,” Nader said. “They want us to leave our land, they demolish our houses and confiscate our lands so that they can build settlements.”
Nader told The Electronic Intifada that the officer in charge of the demolition had also said the military was planning to demolish a further 20 other homes in the same area, Farsh al-Hawa, west of Hebron.
“My brother’s house wasn’t the first and won’t be the last. Many houses will be demolished without any reason while the settlers’ houses are built without any restrictions even though they are against international law.”
‘Organized gang’
According to Raed Muqadi, a researcher at the Land Research Center, a Jerusalem-based rights group that seeks to highlight breaches of international law in the dispersal and use of land and natural resources in the occupied territories, there is an “organized gang” of settlers monitoring Palestinian construction in the West Bank and conveying all details to the Israeli Civil Administration.
Regavim is a “public movement” affiliated with the Israeli government that monitors land use throughout what it calls the “land of Israel,” in which it includes the occupied West Bank. Muqadi said it includes settlers whose job is to report all Palestinian construction efforts in Area C to the Israeli Civil Administration.
“We have noticed lately a significant escalation in demolitions for two reasons,” Muqadi told The Electronic Intifada.
“The first is the Israeli government’s implementation of the extremist settler organizations’ agenda of escalating settlement construction in the West Bank. The second is that Israel took advantage of the PA’s inability to legally follow up on demolition orders due to the legal department’s workload since the aggression on the Gaza Strip last October.”
As for Area B, houses have already been demolished “several times” near Ramallah and Jenin, Muqadi said.
To create legal pretexts for demolitions, Israeli authorities sometimes claim buildings are located too close to Israeli security zones, often around illegal settlements.
“An example of this is what happened in the village of Deir Qadis, west of Ramallah, where two houses overlooking the Modi’in settlement were demolished, even though they are in Area B and have a license,” Muqadi said.
With Israel announcing the confiscation of large tracts of land, and the Israeli government transferring powers over parts of occupied territory to civilian control, rather than military control, in effect embarking on a de jure process of annexation, home demolitions are likely to escalate in the coming months.
Fayha’ Shalash is a journalist based in the occupied West Bank
