Understanding home demolitions in Yatma

The policy of demolishing Palestinian homes within the West Bank appears to be an example of Israel establishing a bargaining position when dealing with the international pressure to stop illegal settlement building. By arbitrarily commencing a policy of home demolitions, the Israeli government has given itself bargaining power by which it can trade off some other concession in return for stopping its home demolitions. This may include protecting some of the illegal Israeli settlements.

All Palestinian construction in Israeli controlled ‘area c’ must be approved  by Israeli authorities. In practise permission is rarely given. This means that anything built in these areas is subject to arbitrary removal at any time, even without demolition orders. Demolition orders have been in effect for many homes in Yatma for time, but haven’t been acted on since a few demolition orders were carried out several years ago. Recently a radical settler group Regavim has been pressuring the government to carry them out.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is the primary organisation fighting home demolitions, and a good explanation of the issue can be found on their web site.

Pending demolition orders keep Palestinian communities in a state of anxiety, because of the uncertainty about when the orders will be enforced, with the conflict and displacement that results.

Israel seizes more land from Palestinian villagers

Israel is seizing 189 dunums of Palestinian land near Qaryut. Qaryut is south of Nablus, and near Yatma. A dunum is 1,000 square metres, so the seizure would be just shy of 50 acres, not a small amount of land in a tiny country.

It isn’t certain what the land will be used for, but it will become unavailable to the villagers and will be used by nearby settlers or the occupation army. No compensation is likely to be paid unless villagers can prove ownership of the land, which is very difficult due to the Palestinian system of ownership and the recent history of Palestine.

It’s not the first time that the Israelis have seized land. Last time it was 900 dunums to add to Route 60, a road linking illegal Israeli settlements. Route 60 is off limits to Palestinians and indeed cuts them off from part of their lands. According to the mayor of Qaryut, the cut off land is now used by Israeli settlers.

Interview with Jeff Halper, of the International Campaign Against House Demolitions

Click here to view a video discussion with Jeff Halper, of ICAHD, International Campaign Against House Demolitions.