Amnesty International report: Palestinian homes demolished without warning

Got this off the AI wires this morning... IDF demolition crews destroyed large parts of rural villages in the Jordan Valley, where exists some of the most fertile (and therefore most coveted) land in Israel/Palestine.  While last week's house demolition in Bethlehem was a targeted assault on the home and family of a member of Islamic Jihad, these home demolitions are part of the strategic expulsion by Israel of Palestinians from their lands in the Jordan Valley.  The report states that at least 34 people, including 26 children, are homeless in the villages of Hadidya and Furush Beit Dajan, and 9 are homeless after the destruction of their farm in Jiftlik.


11 March 2008

The Israeli army demolished more homes in Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning. The homes of Palestinian families in the villages of Hadidiya, Jiftlik and Furush Beit Dajan, in the Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank, were demolished.

Amnesty International's researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories witnessed the demolitions. Donatella Rovera described the scene:

"In all the places, most of the people are children. These homes mostly have three generations – the grandparents, parents and children. In Hadidiya, there were four families, in Furush Beit Dajan, five families.

"All of the people have had homes demolished before, but this time they had no warning. The people were very, very upset. They were running to get their things out of their homes, but the bulldozer just went on demolishing."

Soldiers of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) arrived early in the morning in jeeps accompanied by a bulldozer and then demolished the buildings where the four families were living. The destroyed properties belonged to Mohammed Fahed Bani Odeh, Mohammed Ali Shaikh Bani Odeh, Ali Shaikh Musleh Bani Odeh and Omar 'Arif Mohammed Bisharat and their families – at least 34 people, including some 26 children.  

After destroying these homes, the IDF moved on to destroy homes in Jiftlik and Furush Beit Dajan, where homes have previously been demolished in recent months.

"In Jiftlik, they are destroying a farm – it is one of the rare farms here and there is otherwise not much livelihood for the people. They first bulldozed the vegetable area a couple of months ago; then they bulldozed the home today," said Donatella Rovera, who also witnessed this demolition.

"The family of Mahmud Mat'ab Da'ish, his wife and seven children were previously given a tent by the Red Cross and they started planting vegetables again. Today, the army has been bulldozing the green plants.

"In all three locations the soldiers haven't allowed us to get near, I don't even know if they have a military order to destroy everything  - we asked them but they didn't show us anything."

The families in Hadidiya have lived in the same area for generations, herding sheep and goats and cultivating land on the Jordan hills. They have come under increasing pressure from the Israeli army to leave the area. The same four families had their homes destroyed in February this year and other homes were demolished several times by the Israeli army in 2007.

The demolitions are part of intensified efforts by the Israeli army to expel Palestinians from the area of the Jordan Valley. Much of the Jordan Valley, including the Hadidiya area, has been designated by the Israeli authorities as a "closed military area" and the army has been exerting increased pressure on local Palestinian villagers to force them to out of the area.

For years, the Israeli authorities have pursued a policy of discriminatory house demolition, on the one hand allowing scores of Israeli settlements to be built on occupied Palestinian land, in breach of international law, while simultaneously confiscating Palestinian lands, refusing building permits for Palestinians and destroying their homes. The land vacated has often been used to build illegal Israeli settlements. International law forbids occupying powers from settling their own citizens in the territories they occupy.

The demolitions come one day after the Israeli government came under international criticism for approving the construction of hundreds of new houses for Israelis in the Givat Ze'ev settlement north of Jerusalem. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the government to "halt settlement expansion" in the West Bank. Javier Solana, the European Union (EU)'s foreign policy chief, said the EU opposed the move to expand the settlement.

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Israeli army destroys Palestinian homes (News, 14 February 2008)

shooting in Jerusalem

You may have heard about the shooting in Jerusalem last night.

I was in a cafe in Bethlehem when it happened -- some people were down from Jerusalem and one of them got a phone call to give them a heads-up about the situation, in case the checkpoints were shut down or something.  The first thing we heard was that it was a suicide bombing, but then someone else called and said it was a shooting, which isn't much better, but it is a different sort of deal.

The yeshiva where the shooting took place is famous as the "backbone of the settler movement", apparently, so it probably wasn't a random choice.

There's an article on the IHT here.  Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, is quoted as saying, "tonight's massacre in Jerusalem is a defining moment... the same warped and extremist ideology behind tonight's massacre is also behind the daily rocket barrages in the south."  Which is both worrying (defining moment?) and I think incorrect.  The daily rocket barrages from Gaza are probably more because Gaza is the largest open-air prison in the world, where water is scarce or polluted, there is no fuel or electricity, and many live in abject misery because of the closure policies of the Israeli government toward them.   Go figure, right?  A gunman (not a suicide bomber) attacking a yeshiva that's the religious "backbone of the settler movement" would make more sense to come in response to the continuing house demolitions in the West Bank and the continuing expansion of West Bank settlements (the E1 plan, in particular, which is going to annex large parts of Arab East Jerusalem) even though they're unequivocally illegal under international law, and prime ministers since I don't know when have all said, "yeah, yeah, we'll totally stop building settlements...".  The spark that set this guy off might have been the over 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including a number of children, who were killed in Gaza by Israel since last week (it's set off a number of demonstrations, certainly), but to lump together all the things that people do for a variety of reasons under the blanket term of "terrorism" only serves to justify the blunt and collective punishment that Israel continues to perpetrate with complete impunity against the Palestinian population.

Then, in Bethlehem last night, the Israeli troops rolled in and destroyed a house in the neighbourhood between my house and where I work, which is only a 10-minute walk.  Apparently they were looking for a wanted Islamic Jihadist, but he wasn't there, so they destroyed his house and took his nephew to an undisclosed location, where he may remain for months in "administrative detention", without anyone knowing where he is, and probably without being charged with anything.  A co-worker who lives near to the house that was demolished says that the last Israeli troops left around 6:30 this morning.

So that's what's going on.  I'm safe, and I don't know anyone who died, but things keep getting worse here.

what to do about Gaza?

Good article in the IHT from yesterday.


Shlomo Brom, a retired general at the Institute for National Security Studies, says that none of the military options is especially attractive. To stop rockets, as the army learned in Lebanon, Israel must occupy the launching zones.

But the range of the rockets is improving.

"That means, for all practical purposes, occupying most of the Gaza Strip," he said, "and no one in Israel other than the fringe right has the appetite to reoccupy the Gaza Strip." Hamas has weapons and built fortifications, "and there are thousands of terrorists willing to fight you." The Israeli forces would win easily, Brom said, "but it takes a long time, and for what? To regain rule over 1.5 million Palestinians? What's the exit strategy?"

breaking news

Ma'an news agency is reporting that the Israelis have apprehended the Islamic Jihad supporter/operative they were looking for.  He actually was at home.  It's still unknown whether or not they'll demolish his family's house, but maybe the Israelis will leave town soon and we can go home.

A co-worker reported to me that that's what Ma'an was reporting -- the article is probably only in Arabic.

Here's the story about the 17-year-old in Ma'an, and in Ha'aretz.

further madness

So I'm stuck in work and I can't go home because the Israeli army is occupying Bethlehem.

We think that the Israelis used the passing of George Habash and the as an excuse to go in and get a wanted Islamic Jihad member, who has been on the run for years.  A co-worker says that the Israelis might have gotten a tip that he was at his family home here in Bethlehem, which may or may not be true.  Anyway, the folks in the neighbourhood say that he definitely isn't there now, but the Israelis have the bulldozer poised to demolish the home, and apparently they're already at work on destroying their front fence and gate, and apparently the guy's 70-year-old paralytic father is inside and obviously can't get out.

Also, the Israelis have closed off most of the major streets in the central Bethlehem area south of and including Paul VI Street, so my co-worker and her sister can't go to their home, where their elderly mother is home alone surrounded by Israeli soldiers.  I myself probably can't go home, because the Israelis have occupied the tallest building in the area and I'd have to pass by it on my way, unless I decided to go the long way backwards around Bethlehem to get to my house.

A 17-year-old was shot and killed earlier today, around 5pm, and another young man was shot in the foot.  They've probably got snipers stationed at windows and on rooftops to enforce the security lockdown, so maybe I'll stay here for the night?

At least we've got a guest house.

George Habash dies, Israel invades Bethlehem

George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a close friend of Yasser Arafat, and basically the head of the leftist movement in Palestine, died in exile in Jordan last night from heart failure.  Funerals and memorials are being staged all over Palestine, and especially in Beit Jala, where the leftist movement is very strong.

So around 2:30 today, while I was walking back from picking a few things up at my house, I saw three or four armoured Israeli jeeps roll into town, with a large personnel carrier.  I asked my friend Mike (a shopkeeper in Madbasseh Square) what was going on -- he was closing the metal shutters on his store because he was concerned that local kids would be throwing rocks at the jeeps.  I got inside the ICB and told the guys at the reception desk what I'd seen, and one of them went off to investigate.

For the last hour and a half, there have been spurts of shooting and explosions, mostly of sound bombs, but a few real ones too.  The Israelis are moving around the Bethlehem neighbourhoods -- doing what, I'm not sure.  The kids in the street are out in full force to investigate.  "Bullets, cool, let's go see!" is what my office mate says they were saying.  She also says she thinks the Israelis inside the tanks are more scared than the kids running in the streets -- I guess the kids have been through this before.

yep.

"The issue turned into a verbal spat between Egypt and Israel when Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel gradually wants to relinquish responsibility for Gaza, now that the territory's border with Egypt had been blown open.

"It was a position echoed by other Israeli officials, who said the border breach could pave the way for increasingly disconnecting from the territory. However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland, said he didn't want to 'go too far in my interpretation of this.'"

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/25/news/Israel-Palestinians.php