Property demolition

On our first weekend in Jayyous, our EA team house was visited by Abdul Kareem Saadi, who is Coordinator for B’tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, in our area. At his invitation, my fellow EA, Patricia, and I joined him in visiting and interviewing the heads of two families who have received orders for the demolition of structures on their property.

Demolition orders are not unusual here, but the effect they have on the Palestinian population is may not be widely known among Americans. A very brief bit of history…

The 1967 War between Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, also commonly referred to as “the Six-Day War,” left Israel the occupying power in the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the territory known as the West Bank (of the Jordan River) – the latter territory that had been annexed to Jordan following the declaration of the independent State of Israel in 1948. The northern West Bank town of Jayyous, where our EA team is placed, exists in territory that has been occupied for over 40 years. Its residents are not citizens of Israel, and they are subject to Israeli military control. The 1993 Oslo Accords provided for a Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern the internal affairs of the West Bank and Gaza for a presumed transitional period, and divided the West Bank into three areas:
· In Area A (which includes the major West Bank towns), the Palestinian Authority has control over both civil and security affairs
· Iin Area B (which includes the smaller towns and villages), the PA has civil control, security is in the hands of the Israelis
· In Area C (which includes 60% of the land of the West Bank), the Israelis retain full civil and security control.

In none of these areas do the Palestinians control their own borders. Area C includes all Israeli settlements (more about that to come), and lands declared by the Israeli government to be “security zones” or “closed military zones.” Area C territory frequently runs around and between places designated A or B, meaning that people traveling from one place to another are subject to military control, checkpoints, permits, designated roads and other travel restrictions even to get to work, go shopping, go to school, or (and a lot more about this to come) even to reach and work their own farmland. And, we have discovered, the Area C boundaries are not always clear to those who live or work in and around them.

Patricia and I joined Abdul Khareem on visits to Abdul Rohman Mohammed Saleem and his son, and Naeef Abdul Khaladi Chalan along with some family members and a friend. They both live in the town of Azzun, a farming area not far from Jayyous, where we live. Both had built structures on their property within the past three years; the Israelis now claim that the property is located in Area C, thus no new Palestinian structures may be built and these must be demolished. Both received summonses on July 13, ordering them to the civil administration headquarters on August 6, when they received demolition orders for their buildings. They were given August 20 as a date for appeals, involving a lawyer’s services and documentation that includes proof that they own the land, a certification by the Azzun municipality, a survey report by an Israeli engineer, among other papers. (Mr. Saleem, at Mr. Abdul Kareem’s request, brought out his file of paperwork, dating from the July 13 summons – it was fatter than my Master’s thesis.)

Abdul Rohman Mohammed Saleem, right, and his son demonstrate use of new feeding and watering equipment in their chicken barn, now slated for demolition. Photo by Patricia Carswell

Abdul Rohman Mohammed Saleem, married and the father of eight children, was formerly a nurse, now is a schoolteacher in Azzun. In 2000, he bought a piece of property from another Palestinian, and two or three years ago completed a storage shed on the land. Over two years, he saved from his teaching salary approximately NIS100,000 (New Israeli Shekels), the equivalent of about $25,000 US-- a substantial sum here, but an investment in his family’s future security -- to construct a 400-square meter housing-feeding-watering-sales facility with the capacity for raising 3,000 chicks. He finished construction last June. He purchased, raised and sold his first crop of chicks.

Then came the summons, with the order to demolish both the storage shed and the new chicken barn. Reasons for such orders are not always given here, but, in this case, according to Abdul Kareem, Mr. Saleem has been told that his land is now designated Area C, thus both security and civil administration are Israel’s, meaning that no new Palestinian construction is permitted. As we sat in a circle in Mr. Saleem’s empty barn, he pointed toward the storage shed and said, “I built that two or three years ago, and nobody said anything to me. And now….” He looked around his barn, his new enterprise, his investment, shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

Top, Naeef Abdul Khaladi Chalan stands in front of his carob tree. Bottom, the shed in question. Photos by Patricia Carswell

Naeef Abdul Khaladi Chalan, 55-year-old father of four, owns and operates a stone quarry in Azzun. Five years ago, he bought two dunums of land (1 dunum = slightly more than ¼ acre) across the road from his quarry. He and his family planted a small vegetable garden and built a tiny shed that is used for storage and also furnished with bunk beds and a few supplies for open air cooking. As we sat under his carob tree (from which he picked and invited us to taste the pods of fresh carob) he spoke about his children and grandchildren playing on the property, and how he and his wife sat there to enjoy the cool of the evening. The tiny shed is the object of the demolition order.

Both men went to the civil administration, accompanied by Abdul Kareem, on August 20. Their appeals were postponed.

Perhaps these two brief stories do not sound shocking as isolated incidents. After all, construction requires construction permits, doesn’t it? – which can be a laborious process, as anyone who’s ever built an addition to a home well knows.

But there is a reason why a human rights worker is interviewing these families and recording this information. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, construction by Palestinians is a matter for Israeli control, and the Israeli military have the authority to determine how property here, including private property, is used. These two stories are examples of thousands of cases where people have been forced to give up structures on their own property, in many cases actual homes in which they and their families may have lived for years. Acquiring permits in the first place is a lengthy, complex and costly process, and there is no guarantee that going through it will result in either permission to build or protection from future demolition. The process has less to do with things like building codes or zoning, and everything to do with control of the population.
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I was sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church World Service, to participate in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Common Board of Global Ministries, the UCC or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Coordination (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.