Area C: Systematized House Demolition, Destruction and Displacement

Israeli violations remain systematic throughout the occupied part of Palestine known as “Area C.”

Area C constitutes more than 61% of land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and is inhabited by some 18% of the Palestinian population [NSU].

As designated under the Oslo Accords, Areas A include major Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip where the Palestinian Authority assumes jurisdiction, while subject to occasional siege. Areas B consist of other Palestinian-populated regions of the West Bank, including some small towns and villages with Palestinian administrative jurisdiction controlled by Israel security forces. Area C covers all remaining territory in the West Bank and is the only part of the Oslo Agreements map that is contiguous. The 1995 Agreements further provided that Area C, “except for the issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations [Jerusalem, settlements, specified military locations], will be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction” [Art. XI(3)(c)] as part of the three-stage “further redeployments” [Art. II(2)(b)(8)] that never took place.

Area C is now characterized as the zone of concentrated Israeli demolition of houses and destruction of property belonging to indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. This practice is accompanied by land grabbing for building settler colonies and their associated Separation Wall, all of which are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian and criminal law. In the relatively small and vulnerable population in Area C, the humanitarian situation is especially grave for the diffuse Bedouin community.

Illustrative Cases

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA) has reported that Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes has dramatically increased since the beginning of this year. As of April, the 2012 demolitions already have reached 84 in Area C, and displaced 116 Palestinians. Added to that are arbitrary evictions such as that reported against the family of `Adil Zamil at the village of `Ayn al-Hilwa, in the Jordan Valley.

The OCHA weekly report also revealed in May–June that the occupation authorities in the Jordan Valley forcibly evicted four Palestinian families on 5 June, and issued eviction orders to 24 families from an area Israeli declared to be a closed military zone. The report noted that 56% of the 3,400 Palestinian land-based families living in the occupied Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea area are threatened with demolition of their homes and forcible displacement.

Israeli forces have demolished 307 buildings since the beginning of 2012, and displaced 508 people. Their grabbing of large areas of West Bank land is further isolating farmers from their fields and denying them their land-based livelihood. Access to the agricultural land behind the Wall or adjacent to settler colonies requires a permit, and most Palestinian permit applications are categorically rejected.

A group of human rights organizations has launched a new campaign to condemn the Wall and its adverse effects on all aspects of life, as well as the failure of the international community accountable for the violations. On 16 May, the Land Research Center and Applied Research Institute: Jerusalem—ARIJ released a case study of al-Khadhr village, and confirmed that Hafradah Wall will extend a length of 6.7 km onto the territory of the southern West Bank village of al-Khadhr, running from the north to the south and taking most of the village’s agricultural land.

Observers have concluded that Israel is conducting a policy of population transfer, deprivation of natural resources and demographic manipulation at the expense of indigenous Palestinians in the occupied territory.

“Bantustans”

By increasing the spread of Israeli settler colonies, the colonization process divides the West Bank and Gaza into the eight regions, apart from Jerusalem. Palestinians are generally prohibited to travel outside their permitted zone. The construction of the Wall and settler colony construction work to isolate the Palestinian areas from each the other in the form of Bantustans [see definition in Terminology Corner].

Eyewitness Bishop Desmond Tutu drew the analogy to apartheid in South Africa when he said that occupied Palestine “reminded me so much of what happened to us Black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.That Israeli behavior in the occupied territories, particularly the West Bank, has proliferated especially after the Oslo Accords.

As a mirror to this scenario in the Naqab, in the Naqab, inside the State of Israel, the month of May saw Israeli planning authorities destroyed the Bedouin village of al-Araqīb for the thirty-eighth time. It is one of the unrecognized villages steadfastly populated by displaced Palestinian villagers, now citizens of Israel, whose removal the state seeks in favor of Jewish National Fund projects and the transfer of lands to permanent Jewish-only ownership. At present,13,000 Bedouin villagers in the Naqab are under demolition orders for building without a permit under statutory plans that the Catch 22 institutions and laws deny them proper physical planning. The infamous Prawer Plan, now one year old, seeks to dispossess tens of thousands more.