March 2016

ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS AT ROOT OF RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN PALESTINE

The UN voiced concerns at the deteriorating human rights and humanitarian situations facing Palestinians affected by the expansion of Israeli settlements on their land.

By Kanaga Raja

            Israeli settlement activities remain at the core of many of the violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem, and the settlement enterprise represents the most serious obstacle to a viable Palestinian State, a new United Nations report has charged.

            The report by the UN Secretary-General on developments concerning the establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem is to be presented at the thirty-first session of the UN Human Rights Council, currently meeting in Geneva from 29 February to 24 March.

            The report called on the Israeli authorities to halt and reverse the creation and expansion of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in the occupied Syrian Golan.

            "In addition, Israel must immediately cease using land control mechanisms aimed at expanding the area effectively occupied by settlements, such as the designation of firing zones, archaeological parks and agricultural land. Israel must also immediately cease the exploitation of natural resources from these territories," the UN report said.

            "Displacement and relocation to alternative residential areas, as a result of demolition orders, and a coercive environment could amount to individual and mass forcible transfer and forced evictions, contrary to the obligations of Israel under international humanitarian and human rights law," the report stressed.

            According to the report, which covers the period from 1 November 2014 to 31 October 2015, the presence and continued development of Israeli settlements lie at the root of a broad spectrum of human rights violations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

            The settlements have resulted in the gradual fragmentation of the West Bank, restricted Palestinian access to natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the subsequent impediment to the Palestinian people's right to self-determination.

            "Current Israeli practices related to the presence and expansion of settlements, which persisted during the period under review, similarly continue to have a profound impact on land and housing rights, the right to water and sanitation and freedom of movement, and result in restrictions on the right to education," said the report.

            It found that during the reporting period, Israeli authorities continued to expand settlements, to retroactively formalize unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to approve plans for new settlements.

            Steps were also taken to enable the expansion of settlement-controlled areas through the declaration of "State land" and allocation of land in the West Bank for farming and construction purposes.

            As of the end of 2014, the total population in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was approximately 570,700.

            Overall, the settlement population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has continued growing at a steady rate, with the latest available data showing an average growth rate of 14,600 people per year between 2002 and 2014.

            The construction of settlements continued despite a slowdown in the planning and tendering of new housing units in settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

            The planning of infrastructure related to settlements, such as roads, was not halted and these policies persisted despite the elections and the formation of a new Government on 14 May 2015.

            "Sustained monitoring and pressure from the international community has had a mitigating effect on efforts by the Israeli authorities to implement the full range of settlement expansion initiatives presented by the Government of Israel during its first months in power. Diverging agendas within the governing coalition also served to rein in aspects of the pro-settlement agenda," the report noted.

            However, the escalation in violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, starting in September 2015, led to the hardening of the government position with regard to settlement expansion.

            A point of particular concern has been the response by the Government to political pressure from pro-settlement lawmakers and settler organizations to increase settlement construction in retaliation for acts of violence by Palestinians: namely, settlement expansion announcements by the Prime Minister regarding the retroactive legalization of settlement outposts around Itamar and the promotion of particularly controversial plans for settlement expansion in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem.

            The report said that the control of land through agriculture, the declaration of archaeological sites, national parks, infrastructure development, and the authorities' support for informal initiatives for settlement expansion all contribute to the growth and reinforcement of the presence of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

            "The Government of Israel has continued to support and promote the gradual takeover of land and resources through these methods."

            According to the report, Israeli settlement construction and administrative steps enabling further expansion of settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continued during the period under review.

            While the data available from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics points to a slight decrease in construction being started between 2013 and 2014, the rate of construction for 2014 (2,705 construction projects started) remained above the annual average of 2,303 builds started per year over the previous 10-year period.

            In October 2015, the Israeli non-governmental organization Peace Now reported on wide-ranging plans for West Bank settlement expansion and related settlement activity based on information obtained from the Ministry of Housing.

            Documents obtained by Peace Now detail funding by the Ministry of residential construction, as well as infrastructure and public structures, in various settlements between 2012 and 2015.

            This included funding for the construction of over 4,000 housing units, public structures (including the expansion of the Beit Romano and Beit Betar settlements in Hebron) and financial support (roughly US$460,000) disbursed in 2014 to municipal authorities in the West Bank towards public campaigns encouraging Israelis to move to settlements.

            The Secretary-General's report also said that the Government of Israel has continued the practice of declaring and developing archaeological sites and parks as a means to expand control over land in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

            In several cases, the sites selected for development were located in close proximity to existing settlements, enabling either the expansion of lands under settlement control, or located in such a way that contiguous areas under settlement control could be made areas of strategic significance.

            "Israeli authorities have been directly involved in this practice, either through zoning and planning processes, funding the development of sites or granting leases and management privileges to private settler organizations."

            One example cited by the report is that on 7 June 2015, the Appeals Sub-committee of the National Planning Council approved plans for the development of the Kedem Compound in Silwan, promoted by the Elad settler organization to construct a major tourist site in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, some 20 metres from the walls of the Old City.

            Following objections submitted by Silwan residents and civil society organizations, the Sub-committee ruled to reduce the original plans by at least half. These developments took place in the context of continued settlement expansion in the area.

            In three incidents between May and October 2015, Israeli settlers, under police escort, evicted six Palestinian families from their homes in the heart of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan, following a ruling by an Israeli court in favour of the settlers who claimed ownership over the properties.

            Also, on 10 August 2015, Israeli planning authorities in the West Bank approved plans for the development of a major archaeological and tourism site at Khirbet Seilun, on the lands of the Palestinian village of Qaryut.

            The site is located inside the boundaries of the Shilo settlement and is being promoted by Israeli authorities as "Tel Shiloh".

            The report said that the planning body stopped short of providing full approval for the original master plan, but granted the Archaeology Staff Officer, within the Israeli Civil Administration the authority to approve individual structures on a case-by-case basis, including for tourism and commercial use.

            "In a reversal of current practice, planning authorities required that Palestinian visitors be allowed entry without permits to the ancient site. At the time of writing, Palestinians still required permits to enter the area."

            According to the report, a further indicator of the expansion of land under settlement control has been evidenced in the activities of the Israeli Civil Administration's Task Force for the Survey of State Land Boundaries (the Blue Line task force).

            The Blue Line team is tasked with inspecting and defining the boundaries of land designated as State property, or so-called "State land" by Israeli authorities since 1970.

            According to the task force's operating guidelines, its activities are intended to settle claims of irregularities and remedy violations of the rights of landowners whose lands were unjustly seized.

            The Civil Administration has argued before the High Court of Justice that land demarcations conducted by the Blue Line task force did not constitute formal declarations of State land, and were mere technical corrections of surveying mistakes.

            However, since 2009, the revisions conducted by the Blue Line task force have resulted in the expansion of State land boundaries by some 120,000 dunams (12,000 hectares).

            Until August 2015, the Blue Line task force re-drew State land boundaries without public announcements, thereby effectively preventing Palestinian landowners from laying claim to the surveyed land and granting no right of appeal.

            Upon the request of the High Court of Justice, the Civil Administration issued revised guidelines on 11 August 2015, requiring prior notification of affected villages where any revisions of State land boundaries are intended, and granting a right of appeal within 45 days.

            Human rights organizations advocating for Palestinian landowners have expressed concern that the level of technical capacity and prohibitive costs required to establish a claim against a revision of boundaries render the new guidelines meaningless for most affected landowners.

            The Secretary-General's report also noted that during the period under review, the Israeli authorities pursued measures to retroactively legalize illegal outposts in the West Bank.

            "These steps mostly follow the legal rationale and set of recommendations proposed by the government- appointed ‘Levy Committee' of 2012, and are being promoted at the executive, military and legislative levels."

            On 21 October 2015, the Prime Minister approved a retroactive urban building plan for the settlement of Itamar and, on 29 October, he endorsed retroactive blueprints for three other settlements - Shvut Rachel, Sansana and Yaqir.

            According to the report, during the reporting period, the Israeli High Court of Justice issued rulings to uphold Palestinians' right to private property in the West Bank.

            This has been borne out in a number of high-profile rulings, including in the cases of Amona, Ofra, Beit El and Givat Zeev, as well as in the course of court proceedings regarding the construction on Qaryut lands in the settlement of Derekh Ha'Avot and the use of farmland by settlers in the Jordan Valley.

            On 29 July 2015, Israeli security forces demolished two settlement apartment buildings, the "Dreinoff" buildings, which had been under construction on the outskirts of the settlement of Beit El, on privately-owned land belonging to a resident of the adjacent Palestinian village of Dura al-Qara.

            The demolitions were carried out upon the orders of the Minister of Defence, pursuant to High Court judgments issued in September 2014 and June 2015, after lengthy legal proceedings and repeated attempts by the Israeli authorities and settlers to have the buildings retroactively approved.

            Violent clashes erupted between hundreds of settlers and security forces in the days leading up to the scheduled demolition, as settler leaders and youth moved to occupy the buildings and confronted Israeli forces so as to prevent the demolition of the settlement structures. Unrest then spread to other areas in the West Bank.

            On the day of the demolitions, the Prime Minister approved the construction of 300 additional housing units in the Beit El settlement.

            The Secretary-General noted with concern the repeated requests by the State for delays of court-ordered demolition deadlines.

            "Indeed, in the few cases of evictions of settlers and demolitions of residential settlement construction in recent years, Palestinian landowners have yet to regain full access to their plots. Palestinian claimants have seen few if any improvements in terms of access to land and the protection of their private property."

            According to the report, settler violence is directly related to the continued existence and expansion of illegal settlements throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and has far-reaching implications for the rights of Palestinians.

            During the period under review, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 253 incidents of settler-related violence, of which 101 resulted in injury to Palestinians, with the remainder causing damage to Palestinian property.

            This compares to 207 reported cases of casualties during the previous year, including five Palestinian fatalities (two killed by settlers and three killed by Israeli security forces) in settler-related incidents.

            The number of violent incidents related to settlements that resulted in injury to Israelis or to their property increased during the reporting period, to 123 incidents, of which 75 resulted in injury. By contrast, 96 incidents were reported during the previous 12-month period, including 69 injuries.

            The Secretary-General has repeatedly condemned all attacks against civilians and their property, which further fuel the cycle of violence.

            "The climate of impunity enjoyed by violent settlers, combined with reports of an overall increase in the number of settler attacks inside Palestinian villages during the period under review, underscores the persistent climate of fear and insecurity experienced by Palestinians living in proximity to illegal settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."

            The report said that settler attacks and intimidation targeting volunteers and the representatives of international humanitarian organizations providing a protective presence and documenting human rights violations in the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron and in the southern Nablus governorate were reported during October 2015.

            The Secretary-General is concerned at these deliberate attacks against human rights defenders in the area. These attacks were compounded by restrictions on movement imposed by Israeli security forces, particularly at all checkpoints and on the road to Qurtuba School in Hebron, which links two settlements.

            The report noted that in an effort to address the failure to protect and enforce the law against settlers, a specialized unit within the Israel Police West Bank District was established in early 2013.

            The Nationalistic Crimes Unit is charged with responding to ideologically motivated crimes committed by Israeli civilians, in coordination with the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Defense Forces and the Ministry of Justice.

            According to the Israeli Ministry of Justice, in 2014, the operationalization of the unit resulted in an increase of 64% in the number of indictments filed against Israeli suspects.

            The Secretary-General welcomed the aforementioned steps taken by the Israeli authorities to address settler violence.

            However, cases handled by the Nationalistic Crimes Unit include criminal offences perpetrated against Israeli security forces and Israel Defense Forces property, as well as against Palestinians.

            According to data released by the Israeli police in January 2015, out of 83 indictments served by the Unit, only 25% related to cases where the complainant was Palestinian.

            "A concern therefore remains that efforts by the Israeli authorities have not yet translated into significant improvements in the performance of law enforcement where the victims are Palestinian," said the report.

            The Secretary-General voiced concerns at the deteriorating human rights and humanitarian situations facing Palestinian Bedouin and herder populations affected by home demolitions and Israeli plans for "relocation" of entire communities.

            According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between 1 November 2014 and 31 October 2015, Israeli authorities demolished 554 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, of which 137 were residential, inhabited structures, a decrease compared with last year's reporting period.

            These demolitions resulted in the displacement of 712 Palestinians, and affected the livelihoods of communities throughout the West Bank.

            During the previous year (1 November 2013 to 31 October 2014), the Office recorded demolitions of 628 Palestinian structures, which resulted in the displacement of 1,263 Palestinians.

            August 2015 saw the highest number of demolitions of Palestinian structures in a single month since June 2010, with some 140 Palestinian structures demolished and over 200 Palestinians displaced. The overwhelming majority of the demolitions were in Area C, mainly affecting already vulnerable Bedouin herding communities.

            At the same time, activities by the Government of Israel aimed at relocation of Bedouins and herder communities progressed during the period under review. "The planned relocation of the Bedouin and herder communities in Area C gives rise to serious concerns under international law."

            The Secretary-General reiterated concerns that the implementation of proposed relocations may amount to individual and mass forcible transfers.

            Except for temporary transfers for the security of the population or for imperative military reasons in the context of hostilities, forcible transfers violate human rights law and are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

            Under Article 147 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, the unlawful transfer of protected persons constitutes a grave breach of its provisions, and potentially incurs the individual criminal responsibility of officials engaged in forcible transfers.

            In addition, said the report, the transfer of Palestinian Bedouin communities would contravene the obligations of Israel under international human rights law, particularly regarding the rights to freedom of residence and to adequate housing.

            According to the report, an estimated 21,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the occupied Syrian Golan in 33 settlements, heavily subsidized by Israel. These settlements enjoy a number of financial incentives, as well as a disproportionate allocation of water resources, which contributes to a higher agricultural yield for settlers.

            In October 2015, reports indicated that Israel intends to expand the size of its settlements over the next five years by adding an additional 100,000 settlers to the region.

            On the other hand, reports also refer to challenges faced by the Syrian population, which has grown from 7,000 in 1968 to approximately 25,000 people in 2015, in the construction of new houses and infrastructure, said the report. – Third World Network Features.

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About the author: Kanaga Raja is the Editor of the North-South Development Monitor (SUNS) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The above article is reproduced from SUNS #8193, 3 March 2016.

When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings. And if reproduced on the internet, please send the web link where the article appears to twn@twnetwork.org.

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