House demolition and sealing is a classic colonial practice whereby attacking or eliminating the habitat of the indigenous population serves the dual purpose of: firstly, eradicating, freezing or replacing that populace; and secondly, carrying out collective punishments either in retaliation for, or as deterrence against, acts of resistance. The Israeli occupying force uses these tactics against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In so doing, they perpetuate the Israeli policy of altering the ethnic composition of the West Bank and Jerusalem. By demolishing the villages of Palestinians and integrating this with a policy of refusing to grant them building permits, while encouraging and subsidizing the construction of Israeli settlements, the Israeli government is not only violating international laws and conventions, but they are creating a nation of homeless and dispossessed.
During the Intifada, house demolitions usually happened in retribution for a terrorist act or when the Israelis were looking for a suspected person. When the soldiers arrived to demolish the house the family was typically given a half-hour to an hour to remove their things and then the army disconnected the electricity, the water mains, laid the charges and blew up the house. Other times they arrived with a bulldozer and plowed over the structure. In a few cases the family appealed and the home was merely sealed (boarded up with concrete and cinder blocks) while the appeal was heard. There were no charges, no trial and no effective appeal; it was an extrajudicial practice and a flagrant violation of international law and the most fundamental principles of justice.
In the decade following the Intifada, house demolitions have taken on a new dimension. Houses are no longer demolished under the guise of security, rather they are demolished as an administrative procedure on the basis of Israeli urban planning. If the structure is built without the elusive building permit, or happens to stand near a proposed Israeli settlement or by-pass road, then it is usually slated for destruction. Due to the nearly impossible conditions under which Palestinians must apply for a building permit, illegal structures are increasingly common as the overcrowding problem in the occupied Palestinian territories escalates. Conversely, if Israeli settlers build in the West Bank without the necessary permits, Israel grants these permits retroactively creating a double standard that clearly violates international law.
International Law
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is considered customary international law, states in article 7 that, "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law...against any discrimination....".
The UN Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination in article 3 aims to, "...prevent discrimination bases on race, colour, or ethnic origin, especially in the fields of civil rights, access to citizenship, education, religion, employment, occupation, and housing."
House demolitions have also been used as a method of collective punishment which is strictly forbidden under article 33 the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in a Time of War. Article 33 states, "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed." Collective punishments are also forbidden under article 50 of the Hague Regulations of 1907. Furthermore Article 43 prohibits changes in the legal system (including planning law), yet one of the first acts of the Israeli government in 1967 was to replace Jordanian planning law. During the Intifada, and even more recently following various acts of resistance against Israeli civilian targets, Israeli officials would increase the number of demolitions. They would demolish houses that had no association with the action, as retribution for the terrorist activity.
In contrast to the constant threat of demolitions to Palestinian homes, Israeli settlement building, tax incentives, and subsidies are being continuously authorized by the Israeli government. Often these permits follow attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, as was the case with Jabal Abu Ghneim ('Har Homa') just outside of Bethlehem. Following the November 1998 bombing in the Mahane Yehuda Market in West Jerusalem, Israel gave the go-ahead for the construction of this new settlement on a previously designated 'green area'.
When notifications of demolitions are issued the recipient has 30 days in which to appeal the decision and overturn the demolition. Since 1967, the Israeli High Court of justice has not once overturned an appealed demolition order. In fact, in March 1986 a ruling of the Court strongly endorsed the Area Commanders power to order the demolition or sealing of any house, citing the deterrent effect for illegal building and the Emergency Regulations.
Statistics
Since 1967, Israeli authorities have demolished or sealed over 6,000 Palestinian homes. Two thousand of those occurred after 1987 and there are currently 2,000 demolition orders in effect. Al-Haq has learned that Israeli officials must fill a quota of 300 homes demolished per year, but in 1998 only 158 homes met with the Israeli bulldozers. A survey conducted by the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem in the southern area of the West Bank concluded that of the 170 homes in the area slated for demolition, 41% of these were for enlarging the Green Line, 31% were slated for colonizing activities such as by-pass roads and settlements, 18% for being illegal structures, and the remaining 10% for security reasons.
The ongoing Israeli campaign to alter the ethnic composition of the West Bank by importing its citizens and preventing the Palestinians from expanding is contrary to international laws and conventions. Al-Haq calls upon the international community to pressure Israel to cease its criminal colonization of the West Bank and stop the deliberate and systematic destruction of Palestinian homes.
During the Intifada, Israeli authorities cited Defense Emergency Regulations 119(1) is as justification for its actions. The emergency regulations state that a military commander may order the forfeiture to the government of any house, structure or land from which he
suspect[s] that any firearm has been illegally discharged, or any bomb, grenade or explosive or incendiary article illegally discharged. Or any bomb, grenade or explosive or incendiary article illegally thrown or of any house, structure or land situated in any area, town, village, quarter or street the inhabitants or some of the inhabitants of which [they] are satisfied have committed or attempted to commit, or abetted the commission of, or been accessories after the fact to the commission of any offense against these regulations involving violence of intimidation or any Military Court Offense....
The regulation requires no judicial procedures and leaves the discretion in the hands of the military commander. These emergency regulations were enacted in 1937 by Great Britain to protect itself against a Palestinian revolt. They were repealed on the eve of Britain's withdrawal from the area in 1948.
Al-Haq maintains that the invocation of these emergency regulations by Israel is illegal because they were artificially revived in 1967. Based on the false assumption that they were still in force at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel, the government deemed them valid law within its borders. When Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, it put the Defense Emergency Regulations into force there as well. Beyond the fact that the Defense Emergency Regulations were, as a result of having been repealed by Great Britain, invalid as domestic Israeli law, Israel's application of them to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, beginning with its occupation of those territories in 1967, was illegal. The Defense Emergency Regulations had not been in force in the Gaza Strip or West Bank from 1948 to 1967, and thus, by putting them into force there, Israel was making new law, which violated customary international public law and specifically the standard that the Hague Regulations set in 1987.
Under the laws of belligerent occupation, however, an occupying power must continue to observe the law in force in the territory that it occupies. The law of belligerent occupation is codified in two treaties of which Israel is a signatory: The Hague Regulations of 1907 and The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War. The destruction of property in the occupied territory is forbidden under Article 53 of the Geneva Convention, which states that the destruction of property of the occupied people is forbidden except for necessary military operations. Furthermore, house demolitions constitute a collective punishment that is exclusively prohibited by Article 50 of The Hague Regulations and Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
* The use of such 'environmental' terminology to prevent Palestinians building on their land, which in fact has been slated for future settlement development, is dealt with at greater length in the article "East Jerusalem: the Fight for a Capital".
