LAW SUBMITS PETITION TO HALT DEMOLITION OF FIVE HOUSES: ISRAELI HIGH COURT ISSUES TEMPORARY ORDER HALTING DEMOLITIONS

30 NOVEMBER 1996

On November 25, LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice on behalf of five young Palestinian families to stop the demolition of their homes. Afterwards, the High Court issued a temporary order halting the demolitions until the hearing date, which has yet to be set.

The five homes are located in the city of Khalhoul, outside of Hebron. More than 30 people live in these homes, mostly children under the age of ten years old. All of the houses were built on the petitioners' privately-owned land. These new houses are modest in size - consisting of two to three rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. The petitioners invested approximately $20,000 to build their homes on salaries (before the closure) of $1000 a month.

Last year, the petitioners attempted to obtain building permits retroactively, but the Israeli West Bank administration refused to issue the permits on the pretext that the houses were built on land zoned by the British Mandate in 1942 as "agricultural land". In addition, the authorities contended that since the houses were located near the newly constructed Jewish-settler bypass road they must be destroyed. An additional seventeen homes have already been slated for demolition for lying too close to the Halhoul-Hebron bypass road.

LAW attorneys Allegra Pacheco and Haitham Al-Qadi argued in the petition that the Israeli authorities' reliance on the outdated 1942 British Mandate zoning plan, "RJ-5", was arbitrary and done in bad faith. The attorneys argued that RJ-5 could not be used as a basis to demolish the homes since it failed to reflect the residency requirements of the Palestinian population today which has at least tripled since 1942. The attorneys asserted that the Israeli authorities were well-aware of this since they had rezoned all land confiscated for the Jewish settlements in the surrounding area from agricultural land to land suitable for home building in order to facilitate the establishment and expansion of the Jewish settlements. It should be noted that no house in the Jewish settlements has ever been demolished.

The attorneys also argued that the five houses in question were constructed at least a year or two before the bypass road was even paved, and that some were located as far as 200 meters away form the road. They stated that the demolitions violate the Oslo Agreements which prohibits changes in the status quo of the West Bank and were leading to the forced homelessness of hundreds of Palestinians and creating a further economic hardship on the entire community. The attorneys also argued that the Israeli house demolition policy violated international humanitarian law, especially the UN Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racism which demands that State parties undertake to eliminate discrimination of all forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the right to housing.

LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAW is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.