URGENT ACTION APPEAL from EAPPI:  

Home demolitions in the first six months of 2011 displaced 706 individuals, including 341 minors, the majority of whom reside in the Jordan Valley. (For example, click here.)

Usra Ahmed Hanani - Khirbet Tana, Jordan Valley - Feb. 2011 - Photo: P.Hanseid

The Palestinian population in the Jordan Valley has consistently faced discriminatory Israeli policies relating to planning, building, and access to land and water. Over 94 percent of building permit applications submitted by Palestinians to the Israeli authorities between 2000 and September 2007 were rejected. The Jordan Valley is classified by the Israeli government as part of Area C. Israel has both civil and security authority over Area C of the West Bank and the estimated 150,000 Palestinians living there.

Much of the Jordan Valley’s land has been declared a “closed military zone” by the Israeli army or has been illegally annexed into Israeli settlements, effectively turning the Jordan Valley into an Israeli enclave within the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and attempts by the authorities to remove the Palestinian population from Area C appear to be escalating.

Summary of Events (JUNE 2011):

• On 21 June, the Israeli army destroyed 29 homes and other properties in the Bedouin hamlet of Hadidiya in the Jordan Valley, leaving 11 children and 16 adults without homes.
• On 21 June, five structures (two homes, a shared kitchen and two animal shelters) were demolished in Khirbet Yarza, in the northern Jordan Valley, affecting 30 people, of which 8 are children.

o   For more information read this article or watch this video.

• On 14 June 2001, demolitions were carried out in Al-Fasayal, in the southern Jordan Valley, which, according to Jordan Valley Solidarity, displaced an estimated 103 people, including 64 children.
• Earlier this month, the Israeli army destroyed a tent and three animal shelters in Hadidiya, displacing a family of 10 on grounds that they had relocated their home one hundred meters from its original site to a closed military area.

International Law & Home Demolitions:

The International Court of Justice has stated that the Fourth Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian persons in Times of War applies to the oPt. The systematic policy of house demolitions carried out against Palestinian residents contravenes Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which forbids “any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons” except where such destruction is rendered “absolutely necessary by military operations”.

How to Make a Difference:

We encourage you to:

• Share this information with your networks.
• Inform your representative in parliament about what is happening in the Jordan Valley.
• Contact the Israeli Ambassador in your country to condemn the acts above and to call for all demolition and eviction orders against Palestinians in the West Bank to be cancelled immediately.