Stop work notices in agricultural service rooms in the village of Shi’eb Al-Butm, east of Yatta, Hebron Governorate

August 4, 2020

• Violation: notices to stop work.
• Violation Date: 04/08/2020.
• Location: Shi’eb Al-Butm – Yatta town / Hebron governorate.
• Perpetrator: the so-called Israeli Civil Administration.
• Affected party: Farmers from the Jibreen family.

Violation details:

On Tuesday, August 4, 2020, the Israeli occupation authorities notified the stoppage of work and construction in a number of agricultural service rooms, under the pretext of non-licensing, owned by farmers from the Jibreen family in the village of Shi`eb Al-Butm, east of Yatta, Hebron Governorate.

Mr. Nidal Abu Aram, head of the MasaferYatta Village Council, told the Land Research Center’s researcher the following:

 “That a vehicle belonging to the so-called Planning and Building Department of the Israeli Civil Administration, accompanied by a patrol of the occupation army, raided the agricultural lands at the western end of the village of Shi’eb Al-Butm, and the so-called building inspector wrote notices to stop work, and affixed them to the walls of the agricultural service rooms that the farmers set up on their lands .The farmers built those rooms in 2019 on their land which is cultivated with olive trees for the purpose of resting in it, and for  storing hand tools and agricultural equipment. These rooms were built of stone and mud and roofed with metal sheets”. 

The occupation authorities demanded in their notices to immediately stop the construction work under the pretext of non-licensing, and set the date of Sep. 8, 2020, as a hearing session for the so-called Subcommittee for Inspection at its headquarters in the settlement of Bet El, in which the subject of “demolishing the building or restoring the place to its previous state will be discussed”.

Stop work notices by owner’s name, room size and notice No.

It should also be noted that the occupation authorities do not grant building permits for Palestinian buildings in area  “C” of the West Bank, despite the citizens’ application for licenses and the presentation of the necessary proof of their ownership of their lands. In order to justify this, the occupation authorities invoke flimsy security arguments to reject the submitted requests. The aim of this policy is to issue demolition orders for buildings to prevent any urban Palestinian expansion, and, at the same time, reserve those areas for future Israeli settlement expansion.

Shi’eb Al-Butm Village:

The village is located in MasaferYatta, and is bordered on the east by Khallet Al-Dabaa, on the west by the bypass road No. 317, and on the north by the villages of Al-Tuwani and Alimfagara, and on the south by the village of Quawis and the settlement of Susya. The colony of Avigal overlooks the village from the northern side. The village’s built up area is 110 dunams.

There is a basic school made of metal sheets and threatened with demolition according to the stop work notice No. issued in 2016.   In addition there is a health clinic which is threatened with demolition as well.

9 families live in the villagein 10 dwellings consisting of 7 tents, 3 metal sheets rooms and one caravan, numbering 81 people, including 37 children. for livelihood, they depend on animal husbandry and agriculture.There are about  443 heads of sheep and goats in the village,  82  dunums of land of which only 8 are cultivated with  olive  treesand the rest are used as pastoral land.