• Violation: demolition and stop-work orders for a number of agricultural service rooms.
• Location: Za’nouna and Tur al-Batiyah – Nahalin town / Bethlehem governorate.
• Date: 08/02/2022.
• perpetrator: the so-called Israeli Civil Administration.
• Victims: 6 families from the Najajra and Ghayada families.

Description:

The so-called building inspector in the “Israeli Civil Administration” stormed, under army protection, the town of Nahalin in the western parts of Bethlehem,  and handed over demolition orders  against 4 agricultural service rooms and served stop- work orders against 2 other agricultural service rooms  belong to citizens from the town of Nahalin under the pretext of building without a license.

In the two demolition orders No. 30842 and No. 30842 it is stated that the Subcommittee of the planning and construction department affiliated to the Israeli civil administration would discuss in its session on February 23, 2022  the demolition of these constructions.

As for the other final orders to stop work and demolish, it is stated that the owners should stop any further construction and carry out the demolition by themselves within a period of seven days so as the place be returned to its previous status.

According to the attached map it is clear that the location of the threatened structures is close to Neve Daniel colony, and the occupation seeks to prevent the Palestinians from having any construction in this area to ensure the expansion of the colony on the lands of the neighboring Palestinians using those illegal arguments and pretexts.  In the meanwhile, Palestinians are asked to resort to the Israeli courts, which have never done them justice. On the contrary, they have always stood in defense of settlement expansion plans at the expense of Palestinian-owned lands.

Regarding the nature of the targeted area, it is mostly lands planted with seasonal land crops, meaning that the rooms that citizens built on their lands are used to store agricultural equipment or to rest after work. The sites of “Za’nouna” and “Tur al-Batiya” targeted by these military orders are among the remaining areas for the townspeople so that they can expand their urban areas, as the town of Nahalin is surrounded on all sides by Israeli colonies and there has become overcrowding in the number of residents of the town and the occupation prevents them from expanding on their lands forcing some residents to live with their families.

Demolition and stop work orders by owner name, number of family member, area and construction material:

Owner name	No. fam. mem.	Of who children	Area m2	No. order	Built of
Ali Radi Ghayada	3	1	40	30840	Walls built of stones and  balcony built of cement
Helmy Radwan Ghayada	5	2	35	30842	A pergola built of cement and tin sheets
Amin Najjara	5	3	30	61607	Walls built of bricks and roofed with tin sheets and a veranda built of stones
Ibrahim Muhammed Amin Najjarah	8	4	30	61608	Walls built of bricks and cement and a veranda built of stones
Shaker Hassan Abdullah Najjar	8	4	50	61733	Walls built of concrete and roofed with tin sheets
Wasim Ghayada	7	4	40	61734	Walls built of stones and concrete and roofed with tin sheets
Total	36	18	225

 

Picture 1: Israelis delivering military orders to the citizens

 

Nahalin:

The village is located 9 km to the south west of Bethlehem and 3.5 km to the east of the armistice line of 1949. It is edged by Bitar Illit and Hadar Bitar colonies (north), al Khader (east), Wadi Fukin and the armistice line (west), and number of Israeli colonies (Rush Tzorim, Ealazr, Allon Shevut, and Ezyon) (south).

The village’s total area is 17250 dunums including 496 dunums of built-up area, inhabited by 7460 people according to the PBS statistics of 2007. Israel has confiscated 2988 dunums of the village lands for colonial expansion purposes. 5 colonies inhabited by more than 30,000 colonists reside over the village lands.

Land Research Center sees that demolitions contradict with all of the international conventions and Humanitarian laws including:

Article 147 of Geneva fourth convention: extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. ( it is considered a serious violation of the convention).

Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1948 prohibits the destruction of property, as this article states the following: “The occupying power is prohibited from destroying any private, fixed or movable property related to individuals or groups, the state or public authorities, or social or cooperative organizations, unless the war operations inevitably require this destruction.

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.

Paragraph ‘g’ of Article 23 of the Hague Convention of 1907 AD also warned against destroying or seizing the enemy’s property, unless the necessities of war necessarily require such destruction or seizure.

 

 

Prepared by

 The Land Research Center
LRC