Issuing Stop Work Orders against a Mosque and 14 Houses in the Town of Qarawet Bani Hassan

Violation: Orders to stop construction work on a mosque and 14 houses in Qarawet Bani Hassa.

Date: the 5^th of August, 2010.

Violator: Committee for Organization and Building in the Israeli occupation Army.

 

The so-called Committee for Organization and Building distributed on Thursday August 5^th, 2010, Stop Work orders against an under-construction mosque as well as to 14 houses in the town of Qarawet Bani Hassan. The Orders were issued under the pretext of building without a permit in an area classified as Area C. Occupation forces gave the owners of these structures only until the 2^nd of September, 2010, to take the needed steps to get the required permits. A court hearing was scheduled for that day in Beit El to discuss the situation of these structures.

 

The following table provides general information vis-à-vis the threatened structures:

No.	Name	Location	No. of Structures	Family Members	Type	Pic. No.	Order
1	Izzat Yousef Rayyan	Gharsat Al Gharabeh	2	8	2-story house		1
2	Mahmoud Ahmad Rayyan	Dar Al Darb	2	6	2 stories under construction		2
3	Azmi Aziz Mir’ei	Khallet Al Aqran	2	9	2 stories under construction		3
4	Aziz Mohammad Mir’ei	Al Meidan	2	5	2 stories under construction		4
5	Ahmad Mohammad Deib Mir’ei	Al Meidan	1	7	One story under construction		5
6	Ahmad Mohammad Ahmad Mir’ei	Al Meidan	2	8	2 stories ready to be inhabited		6
7					2 stories under construction		7
8	Yousef Ahmad Rayyan	Khallet Qafeisha	2	4	2 stories under construction		8
9	A mosque under construction	Khallet Qafeisha	1		The area of the mosque is 400 m2		9
10	Basem Mohammad Rayyan	Khallet Qafeisha	2	9	2 stories under construction		10
11	Aziz Ismaeil Mir’ei	Beir Khalil	2	3	2 stories under construction		11
12	Basem Mohammad Rayyan	Khallet Qafeisha	2		2 stories under construction		12
13	Saloom Mohammad Mir’ei	Al Khanqa	2	4	2 stories under construction		13
14	Mahmoud Ahmad Aby Alia	Al Daraja	3	6	3 stories under construction		14
15	Abdel Kareem Ahmad Mir’ei	Al Meidan	2	11	2 stories ready to be inhabited
TOTAL			29	80

 

“if the judge is your opponent, who should you complain to?” these were the first words spoken by Hajj Izzat Yousef Rayyan from Qarawet Bani Hassan when he talked about the most recent wave of Stop work orders in the town. According to him, there is no use from going to the Israeli courts as they will never “do us justice”. With this new wave of such orders, the number of threatened structures in the town has reached 34 spread throughout the neighborhoods of the town. The owners of the threatened structures have already begun to provide the needed documents and maps using the assistance of a number of rights organizations. It is worth pointing out that the threatened structures are located within the proposed 836-dunum Master Plan which the occupation forces refuse to approve as of yet.

 

The head of the Municipality expressed the following to the Land Research Center (LRC)’s field researcher: ‘ The town is being targeted by the occupation authorities through a series of steps aimed at preventing the population from expanding and building on their own private lands. The Israeli authorities have already demolished two houses and a  brux in 2008 owned by Hakam Mahmoud Aasi, Mustafa Musleh Abu Dayya and Nabil Yaseen Mir’ei. They have also distributed 19 Stop Work orders between 2005 and 2009. ‘

 

From his side, Eng. Ali Sabouba, the director of the Ministry of Local Government in Salfeet, indicated the following: ‘ Israeli occupation authorities are preventing us from enlarging the Master Plans of the villages and towns in Salfeet Governorate. In turn, this prevents these population centers from meeting their natural expansion needs which fits with the occupation’s goal to force the people out from here.’

 

Finally, it is worth mentioning that at the same time that Israeli occupation forces are preventing Palestinians from building on their own lands, they are allowing and facilitating the on-going expansion of Israeli colonies. Any visitor to the town of Qarawet Bani Hassan can clearly see the ongoing expansion of the colony of Kiryat Natafeim which was established on 340 dunums of the town’s eastern lands. At the same time, all of the Palestinian houses in the vicinity of the colony are under the direct threat of being demolished by the occupation authorities.