New Israeli parallel road in Yatta area

The Israeli supreme committee for planning and the sub-committee for roads affiliated to the so-called Israeli 'civil administration in Judea and Samaria' announced a new scheme for the bypass road number 356 passing by the villages of Zif, Al Buweib and ad Dirat located east of Yata town, Hebron governorate.

According to the attached map which was distributed by the Israeli authorities along with the announcement, the new proposed section of the road is about 7600 meters long by 160 meters wide. This means that a total of 1216 dunums will be confiscated for the path of the road. In addition, thousands of other dunums will be separated behind the eastern bank of the road once it has been established and protected by special security arrangements which include road barriers, fencing and buffer zones.

(Map 1: The parallel road route number 356)

The target land is located in the Masafer area which is part of the eastern slopes of Herbron governorate. The following table provides data about the affected villages which are located along the route of the proposed road scheme threatening to confiscate and/or separate parts of their lands:

No.	Village name	Population
1	Zif	750
2	Hureiz	800
3	Biar Al Arus	750
4	Ad Duweir	600
5	Al Buweib	500
6	Qurnat ar Ras	250
7	Ar Rifa'iyya	300
8	Khallet Al Maiyya	1000
9	Ad Dirat	350
10	Umm Lasafa	500
11	Az Zuweiden	550
	Total	6350

Most of the target lands are used for cereal and straw production as well as range land for local cattle.

map 2: Masafer Yatta, eastern slopes of Hebron governorate

For exclusive Jewish use

The planned road will be utilized for exclusive Jewish use so as to link the following five colonies with Hebron and Jerusalem, on one hand, and to link them with the Bir Sheva and Arad cities, on the other hand:

Colony name	Date of establishment	Population in 2003
Karmel	1981	321
Ma'on	1981	327
Susiya	1983	643
Mezadot Yehuda ( Beit Yattir)	1980	412
Shani	1989	438
Total		2141

Disastrous impact

The planned road route will have the following impacts on Palestinians:

1. Blocking the villages' natural expansion east forward and confining their limits to current land areas;

2. Rendering vast areas of range and agricultural lands inaccessible to local citizens who mostly depend on animal husbandry as main income;

3. Stopping the territorial continuity between Yatta town to the west of the proposed road route and its periphery villages to the east of the route.

Village planning schemes

The new road announcement coincided with the Israeli announcement of three detailed planning schemes for the villages of Zif, Al Buweib and Ad Dirat. In an interview with layer Musa Makhamrah, the head of the Land Defense Committees, he confirmed to LRC field worker that the Israeli published schemes do not fulfill the present and future needs of the target villages in terms of natural demographic growth and expansion. On the contrary, these schemes will cripple any expansions in the existing built up areas and confine their residents to certain areas after besieging them with Israeli settlements and bypass roads.

Legal action

The Israeli announcements gave a two month ultimatum for 'legal' objection starting from the date of publishing in the local newspaper. In this regards, affected land owners and village councils are preparing all the related land ownership documents and papers to present to the Israeli civil administration's legal advisor at Beit Eil. Not much hope is expected by the affected persons as previous experiences proved useless.

House demolition campaign

The latest Israeli road and planning scheme announcements came at a time when the Israeli occupation authorities are carrying a demolition campaign against Palestinian houses, farms, cisterns and animal sheds and barrack in the aforementioned villages under the pretext of un-licensing. More than ten premises have been demolished so far within the past few weeks.