Violation: relocating a camp to build 300 colonial units
Date: 05/01/2015
Location: Beit El, north Ramallah
Perpetrators: government of Israel
Details:
The government of Israel on January 05, 2015 ratified evacuating a military camp relative to Israel borders police in the colony of Beit El, northwest Ramallah governorate.
According to the Israeli plan, the government planned to build 300 new colonial units in the military camp location, which reinforces the colonial presence in the area and changes facts on the ground. Noteworthy, the colony of Beit El was established on confiscated lands from villages relative to Ramallah namely (al- Bireh, Ein Yabrud, Dura al-Qar') in 1977; Beit El has expropriated around 1183 dunums and has a total population of 4627 colonists.
Photos 1-3: Beit El, expanding at expense of Palestinian lands
Double standards policy :
The new plan to be carried out in Beit El is neither so recent nor came by chance. It is reported that the 300 units plan came in the aftermath of evicting the outpost of Givat Ha'olbona in 2011; with six caravans only, this random outpost came to be something.
The Prime Minister pledged to reinforce the colonial expansion in place of evicting the camp through annexing ready-houses to Beit El, taking into consideration that this colony will remain under Israeli control within any futuristic treaties and conventions with the Palestinian side.
It should be marked that the Israeli policy of taking over lands through the so-called "confiscation for security purposes" is only meant to expand the building movement of colonies and outposts . Instead of giving the lands back to Palestinians, the government grant them to colonist who invest them for building and other uses. For example, the Israeli government on December 17, 2014 ratified a number of colonial plans, the famous of which was transforming military camps for the favor of the colonization. Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz mentioned three camps, which are to be vacated for the favor of colonies, as follows:
- A military camp nearby Qiryat Arba colony in Hebron
- A military camp in the colony of Ali Zahav in Salfit governorate
- A military camp for the borders police near Beit El colony in Ramallah.
Such a plan is a bypass to loot more lands and "Judaize" them in the West Bank and Jerusalem. If implemented, the occupation is to serve new confiscation orders on Palestinian lands to relocate the evicted camps; Israel land grab policy is an endless circle.
Land Research Center LRC sees that land grab contradicts with all of the International conventions and Humanitarian laws including:
- Article 49 of Fourth Geneva Convention: " Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive".
- Resolution 465 (1980) Adopted by the Security Council at its 2203rd meeting on 1 March 19805:
- Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
- Strongly deplores the continuation and persistence of Israel in pursuing those policies and practices and calls upon the Government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.
- Calls upon all States not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connexion with settlements in the occupied territories.
- Requests the Commission to continue to examine the situation relating to settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, to investigate the reported serious depletion of natural resources, particularly the water resources, with a view to ensuring the protection of those important natural resources of the territories under occupation, and to keep under close scrutiny the implementation of the present resolution.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
