On the first of January 2009, the Israeli Army issued a military order (T/01/09) declaring the confiscation of 506 Dunums from the lands of Abu-Dis Town to build a part-section of the Israeli Segregation Wall set to circulate Jerusalem at the eastern side of Ma’ale Adumim settlements’ bloc.
The Israeli military order comes within the Israelis’ plans of 2005 to include the targeted area within the Ma’ale Adumim bloc, which is one of the major six settlements’ bloc in the West Bank (Ma’ale Adumim bloc, Giva’t Ze’ev bloc, Modin Illit bloc, Gush Etzion bloc, Arial bloc, and Kiryat Arba bloc) that the Israeli government plans to keep behind the segregation wall toward the green line to be eventually annexed to Israel once the construction of the wall is completed. The settlements’ blocs, which are according to former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is inseparable part of the state of Israel. That was what Sharon said to former US President George Bush at their meeting on April 11, 2005. All what Sharon said and Bush did not object to, will become a de-facto reality once Israel complete the construction phases of the wall by 2011 according to the time schedule of the wall plan, including more than 350 thousands Israeli settlers.
The Israeli plan to circulate Jerusalem and isolate it from its traditional and natural extension to the occupied West Bank territory with the segregation wall is fortified even more with several terminals set-up at the entrances points to Jerusalem as the Israelis are planning it to be; what they call “Greater Jerusalem” upon which Israeli seek to impose a de-facto geographical reality. The work on the “Greater Jerusalem” plan started as early as the seventies of the past century where Israel manipulated the housing of the Palestinians to as minimum as possible with relentless waves of demolishing, on the other hand, the Israeli settlers construction was and still is continuous process., with an ultimate aim to manipulate the demographic reality of the occupied city. According to the Israeli plan of the segregation wall, many Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem will be secluded out the city boundary, on the other hand; four of the sex settlements’ blocs (Ma’ale Adumim bloc, Giva’t Ze’ev bloc, Modin Illit bloc, Gush Etzion bloc,) will be included within the “Greater Jerusalem plan where the segregation wall will define its border.
To conclude,
The Hague Convention of 1907 clearly prohibited the confiscation of private property, and that the occupation state has merely an administrative jurisdiction. The Fourth Geneva convention also stated that the occupying power is prohibited from transferring or claiming any of the land or property of the occupied area to its own country state. The United Nation has also issued several decisions denouncing the renouncing the Israeli violations of the international law on this matter:
-
'UN Resolution 298 ….. 3. Confirms in the clearest possible terms that all legislative and administrative actions taken by Israel to change the status of the City of Jerusalem, including expropriation of land and properties, transfer of populations and legislation aimed at the incorporation of the occupied section, are totally invalid and cannot change that status;'
Map # 1 Military order (T-01-09)
Sources: ARIJ GIS Remote sensing Unit
-
UN Resolution 446 issued on March 22, 1979 calls on Israel to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories’.
-
Resolution 465 states categorically that:' all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure of 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 setting 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.'
Prepared by:
The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem
