Increased Palestinian Displacement as Israeli Settler Violence Intensifies

Nikki Hodgson for the byfor the Alternative Information Center (AIC) A s dozens of Israeli MKs petition Netanyahu to endorse increased settlement construction in the West Bank to address the Israeli housing crisis and the surrounding tent protests, Israeli settlement policy continues to perpetuate a housing crisis of a very different sort in the Palestinian territory. s dozens of Israeli MKs petition Netanyahu to endorse increased settlement construction in the West Bank to address the Israeli housing crisis and the surrounding tent protests, Israeli settlement policy continues to perpetuate a housing crisis of a very different sort in the Palestinian territory.

Residents of the Hebron-area Bedouin village of Al Baqa'a are increasingly leaving their homes due to settler violence, home demolitions

According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank has increased dramatically in the past year. Over the past seven months, nearly 900 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, as opposed to 606 during the whole of 2010.

755 of those were displaced due to home demolitions, while the remaining 127 were forced from their homes due to settler violence.

Settler violence is increasing throughout the West Bank. While the Israeli army’s central command chief recently barred 12 settlers from the Yitzhar settlement for their involvement in violent acts against Palestinians, little is done to curb the violence of aggressive settlers who frequently destroy Palestinian crops and property, as well as verbally and physically attack Palestinian civilians.

Last month, a 6 year-old Palestinian child was hospitalized in Hebron after a group of Israeli settlers attempted to arrest him on the street.

OCHA further reports that this is the first time in recent years that Palestinian families in the Hebron-area village of Al Baqa’a are leaving their homes as a result of increasing settler violence, violence which has resulted in injuries as well as the detention of three community members, two of whom are children. In addition to the threat of violence, the families are concerned that an increase in violence could also result in further criminal charges against them.

Two male children and one adult were detained following an exchange of stone throwing between the Bedouin group and the settlers who entered their tents on the 19th of July. Bail for the youngest child, age 14, has been set at 7,500 NIS (2,100 USD), which the community is unable to pay.

The community, which had been previously partially demolished, relocated between the 25th-27th of July and is now facing a new range of concerns concerning the security, financial loss, and loss of livelihood equipment of their displacement. The families estimate that their relocation cost them 500 Jordanian Dinar (700 USD) each during the process, and they are unable to build in their new location because the Civil Administration will not grant them the necessary building permits.

Al Baqa’a residents are also concerned about their children’s education as they are now too far from the schools their children had previously attended and it is too late to register them into new ones.

Al Baqa’a and other West Bank Bedouin communities are under threat from both settler violence and the unpredictable and erratic permitting processes of Israel’s Civil Administration. While the construction of Israeli settlements is increasing, new demolition, eviction, and stop work orders are delivered to Palestinians on a regular basis.

In the community of Anata (Jerusalem periphery) at least 35 demolition or stop-work orders were issued in one July week alone. Ein al-Hilwe, a community in the northern Jordan Valley, has received 29 stop-work and 3 eviction orders.

“Communities live in a state of pervasive insecurity and daily life has deteriorated to such an extent that some residents are forced to leave in order to meet their basic needs, feed their families or educate their children,” stated acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Ramesh Rajasingham, following a recently released OCHA report on Palestinian displacement.

While settlers are burning Palestinian crops, damaging property, and throwing rocks at shepherds and children, the Israeli government is using a system of permitting processes, military zones, and fines to prevent Palestinians from establishing any structural claim to their own land.

El-Araqib village leader Sheikh Siyah Abu Madigham, whose village is currently being sued by the Israeli state for the costs incurred when repeatedly demolishing their homes, commented "We also submit a lot of complaints but no one listens to us, about all the buildings of ours that they destroyed - the state does not care. The first demolition cost us NIS 4 million. The trees that were uprooted in the village cost us NIS 500,000. They destroyed the village 27 times. That cost us NIS 150,000 each time."