On the Agenda

The report shows how the justices of Israel’s Supreme Court have validated the state’s planning apparatus in the West Bank, enabling it to continue implementing illegal policies. Time and time again, the justices have ignored the fact that the planning apparatus imposes an almost blanket prohibition on Palestinian construction with the object of enabling Israel to take over as much Palestinian land as possible. The report, Fake Justice: The Responsibility Israel’s High Court Justices Bear for the Demolition of Palestinian Homes and the Dispossession of Palestinians, is based on a careful examination of hundreds of High Court cases, judgments and decisions regarding the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. In none of these cases did the justices accept the arguments of the Palestinian petitioners.

After the High Court ruling, which greenlighted the state’s plan to demolish the community within a week, B’Tselem’s director wrote urgently to EU foreign policy chief Mogherini yesterday, warning that Israel is trampling the shared values that are at the core of its relationship with the EU.

In their ruling, Justices Amit, Meltzer, and Baron described an imaginary world with an egalitarian planning system that takes into account the needs of the Palestinians, as if there had never been an occupation. The reality is diametrically opposed to this fantasy: Palestinians cannot build legally and are excluded from the decision-making mechanisms that determine how their lives will look. The planning systems are intended solely for the benefit of the settlers.

This ruling shows once again that those under occupation cannot seek justice in the occupier’s courts. If the demolition of the community of Khan al-Ahmar goes ahead, the Supreme Court Justices will be among those who will bear responsibility for this war crime.

This morning, 4 July 2018, Israel continued implementing its policy of transferring Palestinian communities: In Khan al-Ahmar the Civil Administration began paving an access road to facilitate transferring the community. In the nearby Abu a-Nuwar, the CA demolished 9 homes and 3 farm buildings, leaving 62 people homeless. The CA came to Susiya, apparently to plan the demolition of 7 structures. Israel claims it is merely enforcing the law, on building without permits. But the residents are not criminals: Israel denies them any way of obtaining construction permits and creates unbearable living conditions, hoping they leave - ostensibly of their own volition - so that it can take over their lands. Transferring communities in a war crime; no court ruling or military order can whitewash it.

At 6:00 AM today, the entire community of Khirbet Humsah, 16 families, 103 people, including a baby and a child with Down Syndrome, was forced to evacuate on orders of the Israeli Civil Administration, allegedly for military training. The families, five of which have been temporarily displaced four times this year, will have to stay away until 8:00 P.M. Frequent military exercises are one way Israel is creating impossible living conditions meant to drive residents of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley and Area C overall to leave their homes, as if by choice.

On 17 June, a new military order removing any option for Palestinians to challenge demolition orders against their homes will go into effect. This is a new phase in Israel’s planning and building policy in the West Bank, which is aimed at denying Palestinian development and taking over land for Israeli needs. Removing the façade of judicial review over demolitions indicates Israel’s plan to accelerate dispossession and a conviction that it will not be called to task over this either internationally or locally.

Over 300 elected officials, legal scholars, academics, artists, faith leaders, and activists from around the world and Israel published an open letter voicing opposition to Israel’s plans to forcibly transfer thousands of Palestinians living in farming-shepherding communities in the West Bank. The letter focuses on Khan al-Ahmar in particular, a community under imminent threat of demolition and forcible transfer.

Yesterday, 4 June 2018, around midday, Israeli Civil Administration officials arrived at the community of Khirbet Humsah in the northern Jordan Valley and handed temporary evacuation orders to five Palestinians families who were already displaced from their homes three times in the last two months. The families were ordered to vacate their homes today, 5 June, from 6 o’clock in the morning until noon, allegedly for the purpose of military training nearby. This morning, Civil Administration officials and a military detail came to the community and accompanied the families, who evacuated on their own – some by car and others on foot. All 29 family members – 19 of whom are minors, including an infant and a child with Down syndrome – had to again go with some of their livestock to a secluded area about ten kilometers from home and wait there, maintaining the Ramadan fast with no shelter, until receiving permission to return home.

On Thursday, 24 May 2018, three Israeli Supreme Court justices – Noam Sohlberg, Anat Baron and Yael Willner – ruled that the state may demolish the homes of the community of Khan al-Ahmar, transfer the residents from their homes and relocate them. This ruling removes the last stumbling block in Israel’s way in the matter, lifting the impediment which had thus far served to defer the transfer of the community, a war crime under international law. While it is a policy shaped by the government, the justices – here as well as in other cases – pitched in and paved the road to the commission of a war crime. Personal liability for the commission of this crime will fall not only on policy-makers. Those who paved the juridical route enabling the crime are equally liable.

At 6:00 o’clock this morning (8 May 2018), Israeli Civil Administration officials and a military detail arrived at the community of Khirbet Humsah in the northern Jordan Valley. They came to evacuate five Palestinian families from their homes from 6:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. This is the third time that these families have been displaced from their homes in the space of two weeks, allegedly for the purpose of military training. The 29 members of these families – 19 of whom are minors, including an infant and a child with Down syndrome – gathered in a secluded area to wait until they will be given permission to return home.