Palestinians in West Bank equate house demolitions to being killed
5 Min Read
Palestinian families have described the demolitions as being "equal to death."
-
Palestinians gather their belongings after Israeli soldiers demolished their tents in an area east of the village of Tubas, in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)
Palestinian Mahmoud Mahmud Jibril Nawaja’s home has been demolished along with 2,000 others in the West Bank since October 7 without explanation, The Observer reported.
As an Israeli troop handed him a demolition order, he was told the house did not belong to him.
They accused him of building without a permit, despite the fact that his family had held the area for centuries. Nawaja had filed for one, submitting land titles and other ownership paperwork, but had not heard back from the Israeli authorities in years.
The Nawajas, a family of seven, relocated into a tent close to the ruins of their wrecked home, with bulldozer tracks still evident in the ground around them. The same IOF reappeared and dismantled the tent one morning as they were eating breakfast.
"They are killing us, but just in a different way,” he stated.
He and his family are among the 2,155 Palestinians displaced in the West Bank as the war on Gaza rages and violence and land grabs in the West Bank increase.
In June, Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed his plans to completely conquer the West Bank, thus ending any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.
"My life's mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state," he told reporters.
Last month, "Israel" approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in more than three decades, anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now reported.
The approved seizure involves 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley. This, according to the group's research, constitutes the largest single seizure approved since the 1993 Oslo Accords
'Facts on the ground'
Daniella Weiss, an Israeli settler just sanctioned by Canada, explained her strategy was a "competition" targeting regions of the West Bank claimed by "Israel" for additional outposts in what some are calling a "facts on the ground" strategy.
According to Peace Now, Netanyahu's government “has invested immense resources in creating facts on the ground,” including "expanding settlements in the West Bank and accelerating annexation processes, with the aim of eliminating the possibility of a two-state solution."
According to Yonatan Mizrahi, a Peace Now researcher, "It's clear that the Israeli civil administration doesn't want Palestinians to be there." The discrepancy in the number of construction licenses issued by the civil administration to Israeli settlers vs. Palestinians over decades demonstrates this. "You can count the number of permits that Palestinians have received in the last two decades, it's very little," according to him.
Peace Now data show that since October 7, the Israeli government has acknowledged 70 outposts that were previously considered illegal even by Israeli official standards, providing them with funds and facilities such as power or water. The cabinet also approved the construction of five new settlements, while Israelis erected dozens of new outposts and paved tens of kilometers of new roads to expand their own land grab, stealing further property from Palestinians.
While the US and other countries, including the UK, have sanctioned individual settlers and outposts in recent months, only Canadian sanctions have targeted Amana, a corporation that builds illegal outposts. The firm is part of a tiny group of committed settlers and players who aim to "create facts on the ground."
Settlements in the West Bank and al-Quds violations of international law
In a recent opinion advisory on July 19, the president of the International Court of Justice, Nawaf Salam, confirmed that the ICJ is "not convinced" that the "expansion of sovereignty" in the West Bank and al-Quds is "justified" and considered Israeli settlements in the West Bank and al-Quds a violation of international law.
In this context, Salam stated that the ICJ sees "Israel" treating the eastern part of al-Quds as part of its territory and that "Israel" applied its laws there after 1967, stressing that the Israeli occupation is obliged to end its presence in what is internationally recognized as occupied Palestinian territories as soon as possible.
The ICJ President discussed the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, explaining that the transfer of Israeli settlers into the West Bank or eastern part of al-Quds contradicts Article 49 of the Geneva Convention and that "Israel’s" seizure of Palestinian lands and granting them to settlers is neither temporary nor in compliance with the Geneva Convention.
The ICJ emphasized that the expansion of settlements into the West Bank and al-Quds and the construction of the separation wall serve to reinforce the occupation authorities and emphasized that all new settlement activities must be halted.
Salam also pointed out that "Israel" has accelerated the usurpation of lands and the establishment of new settlements in the West Bank, amounting to more than 24,000 settlement units. The court believes that the control over occupied territories should be temporary, and its continuation amounts to an illegal "annexation" of large parts of those territories.
Salam then reviewed the number of Palestinian units demolished by the occupation in recent years, confirming that approximately 11,000 Palestinian units have been demolished since 2009 under the pretext of lacking permits. He also pointed out that "Israel's" practices have led to the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories, especially Area C in the West Bank.
