Israeli Supreme Court to Decide Fate of Village
Susya, West Bank — Leaning on a cane, Mohamed Ahmed Al-Nawajiya says he has seen a lot in his 70 years. Today he worries that his home – somewhere between a tent and a cinder-block structure – could be demolished if the Israeli Supreme Court rules against the village.
“This is my land but the government doesn’t recognize it,” Al-Nawajiya told The Media Line as his daughter and one of his 40 grandchildren listened. “All I want is a house for my children and a rook over the heads to protect us from the sun and the rain just like anyone else.”
He says this land has belonged to his family for generations and he has Turkish land documents to prove it. However the Turkish documents usually mention landmarks that no longer exist, making it hard to use them in court.
The Palestinians here in the southern Hebron hills on the edge of the desert eke out a living herding sheep and growing grapes and olives. In 1983 a Jewish community, also called Susya, was built nearby. Three years later, the Israeli army expropriated much of the land of the village to build an archaeological site.
The residents, Al-Nawajiya included, moved into caves on their farmland. In 2001, when the second intifada began, the army destroyed the caves, the buildings and the water cisterns.
The 350 Palestinians living here built temporary structures, without Israeli permits. Dovish Israeli groups including Rabbis for Human Rights which has helped represent the villagers in the Israeli Supreme Court admit that the building was done without Israeli permission. The Israeli government said it will not allow any building until a master plan for the village is approved.
“There is no question that this is private Palestinian land,” Rabbi Arik Ascherman, President and senior rabbi at Rabbis for Human Rights told The Media Line. “But the government refused to approve a master plan. The real reason is that they don’t want a Palestinian village next to a settlement.”
Ascherman says the Palestinians living here have Turkish documents proving their ownership. He cites a ruling by Israeli legal expert Plia Albek that the village is built on private Palestinian land, a ruling that should pave the way for them to get a master plan and legalize their building.
Other NGO’s tell a different story about the Palestinians who live here. Regavim, an NGO that says it works to “to ensure responsible, legal, accountable & environmentally friendly use of Israel’s national lands and the return of the rule of law to all areas and aspects of the land and its preservation” says the land was only used for grazing sheep, and shepherds in Yatta would occasionally sleep there.
“The Palestinians have no legal or historical claim to this land. They have been squatting illegally in the area for the past 15+ years,” Regavim’s International Director Josh Hasten told The Media Line. “We call upon the Supreme Court to enforce its decision against illegal construction carried out in deliberate violation of explicit court orders.”
Regavim says there are about 64 structures in the encampment, all of which are built illegally and should be demolished.
The Israeli human rights group Btselem says that in the first half of 2016, Israel demolished more homes in Palestinian communities in the West Bank than in the entire previous year. The dovish group says 168 Palestinian homes were demolished, leaving 740 Palestinians homeless.
Most of these homes were in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank where Israel maintains complete control, and where 350,000 Israelis live. Some charge that the home demolitions are part of an Israeli policy to pave the way for an Israeli annexation of Area C, which some politicians have espoused.
“The Israeli authorities impose an impossible daily reality on Palestinian communities in Area C by repeatedly demolishing their homes, constantly threatening further demolition, and other violations of their rights,” Btselem wrote in a recent report. “This governmental policy, implemented systematically for years, constitutes the forced transfer of Palestinian residents within the occupied territory, in breach of international humanitarian law.”
Israel has offered a compromise to allow the residents to establish a new village a few miles away near the town of Yatta, a suggestion that Al-Nawajiya rejects.
“There are other people living there and farming the land there,” he says. “That’s their land. I want to live on my land – and die here too.”