Bi-Weekly Brief for November 15, 2021
A one page digest of Israel’s ongoing dispossession of Palestinian land and livelihoods, and Palestinian resistance.
COP26 told that Israel can save the planet – and is destroying Palestine
“We’ve managed to be the world’s number one country in water innovation,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told the COP 26 summit on Nov. 1. “Israel can become the climate innovation nation, and we’re ready to pave the way.” Addressing COP26 on the same day, PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called Israel “the most critical long-term threat to the Palestinian environment” and pointed to its destruction of water resources and 2.5 million trees, including 800,000 olive trees, since its occupation began. Since the leaders delivered their remarks, settlers and soldiers have destroyed olive trees and a well near Nablus and poisoned olive saplings in Battir, a UNESCO Heritage Site near Bethlehem. On Nov. 12, the army uprooted dozens of trees in Beit Ummar (see Water Fact below). Amira Hass has described the violent seizure by 4 settler outposts of 4,700 acres of Palestinian land in the last 5 years and documented “how the occupation harms not only the Palestinians, but the planet too.”
Demolition orders threaten to displace tens of thousands and come with a hefty price tag
It is not just trees that are being steadily destroyed, but Palestinian homes too, generally on the pretext that they have been constructed without an impossible-to-get license. A third of East Jerusalem’s residents – 100,000 people – could be displaced at any time. Residents, who pay property taxes, can eventually be given the choice of ‘self-demolishing’, or paying the Municipality to do it. On Nov. 4, 10 families owning apartments in a building in the al-Tour neighborhood of East Jerusalem, who had already paid $25,000 each in fines over 9 years, received a final demolition order. The building was too large to ‘self-demolish’ in the 2-day period given by the court, but they had a choice: if they paid the court $75,000 within 2 days, they would have until the end of the month to destroy their homes. If they didn’t pay within 2 days, the Municipality would carry out the demolition and the owners would be charged a fine of $645,000 (2 million shekels).
Sheikh Jarrah: Israel’s High Court approves land confiscation; families reject ‘compromise’
On Nov. 1, the High Court approved the confiscation of 1160 acres of land in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for a new hotel. On Nov. 2, a group of Sheikh Jarrah residents rejected the High Court ‘s ‘compromise’ that would have allowed them to stay in their homes for at least 15 years while paying rent to a US-based settler organization. Seven families have been issued evacuation orders.
Locked-down Gazans are relentlessly squeezed by Israeli navy and army
The frequent attacks on Gaza’s fishermen continue, with their boats coming under fire ever closer to shore - 2 nautical miles on Nov. 6 and Nov. 8, rather than the usual 3. On Nov. 9, the army bulldozed crops near the border fence’s ‘no go’ area and moved onto land near Khan Yunis, ploughing it up and causing the wastewater from a sewage pond to drain onto adjacent cultivated plots.
Water Fact
On Nov. 4, the Israeli army poured cement into a fresh water spring on Palestinian-owned land near the West Bank village of Beit Ummar, 6 miles northeast of Hebron. The ancient village, where a permanent military checkpoint is located, has long come under relentless pressure from settlers and soldiers. Its lands have been seized for an Israeli-only by-pass road (Route 60) and the settlements ringing the town -- Karmei Zur, Migdal Oz, Kfar Etzion and Efrat – which frequently dump their wastewater onto its remaining fields. Back in 2010, Israeli bulldozers demolished a water well and a children’s cemetery in the village. In July 2021, 11-year-old Mohammed al-Alami was shot and killed by soldiers as he drove in Beit Ummar with his father. His 20-year-old uncle Amjad had been killed by the army in 2002 while standing in the doorway of his Beit Ummar home, and another 20-year-old, Shawkat Awad, was killed while serving as a pallbearer at Mohammed’s funeral.
Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
Banner design by Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.