Palestinians in northern West Bank town received demolition orders

Days of Palestine – Jenin

Three Palestinians in the town of Yabad in the north of the West Bank Tuesday received Israeli demolition orders against their shops, according to Yabad member of town council, Samer Abu Bakr.

He told local sources that the Israeli occupation army handed the three residents demolition orders for their shops located at the entrance to the town under the pretext they were built without permit.

The Israeli authorities’ destruction of Palestinian-owned structures in Area C of the West Bank on grounds of lack of building permits is preceded by the issuance of demolition orders. Together with other policies and practices, the threat of destruction of homes and sources of livelihood represented by these demolition orders, contributes to the generation of a coercive environment pressuring people to leave their areas of residence.

This interactive web-based platform presents a dataset obtained from the Israeli Civil Administration* on all the demolition orders it has issued in Area C since 1988. It enables users to visualize/map such orders based on various indicators, including year, status, governorate, residential area, geographical area, etc.

The dataset was obtained by the Israeli NGO Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights, based on the Israeli Freedom of Information Act.

Data covering January 1988 – April 2017

House demolition is a method used by the Israeli occupation Forces in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip against Palestinians.

Since the occupation of the Palestinian territories, following the Six-Day War in 1967, to 2019, it has been estimated by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions that Israel has razed 49,532 Palestinian structures.

Demolition may be done to enforce building codes and regulations, which in the occupied Palestinian territories are set by the Israeli occupation military.

Human rights organizations and the United Nations criticize the ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes as violating international law, and Amnesty International has contended that the Israeli occupation government actually uses demolitions to collectively punish Palestinians and to seize property for the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Theodor Meron advised the Israeli government in 1968, soon after the occupation of the Palestinian territories in the Six-Day War, that the practice contravened international law, in particular the Geneva Conventions.