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<h1 class="article-title">Half of Susiya to be Demolished after
Ramadan</h1>
<div class="article-subtitledetails">
<span class="article-details">
<span class="article-detail"><img class="icon"
src="cid:part1.05090209.05000002@freedomarchives.org"
alt="author"> Friday July 17, 2015 01:31</span><span
class="article-detail"><img class="icon"
src="cid:part2.03010305.06010100@freedomarchives.org"
alt="author"> by IMEMC News & Agencies</span></span> <br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.imemc.org/article/72270">http://www.imemc.org/article/72270</a></small></small></b><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="article-intro">Israeli authorities ordered the
demolition of around half of the homes, in a village south of
Hebron, to be carried out after Ramadan, Israeli watchdogs said on
Wednesday.</blockquote>
Rabbis for Human Rights and B'Tselem said, in a statement, that
pressure from <a
href="http://www.imemc.org/newswire?topic=israelisettlement"
target="_blank">Israeli settlers</a> had led to the decision to
carry out demolition orders in the village of Khirbet Susiya after
Ramadan, although a high court hearing regarding the case is
currently scheduled for August 3.<br>
<br>
The Israeli Civil Administration, the Israeli army, and the
Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)
office announced the demolition order to the villagers in a meeting,
Sunday.
Khirbet Susiya has been under imminent threat of demolition since
May, when the Israeli High Court approved the demolition of the
villagers' homes and tents and possible relocation of the villages
around 300 Bedouin residents.<br>
<br>
The court case has been ongoing since 2012, when residents of
Khirbet Susiya applied for the Israeli Civil Administration to
approve an outline plan for northern part of the village.<br>
<br>
Susiya villagers reportedly built homes in 1986 on agricultural land
they owned, after being evicted by Israel from their previous
dwellings on land declared as an archaeological site.<br>
<br>
Situated in Area C, an area covering 60 percent of the West Bank
which is under full Israeli control, villagers of Khirbet Susiya
must apply for construction permits from the Israeli <a
href="http://www.imemc.org/newswire?search_text=Civil+Administration&button=Search+%3E%3E"
target="_blank">Civil Administration</a>.<br>
<br>
In practice only a handful of Palestinian applications for
construction or expansion on existing structures are approved, with
only six percent of Palestinian building permit requests granted by
Israel between 2000 and 2012.<br>
<br>
Unable to get "legal" permission, Palestinians are faced with either
leaving or building illegally.<br>
<br>
Since 1988 Israeli forces have issued more than double the amount of
demolition orders to Palestinians in Area C than they have to
illegal Israeli settlements in the area.<br>
<br>
Israeli settlers living illegally in the area according to
international law already control over 300 hectares of Khirbet
Susiya's land, B'Tselem reports.<br>
<br>
Rabbis for Human Rights alleges that the newest threat is a form of
coercion that aims to expel residents of the area already before the
court hearing.<br>
<br>
The head of the Susiya village council Jihad al-Nawajaa said the
residents have been asked to be evacuated on the pretext that the
village lacks sufficient infrastructure for living.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, the Israeli government provides the necessary services to
the nearby Israeli settlement of Susiya.
Last year Israel demolished 590 Palestinian-owned structures in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem, displacing 1,177 people, according to
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).<br>
<br>
The upcoming demolition of Khirbet Susiya comes while member of
Israel's right wing government are pushing a plan to forcibly
relocate tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins.<br>
<br>
Approved without any consultation with the Bedouin community, the
plan would evict nearly 40,000 Bedouins from their villages and
force them to live in concentrated areas that critics called
"reservations."
Israel currently refuses to recognize 35 Bedouin villages in the
Negev, which collectively house nearly 90,000 people.
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