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class="header"> <b><small><small><small><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/when-israels-bulldozers-escape-our-attention/15766"
id="reader-domain" class="domain"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/when-israels-bulldozers-escape-our-attention/15766">https://electronicintifada.net/content/when-israels-bulldozers-escape-our-attention/15766</a></a></small></small></small></b>
<h1 id="reader-title">When Israel's bulldozers escape our
attention</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/barbara-erickson"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Barbara Erickson</a></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-02-22T20:28:00+00:00">22 February 2016</span></span>
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<p>Last autumn, when word came that the unpaved road to
al-Hadidiya would be repaired, villagers in this <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jordan-valley">Jordan
Valley</a> herding community looked forward to a
winter of less hardship.</p>
<p>Now, even when the rains arrived and turned the track
into muck, supplies could get through, children could
walk to school and the sick could reach clinics.</p>
<p>“I can’t tell you how happy we all were,” said Khadijeh
Bsharat, a widow with 11 children, who was <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/jordan_valley/20151201_demolition_and_confiscation_in_al_hadidiya">interviewed</a>
by the Israeli human rights group <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">B’Tselem</a>.
“We said to each other that life would be better, and we
would be able to get from place to place in summer and
winter.”</p>
<p>Residents began working on the road, leveling ruts and
spreading gravel over the surface. Although Israeli army
officials had issued a stop work order on 15 November,
an attorney had won an injunction, and the work,
supported by aid from donors, went forward.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Israeli bulldozers arrived before dawn on
25 November and began to destroy what had been
accomplished, piling gravel in heaps.</p>
<p>“The bulldozers began raking up the road,” said
Bsharat, “taking our hopes with it.”</p>
<p>Although a member of the Bedouin regional council
persuaded the crews to leave after an hour, a full 400
meters had become impassable again.</p>
<p>Now, it seemed to Bsharat, her children could not come
to visit her, and sick members of the community would
continue to have to ride for help in a tractor or on the
back of a donkey.</p>
<h2>Routine destruction</h2>
<p>To add to the villagers’ dismay, the crews returned the
next day to tear down tents, animal shelters, a small
silo, a brick oven and even a dovecote, crushing pigeon
chicks in the process.</p>
<p>Seven of the demolished structures had been donated by
humanitarian groups. Only a small two-person tent
remained for a community of nearly 100.</p>
<p>The assault on al-Hadidiya loomed large in the lives of
the struggling villagers, but it was a routine affair in
the occupied West Bank. The <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-civil-administration">Civil
Administration</a>, an Israeli military body that
oversees the management of the West Bank, frequently
issues demolition orders — for construction work carried
out without permits that are rarely tendered, or as
punitive measures against those where family members
have been deemed a security threat. And demolitions are
carried out often seemingly at random.</p>
<p>The United Nations monitoring group OCHA has <a
href="http://www.ochaopt.org/poc29december-11january-2016.aspx">reported</a>
that the Israeli army demolished 447 buildings or
structures in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/area-c">Area
C</a> of the West Bank in 2015. Area C, a zone
designated by the 1993 <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/oslo-accords">Oslo
accords</a>, covers more than 60 percent of the West
Bank and is under full Israeli control.</p>
<p>These structures included the tents and animal shelters
of al-Hadidiya.</p>
<p>A further 74 structures were destroyed in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/east-jerusalem">East
Jerusalem</a> last year.</p>
<h2>Israeli law as pretext</h2>
<p>This is the face of occupation rarely seen, the attacks
on innocents such as the widow Bsharat. No one is
accusing these victims of terrorism; Israeli law
provides the pretext here.</p>
<p>Israel has designated much land off limits to building
in Area C. Where it is allowed, the authorities require
building permits, which are almost impossible to get.
Palestinians, desperate to provide for their families,
thus build without them and hope for the best. Their
hopes are often dashed.</p>
<p>OCHA field reports indicate that during 2015, the
Israeli army destroyed some 170 housing units in Area C
and East Jerusalem, along with shops and other
commercial facilities. Israel razed orchards, burned
wheat fields and demolished cisterns, wells, an
elementary school (donor built), a greenhouse, a plant
nursery, workshops, stores, outdoor kitchens, latrines,
rest shelters and more.</p>
<p>Sometimes the crews carried away confiscated items:
three sheep and an iron gate from the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jabal-al-mukabir">Jabal
al-Mukabir</a> neighborhood of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/east-jerusalem">East
Jerusalem</a>, a number of solar panels, mobile
latrines, olive tree saplings, tractors, tools and, in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nablus">Nablus</a>,
four buses (later returned).</p>
<p>Soldiers took a donkey from children in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jenin">Jenin</a>.
They took a forklift from the village of Husan, four
water pumps from Khirbet al-Deir in the Jordan Valley
and all the plants from a nursery south of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bethlehem">Bethlehem</a>.</p>
<p>Each action represented dashed hopes. Families and
communities had often worked on a project for months or
years only to see it lying in ruins after the bulldozers
arrived.</p>
<p>Villagers of Khirbet Yarza spent three years and more
than $11,000 building a 1,000 meter fence around their
olive groves only to find it demolished under Israeli
bulldozers on New Year’s Day 2015.</p>
<p>Israel insists that those handed demolition orders <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-forced-me-destroy-my-own-house-says-jerusalem-father/12725">pay</a>
the costs of the demolitions. Yet internal OCHA
documents that I have seen show that several families
chose to demolish their own homes or new additions to
their homes in order to avoid the cost of paying for
wrecking crews.</p>
<p>A family in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/beit-hanina">Beit
Hanina</a>, part of East Jerusalem, destroyed their
home of 17 years after losing a battle in the courts.
Another family in Jerusalem’s Old City self-demolished a
bathroom they had built in 2009.</p>
<h2>Deprived of income</h2>
<p>Israeli army units tore down tents and simple shelters
for animals, they confiscated and destroyed prefab
housing units, and they also razed substantial
structures. Among them were a three-story commercial
building near <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/qalandiya">Qalandiya</a>,
originally built in 1971 and renovated in 2013 and a
brick factory near Jenin.</p>
<p>Untold stories of loss haunt these reports from the
field — the four vegetable stalls razed near <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jericho">Jericho</a>
last May, for instance. It took next to no time to
destroy these humble structures that provided support
for 11 adults and 15 children. Crews also confiscated or
damaged 500 boxes of vegetables in the process.</p>
<p>In Jalameh, near Jenin, the demolition men tore up a
stand for selling falafel and another used as a taxi
call service. A third, selling hot drinks, was
confiscated. “All these structures are main sources of
income for the families,” an OCHA field report stated.</p>
<p>Many of the buildings and items destroyed were donated
by outside agencies, such as the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/european-union">European
Union</a> and the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/icrc">International
Committee of the Red Cross</a> to compensate for
earlier demolitions.</p>
<p>These donors frequently register complaints with
Israel. At one point the Red Cross <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-destroying-emergency-shelters-home-demolition-victims-says-red-cross">declared</a>
that it would no longer provide tents because the army
destroyed them as soon as they arrived. But the
destruction continues.</p>
<p>The demolitions of 2015 displaced more than 600 people.
They also left many animals without shelter.</p>
<p>Overall, in 2015, the military destroyed about 150
animal shelters, affecting thousands of sheep and other
livestock. Israel also demolished water tanks, ponds,
grazing fields and sheds for storing fodder.</p>
<p>Some animals died as heavy machinery turned shelters
into a chaos of falling rubble.</p>
<p>Gaza, of course, was not spared destruction, even if
Israeli wrecking crews don’t have the same kind of
access there as they do for the West Bank.</p>
<p>In late December, for instance, Israeli aircraft made
several sorties to spray herbicides on 421 acres of
peas, beans, spinach and parsley in Gaza. The military <a
href="http://aa.com.tr/en/world/israeli-military-admits-destroying-gaza-crops-on-border/498840">said</a>
it had destroyed the crops to “prevent the use of the
area for destructive purposes.”</p>
<h2>Driving Palestinians out</h2>
<p>In the West Bank, Israel appears determined to drive
Palestinians out of Area C. It has made some progress in
this endeavor. At one time, residents of Jordan Valley
herding communities lived in stone houses; now they are
hard pressed to hang onto their donated tents.</p>
<p>The mainstream media are complicit in ignoring this
reality and quick to quote Israeli officials when they
claim to be making efforts on behalf of the Palestinian
economy.</p>
<p>Thus, <em>The New York Times</em>, without a hint of
irony, <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/world/middleeast/palestinian-stabs-israelis-in-tel-aviv.html?ref=middleeast&_r=1">quoted</a>
Israeli minister <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yuval-steinitz">Yuval
Steinitz’s</a> comment to reporters last November: “We
always agree to confidence-building measures with the
Palestinians and to build their economy.”</p>
<p><em>Barbara Erickson is a journalist living in
Berkeley, California. She is a member of Friends of
Sabeel-North America and critiques </em>The New York
Times<em> coverage of Palestine at her blog, <a
href="http://www.timeswarp.org"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.TimesWarp.org">www.TimesWarp.org</a></a>.</em></p>
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