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<font size="1"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-makes-hundreds-palestinians-homeless-during-pandemic">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-makes-hundreds-palestinians-homeless-during-pandemic</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel makes hundreds of Palestinians homeless during pandemic</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar">Tamara Nassar</a></span> <span class="gmail-field gmail-field-blog">-</span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">23 September 2020</span></span> </p>
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<img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-09/200921_-_demolitions-expansion-settlements2.jpg?itok=nJpiYi5b×tamp=1600854205" alt="Damaged furniture and rubble on open land" title="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="445" height="296"><p>Palestinians look at the remains of a home demolished by Israel in the West Bank village of Farasin, near Jenin, on 11 August.</p>
<small>
<span>APA images</span></small><p>Israel has made hundreds more Palestinians homeless during the pandemic.</p>
<p>Since March, when the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have <a href="https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMmJkZGRhYWQtODk0MS00MWJkLWI2NTktMDg1NGJlMGNiY2Y3IiwidCI6IjBmOWUzNWRiLTU0NGYtNGY2MC1iZGNjLTVlYTQxNmU2ZGM3MCIsImMiOjh9">demolished or confiscated</a> almost 400 Palestinian structures.</p>
<p>That’s almost 65 per month – the highest average in four years.</p>
<p>So far this year, Israel has forcibly displaced about 700
Palestinians – most of them during the pandemic and half of them
children.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/demolition_monthly_report-august_2020.pdf">August</a> alone, Israel forced more than 200 Palestinians into homelessness.</p>
<p>That’s “more than in any other single month since January 2017,” <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/unlawful-demolitions-west-bank-spike-during-covid-19">according</a> to the United Nations monitoring group OCHA.</p>
<p>Those figures do not include the hundreds more whose livelihoods and
ability to access services were also hampered by Israel’s demolition
campaign.</p>
<p>Palestinians often demolish their own homes to avoid being landed with the bill if Israel carries out the demolition.</p>
<p>Demolitions were not restricted to Palestinian homes.</p>
<p>Israeli occupation forces also destroyed or confiscated water,
hygiene and agriculture structures – a further attack on Palestinians’
ability to respond to the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Ethnic cleansing</h2>
<p>Israel’s intensifying demolition campaign mostly targets Palestinians in <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/area-c">Area C</a>, the 60 percent of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli military control and includes Israel’s largest settlements.</p>
<p>The rest are taking place in occupied East Jerusalem, barring a small
number in Areas A and B – which are nominally under Palestinian
Authority control.</p>
<p>Palestinians in Area C have been <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-wrecks-efforts-halt-spread-covid-19/30211">left to fend for themselves</a> during the pandemic while Israel continues to colonize their land.</p>
<p>Israel’s pretext for most demolitions is that Palestinians build
without permits from the occupation authorities despite owning the land.</p>
<p>Israel refuses to permit virtually any Palestinian construction in
Area C or in occupied East Jerusalem, forcing Palestinians to build
without permits and live in constant fear of demolitions.</p>
<p>This is part of Israel’s relentless effort to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-rubberstamps-50-years-land-theft/30476">change the demographics</a> in the area to ensure a Jewish majority. It is, in other words, ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>For some Israeli lawmakers, occupation forces are not doing enough to force Palestinians off their land.</p>
<p>Ayelet Shaked, a former minister who has <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes">promoted calls for genocide</a>
against Palestinians, proposed appointing a government official “whose
entire objective would be to prevent the takeover of Area C.”</p>
<p>This Orwellian language reverses Shaked’s true intention: She wants to <em>ensure the takeover</em> of Area C by Israeli settlers from its indigenous Palestinian population.</p>
<p>Another far-right Israeli lawmaker <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bezalel-smotrich">Bezalel Smotrich</a>, author of a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-refuses-condemn-israeli-genocide-plan">genocidal plan</a> to expel Palestinians, has a different idea.</p>
<p>Smotrich has suggested that Israeli settlements – whose construction
is a war crime – be authorized to demolish Palestinian structures they
deem “unlicensed,” <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-knesset-committee-39-of-west-bank-suffices-for-palestinian-construction-1.9147990">according</a> to Tel Aviv daily <em>Haaretz</em>.</p>
<p>Other Israeli ministers have likened Palestinian construction in Area
C to “an exponential virus,” a “territorial terror” and “a cancer.”</p>
<p>Such language demonizing a people living on its own land as a disease
is reminiscent of the incitement that has in numerous times and places
preceded ethnic cleansing or genocide.</p>
<h2>Destroying EU aid</h2>
<p>In August alone, Israel demolished or seized almost $11,000 worth of
donor-funded structures, and more than $90,000 worth during the
pandemic.</p>
<p>The majority of donor-funded structures demolished or seized this year were funded by the European Union.</p>
<p>In 2019, Israel destroyed or seized half a million dollars worth of EU-funded projects – a <a href="https://euobserver.com/foreign/147171">90 percent</a> increase from 2018.</p>
<p>Between 2001 and 2016, Israel <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israel-has-destroyed-74-million-worth-eu-projects">caused</a>
an estimated $74 million in destruction to EU-funded projects. That
included $26 million worth during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza.</p>
<p>But the European Union does nothing to hold Israel accountable for its <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-drastically-escalates-destruction-eu-funded-energy-projects">regular</a> <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-demolishes-another-eu-funded-school">practice</a> of demolishing EU-funded projects.</p>
<p>Occasionally, the EU mission in the occupied West Bank <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/local-eu-statement-on-demolitions-in-the-west-bank/">issues</a> statements of “concern.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the EU maintains its high levels of financial,
technological and political support for Israel, while sending public
signals that further incentivize its behavior.</p>
<p>Last month, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi.</p>
<p>Ashkenazi was army chief during Israel’s 2008-2009 attack on Gaza, <a href="https://imeu.org/article/operation-cast-lead">Operation Cast Lead</a>, a three-week massacre that killed some 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 300 children.</p>
<p>Borrell congratulated Ashkenazi on Israel’s “normalization of
relations with the UAE,” and reaffirmed that “the EU and Israel are
ready to continue to work together.”</p>
<p>After a follow-up call with Ashkenazi this month, Borrell <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/85367/israel-high-representativevice-president-borrell-speaks-foreign-minister-ashkenazi_en">affirmed</a> the EU’s interest in “intensifying bilateral cooperation.”</p>
<p>While Ashkenazi is all smiles when his European hosts welcome him, his mood is less friendly behind closed doors.</p>
<p>In a Knesset meeting in July, Ashkenazi said he considered any
European-funded project in Area C that “doesn’t honor Israeli
construction-permit procedures” as a “European intervention in an
attempt to define a border.”</p>
<p>In other words, the EU must let Israel alone dictate where its
borders are and must fully cooperate with its ethnic cleansing campaign.</p>
<p>Ashkenazi reportedly threatened that any European-funded structures
built in Area C without Israeli permission would face “consequences.” He
added that Israel would reject any European “demand for payment of
compensation for the demolishing or confiscation of the equipment.”</p>
<p>According to the numbers, Israel’s bullying of the EU works.
EU-funded projects have sharply decreased over the years, from 75 in
2015 to just 12 last year.</p>
<img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-09/200921_-_demolitions-expansion-settlements6.jpg?itok=04zxGDAj×tamp=1600854205" alt="Bulldozer builds structure on open land" title="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="445" height="296"><p>Jewish-only settlement of Nofei Nehemia built on Palestinian-owned land in the Salfit area of the occupied West Bank, 13 August.</p><small>
<span>Ahmad Al-Bazz</span>
<span>ActiveStills</span></small><h2>Chelsea owner funds settlements</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, Israel’s settlements in Area C and occupied East Jerusalem continue to flourish.</p>
<p>An Israeli court in Jerusalem <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-court-orders-dozens-of-palestinians-out-of-jerusalem-homes-to-make-way-for-settlers-1.9157320">gave the green light</a> earlier this month to expel dozens of Palestinians from their homes and hand them to settler groups.</p>
<p>The latter argued that the homes belonged to Jews before the Nakba – the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.</p>
<p>Israel’s <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/absentee-property-law">1950 Absentee Property Law</a> allows Israel to seize land and property owned by Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled during and after the Nakba.</p>
<p>Under a <a href="http://www.ir-amim.org.il/sites/default/files/Absentees_against_their_will.pdf">1970 amendment</a>
to its law, Israel allowed Jews to reclaim Jerusalem properties they
left in 1948, but did not allow the same right to Palestinians – a
blatantly racist measure.</p>
<p>The home in the Batan al-Hawa area of <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/silwan">Silwan</a> in occupied East Jerusalem belongs to the al-Fatah Rajbi family, 26 of whom will be made homeless, <em>Haaretz</em> reported.</p>
<p>Now, the court is forcing the Palestinian family to hand over their home of 54 years to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ateret-cohanim">Ateret Cohanim</a>, a settler organization that helps implement the Israeli government’s colonization of Palestinian properties in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The land was allegedly registered to a trust in the name of a rabbi
under Ottoman rule. In 2001, Israel’s high court transferred the land to
Ateret Cohanim.</p>
<p>Since then, the settler group has sued 700 Palestinians living on
land allegedly belonging to the trust in a bid to forcibly expel them.</p>
<p>Israeli settler groups have no shortage of help.</p>
<p>Newly exposed documents <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-companies-linked-to-roman-abramovich-donated-100-million-to-right-wing-group-1.9173187">reveal</a> that Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, has contributed more than $100 million to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/elad">Elad</a>, another Israeli settler group that takes over Palestinian land and homes in occupied East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Abramovich is a Russian who took Israeli citizenship in 2018.</p>
<p>Chelsea is <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-fans-racism-anti-semitic-songs-bbc-film-tottenham-a4356761.html">known</a> for the rampant racism and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/12/15/chelsea-fans-scrutiny-flag-bearing-nazi-logo/">anti-Semitism</a> of its fans.</p> <h3>
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