Batan al-Hawa neighborhood, Silwan: The next target for "Judaization" of E. J’alem

11 December 2016

Residents and police in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa. Photo by Hussam ‘Abed, B’Tselem, 29 Nov. 2016

The Batan al-Hawa neighborhood, in the heart of Silwan, is the setting for the most extensive expulsion in recent years in East Jerusalem. To date, eviction claims have been filed against 81 Palestinian families that have been living in Batan al-Hawa for decades. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, this number reflects a third of all families under threat of dispossession on the basis ethnicity in the city.

Ever since Israel annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have employed discriminatory policies against the city’s Palestinian residents, and have worked in different ways toward decreasing their number while increasing the number of Jewish residents, with a view to achieving demographic and geographic conditions that would obstruct any future attempts to question Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. As part of these efforts, Israeli authorities have confiscated hundreds of hectares of land from the Palestinian population and built 12 neighborhoods designed exclusively for the Jewish population in the occupied area that was annexed to Israel. In terms of international law, the status of these neighborhoods is no different than that of the settlements elsewhere in the West Bank.

In recent years, in addition to the housing shortage, poor or lacking infrastructure, services and government funding that affect all East Jerusalem residents, various government ministries and the Jerusalem Municipality have mobilized to help the settler organization Ateret Cohanim dispossess Palestinian families living in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa, and hand over their homes to Jewish settlers. Israel’s courts have given the seal of approval to every aspect of this process, despite its being a legal justification for organized state violence in pursuit of an unlawful end – the forcible transfer of protected persons from their homes in an occupied territory.

B’Tselem has undertaken a neighborhood survey, and mapped the processes underway in Batan al-Hawa. According to the survey, the neighborhood is divided into some 50 parcels, nine of which have been handed over to Ateret Cohanim, including five that are already in use by settlers. To date, Ateret Cohanim has filed eviction claims against 81 families, all living in Parcel 96 which covers 0.26 hectares in the center of the neighborhood. Most of the claims were filed over the course of 2015. The municipality has fined two more families, who live in Parcel No. 84, and issued demolition orders for parts of their homes on the grounds that they had encroached on land that belongs to the settler association. Ateret Cohanim already has possession of six buildings in the neighborhood, containing 27 housing units, most of which had been home to Palestinian families. The expulsion of these families from homes they had lived in for decades, purportedly as a measure of law enforcement, as the houses had been Jewish-owned prior to the 1948 War, would make some of the neighborhood’s residents refugees for a second time, after having already been expelled from their homes in that war.

Um Naser, a neighborhood resident, by the settlement built adjacent to her home. Photo by Hussam ‘Abed, B’Tselem, 23 Nov. 2016

The government dispossession apparatus in action

The Ateret Cohanim association began efforts to seize properties and establish a Jewish settlement in Batan al-Hawa in 2001. It modus operandi rests on manipulating a combination of three laws passed by Israel since 1948, which allow Jews, and Jews only, to demand that the Custodian of Absentee Property hand over ownership rights to property in the annexed area that had been owned by Jews prior to 1948, but ended up beyond the country’s borders after the war. Settlers sometimes purchase ownership rights from the Jewish heirs to the land. In other cases, aided by the state, they are given permission to manage the trusts that owned the property before 1948. They then contact the Custodian of Absentee Property who hands over the property to them. Another avenue pursued by the settlers is to have the Custodian sell them property in the neighborhoods directly. These are usually properties where Palestinians live, and the settlers file actions to have them evicted. In stark contrast to the significant efforts Israel makes to restore property to Jewish ownership, the state does not even allow Palestinians to demand restoration of property they owned in west Jerusalem prior to 1948.

In 2001, the Jerusalem District Court sanctioned the decision made by the Custodian of Absentee Property to hand over to Ateret Cohanim the management of the Benvenisti Trust, a Jewish trust that operated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries. In 2002, the Custodian released to the Trust Parcels 95 and 96, where the families now facing eviction live. In 2005, the Custodian sold the association another 0.3-hectare area (Parcels 73, 75, 84 and 97), where ten more Palestinian families live.

The pressure on families who live in a property the settlers want for themselves often puts them in a cruel dilemma – agree to leave in return for significant sums of money, or refuse and still risk losing the property (a very real possibility given the expulsion of other families in the neighborhood), accruing serious debt and suffering harassment.

View from the west of Batan al-Hawa. Photo by Amit Gilutz, B’Tselem, 6 Dec. 2016

Tension and violence – an everyday reality

The settler presence has changed the neighborhood. In addition to the hardships that come with the settlers – lawsuits, invasion of privacy, economic duress, daily harassment of residents and the resulting clashes between local youths and the settlers, often involving stone throwing – there is now an added presence of the Israel Police, the Border Police and private security guards paid for by the Ministry of Housing. They too use violence against Palestinian residents, threaten them, arrest minors and disrupt life. The stronger the hold settlers have in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa, the greater the number of Palestinians directly impacted by the settler security apparatus, even without being expelled from their homes.

Security guards escort settler children through the neighborhood. Photo by Sarit Michaeli, B’Tselem, 6 Dec. 2016

The end goal: “Judaization” of Jerusalem

The settlement in Batan al-Hawa, advanced by Ateret Cohanim, is part and parcel of the efforts made by the authorities and settler associations to increase and cement Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Old City Basin: in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter and the Palestinian neighborhoods that surround it. There are currently about 2,800 settlers living in some 140 buildings located in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in and around the Old City – an area that is home to about 100,000 Palestinians.

According to figures by the NGOs Peace Now and Ir Amim, the number of settlers living in Palestinian neighborhoods in the Old City Basin has seen a 70% spike between 2009 and 2016. An increase of 39% in the number of new construction sites designated for Jews in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem has also been recorded. During this time, 68 Palestinian families were evicted in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and the Muslim Quarter, 55 of them over the last two years. According to UN figures, settler organizations have filed eviction actions against at least 180 Palestinian families throughout East Jerusalem, usually based on claims of ownership over the building and loss of protected tenant status by the Palestinian families. As a result, 818 Palestinians throughout the city, including 372 children, are facing expulsion from their homes.

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East Jerusalem

High Court of Justice paves way for cleansing of Palestinians from Silwan

Yesterday, Israeli High Court justices Barak-Erez, Baron and Elron rejected an appeal filed by 104 residents of Silwan to overturn a September 2002 decision by the Custodian of Absentee Property to "release" the land on which they have lived for decades. The land was "released" by three people - all closely affiliated with Ateret Cohanim, a settler association that works to Judaize East Jerusalem. In the judgment, written by Justice Barak-Erez, the Court's role is narrowed down to examining several questions relating to administrative law. In choosing this avenue, the Court sent the residents back to fight, against all odds, the civil proceedings that Ateret Cohanim has undertaken in order to evict them from their homes. Justice Barak-Erez ruled that the appellants were unable to counter the "presumption of regularity" that applies to the Custodian, and that there is no room for discretion on the Custodian's part in exercising power on this matter. Acknowledging the implications, Justice Barak-Erez added that the decision "may give rise to real difficulty for those effectively in possession of the released assets", yet her decision stands. The judgment was written without addressing the context whatsoever: as though the land were not "released" by an association whose goal is to drive Palestinians out of their homes; as though the body of law does not allow Jews alone to file ownership for land abandoned in 1948; as though the Court were not sanctioning the broadest move to dispossess Palestinians since 1967. The judgment proves, yet again, that the Israeli High Court gives its seal of approval to almost any infringement of Palestinians' rights by the Israeli authorities. Background In recent years, in addition to the housing shortage, poor or lacking infrastructure, services and government funding that affect all East Jerusalem residents, various government ministries and the Jerusalem Municipality have mobilized to help the settler organization Ateret Cohanim dispossess Palestinian families living in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa, and hand over their homes to Jewish settlers. This is the most extensive expulsion process in recent years in East Jerusalem. To date, eviction claims have been filed against dozens of Palestinian families that have been living in Batan al-Hawa for decades. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, this number reflects 45% of all families under threat of dispossession on the basis ethnicity in the city. The neighborhood is divided into about 50 parcels. Nine of them have been transferred to Ateret Cohanim, and settlers have moved into five of them. In addition to the hardships that come with the settlers – lawsuits, invasion of privacy, economic duress, daily harassment of residents and the resulting clashes between local youths and the settlers, often involving stone throwing – there is now an added presence of the Israel Police, the Border Police and private security guards paid for by the Ministry of Housing. They too use violence against Palestinian residents, threaten them, arrest minors and disrupt life. The stronger the hold settlers have in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa, the greater the number of Palestinians directly impacted by the settler security apparatus, even without being expelled from their homes. Ever since Israel annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have employed discriminatory policies against the city’s Palestinian residents, and have worked in different ways toward decreasing their number while increasing the number of Jewish residents, with a view to achieving demographic and geographic conditions that would obstruct any future attempts to question Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. As part of these efforts, Israeli authorities have confiscated hundreds of hectares of land from the Palestinian population and built 12 neighborhoods designed exclusively for the Jewish population in the occupied area that was annexed to Israel. In terms of international law, the status of these neighborhoods is no different than that of the settlements elsewhere in the West Bank.The settlement in Batan al-Hawa promoted by Ateret Cohanim is an integral part of efforts by the Israeli authorities and by settler organizations to Judaize to the Holy Basin - including the Old City's Muslim Quarter and the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding it. At present, some 2,800 settlers are living in about 140 residences in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in the Old City and its environs - an area that is home to some 100,000 Palestinians.

22 November 2018

Roadblock reinstalled at the western entrance to the village. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 8 January 2017

Restrictions on Movement

Deir Nizam: Two months of collective punishment after fire in nearby settlement

On the night between Thursday and Friday, 24 and 25 November 2016 – during a period when many fires broke out in Israel – a fire broke out in a wooded area south of the settlement of Halamish, in the West Bank district of Ramallah. The fire, which the authorities later determined had been caused by arson, spread and destroyed many homes in Halamish, as well as several hectares of woodland nearby. Although the settlement was built on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Deir Nizam and borders the village to the east, thanks to the direction of the wind, homes in Deir Nizam remained unharmed although olive groves belonging to its residents were burned. Large forces of Israeli fire fighters battled the fire until it was finally put out on Saturday, 26 November. Many of the settlement’s residents were evacuated from their homes during the fire. On Friday night, 25 November, the military imposed severe restrictions on movement in Deir Nizam. The three main entrances to the village were blocked off with dirt mounds, and soldiers were posted to guard them. Residents were also prohibited from going in and out of the village on foot until Monday, 28 November. At that point, military then relaxed its enforcement of the restrictions, but the roadblocks remained in place. Instead of regularly standing guard, soldiers are now posted at the roadblocks at random hours, almost every day. Soldiers also patrol throughout the village every day, sometimes more than once, and during the night. These patrols often lead to clashes with youngsters from the village, who throw stones at the soldiers. In some cases, the soldiers have responded with massive use of tear gas inside the village and arrests, including of four minors. This conduct is part of Israel’s collective punishment policy in the West Bank, whereby suspicions against individuals are deemed sufficient justification for trampling the rights of the entire community and disrupting their daily lives. In this case, residents of the village were held collectively responsible for the arson and marked as a ‘legitimate’ target for public rage over the fires throughout Israel by politicians wishing to curry favor with the settlers and their supporters. As far as B’Tselem is aware, the only village residents who were arrested and interrogated following the fire were suspected of stone-throwing rather than arson and were released shortly thereafter. Below is a review of the measures taken against the village residents, as found by B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad and related in testimonies given to him on 7 December 2016. Restrictions on movement Some 1,500 people live in Deir Nizam, and those of them that are employed work for the Palestinian Authority or inside Israel. The village lies some 20 kilometers northwest of Ramallah and is bordered to the east and south by the settlement of Halamish, which was built on village land in 1978, and by the areas it controls. The village has three entrances, from the south, the north and the west. Beginning on Friday night, 25 November 2016, the military blocked the three entrances with dirt mounds or rocks, posted military jeeps beside the roadblocks, and prevented people from entering or leaving the village, including on foot, until Monday, 28 November. Dirt road bypassing the roadblock at the western entrance to the village. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 8 January 2017 On Monday, military presence at the entrance to the village was scaled back and residents began going in and out of the village via a dirt road that runs through fields and bypasses the western entrance, or via fields south of the village, an approximately one kilometer walk from the main road. These provisory solutions cannot meet daily needs. Later, when soldiers were no longer regularly posted at the entrances to the village, residents removed the roadblocks from the northern and western entrances, allowing access by car once again. However, a few days later the military reinstalled the western roadblock. Though military presence in the village was scaled back, soldiers are still posted in the village at random times, restricting entry and exit. Residents cannot know when they will be able to enter or leave the village, which makes planning daily activities difficult. The restrictions seriously impede residents from reaching their work places, and people who live outside the village and work there from entering, including teachers at the village school. The village school principal, Mahmoud Yihya, 54, who lives in Deir Nizam, described the effect of the movement restrictions and of the soldiers’ presence on routine at the school, which includes an elementary, junior and high school: Our school goes from grade 1 to 12. There are 234 students and 24 staff members. On Sunday, 27 November 2016, the school was shut down completely. Eighteen of our 24 staff members live outside the village and they couldn’t make it to work. The restrictions were eased the next day, and some of the teachers managed to sneak in through the nearby fields, so 15 of the 18 teachers who live outside the village did come in. Studies continued almost as usual, apart from technology and English because these subjects are taught by teachers who couldn’t get into the village. Later, the restrictions became random, and teachers who come from outside had difficulty assessing whether they would be able to get in. This resulted in more teacher absences and late arrivals. We got the impression that the military was making sure to post soldiers at the roadblocks specifically when teachers arrived for work. It disrupted studies and caused lesson cancellations due to teacher absences. Students were more absent than usual, as well. On any given day three to five kids are absent, but during this time, the number jumped to 15-25. In some cases, this was due to harassment of the children by the soldiers in the village, so parents and students were afraid. Also, the soldiers patrolled specifically when the children left school. This led to stone throwing by the children, to which the soldiers responded with tear gas and stun grenades. On 5 December, the soldiers fired tear gas canisters into the school yard. It was during class, and no one was outside. The gas penetrated a classroom used by fifth graders, 11-year-old children. They felt suffocated and ran to other classrooms. More than 20 students were hurt by the gas. The next day, 13 students did not show up, and the day after that, 11 – most of them from elementary school, because the students were panicking. Deir Nizam school. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 7 December 2016 Tawfiq Mizhar, 49, a married father of six from the nearby village of ‘Abud, drives passengers between the villages and Ramallah by minibus. He described how the restrictions affect his work: I work on the Deir Nizam-‘Abud-Ramallah line. I usually do four trips a day and make 50 to 70 shekels for each trip. Because of the fires on Friday night, the Israeli authorities blocked off the entrances to Deir Nizam. On the first day of the closure, I was about to leave Deir Nizam with a minibus full of passengers, most of them students, public servants, and laborers. Then I discovered that the southern and western exits were completely sealed off, so I tried to leave through the northern exit, which was blocked with movable rocks, but there were also army vehicles and soldiers waiting there, outside the village. One of the soldiers aimed a rifle at me from a long way off, about 50 meters away, and ordered me to turn around. I was afraid and had no choice but to go back and unload the passengers. The same thing happened the next day. I went to the village center, but everyone said the roads were still closed. I tried waiting, but nothing changed. On the third day, some residents managed to open up a side exit in the western part of the village. I managed to get through there safely, even though it’s a rough dirt road full of stones and potholes. On the way back, I had to drop the passengers off there and they had to carry on by foot, because it’s very difficult to get through with the minibus. The passengers had to walk a kilometer to the village, and some were carrying backpacks and shopping bags. I imagine they suffered a lot. Because of the situation, I had to drop two of the four trips I make every day. My income has gone down significantly and it’s hardly enough to pay for the minibus expenses. I’m the breadwinner for eight people, and this situation is very worrying. We have to put off shopping, including things we need now for winter, because we’re afraid this will go on. Entry of military forces into the village and arrest of minors: Since the military began to collectively punish the entire village, soldiers frequently patrol it. Testimonies of residents indicate that the patrols do not serve any specific purpose such as arrests or searches, but appear to be simply a show of force. The residents report that they often take place just when school lets out. In some cases, clashes erupted between soldiers and students who threw stones at them. The soldiers responded by firing tear gas canisters and stun grenades, in one case into the school yard. During the first two weeks, the military patrolled the village every day, sometimes several times, including at night. The frequency of the patrols has since decreased, but they remain an almost daily occurrence. On 29 November 2016, during a clash between soldiers and several youngsters, the soldiers arrested five minors between the ages of 13 and 15 for allegedly throwing stones. Two of them were released after two hours and one was held until nightfall. The other two were held in custody and interrogated until the following morning. Two other young men, one 19 years old and the other 21, were also arrested on stone throwing suspicions and released the next day. Some of these minors and young men reported that their interrogators pressured them to confess to the arson that caused the fire. L.T., 15, from Deir Nizam, described his arrest by soldiers during the clashes on 29 November: At around 11:00 o’clock in the morning, I was in class when I saw military jeeps driving into the village. We went on with our school day as usual and finished at midday, around 1:30. There were still soldiers outside and they were firing tear gas and stun grenades. When I got home, my aunt asked me to go get my cousin Rami, 12, because she was worried about him being out in the street with soldiers in the village. I found him by the northern exit of the village and told him to come home. We were on our way home when suddenly, we saw five soldiers running from the center of the village. We didn’t try to run away at first, but one of the soldiers fired in our direction and a bullet landed not far from us. We got scared and started running in the opposite direction. We ran into the fields and saw three other kids who were also running away from the soldiers. We saw military vehicles there, too, and soldiers and police officers got out of one of them and started chasing us. We ran and they kept chasing us, firing tear gas at us. We choked on the gas and our eyes started to water, but we didn’t stop until we got to the residential part of the village. My aunt, Rami’s mother, saw us and came to protect us with other women from the village. She told us to not be afraid and to turn ourselves in, and that they wouldn’t do anything to us. The officers and soldiers came up and one of them grabbed my hand from behind. He punched me in the back and then took me away. They got Rami, too, and another kid, all of them violently. They dragged us to the military jeeps and tied our hands and feet. At first, they took us to the military camp in Halamish and held us out in the open. It was cold and I only had a short-sleeved shirt on. Then they took us to the entrance to Halamish. I managed to take off the blindfold but a soldier saw me and hit me. A few minutes later, they put me in a military vehicle. We didn’t know where they were taking us, but when they took us out of the vehicle they removed our blindfolds and handcuffs. I saw that they had brought other kids there. I was cold and scared and hungry, because I hadn’t had lunch. Every time I asked for water, they said no. In the evening, some soldiers and officers came. One of them was in plainclothes. He pointed at me and said, ‘That’s him’. They blindfolded and handcuffed me. I waited for some time, I’m not sure how long, and then they put me in another vehicle and took the blindfold off. A kid I know from the village was there, too. He had a watch and it was already 11:30 at night. They took us to the Binyamin police station and we waited opposite the reception rooms. After an hour or two, a vehicle came and I saw my father get out, along with the fathers of the other kids. They wouldn’t let us to talk them. Then a police officer dragged me into a room and took the blindfold off . I saw an interrogator sitting behind a desk. He spoke Arabic. He took my fingerprints and took a picture of me. He told me I was accused of setting fire to the Halamish settlement and of punching a soldier in the face. I denied it. During the interrogation, he asked me to sign a white paper with Hebrew words on it. He tried to pressure me. He banged on the desk and insisted that I had to sign it, but I refused. Then they let my father come in. He saw the Hebrew page and told me not to sign. They took my father out and the interrogator tried to convince me again to sign it. He said that if I didn’t, I should talk to a lawyer. I told him I didn’t have one, and he offered to call one for me. I asked if the lawyer was an Arab and if he would help me, and the interrogator said that he would. The interrogator called some number, handed the phone over to me, and said, “Take it, talk to the lawyer”. Someone spoke to me in Arabic. He told me that if the interrogator asked whether I’d thrown stones, I should say yes and it would work in my favor. I asked him what to do if they were accusing me of setting fire to Halamish. He said it was a serious accusation that could lead to a long imprisonment, and that I shouldn’t talk about such things but just admit to throwing stones. I suspected the guy who was talking to me was a crook, even if he was a lawyer. I suspected him because of his accent, too. I told the interrogator that I didn’t want to talk to him and hung up. The police officers handcuffed and blindfolded me again. They took me into a very small empty room, maybe a square meter in size. It was dark and had no windows. There was nothing there, not even a mattress. They left me there until the morning and gave me no food or drink, except a can of energy drink that a soldier brought me at some point after I asked him to, but I was afraid to drink it because I didn’t know what was in it. At 9:00 A.M., they interrogated me again. They accused me of arson, again. After I denied the accusations again, they handed me over to the Palestinian DCO people at the checkpoint, who took me to my father in Ramallah. That was already at 11:30 A.M. I got home at 12:30 and went straight to bed.

26 January 2017

East Jerusalem

Al-Bustan Neighborhood – Garden of the King

Silwan’s al-Bustan neighborhood lies in Kidron Valley, between the Wadi Hilwa neighborhood and Jerusalem Walls National park to the west and Silwan’s old quarter (Silwan al-Wasta) to the east. Until 1967 residents of Silwan cultivated fruit trees in the valley. City master plan No. 9, which was to determine the conservation to development ratio in the Old City Basin, defines al-Bustan Valley as an open space where construction is prohibited. The plan allowed only the few buildings in place at the time the plan was approved in 1976. Neighborhood master plans approved over the years for parts of Silwan did not allocate land for expansion or increase building rights. As crowding worsened, Silwan residents had no choice but to build in the valley and there are now more than 90 residential structures there. The buildings, built mostly since the 1980s, were constructed without permits. Approximately 1,000 people live in this neighborhood. The residents face great difficulties because it is not officially recognized and must contend with demolition orders issued against their homes. Residents cannot build additions to their homes or new homes on their land, nor can they lay down proper infrastructure or build public facilities. An area called the Garden of the King is mentioned three times in the Old Testament. Some scholars identify it as Al-Bustan Valley. However, the exact location and nature of the biblical garden are not known and there are no archeological or other findings in al-Bustan to suggest that this is in fact the location. In 1995, the Jerusalem Tourist Development Steering Committee, established in advance of the celebrations of the city’s 3,000th anniversary, published a general plan for an “open archeological museum” in the “Valley of the King”. In November 2004, Jerusalem City Engineer Uri Shitrit issued orders to “remove unlawful construction in the Valley of the King” in order to keep the area “an open public space”, as defined by Plan No. 9 in 1976. In early 2005, the Jerusalem municipality began serving demolition orders to residents of al-Bustan, and later that year demolished the homes of two families. Following international pressure, then Mayor Uri Lupolianski postponed the demolition plans and declared that the residents would be given a chance to try to secure retroactive approval for their homes. The residents hired an Israeli planner, and filed a proposed plan for the neighborhood in 2006. Though the plan was prepared in coordination with planning authorities, it was rejected by the District Planning Committee in 2009, on the grounds that the area must remain an open space due to its important location, “landscape sensitivity” and “cultural and historical values”. Al-Bustan neighborhood. Photo: Keren Manor, Activestills, 15 May 2014 In 2009, the Jerusalem Municipality proposed that residents voluntarily relocate to Beit Hannina, in northern East Jerusalem, but they declined. In early 2010, the municipality filed a new plan which included a tourist park called King’s Valley or King’s Garden in al-Bustan Valley. The park flows directly from Jerusalem Walls National Park and acts as a quasi-extension of it. The brochure marking the launch of the plan describes a vision of “turning the King’s Garden into a flourishing park that will bloom alongside a residential neighborhood with restaurants, artist workshops, souvenir shops, local art and more […]”. The plan called for the demolition of structures in the neighborhood’s western part (at least 22), whereas structures in the eastern part (about 66) would receive retroactive approval along with increased building rights. This increase is meant to allow the residents who will be evacuated from the western side of the neighborhood to build new homes on top of existing ones in the eastern part, or on private nearby land. The plan fails to specify how this is to be implemented in practice. The plan also includes a public complex that would house a school, pre-schools, a sports center and more, as well as road, water, sewage and electrical infrastructure in the neighborhood. The municipal plan was approved by the local committee in June 2010 and awaits approval from the district committee. According to Amnon Berman, legal advisor to the Jerusalem Municipality, in September 2012 there were 35 pending demolition orders against homes in the al-Bustan neighborhood. Thirty-one of these cases were being heard in court and the execution of four other orders has been postponed as a result of a political decision. In April 2010, al-Bustan residents submitted another proposed plan for the neighborhood. In June 2011, it too was rejected on the grounds that it was not possible to advance two plans for the same area. Home in al-Bustan demolished by authorities. Photo: Ofir Feuerstein, B’Tselem 19 March 2009 The plan submitted by the municipality would legalize structures built in the neighborhood without permits. It would allow most residents to continue living in their homes without the threat of demolition and would improve infrastructure and services, thereby possibly improving conditions in the neighborhood. At the same time, the plan to relocate more than twenty families from one part of the neighborhood to another against their will is injurious and baseless given that the city has neither the authority nor the ability to build homes for these individuals on land owned by others or enable them to do so themselves. In practice, families whose homes will be demolished will have to purchase new land, if any is available, and try to meet the municipality’s strict criteria for construction permits in East Jerusalem, including a costly process of land registration. Once they lose their homes, there is no guarantee that these people will be able to find suitable housing inside their neighborhood or, for that matter, elsewhere. Sources for further reading Bimkom, Survey of Palestinian Neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, Planning Problems and Opportunities, Information Card 2.9. Bimkom, From Public to National – National Parks in East Jerusalem, 2012, pp. 26-28. Ir-Amim, The Giant’s Garden - The "King's Garden" Plan in al-Bustan, update, May 2012. Emek Shaveh, From Territorial Contiguity to Historical Continuity: Asserting Israeli Control through National Parks in East Jerusalem – Update 2014

16 September 2014