Israel demolished three homes in January in punitive actions, leaving 18 persons homeless; 29 demolitions carried out since Oct. 2015

14 January 2016

On the morning of 4 January 2016, large police and Border Police forces came to the Jabal al-Mukabber neighborhood in East Jerusalem and demolished the apartment that was home to the family of Bahaa ‘Alian, a Palestinian who was killed while carrying out an attack against Israel civilians in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem. In the attack, Alian killed Haviv Haim and Alon Govberg and injured Richard Lakin, who died later of his wounds. The security forces broke down the external walls of the apartment, which was situated on the second story of a three-story building. Eight people lived in the apartment, including ‘Alian’s parents, his siblings, and their families, including two minors.

Home of 'Alian family in Jabal al-Mukkaber. Photo by Mus'ab Abbas, B'Tselem, 4 Jan. 2016

On the same day, police and Border Police forces sealed off an apartment in Jabal al-Mukabber that was home to the family of ‘Alaa Abu Jamal, who was killed after attacking and killing Israeli civilian Yeshayahu Krishevsky in Jerusalem. The forces used concrete to seal the apartment, which is situated on the first story of a three-story building inhabited by the extended Abu Jamal family. During the legal proceedings pursued by the family and HaMoked: Centre for the Defence of the Individual against the sealing of the home, the family claimed that ‘Alaa Abu Jamal, his wife, and their three minor children actually lived in another apartment close to the family building. According to the family, Abu Jamal’s sister and her family lived in the apartment that was sealed.

The High Court of Justice (HCJ) rejected the petitions submitted by the families and by HaMoked. On 22 December 2015, in a majority ruling, the HCJ approved the demolition of the home of Bahaa 'Alian's family and the sealing of the home of the Abu Jamal family.

Home of Halabi family in Surda, before and after demolition. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem

On 9 January 2016, large police and Border Police forces came to the village of Surda in the Ramallah District, accompanied by a bulldozer, in order to demolish the home of the family of Muhannad Halabi, who was shot and killed while carrying out an attack at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, in which he killed Israeli civilians Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Bennett. On 28 December 2015, the HCJ rejected the petition submitted by the family and by HaMoked against the demolition. Muhannad Halabi’s parents lived in the demolished house together with their four children, two of whom are minors.

These acts of destruction on the part of Israeli security forces left 18 persons, including seven minors, homeless – although none of them were suspected of any offense. Since October 2015, Israel has stepped-up its use of house demolitions as a punitive measure. In October, the authorities blew up three homes (also demolishing two adjacent apartments) and sealed another apartment. In November, the authorities demolished 14 apartments, eight of which were not slated for demolition. In December, the authorities demolished six apartments, four of which were not slated for demolition. Following the demolitions over the past few days, the total number of apartments demolished or sealed by the authorities since the beginning of October has now reached 29. In addition, in recent months security forces have surveyed dozens of homes belonging to families of individuals who committed attacks against Israeli civilians, or are suspected of committing or being involved in such attacks, with the intention of demolishing these homes in the future.

The justices of the HCJ have repeatedly sanctioned the state’s use of this inhumane measure, which is prohibited under international law and constitutes collective punishment. The Court has permitted Israeli authorities to pursue this extreme course of action despite the clear position of jurists in Israel and abroad that it is unlawful. The petitions to the HCJ concerning punitive home demolitions were based on a 1988 ruling of the same court, following a petition submitted by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), that the authorities must allow families to turn to the court before the demolition takes place, in cases concerning punitive demolition. Since that ruling, however, the Court has rejected almost all petitions on the matter, adopting an approach of almost wholesale authorization of home demolition. Such conduct cannot be considered more than lip service to the notion of judicial review.

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Planning Policy in the West Bank

Israeli house demolitions spiked in 2019 compared to previous years

Israel demolished a record number of homes in East Jerusalem in 2019, also setting a record for homes demolished by their own owners on Israel’s orders. The number of homes Israel demolished in the rest of the West Bank, both over permit issues and as a punitive measure, also spiked in the past year. East Jerusalem In 2019, Israel demolished 265 structures in East Jerusalem. According to B'Tselem figures, Israel demolished 169 housing units in East Jerusalem in 2019 –more than in any year since 2004, when B'Tselem started keeping records. The demolitions have left 328 Palestinians homeless, 182 of them minors. In 42 cases, the homeowners demolished their own houses to avoid the hefty levies the city collects for demolitions it carries out itself. This is the highest number of self-demolitions B'Tselem has recorded since it began keeping track. Additionally, 96 non-residential structures were demolished in East Jerusalem in the past year, 13 of them by the owners and the rest by the city. Palestinians in East Jerusalem are effectively left with no choice but to build without permits as a direct result of Israeli policy which makes it practically impossible for them to obtain building permits. Israel uses this policy to further its goal of perpetuating a Jewish majority in Jerusalem. One of the way in which it pursues this goal is by making life in the city unbearable for Palestinian residents, in a bid to push them to leave their homes, ostensibly of their own free will. From the beginning of 2004 until the end of 2019, the Jerusalem Municipality demolished 978 housing units in East Jerusalem, leaving 3,177 people homeless, including 1,704 minors. In addition, from the beginning of 2012, when B'Tselem began recording demolitions of non-residential structures, to the end of 2019, the municipality demolished at least 413 such structures. West Bank In 2019, Israel demolished 256 structures in the West Bank. According to B'Tselem figures, Israel demolished 106 housing units in 2019, more than it did in both 2017 and 2018. The demolitions have left 349 Palestinians homeless, including 160 minors. The Civil Administration also demolished 150 non-residential structures in the West Bank this year. Israel uses its planning system in the West Bank to block Palestinian development and dispossess Palestinians of their land. Palestinians have virtually no chance of obtaining a building permit, even for their privately owned land. With no hope of obtaining a permit and building in keeping with Israeli law, Palestinians are forced to develop their communities and build their homes without permits. As a result, they live with the constant threat of seeing their homes and businesses demolished. This Israeli policy, which has been repeatedly upheld by the country’s Supreme Court, is based on the concept that land in the West Bank should primarily serve Israeli needs and interests, while the needs of the Palestinians are never considered. From 2006, when B'Tselem started recording these figures, until the end of 2019, Israel demolished at least 1,525 Palestinian housing units in the West Bank. At least 6,660 people were left homeless as a result, including at least 3,342 minors. Israel repeatedly demolishes homes in communities it refuses to recognize, and which are at risk of expulsion. From 2006 to the end of 2019, Israel demolished the homes of at least 1,069 Palestinians, 511 of them minors, more than once. During the same time, the Civil Administration demolished 779 non-residential structures in the West Bank (including fences, water cisterns, roads, storage facilities, agricultural structures, businesses, public buildings, and other structures). Punitive demolitions In 2019, the military demolished 14 housing units as a punitive measure. These demolitions left 36 people, including 15 minors, homeless. Punitive house demolitions have also increased compared to the previous two years: Israel demolished nine housing units as a punitive measure in 2018, and seven in 2017. This policy is immoral and constitutes collective punishment, which is prohibited under international law. Nevertheless, the justices of the Supreme Court repeatedly dismiss petitions brought by Palestinians against these demolitions, relying on an unreasonable interpretation of international law and acceptance of the state’s arguments, including the claim that the policy is meant as a deterrent rather than a penalty - even though this claim has never been proven.

6 January 2020

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

East Jerusalem

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

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.

11 December 2016

The village of Beit Iksa. Photo: Arij GIS unit, 21 Feb. 2011

Restrictions on Movement

Isolated: Israel cuts village of Beit Iksa off from East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank

The Palestinian village of Beit Iksa lies northwest of Jerusalem, within the West Bank but outside the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem. Over the years, land surrounding the village and some plots of land owned by villagers were seized for the establishment of Ramot Alon, a settlement that functions as a neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and Har Shmuel, a neighborhood in the settlement of Giv’at Ze’ev. In 2010, fifty more dunams of village land were confiscated for the Tel Aviv Jerusalem railway. According to a 2007 West Bank census, some 1,900 people live in the village. Many of them are residents of Jerusalem who have Israeli identity cards. Unlike other Palestinian villages in the area, which are surrounded by a fence separating them from Israel, the eastern side of Beit Iksa – which faces the neighborhood of Ramot – is not fenced in. It lies only several hundred meters away from the Israeli neighborhood, separated from it only by a valley. However, the village is separated from nearby Palestinian communities by an electronic fence along its northwestern side that connects to the Separation Barrier. In 2009, Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli government had decided in 2006 to leave the village on the Palestinian side of the Separation Barrier – although according to the original route of the barrier, it was set to remain on the “Israeli” side. According to the article, the reason for this decision was the fact that Beit Iksa overlooks the area of Ramot and Highway 1 and that land previously purchased by Israelis lies adjacent to the village. However, no fence was erected between Beit Iksa and Israel; instead, Israel put up the electronic fence around the northwestern part of Beit Iksa, which the security establishment has defined as “temporary”. In 2008, Israel began setting up flying checkpoints on the outskirts of the village. In 2010, a permanent checkpoint was installed some four kilometers northwest of the village center, toward the neighboring Palestinian village of Bidu. The checkpoint controls the only entrance into Beit Iksa. Since then, Israeli security forces have allowed only people registered as village residents on their identity cards or bearing a special permit to enter the village. The special permits are issued upon completion of a security background check and are largely reserved for people who work regularly in the village, such as teachers and employees of the local medical clinic. The Israeli authorities also issue temporary permits in what they term “humanitarian cases”, such as family celebrations or funerals and mourning rituals, but then, too, restrict the number and age of persons allowed into the village. In 2010, along with the installation of the permanent checkpoint at the entrance to the village, Israel also closed off the road leading from the village to Jerusalem via Ramot with a gate that remains closed. This has extended travel time from the village to Jerusalem by at least half an hour, as residents who hold Israeli identity cards now have to drive to Ramallah and from there to Qalandia checkpoint in order to enter the city. Consequently, the villagers are cut off not only from the rest of the West Bank but also from Jerusalem, which used to be their historical center of life in the district. Since 2010, some fifty families with Israeli identity cards have left the village due to their forced isolation from Jerusalem. These families, which number some 600 people according to local council estimates, have retained their assets in the village, are still registered as its residents, and periodically come back to visit. The checkpoint the military installed at the entrance to Beit Iksa. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 7 June 2016. The severe restrictions on access to the village make it difficult for local businesses and residents to receive wares and equipment. Many suppliers are not permitted to enter the village, so clients have to go to the checkpoint to collect their goods. Some suppliers are allowed in after a process of coordination with the village council or with the Palestinian Authority, but even they are sometimes delayed at length or ultimately denied entrance. Village residents coming home with goods purchased elsewhere are also delayed at times, although there is no official restriction on bringing merchandise into the village. The Israeli authorities chose not to build the Separation Barrier along the Green Line in the area, instead annexing the village de facto to Jerusalem. However, they also aim to prevent Palestinians from the West Bank from entering Israel via Beit Iksa. The solution they found, to impose draconic restrictions on anyone wishing to enter the village, reflects absolute prioritization of Israeli interests over protection of the Palestinian residents’ rights. The severe restrictions have turned Beit Iksa into an isolated community, and this isolation makes it very hard for the village residents to maintain social and family ties and to access workplaces and other services in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank. The restrictions also make it difficult for workers, suppliers and other service providers to enter the village, disrupting daily life there and curtailing the council’s ability to provide residents with basic services. These arbitrary, draconian restrictions deny the residents of Beit Iksa the ability to lead reasonable daily lives and cause severe harm to the entire village. The closed gate the army installed on the road from Beit Iksa to Jerusalem, in the top right – the fence around Ramot. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 15 August 2016 Over the past two years, B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad collected testimonies from people who live and work in the village about the impact of these restrictions on their lives: Ahmad Faqih, 31, from the neighboring village of Qatanah, drives a bus on the Beit Iksa-Ramallah line. On 26 July 2016, he related the difficulties that he and the passengers encounter upon reaching the checkpoint: I’m not from Beit Iksa but from the neighboring village, Qatanah. They let me through the checkpoint because I’m the bus driver. But every now and then they are especially strict, and then they harass me and don’t let me in. In 2014, during the attack on Gaza, that happened five or six times. I had to call the other bus driver to come to the checkpoint and pick up the passengers. There are no official regulations at the checkpoint, only informal practices that have become standard procedure. I’m ordered to stop twenty meters before the checkpoint and wait for a sign from one of the guards. That usually takes a few minutes, but sometimes it takes longer – depending on the mood of the guards or on current security events. After the guards give me the signal, I drive up to the inspection point and all the passengers get out except the elderly. A guard gets on the bus, checks the identity cards of passengers who stayed inside, and makes sure they are all who they say they are and over seventy years of age. Anyone younger is told to get off the bus. Sometimes, they allow sick people or mothers with babies or little children to stay on the bus. The rest of the passengers line up outside. A guard stands at the door of the bus and the passengers come up to him one by one and show their identity cards. He only lets residents of Beit Iksa and the elderly – even if they are not from Beit Iksa – back onto the bus. The age limit varies according to the guard’s mood. Sometimes it’s anyone over fifty, but it can also be over 55 or sixty. It usually takes them about ten to twenty minutes to check all the cards, depending on the number of passengers. On days when they’re strict, it can take hours. Ahmad Liqianiyah, 29, from Beit Iksa, related in a testimony he gave on 28 June 2016 how he had to hold his wedding outside the village: I got engaged two-and-a-half years ago. My wife, Layali Diab, comes from the village of ‘Arura near Ramallah. The engagement dragged out because it took about a year and a half to change her address to Beit Iksa so she could come live with me. The first request I filed was rejected, so I had to hire a private lawyer for about 530 US dollars. In the end, my wife was only granted the address update after we got married and submitted our marriage certificate. We had the wedding in my wife’s village in June 2015. We couldn’t have it in Beit Iksa because the guests weren’t allowed into the village. But since we had it in ‘Arura, an hour’s drive away, a lot of people from my village couldn’t attend. The wedding was expensive because we had to hire buses and other vehicles to transport the guests, and the wedding hall in ‘Arura cost me much more than it would have cost to have the wedding in Beit Iksa. We got over all the hurdles around the wedding, but then the real suffering began. It’s been especially hard for my wife, who feels that she is slowly losing touch with her family. Since we got married, her parents are the only members of her family who have managed to visit her in the village. Even that was only allowed after council members coordinated it for them. Her parents have only visited us six or seven times in two years. The security situation makes it impossible from them to come sometimes. It’s the month of Ramadan now, and it’s customary for parents to visit their daughter and in general, for relatives to pay visits to each other. Because of the checkpoint, we don’t have many visitors – only our closest relatives, and even then only those who manage to get into the village. It makes us feel cut off and socially isolated. My wife is about to give birth and I ask myself: what will our children’s lives be like? What sort of relationship will they have with their extended family? If my wife stays here in the village, how can her family help her with the children and stay in touch with her? Shahinaz ‘Abdallah, 46, lives in Beit Iksa with her husband and their five children. In a testimony she gave on 23 July 2015, she explained the impact of the authorities’ refusal to update her address on her daily life: I grew up in Jericho and married Iyad, a relative of mine from Beit Iksa, in 1992. At first we lived in al-‘Eizariyah, close to my husband’s workplace, and registered as residents of there. Our children were born and went to school there, and we had a house. But we kept in close touch with my husband’s family in Beit Iksa and with my mother, who had moved there too and is registered as a resident of the village. I have a sister and cousins in Beit Iksa, too. My children went there often, and we also used to visit on weekends and spend our summers there. We built a house in Beit Iksa to make it easier to visit and not inconvenience my in-laws. We lived like that until 2010, when Israel announced that it was going to put up a checkpoint at the entrance to the village and let only local residents in. We thought of our relationships with my husband’s parents and all our family in the village and were afraid they wouldn’t let us in any more. So I moved with the children to our house in Beit Iksa, and my husband stayed in al-‘Eizariyah, close to where he works. He visits us on the weekends. Since we moved to the village, we’ve submitted several requests with the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior to update our address, so we can get through the checkpoint without any hassle. My husband got his updated quickly because he was born in the village. My request was denied, and at first so were the children’s. The Palestinian Ministry of Interior told us that the Israelis had refused without giving any explanation. In the meantime, my older kids have been updated as residents of the village, but I’ve submitted four or five requests that were all denied. It makes my life miserable. I’m afraid to leave the village alone, because on my way back in I’m detained and questioned – why did I come, to whom am I related in the village, and so on. They check on the phone that I really live there. I’m usually kept at the checkpoint about fifteen to thirty minutes, supposedly for inspection. I have to argue with them until they let me in. At first I worked as a teacher at al-Jib, a village nearby. I’m also studying at Al-Quds University and am deputy director of the Women’s Association for Beit Iksa’s Development, so I have to travel a lot. I cannot be dependent on my husband to enter and leave the village. Beit Iksa Boys’ High School. Photo courtesy of the school. Mwafaq Mansur, 47 is a resident of the village of Bidu and the principal of the boys’ school in Beit Iksa. In a testimony he gave on 28 April 2015, he described how the checkpoint affects the school routine: I’ve been the principal of the boys’ school at Beit Iksa since 2004. I never had any trouble getting to the school and back but since they put up the checkpoint, I can only get into the village thanks to a document stating that I work at the school. They are 24 people who work at the school, and only eight of them are registered as residents of Beit Iksa. Almost every week, one of the teachers is kept at the checkpoint and allowed in late, or not at all. Permission to enter or leave the village depends on the mood of the guards and the police officers at the checkpoint. It’s impossible to even consider bringing in services from outside, such as a technician to fix the photocopy machine. The situation certainly interferes with the school. When a teacher is late or denied entry, the students miss a class. It weakens the entire school, creates confusion and disrupts the schedule. In the long run, you see the results in the students’ grades. When a teacher is kept out, we either have to find a substitute or I step in to replace him, as school principal. Fatimah Milo al-‘Ein, 32, from the village of Qatanah, works with a regional program for the rehabilitation and integration of people with disabilities. In a testimony she gave on 2 June 2015, she described how the restrictions on entering Beit Iksa make it difficult to do her job: I work in a community-based rehabilitation program for people with disabilities that is coordinated with local authorities, village councils and the Red Crescent. People with physical and mental disabilities take part in the program. I work in several villages in the area. We offer educational activities to raise awareness among people with disabilities and their parents. We also refer people to tests in special centers, counsel and train parents, help adjust homes to special needs, and integrate children into preschools, schools, and other centers. Thirty people with disabilities who live in Beit Iksa are registered with us. According to my work plan, I’m supposed to visit the village once a week, but because of the checkpoint I think several times before going there. I always worry that I won’t be allowed in because I’m from Qatanah. I’m often detained or denied entry to the village. Last March, for instance, I went to Beit Iksa with a specialist in diagnosing speech and learning impediments who came from Ramallah. We were held at the checkpoint for an hour and a half on the grounds that we weren’t registered as residents of Beit Iksa, even though I showed them my employee card from the Palestinian Red Crescent that always gets me into the village. Eventually we had to get the head of the council to intervene in order to let us in – which they agreed to do only on the condition that we left our identity cards at the checkpoint until we left. We arrived late at the preschool and only had time to examine some of the children on our list.

17 August 2016