Israeli Court Issues Precedent-Setting Decision to Cancel Home Demolition Orders against Entire Arab Bedouin Unrecognized Village

(Beer el-Sabe, Israel) Today, 6 December 2011, for the first time in Israel's legal history, the Kiryat Gat Magistrate's Court ordered the immediate cancellation of 51 demolition orders on the homes of 500 residents of the unrecognized Arab Bedouin village, Alsira, in the Naqab (Negev) in the south of Israel.

Judge Israel Pablo Axelrod's precedent-setting decision followed a motion by Adalah to cancel the demolition orders that threatened all of the homes in the village.

Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara submitted the motion on behalf of the villagers of Alsira. Judge Axelrod, who accepted the motion on the merits, called the demolition orders "disproportionate." As soon as the judgment was announced, the court erupted in celebration by the villagers and their supporters.

Attorney Suhad Bishara said after the decision: "We welcome the judgment. We hope that the Government will refrain from destroying all of the villages in the Naqab (Negev), and will initiate an honest dialogue with the residents of unrecognized villages to resolve the status of their villages, most of which have existed for decades."

The 70 Arab Bedouin families, citizens of Israel, have lived on their ancestral land of Alsira for at least the last seven generations. The villagers, whose land claims were recognized by the British Mandate, also filed their claims with Israel in the 1970s, in accordance with the Israeli Land Registration Ordinance. Nonetheless, the State views them as trespassers illegally squatting on state land, and is trying to evict them. In 2006, villagers began receiving notices of home demolitions and immediately contacted state authorities, but the officials did not propose any alternative solution or accept solutions suggested by the villagers. In 2007, Adalah succeeded to freeze the home demolition orders that today have been cancelled by the court.

Case Citation: Kiryat Gat Magistrates' Court, Different Motions 2137/09, Mousa Nasasra v. State of Israel

For more information, please contact Adalah Media Coordinators:
Salah Mohsen, salah@adalah.org, 052-5950922
Edan Ring, edan@unik.co.il, 054-6680085

See also Adalah's Media Advisory 5 December 2011

Court Decision (Hebrew)