Adalah Challenges Six Home Demolition Orders Issued against Arab Bedouin Families Living in Al-Sura, an Unrecognized Village in the Naqab

On 8 October 2006, Adalah submitted six motions to the Magistrate Court in Beer el-Sabe to cancel six home demolition orders issued by the Court, ex parte, on 26 July 2006 and 23 August 2006. The state's “Requests for Demolition Orders Without Conviction” were filed against the homes of six families from the unrecognized village of Al-Sura in the Naqab (Negev), and affect approximately 40 individuals, mostly women and children. The Court issued these orders based solely on the state's request without the presence of or hearing from any of the affected parties.

Al-Sura has existed as a village since before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Approximately 300 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel currently live there. Following the establishment of Israel, the residents of Al-Sura were not asked to leave the village; nor did the state attempt to seize the land. Further, the villagers filed land claim forms for their land, following a process employed by the Ministry of Justice from the 1970s, in accordance with the Land Registration Ordinance, for the registration of land in the Naqab. However, this procedure was never completed and the lands were not registered in the names of the village's residents.

In these cases, the Magistrate Court issued the orders without issuing convictions for any breach of the planning and building regulations in accordance with a procedure provided by Article 212 of the Planning and Building Law. The Court relied solely on the state's contention that it had been unable to identify the individuals who had built the houses.

Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara argued in the motions that this contention is false: the home owners are known to the state because their representatives approached the relevant authorities immediately after receiving warning notices regarding the demolitions for the purpose of reaching an agreement acceptable to the village's residents. Therefore, there is no basis for failing to allow the home owners to challenge the orders or defend themselves. Adalah further contended that the Magistrate Court decided to issue the orders and accept the state's contentions without receiving any supporting evidence of a vital and immediate public interest for the demolition orders, as is required under with the Planning and Building Law (1965).

In the motions, Adalah argued that the case is indicative of the worrying phenomenon of state officials routinely filing ex parte “Requests for Demolition Orders Without conviction”, which are automatically accepted by the courts. This practice results in a violation of the right to housing, which is a component of the constitutional right to dignity. Further, decisions are made over the future of houses, which provide shelter for families, without providing them with alternative housing.

Adalah further contended that the state's conduct with regard to issuing of demolition orders on buildings in the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab reveals a lack of good faith, as evidenced though its procedural misuse of the Planning and Building Law. The state's goal, Adalah contended, is to pressure the residents of the village to leave the area and relocate to one of the existing government-planned Bedouin towns created to concentrate the Bedouin on a minimal area of land.