Adalah Asks Attorney General to Open Immediate Investigation into ILA's Demolition of Nine Homes in Unrecognized Village of Umm el-Hieran in the Naqab
On 29 June 2007, Adalah sent a letter to Attorney General (AG) Menachem Mazuz and the Director of the Israel Land Administration (ILA), Yaakov Efrati, demanding that the AG open an immediate investigation into the demolition of nine buildings in the unrecognized village of Umm el-Hieran in the Naqab (Negev). Adalah further demanded that all individuals responsible for the illegal home demolitions, which were carried out on 25 June 2007, face disciplinary proceedings within the ILA.
Nine of the twenty houses demolished belonged to the Abu Qian family. Adalah is representing the family in a lawsuit filed against them by the ILA to the Beer el-Sabe Magistrates' Court to evacuate the buildings and clear the land on which they stand. This lawsuit was one of tens of evacuation lawsuits filed by the state against all the Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel residing in the village (approximately 1,000 people). In August 2004, the Beer el-Sabe Magistrates' Court issued an ex parte home demolition and evacuation order, following which Adalah, on behalf of members of the Abu Qian family, submitted a request to annul the order, and not to implement the demolition process pending a decision on this request. In response, in October 2006 the court issued an order to delay the implementation of the demolition and evacuation order.
Despite this court decision, the ILA nevertheless began to initiate procedures to implement the demolition and evacuation order. When the family learned of this, Adalah approached the ILA's lawyers on behalf of the family demanding a halt to the demolition process. In response, the ILA's lawyers recommended that the demolition procedures should be stopped.
However, on 25 June 2007, a team workers hired by the ILA came to Umm el-Hieran with an escort of �security� forces, some of them wearing orange uniforms, ready to demolish houses in the village. The Abu Qian family handed them the court order to delay the implementation of the demolition process and asked them not to demolish the buildings. The response of the government official in charge at the site was that the court's order was old and of no assistance to them. The workers then proceeded to demolish nine buildings. That morning, Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara sent an urgent letter to the ILA and its legal division, referring them to the court's order and demanding that demolition operations not be undertaken. However, Adalah did not and has yet to receive a reply, and the demolitions of the buildings went ahead.
In the letter to the AG and the Director of the ILA, Adalah stated that, �Despite the decision of the court to delay the implementation of the demolition and evacuation order, the order to delay the demolition process, our correspondence with the ILA on this subject, and the court's decision that the Abu Qian family showed to those who carried out the demolition, one of them decided to afford himself a higher status than that of the legislative authority and the judicial authority and to demolish the houses.�
In the letter, Attorney Bishara further argued that the demolition of the houses stripped their owners of their constitutional right to defend themselves against the evacuation lawsuits filed against them and of their right to representation before the court, and they no longer have a legal opportunity to defend themselves or to safeguard their homes. �The demolition of the homes violates the rule of law and the authority of the court; this violation is dangerous in the extreme because it comes from an administrative authority such as the ILA,� argued Adalah.
Background
The Unrecognized Villages
The �unrecognized villages,� referred to by the state as �illegal clusters�, have no official status, are absent from state planning and government maps, have neither local councils or belong to other local governing bodies, and receive little or no basic services such as electricity, water, telephone lines, educational or health facilities. The Israeli government views the inhabitants of these villages as �trespassers on state land,� although many have been living on these lands � the ancestral lands of the Arab Bedouin � prior to the establishment of the state in 1948, and despite the fact that the state's attempts to assert ownership claims on the land are vehemently disputed. Others, expelled from their ancestral lands by the state, were forced to move to their current locations by the military government imposed on the Palestinians in Israel between 1948 and 1966, and thus face the threat of expulsion for a second time.
The Unrecognized Village of Atir�Umm al-Hieran
Atir-Umm al-Hieran are twin �unrecognized� Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab (Negev), located in the south of Israel, about thirty kilometers from Beer el-Sabe' (Beer Sheva). Surrounded by an expanse of the Naqab desert, and constructed largely out of corrugated iron and breeze-blocks, these Bedouin villages seem a world away from the nearby Jewish towns of Omer and Nevatim. There, the residents enjoy first-class suburban living conditions, in homes boasting generous, well-watered gardens. The living conditions in unrecognized villages like Atir and Umm al-Hieran resemble those of Third-World shanty towns.
The villages were established roughly fifty years ago, following the forced relocation of Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel to the area in 1956 by order of the Regional Military Governor. The village's inhabitants were provided with approximately 3,000 dunams of land to live on and cultivate. Prior to their forced transfer in 1948, the inhabitants of Atir-Umm al-Hieran lived in the Wadi Zuballa region, where they had resided and farmed for many decades. Their land in Wadi Zuballa was transferred by the state to Kibbutz Shuval for agricultural use by Jewish Israelis. Now, nearly half a century after their original transfer, the Israeli government is attempting to expel the community once again, and has requested demolition orders and filed lawsuits to evict the approximately 1,000 villagers from their homes.
In the 1970s, the Ministry of Justice's Department of Land Settlement Registration initiated a process of land registration. Under this process, the state claimed ownership of lands that were not registered in the Land Registry (the Tabu). Simultaneously, those holding lands or residing on them were given an opportunity by the state to claim and prove ownership of the land. However, many landowners did not know of the new process or of the right to claim and prove land ownership. In general, the land was registered in the name of the state, and its owners and inhabitants did not claim otherwise. Nonetheless, the state did not attempt to force the residents to leave the area until 2003.
The State's Attempts to Evacuate Atir�Umm al-Hieran
In August 2001, the Israel Land Administration (ILA) submitted a report to the Prime Minister's Office on "new and renewed settlements�. The report details initiatives for the establishment of 68 new communities throughout the state of Israel, including �Hiran,' which has been earmarked for construction on the land currently inhabited by residents of Umm al-Hieran. The ILA's report identifies a number of �special problems� that may affect the planning and establishment of the new Jewish settlement of Hiran, including the Arab Bedouin inhabitants of Umm al-Hieran. The establishment of Hiran was approved by the National Council for Planning and Building on 9 April 2002, and by the government in its decision no. 2265 of 21 July 2002. Based on the ILA's report, the state initiated two legal procedures against residents of Atir-Umm al-Hieran: evacuation lawsuits; and requests for ex parte demolition orders.
Evacuation Lawsuits: In 2004, the State of Israel filed lawsuits to the Magistrate Court in Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva), requesting that evacuation orders be issued against the inhabitants of Atir-Umm al-Hieran. The main claim advanced by the state was that the inhabitants of the village are �trespassing� on state land and that they need to evacuate the area and be prevented from using it illegally in the future. Given the current circumstances, the filing of the evacuation lawsuits was done in bad faith, without examining relevant facts and without considering the alternative option of affording the village recognition. If carried out, the enforced evacuation would contradict previous promises made by the state and would gravely violate the basic rights of the village's inhabitants. Significantly, a number of individual settlements inhabited by Jewish families exist in the area surrounding Atir-Umm al-Hieran. This fact, combined with the existing plan to establish Hiran and to evacuate the Atir-Umm al-Hieran, points to the creation of ethnically segregated spaces that resemble those established in South Africa under the Apartheid regime. Adalah is representing Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel living in Atir-Umm al-Hieran in these lawsuits.
Requests for Ex Parte Demolition Orders: In order to evacuate the inhabitants of the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab, the state has also resorted to the routine filing of ex parte �Requests for Demolition Orders without Conviction� to the Israeli courts. Typically, having received such requests, the courts automatically issue ex parte demolition orders against homes, on the sole basis of the state's request and without the presence of or hearing from any of the affected parties. Contrary to the state's claims, however, the identities of the home owners are often known to the authorities. Thus, this policy reveals a lack of good faith on the part of the state and represents the procedural misuse of the planning and building laws. By using this procedure, Israel is violating the rights to due process of these homeowners, and provides no form of compensation or alternative accommodation to families living in the unrecognized villages following a home demolition. The state began to submit ex parte requests for �Demolition Orders without Conviction� to the Beer el-Sabe Magistrates' Court from August 2003 against homes in Umm al-Hieran. In each request, the respondents are described as "unknown." All the requests were submitted in cooperation with the Interior Ministry's monitoring unit for building in the south. Approximately 40 ex parte demolitions orders were issued on houses in Umm al-Hieran between 2003 and 2005. Adalah has filed motions to the magistrates' court for the cancellation of these orders.
