Adalah and 400 Mu’awiya residents demand cancellation of Master Plan that threatens to demolish dozens of buildings in the Arab town in Israel
On 24 December 2013, Adalah submitted an objection to the District Land Planning Committee on behalf of the Head of the Basmeh Regional Council and over 400 residents of the Arab village of Mu’awiya, located in the Triangle in the center of Israel, against the Ministry of Interior's Master Plan for the village. The Master Plan is the first to be submitted for the village in over 30 years, which today is home to 3,500 Arab citizens of the state.
In the objection, Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara argued that the Master Plan submitted by the Interior Ministry contained no vision or consideration for developing the village or for fulfilling the urgent needs of the villagers, including economic development and residential requirements.
The objection added that 80% of the villagers did not own private lands for residential construction or expansion and that according to the Israel Land Authority archives, there is no record of the state offering lands to Mu’awiya for the past 10 years. According to the villagers, the last offer was over 20 years ago and these lands were minimal and insufficient for the development needs of the community.
Furthermore, wrote Attorney Bishara, the Master Plan was made without any dialogue, participation or representation from the villagers. The Master Plan aims to confiscate and convert large amounts of the village's lands for “public use”, while ignoring the fact that these lands are currently being used by Arab citizens for residential buildings that have existed on them for many years. The Plan will therefore lead to the demolitions of these homes.
The villagers of Mu’awiya demand that the Master Plan be changed in order to allow the land to be used for Arab residential purposes, to accept and grant building licenses to the existing buildings, and to cancel the plans for demolishing the villagers’ homes.
