A report titled “Land Takeover Practices Employed by Israel in the West Bank” and published by Yesh Din unearths some of the methods used by various Israeli bodies to take over land in the occupied West Bank.
A survey of the proceedings in which Yesh Din represented Palestinian residents of the West Bank before the courts and various Civil Administration committees provides an overall picture of the practices and maneuvers the Israeli authorities use in order to increase the reservoir of land meant to serve Israeli interests in the West Bank.
According to Yesh Din International law prohibits the exploitation of the occupied territory to serve the needs of the occupier. Therefore increasing the amount of land Israel builds on requires either legal acrobatics designed to create the appearance of the rule of law or brazen defiance of the law while law enforcement authorities turn a blind eye.
“The legal proceedings led by Yesh Din and others have challenged the state especially with respect to unauthorized outposts in the OPT. These proceedings have forced Israel to expose its policy regarding the issue” the report read.
“One example is that after many years of claiming that any illegal construction must be removed regardless of the status of the land more recently Israel’s official position has been that illegal construction on privately owned Palestinian land must be removed but any illegal construction on public land would be retroactively authorized” it added.
“As a result of the new position presented by Israel illegal construction on privately owned Palestinian land has stopped almost completely. However there is a trend of declaring land in the West Bank as public land or as it is commonly referred to state land” Yesh Din further stated. “Though public land is meant to serve the needs of the local population of the occupied territory – in practice the Civil Administration allocates public land almost exclusively for the use of the settlements.”
Yesh Din NGO also noted that in order to implement this new policy all authorities and Civil Administration bodies have been mobilized to favor offenders and find administrative and procedural solutions that would allow to retroactively authorize structures or communities instead of fulfilling their duty to enforce the law and protect the property of the local population in the occupied territory as required under international law and according to the rulings of Israel’s High Court of Justice.
Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights – is an Israeli organization registered as a non-profit in Israel. Yesh Din is subject to Israeli law and is served by a volunteer corps and by a professional staff.
Yesh Din views the occupation as a main source of the violation of the human rights of the Palestinian population and therefore seeks to end it.
At the core of Yesh Din’s work is collecting and disseminating reliable and updated information regarding systematic human rights violations in the OPT; conducting public and legal advocacy in order to pressure Israel’s authorities to cease violations; and raising public awareness to human rights violations in the OPT.
