West Bank (Area C)

Debate between Grahame Morris and Frank Doran

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Doran]

I stand by the figure. I am not suggesting that 40% is built on; that is not the issue. I am talking about the area of land that is restricted with regard to Palestinians. It includes the road network. The Swiss cheese effect was mentioned by the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). There are large areas to which the Palestinian community is denied access. That calculation is made, as I said, in a 2006 report by an Israeli human rights organisation. I want to make progress now, because the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) will have his opportunity to speak later.

On my visit to the west bank, I saw numerous examples of how the Israeli civil Administration restrict any kind of development by Palestinians. Around 70% of Area C, or 44% of the west bank, is effectively off limits to Palestinian construction—the hon. Member for Kettering made me nervous of getting into such statistics, but I have to stick by them—and is designated for exclusive use by Israeli settlements and the Israeli military, or is taken up by nature reserves or the barrier buffer zone. In the remaining 30% of Area C, a range of restrictions makes it virtually impossible for Palestinians to be granted permission for development.

The most frequent obstacle to Palestinian development is the requirement on the applicant to prove that he or she owns or has the right to use the land, but most land in the west bank is not registered, so the owners must go through a complex system involving tax and inheritance documents. The second ground for the rejection of most Palestinian permit applications is the requirement that the proposed building must be in conformity with an approved planning scheme that is detailed enough to enable building permits to be used. Palestinian villages, however, lack sufficiently detailed plans. The outdated plans that do exist are interpreted restrictively by the Israeli civil authority. In practice, only about 1% of Area C is available for the construction of new properties, and most of that is already built up.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern that among the buildings demolished are structures funded by the European Union, such as schools? I visited the occupied territories in the west bank a year ago, as part of a delegation, and saw a school that had been built with funding from an Italian charity, but that had been subject to a demolition notice.

[Mr Doran]

We were obviously on the same visit, because I will mention that particular project later. Under the restrictive laws and regulations, many Palestinian structures, including homes, schools, water systems and farming infrastructure, are treated as illegal and are therefore subject to demolition orders.

In 2011, nearly 1,100 Palestinians, half of them children, were displaced through 222 house demolitions—an 80% increase on the number of people displaced in 2010—and 4,200 people were affected by the destruction of structures necessary to their livelihoods, such as water storage and agricultural facilities. In total, 622 Palestinian structures were destroyed, including mosques and classrooms. At the end of 2011, there were more than 3,000 outstanding demolition orders. Those figures included 18 schools.

So far this year, 371 Palestinian structures have been demolished on the west bank, 124 of which were homes, and 600 people have been displaced so far this year. That is a significant and troubling increase in the weekly average, from 21 people a week displaced in 2011, to 24 a week this year. Of the structures demolished since the start of 2000—this relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris)—60 were EU-funded structures, and 110 are at risk of demolition. Will the Minister tell us the total cost of those demolished EU projects, and whether he has made any representations to the Israeli Government on this matter? It would also be helpful if he would identify any projects funded by the Department for International Development that have suffered the same fate.

In addition to the demolition of Palestinian structures, there is the issue of the natural resources of the occupied territories, which have for decades been diverted for the use of Israel and Israeli citizens. International law, of course, requires the natural resources of the occupied territories to be used for the benefit of the local population, except when they are required for an urgent military purpose. The most crucial natural resource on the west bank is water, and 80% of the water extracted from the west bank mountain aquifer goes to Israel, with only 20% going to the Palestinians.

Settlers consume between six and 10 times more per head than their Palestinian counterparts. Many settlers have swimming pools and are able to irrigate their farmland. By contrast, 190,000 Palestinians live in 134 villages without running water. Palestinian consumption in the occupied territories is about 70 litres per day, well below the 100 litres recommended by the World Health Organisation. In some rural communities, people survive on 20 litres per day, and many Palestinians are forced to buy water of dubious quality from mobile water tanks at high prices. Wells and systems built without permits are frequently destroyed by the Israeli army.

Demolition orders are in place, and actual demolition has occurred, all over Area C. On a recent trip, we visited two Bedouin communities. The first was Kahn al-Ahmar. The residents are a Bedouin community who are refugees from the Negev. The area in which they live could not be described as remote. They live cheek by jowl with a main highway, and there is a substantial settlement on the other side of the road. However, the actions of the ICA have led to the community being isolated in practical terms.

The residents recognised that one of the costs of that isolation was the impact on their children’s schooling, and they decided to build a school. They obtained funding support from an Italian non-governmental organisation, and were given help with design and materials. They managed to build a school, and the main material was used tyres—it is a fascinating building—covered in mud or some form of mortar, but it is well insulated and cool, and it suits the children very well in their environment. The children are being supplied with an education in good surroundings. However, the Bedouins there did not have permission to build the school, and since its construction it has been under constant threat of demolition.

The families living there have been targeted on two fronts. First, the ICA wants to demolish the school, and there is no permit. That is the law. That will deprive the children of their education. The second threat, which has been made to all the Bedouin groups in the area, is to move them to another site. The proposed site is next to a rubbish dump that services the settlement up the hill. Everything that will involve, and the risk to health for all those who are moved to the site, is anathema to the community involved. We spoke to a community leader, Abu Khamis, who said:

“They are saying they are moving us to a rubbish dump, if we move out of this community it should be to return to the home of our tribe in the Negev.”

He continued:

“Whether the rubbish dump or the French Riviera we don’t want to go”.

That Bedouin community lives where it does because there was a river and natural wells, but they were diverted to serve the local settlements on the other side of the road, and the land used for grazing the Bedouins’ sheep has been severely restricted. We were told about the harassment by nearby settlers. Abu Khamis told us that his wife had been beaten by settlers while on the hillside with their sheep. On the day we visited, a group of settlers had entered the community, and had taken photographs of the children and structures to intimidate the residents.

As well as settler intimidation, and the constant threats to demolish the school and of possible removal to the rubbish dump site, there is further institutional harassment. For example, the access route to the village from the main road that the villagers used to use was sealed off by the authorities, and the only access to the village by vehicle now is along an extremely rough river bed track. The authorities have built a sewage air vent 5 metres from the classroom, and that obviously affects the air that the children breathe in the school. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington visited the same site and he will recall how difficult the drive to the village was, but those people have to put up with that every day, and it is much worse for them because they are cheek by jowl with a major road.

Despite all that, Abu Khamis and his community are adamant that they will not be intimidated or moved from their home. Their most earnest wish is to return to their tribal home in the Negev, but that is not possible now. It is difficult to interpret the behaviour and actions of the Israeli authorities as anything other than intimidation of the worst kind. They hope that the constant threat from the authorities, and their mean and insidious actions, such as cutting off access, will grind the community down.

The community at Kahn al-Ahmar has in some respects become a symbol of the way in which the Israeli authority treats the Palestinian communities. There has been considerable media interest in the school project, and it is a tribute to Abu Khamis and his community that they have continued to resist all efforts to intimidate them from their home, but how long can that go on?

On the same day, we visited the Kurshan community, who also live nearby in the Khan al-Ahmar area. An international non-governmental organisation has funded a new home for each of the eight families in the community, but within a week of completion 24-hour eviction notices were served. On the day we visited, the community had been told that an appeal against the orders had been refused, and that their homes would be demolished the next afternoon. We were told that just an hour before came an ICA representative had visited and told the families that they would be relocated to the rubbish dump area—presumably the same rubbish dump area where the other sect of the tribe was to be moved to.

A member of the community, Abu Faris, said that he had told the ICA representative

“that’s a rubbish dump and I am a human being. In any country a human being should not live near a rubbish dump and I have a right to be a human being just like you have”.

He told us that they intended to carry on finishing the inside of the new building. I understand that the following day an injunction was obtained for the Kurshan community, and the court asked the ICA not to carry out the demolition. The case is winding its way through the court processes, but in the meantime the Kurshan Bedouin community remains in its new homes, but under constant threat of displacement.