MINISTER of Jerusalem Affairs in the Palestinian government and its governor Adnan Husseini warned on Monday that an Israeli plan to break away Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem from their city centre would leave critical consequences on between 120,000 to 150,000 of the city’s Palestinian residents.
He said in reaction to the plan presented by an Israeli official and seems to have the support of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that such a plan proves that the apartheid wall Israel has built around Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories is political in nature and not just a security one, as Israel claims, and aims at creating racial segregation with a goal to change the demographic balance in the city in Jewish favour.
Husseini said that after these neighbourhoods were separated from Jerusalem through the concrete wall and the barriers, work is now underway to separate the residents from their city while adding a quarter of a million Jewish settlers to the city creating a new reality of 750,000 people in Jerusalem of which only 180,000 are Palestinians. Currently the city has more than 350,000 Palestinians.
‘They plan to have the number of Palestinians in East Jerusalem at around 12%, not the current 34%, and they are accelerating their plans, especially after Israeli studies showed that the growth rate of Palestinians is increasing while there is a decline in the Jewish rate,’ said Husseini.
He pointed out that the occupation authorities had carried out a process of what he described as ‘old displacement’ by forcing Jerusalem’s Arab residents to move to those neighbourhoods where there is greater chance of finding affordable housing, while there is no chance of finding housing in the neighbourhoods within the wall, where tens of thousands of Palestinians who carry the Israeli identity card live.
Husseini said that the occupation authorities have created a situation in the city of Jerusalem whereby it will not be possible for those who live in the neighbourhoods targeted by the Israeli municipality to return to live inside the walled area since a large area of land in East Jerusalem has been confiscated for the benefit of settlements or classified as green areas to prevent construction on them. At the same time, there are no construction licenses.
• The Israeli military has posted a status on Facebook threatening the home and lives of a Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip, prompting the Haifa-based Adalah – The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – and the Gaza-based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, to call on the Israeli military to immediately halt its threats against the family and other civilians in Gaza, a press release said on Monday.
On August 10, Yoav Mordechai, commander of the Israeli military’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the [occupied] Territories (COGAT), announced on the unit’s Arabic Facebook page that the military had discovered two tunnels and related infrastructure constructed by Hamas under a mosque and apartment building in the village of Beit Lahiya.
Via Facebook, Mordechai informed Palestinian civilians living in and around the six-story apartment building and mosque in the northern Gaza town that their lives are threatened by a potential Israeli military attack on the area. Aerial images included in COGAT’s Facebook post show the mosque and apartment building, owned by Omar Hammad, marked in red. Twenty-one people live in the building, including four women and 12 children.
On 10-11 August, Israeli media outlets published aerial imagery of Hammad’s home supplied by the Israeli military and remarks made by Israel’s Southern Command chief Eyal Zamir reiterating the tunnels claim. Zamir ‘warned’ that, if necessary, the apartment building could be viewed as a legitimate target of attack and that civilians living there were endangering their own lives. Zamir did not, however, provide any evidence or indication of the existence of tunnels under the buildings.
There are no ventilation tunnels in the concerned apartment building and Hammad is unaware of any tunnels under his home. Some two days after the COGAT post on Facebook, apartment owner Hammad also received a phone call from an individual who identified himself as a member of Israeli military intelligence. The individual informed Hammad that his life and his family’s lives were in danger as their home was marked as an Israeli military target.
Adalah and Al Mezan sent a letter on October 19 to COGAT commander Mordechai and Chief Military Advocate General Sharon Afek demanding they immediately remove the social media posts threatening the Gaza family.
The two organisations also demand the Israeli military halt its threats to Hammad’s home and family and the civilian population in general as attacks on civilians – as well as the threat of attack – constitute overt violations of international law.
According to the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, the Israeli social media posts and phone calls cannot be considered a legitimate warning prior to attack as the targets are inherently civilian – rather than military – in nature.
In her letter to the Israeli officials, Adalah Attorney Muna Haddad explained: ‘One cannot consider these things as a method of warning prior to attack, as an attack of this sort by the Israeli military would mean a direct strike to a civilian population and civilian target, which is forbidden by laws governing warfare and which borders on war crimes.’
International humanitarian law rules that even the presence of a large number of combatants – themselves ostensibly a legal military target – is not sufficient to justify an attack which would cause disproportionate damage to nearby civilians.
Since the Israeli military issued its threats via Facebook and mainstream media outlets, Hammad and his family have been living in a state of constant fear with the knowledge that their home is liable to be destroyed in an Israeli attack at any given moment, potentially killing the entire family. In response to the Israeli threats, some family members have fled their home but others are unable to afford alternative housing and continue living under Israel’s ongoing threat.
• A senior White House official said on Sunday that the US will not impose a peace solution on the parties in the Middle East. ‘As President Donald J. Trump has clearly stated, he is personally committed to achieving a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians that would help usher in an era of greater regional peace and prosperity,’ said the official. ‘A few months ago, the President directed his advisors to continue discussions with regional partners about how best to support the peace effort. Those conversations are still ongoing.’
US Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, recently travelled to Cairo, Amman, Jerusalem, and Ramallah and met with officials, and he will have further meetings in the coming weeks as part of these efforts, said the White House official.
Greenblatt, along with Jarod Kushner, Senior Advisor to Trump, and the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, Linda Powell, also recently returned from Saudi Arabia where they held talks on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Kushner has also been in frequent contact with officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
‘While these regional talks will play an important role, the President reaffirms that peace between Israelis and Palestinians can only be negotiated directly between the two parties and that the United States will continue working closely with the parties to make progress toward that goal. No deal will be imposed on Israelis and Palestinians. We are committed to facilitating a deal that improves conditions for both parties,’ said the White House official.
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