Tag: idf

Protection of archaeological sites
כ"ב אייר התשפ"א - 04 May 2021
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The State of Israel enacted an effective enforcement order to fight the Palestinian takeover of Judea and Samaria, but the Civil Administration has refrained from using it – despite the approval of the High Court of Justice. Now, the Regavim Movement and the Samaria Regional Council have submitted a High Court petition demanding that the legislation be applied against Palestinian invasion of an archaeological site in Samaria.

Over the past several months, Regavim has documented a persistent stream of incursion and annexation, as residents of Burkin, a village located in the area under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction, have taken over a significant parcel of land in the Ariel Commercial Zone – located in Area C, under full Israeli jurisdiction.

The area that is being quietly annexed is adjacent to an archaeological site known as Khirbet Khurkosh, where a magnificent Hellenistic Era mausoleum was discovered, along with other remains dating from the Iron Age through the Middle Ages.

This gradual annexation began with road work, which was soon followed by land clearing and preparation for agricultural work. Mature olive trees were quickly planted, in an attempt to make the newly-cleared area look “old” – and now, a large structure, already connected to electricity infrastructure despite its considerable distance from the village, is nearing completion. This entire project is unfolding on “survey land,” Israeli state land for which full registration has not been completed.

The recently-filed High Court petition emphasizes that six different requests for enforcement were submitted to the relevant authorities at each of the stages of the annexation process, but the work continued, unhindered, and no discernable enforcement has been carried out.

For years, the Palestinian Authority and its partners in the European Union have exploited the Israeli bureaucratic and legal systems, successfully preventing law enforcement against illegal Palestinian annexation.

In 2018, the “Order for the Removal of New Illegal Structures” was enacted by the defense establishment and the State Attorney’s Office as part of the “Battle for Area C.” This legislation allows the demolition of new structures built without a permit within six months of construction. The order may be implemented within 96 hours of issuance of an eviction order.

The “Removal of New Structures” order is an effective enforcement tool that makes it possible to streamline the law enforcement process and make it more difficult for offenders to establish facts on the ground by abusing the judicial process.

After the “Removal of New Structures” order was enacted, left-wing organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice to strike it down, but their petition was rejected and the High Court approved the order’s use. Nonetheless, to this day the state has made minimal use of this order, despite the fact that it has proven to be the most efficient and effective tool in the fight against illegal construction.

In the petition filed by Regavim Movement and the Samaria Regional Council, attorneys Avi Segal and Yael Cinnamon requested that the High Court order the authorities to apply the “Order for Removal of New Structures” against the ongoing invasion of Khirbet Khurkosh.

Samaria Council Chairman Yossi Dagan said: “The Security Cabinet announced its intention to battle the PA’s annexation of Area C, and the time has come for the enforcement authorities to act accordingly – to approach the problem in a systematic fashion and to act systematically. We must stop the Palestinian Authority’s rampage, and tell them, loudly and clearly, who’s the boss.”

The joint petition stresses that “this case illustrates the PA’s systematic, well-financed and carefully-planned takeover of Area C, which seeks to shift the focal point of Palestinian development from Area B to Area C. The Palestinian Authority is establishing facts on the ground in order to tie Israel’s hands – both in terms of current security considerations and in terms of political leverage in strategic points in Area C. These one-sided facts on the ground will impact the opening positions for future negotiations, and the State of Israel must address them right now.”

An illegal structure built on Israeli state lands at the archaeological site of Khirbet Khurkosh
Battle for Area C
י"ז אייר התשפ"א - 29 April 2021
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The squatters’ highway in April 2021

The Squatters’ Highway: How the PA connects illegal encampments in Area C to the villages of Area B

The Palestinian Authority has blazed a new illegal trail through the Jordan Valley, connecting the towns of Taysir and Tubas in Area B to its network of illegal outposts in Area C. Regavim: “The Palestinian Authority continues to carry out its masterplan for territorial contiguity in the Jordan Valley, and the State of Israel continues to allow it.”

In recent months, the Palestinian Authority has invested massive human and financial resources to create a new illegal road connecting the large Arab villages of Taysir and Tubas in eastern Samaria with the network of illegal outposts near the Jewish communities of Ro’i and Beqaot and the IDF bases of the Jordan Valley.

The Regavim Movement has been tracking, documenting and warning the authorities about the project for many months: The PA began work on the illegal “squatters’ highway” in Area C as early as November last year. Initially, paving materials were deposited in neat piles all along the route; now, only a few short months later, they have been steamrolled into a solid and smooth surface to accommodate vehicular traffic.

Regavim alerted the Civil Administration and other relevant authorities in the early stages of the project, demanding decisive enforcement action against the illegal activity and those responsible for it. Nonetheless, the PA has managed to steamroll and surface the entire roadway without interference, and if the current pace of “law enforcement” continues, there is every reason to believe that the road will soon be fully paved with asphalt.

The squatters’ highway in November 2020

“We warned the Civil Administration and the authorities, and appealed to them to take swift, active steps to prevent further progress of the work on the road, designed to support the illegal structures already on the ground and to link the scattered outposts into a network and connect them to the central villages of Area B, but they did nothing,” said Eitan Melet, Regavim’s Field Coordinator for Judea and Samaria.

“The Palestinian Authority is constantly working to create contiguity of Palestinian settlement; they aren’t standing around waiting for a Civil Administration inspector to show up and stop them. Either knowingly or unwittingly, the inaction of the enforcement authorities and the State of Israel is enabling the Palestinian Authority to achieve its vision of territorial contiguity and control in the Jordan Valley.”

Erosion of governance
י"א אדר התשפ"א - 23 February 2021
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Bir Hadaj

Israel’s High Court of Justice denies appeal of landowners whose property has been overtaken by thousands of Bedouin squatters: “This case does not justify judicial interference.”

After a decade of legal proceedings, yesterday (Monday) Israel’s High Court of Justice denied an appeal by owners of private property who sought a court-mandated deadline for the removal of squatters from their land – land located on the outskirts of Bir Hadaj, the crime capital of the Negev. “An outrageous miscarriage of justice.”

Yestrday (Monday), Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected a petition filed by individual land owners whose property has been overrun by Bedouin squatters. Over the past number of years, more than 1,000 Bedouin families invaded state land and private properties on the outskirts of Kibbutz Revivim, while rejecting a series of increasingly generous relocation-compensation packages offered by the Israeli government. The owners of the property took their case to court ten years ago, and in their most recent appeal, they sought a court-mandated timetable for the restoration of their property.

In stark contrast to a well-established record of High Court judgements that required the state to remove Jewish homes built on privately-owned Arab property according to non-negotiable deadlines, in the case of the Jewish landowners of Bir Hadaj, Justices Groskopf, Mazuz and Wilner decided that “the rights of ownership of the appellants regarding their private property are not absolute, and do not exist in a vacuum,” and that this “is not among those exceptional and extreme cases that justify judicial intervention in the policy of the authorities responsible for enforcing planning and construction laws.”

The squatters’ camps near Bir Hadaj began to take shape in the early 2000s, after the Israeli government temporarily relocated 15 families from the Ramat Beka area to state land near Kibbutz Revivim. This set off a massive movement of families from the Al Azazmeh tribe, who quickly covered thousands of dunams of state land in the vicinity, as well as some 2000 dunams of land owned privately by Jews, with hundreds of illegal structures.

This sprawling squatters’ camp has grown into the crime capital of southern Israel, an exterritorial no man’s land where Israeli law enforcement is virtually nonexistent. Residents of the squatters’ camp have been in the news recently: The suspects in the rape of a 10-year old girl in the course of a home invasion, the massive drug production plantations on the nearby Tzeelim firing zone, large-scale plunder of IDF ammunition and harassment of IDF trainees and reservists are all “credited” to residents of the Bir Hadaj hinterland.

In 2003, the Israeli government decided to create a new, legal alternative for the squatters: an all-Bedouin town, built on state land. Each of the squatter families was offered a “compensation” package of hundreds of thousands of shekels as well as a 5 dunam plot of land (!) – but this wasn’t enough to convince the squatters to relocate.

The owners of the stolen land, together with the Regavim Movement, petitioned the Beer Sheva District Court, asking that the state be required to provide a timetable for the evacuation of the squatters, but the government responded that it was carrying out negotiations with the squatters with the aim of achieving a mutually-acceptable evacuation – and the petition was dismissed. When the much-awaited agreement didn’t materialize, a second petition was filed in 2015 – which the court denied without explanation.

A third petition was filed after the Director of the Bedouin Authority, Yair Maayan, released an official announcement that all attempts to achieve a mutually-accepted evacuation agreement had failed.

The owners of the purloined property returned to court, proving that from the time they had first petitioned, the squatters had built hundreds of additional illegal structures on their property. To make matters worse, what meager law enforcement activity had taken place in the interim (6 relocation agreements were signed with squatters, out of over 1000) had focused on clearing state-owned land, and the private owners were left ‘high and dry.’

This third petition was also denied, despite the government’s response to the court that it could not predict when enforcement activity would be completed in the squatters camp as a whole, and in the privately-owned sections in particular. The property owners turned to the High Court of Justice to appeal the District Court decision.

Yesterday (Monday), the High Court of Justice denied their appeal. “The situation in Bir Hadaj as a whole, and in the privately-owned section in particular, is unacceptable,” wrote Justice Groskopf in the opening words of the judgement. “The state must not accept a situation in which there are areas under its jurisdiction that are beyond the law,” and even after a decade has passed, “it is unclear when the owners of the property will be able to exercise their rights to it.”

Nonetheless, the judges refused to require the state to adhere to a deadline for evacuation of the property. “The appellants’ ownership rights to the privately-owned land, which undoubtedly and undeniably been harmed, are not absolute and do not exist in a vacuum. They are to be weighed against the state’s policy of creating appropriate regulation solutions for the illegal compound at Bir Hadaj, in the larger context of efforts to regulate Bedouin settlement in the Negev.”

Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim, reacted to the judgement: “This is a miscarriage of justice that cries out to the very heavens. In inverse cases, the High Court ordered the wholesale evacuation of Jewish communities and the destruction of Jewish homes according to draconian, non-negotiable timetables. In this case, it has become clear that the government itself is creating the cesspool of lawlessness that is exploding on us all. The squatters’ camps have become an exterritorial incubator for the horrors that continue to befall Israeli citizens of the Negev and beyond. The unthinkable has become the norm; the rape of a child in her own home, the invasion and looting of IDF bases, and the terrorizing of law abiding Israelis speak for themselves.”

Chaim Goloventsis, one of the owners of the land, added: “We must not accept a reality in which the High Court of Justice once again denies us the right to our property. I am convinced that if our land had been located in the 03 area code (i.e., greater Tel Aviv), the judgement would have been totally different. This is just one more pathetic, embarrassing instance of the breakdown of the state’s institutions in southern Israel.”

Erosion of governance
כ"ז שבט התשפ"א - 09 February 2021
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Ignoring a small problem allows it to turn into a big problem.

Last night’s case in point:
Bedouin bandits infiltrated the Israel Air Force base at Nevatim; IAF helicopters engaged in an hours-long chase.

The State of Israel has been ignoring the cracks in law and order in the Negev for so long, they’ve become a “grand canyon” – and tonight’s events in the Negev prove the point.

In the last two weeks alone the Negev has seen horrific and varied forms of criminal behavior: The shocking sexual assault of a little girl in her home, the break-in at the Israel Air Force base at Sde Teiman that included a stun grenade attack on our soldiers, a string of robberies in Be’er Sheva that were caught on film and uploaded to social media, the desecration of a Jewish cemetery, a massive ammunition heist, and now, a break-in at the Nevatim base, where Israel’s top-secret aeronautical technology is housed.

It’s time for the State of Israel to draw a line in the sand. For the sake of each and every citizen of Israel, we demand that the government formulate a comprehensive, non-negotiable solution to the problem of Bedouin crime in the Negev.

Battle for Area C
כ"ג שבט התשפ"א - 05 February 2021
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There’s been a tremendous amount of “chatter” recently – including governments condemning Israel and members of the US Congress referring to “ethnic cleansing” and serious crimes” committed by Israel in the case of Khurbet Humsa.

Although Regavim was not involved in this case, here are some facts to give you a more accurate picture of the story, which the European Union has failed do to.

First, the High Court of Justice decision, which refers to three earlier appeals on the same matter, in 4/2011, 7/2011 and 11/2014.

In each case the appellants tried a new excuse – Ramadan, the weather, who knows what – to prevent their removal from the site; in each case the court rejected the appeal out of hand. The area has been an active IDF training ground since 1972 (Firing Grounds 903), and the Bedouin didn’t set up camp there until 2010.

The satellite images we obtained are of the training grounds in 2008, focusing on the spot that was recently evacuated, followed by an image of the same point in 2013 (where only one structure is visible), and another in 2019 (where the recently-demolished structures, complete with European donors’ symbols, stand).

We haven’t done in-depth research on this illegal outpost, and weren’t involved in the legal process that resulted in last week’s demolitions, but this phenomenon is repeated over and over in IDF training grounds. In the case of the southern Hebron Hills area, a city has sprung up on what was IDF Firing Zones 917 and 918. As the Palestinian Authority and the European benefactors flooded the training grounds with more and more structures (not tents or shacks but massive, even palatial homes), the IDF gradually withdrew in order to avoid injuring the squatters, eventually abandoning the training grounds altogether. It’s no coincidence that this area was targeted for aggressive take-over: It forms a land bridge between Area A to the Negev and beyond, and is an active smuggling route.

"Masafer Yatta"
כ"ב שבט התשפ"א - 04 February 2021
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This week, the IDF held a military exercise that began in the Negev in Biq’at Arad and ended in Training Ground 918 in the South Hebron Hills.

Shouldn’t be much of a big deal, right?

Well, far-left organizations such as B’Tselem pounced on this opportunity to attack the IDF, claiming that the drills were held “in Palestinian villages” and forced “local residents out of their homes”. This left-wing propaganda was publicized in the international media, too. It’s important for us at Regavim to present the facts so that fair-minded people aren’t brainwashed by these lies.

1. Training Ground 918 was declared a firing zone by the IDF in the early 1980s.

2. It’s a desert area, and like all other training grounds, was empty – besides sometimes functioning as a grazing area.

3. Training Ground 918 has served various IDF units over the years – including infantry, artillery, and the Air Force.

4. In 2000, local Arabs began to take over the area through mass illegal construction.

5. Due to the construction, the IDF was forced to reduce its activities in the Training Ground and made changes to training schedules.

6. Radical left-wing organizations filed a petition to the High Court of Justice, claiming that hundreds of Arab families had lived in the Training Ground for many years.

7. The IDF checked and found that only a handful of families lived in the area in 2000 – and they were all there on a seasonal basis. It wasn’t their permanent residence!

8. Out of 49 families mentioned in the petition, at least 38 were identified as permanent residents of the nearby village of Yatta or other villages.

9. Despite the State’s position, which viewed the land as rightfully belonging to the State, the High Court offered a compromise: the illegal structures on the periphery of the Training Ground would remain, and the rest of the land would be permitted for grazing and other agricultural purposes when the IDF isn’t using the grounds.

10. Although the Palestinian Authority was involved from the starting point, from 2009 onwards, together with international organizations, it started actively funding the illegal construction as part of their efforts to take over Area C. (For more on the #BattleforAreaC – see here)

11. In the meantime, the State of Israel didn’t do much; local Arabs continued their encroachment and even paved an illegal smuggling route.

12. The PA ignored the High Court’s suggestion for compromise. And as the PA-led encroachment increased, the number of IDF drills decreased drastically.

**

Ok, so to sum up, what happened this week? Exactly what happened a year ago, and the year before that. IDF troops came to train in an #DF training zone.

Unlike the left-wing radicals, we like to talk #facts rather than fake news and hateful, fabricated, anti-Israel narratives.

The Arab village was established in the middle of the IDF Training Ground, and not vice-versa. That must be the starting point of any discussion.

Please share this post to help us get the truth out.

Regavim: Protecting Israel’s Resources, Preserving Israeli Sovereignty

י"ב שבט התשפ"א - 25 January 2021
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PA ‘celebrates’ Tu b’Shvat near Rosh HaAyin

Yesterday (Sunday 24 January), the Palestinian Authority planted thousands of trees on Israeli state land, in an IDF firing zone. Participating in the event were armed Palestinian Police. Regavim: “While they’re establishing facts on the ground, the Israeli authorities are in winter hibernation.”

The Palestinian Authority held a ceremony yesterday (Sunday), planting some 2000 olive trees on Israeli state land, in IDF Training Ground 203 – adjacent to Rosh HaAyin to the east and Dir Balut in the west, in close proximity to the security barrier.

The event was filmed, photographed and publicized by Fatah– affiliated Radio Zeituna and on social media. Armed Palestinian Police officers were among those in attendance, and were filmed as they entered the IDF firing zone – despite the fact that are prohibited from entering Area C, the section of Judea and Samaria under Israeli jurisdiction.

This event is one element of a large-scale project that has taken shape over the past several years, in which the Palestinian Authority has planted millions of trees as a means of illegally seizing control of thousands of dunams in Area C.

The Palestinian Authority’s “agricultural annexation” focuses on land adjacent to roadways, surrounding Jewish communities, as well as state land – particularly in locations that are of high strategic and political importance.

“The Palestinian Authority has joined the Tu B’Shvat celebrations with well-planned ‘agricultural conquest’ projects – and thus far, the State of Israel is fast asleep,” said a spokesperson for Regavim. “These projects are supported by massive European funding, and the targeted locations are chosen with care to serve a clear and publicly-declared purpose: changing the map, by creating facts on the ground – and all within spitting distance of Rosh HaAyin and Gush Dan.”

"Masafer Yatta"
י"ג כסלו התשע"ט - 21 November 2018
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The State admits: Illegal construction for Arabs was whitewashed– but policy has changed

In the course of a High Court of Justice hearing on  Regavim’s petition against the illegal Arab city growing in the Judean Desert, the State’s attorney admitted that in the past Arabs had been allowed to build without permits or planning approval.

On 20 November 2018, Israel’s High Court of Justice heard Regavim’s petition regarding an illegal Arab city growing on the grounds of IDF Training Range 917. The city, made up of 1,700 illegal structures – homes, schools, clinics, mosques – covers tens of thousands of dunams. The infrastructure that supports it all is spread over dozens of kilometers, thanks to generous funding provided by  the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, and other foreign interests.

The bottom line: A new Arab city has been born in an area of critical strategic importance, creating a contiguous Arab pale of settlement that stretches from the Arad Valley through Har Hebron and eastern Gush Etzion.

Foreign funding for illegal construction in 917

Background:

In the 1980s, a few Bedouin families lived in temporary structures that dotted the landscape of IDF Training Ground 917. Without any legal foundation or precedent, the Civil Administration demarcated a number of clusters and declared them”no go zones:” No law enforcement steps would be taken against structures within these areas, despite the fact that they had no building permits or municipal plans as required by law.

As if this weren’t bad enough, Regavim has documented more than 500 additional illegal structures built outside of these demarcated zones in the last few years – structures that “connect the dots” between the original clusters and create an uninterrupted band of Arab territory that stretches from the Arad Valley through Har Hebron and eastern Gush Etzion.

The State’s representative admitted in court that the “arrangements” that had been in force, which allowed illegal construction to continue unhindered, “constitute an historic reality, but do not reflect the government’s current policy regarding illegal construction. Nonetheless, because of the ‘seniority’ of the structures in question, the State contends that construction and regulation should be allowed to proceed.” Despite the irrefutable evidence presented by Regavim to the contrary, the State’s attorney argued that the Civil Administration is carrying out law enforcement procedures “according to its priorities,” outside of the demarcated non-enforcement zones.

Questions without answers:

“The State decided in the past that there is no law within these clusters – but even outside of their boundaries there is absolutely no enforcement activity,” said Attorney Avi Segal of Regavim. “At issue is an increase of hundreds if not thousands of percentage points in the rate of illegal construction. The State should be required to explain by what authority it allowed this chaos to begin in the first place. Now, the government sends its attorney to court to announce that someone has been hired to formulate a plan – but he is unable to say who this “someone” is, when this plan will be implemented, or where it will be implemented. The State has not demonstrated that any concrete steps toward cleaning up this mess have been taken. Whereas the court handed down very strict timetables for resolving the matter of a few paltry meters in structures that were built without permits elsewhere, in this case we are talking about 1700 illegal structures – and counting.”

The hearing, in a nutshell:

At the hearing, Chief Justice Hayut reprimanded the State’s attorney, who had stated over a year ago that “progress” had been made – but since then, has not produced a time-frame or operational plans. “The regulation team that is eventually chosen through the tender process now underway will be tasked with planning in any number of locations. What are the specific timetables regarding this particular area? How is it possible that the State does not have a plan of action?”

On the other hand, the Chief Justice required Regavim to add additional respondents to the petition: “There is no argument that many hundreds of illegal structures are involved,” said Chief Justice Hayut. “Residents of these illegal structures must be included as respondents to Regavim’s petition.” Attorney Segal explained that the residents have managed to avoid being served with papers, which were posted on the illegal structures instead. Furthermore, Regavim’s earlier attempts to serve residents with papers, as the court has required, were met with threats of physical violence.

Looking ahead:

In one month, the court will reconvene to consider the State’s plans for regulation and law enforcement, and Regavim will be there to continue the fight to protect Israel’s land resources.

"Masafer Yatta"
כ"ח סיון התשע"ח - 11 June 2018
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IDF Firing Zones 917 and 918 are situated in a strategic area in the South Hebron Hills, a region that connects Israel’s eastern flank to the Negev and the Dead Sea.

For the past few years, a massive take-over of land in this area has been underway, and we at Regavim have made a major effort to combat the phenomenon and have the squatters removed. In Area 918, for example, we submitted a petition against an entire village, Halet al Dabaa, which was constructed illegally by the European Union.

We also petitioned the Supreme Court last year regarding an illegal road that had been paved, in another attempt to create facts on the ground and fulfill the Fayyad Plan’s vision of connecting Gaza, the Negev, and the Hebron Hills and create territorial contiguity that would effectively amputate the Negev from Israel.

***

This week, in response to our petition, the High Court of Justice issued an order to halt illegal development activities on IDF Firing Grounds 917 and 918.

We welcome the High Court’s clear pronouncement and hope it will be the first step toward halting this catastrophic plan.