16. The Rapporteur finds that by December 2010, the pace of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem had in fact escalated. On 4 November 2010, the Government of Israel issued tenders for 238 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlements of Pisgat Zeev and Ramot[22] and the following day announced plans for construction of 1,352 new housing units elsewhere in East Jerusalem. Continued construction in addition to settlers’ forcibly taking over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem has resulted in the expulsion of Palestinian residents from their homes. Palestinian families, some of whom have lived in their homes for generations, have been expelled by Israeli police and settlers. In July 2010, a large Palestinian family that had lived in their home in the Old City for more than 70 years was expelled by police-backed settlers who then took over the house.[23] In November 2010, settler organizations took control of two houses in Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jabal al- Mukkaber and al-Tur in East Jerusalem resulting in forcible eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes.[24] The Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood has also been the subject of persistent attempts by Israeli settler groups to take over land and property in order to establish new settlements in the area. As a result, over 60 Palestinians have lost their homes and another 500 remain at risk of forced eviction, dispossession and displacement in the
_____
[21] Attila Somfalvi, “PM responds to Obama: Jerusalem not a settlement”, Yediot Aharanot, 10 November 2010.
[22] Amnesty International UK, “East Jerusalem: Israel’s 238 housing units plan threatens Palestinian human rights”, 15 October 2010.
[23] Harriet Sherwood, “Israeli settlers evict Palestinian family from their home of 70 years”, The Guardian, 29 July 2010.
[24] B’Tselem, “New settler enclaves in East Jerusalem”, 2 December 2010.
A/HRC/16/72
9
A/HRC/16/72
10
B.
near future.[25] In Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, Israeli families have forcibly taken over Palestinian homes, turning them into guarded settlement compounds flying Israeli flags.[26] Many of the settler organizations are backed by private donors from abroad,[27] raising the issue of international complicity, as well as Israeli State responsibility, with these continuing violations of international law. Moreover, The Government of Israel and the Jerusalem Municipality support the settlers’ actions in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and the Old City by allocating private security guards, paid for by taxes, to protect the compounds; sending security forces to accompany takeover of Palestinian houses; funding and promoting building and development projects in the compounds; and transferring Government assets to the control of the organizations.[28] This support further illustrates the institutional and systematic discrimination against the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem by Israel, as well as ongoing Israeli efforts to create what are euphemistically called “facts on the ground” for the annexation of East Jerusalem.
Expulsions from East Jerusalem as a means to annexation
17. The Special Rapporteur believes that the expulsions from East Jerusalem go beyond those linked to house seizures or demolitions – and beyond the immediate dire consequences to individuals and families facing the loss of their homes – and form part of the broader picture of annexation, not as an Israeli legal claim but enacted increasingly as evidence of an Israeli political project. Israel carries out new punishments against Palestinians in Jerusalem, including threats of the revocation of Jerusalem residency rights of Palestinians living legally in Jerusalem.
18. In one of the most egregious examples, in July 2010, four Palestinian citizens of Israel, who were elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, including one former Council minister, were given notice that their right to Jerusalem residency was being revoked, after the four politicians refused to renounce their ties to Hamas.[29] Efforts to expel these parliamentarians were resumed in the summer of 2010 and finally, on 8 December 2010, one of these individuals was deported from Jerusalem.[30] The expulsion of the Council’s members from Jerusalem is a violation of the article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits the forcible transfer of protected persons. It also sets a particularly dangerous precedent for the removal of more than 270,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.[31] As the Special Rapporteur has noted before, it is particularly worrying that Israel appears ready to forcibly transfer these individuals based on their supposed lack of allegiance to the state of Israel.[32] Israel, as an occupying Power, is prohibited from transferring civilian persons from East Jerusalem and from forcing Palestinians to swear allegiance or otherwise affirm their loyalty to the State of Israel. The revocation of residency permits, home demolitions and evictions, settlement construction, the separation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and its annexation to Israel,
_____
[25] Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA-OPT), “Fact sheet: The Case of Sheikh Jarrah”, October 2010.
[26] See e.g. Wadi Hilweh Information Center Silwan, “Settlers took over a house in Al-Farouq neighborhood in Silwan”, 23 November 2010.
[27] See “New settler enclaves in East Jerusalem”.
[28] Ibid.
[29] See B’Tselem, “In dangerous precedent, Israel revokes residency of four Palestinians affiliated with Hamas from East Jerusalem and acts to forcibly transfer them”, 18 July 2010.
[30] Associated Press, “Israel expels Hamas MP jailed over Jerusalem status”, 9 December 2010.
[31] “In dangerous precedent, Israel revokes residency”.
[32] Statement of the Special Rapporteur, “Israel must avoid further violations of international law in East Jerusalem,” 29 June 2010.
and other Israeli measures to push Palestinian residents out of the city will cumulatively make the creation of a viable Palestinian state, with its capital as East Jerusalem, impossible.[33]
19. The evidence mounts that from a longer vantage point, the overall pattern combining forced expulsions of Palestinians outwards and of Government-supported voluntary transfers of Israeli settlers inwards reflects a systematic policy of Israel to set the stage for an overall dispossession of Palestinians and the establishment of permanent control over territories occupied since 1967. According to a United Nations report, forced population transfer, or ethnic cleansing, is defined as the “systematic, coercive and deliberate … movement of population into or out of an area … with the effect or purpose of altering the demographic composition of a territory … particularly when that ideology or policy asserts the dominance of a certain group over another”.[34] There is no question that, with its policy of Palestinian expulsion and dispossession in Jerusalem, Israel continues to be responsible for a gradual, incremental, yet cumulatively devastating policy designed to achieve the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
