Adalah and Bimkom: Israeli authorities must halt beachfront development desecrating mass graves in the depopulated village of Tantura, site of 1948 massacre
Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and Bimkom — Planners for Planning Rights, sent a letter on 20 April 2026, on behalf of the Tantura Displaced Persons Committee, representing families displaced and dispossessed in the 1948 massacre, to the secretariat of Moshav Dor, an Israeli Jewish village built on the ruins of Tantura, and to the relevant planning authorities in the Hof HaCarmel Regional Council. The letter demanded that no building permits be issued that would lead to the further desecration of the mass graves of the depopulated Palestinian village. Adalah and Bimkom further demanded that grave sites be fenced off and marked with identifying signs in order to halt ongoing violations of their sanctity and enable family members of the victims to visit them in a dignified manner, as well as to preserve the village’s remaining historical structures.
To read the full letter (in Hebrew): https://www.adalah.org/uploads/uploads/Tantura.pdf
The letter was sent by Adalah’s Legal Director, Dr. Suhad Bishara, and architect Sari Kronish of Bimkom.
Background
Tantura, a Palestinian fishing village located along the Mediterranean coast west of the village of Fureidis, was attacked and occupied by the Haganah’s Alexandroni Brigade during the night of 22-23 May 1948. Before its occupation, the village had a population of approximately 1,500 Palestinians, most of whom relied on agriculture and fishing for their livelihoods.
In 2023, Forensic Architecture (FA), a research agency investigating human rights violations, conducted a comprehensive investigation into the situation at the village, following which it published an extensive piece of research, commissioned by Adalah, locating and outlining the mass graves and the original village cemeteries. Using archival maps, photographs and videos (including previous documentary films about the destruction of Tantura), aerial photographs and satellite images, village surveys, memory sketches drawn by former residents of Tantura living in exile, an original survey of the village’s remaining buildings, and a ‘situated testimony’ interview with a living survivor of Tantura, FA created a model of the village—reconstructing a place long since wiped from the landscape. The research includes precise locations of burial sites currently occupied by a parking lot, a pedestrian walkway in the “Dor Beach” resort village, and other open areas. Based on FA’s research, in May 2023, Adalah, on behalf of displaced residents of Tantura and the Tantura Displaced Persons Committee demanded an immediate end to the desecration of the mass graves. These demands went unanswered.
New application for building permit for tourist development on mass graves
The Tantura Displaced Persons Committee recently learned of a building permit application submitted by Moshav Dor to the Hof HaCarmel Local Planning and Building Committee, seeking to construct tourist and recreational facilities on Dor Beach. The application documents remain unavailable for public review. The proposed development is based on a plan approved in 2013, before the locations of the mass graves had been identified, and before they could be mapped or accounted for.
Of the four mass graves identified in the FA investigation and in Israeli military archival material, three fall within the boundaries of the proposed development: two in areas designated for parking lots and recreational facilities, and a third within the coastal strip alongside a planned promenade. A fourth mass grave lies beneath an existing public beach parking lot.
The letter affirmed that cross-referencing these findings with the construction plan makes clear that the implementation of the project would lead to the desecration of the graves and permanently foreclose the possibility of identifying, fencing off, and appropriately marking their locations. The letter stated, “Under these circumstances, issuing building permits pursuant to this plan would deepen the harm to the dignity of the dead and to the rights of their families. The courts have previously held that the right to a dignified burial constitutes an integral part of the right to human dignity.”
Adalah and Bimkom emphasized that Israeli courts have repeatedly affirmed that cemeteries belong to the living as much as to the dead. The ongoing desecration denies family members the ability to visit their loved ones’ graves as a means of preserving their memory. As the letter further, “This situation does not only harm the rights of the families, but it is also interferes with the entitlement of the dead to have their memory preserved and their dignity protected, as well as with the religious and cultural beliefs of the families.
