Combating forced displacement in Israel: This year Israeli authorities ramped up plans to displace and dispossess thousands of Bedouin citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev). In January, state authorities announced that they would evict 36,000 Bedouins to build ‘economic development projects’; and in October, they announced plans to hold the displaced families in temporary refugee camps for three to six years.
Adalah is partnering with the Bedouin community and other NGOs to launch legal, advocacy, and media actions against these plans. Our initial successes include an interim order requiring the Israeli authorities to justify the construction of a phosphate mine; a letter from six UN Special Rapporteurs raising grave concerns about the displacement plans; strong concluding observations from the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and wide public awareness through local and international news coverage.
|
|
|
Adalah Attorney Myssana Morany (center) reviews maps with residents of the unrecognized village of Ras Jeraba, threatened with demolition. (Photo by Mati Milstein)
|
|
Restoring property and livelihoods in Gaza: The Israeli navy routinely seizes Palestinian fishing boats in the waters of the occupied and blockaded Gaza Strip. One of those boats, confiscated in September 2016, belonged to fisherman Abdel Ma’ti Habil. The navy’s oppressive actions – which were carried out with no legal authority – forcibly stripped Habil and other fishermen of their sole source of livelihood and caused severe harm to them and their families’ welfare in Gaza.
Adalah and its partners Gisha and Al Mezan filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court in January 2019 on behalf of Habil, demanding that the state immediately return his boat and all other fishing boats under its control. Following this action, the state declared in May that it would return 66 boats to their owners. Halib’s boat was finally returned in July.
|
|
|
|
Abdel Ma'ati Habil’s boat is returned to the Gaza Strip on 1 July 2019. (Photo courtesy of Al-Tawfiq Fishermen Association in Gaza)
|
|
Blocking annexation in the West Bank: Israel is working to legalize its settlements and confiscations of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank to keep them under permanent Israeli possession. This policy received further backing when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in November that it no longer viewed the settlements as "inconsistent with international law".
Adalah is pursuing legal actions to block these plans, including a petition pending before a wide Supreme Court panel against the 2017 Regularization Law, with JLAC and Al Mezan on behalf of 17 Palestinian local councils. Adalah is also challenging other legal tools promoted by the Attorney General for confiscating Palestinian lands, including the principle of 'good faith' in land sales, appropriating private property through roads and other infrastructure, and a military order to ease the purchase of West Bank land by Israeli settlers.
|
|
|
|
Israeli Border Police troops look out towards an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. (Photo by Mati Milstein)
|
|
Adalah’s work for Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line makes us a vital, unique part of the movement to protect and promote Palestinian human rights.
That role is only possible because of your support.
|
|
|
In solidarity,
Hassan Jabareen, Adv.
General Director, Adalah
|
|
|
|
|
|
