Mrs Raquel Rolnik
UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing
Your Excellency

Israeli authorities demolished Beit Arabiya (“Arabiya’s House”) on Monday, January 23rd for the fifth time, along with structures in the East Anata Bedouin compound.  Beit Arabiya,is the home of  Arabiya and Salim Shawamreh and their seven children located in the West Bank town of Anata (Area C) just to the northeast of Jerusalem, is a living symbol of resistance to Occupation and the desire for justice and peace.

The home of the Shawamreh family has been demolished four times by the Israeli authorities and rebuilt each time by Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists, before being demolished  yet again.

At around 11p.m. Monday, a bulldozer accompanied by a contingent of heavily armed Israeli soldiers appeared on the Anata hills, to promptly demolish Beit Arabiya, along with residential and agricultural structures in the nearby Arab al-Jahalin Bedouin compound. 3 family homes were demolished along with numerous animal pans, and 20 people including young children were displaced, left exposed to the harsh desert environment. While standing in solidarity with Palestinians, ICAHD staff and activists were repeatedly threatened by Israeli soldieries. ICAHD Co-Director Itay Epshtain was beaten and sustained minor injuries.

House demolitions and forced evictions are among Israel’s most heinous practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). In 2011, a record year of displacement, a total of 622 Palestinian structures were demolished by Israeli authorities, of which 36% (or 222) were family homes; the remainder were livelihood-related (including water storage and agricultural structures), resulting in 1,094 people displaced, almost double the number for 2010. The Jordan Valley sustained the largest number of demolitions (32% of total structures demolished, 40% of residential structures demolished, 37% of people displaced), with 199 structures demolished and 401 people displaced.
These demolitions are illegal under international law.

 According to the Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute an occupying power has only temporary administrative powers, and cannot annex occupied territories. The International Court of Justice has stated that the 4th Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian persons in Times of War applies to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem.

The systematic policy of house demolitions carried out against Palestinian residents in Jerusalem contravenes the 4th Geneva Convention which forbids “any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons” except where such destruction is rendered “absolutely necessary by military operations”. Extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly constitutes a grave breach to the Convention, which can theoretically be prosecuted under the universal jurisdiction of States party to the convention.

Your Excellency,  to date (over the past  63 years) the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions have failed in their legal duty  to protect Palestinian civilians in the OPT, in view of the continued violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention by the State of Israel and IOF.

I therefore urge you to demand that the United Nations immediately impose sanctions on the State of Israel until it  ends its illegal occupation of Palestine.

Sincerely