Calculated deception: How Israel uses diplomacy to buy time for Gaza’s destruction

Displaced Palestinian families try to survive under challenging conditions amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings following Israeli attacks in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, Palestine on August 03, 2026. [Abdalhkem Abu Riash – Anadolu Agency]

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by Dr Mustafa Fetouri

Last week’s mass funeral of 112 people—including 44 children from two closely related extended families—was not a new tragedy; it was the agonising, delayed accounting of a crime committed nearly three years ago. The victims, all belonging to the Abu Sharia and Al-Hassayna clans, lived in adjacent residential blocks in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood when Israeli airstrikes flattened their homes on 22^nd and 23^rd November 2023. Entire bloodlines were wiped out in an instant: at least three generations—grandparents, fathers, mothers, siblings, children, and infants—buried side-by-side. Their bodies, recovered only recently from under the rubble after a 17-day excavation or identified from temporary mass graves amid the relentless siege, were finally laid to rest.

This grim scene serves as a harrowing microcosm of Israel’s war on Gaza: a war that not only slaughters entire bloodlines in single strokes of industrial scale of violence, but meticulously ensures that even the dead are denied dignity, safety, or immediate peace.

On paper, Gaza was supposed to be entering a period of quiet following the ceasefire framework announced in October 2025. In reality, peace never arrived. Israeli forces have continued an unrelenting barrage of airstrikes across the enclave, killing over 1,200 Palestinians—including more than 300 children—and injuring nearly 4,000 others since the agreement was signed. With over 90 percent of Gaza’s population long since uprooted, families are squeezed into ever-shrinking pockets of coastal sand dunes and makeshift tent encampments. Yet even these rudimentary canvas shelters are not spared: the Israeli military routinely strikes these designated “safe zones,” targeting displaced civilians in their sleep.

The double standard of Israeli diplomacy has been laid bare once again by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s explicit rejection of the US-backed 15-point peace plan for Gaza. Unveiled by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace as part of a framework to transition Gaza toward Palestinian administration and eventual self-determination... READ MORE  https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260813-calculated-deception-how-israel-uses-diplomacy-to-buy-time-for-gazas-destruction/ 

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Israel’s ‘Green Rafah’ plan aims to fragment Gaza, experts say Analysts warn Israel’s new administrative zones seek to erase the Palestinian cause and force mass displacement.

Buildings lie in ruins amidst the rubble in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 8, 2025 [Nir Elias/Reuters]

By Mohammad Mansour

Published On 9 Aug 20269 Aug 2026

Israel has quietly given the green light for infrastructure work to begin in a designated area of southern Gaza, according to Israeli media, as it advances a post-war vision that experts warn is designed to reshape reality on the ground and permanently fragment the enclave.

Dubbed “Green Rafah”, the project backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz is in eastern Rafah near the unilaterally imposed “Yellow Line”, the effective Israeli buffer zone squeezing Palestinians into smaller areas.

Army Radio, which reported the approval on Sunday, said the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office described the initiative as an Emirati-backed pilot project aimed at establishing temporary housing “free” of the influence of the Palestinian group Hamas.

While the Israeli military will reportedly supervise the installation of water, sewage and electrical infrastructure, Palestinian labourers will be subjected to intense security screenings by the Shin Bet intelligence agency.

Furthermore, strict limitations have been imposed on the project, with Israeli authorities reportedly banning the entry of “caravans” or mobile homes into the area until at least November.

Also on Sunday, Netanyahu said he rejects the 15-point plan for Gaza announced last month by the United States-led Board of Peace.

The plan calls for the disarmament of Hamas in stages and the phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip, but Netanyahu said an Israeli pull-out won’t happen until Hamas is fully disarmed.

As political negotiations over the future of Gaza stall, Palestinian political researcher Ahmed al-Atawneh warned that projects such as “Green Rafah” are designed to create isolated cantons under total Israeli administrative and security control. With this framework, he argued, Israel leaves Palestinians with only three choices: “Either they fully submit to Israeli policies, face death or imprisonment if they resist, or emigrate.”

Far from providing genuine humanitarian relief, al-Atawneh said Israel’s strategy relies on stripping the Palestinian struggle of its political dimension.

“Treating Palestinians merely as residents rather than citizens with a national cause means, in practice, undermining and liquidating the Palestinian cause,” he said, adding that this approach aligns with the broad consensus in the Israeli parliament rejecting any Palestinian political entity.

Al-Atawneh further criticised Arab involvement in such frameworks outside of a unified Palestinian consensus. “If any country is involved in this project based on the Israeli vision and away from the Palestinians, it raises many questions and essentially serves Israeli policy, rather than genuinely assisting or relieving Palestinians,” he added.

The Israeli ban on mobile homes and delay of meaningful reconstruction of civilian infrastructure carry deep strategic implications, according to experts.

Mohammad Hamed al-Aila, a Palestinian researcher, pointed out that the humanitarian protocol attached to a ceasefire agreement signed last year in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh explicitly mandates the entry of temporary housing (caravans) and repair of civilian infrastructure.

“Israel has not adhered to these obligations, despite 10 months passing since” the signing of a ceasefire deal, said al-Aila, noting that Israel continues to stall while Hamas demands the full implementation of the first phase.

“Preventing the entry of caravans and postponing any serious reconstruction track cannot be separated from the broader Israeli goal of perpetuating the humanitarian catastrophe,” said al-Aila. “Israel views the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a tool of political pressure aimed at gradually pushing the population towards migration.”

Al-Atawneh agreed, suggesting that Netanyahu is using these delays to buy time ahead of Israel’s elections in October in an effort to preserve his far-right-wing coalition, all while pursuing long-term goals of demographic engineering and displacement.

The international force dilemma

In tandem with these administrative zones, preparations are moving forward to deploy a limited International Stabilization Force (ISF). Reports indicate that countries such as Morocco and Uganda may send small contingents of around 200 troops each, falling drastically short of initial plans for a much larger multinational force.

Al-Aila argued that these token numbers reflect Israel’s traditional tactic of superficially accepting US proposals while hollowing out their actual implementation.... READ MORE  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/9/israels-green-rafah-plan-aims-to-fragment-gaza-experts-say

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"Living for decades in crowded refugee camps in the West Bank, the elderly survivors who MEE met spoke of their steadfast yearning to return to their former homes. Some said they still have dreams at night of working in the fields. Azza, who now lives in al-Amari camp near the city of Ramallah, recalls how Tell al-Safi used to be a self-sufficient village with an abundance of various crops - fields growing wheat, barley, corn, sesame, tomato and okra, while trees bore olives, apples, figs and almonds. "At the edge of the village, there was a water well and, using animals, water was pumped from the well to water tanks,” she recalled. “We didn’t need anything from outside the village.""

Palestinian women harvest cotton in the village of Kafr Saba in 1937 (Agricultural memory of Palestine)

Lost land: Nakba survivors recall rural struggle in Mandate-era Palestine

Agriculture was central to Palestinian society before the creation of the state of Israel - and British colonial powers knew it

 

By Fareed Taamallah in al-Amaari refugee camp, occupied West Bank

Published date: 13 May 2020

For Khadija al-Azza, her home village of Tell al-Safi was a paradise. 

"We lived the best of lives,” the 88-year-old Palestinian woman told Middle East Eye, recalling the small rural community of her childhood, before its population was forcibly expelled by Zionist militias in 1948 during the Nakba - Arabic for “catastrophe”.

Between 1917 and 1948, the United Kingdom occupied Palestine during what was known as the Mandate era. Small-scale farmers, known as fellahin, were central to Palestinian society at the time, with three quarters of the population living in rural areas and agriculture the main source of livelihood, bringing families together to work in the fields.

With the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the British government vowed to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, carrying out various policies seeking to fulfill this promise - many of which came at the expense of the Palestinians.

Now, 72 years after the establishment of the state of Israel and the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their lands, Nakba survivors share with Middle East Eye memories of the lives and land they lost, to which they maintain a deep attachment

Country life

At least 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes during the Nakba. They and their descendants now number more than 5.4 million scattered across the occupied West Bank, the besieged Gaza Strip and surrounding countries. Many of the villages that were forcibly evacuated were destroyed or turned into national parks by Israel, trees growing on the ruins of abandoned homes.

Living for decades in crowded refugee camps in the West Bank, the elderly survivors who MEE met spoke of their steadfast yearning to return to their former homes. Some said they still have dreams at night of working in the fields.... READ MORE  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestine-nakba-farmers-rural-resistance-british-mandate

The abandoned harvests of 1948: Palestinian farmers remember the Nakba

Read More »

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"What they could not do in 1948, they are doing now...." From Nakba to genocide: A Gaza grandmother’s lifetime of loss and resilience. At 95, Fatema Obaid has survived two massive Israeli assaults, lost 70 family members and endured starvation and repeated forced flight - but still refuses to leave her homeland

Fatema Obaid, 95, says the current genocide in Gaza is worse than the 1948 Nakba (Hani Abu Rezeq/MEE)

By Maha Hussaini in Gaza City, occupied Palestine

Published date: 15 May 2026 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nakba-genocide-gaza-grandmothers-lifetime-loss-and-resilience

At 95, Fatema Obaid has endured daily Israeli bombardment, starvation and the loss of 70 family members.

Yet the Palestinian grandmother, who survived the 1948 Nakba, refused to leave Gaza City when ordered to do so by the Israeli military during the 2023 genocide. 

For her, fleeing again would mark the beginning of a “crueller Nakba” - one she refuses to relive.

“In the first Nakba, it is true that hundreds of thousands lost their land, homes and villages,” Obaid told Middle East Eye.

“But in this Nakba, we have lost an entire history,” she said from an unfinished apartment in western Gaza City, where she is displaced alongside her grandchildren.

“We lost entire families, and entire generations have been destroyed for decades to come. What they could not do in 1948, they are doing now.”

Originally from Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, Obaid was temporarily displaced during the 1948 Nakba, when Zionist militias attacked Palestinian towns and villages across historic Palestine, forcibly expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for the creation of Israel - an event many scholars describe as ethnic cleansing.

Obaid later returned to Shujaiya, an area that remained outside Israeli control after the 1949 armistice agreement, but lay close to the new de facto border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

More than 75 years later, she relived the same trauma she endured as a teenager - only this time with far greater brutality.

“There is no comparison between the first and the second Nakba,” she said.

New Nakba 

Like many Palestinians in Gaza during the Nakba, Obaid experienced both displacement and giving refuge.

She and her family were forced to flee their home for several months amid the violence and chaos that swept across Palestine in 1948.

At the same time, Gaza was inundated with Palestinians forcibly expelled from towns and villages that later became part of Israel.

'Nothing is more painful than being uprooted from your own land and knowing that, after all these years, you will die in displacement' 

- Fatema Obaid, Palestinian grandmother 

Families arrived with almost nothing after fleeing killings, bombardment and attacks by Zionist militias, believing they would return within days. Instead, Gaza became a place of permanent refuge, overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians uprooted during the Nakba.

Today, around 1.6 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in the enclave, making up roughly 73 percent of Gaza’s population.

Since October 2023, however, Obaid has been displaced more than 10 ten times after her home and entire neighbourhood were reduced to rubble and absorbed into Israel’s newly imposed no-go zone.

“I have lived in Shujaiya since I was born. Even after marrying my cousin, I moved only a few streets away,” she recalled, adding that they fled for a few months in 1948 but eventually returned.

“Only during this Nakba did we lose our homes, our neighbourhood and all of eastern Gaza,” she added.

“They bombed our house and killed more than 70 members of my family - my sons, grandchildren, nephews, their children and many others from our extended family.”

During the Nakba between 1947 and 1949, Zionist militias and later Israeli forces killed an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 Palestinians and permanently displaced around 750,000 people - roughly 75 percent of the Palestinian population at the time.

In the current genocide in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 72,000 Palestinians in two years, while nearly two million residents have been displaced. Around 1.5 million remain uprooted despite the ceasefire agreement, most now living in makeshift tents.

Staying in Gaza

Shortly after Obaid was forced to flee her home for another part of Gaza City in October 2023, the Israeli military issued repeated mass expulsion orders instructing residents to move south.

As hundreds of thousands of residents initially refused to comply, Israel imposed what United Nations experts considered a systematic starvation that was “used as a savage weapon of war” to force Palestinians out.

For months that followed, residents were deprived of basic food items, including wheat flour, and struggled to find drinking water. Famine was officially declared in Gaza City in August 2025 by the UN-backed... READ MORE  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nakba-genocide-gaza-grandmothers-lifetime-loss-and-resilience

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"Western leaders call this self-defense, the media says it was all on accident." Assal Rad ... "Gaza is: -Hungriest place on earth -Most dangerous place for children -Most dangerous for journalists -Most dangerous for aid workers -Most pediatric amputees -Largest proportion of displaced people

 Assal Rad

@AssalRad

Gaza is: 

 -Hungriest place on earth 

-Most dangerous place for children 

-Most dangerous for journalists -Most dangerous for aid workers 

-Most pediatric amputees 

-Largest proportion of displaced people 

 

Western leaders call this self-defense, the media says it was all on accident.

Israel drops bombs on refugee camps: Israeli bombs have been blasting away at tents full of families with babies and little children

Gaza now

The Nakba Explained- May 15th is the day commemorating the Nakba—a term used to denote Palestinians’ forced expulsion from their homeland by Zionist forces in 1948.

The New Yorker: The View from Palestinian America In Kholood Eid’s photographs of Missouri, taken six months into the war in Gaza, the quiet act of documenting life is a kind of protest against erasure. By Zaina Arafat Photography by Kholood Eid

Nida Mutan participates in a march in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 7th. The day marked six months after the October 7th attacks and the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

I

In 1987, when Palestinians rose up against the Israeli occupation in what would become known as the first intifada, I was six years old. Each evening, when Peter Jennings delivered the six-thirty news, my family would gather in our wood-panelled basement, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and watch for images of Nablus, where we’re from. We saw young Palestinians, in jeans and bandanas, throwing a seemingly endless supply of stones; Israeli soldiers, in tan uniforms and combat boots, guarding checkpoints, looking both vigilant and bored; coffins shrouded in Palestinian flags. Our lives in America were at a cool remove from the conflict. I spent those evenings spreading Barbies across the floor, and my baby brother spent them in his bouncy chair. My father would pour Doritos into a bowl and argue with the news. Only my mother kept quiet, her eyes fixed on a homeland that seemed to be receding.

Ours was a scene that played out in many Palestinian American families, and it replayed with every flareup and every encroaching Israeli settlement. And yet the images on television did not always match the ones I saw during visits to Palestine: my grandmother laying out sheets of newspaper to roll stuffed grape leaves on the veranda; the call to prayer, and the little green lights shining from every mosque; the zaffe drum procession echoing from outdoor weddings. To be a Palestinian in the diaspora is to miss one’s home, the blād—the mountains and the sea, the family members left behind, the distinct bitterness of our olives and our sumac- and za’atar-dusted mezze spreads—even as one enjoys the privilege of distance from Palestine’s hardships. It is to possess a luxury that is missing from Palestine itself: a choice.

A new series of photographs by Kholood Eid, a New York-based photographer who grew up in Missouri and the West Bank, tries to depict what this tension does to a person. Her photos are full of sharp contrasts: joy and sorrow, light and dark, past and present. In one photograph, a young protester—wearing a kaffiyeh and a T-shirt printed with a watermelon, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity—holds a sunflower. In another, through the railings of a staircase, home-cooked lentils and rice sit on the Eid family’s dining-room table. In a photograph of a framed picture from the late nineteen-eighties, Abdelaziz, Eid’s close childhood friend, clings to her mother’s embroidered thawb at a protest, reminding the viewer of the ongoing nature of Palestinian activism.... READ MORE  https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-view-from-palestinian-america

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Abdelaziz  [Eid’s close childhood friend] was about six years old when her mother (left) took her to a protest for Palestinian liberation. “I often tell folks that growing up Palestinian American left me ‘protested out,’ as generations of Palestinians have been calling for liberation,” Eid said. “That said, our resilience has always been a defining characteristic of our people, and there is beauty and strength in perseverance.”

Displaced Palestinian families prepare for Ramadan in Rafah, Gaza.❤ photo by Fares Abulebda

Displaced Palestinian families prepare for Ramadan in Rafah, Gaza.❤ photo by Fares Abulebda

 

The bombed yard of The Freedom Theatre in #Jenin Refugee Camp ...The Past Will Also Be Present In The Future

The painting on the wall (shown before the attack) reads "the past will also be present in the future" It includes the image of our murdered Artistic Director Juliano Mer Khamis & Indian Director Safdar who was also murdered.

@freedom_theatre

in #Jenin_Camp 

 The Past Will Also Be Present In The Future

Leila Giries' home in the Palestinian village of Ein Karem before and after it was destroyed in the 1948 war. Credit: Courtesy Leila Giries

'Everyone needs to see 'Farha''

Not a day goes by that Giries doesn't wonder what life would have been like if her family was not forced to leave their home in Ein Karem, now part of Jerusalem.

 

"When I went back 37 years later, I realized I remembered every single house and building that used to be there," Giries said. "That's how many times I traveled to Palestine in my mind, every single day, wanting to go back home."

 

She still has the bag her mother grabbed for her as they ran for their lives while the village burned, she said. It's framed and hanging on a wall in her California home, alongside the key to her family's Palestinian home, which was reduced to rubble.

 

Like most Palestinian refugees, Giries is forbidden from returning to live in Israel. Many Palestinian refugees and their descendants -- which the United Nations says now number 5 million people -- live in UN camps established in neighboring countries. Others are internally displaced throughout the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

 

Mahmoud Salah, another survivor of al-Nakba, said the violence depicted in "Farha" was eerily similar to what he saw as he fled from the Palestinian village of Sar'a. After his family was expelled, they traveled by foot for six months, sheltering in caves and under trees as they searched for food and safety. He remembers every detail of that journey, from flyers dropped from airplanes urging Palestinians to flee, to the screams of villagers who lost loved ones.

 

To this day, Salah says he still thinks about life before al-Nakba, memories vivid with the beautiful colors of his homeland. "Since the day we were forced to leave, my eyes have been searching, searching for my village, for the books I left behind, for what of mine has been taken and destroyed," Salah, 90, told CNN from his home in Orland Park, a suburb of Chicago.

He said having his experience denied for so long only added to the pain and anger. "That feeling of being forced out of our home, our country, will never leave us.... READ MORE

 Written by Alaa Elassar, CNN

 https://www.cnn.com/style/article/farha-palestinian-film-nakba-darin-sallam-reaj/index.html

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Palestinians relive the raw and painful history of al-Nakba in Netflix's new film 'Farha'

"Farha," released December 1 on Netflix, is inspired by the story of a young Palestinian girl and the violence she witnessed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes by armed Jewish groups in what Palestinians have since called al-Nakba or "the catastrophe."

Palestinians villagers fear encroaching Israeli settlement bloc... Palestinian villager Ismail Taha: "It's stealing, and we have no means to defend ourselves. While they have biased courts, police and an army, we have no money and no power. We're peaceful, but..."

Photo credit google image search for Palestine's Kufr al Deek: Hiking on Mohamads family land in Kufr al Deek village. by johannes.a

***

"STATE LAND"

Israel has declared the 300-dunam (74-acre) tract traversed with olive trees and dirt paths "state land," a label it has applied to much of the other lands upon which settlements and their connected farming lands have been historically built.

"The present case refers to declared state lands on which approved works are taking place lately for the agricultural development of the region. The works are under constant supervision and monitoring," the Israeli government body responsible for the occupied West Bank told Reuters.

Residents of Kufr al-Deek and other villages disagree with the "state land" claim and say settlement activity is expanding.

They point out ruined Palestinian cisterns and modest homes on the hill they say Israeli forces demolished in recent months. Looking out on the horizon, the string of nearby settlements appear to be growing, with a whole hillside next to one being flattened ahead of apparent planned construction and settler portacabins pouring down the hillside of another....

Peace Now, an Israeli watchdog group, said Netanyahu's government had advanced plans to build almost 14,000 new settler homes on occupied land in the 9-month period of peace talks which began last July.

The International Court of Justice deems the settlements illegal. While the European Union has said it "deplores" them and the United States calls them "illegitimate," countries have taken few obvious steps to slow their spread.

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http://news.yahoo.com/palestinians-villagers-fear-encroaching-settlement-bloc-135605973.htm

By Noah Browning

KUFR AL-DEEK West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians in the village of Kufr al-Deek in the northern occupied West Bank awoke on Sunday to see Israeli earth-movers busily flattening the top of a nearby hill.

Locals say it is their privately-owned land and that the Israeli government is preparing to build a new Jewish settlement outpost there.

They fear it will help consolidate a bloc of Israeli towns, plunging almost halfway into the occupied territory, which they say will deny them a viable future state....READ MORE

Israel demolished 27 Palestinian homes in Palestine's Jordan Valley in January... leaving 147 people homeless

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http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=671265

A Palestinian boy pictured in the Jordan Valley.

Israel demolished 27 Jordan Valley homes in January

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces destroyed 27 homes in the occupied Jordan Valley in January, according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, leaving 147 people homeless.

Nearly half of those displaced were children and 65 people lived in communities that had been demolished more than once by Israel, B'Tselem said.

On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it would stop providing tents to Palestinians whose homes had been demolished in the Jordan Valley because Israel would often confiscate them.

Last week, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories criticized Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in the Jordan Valley.

"I am deeply concerned about the ongoing displacement and dispossession of Palestinians ... along the Jordan Valley where the number of structures demolished more than doubled in the last year," James Rawley said in a statement.

"This activity not only deprives Palestinians of access to shelter and basic services, it also runs counter to international law."

The number of structures demolished by the Israeli authorities in the Jordan Valley in 2013 more than doubled, from 192 in 2012 to 393 in 2013

Israel has said in recent negotiations that it is not willing to compromise security in the Jordan Valley, which forms a third of the occupied West Bank.

Over 90 percent of the Jordan Valley is designated as Area C, with illegal settlements controlling up to 50 percent of the land area.

ISRAELI DEMOLITIONS OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY IN THE JORDAN VALLEY, 2013... UNITED NATIONS OCHA MAP

United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator calls for halt to the displacement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley

Report

from UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Published on 31 Jan 2014 — View Original

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator James W. Rawley today expressed concern over the Israeli authorities’ demolition of 36 Palestinian-owned structures in the Jordan Valley community of Ein al Hilwe yesterday. The demolitions resulted in the displacement of 66 people, including 36 children.

“I am deeply concerned about the ongoing displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in Area C, particularly along the Jordan Valley where the number of structures demolished more than doubled in the last year. This activity not only deprives Palestinians of access to shelter and basic services, it also runs counter to international law,” said Mr. Rawley. “The destruction of Palestinian-owned property and forced eviction of Palestinians must be brought to an immediate halt until Palestinians have access to a fair planning and zoning regime that meets their needs.”

Humanitarian partners are providing the necessary emergency assistance to families that are currently without shelter and suffering impaired livelihoods. Humanitarian agencies are facing increasing difficulties responding to emergency needs in Area C of the Jordan Valley due to restrictions from the Israeli authorities. In several cases, humanitarian assistance has been seized, confiscated or destroyed.

Displacement rose 25 per cent in 2013, with over 1,100 displaced in the West Bank, both in Area C and East Jerusalem, following the demolition of structure built without an Israeli-issued building permit, which is virtually impossible to obtain. Since the beginning of 2014, over 100 Palestinian-owned structures have been demolished in these areas, forcibly displacing more than 180 Palestinians, including nearly 100 children.

ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Catherine Cook Tel.: +972 (0)2 582 9962; Mobile: + 972 (0) 54 3311 810

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit http://unocha.org/.

Map:
http://gallery.mailchimp.com/5a6b19e1cb44562e4e7a92167/files/Jordan_Valley_demolitions.pdf

ISRAELI DEMOLITIONS OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY IN THE JORDAN VALLEY, 2013

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has produced this new map that reveals the full scale of Israeli demolitions of homes and structures in the Palestinian Ghor (Jordan Valley) in 2013 - an area Israel covets.

KEY FACTS
*
The Jordan Valley and Dead Sea area covers around 30% of the West Bank, and is home to nearly 60,000 Palestinians.
*
87% of the land is designated as Area C, virtually all of which is prohibited for Palestinian use, earmarked instead for the use of the Israeli military or under the jurisdiction of Israeli settlements.
*
An additional 7% is formally part of Area B, but is unavailable for development, as it was designated a nature reserve under the 1998 Wye River Memorandum.
*
Around one quarter of Palestinians in the area reside in Area C, including some 7,900 Bedouin and herders. Some 3,400 people reside partially or fully in closed military zones and face a high risk of forced eviction.
*
There are 37 Israeli settlements, with a population of 9,500, established across the area, in contravention of international law.
*
In 2011, the Israeli authorities demolished over 200 Palestinian-owned structures in the area, displacing around 430 people and affecting the livelihoods of another 1,200 Palestinians.
*
Water consumption dips to 20 litres/capita/day in most herding communities in the area, compared to the WHO recommendation of 100 l/c/d and the average settlement consumption of 300 l/c/d.
*
Access to the area is limited to six routes, four of which are controlled by Israeli checkpoints, severely restricting the movement of Palestinian-plated vehicles.
*
If Palestinians gain access to 50,000 dunums (12,500 acres or 3.5% of Area C) of uncultivated land, this could generate a billion dollars of revenue per year (The World Bank).

More Maps
http://reliefweb.int/country/pse/thumb?f[0]=field_content_format%3A12 

occupied Palestinian territory

occupied Palestinian territory: The Humanitarian Impact of the Barrier (July 2013) (EN/AR)

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/5a6b19e1cb44562e4e7a92167/files/Jordan_Valley_demolitions.pdf

occupied Palestinian territory

Israeli Settlements: Population Growth and Concentration - 1995 - 2011 (10 Jan 2014) 

 

occupied Palestinian territory

Israeli Settlements on the West Bank - Patterns of Growth, 2013 (10 Jan 2014)