Al-Haq calls upon the international community to demand that Israel refrain from new settlement construction in Hebron and from the creation of new “facts on the ground”

In response to the killing of nine members of the Israeli security forces and three members of the Kiryat Arba security team by Islamic Jihad in Hebron on Friday, November 15th, Israeli government officials including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have called for the creation of new “facts on the ground” that would fundamentally change the face of the city.

In the wake of Friday night’s attack Israeli forces destroyed three Palestinian owned homes and razed several olive groves located near to where the attack had occurred. Despite the fact that the attack occurred in the H2 area of Hebron, which is under full Israeli control, the attack was also used as a justification for reinvading the H1 area of the city, and for placing the city under a round the clock curfew.

As the military carried out its invasion, Hebron’s settler population began their own campaign, calling for the establishment of territorial continuity between the settlements located in the center of Hebron and Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of the city. The squatting of a new settlement outpost on Palestinian owned land cleared by the military accompanied these calls. By Sunday night settlers had already set up a water tank, sink, generator and three tents at the new outpost, which has been surrounded by concrete barriers put in place by the Israeli military to protect the illegal community.

On Sunday Prime Minister Sharon echoed the Hebron settlers, stating that Israel must take advantage of the attack to establish a “compact” zone of Jewish contiguity between Kiryat Arba and the Jewish enclave in the heart of Hebron. He also called for the serious reconsideration of a proposal for establishing such contiguity that he put forward in 1996. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz this proposal calls for the establishment of a tightly controlled Jewish sector of the city running from Kiryat Arba to the Tel Rumeida and Beit Hadassah settlements in the center of the city, and would include access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs through the Old City. A wall would surround the whole of this area, and those Palestinians allowed to remain in the Jewish sector would be forced to enter and leave the area through gates in the wall. No Palestinian would be allowed to own or conduct business in this area. Sharon has reportedly told the Israeli Military leadership that it should take advantage of the attack to create such a link.

Sharon has received support for this plan from several government ministers. Housing Minister Natan Sharansky has brought a similar plan before the government cabinet. According to Sharansky homes on the main road between the Hebron Settlements and Kiryat Arba should be expropriated to create territorial contiguity. He stated that his ministry is already working on a detailed plan for establishing contiguity and that this plan would include the expropriation of Palestinian property to provide for the “thickening” of the settlements between Kiryat Arba and Hebron. Tourism Minister Yitzhak Levy stated that he had ordered the speeding up of the preparation of plans to build a “tourism promenade” between Kiryat Arba and the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Shas leader and Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, called on Sharon on Saturday night to take "unconventional measures" in addition to razing the homes of “terrorists” and the expulsion of their families.

Kiryat Arba and the settlements in the center of the city, which this plan aims to connect, are separated by several densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods, including Hebron’s old city. Any attempt to expand the Settlements or to create territorial continuity between Kiryat Arba and these settlements would require the demolition and expropriation of scores of Palestinian homes and businesses, the evacuation of families, and the establishment of a closed security zone in the center of the city.

The plans outlined above involve blatant violations of international law. As an occupying power, Israeli must observe the rights and obligations by which it is bound under International Humanitarian Law. Article 23(g) of the 1907 Hague Regulations provides that the destruction or seizure of property is “especially forbidden”, unless “imperatively demanded by the necessities of war”. Article 46 of the Regulations states that “private property cannot be confiscated”, while Article 52 states that an occupying power may not requisition property unless it is for “the needs of the army of occupation”. Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the destruction of real or personal property “except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operation”. Under Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention the “extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” is considered a grave breach of the Convention. Article 8(2)(a)(iv) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court declare that the Grave Breach of extensive destruction and appropriation of property is a War Crime. Article 8(2)(b)(xiii) declares, “destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war” is a serious violation of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, and thus a war crime.

Additionally, the entire settlement enterprise is illegal under international law, and is universally recognized as such by the international community. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 85 of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions both prohibit an occupying power from transferring parts of its own population into the territory it occupies. Israel’s appropriation of land for civilian settlement activity is illegal under Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the extensive appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity. The “transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies…” is also listed as a war crime under Article 8(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

This being the case any expansion of the settlements in Hebron or any expropriation of the land carried out for the purpose of providing protection for the settlements in the city is illegal. Israel’s threats to create new facts on the ground, the threatened expropriation and destruction of Palestinian land and buildings, and the ongoing expansion of the Hebron settlements must be viewed with the utmost gravity by the International Community. The lack of significant action taken by the Israeli authorities in recent months against the establishment of illegal settler outposts and ongoing illegal settlement expansion, and these direct calls by the Israeli government for the further expansion of the Hebron Settlements are clear roadblocks in the path to the development of a just and comprehensive peace between the Israel and the Palestinians. In this context it is worth noting the conclusions reached in the Mitchell report, the March 2002 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967 Mr. John Dugard, and the report of the human rights inquiry commission established pursuant to Human Rights Commission resolution S-5/1 of 19 October 2000 on the “Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, Including Palestine”. Each of these reports emphasized that settlements are a major obstacle in the way of peace, and that a solution to the current conflict is impossible without a complete freeze on all settlement activity.

Al-Haq therefore calls upon the international community and States Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to take action under their Article 1 obligation to respect and ensure respect for the Convention. Al-Haq calls upon States to take concrete action to pressure Israel to immediately halt all settlement construction and demand that Israel not change any facts on the ground in Hebron. The International Community should also demand that Israel halt its settlement policy and should make clear to Israel that rather than strengthening the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories Israel must begin to dismantle these settlements.