{"id":179325,"date":"2013-02-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T20:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?p=179325"},"modified":"2020-01-08T14:06:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T19:06:00","slug":"auto-insert-179325","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/auto-insert-179325\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s ongoing violations of the land, planning and housing rights of its Palestinian Arab citizens – HRC 22nd session – NGO statement (Adalah)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Written statement<\/strong><\/span>*<\/sup><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0submitted by the Adalah \u2013 Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, a non-governmental organization in special consultative status<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996\/31.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[11 February 2013]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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*This written statement is issued, unedited, in the language(s) received from the submitting nongovernmental organization(s).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Discrimination, dispossession, and displacement: Israel\u2019s ongoing violations of the land, planning and housing rights of its Palestinian Arab citizens<\/strong><\/span>1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Through discriminatory laws, practices, and policies, Israel systematically violates the land, planning and housing rights of its Palestinian Arab citizens, a national minority comprising approximately 20% of the population. These policies, which include home demolitions, land dispossession and forced displacement, are particularly prevalent in the Naqab (Negev) in the south of Israel, affecting thousands of indigenous Arab Bedouin citizens. Since September 2011, the Israeli government has sought to legalize its displacement policy through the \u201cPrawer Plan\u201d and its draft implementing legislation, which has received strong criticism from the international community<\/span>2<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0including the UN Special Rapporteur (SR) on Adequate Housing.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0This written submission provides an overview of displacement in the Naqab and updates on the Prawer Plan; additionally, it addresses Israel\u2019s discriminatory land and planning regime inside Israel, a development model of systematic exclusion that is replicated in the OPT.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Indigenous Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel: Ongoing displacement in the Naqab<\/strong><\/span>4<\/sup><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For over 60 years, Israel has pursued policies of displacement and dispossession of Arab Bedouin from their ancestral land. The indigenous Arab Bedouin community, which today numbers 200,000 people (over 30% of the population of the Naqab), has inhabited the Naqab since the 7th century.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0Some 70,000 Arab Bedouin currently live in 35 \u201cunrecognized\u201d villages that either predate the establishment of Israel in 1948, or were created by Israeli military order in the 1950s. Nonetheless, Israel refuses to recognize these villages and considers their inhabitants \u201ctrespassers on State land\u201d. Israel denies these citizens access to water, electricity, sewage, education, health care and roads so as to pressure them to abandon their ancestral land for over-crowded and impoverished state-planned townships, or \u201crecently-recognized\u201d villages that similarly lack all basic services.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Examples of home demolitions in the unrecognized villages:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n