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Urgent protestation needed

Demolition of homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

To : The Israeli authorities

Friday 3 December 2004

Subject : Demolition of homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

To : The Israeli authorities

Over and over again I hear of the tragedy of the demolition of Palestinian
homes in the Occupied Territories. I understand that in the Second Intifada
alone already 5,000 homes have been demolished, leaving over 70,000
Palestinian civilians homeless and displaced. These figures are horrific and
shocking. This Israeli policy is sowing seeds of hatred and revenge, it is a
war against a civilian population and is a clear violation of international
law.

I ask the Israeli authorities to immediately implement the Fourth Geneva
Convention protecting civilians in occupied territories. I demand the
immediate cessation of house demolitions and compensation to the victims.

Name
City/Country""

A envoyer aux adresses mail suivantes (voir le détail ci-après) :
pm_eng@pmo.gov.il;dover@pmo.gov.il;sar@mod.gov.il;pniot@mod.gov.il;sar@justi
ce.gov.il;sar@mops.gov.il;
Copies : Paris@israel.org; france@un.int

Premier Ministre, Ariel Sharon
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Str., P.O. Box 187
Jerusalem, 91919 Israel
Fax: 972-2-670-5475
e-mail: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il
Porte-parole du Premier ministre

Ministre de la Défense, Shaul Mofaz
37 Kaplan St.
Hakirya
Tel-Aviv 61909
Tel: 972-3-5692010
Fax: 972-3-6916940
Website: http://www.mod.gov.il
e-mail: sar@mod.gov.il
pniot@mod.gov.il

Ministre de la Justice, Yosef Lapid
29 Salah al-Din Str.
Jerusalem, 91010, Israel
Fax: 972-2-628-8618
e-mail: sar@justice.gov.il

Ministry de l’Interieur,
Avraham Poraz
2 Kaplan St.
P.O.B. 6158
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91061
Tel: 972-2-6701411
Fax: 972-2-5666376
e-mail: sar@mops.gov.il

Ambassade d’Israel en France :
Mission permanente des Nations-unies, pour la France : ,

De : “ICAHD”
Date : Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:08:23 +0200
À : “international”
Objet : Today two houses were demolished in Anata

Dear friends,

It is a sad day for all of us. Today two houses were demolished in Anata.
The first one was the big house right next to the one we rebuilt last August
during the Summer Camp. This house belonged to the Jaduah Kabu’ah family.
The second house was the Dandis home, right next to Beit Arabiya, owned by
Mohammed Dandis who every day mingled with us during the Summer Camp.

Jaduah is the brother of Musa Kabu’ah whose house we rebuilt last August
during the Summer Camp. Like his brother, Jaduah and his family are Bedouin
originally from Tel Arad. Jaduah has three wives and fifteen children. One
child was just born a month ago; the eldest is married, with two children of
his own. Their large house was built in 1994 at a cost of about 150,000
(US). The demolition order was issued for the house in 1995 and upheld by
the Israeli High Court. The family lived in the house for another nine years
until early October this year when the Civil Administration said they had
three days to evacuate prior to demolition. The family lived in fear of the
demolition for another month and half until the bulldozers actually came,
this morning.

After the bulldozers finished demolishing Jaduah Kabu’ah’s house they went
on to Mohamed Dandis’ home. Mohammed bought his land and built his house
with the savings of his late father’s pension fund. He, his wife and his six
children, whose ages range from 1.5 to 12, are now homeless. They have
already spent over $5,000 (US) in lawyers’ fees to try to prevent the
demolition and now have no savings left.

Members of ICAHD’s staff and volunteers were present but unable to stop the
demolitions. One of our activists was arrested. Five ISM activists tried to
stop the bulldozers but were taken from the site by force.

This is what we witnessed:

There was a bright winter sun shining, but for these two families this was
the blackest day of their lives. At 7am, 300 soldiers completely closed off
the area. Three gigantic bulldozers began to slowly climb the hill towards
the houses crushing everything in their path. At 9am, the Civil
Administration forces arrived at the house of Jaduah’s family; they were
given one hour to take all their belongings out. The parents, and the
children still in their school uniforms, started to take out as much as they
could, mattresses, chairs, tablesS After the family took out the most
private belongings, African workers hired by the Civil Administration came
in and began to take out the heavier furniture and electrical appliances.
Then the bulldozers began to bash in the walls, and in a short while, in
place of a two story home, only crooked iron sticks and rubble remained.

The women and the children observed the demolition from the house of Musa
Kabu’ah. Tears flowed endlessly from their eyes. Jaduah was standing nearby
with his neighbors and watched the demolition with restrained anger.

After transforming Jaduah’s home into rubble, the soldiers moved on to the
house of his neighbor, Mohammed Dandis. When Mohammed’s small children saw
the soldiers arriving, they ran scared and crying hysterically back to their
house. After Mohammed understood what was about to happen, he fainted and
remained unconscious for several minutes.

While the Dandis family watched the demolition of their neighbor’s home,
they prayed that their house would not suffer the same fate, but to no
avail. Again we witnessed the same macabre routine. The soldiers ordered the
family to take their belongings out, and in a few minutes their modest home
was also destroyed. The family was in shock and unable to speak.

We had witnessed Mohammed’s depression and sadness already during the Summer
Camp; it is beyond words what this will do to him and his family. After
today’s demolition, we observed the children still terrified walking around
the rubble, not believing what their eyes were seeing. There is no doubt
that their personalities from now on will be sealed by the trauma of the
demolition. Who could point fingers against them if in the future a desire
for revenge emerges?

At 1pm, the Civil Administration forces abandoned the area, leaving 23
children and eight adults without a roof over their heads. The Occupation
has again taken its banal price from innocent people who simply wanted to
build homes for their families.

The houses were accused of not having a building license, but in this area
it is impossible to get building permits as the area is not “planned”. (Of
course, that was not a problem when building the Shin Bet compound on the
opposite hillS)

We ask you to help us in our struggle to stop the continuing policy of house
demolitions and to compensate those who have already lost their homes. We
ask you to contact your parliamentary or congressional representatives, your
ministry of foreign affairs, and Israeli government officials, asking for an
immediate halt to this policy and compensation for the victims.

Following is a sample letter addressed to Israeli officials (addresses
supplied). You can adapt it to your own political representatives.

To the Minister ofS.

Subject: Demolition of homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Over and over again I hear of the tragedy of the demolition of Palestinian
homes in the Occupied Territories. I understand that in the Second Intifada
alone already 5,000 homes have been demolished, leaving over 70,000
Palestinian civilians homeless and displaced. These figures are horrific and
shocking. This policy is sowing seeds of hatred and revenge, it is a war
against a civilian population and is a clear violation of international law.

I ask you to immediately implement the Fourth Geneva Convention protecting
civilians in occupied territories. I demand the immediate cessation of house
demolitions and compensation to the victims.

Addresses:

Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Str., P.O. Box 187
Jerusalem, 91919 Israel
Fax: 972-2-670-5475
e-mail: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Prime Minister

Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz
37 Kaplan St.
Hakirya
Tel-Aviv 61909
Tel: 972-3-5692010
Fax: 972-3-6916940
Website: http://www.mod.gov.il
e-mail: sar@mod.gov.il
pniot@mod.gov.il

Minister of Justice, Yosef Lapid
29 Salah al-Din Str.
Jerusalem, 91010, Israel
Fax: 972-2-628-8618
e-mail: sar@justice.gov.il

Ministry of the Interior,
Avraham Poraz
2 Kaplan St.
P.O.B. 6158
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91061
Tel: 972-2-6701411
Fax: 972-2-5666376
e-mail: sar@mops.gov.il

US Congress:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq?
command=congdir US Senate
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Contact information for European Governments
http://europa.eu.int/abc/governments/index_en.html

Permanent Missions to the United Nations
http://www.un.int/missions/webs.html
Many of e-mail addresses of UN missions are formatted
as follows: , ,
, , ,
etc