No brick, no mortar 

“We submitted an outline plan for the community in 2009,” recalls Mohammed. “We applied for 170 dunams (0.17km²). In 2021, Israel eventually approved 65 dunams (0.065km²).”

Under Israel’s Area C planning system, any proposed construction must fall within a local outline plan approved by the Higher Planning Council. Yet, the vast majority of Palestinian-submitted plans are rejected. Between 2011 and 2021, of 109 local outline plans submitted by Palestinian communities, just five were approved, according to the UN.

Following the approval of 65 dunams, hope rose in Beit Sakariya. However, even this partial success was short-lived.

“The approval was announced in the newspapers, and then the settlers went crazy. They invited [then Israeli deputy prime minister] Benny Gantz to visit the area, and after that, the plan was immediately frozen. So, we still have no plan.”

Without an approved plan, any building permit application is almost certain to be rejected. Between 2016 and 2020, just 0.9 per cent of Palestinian applications for building permits in Area C were approved, according to Israeli planning rights group Bimkom.

For any structure lacking an Israeli-issued building permit, demolition or confiscation is practically guaranteed to follow.

Between 1988 and April 2020, Israel issued nearly 20,000 demolition orders against Palestinian structures in Area C, according to the UN.

Since 2009, more than 7,500 Palestinian structures (including homes, schools, animal shelters and essential infrastructure) have been demolished by Israel in Area C, according to the UN, with the number of destroyed structures each year rising since 2017.

Combined, these demolitions have affected more than 146,000 Palestinians, and forcibly displaced over 9,500.

“Building or renovating has become impossible,” says Mohammed. “We now have 42 demolition orders that we are fighting in the courts. Sometimes the soldiers just come to give a notice and then demolish 96 hours later. Most of the houses here are just basic caravans because building is not allowed.”

“The village of elders”

The inability to build or renovate in Area C has resulted in the overcrowding of existing homes and concerted pressure on younger generations to leave, particularly when they wish to start a family.

“Our greatest fear is the displacement of young people,” says Jamleh Sa’ed, a member of Beit Sakariya’s women’s association. “I call it the ‘old village–the village of elders.”

“I did a small study and found that between 2008 and 2022, some 60 young men left the community,” says Jamleh. “If each of these men were to have four children, that would be 240 children [who would otherwise live in the village]. This is the danger; there is an alarm sounding.”

“Those who left, it was not their choice to leave,” she says.

“Most of the people who get married today, they leave the village. They have no housing. Where do you want them to go?” asks Mohammed, the mayor of Beit Sakariya.

Meanwhile, settlements and the settler population enjoy prolific growth.

According to the UN, the majority of Area C’s total land mass (70 per cent) has been effectively declared off-limits for the use by and development of Palestinian communities, who in turn have only been allocated one per cent of land in Area C for development. According to Bimkom, between 2016 and 2020, Israeli authorities issued construction permits for 8,356 settlement housing units in Area C—384 times the number of permits granted to Palestinians.

Settler groups report that, excluding East Jerusalem, there are now more than half a million settlers living in 132 settlements and some 147 settlement outposts throughout the West Bank. This figure, according to these same groups, is projected to exceed 530,000 by 2025, and rise to more than 1 million by 2046.

“In 1967, there were no settlements around us,” says Mohammed, still watching the construction site. “Today, there are 17. All that you see now are settlements.”

A hub of refugees

Fifty kilometres away as the crow flies, a similar story is unfolding in Fasayil, a village situated north of Jericho in the resource-rich Jordan Valley.

Fasayil has its origins in 1948 as Palestinians were expelled or forced to flee their homes in what was soon to become the State of Israel; a period known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

“People chose to come here instead of going to packed refugee camps,” says Sulaiman Sawarka, the former mukhtar, or community leader, of Fasayil.

By 1967, Fasayil was home to more than 1,000 people: a hub of refugees. But Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in June of that year prompted another mass exodus.

“Many refugees came from the central West Bank and headed to Jordan,” says Sulaiman. “People from our village saw them fleeing and felt afraid, so they left with them. Only a couple of families stayed. But some people slowly started to come back.”

The village is unique in that it has an outline plan, approved in 1987 and covering an area of some 141 dunams (0.141km²).

According to Sulaiman, Israeli authorities regret approving an outline plan for the community. “I heard the Israelis once say that their biggest mistake was to give this village a plan. The plan was approved during the first intifada (uprising), as a deal with Palestinians in the area not to interfere with settlers using the nearby road. Without the plan there would be no village here today.”

However, despite the presence of the plan, residents face extreme pressure to leave.

“In 1987 [when the plan was approved] there were around 100 people living in the village,” recalls Sulaiman. “Today, we have 3,000 people in the same 141 dunams. You can’t even find an empty lot.”

This lack of space appears set to trigger a new exodus.

“There is no place for expansion now,” explains Sulaiman. “The future looks closed. Sons of my sons will not have a space here. It is going to be a displacement reality.”

“My property has been demolished 16 times”

In desperation, some residents have taken to building in a nearby area not covered by the approved plan.

“The creation of this area happened because people felt pressured in the main part of the village, because it was full,” explains Ibrahim Obayat, Fasayil’s mayor. “There are no real houses there. It’s all caravans, simple buildings.”

This area has been routinely targeted for demolitions. Mounds of twisted metal, splintered timber and torn plastic sheeting are piled in the dust. Children play among the wreckage.

Hasan, 43, lives here with 11 members of his family in a single room measuring 44m². They have faced endless rounds of destruction.

“Since we arrived here in the mid-1990s, my property has been demolished 16 times. The last time was three months ago. It was a home constructed for my disabled son. He’s 23 years-old, he can't move. The Israelis removed him from the house in his wheelchair.”

This imposed lack of adequate housing and ever-present threat of demolition steadily grinds down residents and their resolve to remain in their community.

“My oldest daughter is 24 years old. She lived here for a while with her husband until a demolition happened, and they left,” says Hasan. “I think I could also leave, unless there is a solution. But I don't hear about solutions for us. I have started to feel hopeless.”

Threadbare services

The devastating effects of the Israeli-imposed planning regime and virtual blanket ban on construction are not limited to housing.

According to the UN, more than 70 per cent of Palestinian communities located in Area C are not connected to the public water network, while the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute reports that one-third of households lack access to electricity. Almost half of communities report restricted access to emergency or basic health services due to the long distances to the nearest clinic or the need to pass through Israeli military checkpoints, according to the UN. The same is also true of access to schools for children living in these communities.

Meanwhile, the inability to build in Area C chokes Palestinian agriculture and industry. According to the Palestine Food Security Sector, 17 per cent of Palestinians in Area C suffer food insecurity, due in large part to Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian access to agricultural lands and water. Between 2000 and 2020, according to UNCTAD, Israeli restrictions in the West Bank are calculated to have cost the Palestinian economy US$50 billion. This, in turn, fosters Palestinian reliance on settlement labour markets.

In the face of such a deeply discriminatory planning system, the options available to the Palestinian Authority and humanitarian organisations in Area C are severely limited.

“Four years ago, the Palestinian Authority applied for an outline plan for this area to the Israeli Civil Administration,” says Ibrahim Obayat, Fasayil’s mayor. “The Palestinian Authority came and took measurements, they brought engineers. They applied, but they never heard a response. The Palestinian Authority has no authority here.”

Combined, these factors create a highly coercive environment in which Palestinians have no choice but to leave, with residents left feeling helpless and alone.

“I want to stay here in Fasayil,” says Hasan. “But it's been painful–20, 25 years we've been patient. Let's see. Sadly, we don't control our future.”

“I'm a mayor, but I don't like it. I have responsibilities that I can't fulfil. I should be serving people, but I can't,” says Mohammed in Beit Sakariya.

The necessity of an alternative planning system

All throughout Area C, Palestinians are being unlawfully forced from their homes and communities through Israeli-imposed spatial planning policy; policy which aims to permanently transfer these lands into Israeli control. This is a form of annexation, a serious breach of international law with catastrophic consequences not only for affected residents, but for any prospect of a viable two-state solution, which the international community purports to support.

It is clear that the only practical solution to this acute disaster is an alternative, planning system - one that centres the fundamental human rights of Palestinians in Area C.

Delivery of such a system will not be easy, but nor is it impossible. How this can be achieved is set out in the second feature of this series, which you can read here.