[E-rundbrief] Info 1073 - House-demolitions in Akaba - Palestine

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1073 - Gush Shalom (Israel): 25 house-demolition 
orders in a small village Akaba/ Palestine - Letter campaign.

Bad Ischl, 31.1.2012

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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  Urgent appeal – please write to Israel's Defense Minister Ehud 
Barak, by fax and email, and either use the sample letter in the end 
or make your own. Why it is needed, you find in the following press 
release.

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Press Release January 30, 2012

Occupation rule's cynical game with the small village of Aqaba. 
Brigadier General Almaz makes a personal visit, promising to "look 
into the complaints"
Then, his representative issues 25 demolition orders - in a village 
consisting of 45 houses in all

In a letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Gush Shalom warns of a 
cynical game played by the occupation rule in the small village of 
Aqaba, the east of Jenin, which is over many years the target of 
repeated raids by the Military Government's Civil Administration, 
destroying houses and basic infrastructure. "A month ago they were 
here last time," Mayor Haj Sami Sadeq told  Gush Shalom. "They 
destroyed our access road, which we call 'The Peace Road' and 
demolished several houses. When the children who had been thrown out 
of their homes were crying, the soldiers posed for souvenir photos on 
the bulldozer, smiling and laughing".

In recent years, there was some interest in the village of Aqaba on 
the international scene, when an American human rights group called 
"The  Rebuilding Alliance" raised the issue in meetings with 
Representatives and  Senators and invited the village's mayor to a 
lecture tour in the United States. Following this international 
interest in the issue, the Civil Administration head  Brigadier 
General Motti Almaz, made an unprecedented personal visit to the village.


I "He sat with me at the local council offices. I told him: 'You're 
destroying our homes and we build them again. What else can we do? 
This is our village, we have nowhere else to go. I told him that in 
our village there had never been clashes with the army, neither in the 
First Intifada nor in the Second one. For years the army carried out 
training with live ammunition among the village houses, villagers were 
killed and wounded. I personally, the mayor, was hit at a young age 
and remain in a wheelchair for life, and yet I feel no bitterness or 
hatred. I support peace. I just ask that they live us alone. I asked 
Almaz to approve a zoning plan for our village so that we can build 
legally. I asked him to allow us to rebuild the access road to the 
village - with our own money and labor, just that they don't destroy 
it. I asked him to let us build a school on 42 dunums of state land 
which are in the middle of the village and which we can't use. To 
allow us to be linked to the water pipe, so that we will no longer 
need  to fetch water by tankers, at twenty Shekels per cubic meter. I 
told him that ten years ago, the electricity pylons at the entrance to 
the village were pulled down, and in 1999 Knesset Members wrote to 
Defence Minster Ehud Barak and he gave instructions not to touch our 
electricity - but still, two months ago they came and again pulled 
down twenty pylons. I put all problems and issues to Brigadier General 
Almaz, and for everything I said he answered 'We will look into it', 
'We will take care of it'. And he went off.


What happened next? A few days later there arrived in our village the 
local representative of the Civil Administration, a man named Yigal 
(he does not tell his family name) and started handing out demolition 
orders. Demolition orders for houses, for cattle sheds, even for the 
tabun bread ovens. Seventeen demolition orders in total. And he told 
us, this whole village is illegal, everything must be destroyed. Is 
this the 'looking into it' which the Civil Administration Head 
promised us? Then the Head of the Jenin Area Civil Administration, 
located at the Salem Chekpoint, came to our village. I asked him 'Why 
did you send us Yigal with the demolition orders?' And he said: 'No, I 
did not sent him, this did not come from me'. And then. after another 
few days Yigal came back with another eight demolition orders. 
Demolition orders also for our kindergarten and clinic. A total of 25 
demolition orders for a village which consists of 45 houses in all. So 
what am I to do now? What can I tell villagers who ask me 'You are 
talking about peace. Where is your peace?' "


Adam Keller, Gush Shalom spokesperson, wrote to Defense Minister 
Barak: "There are two ways of interpreting this, one of them bad and 
the other even worse. Either the Civil Administration plays a cynical 
game of 'Good Cop, Bad Cop', or in truth the Civil Administration Head 
does not control the people who are supposed to be under his command, 
and they run their own independent policy. In both cases, this 
abomination must be stopped. The residents of Aqaba should have the 
right to live safely and in dignity at their homes and in their village."


Contact:
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson +972-54-2340749
Haj Sami Sadeq, Akaba Mayor +972-9-2572201

Meir Margalit, Israeli Committee against House Demolitions +972-54-4345503

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Sample letter:


To Mr. Ehud Barak, Minister of Defense, Hakirya, Tel Aviv, Israel
Fax +972-3-6977285 +972-3-6916940
Mail: minister at mod.gov.il, dover at mod.gov.il, pniot at mod.gov.il

Mr. Defense Minister, I urgently call upon you to rescind the 
demolition orders, 25 in number, issued by the Military Government's 
Civil Administration at the village of Akaba to the east of Tubas - a 
small village which consists of 45 houses in all. For many years 
already, inhabitants of this village, about three hundred in number, 
face severe repression by the Israeli military government,  repeated 
destruction of houses and infrastructure. Despite promises to the 
village by the Civil Administration Head, Brigadier General Almaz, 
harassment continues and the threat of mass destruction of houses 
hovers over the village. The residents of Akaba have the right to live 
peacefully in their homes!

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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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