Violation: halt of work notice for a house.

Location: Jericho city.

Date: May 2^nd 2022.

Perpetrator: The Israeli Civil Administration.

Victims: Citizen Kamal Baraka.

Description:

The building inspector at the Israeli civil administration served a halt of work notice for house of citizen Kamal Baraka, on the pretext of building without a license east Jericho.

Monday morning, May 2^nd 2022, the first day of Al-Fitr a massive army force raided the location and pasted a notice on Al-Baraka house (the notice was numbered 40732) , that ordered the immediate stoppage of construction works on the pretext of building without a license.

      According to the military order, the occupation sat May 25^th 2022, as the date of the building and organization session in Beit El military court to decide the fate of the structure.

The affected citizen supports a family of 6 , among them 3 females and 2 children, while the targeted house consists of two under construction floors , each one has an area of 180 m².

The affected citizen said:

“At the beginning of this year I started building a house within the borders of Jericho municipality, and I got a construction license issued by Jericho municipality, noting that I have been living in the area for many years since I moved in from Gaza in 1997, the last thing I could imagine is a halt of work notice for the house which I paid a massive amount of money for it, and the demolition of the house will destroy all my hopes for a secured home.”

Noteworthy, during April the occupation witnessed a vicious campaign against the city houses  on the pretext of building without  licenses. About 40 notices were delivered around Jericho , 13 of them were served in the eastern part.

Legal Commentary:[1]

Demolition of Palestinian structures by the occupation authorities is a violation of international and humanitarian law presented by the following articles:

• Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dated December 10, 1948 states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”.
• Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1948 prohibits the destruction of property, as this article states the following: “The occupying power is prohibited from destroying any private, fixed or movable property related to individuals or groups, the state or public authorities, or social or cooperative organizations, unless the war operations inevitably require this destruction.
• Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.
• Paragraph ‘g’ of Article 23 of the Hague Convention of 1907 AD also warned against destroying or seizing the enemy’s property, unless the necessities of war necessarily require such destruction or seizure.

[1] GIS-LRC