On June 9, ACRI intervened before the IDF on behalf of the residents of four West Bank Palestinian villages who have been restricted from accessing their agricultural lands during the past four months. Limiting or altogether prohibiting access to farmlands not only cuts local residents from a vital source of income and livelihood, but is also a severe violation of their basic human rights.
In the intervention, ACRI Attorney Limor Yehuda demanded the army allow regular passageway of farmers to their agricultural lands. Until a few months ago, Yehuda said, the condition for Palestinians to enter these areas was that their name appeared on a list of farmers from the region. Obligating the villagers to obtain special and provisional permits from the IDF to access their own lands turns their human rights into a privilege, dependent on the whim of army commanders and reliant on a complex bureaucratic system. This injustice is exacerbated by the fact that general, unconditional permission is granted to any Israeli citizen wishing to access the area.
The farming lands of the villages Beit Surik, Biddu, Beit ‘Anan and Al-Jib are located in the Occupied Territories’ Seam Zone, and as a result their inhabitants suffer from extreme movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities. The Seam Zone encompasses areas in the Territories which are located to the west of the Separation Barrier, situated between the Barrier and the 1967 Green Line. These areas have been declared closed military zones – to Palestinians alone.
The movement, entry and exit of Palestinians within this area and outside it, is subject to an excessive legal regime entitled the “permit regime”. Only Palestinians who are able to prove that they are permanent residents of the closed area are allowed to stay there. Other Palestinians must prove a practical need in order to gain a permit to enter this territory (through long and exhausting bureaucratic procedures, and even so they are not always granted). The Seam Zone area is cut off, de jure and de facto, from the rest of the West Bank.
Following the completion of the Barrier, the permit regime will apply to an area encompassing 325,000 dunams of land (5.9% of the West Bank), and 238,000 Palestinians will be trapped in enclaves created by the Barrier.
In previous petitions to the High Court of Justice, the Court stated that it is the responsibility of the authorities to ensure that in spite of the construction of the Separation Barrier, Palestinian farmers would be allowed regular access to their lands. The court warned that new restrictions should be permitted only if they are limited to causing minimal possible harm to the farmers. The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion given in 2004 on the legal consequences of the construction of the Separation Barrier, stated that the permit regime violates International Humanitarian Law and is an illegal infringement of human rights.
To read the full intervention in English click here.
