Israeli Policies Displace Palestinians

According to a new U.N. report, Palestinian families within the Israeli-administered Area C on the West Bank are being driven from their homes because of movement and access restrictions, settlement activity, restrictions on Palestinian construction and insufficient law enforcement on violent settlers. Area C, a “temporary” jurisdictional zone created by the 1995 Oslo Peace Accords, includes 60 percent of the West Bank. Israel retains control over security, planning and building in the zone, where an estimated 150,000 Palestinians reside. Palestinian families in Area C have difficulty gaining access to water, grazing or agricultural land and even reaching basic services because of movement restrictions and lack of infrastructure. Violence and harassment by Israeli settlers is constant. The report states: “Irrespective of the motivation behind the various policies applied by Israel to Area C, their effect on the visited communities has been to make development virtually impossible, to impose living conditions that are untenable for many and to prevent residents from earning a sustainable livelihood.”